CIA's Panetta asks for quick renewal of Patriot Act

"not always straightforward"


"Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it. ... UK's security service had a duty to ensure any partner service would respect human rights but admitted this was "not always straightforward".

"Yet if we hold back and don't pass that intelligence, out of concern that a suspect terrorist may be badly treated, innocent lives may be lost that we could have saved."

a number of documents released April 16 provide the most detailed glimpse yet of the deliberations inside the C.I.A. surrounding the destroyed tapes, and of the concern among officials at the spy agency that the decision might put the C.I.A. in legal jeopardy.

The documents detailing those deliberations, including two e-mail messages from a C.I.A. official whose name has been excised,.

The e-mail messages also reveal that top White House officials were angry that the C.I.A. had not notified them before the tapes were destroyed. The e-mail messages mention a conversation between Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, and John A. Rizzo, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, in which Ms. Miers was “livid” about being told after the fact.

“Rizzo is clearly upset, because he was on the hook to notify Harriet Miers of the status of the tapes because it was she who had asked to be advised before any action was taken,” according to one of the e-mail messages.

The disappearance of e-mail messages by Bush lawyers who drafted memos blessing harsh interrogation tactics may launch a criminal inquiry. They cover a critical period in 2002 when Justice Department attorneys labored under heavy pressure on a memo that gave the CIA a green light to use simulated drowning, sleep deprivation and other since-repudiated interrogation techniques against al-Qaeda suspects. The Justice Department's five-year inquiry, which concluded last week, found that Yoo and lawyer Jay S. Bybee "exercised poor judgment" but will not face discipline. In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated former Justice Department lawyer Miguel Estrada to a seat on the federal courts of appeals. Estrada withdrew his name after a filibuster. His wife died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills, having also miscarried during the nomination fight, essentially over memos that Estrada had written while he was in office He now represents Yoo.