February 05, 2008

Intel Chiefs Say Waterboarding Used In Interrogations

The intelligence community's annual public report on the threats facing the nation was overtaken during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing today by the politically charged issues of waterboarding and other "coercive" interrogation techniques, extension of the government's eavesdropping authority and the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding was a legal technique that should be available under certain circumstances if authorized by the nation's legal and political leaders. McConnell said, to his knowledge, only the CIA has used it. Hayden told the committee that the CIA has used the painful technique, which many consider a form of torture, only three times in its history. Those times, three years ago, were against "high value" al-Qaida terror suspects who were thought to have information on an imminent threat to the nation.

The intense discussion was triggered by a question from Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., about proposed legislation that would require all U.S. intelligence agencies to use only the interrogation procedures listed in the recently revised Army field manual.

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Posted at 3:45 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, CIA, Congress, Detainees, Michael Hayden, Mike McConnell, Senate
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September 13, 2007

McConnell Revises Statement On Anti-Terror Law

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is backtracking from comments he made earlier this week about the role a new surveillance law played in the unraveling of an alleged terrorist plot in Germany last week.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Monday, McConnell told senators that a new law granting the federal government the authority to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects helped lead to the arrests of three men in Germany last week who were allegedly plotting to bomb U.S. interests in that country.

McConnell made the claim in response to a question from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I/D). But almost immediately after he did, other government officials and intelligence experts began questioning its veracity. McConnell reportedly called Lieberman to withdraw his claim on Tuesday, and yesterday he clarified his position in a statement [PDF].

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Posted at 4:00 PM
Posted to: Mike McConnell, Terrorism
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August 23, 2007

McConnell Spills New Details On Wiretapping, Border Security

Speaking to a local newspaper in Texas last week, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell may have felt he was at a safe enough remove from Washington to drop the standard political evasiveness and talk plainly. Turns out he was wrong.

In a candid interview with the El Paso (Texas) Times, McConnell revealed new details about the government's warrantless wiretapping program and its efforts to secure the border with Mexico. The story went largely unnoticed at first, and might have languished in obscurity had the paper not posted a transcript of the interview on its Web site yesterday.

Among other revelations, McConnell said that the government was monitoring the communications of "100 or less" individuals in the U.S. and "thousands" more overseas. He also gave the first official confirmation of previous reports that private companies had been involved in facilitating the government's domestic spying operation.

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Posted at 3:41 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Homeland Security, Mike McConnell
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August 01, 2007

McConnell Admits Spy Program Is Part Of Broader Effort

President Bush's critics have long insisted there is more to the administration's NSA spying program than anyone admitted, and new revelations from the country's top intelligence official now confirms some of those suspicions.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said yesterday that the scope of the NSA's surveillance activities extended beyond the warrantless phone taps and e-mail monitoring that Bush described in December 2005.

In a letter sent yesterday to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Washington Post reports, McConnell wrote that the executive order Bush gave after the 9/11 attacks covered "a number of... intelligence activities" -- not just the wiretap program.

"This is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly, because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged," McConnell said.

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Posted at 10:21 AM
Posted to: Arlen Specter, Congress, Mike McConnell, President Bush, Senate, Terrorism
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