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An Interrogation Center at Yale? Proposed Pentagon Special Ops Training Facility Sparks Protests

Published on Feb 21, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Students and alumni at Yale University are organizing against a proposed campus center to train special operations forces in interview techniques. The center would be funded by a $1.8 million grant from the Pentagon and could open as early as April. Dubbed an "interrogation center" by critics, the facility would be housed at the Yale School of Medicine and led by Charles Morgan, a professor of psychiatry who previously conducted research on how to tell whether Arab and Muslim men are lying. We speak to two students at Yale who co-authored an editorial titled "DoD Plans are Shortsighted, Unethical," and with Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health and a 1990 graduate of the Yale School of Medicine. "Yale has now crossed a line," Siegel says. "Using the practice of medicine and medical research to help design advanced interrogation techniques, or even just regular civilian intelligence-gathering techniques, interviewing techniques, is not an appropriate use of medicine. The practice of medicine was designed to improve people’s health. And the school of medicine should not be taking part in either training or research that is primarily designed to enhance military objectives."

Torture at Guantánamo: Lt. Col. Stuart Couch On His Refusal to Prosecute Abused Prisoner

Published on Feb 22, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - On Sept. 11, 2001, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch's friend died co-piloting the second plane to hit the World Trade Center. Soon after, Couch became one of the first military prosecutors assigned to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay to prosecute men alleged to have carried out the terrorist plot. He ultimately would refuse to prosecute one detainee: Mohamedou Ould Slahi. "It became clear that what had been done to Slahi amounted to torture," Couch says. "Specifically, he had been subjected to a mock execution. He had sensory deprivation. He had environmental manipulation, that is, cell's too cold or the cell is too hot ... He was presented with a ruse that the United States had taken custody of his mother and his brother and that they were being brought to Guantánamo." Couch says he concluded Slahi's treatment amounted to illegal torture. "I came to the conclusion we had knowingly set him up for mental suffering in order for him to provide information," Couch said. "We might very well have a significant problem with the body of evidence that we were able to present as to his guilt."

"The Terror Courts": An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture at Guantánamo Bay. Part 1 of 2

Published on Feb 22, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo. Describing it as "the most important legal story in decades," Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used to prosecute prisoners, but some military officers refused to take part. We speak to Jess Bravin, author of "The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantánamo Bay," and to Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, a former Guantánamo prosecutor featured in the book.

"The Terror Courts": An Inside Look at Rough Justice, Torture at Guantánamo Bay. Part 2 of 2

Published on Feb 22, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo. Describing it as "the most important legal story in decades," Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used to prosecute prisoners, but some military officers refused to take part. We speak to Jess Bravin, author of "The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantánamo Bay," and to Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, a former Guantánamo prosecutor featured in the book.

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Globalizing Terror: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition by Amrit Singh

Feb. 6, 2013

Open Society Justice Initiative - Globalizing Torture is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations. It details for the first time what was done to the 136 known victims, and lists the 54 foreign governments that participated in these operations. It shows that responsibility for the abuses lies not only with the United States but with dozens of foreign governments that were complicit.

Justice Department Justifies Killing Americans Abroad

Feb 5, 2013

PBSNewsHour - A previously secret Justice Department memo justifies killing American citizens abroad who have high level links to al-Qaida. Gwen Ifill discusses the legal implications of the memo with Matthew Waxman of Columbia Law School and the Council on Foreign Relations, and Hina Shamsi from the ACLU's National Security Project.

Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"

Feb. 5, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - The Obama administration's internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We're joined by Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo, there is no geographic line," says Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now the Obama administration is making a greater claim of authority in some ways [than President Bush]. They are arguing the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit."

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Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans. (NBC News)

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The Justice Department’s White Paper on Targeted Killing by Jameel Jaffer

Globalizing Torture: Ahead of Brennan Hearing, International Complicity in CIA Rendition Exposed

February 7, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - As counterterrorism czar John Brennan appears on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, a new report provides a detailed look at global involvement in the agency’s secret program of prisons, rendition and torture in the years after 9/11. In "Globalizing Torture," the Open Society Justice Initiative says 54 countries helped the CIA detain 136 people, the largest tally to date. The report’s author, Amrit Singh, joins us to discuss her findings and Brennan’s role in the expansive program she’s documented.

Ex-CIA Agent, Whistleblower John Kiriakou Sentenced to Prison While Torturers He Exposed Walk Free

January 30, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. Supporters say Kiriakou is being unfairly targeted for having been the first CIA official to publicly confirm and detail the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding. Kiriakou joins us to discuss his story from Washington, D.C., along with his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project. "This ... was not a case about leaking; this was a case about torture. And I believe I’m going to prison because I blew the whistle on torture," Kiriakou says. "My oath was to the Constitution. … And to me, torture is unconstitutional."

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance

Published on Apr 20, 2012

DemocracyNow.org - In his first television interview since he resigned from the National Security Agency over the its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the NSA's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower. Binney was a key source for investigative journalist James Bamford's recent exposé in Wired Magazine about how the NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency including private emails, cell phone calls and Google searches and other personal data.
Binney served in the NSA for over 30 years, including a time as technical director of the NSA's World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001 he has warned that the NSA's data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national television about NSA surveillance.

Laura Poitras: Surveillance Teach-In

Published on Sep 11, 2012

Whitney Focus - In this Surveillance Teach-In, award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras is joined by computer security expert and privacy advocate Jacob Appelbaum and National Security Agency whistle-blower Bill Binney to present an artistic and practical commentary on living in the contemporary Panopticon.