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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

Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: You have a lot of critics, some of them say that you should be behind bars. Cheney: uh-huh. Baer: Colonel Wilkerson who worked for Secretary Powell, said we all have to wear the taint Richard Bruce Cheney brought down on us with his full throated endorsement of inhuman and evil methods of causing pain, humiliation and harm to other human beings. It's wrong that there’s no consequences for those who perpetrated it and it’s wrong that Cheney isn't languishing in a privatized prison somewhere. Cheney: I guess you’d have to call him not a fan. Baer: Not a fan. Cheney: Not a fan. Baer: Is there anything to the Geneva Convention, to the world rule of law on this issue? Cheney: Sure there is. But remember the terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Convention. They were unlawful combatants. And under those circumstances they were not entitled to the normal kinds of courtesies and treatment you would accord to those.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: The Feinstein report suggests that President Bush was not fully briefed on the program and was deliberately kept in the dark by the CIA. Cheney: Not true. Didn't happen. Read his book, he talks about it extensively in his memoirs, he was in fact an integral part of the program, he had to approve it before we went forward with it. Baer: Was there ever a point when you believed you knew more about the program and how the U.S. government was interrogating than the President did? Cheney: I'm not quite sure how to answer that, there were lots of things I read while he was doing other things, he had a much broader portfolio than I did and I spent a lot of my time just on national security. But I think that he knew everything he needed to know and wanted to know about the program. There’s no question.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: Did he (President Bush) know the details? Cheney: I think he knew certainly the techniques that we did discuss the techniques. There's nothing, no effort on our part to keep him from that. He was just as with the terrorist surveillance program, the terrorist surveillance program he had to personally sign off on that every 30 to 45 days. So the notion that the committee's trying to pedal it, somehow the agency was operating on a rogue basis, and we weren't being told or the President wasn't being told is just a flat out lie.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: This report says it was not successful (use of EITs) Cheney: The report's full of crap. Excuse me. I said hooey yesterday and let me use the real word. Baer: You're on cable. Cheney: It's okay, you can bleep it. Yeah, ok. Baer: But you're saying that this led to actionable intelligence? Cheney: Absolutely. Look at the statement by the former directors and deputy directors of the CIA issued just within the last 24 hours, It did in fact produce actionable intelligence that was vital in the success of keeping the country safe from further attacks. Baer: Mr. Vice President, some of the tactics, though, described in this report are horrifying. I mean is there anything that U.S. officials interrogators are alleged to have done that you would consider torture? Cheney: I don't know all the allegations that are out there. Torture was something we very carefully avoided. One of the reasons we went to the Justice Department on the program was because we wanted them to tell us where's the line legally between what's acceptable and what isn't. And they did, that's what came forth in the legal opinion that we got before proceeding with the program.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: But at one point this describes interrogators pureeing food of one detainee and inserting it into his anus. Something agency called rectal rehydration. I mean is that torture? Cheney: I don’t know anything about that specific instance. I can't speak to that. I think the, I guess the question is what are you prepared to do in order to get the truth about future attacks against the United States? That was not one of the authorized or approved techniques, there were 12 of them, as I recall. They were all techniques that we used in training on our own people. Even waterboarding. People have been very concerned about waterboarding calling it torture, first of all it was not deemed torture by the lawyers, and secondly it worked. And in fact that provided us the information we needed to prevent future attacks.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: How intimately involved were you involved in the legal process of setting up that justification. In other words, the frame for torture was narrowed in these legal decisions, a memo in August 2002, that essentially reframed Geneva rules on torture, and said the President had a lot more authority. You were intimately involved. Cheney: Strongly supportive of the program, strongly supportive of the opinions coming out of the justice department. The work that was done was, I think absolutely essential, absolutely crucial. and I guess the thing that always struck me was how careful the agency was in coming forward and saying yes we can do the following but we need authorization, we need a legal opinion out of the Justice Department about what’s copacetic, what’s legitimate. And we need the approval of the President of the United States and the National Security Council and they got both and they did a hell of a job.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President
MSNBCW 12/14/2014
Cheney: We were very careful to stop short of torture. The senate has seen fit to label the report torture, but we worked hard to stay short of that definition. Todd: What is that definition? Cheney: The definition is the one that was provided by the office of legal counsel. We went specifically to them because we did not want to cross that line into where we were violating some international agreement that we had signed up to. They specifically authorized and okayed, for example, exactly what we did. All of the techniques that were authorized by the President were, in effect, blessed by the Justice Department opinion that we could go forward with those without, in fact, committing torture.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President
MSNBCW 12/14/2014
Todd: (Majid Khan) was subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and hydration. It included two bottles of Ensure. Later in the day his lunch tray consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was pureed and rectally infused. Does that meet the definition of torture? Cheney: That does not meet the definition of what was used in the program. Todd: I understand, but does that meet the definition of torture in your mind? Cheney: In my mind, I've told you what meets the definition of torture. It's what 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11. What was done here apparently certainly was not one of the techniques that was approved. I believe it was done for medical reasons. Todd: Well, there is no -- the medical community has said there is no – Cheney: If you look, for example, at Jose Rodriguez's book, and he was the guy running the program, he's got a very clear description of how, in fact, the program operated. With respect to that, I think the agency has answered it in its response to the committee report.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President
MSNBCW 12/14/2014
Todd: With Abu Zubaydah over a 20-day period, aggressive interrogation, spent a total of 266 hours, 11 days, two hours in a large coffin-size confinement box, 29 hours in a small confinement box, width of 21 inches, says depth of 2.5 feet, height of 2.5 feet. that's on page 42, is that going to meet the standard and definition of torture? Cheney: I think that was, in fact, one of the approved techniques. In terms of torture, I guess what I do, I was struck, for example, by the statements by Bud Day and Leo Thorsness and Admiral Denton, these are three folks who were captured by the North Vietnamese, held for years, subject to extreme torture and all of whom said that waterboarding was not torture. Now, you can look for various definitions. We did what was, in fact, required to make certain that going forward we were not violating the law.
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Dick Cheney
Former Vice President
MSNBCW 12/14/2014
Cheney: I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that in fact, were innocent. Todd: 25% of the detainees, though. 25% turned out not to have, turned out to be innocent. Cheney: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are you going to know? Todd: I'm asking you. You're okay with that margin for error? Cheney: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. And our objective is to get the guys who did 9/11 and it is to avoid another attack against the United States. I was prepared and we did, we got the authorization from the president and authorization from the justice department to go forward with the program. It worked. It worked now for 13 years. We've avoided another mass casualty attack against the United States. We did capture Bin Laden. We did capture an awful lot of the senior guys of al Qaeda who were responsible for that attack on 9/11. I'd do it again in a minute.
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