Diane Feinstein

From the time I walked yesterday into the FERC building—that’s the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the most powerful and dangerous federal agency most people have never heard of—things felt and looked different.
First were the cops. There are always FERC security personnel at the front entrance, but it seemed like there were twice as many yesterday as I’d ever seen before in past visits. In addition, and ominously, there were also a couple of Department of Homeland Security/Federal Protective Services police prominently stationed where they could not be missed.

The logic that torture is a “stain” on US history is the heart of the problem, since it blocks an honest reading of whatever “values” Washington actually stands for.
“This is not who we are. This is not how we operate,” were the words of President Barack Obama commenting on the grisly findings of a long-awaited congressional report on the use of torture by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been taking bows for being the guardian of American law, decency, and character. It’s not. It’s not even close. American law, decency, and character have yet to be redeemed. Worse, only a small percentage of Americans in or out of power seems to care enough to act against the pall of moral failure still spreading through the culture.

The US Senate Report documenting CIA torture of alleged terrorist suspects raises a number of fundamental questions about the nature and operations of the State, the relationship and the responsibility of the Executive Branch and Congress to the vast secret police networks which span the globe – including the United States.
CIA: The Politics of a Global Secret Police Force

By not prosecuting those responsible for torture President Obama failed to uphold the International Convention on Torture, further his current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, was a intelligence official in the Bush Administration, further the heavily redacted report on torture does not include Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo says Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

(An example of just how redacted the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA detention and torture is. And don’t forget it was the CIA itself who redacted the report, even though they are the ones who are the subject of the report).

In his 7,000-word State of the Union speech last month, President Obama waited 5,700 words before stintingly devoting a single sentence to the subject of surveillance. He didn’t mention the rogue NSA, didn’t name specific reforms, adding only that the important thing was that “public confidence” in the “vital work” of the intelligence community was maintained. This cavalier approach to the topic of the year belies the administration’s essential disinterest in the public interest. This perspective was reified in the last two weeks by the voices of the American intelligence community.

The Boiling Frogs Show Presents Coleen Rowley

Peter B. Collins Presents NSA Whistleblower Mark Klein

A Rogue NSA with Leverage & the Power of Blackmail