CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

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CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon May 16, 2016 12:37 pm

Senate report on CIA torture is one step closer to disappearing

Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
May 16, 2016


The CIA inspector general’s office — the spy agency’s internal watchdog — has acknowledged it “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved, Yahoo News has learned.

Although other copies of the report exist, the erasure of the controversial document by the CIA office charged with policing agency conduct has alarmed the U.S. senator who oversaw the torture investigation and reignited a behind-the-scenes battle over whether the full unabridged report should ever be released, according to multiple intelligence community sources familiar with the incident.

The deletion of the document has been portrayed by agency officials to Senate investigators as an “inadvertent” foul-up by the inspector general. In what one intelligence community source described as a series of errors straight “out of the Keystone Cops,” CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document, filled with thousands of secret files about the CIA’s use of “enhanced” interrogation methods.

“It’s breathtaking that this could have happened, especially in the inspector general’s office — they’re the ones that are supposed to be providing accountability within the agency itself,” said Douglas Cox, a City University of New York School of Law professor who specializes in tracking the preservation of federal records. “It makes you wonder what was going on over there?”

The incident was privately disclosed to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department last summer, the sources said. But the destruction of a copy of the sensitive report has never been made public. Nor was it reported to the federal judge who, at the time, was overseeing a lawsuit seeking access to the still classified document under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a review of court files in the case.

A CIA spokesman, while not publicly commenting on the circumstances of the erasure, emphasized that another unopened computer disk with the full report has been, and still is, locked in a vault at agency headquarters. “I can assure you that the CIA has retained a copy,” wrote Dean Boyd, the agency’s chief of public affairs, in an email.

The 6,700-page report, the product of years of work by the Senate Intelligence Committee, contains meticulous details, including original CIA cables and memos, on the agency’s use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other aggressive interrogation methods at “black site” prisons overseas. A 500-page executive summary was released in December 2014 by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s outgoing chair. It concluded that the CIA’s interrogations were far more brutal than the agency had publicly acknowledged and produced often unreliable intelligence. The findings drew sharp dissents from Republicans on the panel and from four former CIA directors.

But the full three-volume report, which formed the basis for the executive summary, has never been released. In light of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling last week that the document is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, there are new questions about whether it will ever be made public, or even be preserved.

After receiving inquiries from Yahoo News, Feinstein, now the vice chair of the committee, wrote CIA Director John Brennan last Friday night asking him to “immediately” provide a new copy of the full report to the inspector general’s office.

“Your prompt response will allay my concern that this was more than an ‘accident,’” Feinstein wrote, adding that the full report includes “extensive information directly related to the IG’s ongoing oversight of the CIA.” (CIA spokesman Boyd declined to comment.)

The incident is the latest twist in the ongoing battle over the report, and comes in the midst of a charged political debate over torture. Likely Republican Party nominee Donald Trump has vowed to resume such methods — “and a lot more” — in the war against the Islamic State. “I love it, I love it,” Trump recently said, describing his views on waterboarding. “The only thing is, we should make it much tougher than waterboarding.” )

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The CIA allegedly tortured two terror suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in its secret facility in Poland. Shown here in this 2005 photo is a watchtower near the Polish intelligence school just outside of Stare Kiejkuty, Poland. (Photo: Czarek Sokolowski/AP)

Ironically in light of the inspector general’s actions, the intelligence committee’s investigation was triggered by the CIA’s admission in 2007 that it had destroyed another key piece of evidence — hours of videotapes of the waterboarding of two “high value” detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

According to a brief by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is seeking release of the full report under the Freedom of Information Act, the document “describes widespread and horrific human rights abuses by the CIA” and details the agency’s “evasions and misrepresentations” to Congress, the courts and the public.

To ensure the document was circulated widely within the government, and to preserve it for future declassification, Feinstein, in her closing days as chair, instructed that computer disks containing the full report be sent to the CIA and its inspector general, as well as the other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Aides said Feinstein specifically included a separate copy for the CIA inspector general because she wanted the office to undertake a full review. Her goal, as she wrote at the time, was to ensure “that the system of detention and interrogation described in this report is never repeated.”

But her successor, Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, quickly asked for all of the disks to be returned, even threatening at one point to send a committee security officer to retrieve them. He contended the volumes are congressional records that were never intended for executive branch, much less public, distribution.

The administration, while not complying with Burr’s demand to return the disks, has essentially sided with him against releasing them to the public. Early last year, Justice lawyers instructed federal agencies to keep their copies of the document under lock and key, unopened, lest the courts treat them as government records subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Weeks later, in an effort to head off a motion for “emergency relief” by the ACLU, a Justice Department lawyer told U.S. Judge James Boasberg that no copies of the report would be returned to Congress or destroyed; the government “can assure the Court that it will preserve the status quo” until the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was resolved, wrote Vesper Mei, a senior counsel in the Justice Department’s civil division, in a February 2015 filing.


But last August, a chagrined Christopher R. Sharpley, the CIA’s acting inspector general, alerted the Senate intelligence panel that his office’s copy of the report had vanished. According to sources familiar with Sharpley’s account, he explained it this way: When it received its disk, the inspector general’s office uploaded the contents onto its internal classified computer system and destroyed the disk in what Sharpley described as “the normal course of business.” Meanwhile someone in the IG office interpreted the Justice Department’s instructions not to open the file to mean it should be deleted from the server — so that both the original and the copy were gone.

At some point, it is not clear when, after being informed by CIA general counsel Caroline Krass that the Justice Department wanted all copies of the document preserved, officials in the inspector general’s office undertook a search to find its copy of the report. They discovered, “S***, we don’t have one,” said one of the sources briefed on Sharpley’s account.

Sharpley was apologetic about the destruction and promised to ask CIA director Brennan for another copy. But as of last week, he seems not to have received it; after Yahoo News began asking about the matter, he called intelligence committee staffers to ask if he could get a new copy from them.

Sharpley also told Senate committee aides he had reported the destruction of the disk to the CIA’s general counsel’s office, and Krass passed that information along to the Justice Department. But there is no record in court filings that department lawyers ever informed the judge overseeing the case that the inspector general’s office had destroyed its copy of the report.

The episode was viewed among intelligence committee aides as another embarrassment for the inspector general’s office. Months earlier, a CIA accountability board had overruled the IG’s findings that agency officials had improperly searched computers used by Senate investigators working on the report. Sharpley has been serving as acting inspector general since his predecessor, David Buckley, resigned in January 2015. The White House has yet to nominate a successor.

A Justice Department spokesman said on Friday that, since the inspector general’s office is, by statute, a “unit” of the CIA, and the agency still had its copy, “the status quo … was preserved.” But Feinstein, in a separate letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch last Friday, took a different view: She asked that the Justice Department “notify the federal courts” involved in the Freedom of Information Act litigation about the destruction.

At issue in the ongoing legal dispute is whether the report is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The administration says no, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals last week agreed, ruling that it is a congressional document not subject to FOIA, under the terms of a 2009 letter by which the Senate panel had received access to CIA files. The judges did write, however, that the executive branch does have “some discretion to use the full report for internal purposes.” The ACLU said on Friday it was “considering our options for appeal”; CIA spokesman Boyd said the agency’s copy of the report would be retained “pending the final result of the litigation.” But he pointedly made no mention of what would happen to the CIA’s copy of the report after that.

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CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. (Photo: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images)

In the meantime, Feinstein, joined by Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has taken a different route, petitioning David S. Ferriero, the chief of the National Archives, to formally declare the report a “federal record” that must be preserved “in the public interest” under a law known as the Federal Records Act.

In a letter last month, the senators expressed concerns that federal agencies might destroy their copies of the report. “No part of the executive branch has ruled out destroying or sending back the full report to Congress after the conclusion of the current FOIA litigation,” they wrote in an April 13, 2016, letter. A similar point was raised by more than 30 advocacy groups who noted in a separate letter to Ferriero last month that the archivist had a duty to act whenever there was a threat that government records are at risk of “unauthorized destruction.”

Ferriero on April 29 wrote back to Feinstein that he would not rule on the question until the FOIA court case is concluded. And last week, Burr renewed his call to have all copies of the report sent back — presumably a way to ensure they are never publicly released. Citing the new Court of Appeals ruling, “Sen. Burr anticipates the return of these full reports to the Senate Intelligence Committee,” a spokeswoman said.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
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Don’t forget that.
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby kelley » Mon May 16, 2016 12:53 pm

plus the dog ate their homework
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby NeonLX » Mon May 16, 2016 2:00 pm

You know, the only course of action I can see from here on out is to dismantle the federal government. It's one of the most destructive forces on this planet. It is constantly killing and maiming people, thousands or even millions at a time. It does this through the use of money that is vacuumed straight out of our pockets. It is run by evil people who have no accountability. "Voting" is an exercise in futility and serves only to keep the goddamned mechanism running.
America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Mon May 16, 2016 3:27 pm

Not only that, it's full of the most incompetent bureaucrats ever regardless of which political party is in office.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby NeonLX » Mon May 16, 2016 5:22 pm

Don't know why you made that sarcastic. I don't think it matters which figurehead is being shown by the teevee cameras; the war and carnage will continue.

On edit: which I guess does make one wonder if the election of Bernie Sanders as president would really make much difference. I'm a Bernie supporter because he says most of the right things. But will the military- and prison-industrial complexes change to any appreciable degree?
America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon May 16, 2016 5:47 pm

A CIA spokesman, while not publicly commenting on the circumstances of the erasure, emphasized that another unopened computer disk with the full report has been, and still is, locked in a vault at agency headquarters. “I can assure you that the CIA has retained a copy,” wrote Dean Boyd, the agency’s chief of public affairs, in an email.
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Tue May 17, 2016 9:16 am

Don't know why you made that sarcastic.


Because I don't believe for one nanosecond that it's incompetence or that it's unintentional.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue May 17, 2016 9:31 am

Pele'sDaughter » Tue May 17, 2016 8:16 am wrote:
Don't know why you made that sarcastic.


Because I don't believe for one nanosecond that it's incompetence or that it's unintentional.


Quite right. It's a transparent ruse, used increasingly since 9/11 and now looking very old and tired indeed.

On another thread ("U.S. loses prison camp records of bin Laden's driver"), started by Jeff eight years ago, I quoted someone else writing in 2006:

MacCruiskeen » Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:08 am wrote:Shameless. The Incompetence Excuse, Vol. 658.

The blogger Le Colonel Chabert has dubbed it "Tales of Whoopsie" (Whoopsie I, Whoopsie II, Whoopsie III, etc.) - a never-ending story:

Each episode, considered separately, and with the subject of the profit to the same enterprise in each case forbidden, can then be deformed enough and manipulated enough to appear slightly puzzling, although the whole story, seen together, is crystal clear. Each episode is declared a separate, isolated incidence of an unforeseen "problem" met with unpreparedness, stupidity, laziness, cocky carelessness, delusion, misinformation and incompetence, of greater or lesser magnitude. The theme is irresponsibility - the absence of/opposite of responsibility - on the part of the protagonists who appear as new characters without history in each episode. Isolating each segment is in itself guaranteed to allow only completely fatuous explanations. But if you ignore the television, and look at the policy of the enterprise as a whole, it is very clear (as it is on the Rodney King tape that a gang is beating a defenceless guy to death) what the Bush gang is doing.

http://lecolonelchabert.blogspot.com/20 ... l#comments


How much longer will they get away with it? For precisely as long as they're allowed to.
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue May 17, 2016 11:08 am

Oops! Whoopsee!

Image

D'oh! Butterfingers!
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby NeonLX » Tue May 17, 2016 11:18 am

Pele'sDaughter » Tue May 17, 2016 8:16 am wrote:
Don't know why you made that sarcastic.


Because I don't believe for one nanosecond that it's incompetence or that it's unintentional.


Oops, as usual, I missed the point. I happen to agree with you. Of course it's fully intentional.

Believe it or not, it ain't easy being the village idiot in this place.
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Grizzly » Tue May 17, 2016 9:05 pm

Anyone else miss this, too?

Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou: "The Government Turned Me Into a Dissident"


In 2007, John Kiriakou became the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official to publicly confirm that agency interrogators waterboarded a high-value detainee, terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah — a revelation that had previously been a closely guarded secret.

Five years after this unauthorized disclosure to ABC News, the veteran CIA officer pleaded guilty to leaking to journalists the identity of certain individuals who were involved with the CIA's rendition, detention, and interrogation program. He was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison.

VICE News caught up with Kiriakou for a wide-ranging interview just a few days after he was released from prison. He detailed how his CIA training became a technique for survival behind bars, and how the government turned him into a “dissident.”

Watch "The Architect” - http://bit.ly/1IKnChi

Read "This CIA Agent Spoke Out About Torture. Now's He's in Prison for Espionage” - http://bit.ly/1anT5dR

Read "The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion” - http://bit.ly/1G9jc3z
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby JackRiddler » Wed May 18, 2016 12:15 am

MacCruiskeen » Tue May 17, 2016 10:08 am wrote:Oops! Whoopsee!

Image

D'oh! Butterfingers!


Now that you've reminded us, was there ever a later upshot, like a deathbed testimony by Rose Mary? What besides Oliver Stone's version in the movie Nixon has been the speculation or evidence with regard to the content of the 18 minutes?
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Wed May 18, 2016 8:32 am

NeonLX » Tue May 17, 2016 10:18 am wrote:
Pele'sDaughter » Tue May 17, 2016 8:16 am wrote:
Don't know why you made that sarcastic.


Because I don't believe for one nanosecond that it's incompetence or that it's unintentional.


Oops, as usual, I missed the point. I happen to agree with you. Of course it's fully intentional.

Believe it or not, it ain't easy being the village idiot in this place.


I've known you for longer than you realize (WRH, Trausti ring a bell?) and you're far from being an idiot. You're a treasure and someone I would love to meet in person some day. :hug1:
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby NeonLX » Wed May 18, 2016 4:28 pm

Pele'sDaughter » Wed May 18, 2016 7:32 am wrote:
NeonLX » Tue May 17, 2016 10:18 am wrote:
Pele'sDaughter » Tue May 17, 2016 8:16 am wrote:
Don't know why you made that sarcastic.


Because I don't believe for one nanosecond that it's incompetence or that it's unintentional.


Oops, as usual, I missed the point. I happen to agree with you. Of course it's fully intentional.

Believe it or not, it ain't easy being the village idiot in this place.


I've known you for longer than you realize (WRH, Trausti ring a bell?) and you're far from being an idiot. You're a treasure and someone I would love to meet in person some day. :hug1:


Whoa! Trausti! That was a great place to hang out. Thanks for the memories!

In reality, or what passes as such, I am kind of slow. I have a serial processor in my head instead of a parallel.

I'd love to hang out with you too, my friend!

On edit: Ol' Trausti is on Fakebook, in case yer interested...I just found him.
America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist
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Re: CIA Mistakenly Destroyed Only Copy of the Torture Report

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Wed May 18, 2016 4:35 pm

Yep, I had also seen him on FB. Awhile back he was having trouble getting his passport and was stuck in Peru. Several members we knew have passed away.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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