Former CIA Director: Obama Has Crossed the Line
The Page by Mark Halperin — Getty Porter Goss pens WashPost op-ed condemning the Obama administration for releasing CIA memos. "We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now."

Porter J. Goss on Capitol Hill Democrats. [JHoward]
protein wisdom — From the Washington Post : Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. [...] Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans ...

Porter Goss speaks
Power Line — ... What are we to do while the president of the United States impairs the national security of the country through a transparent political charade? Former CIA director Porter Goss was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004. He hasn't been heard from much since he was driven out of the CIA in May 2006. In today's Washington Post, he steps from the shadows to call the Obama Democrats on their little game: ...

Porter Goss calls the Democrats bluff
USS Neverdock — Democrats are playing politics with our security.

How Porter Goss would testify
Betsy's Page — If they hold the congressional hearings that they seem set to hold on the CIA's interrogation techniques, expect Porter Goss, as a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and former head of the CIA, to be called to testify about what the top congressional members who were briefed on the techniques were told. And he has a column in today's Washington Post indicating that ...

War and Piece — Go read Porter Goss oped on the Gang of Four being briefed in 2002 on the the CIA's High Value Terrorist Program: A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced ...

On putting security before politics
Hyscience — ... Former CIA Director from September 2004 to May 2006 and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004 is obviously fed up with the selective amnesia by Democrats in Congress on the enhanced interrogation techniques and is all but shouting out his "slack-jawed" dismay (emphasis mine): ...

Porter Goss' Campaign Against Harman And Pelosi: It's About Torture
TalkLeft — ... It seems more likely than ever that the campaign against Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) that we have seen unfold, day after day, principally in the publication CQ, is emanating from former CIA Director Porter Goss and his acolytes. Today Goss goes public with his campaign, and adds Speaker Pelosi to his list of targets. (See also ...

Stabbing Valerie Plame
Six Meat Buffet — ... We know the Leftists in charge of subverting our country were very concerned about Dear Val.  So how do you reconcile Porter Goss’s comments in today’s Washington Post? ...

Torture - It's Illegal
Newshoggers.com — Commentary By Ron Beasley There are those who believe waterboarding was effective, there are those who don't.  At this point neither side will change their minds.  Today former CIA director Porter Goss claims that the release of the torture memos will hurt cooperation in the WOT. We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist. Yesterday counselor of the State Department from 2005 to 2006 and the executive director of the 9/11 commission, Philip Zelikow, said ...

Let’s Not Make Torture a Partisan Issue
Firedoglake — cia.gov Porter Goss, head of the CIA when the tapes of Abu Zubayda being tortured were destroyed, appears to be attacking Jane Harman in the Washington Post today:  I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed ...

TPMDC Saturday Roundup
TPM Election Central — ... Former CIA Director Porter Goss, who is also a former GOP Congressman, has a new op-ed piece in the Washington Post today, lambasting the Obama White House for releasing the torture memos. "I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage," Goss writes. "We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now." ...

Selective Memory
Neptunus Lex — Porter Goss suspects it: A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation’s intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s “High Value Terrorist Program,” including the development of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between ...

Former CIA director lashes out at administration
News — ... Former CIA Director Porter Goss penned a strongly worded op-ed in the Washington Post today, lambasting the administration for releasing the so-called "torture memos" and for hinting that it's open to prosecuting the architects of post-9/11 interrogation policy. "We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets," Goss wrote. "Americans have to decide now." Goss's thoughts are particularly interesting because of his past role as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He ridiculed Nancy Pelosi's claim–without naming her specifically–to ...

Former CIA director Porter Goss cannot believe the way members of Congress are pretending they don't remember briefings on enhanced interrogation.
Althouse — It's blatant political posturing — and it has hurt our national security: They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately... and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have. ... The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: ...

Porter Goss Wow
Weekly Standard Blog — In a powerful op-ed in today’s Washington Post, the former House intelligence committee chairman and CIA director slams the administration and his former colleagues on the Hill: I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. . . . Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of ...

Beyond Barney; Democrats are Regular Disrememberers
GayPatriot — ... As Porter Goss, then c hairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reminds us, “On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.“   No wonder he finds that, “A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill.” ...

Security Before Politics
Pirate's Cove — Continuing the theme of President Pantywaist, former CIA Director Porter Goss shows his displeasure at what the Obama admin and the Congressional Democrats Defeatocrats are attempting to pull: Security Before Politics Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can’t have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now. A disturbing epidemic of ...

From Baghdad to Alaska, Weekend Love Fest
Notes From a Grumpy Old Man — Porter Goss Bruce Bartlett "If You Think It's About Greed, You Don't Know Me" - Al Gore "We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets." - Porter Goss "Protestors need to do a better job of figuring out what they are protesting and devise a real plan for dealing with our nation’s fiscal problem." - Bruce Bartlett craigslist > casual encounters > warning & disclaimer Unless all of the following points are true, please use your "back" button ...

Porter Goss: Democrats Are Full Of Crap On Enhanced Interogations
Ace of Spades HQ — Ex-CIA Chief And Head Of House Intelligence Committee Porter Goss: Democrats Are Full Of Crap On Enhanced Interogations Nothing like watching Democrats pretend to be shocked! shocked! that prisoners weren't be treated as honored house guests . Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not ...

Porter Goss’s Dishonest Attack on Congress
Comments from Left Field — It’s infuriating, but it’s entertaining, to watch the same people who spent the better part of the last eight years using lies, secrecy, deception, political maneuvering, and outright intimidation to run a global torture regime on foreign alleged terrorists, alongside a domestic illegal surveillance program on U.S. citizens, pen op-eds in major media outlets attacking Congress for not doing enough to stop them, now that their lawlessness has been publicly revealed. Exhibit A: former CIA Director Porter Goss’s overwrought piece in today’s Washington Post: Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three ...

Porter Goss’s Dishonest Attack on Congress
The Moderate Voice — It’s infuriating, but it’s entertaining, to watch the same people who spent the better part of the last eight years using lies, secrecy, deception, political maneuvering, and outright intimidation to run a global torture regime on foreign alleged terrorists, alongside a domestic illegal surveillance program on U.S. citizens, pen op-eds in major media outlets attacking Congress for not doing enough to stop them, now that their lawlessness has been publicly revealed. Exhibit A: former CIA Director Porter Goss’s overwrought piece in today’s Washington Post: Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have ...

Former CIA Director Is Slack-Jawed
Politics Daily — Filed under: Nancy Pelosi, InvestigationsJ Porter Goss slams Pelosi and others for recent mis-allocation of their own memory. washingtonpost.com Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid ...

Saturday reading: Lobbyists
Ben Smith's Blog — The DNC rubs in NY-20. Gerstein explains why the torture "story" isn't subject to the usual political tactics. Porter Goss unloads. Bybee has regrets. A military interrogator condemns torture. Clinton goes to Baghdad. Joe Klein says Jones is fine. Lobbyists lobby against lobbying rules (.pdf). A freed pirate hostage goes after Rush. And that Whiteboard ain't going to write itself.

Conservatives Torn on Interrogation ‘Truth Commission’
Pajamas Media — Visions of Nancy Pelosi on the stand dance in Republicans' minds. [image] Conservatives are torn. On the one hand, a “truth commission” to investigate enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration would criminalize policy differences, potentially tag the Bush administration’s good faith efforts to prevent a second 9/11 as “war crimes,” and tear the country asunder. All that strikes conservatives as dangerous in the extreme. And yet … the temptation to plunge into the abyss is palpable. Tom McGuire ...

Secrecy, Democracy, and Security
Matthew Yglesias — Porter Goss writes that “We can’t have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets” and it’s time for the country to start putting “Security Before Politics” and stop holding people accountable for their illegal activities. Goss is clearly right that there’s a tension between America’s desire for a secret intelligence service and America’s desire to know what its intelligence services are doing with our money allegedly to secure our national interests. But at the same time, this is clearly a spectrum rather than a choice. There can be more and less secrecy, not “secrecy” or “no ...

Democrats are feigning "amnesia", says Porter Goss
Wizbang — Porter J. Goss, former CIA operative, US congressman, and director of the CIA from 2004 to 2006 published a Washington Post op-ed this weekend that ripped Congressional Democrats and Obama Administration officials determined to conduct a show trial of Bush-era CIA officials over their use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Al Qaeda prisoners: A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher ...

The Worm Turns
Megan McArdle — ... In related news, Porter Goss says that members of Congress who are indignantly claiming they knew nothing about waterboarding, etc. were fully briefed.  This may explain the lukewarm enthusiasm for a Truth Commission.  Question:  how do the grassroots supporters of such a commission feel about it if it brings down the Democratic Party?  The Democrats who signed off on this are still in power.  The Bush administration will be long gone. ...

An Epidemic of Amnesia
Little Green Footballs — Former CIA director Porter J. Goss has a column in the Saturday Washington Post on the sudden “epidemic of amnesia” among House Democrats about harsh interrogation techniques: Security Before Politics. A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation’s intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s “High Value Terrorist Program,” including ...

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Deliberate Misrepresentation
Doug Ross @ Journal — Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email! Nation [image] A real prescription for health care : Goodman Security before politics : Goss Obama to teleprompter: "speed up" : Politico Latest from 'Banker Guy' : HH The 401K has failed? : InstaPundit Rahm's profitable gig at Freddie Mac : ChiTrib Nadler blocks invesigation into ACORN and its pawns : Moncrief Politics 100 days, 100 mistakes : Post Swine Flu: It's the GOP's Fault! : Malkin Dueling fence bills face off in Congress : Morrissey The wind in the heights : Vanderleun Democrats Set To Devour Obama : LegalIns ...

President Thinskin Whips It Out
Six Meat Buffet — ... , this panicking NYC population has voted for the very people who are making them far less safe, so it’s difficult to feel any sympathy for their plight. ...

John Wellington Ennis: Torture Finally Broke Them
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... -- thinks these really intelligent thoughts in the Washington Post: "The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us." ...

Nancy Pelosi on CIA Torture? - NO. Except…
FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog — Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez What did Democrat Speaker of the House know about CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and when did she know it? It is unclear from her public pronouncements. Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, ...

CIA Lying to ABC about Torture. Again. ABC Reporting It Uncritically. Again.
Firedoglake — photo by atencion As bmaz has reported, the CIA has sent a list of torture briefings to Crazy Pete Hoekstra on when and whom in Congress got briefed that the CIA was in the torture business. And ABC news, just off having to admit the CIA lied to them about torture in the past, has taken what the CIA gave them and treated it totally ...

Bush Failure To Disclose Waterboarding Appears To Violate Law
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — The furor over when and whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed about the use of waterboarding has distracted attention from what is, perhaps, a far more problematic revelation regarding the Bush administration's interrogation of suspected terrorists. According to the testimony of two high-ranking Democrats and recently declassified CIA and Justice Department documents, the Bush White House failed to disclose the use of waterboarding until roughly half a year after it was first deployed. Other writers -- notably Marcy Wheeler -- have picked up on this timeline. But it is worth restating and highlighting again because, if accurate, it appears to constitute a violation ...

Mark Mazzetti, the Gray Lady’s Grammar-Impaired Spook Stenographer
Firedoglake — C'mon, New York Times, don't you remember how embarrassing it was when Judy Miller was playing warmonger stenographer in 2002? Then why are you guys whoring yourself out to serve disinformation again? I'm speaking of this post on Nancy Pelosi's press conference spelling out reaaaalllyyyy slowly that the CIA lied when it briefed Pelosi and Goss on torture in 2002. When I first looked at the post, the headline said something like, "Pelosi says CIA misled Congress" (sorry, I didn't get a screen cap; I should have known) [Actually read "Pelosi: C.I.A. Misled COngress Over Waterboarding" as visible in the Google search below. --Ed.]. Now it ...

What Is Meant By "Contradict"?
JustOneMinute — ... Nancy Pelosi but they leave us wanting a dictionary with this (my emphasis): Did the editor actually re-read this before setting it loose on the world?  If Goss heard that the CIA intended to use waterboarding, how does that contradict Pelosi's version that it had not yet been used?  Surely the intention can precede the act. Here is how Hulse summarized for Friday's edition what Goss wrote in the WaPo : I am surprised that the Times descrbies as a contradiction something that, read carefully, may not be. I am fully supportive of the notion that Nancy Pelosi is daft.  ...

Pelosi's Probably Right
Swampland — ... But in looking at the substance of the accusations, it increasingly looks like she was right. Porter Goss was careful to parse his words in the ...

Porter Goss refuses to say that CIA told him and Pelosi about waterboarding in 2002 briefing.
Think Progress — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently said the CIA had “misled” her about enhanced interrogations during a 2002 briefing, never telling her that waterboarding had already been used. Former Rep. Porter Goss — the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time and who sat in the same briefing as Pelosi — defended the CIA in a Washington Post op-ed recently. However, his spokesman refused to confirm to Greg Sargent that the CIA had, in fact, told them about waterboarding in the 2002 briefing: I asked a spokesperson for Goss if he would confirm that he and Pelosi had been informed of the use of ...

you know it's bad news for the gop when even the gop won't back the gop
skippy the bush kangaroo — ... porter goss was careful to parse his words in the conditional future tense when talking about what, exactly, he and pelosi were briefed on in september 2002: ...

Porter Goss Won't Confirm Pelosi/CIA Story That He's Been Peddling
Daily Kos — Porter Goss may have helped to peddle the story that Nancy Pelosi was fully briefed on the Bush administration's torture policies, but he isn't willing to go on the record and confirm it: Porter Goss, the former GOP Congressman who was in the room with Nancy Pelosi during their 2002 CIA briefing on interrogations, is declining through a spokesperson to say whether the two of them were told that enhanced interrogation techniques had been used.  [...] I asked a spokesperson for Goss if he would confirm that he and Pelosi had been informed of the use of torture. Goss was out of town, so it took her a while to get back to me, but now she has: She ...

Victory is Mine! Time’s Swampland Says Pelosi was Right
Firedoglake — ... But in looking at the substance of the accusations, it increasingly looks like [Nancy Pelosi] was right. Porter Goss was careful to parse his words in the ...

WaPo Doubles Down on Conflict Over Truth
Firedoglake — photo courtesy of Auntie P In spite of the fact that it is becoming increasingly clear to the rest of the media that Porter Goss and Nancy Pelosi agree that they were not briefed that the CIA had already been torturing prisoners in September 2002, the WaPo has decided to double down on deliberately misreading events. The excuse the WaPo uses to ...

The CIA's Torture Untruths
Commondreams.org Views — If you've been reading the Washington DC-based press of late, you might have the impression that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is the mastermind of the US's torture regime. DC reporters have been obsessing for over a month now on the manufactured controversy of whether Pelosi was briefed by the CIA on its use of torture against suspected members of al-Qaida . The controversy, as usually presented, is not just factually wrong. The entire controversy serves to obscure a seemingly systematic attempt to claim that Democrats in congress signed off on the Bush administration's torture programme as long ago as 2002. First, let's look at ...