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Enhanced interrogation techniques

CIA director nominee Gina Haspel raises her right hand as she is sworn in to testify at her Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation, May 9, 2018.

For some, Haspel for CIA head ‘would be promoting a torturer’

Conflict & Justice

Trump’s pick to lead the CIA oversaw some of the “black sites” that used torture against terrorism suspects in the wake of 9/11. Can she lead one of the nation’s top agencies? Some say no.

"Secrets, Politics and Torture" screen grab.

How the CIA helped make ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ — and shape the torture debate

Conflict
Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police during inprocessing at the temporary detention facility at Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray in this January 11, 2002 file photograph.

He blew the whistle on CIA torture, and now he’s finally home from jail — and talking

Justice
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein discusses the Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's anti-terrorism tactics on December 9, 2014.

Here are four key findings from the gruesome Senate report on torture

Conflict
A guard shuts the gate to the airport in Szymany, Poland, in 2005. Polish media said the airport was identified by Human Rights Watch as a potential site of alleged CIA prisons used to interrogate al-Qaeda captives.

Poles say aiding the CIA’s torture program ‘was simply being a good ally’

Justice

Dick Cheney against CIA investigation

Global Politics

Cheney said he was concerned about the effect the investigation on morale in the CIA and called it “clearly a political move.”

The World

Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s Secret Vacuum Cleaner Design

Conflict & Justice

This week we learned something we didn’t know about Khalid Sheik Mohammed. When he was first held a decade ago in secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, his handlers allowed him to design a vacuum cleaner.

Obama’s C.I.A Nominee John O. Brennan Has “Personal Objections” to Torture

In the aftermath of September 11th, the Central Intelligence Agency has come under a lot of scrutiny. From Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, to the use of  waterboarding  and other forms of torture, to black sites and secret prisons, the war on terror has certainly tested the agency’s credibility.   At his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, […]

Did Torture Help or Hinder Efforts to Find Bin Laden?

There is growing debate among Democrats and Republicans over which president’s tactic helped find and kill Osama bin Laden. Was it the harsh interrogation techniques under the Bush administration, that included waterboarding and sleep deprivation  of detained al-Qaida members? Or was it old fashioned surveillance and intelligence gathering methods that got bin Laden? Scott Shane, national […]

The World

John Yoo on expanding presidential power

Conflict & Justice

In the spring of 2002, members of the Bush administration came to John Yoo, then a deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department, to help them decide the legal limits between interrogation and torture. We talk to Yoo about his new book.