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Curated research library of TV news clips regarding the NSA, its oversight and privacy issues, 2009-2014

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Primary curation & research: Robin Chin, Internet Archive TV News Researcher; using Internet Archive TV News service.

Speakers

Ed Henry
FOX's Chief White House Correspondent
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Henry: UN officials declared today that any leaders from the CIA or Bush White House who approved these tactics should now be prosecuted by the law. Said the President's own Justice Department has previously decided not to press charges and today they said they're sticking with that.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: The Feinstein report suggests that President Bush was not fully briefed on the program and was deliberately kept in the dark by the CIA. Cheney: Not true. Didn't happen. Read his book, he talks about it extensively in his memoirs, he was in fact an integral part of the program, he had to approve it before we went forward with it. Baer: Was there ever a point when you believed you knew more about the program and how the U.S. government was interrogating than the President did? Cheney: I'm not quite sure how to answer that, there were lots of things I read while he was doing other things, he had a much broader portfolio than I did and I spent a lot of my time just on national security. But I think that he knew everything he needed to know and wanted to know about the program. There’s no question.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: Did he (President Bush) know the details? Cheney: I think he knew certainly the techniques that we did discuss the techniques. There's nothing, no effort on our part to keep him from that. He was just as with the terrorist surveillance program, the terrorist surveillance program he had to personally sign off on that every 30 to 45 days. So the notion that the committee's trying to pedal it, somehow the agency was operating on a rogue basis, and we weren't being told or the President wasn't being told is just a flat out lie.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: This report says it was not successful (use of EITs) Cheney: The report's full of crap. Excuse me. I said hooey yesterday and let me use the real word. Baer: You're on cable. Cheney: It's okay, you can bleep it. Yeah, ok. Baer: But you're saying that this led to actionable intelligence? Cheney: Absolutely. Look at the statement by the former directors and deputy directors of the CIA issued just within the last 24 hours, It did in fact produce actionable intelligence that was vital in the success of keeping the country safe from further attacks. Baer: Mr. Vice President, some of the tactics, though, described in this report are horrifying. I mean is there anything that U.S. officials interrogators are alleged to have done that you would consider torture? Cheney: I don't know all the allegations that are out there. Torture was something we very carefully avoided. One of the reasons we went to the Justice Department on the program was because we wanted them to tell us where's the line legally between what's acceptable and what isn't. And they did, that's what came forth in the legal opinion that we got before proceeding with the program.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: But at one point this describes interrogators pureeing food of one detainee and inserting it into his anus. Something agency called rectal rehydration. I mean is that torture? Cheney: I don’t know anything about that specific instance. I can't speak to that. I think the, I guess the question is what are you prepared to do in order to get the truth about future attacks against the United States? That was not one of the authorized or approved techniques, there were 12 of them, as I recall. They were all techniques that we used in training on our own people. Even waterboarding. People have been very concerned about waterboarding calling it torture, first of all it was not deemed torture by the lawyers, and secondly it worked. And in fact that provided us the information we needed to prevent future attacks.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: How intimately involved were you involved in the legal process of setting up that justification. In other words, the frame for torture was narrowed in these legal decisions, a memo in August 2002, that essentially reframed Geneva rules on torture, and said the President had a lot more authority. You were intimately involved. Cheney: Strongly supportive of the program, strongly supportive of the opinions coming out of the justice department. The work that was done was, I think absolutely essential, absolutely crucial. and I guess the thing that always struck me was how careful the agency was in coming forward and saying yes we can do the following but we need authorization, we need a legal opinion out of the Justice Department about what’s copacetic, what’s legitimate. And we need the approval of the President of the United States and the National Security Council and they got both and they did a hell of a job.
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John Brennan
Director of the CIA
CSPAN 12/11/2014
Brennan: I agree that there were times when CIA officers exceeded the policy guidance that was given and the authorized techniques that were approved and determined to be lawful. They went outside of the bounds in terms of their actions that as part of that interrogation process. And they were harsh. As I said, in some instances, I considered them abhorrent and I will leave to others how they might want to label those activities. But for me, it was something that is certainly regrettable but we are not a perfect institution.We're made up of individuals and as human beings, we are imperfect beings.
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John Brennan
Director of the CIA
CSPAN 12/11/2014
Brennan: As I think we have acknowledged over the years, we have brought those mistakes, shortcomings and excesses to the attention of the appropriate authorities whether it be to our inspector general, the Department of Justice and others. the department looked at this for many years and decided there was no prosecutable crimes there.
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John Brennan
Director of the CIA
CSPAN 12/11/2014
Brennan: Finally as far as what happens if in the future there is some type of challenge that we face here, the army field manual is the established basis to use for interrogations. We, CIA are not in the detention program. We are not contemplating at all getting back into the detention program using any of those EITs. So I defer to the policymakers in future times when there is going to the need to be able to ensure that this country stays safe if we face a similar type of crisis.
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John Brennan
Director of the CIA
CSPAN 12/11/2014
Brennan: In many respects, the program was uncharted territory for the CIA and we were not prepared. We had little experience housing detainees and precious few of our officers were trained interrogators. But the President authorized the effort six days after 9/11 and it was our job to carry it out. Over time, enhanced interrogation techniques, EITs, which the Department of Justice authorized at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush Administration were introduced as a method of interrogation. As concerns about al Qaeda's terrorist plans endured a variety of these techniques were employed by CIA officers on several dozen detainees over the course of five years before they ended in December of 2007. The legal advice under which they were authorized subsequently has been revoked.
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