I”ve been highly critical of Senator Feinstein for her absolute support of NSA surveillance of the American population, even using the epithet “Big Sister”. But today’s news makes it clear that whatever you do, you must never, never piss off Big Sister.
See, for several years now Senator Feinstein’s Select Committee on Intelligence has been investigating reports that the CIA had overstepped its mandate and indulged in illegal and inhumane activities in pursuit of intelligence on international terrorism. Of course the CIA dragged its feet and made gathering any information on this subject as difficult as possible, but our Senator could forgive all that.
Their fatal mistake was hacking into the Senator’s staff’s computers, and even though the senator is just fine with the NSA and CIA recording every syllable i utter, every character i type, she was outraged over similar spying on her own staff. So it’s payback time.
Today she released a 499 page, heavily redacted executive summary of the full 5000 page report, and of course the right wing went ballistic. Goodness, i ask, what are they angry about?
All the executive summary does is prove in 499 fully documented, copiously footnoted pages that starting in 2001 the CIA embarked on an illegal program of torturing suspected terrorists they’d captured, consistently lied about the scope and very structure of the program, continued it even after clear demonstration that the program was not turning up any evidence that had not already been gained by more civilized methods, and nevertheless maintained that the program was effective. That’s all.
But wait. I thought the conservatives were in the anti-government camp, that they’d seize on any opportunity to expose government waste of money. Well, yes, they hate funding for school lunches, environmental and consumer protection, minimum wage legislation, and gun control.
But they’re all for torture. It’s the American way.
Here’s a link to the report. At least you can read the seventeen page introduction. All the remaining 482 pages do is provide the proof. Meanwhile, the right wing screams to the media the same statements that the report has disproved.
Here’s a little street sight in San Francisco that says it all:
