interrogation techniques news stories on Newser

CIA Kept Secret Prison in Bucharest Neighborhood

Kevin Spak — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:51:59 CST

The CIA's secret "black site" prison in Romania wasn't in some remote region of the country, but smack dab in the middle of a busy residential neighborhood near the center of Bucharest, the AP has discovered in a joint investigation with German public television. Sources say the prison was located...

Torture Didn't Lead Us to bin Laden

Matt Cantor — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:00:05 CDT

Some have used the death of Osama bin Laden as evidence to support the use of torture—but claims that such techniques led us to the al-Qaeda leader are simply not true, writes John McCain in the Washington Post . The senator points to former attorney general Michael Mukasey’s assertion that,...

CIA Promised to Cover $5M in Legal Fees for Waterboarders

Matt Cantor — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:56:11 CST

The CIA secretly agreed to pay at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who designed interrogations and repeatedly waterboarded detainees, say former US officials. Whereas CIA agents generally receive agency-paid insurance for potential legal bills, psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the first individuals to have been...

Obama 'Interrogation Teams' Grilled Shahzad

Emily Rauhala — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:27:00 CDT

The Obama administration is now using special interrogation teams to question terror suspects like would-be bomber Faisal Shahzad . The units, known as the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), are made up of law enforcement and intelligence specialists. They mostly are staffed by people from the FBI, CIA, and the Defense...

Rove: 'I'm Proud' of Waterboarding

Rob Quinn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:34:17 CST

Karl Rove is proud of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration, he said in an interview. He is "proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists," the memoir-touting Bush adviser told a BBC reporter, boasting that harsh interrogation tactics had helped prevent...

Justice Department Narrows Inquiry Into CIA Tactics

John Johnson — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:17:08 CDT

Eric Holder continues to take heavy flak from critics who think he should leave the CIA alone, and the Washington Post has news that should give them at least a bit of satisfaction: The Justice Department's preliminary investigation will be smaller than anticipated. The lead investigator will look at only...

CIA Chiefs Ask Obama to Scrap Interrogation Probe

Nick McMaster — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:05:55 CDT

Seven former CIA directors—appointees of both political parties—are calling on the Obama administration to call off the Justice Department’s investigation of Bush-era interrogation practices, the Hill reports. The probe, ordered by AG Eric Holder, will reveal too much about the CIA’s methods in an environment where "success often...

Obama Replaces CIA With Special Interrogators

Kevin Spak — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:06:50 CDT

Barack Obama has ordered the creation of an elite squad that will take over terror interrogations from the CIA, senior officials tell the Washington Post. Dubbed the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, the unit will be housed with the FBI, but overseen by the White House through the National...

Holder Warns of Homegrown Terror Risk

Matt Cantor — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:28:57 CDT

The chilling big picture suggests that “the radicalization of Americans” who leave the country and return wanting to do “harm to the American people” is a growing threat, Eric Holder tells ABC News. It’s “something that didn’t loom as large a few months ago as it does now," says the...