Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
You and I are not the audience for Obama’s answer to this question. The audience for this answer is those who idolize Churchill, conservatives who place national security above all. The audience for this answer is a group of Republicans who can be persuaded on this point.
Ultimately, though, to the question “Did the Bush Administration sanction torture,” is, “Whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.”
Russ Feingold raised two biggest concerns in a press conference on his report card of the Obama Administration’s first 100 days. He said Obama’s use of State Secrets was “reminiscent of the Bush Administration.” And he suggested the intelligence community continues to stonewall the intelligence committees.
Earlier today, I showed that Jim Haynes personally pushed the SERE people to come up with some materials on waterboarding and other techniques on July 25, 2002, just one day after OLC had given CIA clearance to use some–but not all–of the techniques they had asked for.
I wish I had read this passage from this Charlie Savage story before I wrote that post.
One thing could change that dynamic, however.