Classified Report On the CIA's Secret Prisons Is Caught In Limbo (techdirt.com) 54
sandbagger writes: A 6,700-page report that cost $40 million to produce is being blocked from circulation by the US Department of Justice by relabeling it as a Congressional Record, even though it isn't. Why? Congressional records aren't necessarily subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Techdirt reports: "There had been some hope that ex-Senator Mark Udall might choose to release some of it from the Senate floor before leaving office, but that didn't happen. And, with the changing of the guard, the new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, demanded that all the federal government agencies that received the report should return it to him so he can destroy it and make sure that no one ever sees what's in the report. As we noted, however, this whole thing seemed to be an effort to state publicly that the document was a Congressional record. That matters because Congressional records are not subject to FOIA requests. Executive branch records are subject to FOIA requests -- and the ACLU has made a FOIA request to the exec branch for a copy of the report."
We need a whistleblower (Score:5, Insightful)
And, with the changing of the guard, the new head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, demanded that all the federal government agencies that received the report should return it to him so he can destroy it and make sure that no one ever sees what's in the report.
Good luck with that, asshole. I hope to see it released in full by a whistleblower. The American public needs and deserves to know what god-awful and unconstitutional deeds are being done in their name.
Re: (Score:1)
America treats its whistleblowers far too badly to "deserve" such knowledge. We throw them to the wolves, so they have no incentive to stand up for us.
Re: (Score:2)
we scream about them and indicate that we will prosecute them. In other nation's, they send assassins to execute them.
Had ppl like Snowden and Manning been smart, and caring about America, they would have been whistle blowers by releasing ONLY information about illegal doings and not everything of which most of it, was legal, but classified doings.
It is for that very reason why previous American whistleblowers did not go to jail.
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't the people who wrote the report read it? Or at least proof-read the parts that they wrote?
Re:We need a whistleblower (Score:4, Interesting)
A few from within the CIA did speak out on illegal torture. They faced prison for telling the truth about illegal torture, not the full protection of US whistleblowing laws.
Re: (Score:1)
Don't worry. We will soon see cold fjord or some other sock-puppet of the same ilk posting something to the effect of that being completely as it should be. With a straight face, even. As usual.
Re: (Score:2)
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
How can a state allow recall of a senator when term limits on senators were ruled unconstitutional?
17th amendment (Score:5, Informative)
The ruling that state laws mandating term limits are unconstitutional is based on the 17th amendment. The 17th says that voters, not state governments, select senators. A state law saying that the person voters aren not allowed to (re)elect whom they choose is contrary to this, the court ruled.
Allowing voters to (de)elect whomever they choose empowers voters, and is therefore consistent with the 17th amendment.
Also, the ruling was 5-4, so a slightly different set of facts could easily swing that one vote anyway.
Re: (Score:1)
I didn't vote for him.
Last time I sent him a letter asking how he voted in his hidden vote(please see previous slashdot articles that include him) on other bills. His office waited for the last day before it became public(6months later) to send a reply that basically said F-off to me, btw, fox news was running some crazy mis-direction that day, they did the hidden vote.
I didn't vote for him, and I won't vote for him when he comes up again. Sadly the Nascar fans here believe
Fire Them All (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What is to make the replacements to be better?
The more senior Senators and Representatives have been beaten down over the years so they are more willing to compromise and work across the party lines. Knowing that by doing so they will get part of their agenda out vs none of it.
The new guys are out to try to change everything to their way, if they show any type of compromise that is a form of weakness against the enemy which is the opposing party. The American System does have Checks and balances and rules
Complete bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Any government that has/demands authority needs to recognize that citizens demand accountability as that is the only way to prevent abuse of said power.
This is almost as bad as secret laws that you can't discuss -- which I can't seem to find a link for ATM but read a few years back here on /.
Re: (Score:3)
Could be worse, we could live in a country where they never would have put the report together in the first place. At least a few senators know what's going on here - it's even worse when the leadership is in the dark and has nothing but fiction to base their decisions on.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say that isn't historically true, and definitely isn't true of a lot of governments today.
Even the supposed "free" Western "democracies" have decided they don't give a crap what citizens say about certain things. They want to operate in the dark shadows and not have any scrutiny.
Just imagine what the rest of the governments in the world do.
Abusing their
ain't necessarily so... (Score:2)
The [Redacted] Address, by [Redacted] [Redacted] (Score:4, Funny)
"We here highly resolve that these [redacted] shall not have [redacted] in [redacted]—that this nation, under [redacted], shall have a new [redacted] of [redacted]—and that government [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], shall not perish from the earth."
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
you forgot to redact "earth". Wouldn't want to give the enemy any information which helps them narrow down the search.
Corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason for all the secrecy is to hide corruption. They love the new laws that piss all over the Constitution. Can you imagine? Secret laws, secret warrants, secret courts and secret prisons. How is any of that part of a free society? George Washington would fucking shoot their asses.
Re: (Score:1)
The main reason for all the secrecy is to hide corruption. They love the new laws that piss all over the Constitution. Can you imagine? Secret laws, secret warrants, secret courts and secret prisons. How is any of that part of a free society? George Washington would fucking shoot their asses.
Thank you. This needed to be said because it's the fucking truth.
$40 million for a report that they likely knew would be content never to be released? Yeah, fat fucking chance that didn't line everyone's pockets first. I'm shocked it didn't cost $40 billion.
Re:Corruption (Score:4, Insightful)
$40M isn't bad for good information. Assuming the cost spread equally among households, this cost the average household something like $0.50. The average household's federal tax burden is somewhere in the $20,000 range (average, not median), I'd be very happy if $5000 of that $20,000 was spent on getting the right information to the right people to make the right decisions about how to spend the other $15,000 - and a report on CIA secret prisons seems like justifiably 1% of 1% of the information that should be gathered and shared appropriately.
The other important use of information (beyond spending allocation) is for policy making and maintaining our diplomatic position and posturing with the rest of the world, reports about secret prisons seem both to be important to that diplomatic position, and also important to control release of on the world stage.
Better that we would have no secrets at all, but if you do that all at once, noone will be happy with the result.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Both houses of Congress and much more often their committees can move into closed sessions which do not have their minutes published publicly.
http://www.rules.senate.gov/pu... [senate.gov]
2)(A) Except with respect to meetings closed in accordance with this rule, each committee and subcommittee shall make publicly available through the internet a video recording, audio recording, or transcript of any meeting not later than 21 business days after the meeting occurs.
If you look at the Congressional Record, you see where it says they they went into Closed Session at such time, and no information about what happened in that session.
Heroes! (Score:2)
Oh, sorry - one would need to define what a country is.
Hard to define these days, I'll skip that, isn't there doctores without borders, now this could be perverts without borders here.
My guess is that it's a conspiracy between "friends" to cover up heinous crimes against individuals done by perverts and signed off by "friends" looking into how the acts can be justified and found legal support for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Its not that difficult to understand without any malice at all. Different countries cooperate with the CIA. We seen some of the local populations rise up in protest over this when the secret prisons originally came to light. Since then, some of those countries have had to suffer terrorist attacks due to this cooperation.
Not releasing this report could be nothing more than attempting to protect that level of cooperation and perhaps those cooperating so other aspect than prison like intelligence gathering,
Why is this surprising anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
We have candidate "debates" that at best are "who can weasel their way out of a debate" contests.
A commander and chief that only reads things from a teleprompter written by other people.
Politicians that don't even hold themselves accountable for anything but lining their pockets through lobbyist.
A now nebulous "war on terror" costing some 1.6-1.7 TRILLION...part of which (iraq) was based on a lie.
A TSA agency that exists solely for safety theater
A huge data collection/retention/eves dropping system that blankets everyone
So no here we are, destroying evidence in public was just the next step.
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from the "War on Terror", what of any of those things is really new in the past 40+ years?
Huge Bonus Scams (Score:5, Interesting)
What they are likely to want to keep secret is corporate contractors stuffing the pockets with reward money by handing over any one and everyone as terrorists. Consider the cash flow, first the reward syphoned off, then the private flight, then private managed prison, then more flights, then more interrogation supervision and then lawyers and more lawyers. Often parts all of the above contracted through single corporation. The big secret how much each victim cost the US government in contractor fees and charges and how by far the majority of it was a scam. The amount of money stolen from the US treasury by the fake war on terror would be simply mind boggling literally hundreds of billions of dollars buried in tax havens by the biggest criminals on the planet, many of whom are still in positions of power because to embarrassing to prosecute or they have too many secrets to prosecute.
Re:Huge Bonus Scams (Score:4, Insightful)
this. +
The CIA exists to be the private political arm of big business.
They have been deliberately destabilising the middle east since their inception. Saddam used to be on their payroll. They co-funded and trained the terrorists against Assad causing Europe's refugee crisis.
I'm surprised that Americans are so apathetic against the abuses of their government.
Burrs' Campfire (Score:1)
In the other news, Richard Burr wants to destroy 40 million dollars of the tax payer's money and ensure no one ever sees that money again.
Unbelievable... apk (Score:1)
See subject: That's all I've got to say - seriously... what's happening to my country? You can't even SAY WHAT YOU FEEL anymore ("free-speech zones"? I thought the entire NATION was that!)...
APK
P.S.=> I love my country - we're a phenomenal sociological experiment that essentially PROVES all nations & peoples of the planet CAN LIVE & WORK TOGETHER, excelling like no other - but this stuff is shaking my faith in it... apk
Classified != FOIA (Score:3)