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Dead Drop April 15

Dead Drop April 15

WATERBOARDING OVER THE DAMN: Last week The Dead Drop told you that active duty military leaders are going out of their way to avoid answering media questions which are premised on claims made on the presidential campaign trail. Some in the intelligence community, however, seem to be taking an alternative approach.  On Monday, NBC News touted an “exclusive” interview with CIA Director John Brennan.  (Exclusive, we guess, unless you count his recent appearances on 60 Minutes, NPR, and the lecture circuit).  In any case, correspondent Richard Engel spent most of his on-air time grilling Brennan about harsh interrogation tactics like waterboarding.  Brennan said that his institution will not carry out some of the techniques he hears being bandied about on the campaign trail. The position is not all that new – former CIA Director Mike Hayden has been telling reporters that if some future president wants to resume waterboarding he “better bring his own damn bucket.” 

That's because of the controversy over lawyers under one Administration telling the workforce that something is within legal standards, only to have another President come in and look at whether they should prosecute the people who carried out those legal orders. The tactic of waterboarding was declared legal when first ordered by the last administration in 2002 and 2003.  

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