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Curated research library of TV news clips regarding the NSA, its oversight and privacy issues, 2009-2014

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Primary curation & research: Robin Chin, Internet Archive TV News Researcher; using Internet Archive TV News service.

Speakers

John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless. They must know when the values that define our nation are intentionally disregarded by our security policies, even those policies that are conducted in secret, they must be able to make informed judgments about whether those policies and the personnel who supported them were justified in compromising our values, whether they served a greater good or whether, as I believe, they stained our national honor, did much harm and little practical good.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: I have long believed some of these practices amounted to torture as a reasonable person would define it, especially but not only the practice of waterboarding which is a mock execution and an exquisite form of torture. its use is shameful and unnecessary, and contrary to assertions made by some of its defenders and as the committee's report makes clear, it produced little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of 9/11 or prevent new attacks and atrocities.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally-misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies; our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights which are protected by international conventions the United States not only joined, but for the most part authored.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods which this report makes clear were neither in the best interests of justice, nor our security, nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend. The knowledge of torture's dubious efficacy and my moral objection to the abuse of prisoners motivated by sponsorship of the detainee treatment act -- Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 which prohibits, quote, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of captured Combatants whether they wear a nation's uniform or not and which passed the senate by a vote of 90-9.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: I successfully offered amendments to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which, among other things, prevented the attempt to weaken Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions and broadened definition in the War Crimes Act-- definitions in the war crimes act to make the future use of waterboarding and other, quote, “enhanced interrogation techniques” punishable as war crimes. There was considerable misinformation disseminated then about what was and wasn't achieved using these methods in an effort to discourage support for the legislation. There was a good amount of misinformation used in 2011 to credit the use of these methods with the death of Osama bin Laden, and there is, I fear, misinformation being used today to prevent the release of this report, disputing its findings and warning about the security consequences of their public disclosure.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: What might cause a surprise not just to our enemies, but to many Americans is how little these practices did to aid our efforts to bring 9/11 culprits to justice and to find and prevent terrorist attacks today and tomorrow. That could be a real surprise since it contradicts the many assurances provided by intelligence officials on the record and in private that enhanced interrogation techniques were indispensable in the war against terrorism. And I suspect the objection of those same officials to the release of this report is really focused on that disclosure; torture's ineffectiveness. Because we gave up much in the expectation that torture would make us safer. Too much.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: Torture produces more misleading information than actionable intelligence. And what the advocates of harsh and cruel interrogation methods have never established is that we couldn't have gathered as good or more reliable intelligence from using humane methods. The most important lead we got in the search for Osama bin Laden came from conventional interrogation methods. I think it's an insult to the many intelligence officers who have acquired good intelligence without hurting or degrading prisoners to assert we can’t win this war without such methods. Yes, we can and we will.
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John McCain
U.S. Senator (R-AZ),
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
McCain: That we ask those who fight it for us to remember at all times that they are defending a sacred ideal of how nations should be governed and conduct their relations with others, even our enemies. Those of us who give them this duty are obliged by history, by our nation's highest ideals and the many terrible sacrifices made to protect them, by our respect for human dignity. To make clear, we need not risk our national honor to prevail in this or any war. We need only remember in the worst of times through the chaos and terror of war when facing cruelty, suffering and loss that we are always Americans and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us.
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Showing 11 through 18 of 18
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