Obama Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said:

High value information came from interrogations in which [torture] w[as] used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country[.]

In the New York Times today, an FBI interrogator involved in the interrogations, flatly contradicts Blair:

As Big Tent Democrat and the New York Times noted, Marcy Wheeler of Empty Wheel broke the story of the number of times the C.I.A. used waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a month. That's an average of 6 times a day.

Doesn't this show the ineffectiveness of the technique? Particularly when it was only one of a number of coercive techniques that were used in tandem? (Others, according to the May 30, 2005 memo were facial and abdominal slapping,walling, sleep deprivation through shackling, nudity coupled with adult diapers.) Marcy has more on this here. [More...]

This could be excellent news:

After a tense internal debate, the Obama administration this afternoon will make public a number of detailed memos describing the harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency against al Qaeda suspects in secret overseas prisons. The interrogation methods were among the Bush administration’s most closely guarded secrets, and today’s release will be the most comprehensive public accounting to date of the interrogation program that some senior Obama administration officials have said used illegal torture.

[More...]

The New York Times has a big scoop on the warrantless NSA wiretapping program: The NSA admits it was out of control for a while and numerous Americans were tapped and had their records seized.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Diane Feinstein says the Committee will investigate.

I'm more concerned that Attorney General Eric Holder has reapproved and sought renewal of the program, saying the problems have been fixed.

As part of a periodic review of the agency’s activities, the department “detected issues that raised concerns,” it said. Justice Department officials then “took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance” with the law and court orders, the statement said. It added that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. went to the national security court to seek a renewal of the surveillance program only after new safeguards were put in place.

Last week, Palestinean refugee and Black September terrorist Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, finished serving 15 years of his 30 year sentence for placing three bombs in New York City in 1973 and left Supermax in Florence, Colorado for Kartoum, Sudan.

Al-Jawary ended up in Sudan after Algeria initially agreed to accept him but then reversed course, setting off an intense scramble to find a country that would take him. It's unclear why Algeria ultimately decided against taking Al-Jawary.

Al-Jawary wanted to be deported to Jordan, where his family lives, but the country apparently would not allow him. Federal officials said he had dual citizenship with Jordan and Iraq.

More...

The Orange County Register yesterday interviewed John Yoo. Of all the questions I might have for him, what's on his iPhone would not be one. Nor do I care that he's been getting in shape by going to the same gym as Kobe Bryant.

As for whether he has any regrets about the torture memos he authored, he mentions one: that they were published. Not because of their content, but he would have "polished them differently." He adds, " I don't think I would have made the basic decisions differently."

This interview is a joke.

Sen. Patrick Leahy and the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the creation of a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush Adminisration's policies on surveillance, detention, etc.

Marcy at Empty Wheel is live-blogging. Meteor Blades at Daily Kos has a good roundup. Think Progress discusses the idea of blanket immunity to Bush officials. An AP report is here.

The ACLU has a newly updated chart (pdf) of the "Bush-Era OLC Memoranda Relating to Interrogation, Detention, Rendition and/or Surveillance."

The chart also includes new entries for still-secret OLC memos the existence of which were unknown until they were referenced in the memos released this week. The chart also contains notations indicating the memos that have been repudiated.

ACLU background is here.

Via Michael Isikoff in Newsweek:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat...

The October 23, 2001 memo (from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales and William Haynes)also said the 4th Amendment could be disregarded:

At another point, the memo advices: "Military action might encompass making arrests, seizing documents or other property, searching persons or places or keeping them under surveillance, intercepting electronic or wireless communications, setting up roadblocks, interviewing witnesses or searching for suspects."

Here's the memo (pdf.)

The Obama Administration will charge Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri with criminal terrorism charges. The NYTimes claims Al-Marri is "the only enemy combatant to be held on American soil." On Rachel Maddow's show, the invaluable Jane Mayer seemed to contradict this claim, but perhaps she is referring to persons held overseas, such as in the American base at Bagram, Afghanistan.

Mayer made an another important point - the theory upheld by the Fourth Circuit, that a President can unilaterally declare a person an unlawful combatant and thus hold them indefinitely will remain untested.

It seems unlikely that President Obama will attempt to exercise such raw power, but the theory remains. What would be better would be if the Obama Administration expressly renounced the Bush Administration position on this issue.

Dick Cheney is back and Politico has him.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.

In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Cheney tells Politico that President Obama will do one of two things: Backtrack on his positions or put the country at risk. Politico describes Cheney's mood as "self-vindicating."

Maybe Cheney watched Monday's "24" episode? [More...]

Via Instapundit, Professor Darrel Hutchinson argues there is room to worry about potential renditions under President Obama's executive orders on torture. I think there is always room to worry and be vigilant, but I do not see from the reading of the text of the executive order that the worry should come from the executive order itself.

First things first. It is important to remember that the Bush Administration declared (unlawfully I might add) that those persons President Bush declared unlawful combatants were NOT covered by the Geneva Conventions (of course, President Bush could not EXPRESSLY declare that the Convention on Torture did not apply to such persons, even though he de facto did so declare, committing a serious crime in the process.)The most important point to consider when reading President Obama's executive orders on this subject is his reversal of all such judgments by the Bush Administration. To wit, President Obama's executive order states: