What's at stake

"The torture was widespread, vicious and conducted in secret 'black sites' around the globe. This is what is being lost in the Beltway power struggle between Sen Feinstein and the CIA. Lives have been ruined; some in US detention died violent deaths at the hands of their captors. In the grim American gulag at Guantanamo Bay, hunger-striking prisoners charged with no crime, some of whom have been cleared for release for more than a decade, are subjected to vicious force-feeding and torture techniques that date back to the Spanish Inquisition.

"Let's hope Feinstein's indignation is not quickly salved, and that the Intelligence Committee's oversight of the sprawling US intelligence agencies is invigorated, with real teeth. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden weighed in from political asylum in Russia, saying, 'We're seeing another "Merkel Effect", where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it's a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them." -- Amy Goodman in The Guardian (UK) March 13, 2014