Inside the fight to reveal the CIA’s torture secrets by Spencer Ackerman.
Part one: Crossing the bridge
Part two: A constitutional crisis
Part three: The aftermath
Ackerman captures the drama of a failed attempt by the United States Senate to exercise oversight on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in this series.
I say “failed attempt” because even if the full 6,200+ page report is ever released, the lead Senate investigator, Daniel Jones, obscured the identities of all the responsible CIA personnel and sources of information in the report.
Even if the full report is serialized in your local newspaper, the CIA contractors and staff guilty of multiple felonies, will be not one step closer to being brought to justice.
To that extent, the “full” report is itself a disservice to the American people, who elect their congressional leaders and expect them to oversee agencies such as the CIA.
From Ackerman’s account you will learn that the CIA can dictate to its overseers, the location and conditions under which it can view documents, decide which documents it is allowed to see and in cases of conflict, the CIA can spy on the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence.
Does that sound like effective oversight to you?
BTW, you will also learn that members of the “most transparent administration in history” aided and abetted the CIA in preventing an effective investigation into the CIA and its torture program. I use “aided and abetted” deliberately and in their legal sense.
I mention in my header that you should support The Guardian.
This story by Spencer Ackerman is one reason.
Another reason is that given the plethora of names and transfers recited in Ackerman’s story, we need The Guardian to cover future breaks in this story.
Despite the tales of superhuman security, nobody is that good.
I leave you with the thought that if more than one person knows a secret, then it it can be discovered.
Check Ackerman’s story for a starting list of those who know secrets about the CIA torture program.
Good hunting!