<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> heard arguments on Wednesday on a high-profile case involving a request from a <keyword id="11971603" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="guantanamo-bay" source="Orion">Guantanamo Bay</keyword> prisoner.</li><li>The detainee, <keyword id="12258724" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abu-zubaydah" source="Orion">Abu Zubaydah</keyword>, seeks further information from the government on his CIA-backed <keyword id="12258723" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="torture" source="Orion">torture</keyword>.</li><li>The government, however, argued not to release the information, claiming an executive privilege called "state secrets."</li></ul>Three Supreme Court justices on Wednesday pressed the US government on whether it would allow a high-profile Guantanamo Bay prisoner to testify about his CIA-sponsored torture following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The justices' questioning came as the court heard arguments on the case, United States v. Zubaydah, which concerns a request from the Guantanamo Bay prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, for further information from the government. Specifically, Zubaydah and his lawyers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-827/168704/20210211112338780_20-827_Brief%20in%20Opposition.pdf">want testimony</a> from two <keyword id="11937984" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="cia" source="Orion">CIA</keyword> contractors who supervised his torture, widely believed to have taken place in <keyword id="11937111" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="poland" source="Orion">Poland</keyword>.The Biden administration argued that the government should not be required to release more information, claiming an executive privilege called "state secrets." That rule, established in a 1953 landmark Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds, allows the government to decline submitting information to the court to protect national security interests. The government's lawyer, Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, said on Wednesday that the US should not provide more disclosure in order to maintain trust with its foreign intelligence partnerships and keep those relationships confidential. But the end of the arguments took a turn when Republican-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch and Democratic-appointed Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor shifted from the question of the case and asked Fletcher why the government can't bring Zubaydah, who's been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2006 without charges, to testify himself about his torture. Fletcher said he did not have an answer, but told the court that he would follow up on the matter. Zubaydah's lawyer, David Klein, claimed that the detainee cannot testify himself, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-827/168704/20210211112338780_20-827_Brief%20in%20Opposition.pdf">citing government orders</a> that he should "remain incommunicado." The case dates back to the US government's 9/11 response, when the CIA set up a program to gather intelligence from suspected terrorists at secret detentions, or so-called black sites, in foreign countries.Abu Zubaydah was the first terrorist <keyword id="12258725" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="suspect" source="Orion">suspect</keyword> subjected to the program - which the CIA called "enhanced interrogation techniques" - at a black site that<a href="https://casetext.com/case/husayn-v-mitchell"> evidence overwhelmingly suggests</a> was in Poland. A 2014 Senate investigation <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-report-cia-misled-lawmakers-public-on-enhanced-interrogation/">concluded that the methods</a>, including waterboarding and confinement in a box, were torture. The CIA also disproved Zubaydah's suspected close ties to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to the report."On 83 different occasions in a single month of 2002, he was strapped to an inclined board with his head lower than his feet while CIA contractors poured water up his nose and down his throat, bringing him within sight of death," Zubaydah's lawyers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-827/168704/20210211112338780_20-827_Brief%20in%20Opposition.pdf">wrote to the court</a>. "He was handcuffed and repeatedly slammed into walls, and suspended naked from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time. He was forced to remain awake for eleven consecutive days, and doused again and again with cold water when he collapsed into sleep. He was forced into a tall, narrow box the size of a coffin, and crammed into another box that would nearly fit under a chair, where he was left for hours."Zubaydah, who is of Palestinian descent, had ties to a militant training camp in Afghanistan and was arrested by Pakistan and turned over to the US in 2002.Zubaydah and his lawyers are asking the government for more disclosure on his treatment and for the two CIA contractors who supervised his torture to provide more evidence. They say the additional information will help a criminal complaint they're pursuing in Poland to hold Polish officials accountable for alleged complicity in Zubaydah's torture.Although Zubaydah's torture has been widely reported, the government has blocked his legal team's efforts seeking more evidence, arguing that they've already declassified enough information.A district court declined Zubaydah's case, upholding state-secrets privilege. But a federal appeals court reversed the ruling, siding with Zubaydah. The Supreme Court will review that decision and hand down a ruling by the end of June.

Supreme Court justices ask the Biden administration if a Guantanamo Bay prisoner can testify about his CIA-sponsored torture

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A man currently at Guantánamo Bay was previously held in a <keyword id="11937984" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="cia" source="Orion">CIA</keyword> black site in <keyword id="12151245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lithuania" source="Orion">Lithuania</keyword>.</li><li>The European Court of <keyword id="11941416" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="human-rights" source="Orion">Human Rights</keyword> ruled in 2018 that Lithuania violated his rights by letting the CIA torture him.</li></ul>Lithuania has paid a man currently held at Guantánamo Bay more than $100,000 for letting the CIA torture him in a black site in the country before he was brought to the detention camp.The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2018 that Lithuania had <a href="https://www.hrlc.org.au/human-rights-case-summaries/2019/3/25/european-court-of-human-rights-finds-lithuania-and-romania-committed-human-rights-violations-due-to-involvement-in-the-cias-rendition-program">violated</a> the European Convention on Human Rights by allowing the CIA to torture Abu Zubaydah in the country.Lithuania has now paid him $113,00 in compensation, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/10/lithuania-pays-guantanamo-forever-prisoner-abu-zubaydah-100000-cia-torture">The Guardian reported</a>. But the newspaper noted that Zubaydah can't actually access the money as he is still detained, and because the US Treasury has frozen his assets.Zubaydah was captured by the US in 2002, as it believed him to be an al-Qaeda member. He was held in numerous CIA black sites around the world — where he has detailed brutal torture — and then brought to Guantánamo Bay in 2006.Zubaydah has never been charged with any crimes, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guantanamo-detainee-drawings-cia-torture-2019-12?r=US&amp;IR=T">investigators have since found</a> that he was never a member of al-Qaeda and he had no advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.He still remains detained indefinitely.Zubaydah has drawn depictions of the ways he was tortured, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guantanamo-detainee-drawings-cia-torture-2019-12?r=US&amp;IR=T">as Insider's Eliza Relman previously reported</a>.They include images of him being waterboarded, being confined in boxes for days, kept from sleeping, and having his head banged against the wall. He also lost an eye while detained, for unknown reasons.It is not clear how much of these kinds of torture, if any, were in Lithuania.The Guardian noted that judges in Europe were previously told that Zubaydah was unlikely to have been subjected to the harshest forms of torture while in Lithuania, compared to the other sites where he was held, but that he still experienced what amounted to torture while he was held there.

Lithuania paid a Guantánamo Bay detainee $113,000 for letting the CIA torture him in a black site there

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The new <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> term begins Monday, loaded with explosive cases on the docket.</li><li>Decisions on <keyword id="11901426" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortion" source="Orion">abortion</keyword> and gun rights will show whether the court's expanded majority shifts the country to the right.</li><li>The <keyword id="12011917" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="justices" source="Orion">justices</keyword> are also weighing in on legal battles involving religious liberty and the death penalty.</li></ul>The Supreme Court returns to the bench on Monday with a number of explosive and high-profile cases on the docket.From abortion to gun laws, the politically divisive cases will illuminate whether or not the court's expanded 6-3 conservative majority decides to dramatically shift the country to the right."They're the cases that will tell us the most of how quickly and how much the court moves in a more conservative direction," Lawrence Baum, a professor emeritus at Ohio State University whose expertise is the federal judiciary, told Insider.The court will also take up cases involving religious liberty, the death penalty, state secrets, and more. The session kicks off as the court faces <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354908/approval-supreme-court-down-new-low.aspx">all-time low</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-approval-all-time-low-abortion-37-quinnipiac-poll-2021-9">public approval ratings</a>, with a handful of the justices - Stephen Breyer, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - attempting <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-dangerous-branch-government-abortion-barrett-breyer-2021-9">to defend</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/barrett-breyer-say-scotus-isnt-political-but-ignore-realities-experts-say-2021-9">the court's legitimacy</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/justice-samuel-alito-defends-supreme-courts-texas-abortion-decision-2021-9">and independence</a>.The intense public scrutiny comes amid a contentious 5-4 ruling on September 2, in which the <a href="https://www.insider.com/scotus-texas-enforce-6-week-abortion-ban-5-4-ruling-2021-9">court's majority refused to block</a> a strict Texas law that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-6-week-abortion-ban-has-officially-become-law-2021-8">bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy</a>, prompting criticisms of partisanship. Still looming over the new term is the coronavirus pandemic, with the court announcing on Friday that Justice Brett Kavanaugh <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-justice-tests-positive-covid-19-2021-10">has tested positive for COVID-19.</a> The justices are expected to convene in person on Monday for the first time since the start of the outbreak last spring. Here are five big cases to watch for:<h3>The court could throw out abortion rights</h3>Nearly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that women, protected by privacy rights under the 14th Amendment, have the right to an abortion. That 1973 landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade, legalized abortion until around 24 weeks of <keyword id="6357793" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pregnancy" source="Orion">pregnancy</keyword>, the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the womb, otherwise known as viability.Yet that right could be threatened as the court evaluates a Mississippi law that prohibits nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.<div type="image" title="Abortion-rights protest at Supreme Court" height="2588" width="5177" msid="86687402" hostid="261"></div>Lower courts struck down the Mississippi statute, ruling that it violates Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 Supreme Court decision that declared states cannot impose an "undue burden" on abortion rights.But Mississippi took its dispute to the highest court, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-major-abortion-case-roe-v-wade-challenge-2021-5">agreed to review</a> the central question of whether state laws that prohibit pre-viability abortions are unconstitutional.Arguments on the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, are set for December 1.<h3>The court could expand gun rights and curtail regulations across the country</h3>It's been over a decade since the court has considered a major gun-rights case. That will change on November 3, when the justices hear arguments on New York State Rifle &amp; Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.The case concerns a century-old New York law, upheld by the lower courts, that requires people who seek a license to carry a gun outside the home to demonstrate a "proper cause," or a special reason. The National Rifle Association-backed challenge was brought by two New York men who applied for permits to carry a concealed gun in public for self-defense and were denied. They claim that the law is an infringement of the Second Amendment.The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-2nd-amendment-new-york-gun-permit-2021-4">will weigh in on</a> "whether the state's denial of petitioners' applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment." Gun-control supporters worry that a Supreme Court ruling opposing the New York law may endanger firearm regulations amid <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/14/2021-gun-violence/">a rise in gun violence across the country.</a><h3>The court could narrow the separation of church and state </h3>In Maine, some communities do not have public schools, so the state provides tuition assistance for students to attend private schools. In 2018, two families, the Carsons and the Nelsons, wanted to enroll their kids in private schools that offer religious teaching. They sought funding from the state but did not qualify, as the law requires the school to be "nonsectarian." The families sued the state, arguing that the law violates their First Amendment right to exercise religion freely. A lower court ruled against their challenge. <div type="image" title="US Supreme Court" height="1690" width="3380" msid="86687403" hostid="261"></div>The Supreme Court, which in recent years <a href="https://apnews.com/article/courts-constitutions-scholarships-me-state-wire-education-a34a94bd7a81996419400152631c2fd7">has protected religious liberties</a>, took up their appeal. Justices will hear arguments on the case, Carson v. Makin, on December 8.The ruling could have broad implications on the separation of church and state, as well as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/22/what-school-choice-means-in-the-era-of-trump-and-devos/">hotly debated issue</a> of "school choice." Proponents say school choice offers options beyond the traditional public school system, meanwhile critics say it erodes public schools, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372">which most students in the country attend.</a><h3>The court may reimpose a high-profile death penalty sentence</h3>The Supreme Court is also slated to examine whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the infamous Boston Marathon bomber who killed three people and injured hundreds in 2013, should be sentenced to death.A federal appeals court <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boston-marathon-bombers-death-penalty-overturned-court-rules-2020-8">dismissed Tsarnaev's death sentence last year</a>, saying the judge who presided over the case in 2015 failed to ensure the jurors were not biased against him, calling into question the right to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment.Last October, President <keyword id="11914386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="donald-trump" source="Orion">Donald Trump</keyword>'s Justice Department, which restarted federal executions after a 17-year pause, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-trials-us-supreme-court-courts-boston-842cdf774d282da5e814f2ae5ce52b4e">urged the Supreme Court to reinstate Tsarnaev's death penalty.</a>In June, the Biden administration <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-443/181690/20210614191854794_20-443tsUnitedStates.pdf">asked the high court to do the same</a>, despite President <keyword id="99719" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="joe-biden" source="Orion">Joe Biden</keyword>'s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/big-challenge-biden-is-pressed-to-end-federal-death-penalty-2021-2">campaign pledge</a> to end capital punishment and pressure from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-pressley-bush-democrats-halt-federal-death-penalty-executions-2021-1">some Democrats</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-commute-death-row-letter-civil-rights-2021-2">civil rights organizations</a> to abolish the practice. The court will hear arguments on the case, United States v. Tsarnaev, on October 13. <div type="image" title="Stop Executions sign Supreme Court Washington" height="2250" width="4500" msid="86687407" hostid="261"></div><h3>The court will determine if the government can block information in a torture case </h3>In United States v. Zubaydah, the court will review a request from a Guantanamo Bay prisoner seeking more information about his treatment by the CIA.Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist suspect detained after the 9/11 attacks, was subjected in the early 2000s to what the CIA called "enhanced interrogation techniques." A Senate investigation <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-report-cia-misled-lawmakers-public-on-enhanced-interrogation/">later concluded the methods</a>, which included waterboarding and confinement in a box, were torture.Although Zubaydah's torture has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guantanamo-detainee-drawings-cia-torture-2019-12">widely reported</a>, he wants further disclosure from the CIA. But the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-cia-black-sites-guantanamo.html">government has blocked his efforts</a> to subpoena CIA contractors, claiming "state-secrets privilege," a rule that allows the government to decline releasing information in a lawsuit that could risk national security. That standard was established in a 1953 landmark Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds. A district court declined Zubaydah's case, upholding state-secrets privilege. A federal appeals court reversed the decision, arguing that some materials on his torture could be exposed. The Supreme Court will consider that court's ruling in arguments on October 6.

The Supreme Court that Trump tilted to the right will review abortion, guns, and religion. Here are 5 important cases to watch as the new term begins.

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5de945d7fd9db26bc43d25ba-1642/illustrations seton hall law center for policy and research8.jpg" alt="A drawing by Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah of his torture at a secret CIA prison." /><ul class="summary-list"><li>Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah was the first victim of the George W. Bush administration's torture program in August 2002.</li><li>Zubaydah, who remains indefinitely detained with no prospect of being prosecuted, drew depictions of the various ways in which he was tortured for a report published by his attorney. </li><li>Insider has republished eight of these drawings, which show Zubaydah being waterboarded, shackled in stress positions, and confined in boxes.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>Abu Zubaydah was captured by US forces following a gun fight in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March 2002. US officials incorrectly believed the Saudi Arabian citizen was a member of al Qaeda and transported him to a secret US-run prison, known as a black site, in Thailand.In August 2002, Zubaydah, already suffering from a severe leg wound, became the first victim of George W. Bush administration's so-called "enhanced interrogation," which included shackling him in stress positions and confined spaces, prolonged sleep deprivation, and 83 episodes of waterboarding. The Senate Intelligence Committee's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-senate-is-about-to-release-the-cia-torture-report-2014-12">report on the CIA torture program</a>, which was <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf">partially declassified and released in 2014</a>, found the enhanced interrogation techniques were ineffective, "brutal," and "far worse" than the CIA had described them as being. <img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5de933d7fd9db257593621cb-1082/ap071207151458.jpg" alt="This photo provided by U.S. Central Command, shows Abu Zubaydah, date and location unknown." />During one waterboarding session, Zubaydah "became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth."At some point during Zubaydah's detention, he <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-did-abu-zubaydah-lose-his-eye">lost one of his eyes</a> for unknown reasons. CIA interrogators were so worried about the details of Zubaydah's torture becoming public that they requested "reasonable assurances that [Abu Zubaydah] will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life," the Senate report found. Investigators found that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-senate-is-about-to-release-the-cia-torture-report-2014-12">the CIA lied to Bush</a> about the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques used on Zubaydah, telling the president that Zubaydah gave interrogators additional information as a result of the torture.In fact, the report found that Zubaydah, now 48, provided the CIA with more information about al Qaeda "activities, plans, capabilities, and relationships" and the group's leadership before being subjected to torture than he did after. And they discovered that Zubaydah was never a member of al Qaeda, didn't have advanced knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and had no information about potential future attacks. After being held in US black sites for four years, Zubaydah was transferred to the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he's been detained since but never criminally charged. Zubaydah's attorney of ten years, Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux, told Insider that military prosecutors "can't find a crime to charge him with." This week, Denbeaux and his colleagues at Seton Hall released a report, "<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3494533">How America Tortures</a>," that includes drawings Zubaydah made depicting the various ways in which he was tortured in 2002. "I think these pictures may have more impact than I ever expected because I've lived with them for so long," Denbeaux said. "It does seem like people might view this all over again." Denbeaux added of his client, "He really wants to find out how much the world is hearing about him because he feels lost in Guantánamo." Below are Zubaydah's drawings:

A Guantanamo detainee's drawings show the brutal CIA torture he endured at a secret US-run prison in Thailand

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In July, the Biden administration released a 19-year detainee from Guantánamo Bay.</li><li>Biden has said he hopes to close the military prison in Cuba, where 39 people remain incarcerated.</li><li>But closing it is complicated by concerns over releasing prisoners, and the military's court system.</li></ul>Last month, the Biden administration released a Moroccan man who had been held at Guantánamo Bay for nearly two decades without ever being charged with a crime.Abdul Latif Nasser arrived at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba in 2002. The US accused him of being involved with the Taliban, but charges were never brought against him and he was cleared for release in 2016.It would be another five years until he was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guantanamo-bay-biden-admin-releases-detainee-2021-7">transferred out of the camp</a> and repatriated to his home country.Nasser was one of many detained at Guantánamo without ever being charged with a crime. Of the 39 detainees that remain, 27 are held as Nassar was: as law-of-war detainees without charge or trial, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/guantanamo-bay-detainees.html#rec-transfer">The New York Times</a>."They're called forever prisoners, because they'll be held forever," Mark Denbeaux, a lawyer and law professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, told Insider, referring to those who have not been cleared for release.His client, Abu Zubaydah, the first person to undergo <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guantanamo-detainee-drawings-cia-torture-2019-12">torture at the hands of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program</a>, is one of them.Denbeaux, who served on the Obama transition team and was focused on the closure of Guantánamo, called the recent release "very significant." He said he is confident President Joe Biden wants to continue the effort started by former President Barack Obama and close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for good.But between the forever prisoners and those awaiting trial, including some accused of involvement in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it's not a straightforward task.<h2>Who the 'forever prisoners' are</h2>The term forever prisoners refers to detainees who have not been charged and are never expected to face trial, but that the government deems too dangerous to release.Kevin Powers, a lawyer, professor and director of the Cybersecurity Policy and Governance Program at Boston College, explained the detainees are not considered regular prisoners of war. Instead, they are classified as unlawful combatants, or alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.Powers also worked as a legal adviser for the Department of Defense on some cases at Guantánamo Bay from 2011 to 2013."The reason they're unlawful combatants is because they don't follow the rules of combat under the <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international" source="Orion">international</keyword> rule of war," Powers told Insider. "So they're not entitled to the rights of prisoners of war."Unlike with regular prisoners of war, he said, the US "can hold them without bringing charges or anything like that until the end of hostilities."So because the US is still considered at war with Al Qaeda and its allies, the government does not need to charge the detainees and can continue to hold them under international law of war as long as the war is ongoing.<h2>Cleared for transfer but still awaiting release</h2>Since 2013, a panel of six government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, has occasionally reviewed detainee cases and authorized people for release. Acting similarly to a parole board, the <a href="https://www.prs.mil/About-the-PRB/">Periodic Review Board</a> has already cleared <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/us/politics/guantanamo-detainees-release.html">several detainees</a> since Biden took office.Of the 27 prisoners currently held without charges, 10 have been recommended for transfer, but even then their releases are delayed.Upon release, detainees are typically sent to countries that have agreed to keep them under certain security arrangements required by the US. So before the releases can happen the US must come to a diplomatic agreement with another government that is willing to take them, be it the detainee's home country or somewhere else entirely.Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress in June the Biden administration is looking into appointing someone to work full-time on arranging the transfers and closing Guantánamo, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/us/politics/guantanamo-detainees-transfer.html">The Times' Carol Rosenberg reported</a>.<h2>Detainees accused of war crimes await trials under a <keyword id="11971606" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="military-commission" source="Orion">military commission</keyword> system</h2>Others at Guantánamo have been charged with war crimes and are awaiting trial, some for many years.Denbeaux said freeing the "forever prisoners" and those cleared for release is likely a simpler task than addressing those who have been charged with crimes.That's largely because the prisoners are not on trial in a US federal court. Under the <a href="https://www.mc.mil/ABOUTUS.aspx">Military Commissions Act of 2009</a>, Guantánamo detainees are charged and tried by a military commission under a legal system established and run by the US military."Our American court systems work very, very well," Denbeaux said, adding they were formed over the course of hundreds of years. But he said the military basically invented a new court system that still has a lot of kinks to work out.Powers echoed those remarks. He commended the judges and lawyers working on the cases but said he didn't think the current system was set up for success when it comes to the Guantánamo detainees."The federal courts are used to handling big litigations like this. The military commissions are new," Powers said. "It was kind of like building the plane while you're trying to fly it. It doesn't work."<h2>Trial delays for the five men accused of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks</h2>The most apparent example seems to be the case of Guantánamo's most notorious prisoners, the five men accused of being involved in planning the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US that killed nearly 3,000 Americans two decades ago.The men, captured in 2002 and 2003, are accused of directing or assisting the 19 hijackers who crashed four passenger planes on US soil within hours of each other on that day. Two flew into the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon, and another crashed into a Pennsylvania field. The charges include <keyword id="11895207" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="terrorism" source="Orion">terrorism</keyword>, murder in violation of the law of war, and conspiracy, which, if convicted, would result in the death penalty.Despite the suspects being arraigned in 2012, the trial has been plagued by years of delays. Under the military commission system, prosecutors and defense attorneys have been arguing over what evidence is admissible in court, what can be withheld from the defense for security reasons, and even what laws apply, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/september-11-trial-guantanamo-bay.html">The Times</a>.The defense has argued testimony from FBI interrogations, the ones that did not include tactics like waterboarding or sleep deprivation, should be inadmissible because their clients were conditioned by torture to say what interrogators wanted to hear.But Powers said the location alone may be the biggest reason the trials have progressed so slowly. The judges and lawyers are typically commuting to Cuba, a tropical island with unpredictable weather, for hearings and motions. He said a hearing may be held for a case once every other month. If everyone, the judges, lawyers, and detainees, were all in one location, either in Cuba or in the US, "you could have regular motion practice every day," he said.But US politicians have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/politics/senate-passes-military-bill-that-bars-transfers-of-guantanamo-detainees.html">long rejected</a> the idea of trying or transferring the detainees onto American soil.The trial has also been delayed by personnel turnover and the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/911-trial-guantanamo.html">The Times</a> reported. And whenever the trial does happen, it could then go through years of appeals, potentially all the way up to the Supreme Court.All things considered, the closing of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay appears to be far out of reach.

'Forever prisoners': 39 remain at Guantanamo Bay 20 years after 9/11, including some who have never been charged

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487503eecad04c04a315ca5-1200-924/michael-hayden-and-cia.jpg?maxX=600" border="0" alt="Michael Hayden and CIA" width="600">AP Photos/Susan WalshCentral Intelligence Agency Gen. Director Michael Hayden talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007.</img></div></div>An <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-senate-is-about-to-release-the-cia-torture-report-2014-12">appalling Senate report</a> on George W. Bush-era interrogation techniques asserts the CIA lied repeatedly about the harshness and effectiveness of its methods.
Those methods were used as part of a counterterrorism program that Bush put into place in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. It turns out, however, that Bush didn't know the full details of the CIA's interrogation techniques - <a href="https://twitter.com/charlie_savage/status/542354330469543936">some of which were horrific </a>- until 2006.
The report found the CIA also misled other government entities, including the Senate, a major news outlet, and the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which was supposed to ascertain the legality of the practices. 
Here are key details on who the CIA misled and when, <a href="http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf">from the Senate Intelligence Committee report</a>:
<h3>President Bush Was Ill-Informed And Even Lied To: </h3>
Bush wasn't given a full briefing on the CIA's interrogation methods for the first four years of the program's existence, according to the report.
"According to CIA records, no CIA officer, up to and including CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss, briefed the president on the specific CIA enhanced interrogation techniques before April 2006," the report stated. 
Moreover, the report found that the CIA had incorrectly informed Bush during a daily briefing that <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/abu-zubaydah-diaries.html">detainee Abu Zubaydah</a> had given interrogators helpful information after being subjected to "enhanced interrogation." In fact, Zubaydah, who was detained in March 2002, didn't give interrogators more useful information after he was subjected to isolation and waterboarding. 
<h3>The CIA Lied To The Department Of Justice</h3>
The CIA misled the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel about various methods it used to humiliate detainees and how effect these tactics actually were. 
These tactics included immersing detainees in cold water, forcing detainees to walk around naked in front of guards, and even forcing them to wear diapers "to induce a sense of helplessness," according to the report.
The report also found the CIA "gave the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel inaccurate information about how it interrogated Abu Zubaydah and subsequent detainees." That misinformation included statements that waterboarding didn't hurt detainees and merely created a sensation of drowning.
In reality, the report said, according to CIA records, Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding sessions "resulted in immediate fluid intake and involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms" and "hysterical pleas." A medical officer who oversaw the interrogation of another detainee stated that the waterboard technique had evolved beyond the "sensation of drowning" to what he described as a "series of near drownings."
<h3>A CIA Director Misled The Senate</h3>
In April 2007, former CIA director Michael Hayden provided the Select Committee On Intelligence with inaccurate information about enhanced interrogation techniques and their effectiveness at a hearing, according to the report.
The report found Hayden gave Senators inaccurate testimony about the interrogation process, threats against detainees' families, the punching and kicking of detainees, detainee hygiene, denial of medical care, dietary manipulation, the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and the injury and death of detainees. 
Hayden also told the Senate committee he didn't believe CIA personnel had expressed reservations about the techniques that were used. In reality, one medical staff member said the methods made him "psychologically very uncomfortable" and several staffers were "profoundly affected" to the point of "choking up," according to the report.
<h3>The New York Times Was Lied To, As Well</h3>
The CIA worked vigoriously to shape media coverage of its interrogation techniques, according to the report. The agency even gave The New York Times information about its interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that conficted with the CIA's own records, according to the report.
"David Johnston of the New York Times called the CIA's OPA with a proposed news story about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," the report said. "In an email with the subject line, 'We Can't Let This Go Unanswered,' the CIA's director of public affairs in OPA, Mark Mansfield, described Johnston's proposed narrative as 'bullshit' and biased toward the FBI, adding that 'we need to push back." 
Ultimately, The Times published a story commenting on "the frequent CIA representation that, after the use of 'tougher tactics,' Abu Zubaydah 'soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.'"
"This characterization of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation is incongruent with CIA interrogation records," the report said.

The CIA Lied To Everybody About Its Torture Techniques

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5aa7dd633be59f1d008b45d5-1261/screen shot 2018-03-13 at 101625 am.png" alt="Gina Haspel" data-mce-source="youtube" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV2s9qTUNsM" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV2s9qTUNsM">youtube</a>Gina Haspel.</div></div></div><ul><li>President Donald Trump has appointed Gina Haspel as the new head of the CIA.</li><li>Haspel is set to become the first woman to ever lead the spy agency, where she is currently serving second-in-command under Director Mike Pompeo.</li><li>But Haspel, who has spent decades in US intelligence, has a controversial past.</li></ul><hr />Gina Haspel, a longtime intelligence officer who ran a secret US prison in Thailand, is poised to become the first woman to lead the CIA.The move came on Tuesday when President Donald Trump announced he would replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with current CIA director Mike Pompeo, paving the way for Haspel, who was second-in-command at the agency, to take over."Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State," Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/973540316656623616" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said in a tweet</a>. "He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!"Trump named Haspel deputy director of the CIA in February 2017.Haspel has spent more than three decades in US intelligence, most of it spent undercover at overseas posts.But the 61-year-old is perhaps best known for her controversial role as the head of a secret CIA "black site" prison in Thailand, where clandestine American intelligence officers regularly tortured people suspected of being affiliated with al-Qaeda. An <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extensive report</a> from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence detailed what happened at the prison and who was involved.The black site in Thailand was part of a global effort by the Bush administration to combat terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But the prison's use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", has been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/07/12/getting-away-torture/bush-administration-and-mistreatment-detainees" target="_blank" rel="noopener">widely condemned</a> by human rights groups and critics call it torture.President Barack Obama dismantled the controversial interrogation program in 2009.Years earlier, Haspel had served as one of the program's most prominent leaders.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/588f8fa35124c9dd23480d7e-800/trump-adding-cia-back-to-national-security-council-white-house.jpg" alt="Mike Pompeo waits to be sworn in as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington, U.S. January 23, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst " data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="Pompeo waits to be sworn in as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington" />Thomson ReutersFormer CIA Director Mike Pompeo praised Haspel's experience.</div></div></div>In 2002, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-new-c-i-a-deputy-chiefs-black-site-past" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Haspel oversaw systemic torture</a> against suspected al-Qaeda members, including Abd al-Rahim al-Sashiri and Abu Zubaydah. Amid an ongoing Congressional investigation into the use of torture in CIA black sites overseas, including the one led by Haspel in Thailand, CIA officials <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/washington/07intel.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">destroyed evidence</a> of videotapes of the questionable interrogations.Jose Rodriguez, who was then head of the CIA's Clandestine Service, reportedly authorized the destruction of more than 90 tapes in 2005. But seven years later, in a memoir defending the use of torture, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-officer-with-ties-to-black-sites-named-deputy-director/2017/02/02/0fc991b6-e980-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.6598bc7957c5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rodriguez wrote</a> that Haspel had drafted a cable ordering the tapes' destruction. Haspel was serving as Rodriguez's chief of staff at the time.The tapes documented various torture techniques used by CIA officers against detainees, including Zubaydah, who was waterboarded dozens of times and subjected to intense physical and emotional abuse.He was later determined to be unaffiliated with al-Qaeda, although he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2003, where he remains detained today.After Haspel's appointment to deputy director of the CIA last year, Sens. Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-cia-deputy-beloved-by-colleagues-and-attacked-by-interrogation-critics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> the move, saying that "her background makes her unsuitable for the position."Fellow career intelligence officers applauded her appointment to deputy director. Former director of national intelligence James Clapper said he was "very pleased" former CIA acting director Michael Morell "applaud[ed] the appointment", and Pompeo praised Haspel as "an exemplary intelligence officer and a devoted patriot."One woman, <a href="https://www.georgetown.edu/news/meroe-park-former-intelligence-leader-named-executive-in-residence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meroe Park</a>, technically served as acting CIA director for three days before Pompeo took over in 2017, but Haspel would be the first director if the Senate confirms her appointment. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2">The racist origins of marijuana prohibition</a></h3> <div> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/zSwNAFFu-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script> </div> </div>

A controversial intelligence officer who ran a secret US prison in Thailand would be the first female CIA chief

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5aa825b83be59f1b008b4679-2000/ap18072648940832.jpg" alt="Gina Haspel" data-mce-source="CIA via AP" data-mce-caption="CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel" />CIA via APCIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel</div></div></div><ul><li>Gina Haspel, the president's controversial pick to lead the CIA, helped implement the agency's torture program under the George W. Bush administration. </li><li>A decorated 33-year veteran of the agency, Haspel ran a secret prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured, and later ordered the destruction of tapes of the brutal treatment. </li><li>Her nomination, which comes after CIA Director Mike Pompeo was selected to take over as secretary of state, has drawn new attention to the agency's stance on torture. </li></ul><hr />President Donald Trump's controversial nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency helped implement the agency's torture program under the George W. Bush administration, a record that will make her confirmation process difficult and likely ugly. Gina Haspel, who joined the CIA in 1985 and spent most of her career undercover, oversaw the waterboarding and use of other "enhanced interrogation techniques" - authorized by the Bush administration and later outlawed by President Barack Obama and Congress - at a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002. On Tuesday, Haspel was nominated to become the agency's first female director after Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and asked CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him.Under Haspel's watch, one detainee, Abu Zubaydah, was waterboarded 83 times in one month and subjected to other dangerous treatment, including having his head slammed against a wall repeatedly. Interrogators ultimately determined that Zubaydah, who lost an eye during his CIA detention, did not possess any useful information. In 2005, Haspel signed a cable ordering the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/washington/03web-intel.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">destruction of 92 video tapes</a> of Zubaydah's interrogations - a decision that became the subject of a lengthy criminal investigation by the Justice Department that did not result in charges. Haspel also helped facilitate the "extraordinary rendition program," in which the US government handed detainees over to foreign officials, who detained and tortured them in secret prisons.Hundreds of terror suspects were tortured and abused by the CIA and Department of Defense in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And while the Bush administration's program, which violated longstanding US and international law, has been widely condemned both domestically and around the world, no government official has ever been prosecuted for their involvement in it.<h2>The CIA's current views on torture are unclear</h2>Under Trump, it's not entirely clear where the CIA's leadership stands on the issue of torture.Pompeo has said that waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" do not constitute torture. And he has defended intelligence officials and others who engaged in these practices as "heroes" and "patriots" simply protecting their country.Trump repeatedly expressed his support for torture, including waterboarding, on the campaign trail. "Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat," Trump said during a 2016 campaign rally. "I would approve more than that. It works."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img style="color: #000000;" src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5aa7e4d23be59f1b008b4679-1280/gettyimages-631485176.jpg" alt="Protesters gather in front of the Supreme Court in January 2017 to mark 15 years since the first prisoners were brought to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." data-mce-source="Joe Raedle/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="Protesters gather in front of the Supreme Court in January 2017 to mark 15 years since the first prisoners were brought to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." />Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesProtesters gather in front of the Supreme Court in January 2017 to mark 15 years since the first prisoners were brought to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.</div></div></div><h2>'She was up to her eyeballs in torture'</h2>Human rights and civil liberties groups slammed Haspel's nomination on Tuesday. "Gina Haspel was a central figure in one of the most illegal and shameful chapters in modern American history," Christopher Anders, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Washington office, told Business Insider. "She was up to her eyeballs in torture: both in running a secret torture prison in Thailand, and carrying out an order to cover up torture crimes by destroying videotapes." The ACLU, which has engaged in extensive litigation concerning the government's torture program, is pushing the CIA to declassify and release "every aspect of Haspel's torture record" before she is put through the nomination process. Human Rights First spokeswoman Raha Wala said in a Tuesday statement that "no one who had a hand in torturing individuals deserve to ever hold public office again, let alone lead an agency."<h2>'I do think at the end of the day she will be confirmed'</h2>But Haspel is widely respected within the agency and her promotion to deputy director earlier this year was praised by a long list of current and former intelligence leaders, including those who served under former Obama. The widely-held opinion among agency officials and loyalists is that those who carried out Bush's torture program were simply following orders. Former CIA Director John Brennan, who led the agency under Obama, praised Haspel as someone with "a lot of integrity," despite her record, during <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/hallie-jackson/watch/who-is-gina-haspel-fmr-cia-director-weighs-in-on-trump-s-new-intel-pick-1184630339935" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a Tuesday interview on MSNBC</a>. "She was involved in a very, very controversial program," he said. "I know that the Senate confirmation process will look at that very closely. I do think there's going to be close scrutiny given to her nomination. But I do think at the end of the day she will be confirmed and should be confirmed."Haspel will face a difficult nomination process and what will likely be a bruising confirmation hearing given the many concerns about her record. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein blocked Haspel's nomination to lead the CIA's clandestine service in 2013 over concerns about her role in the interrogation program and the destruction of evidence. And many called for her to be blocked from taking the deputy director position, despite the fact that the promotion did not require congressional confirmation. Republican Sen. John McCain, an outspoken opponent of torture, called on Haspel to detail her role in the torture program and clarify her stance on current law regarding torture. "The torture of detainees in U.S. custody during the last decade was one of the darkest chapters in American history," McCain said in a Tuesday statement. "Ms. Haspel needs to explain the nature and extent of her involvement in the CIA's interrogation program during the confirmation process. I know the Senate will do its job in examining Ms. Haspel's record as well as her beliefs about torture and her approach to current law." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-will-arming-teachers-guns-help-stop-school-shootings-2018-2">Henry Blodget: Will arming teachers with guns help stop school shootings?</a></h3> <div> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/961QzhBb-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script> </div> </div>

'She was up to her eyeballs in torture': Trump's nominee for CIA director oversaw the torture of detainees under Bush

<div class="text text-1 parbase section">
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487441e69bedd655a7f2fb4-1200-924/rtr1vox2.jpg" border="0" alt="waterboard">Kevin Lamarque/ReutersDemonstrator Maboud Ebrahimzadeh is held down during a simulation of waterboarding outside the Justice Department in Washington November 5, 2007.</img></div></div></div>According to the Senate Intelligence Committee's 500-plus-page executive summary, the CIA employed <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">brutal torture </a><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">methods</a> ranging from waterboarding to rectal hydration on terrorism suspects.
The report seems to refute the CIA's previous claim of only waterboarding 3 prisoners, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zabaydah, and Abd Al Rahim al-Nashiri.
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html">The Daily Beast reports</a> that a footnote within the executive summary describes a photograph of a waterboard device found at a detention site named 'COBALT' where, the 3 admitted waterboard methods were not carried out.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54874eba69bedd05087f2fb4-840-334/cobalt.png" border="0" alt="cobalt waterboard cia"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">Senate Intelligence Committee</a></img></div></div></div> 
In 2013, the CIA was not able to explain the presence of this waterboard.
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-911-planners-are-now-facing-a-death-penalty-trial-2012-4" target="_blank">Khalid Shaik Mohammed</a>, the alleged leader of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, was captured by US operatives in 2003 and was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-document-sheds-light-on-enhanced-interrogation-techniques-used-on-911-suspects-2012-4" target="_blank">waterboarded 183 times</a>. 
Below is an exceprt from the report where CIA Deputy Director of Operations, James Pavitt authorized waterboarding in order to gain information from Mohammed (KSM).
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/548738bd69bedd91297f2fbb-840-261/waterboard-5.png" border="0" alt="waterboard cia report"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">Senate Intelligence Committee</a></img></div></div></div>
Waterboarding stimulates the sensation of drowning and reflex gagging when water is poured on a subjects' backwards tilted head. The water enters the body through the nose or mouth and begins to fill the subjects' lungs and trachea since their chest is kept higher than their head.
"It's a smothering feeling as well as a drowning feeling ... you can't think about anything else when you're breathing water," journalist Christoper Hitchens said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58" target="_blank">an interview with Vanity Fair</a> after volunteering to be waterboarded.
According to the New York Times, some CIA interrogators tried to put a halt techniques like waterboarding on prisoners because they were so intense, but were quickly told by senior agency officials to continue the tactic.
A doctor said the waterboarding sessions on Mohammed were like a 'series of near drownings' and that he was in such poor health condition that it was important for agents to use saline as a fluid therapy for extreme dehydration.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54873a2beab8ea82679000d6-840-380/waterboard2.png" border="0" alt="waterboarding cia report" style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">Senate Intelligence Committee</a></img></div></div></div>
Contrary to the CIA's account to the Department of Justice, waterboarding was physically harmful and lead to convulsions, vomiting, as well as psychological trauma.
This is what happened when Abu Zabaydah was waterboarded for the first time. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/548749de69beddd3767f2fb1-843-390/waterboard3.png" border="0" alt="waterboard cia report"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/249654104/Senate-Intelligence-Committee-torture-report">Senate Intelligence Committee </a></img></div></div></div>
Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding '2-4 times a day' after his first experience, with water poured over his face for at least 17 seconds. During one waterboarding session Zabaydah became 'completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.'
Bush stopped much of the program, which involved terrorism suspects being rendered to facilities where they were detained and interrogated, before he left office in 2009. President Barack Obama then banned so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" when he took office. Obama <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-we-tortured-some-folks-after-911/">has acknowledged</a> some of the tactics used as part of the program were torture. 
</div>

 The CIA May Have Waterboarded More People Than Admitted

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/51f83d9cecad04d00200000d-796-597/gitmo-6.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="gitmo" width="480" /><a href="http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/xWEBSITE/photos/photos.html">JTF Gitmo</a></div></div>Terror masterminds and other high-value detainees at <keyword id="44258" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Guantanamo-Bay">Guantanamo Bay</keyword> may just be the biggest fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic novel that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-50-shades-of-grey-the-new-mom-porn-book-phenomenon-2012-3?op=1">counts bored housewives as its main fan base (among others). </a>
After taking a tour of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/shades-of-grey-guantanamo_n_3672270.html">shared the news to the Huffington Post:</a>
"Rather than the Quran, the book that is requested most by the [high-value detainees] is Fifty Shades of Grey. They've read the entire series in English, but we were willing to translate it," Moran, who advocates for closing the facility, told HuffPost. "I guess there's not much going on, these guys are going nowhere, so what the hell."
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-50-shades-of-grey-the-new-mom-porn-book-phenomenon-2012-3?op=1">If you're not familiar with the Grey series</a>, it's more or less your typical romance novel, except with lots of hardcore — and very descriptive — sex. Frank Santo from <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/its-all-porn-to-me-one-mans-review-of-50-shades-of-grey" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a> called it "pornography, plain and simple."
Military officials won't comment on Moran's assertion (they don't even admit that the high-value detainee facility Camp Seven actually exists). We do know, however, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gitmo-guantanamo-bay-photo-tour-2013-4">that at least for the main population of detainees,</a> there is a full library of books, from the Quran to puzzles and video games.
It's believed there's less than <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/30/guantanamo-detainees-cant-get-enough-fifty-shades-/">20 so-called "high-value" detainees</a> left in Guantanamo. These include the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/10016-abu-zubaydah">Abu Zubaydah</a>, an alleged former trainer at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Guantanamo Detainees Are Huge Fans Of 'Fifty Shades Of Grey'

<img class="float_right" src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5081571b6bb3f74246000011-400-300/johnklow.jpg" border="0" alt="John Kiriakou Whistleblower">John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-cia-officer-given-30-month-jail-sentence-for-leaking-agents-name-2013-1">sentenced to two and a half years</a> in prison for leaking the name of a secret agent in charge of the CIA's Bush-era torture program, has written a letter detailing his initial time served at the Federal Correctional Institute in Loretto, Pennsylvania.</img>
<a href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/05/29/imprisoned-cia-torture-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-pens-letter-from-loretto/">The letter</a> reveals a very interesting perspective of a trained intelligence officer - Kiriakou worked for the CIA from 1990 to 2004 - co-mingling with a variety of common criminals.
Kiriakou, 47, who pleaded guilty in October and began his sentence in February, begins the letter by saying that his imprisonment is "punishment for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-whistleblower-kiriakou-pleads-guilty-2012-10">blowing the whistle on the CIA's illegal torture program</a> and for telling the public that torture was official U.S. government policy."
Here are some of the highlights from his picture of prison life:
<ul>
<li>My cellmates include two Dominicans serving 24- and 20-year sentences for drugs; a Mexican serving 15 years for drugs, and a Puerto Rican serving 7 1/2 years for drug conspiracy; and the former auditor of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, who's doing a long sentence for corruption. They're all decent guys and we actually enjoy each other's company.</li>
<li>Of the white prisoners, most are pedophiles with personal stories that would make you sick to your stomach. The rest of the white prisoners are here for drugs, except for a dozen or so who ran Ponzi schemes. </li>
<li>Of the 1,369 prisoners, 40 have college degrees and six of us have master's degrees. The GED program is robust.</li>
<li>I'm a janitor in the chapel. I make $5.25 a month. </li>
<li>It turned out that I had to get a copy of my formal sentencing documents to prove that I wasn't a child molester. I did that, and was welcomed by the Aryans, who aren't really Aryans, but more accurately self-important hillbillies.</li>
<li>[One female Corrections Officer] stopped me and said, "Are you the motherf----- whose name I can't pronounce?" I responded, "Ki-ri-AH-koo." She said, "how about if I just call you F---face?"</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/05/29/imprisoned-cia-torture-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-pens-letter-from-loretto/">Check out the full letter &gt;</a>
Kiriakou goes on to explain why he gets along with each ethnic demographic in prison, saying: "So far, so good." 
He also claims that Corrections Officers tried to get him into a violent confrontation with a Muslim inmate by telling him he was the uncle of the Times Square bombers, adding: "Instead, we're friendly, we exchange greetings in Arabic and English, and we chat." 
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video?id=7499789">In a 2007 interview with ABC</a>, Kiriakou confirmed for the first time that Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda detainee, had been subjected to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/libyan-man-describes-horrific-experience-of-being-waterboarded-by-us-troops-2012-9">waterboarding</a>.
In 2008 Kiriakou confirmed that name of the chief of the CIA's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476_pf.html">Rendition, Detention, Interrogation (RDI) teams</a> to ABC journalist Matthew Cole, and confirmed the role of another CIA employee in classified activities regarding "black sites."
"He gave names with that expectation that they be contacted and may choose to speak about it," Kiriakou's lawyer, Robert Trout, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-cia-officer-given-30-month-jail-sentence-for-leaking-agents-name-2013-1#ixzz2UsCXkca3">said</a> when his client was sentenced. "Naively, he didn't appreciate that he could lose control of it."
Kiriakou is the first <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/justice-department-closes-inquiry-into-bush-torture-2012-8">and only person</a> linked to the controversial "enhanced interrogation" program to be prosecuted.

 Imprisoned CIA Torture Whistleblower Describes Prison Life In Remarkable Detail

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5102db7a69bedd2a66000015-523/cia.jpeg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="CIA" width="400" /></div>Saul Loeb/AFP</div>Former <keyword id="44293" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="CIA">CIA</keyword> officer John Kiriakou on Friday was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for leaking the name of a secret agent implicated in harsh interrogations of Al-Qaeda suspects.
Kiriakou, 47, pleaded guilty in October before a federal court as part of a plea bargain to avoid trial, acknowledging he had knowingly disclosed the name of the agent, who was working under cover at the time, to a freelance writer.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Leonie Brinkema said sternly: "Thirty months is way too light."
"This is not a case of a whistleblower. It is about a person who betrayed a very solid trust," Brinkema said.
Had the sentence not been recommended by the prosecution, the judge said she would have given Kiriakou a heavier sentence. The 30-month prison term is to be followed by three years of supervised release.
Kiriakou worked for the CIA from 1990 to 2004, and made headlines in a 2007 ABC television interview in which he confirmed for the first time that Abu Zubaydah, a top Al-Qaeda detainee, had been subjected to waterboarding.
The interrogation technique, a form of simulated drowning, has been widely denounced as torture.
Kiriakou's lawyer Robert Trout said his client was concerned about the interrogation practice and had no intention to cause harm to the United States or any person.
"He gave names with that expectation that they be contacted and may choose to speak about it. Naively, he didn't appreciate that he could lose control of it," he said.
"This morning I was sentenced to 30 months of prison for a crime to which I had pleaded guilty," Kiriakou told reporters on leaving the court. "I want to say that I come out of court positive, confident,and optimistic."
<div class="nc_footer">
SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-whistleblower-kiriakou-pleads-guilty-2012-10#ixzz2J17ijVrZ">Ex-CIA Officer Will Go To Prison For Outing A Chief Of Bush-Era Torture Program</a> 
</div>
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You Searched For "abu zubaydah" and got 14 results

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These 7 Men Owned The Company Linked To CIA Torture

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