Why does the return to the rule of law, no torture, open government, accountability, sunshine on the Bush abuses, seem such an uphill battle?
Secret hearings? Secret Report? Senate to investigate CIA's actions under Bush
CIA chief Leon E. Panetta said officers should not be prosecuted if they were acting on orders. The 'fact-finding' effort will seek details on secret prisons and interrogation methods -- but will not aim to determine if CIA officials broke laws, legislative sources say. The terms and scope of the new inquiry still were being negotiated by members of the committee and senior staffers Thursday. The senior aide said that the committee had no short-term plans to hold public hearings, and that it was not clear whether the panel would release its final report to the public.
The inquiry is aimed at uncovering new information on the origins of the programs as well as scrutinizing how they were executed -- including the conditions at clandestine CIA prison sites and the interrogation regimens used to break Al Qaeda suspects. Officials said the inquiry was not designed to determine whether CIA officials broke laws.
Senate to investigate CIA's actions under Bush
"The purpose here is to do fact-finding in order to learn lessons from the programs and see if there are recommendations to be made for detention and interrogations in the future," said a senior Senate aide, who like others described the plan on condition of anonymity because it had not been made public.
The 'fact-finding' effort will seek details on secret prisons and interrogation methods -- but will not aim to determine if CIA officials broke laws, legislative sources say.
The administration has also established a task force to look at the interrogation programs, although that effort is mainly designed to examine their effectiveness and determine whether the CIA should again be granted authority beyond the Army Field Manual.
Panetta's immediate predecessor as CIA chief, Michael V. Hayden, has defended the agency's use of such methods and argued that the agency should not be bound by Army Field Manual constraints.
Aides said the negotiations were aimed at producing an investigation with broad support from both parties. Republicans have argued that the inquiry should focus on CIA programs and not become a referendum on Bush administration policies, such as the Justice Department legal memos that underpinned the program.
Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), the panel's ranking Republican, "does not think that witch hunts and discussions of the legality of [Justice Department] memos are in any way helpful at this point," another Senate aide said.
http://www.latimes.com/...
The Legal Black Hole, The Dark Side.
Rachel Maddow video link
Any American can be picked up off the streets, thrown into jail, without trial indefinitely, on only the word of a president. Should any president have this power?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...