"Brennan wanted to destroy the report."
June 24, 2015 5:58 PM Subscribe
The New Yorker has a profile of Sen. Diane Feinstein and her role in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence "torture report" -- including her conflict with CIA Director John Brennan over his spying on the committee's staff.
I asked [Feinstein] whether she was disappointed in Obama’s lack of support for the torture report. She paused, and replied, “Well, let me say that there are people who don’t want to look at the whole truth. And I don’t know whether the President read our report or not. I certainly haven’t heard from him since.”
Really? You are shocked, SHOCKED, that the Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has a unfavorable view of someone who stole US secrets?
posted by sideshow at 9:09 PM on June 24, 2015
posted by sideshow at 9:09 PM on June 24, 2015
DiFi's about as centrist and establishment as they come (a point this really really long I can't believe I read the whole thing last night New Yorker thing makes more than once), so for her to go out on the edge a bit, for a sec, should mean...something. Not much, as it happens.
She voted for TPA today, so it's all good as far as getting her and her husband paid again before her last term in office ends. Legacy.
posted by notyou at 10:23 PM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
She voted for TPA today, so it's all good as far as getting her and her husband paid again before her last term in office ends. Legacy.
posted by notyou at 10:23 PM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well, clvrmnky, I was about to say the same thing; but having read the article, yeesh, there are much worse people in this particular story. That's not exactly a glowing endorsement, mind you, and I have serious disappointments when it comes to Feinstein - even in this story, she really could have read the whole report into the record if she wanted, sans redactions - but grudgingly I have to admit she fought the good fight on this one. This article even quotes staffers as having similar frustrations - there's a comment in there about how she tried everything to do this in back channels, and seemed frustratingly hesitant to make anything public - but, yeah, she is right on this: John Brennan was playing a sleazy game, the CIA went very far beyond its charter, and something had to be done about it.
"The intelligence community." Are there worse people on earth?
posted by koeselitz at 11:34 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
"The intelligence community." Are there worse people on earth?
posted by koeselitz at 11:34 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
"The intelligence community." Are there worse people on earth?
Online marketers? I kid, only slightly...
Really? You are shocked, SHOCKED, that the Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has a unfavorable view of someone who stole US secrets?
I'm not shocked by that, I'm shocked that despite a lengthy period of congressional oversight of the intelligence community, that she thought this investigation would play out any differently than it did - of course they were lying - it's what they do; and then she was shocked that they fought dirty to cover it up - again, it's what they do, and have always done. The monumental intelligence fuck-ups that were 9-11, the Iraq war(s), etc. haven't caused heads to roll and processes to change, why would something like torture be any different? There's a near-complete lack of transparency at the insistence of the intelligence community, it's a wonder they're functioning at all. Sadly, they seem to be functioning in ways that are the direct antithesis of what many Americans would consider the ideals the country represents.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 5:35 AM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
Online marketers? I kid, only slightly...
Really? You are shocked, SHOCKED, that the Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has a unfavorable view of someone who stole US secrets?
I'm not shocked by that, I'm shocked that despite a lengthy period of congressional oversight of the intelligence community, that she thought this investigation would play out any differently than it did - of course they were lying - it's what they do; and then she was shocked that they fought dirty to cover it up - again, it's what they do, and have always done. The monumental intelligence fuck-ups that were 9-11, the Iraq war(s), etc. haven't caused heads to roll and processes to change, why would something like torture be any different? There's a near-complete lack of transparency at the insistence of the intelligence community, it's a wonder they're functioning at all. Sadly, they seem to be functioning in ways that are the direct antithesis of what many Americans would consider the ideals the country represents.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 5:35 AM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
Permitting anyone to act without over site is a terrible, terrible idea. Humans abuse that. It almost seems, more often than they don't.
Like what we already know our government has done. I don't see any reason at all to think humans are now incapable of doing the same or similar shit. It's not like a fancy title erases the wretchedness that has plagued humankind for centuries (millennia?).
If there are actually good people in those positions (and I have to hope there are some), who want to protect the human beings from harm; can they protect human beings from themselves?
Also, even if oversight compromises certain missions/goals, I really think it may save more lives from injustice than permitting the Lord of the Flies shit in the human psyche that flourishes so well left unchecked.
posted by xarnop at 7:17 AM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Like what we already know our government has done. I don't see any reason at all to think humans are now incapable of doing the same or similar shit. It's not like a fancy title erases the wretchedness that has plagued humankind for centuries (millennia?).
If there are actually good people in those positions (and I have to hope there are some), who want to protect the human beings from harm; can they protect human beings from themselves?
Also, even if oversight compromises certain missions/goals, I really think it may save more lives from injustice than permitting the Lord of the Flies shit in the human psyche that flourishes so well left unchecked.
posted by xarnop at 7:17 AM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Buzzfeed had a long profile of John Brennan not too long ago.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:13 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by lagomorphius at 9:13 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The monumental intelligence fuck-ups that were 9-11, the Iraq war(s), etc...
Not sure the Iraq war was a CIA intelligence failure. Pretty sure Cheney's sock puppet knowingly pushed false intelligence.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:23 PM on June 25, 2015
Not sure the Iraq war was a CIA intelligence failure. Pretty sure Cheney's sock puppet knowingly pushed false intelligence.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:23 PM on June 25, 2015
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posted by clvrmnky at 8:03 PM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]