The grassroots came together in a big way to urge Sen. Udall to take an incredibly rare opportunity to make the CIA torture report public. Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Blue America, Code Pink, CREDO, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Digby's Hullabaloo, Fight for the Future, Just Foreign Policy, The Nation, RH Reality Check, RootsAction.org, USaction, and Win Without War members responded with almost 200,000 petition signatures in a mere two weeks.

Sen. Udall’s staff assistant Genevieve Clough received the petition which was hand delivered by Shahid Buttar of Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Nathan White representing Demand Progress, Medea Benjamin and Alli McCracken representing Code Pink and Carissa Miller of Daily Kos (that’s me). Clough stated that she had been expecting us and that on behalf of Sen. Udall she was happy to see the number of supportive signatures.

As a group we reiterated our support for Sen. Udall taking what would be a historical action, as important as the Pentagon Papers released by Dan Ellsberg in 1971. Allowing the American public to see exactly how torture has been used in the past by the CIA will be a powerful argument for ensuring that torture is never used again.

Also there to help with the delivery was Greg Thielmann, Senior Fellow for the Arms Control Association and former member of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004-2009). After the delivery he spoke with us about the clear argument against torture: it doesn’t work. The American’s people perception of it has been distorted as they are told that it is necessary to get important information fast.

Torture in fact is used over the course of weeks to break a person down in hopes that toward the end he or she will give up information. And many victims of torture do give up information, to make the pain stop, in fact more than not they say whatever they think their interrogators want to hear just to escape the hellish conditions they are living through. Which means that not only does it not result in quick intel, it also results in bad intel.

Sen. Udall can make sure these inhumane, ineffective practices are never used by the CIA again. Our message to him: Before leaving office, please submit the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report to the Congressional Record. We know that you are considering undertaking this heroic and courageous act, and we and countless others will support you if you choose to do so.