DOJ: Feinstein’s Committee Controls CIA Torture Report; Has Final Say Over Public Release

http://www.globalresearch.ca/doj-feinsteins-committee-controls-cia-torture-report-has-final-say-over-public-release/5367106

DOJ: Feinstein’s Committee Controls CIA Torture Report; Has Final Say Over Public Release
By Jason Leopold
Global Research, February 02, 2014
pressfreedomfoundation.org
Region: USA
Theme: Crimes against Humanity, Intelligence
cia

A report completed more than a year ago by a Senate panel that investigated the CIA’s torture program can only be released by the committee, which maintains complete “control” over the highly classified document, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday.

The Justice Department made that claim in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit I filed against the agency last September, in which I asked for a copy of the 300-page executive summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s (SSCI) much sought after $40 million torture report. The Justice Department asked a federal court judge Friday to dismiss my case, arguing it does not have the authority to disseminate the report because it is a “congressional record” as opposed to an “agency record,” which would make it subject to provisions of FOIA.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to approve the 6,000-page report, which the panel’s Democratic chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said, “uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program,” on December 13, 2012. The panel provided copies of the document to the White House, Department of State, CIA and Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for their review and comment.

Over the past year, dozens of op-eds, including one written by the editorial board of The New York Times, have been published calling for the declassification and public release of the report. Moreover, human rights organizations have launched several campaigns to pressure the Senate Intelligence Committee to move to publicly release the report. One Intelligence Committee staff member characterized the Senate’s report for me in December 2012 as “the Pentagon Papers of the CIA torture program.”

Feinstein is on record stating that, at the very least, the executive summary of the report should be declassified and released. She told The New York Times last year she would push the White House and CIA to declassify the executive summary because it is a part of the report that will take the least amount of time to undergo a security review.

However, since then she and other committee members have signaled that the CIA, which sharply disagrees with the veracity of the report, has been holding up the committee’s plan to publicly release parts of it. Indeed, last month, during a confirmation hearing for Caroline Krass, who was tapped to be the CIA’s next general counsel, Sen. Mark Udall rebuked the agency for holding up declassification of the report. In a letter sent to Obama January 6, Udall said he would not support Krass’s nomination until the CIA begins to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee inquiries revolving around the panel’s torture report.

Last June, the CIA wrote a 122-page rebuttal to the report, which is also classified. According to an editorial publishedby The New York Times last month:

The C.I.A. and the committee’s staff have conducted some 60 hours of negotiations on the agency’s proposed changes to the report. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, has expressed frustration with the delay. She has said she aims to have the committee vote in January to begin a formal declassification process at least for those sections of the report. That process could take weeks or it could take many months, depending on how long the C.I.A. drags it out.

Feinstein’s office did not respond to queries as to whether the committee is still expected to vote this month on the CIA’s proposed changes. But the Justice Department made it clear in court filings Friday that Feinstein’s committee has the final say over the public release of the report, regardless of whether the CIA disagrees with its conclusions.