by David Johnston August 24, 2009 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Legal black holes such as Bagram are the physical manifestation of the ‘state of exception’ beloved of leaders throughout history by Bernard Keenan August 22, 2009 Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) demanded that the Obama administration release information on 600 detainees held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. The request mirrors that made to the Bush [...]

by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane August 24, 2009 WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. named a veteran federal prosecutor on Monday to examine abuse of prisoners held by the Central Intelligence Agency, after the Justice Department released a long-secret report showing interrogators choked a prisoner repeatedly and threatened to kill another detainee’s children.

Anti-Torture Advocates Worry Holder Won’t Go High Enough Up the Chain by Spencer Ackerman August 21, 2009 Like many in the intelligence community, Tyler Drumheller is waiting to see if his former colleagues will be left holding the bag for the Bush administration. As early as Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the appointment of a [...]

A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists. by Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff August 21, 2009 A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency’s post-9/11 program to detain and [...]

by Ray McGovern August 20, 2009 Hats off to Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times for reporting that it was after CIA Director Leon Panetta’s holdover lieutenants finally told him that, under President Bush, they had farmed out assassinations to their Blackwater subsidiary, that he abruptly stopped the project and told Congress.

The Bowels of Kahrizak by Reza Yavari August 11, 2009 Many persons who protested the results of Iran’s July election were arrested and sent into an infamous prison called Kahrizak, located south of Tehran, opened two years ago as a “temporary” facility and ordered closed two weeks ago by direct orders of Khamenei. —- Editors (CounterPunch) I do not [...]

This is the second of two articles that examine the history of the Bush-era interrogation program. A Window Into CIA’s Embrace of Secret Jails

por Marina Litvinsky WASHINGTON, 11 ago (IPS) – Grupos de derechos humanos acusan a Arabia Saudita de detener ilegalmente a miles de personas sin juicios ni sentencias desde 2003, mediante su programa de lucha contraterrorista. Miles de personas han sido detenidas en total secretismo, mientras otras sufren juicios secretos y sumarios, y afrontan su posible ejecución, señala [...]

by Glenn Greenwald July 25, 2009 This new report today from The New York Times‘ Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston reveals an entirely unsurprising though still important event:   in 2002, Dick Cheney and David Addington urged that U.S. military troops be used to arrest and detain American citizens, inside the U.S., who were suspected of involvement with [...]