Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror by Vian Bakir

Author:Vian Bakir [Bakir, Vian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9781317009788
Google: DQ-gCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-02-24T02:52:37+00:00

Secrecy and SPC Continue

In February 2010, Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), told the House Intelligence Committee that Obama’s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HVDIG), established in August 2009 and administered by the FBI, would research legal and humane ways to interrogate suspected terrorists, employing ‘scientifically proven’ techniques – although without saying what these might be (Jones, D. 2010). Once again, the public are asked to trust their elected leader to make the right choices between civil liberties and national security. Yet, Obama has yet to close Guantánamo or end rendition to countries practicing torture, continuing to rely instead on ‘diplomatic assurances’ (see Chapter 3) that such countries will treat a detainee humanely after rendition (Human Rights Watch 2011a, 2011b, McCoy 2012, Qureshi 2009: 142, Reprieve 2010a). Neither has Obama given habeas corpus to detainees at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan where thousands are held, torture is practiced (Cole 2010, Qureshi 2009: 110) and prisoners have been indefinitely detained without charge or trial since 2002 (International Justice Network 2012). While on 10 September 2012, control of Bagram was formally handed over to Afghanistan as a symbol of Afghanistan’s national sovereignty, in fact America will retain control over dozens of ‘foreign’ detainees there indefinitely (Savage and Bowley 2012). Furthermore, Obama’s executive order instructing the CIA ‘to close any detention facilities that it currently operates’ does not extend to facilities where the CIA detains individuals on ‘a short–term transitory basis’ and does not seem to extend to detention facilities operated by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC – the Pentagon’s version of the CIA) (McCoy 2012, UN Human Rights Council 2010: 87).

Despite Obama’s initial championing of transparency, the struggle to reveal evidence of a torture-intelligence policy remained a struggle (Goodman 2009, Human Rights Watch 2011a, Pyle 2009: 3). The Obama Administration clamped down on national security whistle-blowers, using the Espionage Act 1917 – itself intended to prosecute spies, not whistle-blowers – six times (more such uses in three years than all previous presidents combined) (Harris 2012). Those indicted include ex-CIA employee, Kiriakou, although not for his December 2007 interview with ABC News that helped expose the torture as policy (referred to earlier). Instead, he was indicted on 5 April 2012 with three counts of violating the Espionage Act 1917 for allegedly illegally disclosing national defence information (the identity of several CIA officers involved in the torture-intelligence programme) to individuals not authorized to receive it (The New York Times in 2008) (Department of Justice 2012, Radack 2012b).11 Also indicted was Bradley Manning: on 1 March 2011, Manning faced 22 charges, including violations of the Espionage Act 1917. His court martial is set for June 2013. Arrested on 26 May 2010 in Iraq by Army CID investigators (Zetter and Poulsen 2010), for the first eight months of his incarceration at Fort Quantico Manning was kept in solitary confinement where he was allegedly kept naked, drugged with anti-depressants, and forced to sleep in a straitjacket. Ostensibly, this was to prevent self-harm (Smith et al. 2011, The Register 2012, United States v Manning, Bradley E.

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