C.I.A. Scandal(s) Shock ...

We're way too wound up to say too much on this stinking score.

So see some of this shit for yourself.

CIA lawyer -- yes, that may be an oxymoron

John Rizzo, acting general counsel for CIA "from November 2001 until October 2002 and from August 2004 until today," -- i.e., during the let's-legalize-torture glory months of Yoo and Addington -- had his confirmation hearing yesterday. Here's the AP wrapup, and here are two posts by Spencer Ackerman, who happily was at the hearing for TPM.

The CIA's top lawyer said Tuesday he did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of causing a sensation of impending organ failure or even death. [Because, you know, a sensation of drowning isn't a sensation of death, or even impending death ... just don't look up "drown" in the dictionary, okay? -- TBA.]

Yet John Rizzo, who is serving as the agency's temporary general counsel, said he later found the document to be an "aggressive, expansive" reading of U.S. law. * * *

"As with most legal memos, my reaction was it was an aggressive, expansive reading," Rizzo said. "But I can't say I had any specific objections to any specific parts of it."

What does that mean, "as with most legal memos"? Most of the torture memos?

Read the rest right here.

Then take a look at this lousy little lot.

CIA airs decades worth of spy documents

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Little-known documents now being made public detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago: wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.

The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency plans to declassify next week. A six-page summary memo that was declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University on Thursday outlines 18 activities by the CIA that "presented legal questions" and were discussed with President Ford in 1975.

Among them: .................

Now hit this link to learn a lot more.

And here's a BBC bit about it all.

"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Gen Hayden told a conference of foreign policy historians.

See that? See what he said?

Done in the American people's name.

Next, access all that illuminating article.

Okay. Plenty have reported. Now you decide.

Now we're shutting up and quitting while we're ahead, since we've still got some especially good American friends -- and we'd not like losing any.

Help!! We've been held hidden away here by our government(s), for years & years.

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