In 1971, I entered the full text of the top-secret Pentagon Papers – a history of how the US became mired in the swamp of the Vietnam War – into the Congressional Record, even as the Federal Bureau of Investigation was hunting for Daniel Ellsburg (who gave the papers to the New York Times) and President Richard Nixon and his Justice Department were filing injunctions against newspapers to prevent their publication. Subsequent case law affirmed that members of Congress may reveal any government “secret” to the public without fear of prosecution because of the “Speech and Debate” clause of the constitution, from which members derive their duty to inform the people about the actions of their government.

It’s time for some Senator or Congress member to do the same for the full torture report and its associated documents. There’s still too much we don’t know about what the government did in our name – and who they did it to

It should be easy to get the entire report on the record: any information held by the Congress is technically already in the record, so no one need read it in its entirety on the floor of either congressional chamber or enter it in the committee or subcommittee record, the way I had to with the Pentagon Papers. A member of Congress may hand out the information to the press or the public, so long as the distribution occurs on property associated with the Senate or House of Representatives: the constitution does not qualify how “Speech and Debate ” is exercised, only that it occur “in either House”.

But why is it necessary? The torture report released to the public was incomplete – and only a full release of the Torture Report and the million or more documents in CIA possession but which the Intelligence Committee still has access can lay bare the full horrors of what the government perpetrated in our names.

One of my specific interests is the possibility that the report (or the documents) might shed more light on what happened to Dr Aafia Siddiqui.



Siddiqui and her lawyers allege that she was arrested in 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan, after which her family says she was held and tortured in the Bagram detention center north of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Cables released by Wikileaks in 2010 indicate that, in response to inquiries in 2008, Bagram officials denied that they had been holding her.) In 2008 she was arrested in Ghanzi, Afghanistan with maps of American cities and bomb-making literature and, when American military personnel went to interrogate her, she allegedly grabbed a gun and was shot in the ensuing struggle.

Siddiqui survived the shooting and was extradited to the US to stand trial for attempting to kill an American soldier and, though prosecutors claimed she had ties to al-Quaida, she was not charged with terrorism. She was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to 86 years in prison.

Neither the CIA nor the US or Pakistani governments have adequately accounted for Siddiqui’s disappearance between 2003 and 2008 – and, as we’ve learned from even the redacted torture report, parts of our government has repeatedly show themselves willing to lie to the public and the rest of the government about what we did in that part of the world during those years.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – under the leadership of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller– acted in the finest traditions of the constitution in performing a lengthy oversight review of CIA torture practices. And though critics now attack the report as partisan, it was only made so when the Republicans withdrew their staff from participation (thereby shirking their constitutional responsibility).

In the constitution, our country’s founders obligated Congress first and foremost to inform the people about the actions of their government. Issuing laws for the public benefit is actually the second responsibility of Congress – and the third is to review the fidelity of the laws’ implementation and their effect on the public benefit.

I sincerely hope that the Senate Intelligence Committee – or some member of Cognress – will honor their primary responsibility under the constitution and finally inform the American people exactly what the government has done in their name. Releasing the full torture report is one large way for our elected officials to finally fulfill one of their primary responsibilities to both the citizens of this country and the constitution they’ve vowed to serve.

