by William Fisher, February 24, 2010
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) briefed members of Congress from both political parties numerous times about the agency’s interrogation and detention programs, several prominent human rights groups said Monday.
The groups – Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law – filed a lawsuit in 2007 based on their requests for information about the program under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The FOIA requests, dating back to 2004, sought records about rendition, secret detention, and "enhanced" interrogation.
The rights groups announced receipt of several new documents in response to their FOIA litigation.
Among other new information, the documents show that while Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in authorizing waterboarding and other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques has been public, a newly obtained Feb. 4, 2003, CIA memo documents the role of counsel for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in analyzing and approving the CIA techniques.
David Addington was counsel to the vice president until he succeeded Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of perjury in the "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Libby’s prison sentence was commuted by then-President George W. Bush.
The rights groups said that, according to CIA meeting records and the Feb. 4, 2003, memo, it seems that in one of his first acts as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas "discontinued efforts by previous chair," Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, to implement greater oversight of these programs, "thus abdicating the role of Congress in overseeing the CIA rendition, secret detention, and torture programs."
