Recent Entries

The world could soon get its first official look at the CIA's post-Sept. 11 interrogation and detention activities now that the Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to make public a blockbuster report about the agency's secret program.

The Senate panel's move to declassify key parts of the 6,300-page document comes just weeks after a rancorous battle erupted between the committee's Democratic chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, and the CIA over allegations the agency spied on members through their computers.

Eleven senators voted to declassify, with three Republicans voting no — Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, James Risch of Idaho and Dan Coats of Indiana.

One senator, Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, voted present.

Efforts to lift the blackout on the report had been opposed by Republicans on the 15-member committee until Wednesday, when Maine's two senators — Republican Susan Collins and independent Angus King — called for its release.

The senators suggested that the findings, though criticized by some GOP committee members as erroneous and based on unproven assumptions, "lead us to conclude that some detainees were subjected to techniques that constituted torture."

The report goes next to President Obama — who in 2009 ended the controversial interrogation program — for review before any findings are released.

Here's a look at some of the more prominent Senate voices in the unusually public fray over the controversial document, its partial release and the charged relationship between the CIA and the powerful committee.

Dianne Feinstein, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman

Feinstein stunned the intelligence community in early March when she took to the Senate floor and publicly denounced the CIA, alleging that the spy agency had searched the committee's computers and secretly removed documents relating to the report.

In what she described as a defining moment for congressional oversight of the CIA, Feinstein also accused the agency of engaging in tactics of intimidation by asking the FBI to look into investigators' methods and conduct. CIA Director John Brennan has disputed her claims.

The California Democrat, 80, was a supporter of the Patriot Act and National Security Agency data collection.

Feinstein said this on the Senate floor about the CIA and release of the report:

"If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.

"But Mr. President, the recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our Intelligence Community. How Congress responds and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation's intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.

"I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States."