Tag Archives: Senate Intelligence Committee

Why Senators Must Reject Avril Haines for Intelligence

This unassuming spy may look and sound like your favorite college professor, but that facade masks a ruthless wolf in sheep’s clothing who enabled murder by remote control and wielded a thick black pen to cover-up CIA torture.

By Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd. Published 12-29-2020 by MintPress News

Avril Haines speaks during a session on “The Rise of Techno Nationalism” at the Annual Meeting 2019 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 22, 2019. Ciaran McCrickard | WEC | CC

Even before President-elect Joe Biden sets foot in the White House, the Senate Intelligence Committee may start hearings on his nomination of Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence.

Barack Obama’s top lawyer on the National Security Council from 2010 to 2013 followed by CIA Deputy Director from 2013 to 2015, Haines is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. She is the affable assassin who, according to Newsweek, would be summoned in the middle of the night to decide if a citizen of any country, including our own, should be incinerated in a U.S. drone strike in a distant land in the greater Middle East. Haines also played a key role in covering up the U.S. torture program, known euphemistically as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which included repeated waterboarding, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, dousing naked prisoners with ice-cold water, and rectal rehydration. Continue reading →

CIA Operative Gina Haspel Who Tortured, Ordered CIA Torture Tapes Destroyed, and Now Wants To Lead CIA Did Nothing Wrong, Says CIA

“Torture was illegal and immoral after 9/11, and it still is now,” warn critics. And Gina Haspel “should never be allowed to work for the American people again.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-21-2018

Gina Haspel, who was in charge of a black site in Thailand where torture occurred and ordered the destruction of CIA tapes of the human rights violations, has been nominated to become director of the spy agency. (Photo: CIA / with overlay)

In what critics are calling a bald attempt to help Trump’s controversial pick to lead the CIA get through a very difficult confirmation process, the CIA on Friday released a previously classifed memo in which Gina Haspel was “cleared” of any wrongdoing when she destroyed more than 90 videotapes of agency operatives torturing human beings.

According to the Associated Press, which first reported the story, the CIA on Friday “gave lawmakers a declassified memo Friday showing [Haspel] was cleared years ago of wrongdoing in the destruction of videotapes showing terror suspects being waterboarded after 9/11.” Continue reading →

New Lawsuit Wants to Know Why Bureau of Prisons Visited CIA Torture Site

ACLU challenges BOP stance that it has no records pertaining to visit to detention site in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2004.

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-15-2016

Members of Witness Against Torture and Amnesty International projected the message, “Torture Is Wrong” in Washington, DC in 2013. (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)

“What business did the Bureau of Prisons have with a torture site in Afghanistan?”

So asks Carl Takei, staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, as his organization on Thursday filed suit against the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) over documents related to a visit to a CIA detention site code named COBALT.

The ACLU had sought, under a Freedom of Information Act request, records of BOP visits to and involvement with the torture site, but the human rights and civil liberties organization’s request was denied, with the BOP saying no such records could be found. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Senate Intelligence Committee