Rush Holt Wins Congressional Approval For Measure To Mandate Videorecording Of Interrogations

By GottaLaff

This is great news:

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization conference report a new requirement that would mandate the videorecording of all interrogations of anyone in a Defense Department facility:

Congress is moving to require videotaping of interrogations of detainees held by the military, a step proponents say will prevent abuse and create a valuable intelligence record.

The provision, which the House passed on Thursday as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act conference report, would apply to interrogations of anyone held at a Defense Department facility. Because the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret overseas prisons have been closed, it would most likely cover terrorism suspects whether they were questioned by a military or a C.I.A. officer.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), who first proposed the videotaping measure, said that it will allow the government to “continue the process of putting our detainee policies back on a sound legal footing while maintaining our ability to get actionable intelligence.” [...]

Under the previous administration, officials simply destroyed recordings of abusive interrogations. [...]

The measure is also incredibly important at a time when many civil liberties advocates are concerned that the detention camp at Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan has become the same sort of “legal black hole” that Guantanamo once was, with prisoners facing poor conditions and little in the way of due process.

Now about those 8 years spent locked up in a cell, getting tortured and abused.... And how about those military commissions in which they can use hearsay evidence and confessions made during torture sessions... Oh, and there's that little matter of opening attorney/client e-mail...

How about video recording all of that?

****

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Rush Holt: "Congress was being misled" by CIA

By GottaLaff

Andrea Mitchell is interviewing Anna Eshoo and Rush Holt right now on MSNBC, re: the CIA lying/withholding information from Congress. Liveblogging:

Rush Holt: There's no question that Congress was being misled... Pattern that's gone on for a long time, not just this issue, but others.... infringing on liberties.

Anna: If we don't get the proper information, how can we conduct our oversight... shape policy based on that information.

Andrea Mitchell: Intel Authorization Act will get vetoed by President Obama

Holt: You're getting into what this is about. You said earlier that the relationship between Nancy Pelosi and Leon Panetta is the bigger issue... NO, it's the smaller issue. The bigger issue is how well-examined is the CIA? Oversight... A principle point will be the degree to which the CIA keeps Congress informed about what they are doing.

This is exactly on point with the Lt. Col. Wingard/Fayiz al-Kandari series that I've been posting about. The media is distracted by waterboarding, and the word "torture". The issue is really everything else the CIA was doing, and Fayiz's story represents that.

If you are not convinced by my posts, read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side.