Talking about torture is not as bad as torture
by digby
I guess she feels she has to do this — the CIA is probably blaming her for it — but it still reeks. The only way we’d know anything about this hideous torture program is from leaks. And she must know that if there was no public awareness, it would probably still be going on.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has opened an investigation into how McClatchy obtained the classified conclusions of a report into the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, the panel’s chairwoman said Friday.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she was also referring the case to the Justice Department for investigation.
“If someone distributed any part of this classified report, they broke the law and should be prosecuted,” Feinstein said in a prepared statement. “The committee is investigating this unauthorized disclosure and I intend to refer the matter to the Department of Justice.”
Feinstein issued her statement a day after McClatchy reported on the 20 major conclusions of the committee’s four-year, $40 million investigation into the top-secret detention and interrogation program that the CIA operated under the Bush administration.
“We are disappointed that Sen. Feinstein plans to seek a Justice Department investigation of our journalism,” said James Asher, McClatchy’s Washington bureau chief. “We believe that Americans need to know what the CIA might have done to detainees and who is responsible for any questionable practices, which is why we have vigorously covered this story.”
I think Feinstein is sincere in her horror over torture. But this episode proves just how vital a free press is to keeping the government on the straight and narrow. The congress knew a lot about this before we did but even they didn’t know the whole scope. It was the press that alerted us to the fact that they were torturing people. Feinstein being all holier than thou about leaks isn’t going to help her in her fight to release the report. It just reinforces the idea that the problem is the press not what the press is revealing about what our government is doing in our name.
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