{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/feinstein-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=1665b10c-af8c-4290-9044-6782d5d3c709", "Torture report senators triumph - Sacramento Bee", "2014-12-14", "2014", "2014-12", "Democrat", "House", "CA", "Dianne Feinstein", "F000062", "www.feinstein.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Originally appeared in the Sacramento Bee\r\nDespite dire warnings about consequences and withering attacks she would endure, Dianne Feinstein had no choice.\r\nShe felt compelled to release the Senate Intelligence Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s Detention and Interrogation Program, otherwise known as the torture report.\r\nAfter 22 years in Washington, Feinstein is the consummate insider, a middle-of-the-road Democrat known for her establishment bona fides. In this instance, she stood up to the elites, rare among politicians. It was the crowning achievement of her 50 years in public life.\r\nFeinstein was busy Thursday attending a private reception where she toasted aides who produced the report, watching CIA Director John Brennan defend his agency at a press conference while her staffers tweeted fact-checking responses, and talking by phone with Brennan. At the end of it all, she gave me a call.\r\n\u201cThe important thing is that America recognizes its mistakes and takes the steps necessary to correct them,\u201d she said. \u201cIn so many countries, that doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d\r\nIt would not have happened here, either, if she had waited. As a consequence of Republican victories in November, Feinstein no longer will be Senate Intelligence Committee chair.\r\nHer replacement, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, warned that the report \u201cendangers our officers and allies in a blatant attempt to smear the Bush administration.\u201d\r\nRep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement saying \u201cthis report will damage U.S. national security and jeopardize American lives.\u201d\r\nTorture is part of the partisan divide, alas, although not that long ago, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Convention Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment or Punishment. Apologists call what happened from 2002 to 2007 \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques,\u201d or even more Orwellian, \u201cEIT.\u201d Feinstein made clear her view by releasing the 500-page summary of the sealed 6,700-page investigation.\r\nThere\u2019s this on Page 41: \u201c\u2018So it begins,\u2019 a medical officer wrote, \u2018The sessions accelerated rapidly progressing quickly to the water board after large box, walling, and small box periods. (Abu Zubaydali) seems very resistant to the water board. Longest time with the cloth over his face so far has been 17 seconds. This is sure to increase shortly.\r\n\u201cNO useful information so far. \u2026 He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It\u2019s been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing.\u201d\r\nAnd on Page 114: \u201calNashiri launched a short-lived hunger strike, and the CIA responded by force feeding him rectally.\u201d\r\nAnd on Page 115: \u201cMajid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan\u2019s \u2018lunch tray,\u2019 consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was \u2018pureed\u2019 and rectally infused.\u201d\r\nWhat kind of pervert would imagine such treatment?\r\nDuring the five years in which the report was in the making, Feinstein and her staff faced leak investigations, dissembling, redaction, stonewalling. A few days before the report\u2019s release, Secretary of State John Kerry, the epitome of the establishment, called to impress upon Feinstein the risks entailed in releasing the report.\r\nIt\u2019s not as if ISIS terrorists were unaware of the torture, she told me. Books had been written. She was on a mission; principles were at stake. Congressional committees have oversight responsibility. She takes that seriously.\r\n\u201cWe were stiffed for so long,\u201d Feinstein said.\r\nFeinstein, at 81, is tougher than when I met her 30 years ago, though the San Francisco mayor had become hardened by the craziness of the times. She began that first interview by sternly saying she hoped I was prepared. She was getting ready for the Democratic National Convention, hosted that year in her city. No time for small talk.\r\nIn a 1994 biography, \u201cDianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See You Cry,\u201d former San Francisco Chronicle editorial page editor Jerry Roberts recounts that Feinstein had been a target of the New World Liberation Front in the middle 1970s, and that her daughter found a bomb at the family home. Feinstein began packing a .38 after the windows were shot out of her vacation house.\r\nAnd there was the awful day in November 1978, when Supervisor Feinstein tried to find a pulse in Supervisor Harvey Milk after Dan White shot him five times and assassinated Mayor George Moscone.\r\nRoberts wrote that Gov. Pat Brown in 1962 appointed her to her first government job, on a board that reviewed prison sentences. In 1966, she became part of a commission that investigated San Francisco jail conditions.\r\nThe wretched conditions she documented as she started her public life were minor compared to what she discovered as her career nears its end, though, as Roberts wrote recently, it makes an interesting narrative.\r\nOn Thursday, Brennan acknowledged that \u201cthe cause-and-effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.\u201d Feinstein believes it is known. The pragmatist said torture fails to produce useful information.\r\n\u201cIn this country, violence is glorified,\u201d she said, a reference to the facile Hollywood notion that torture works. \u201cThe problem is that violence in this area doesn\u2019t solve anything.\u201d\r\nUpon taking office, President Barack Obama banned enhanced interrogation techniques. But that\u2019s not enough. Any future president could repeal the order. Feinstein will push legislation that would enshrine the prohibition next year. Good luck in the new Congress.\r\nBurr, the incoming intelligence committee chairman, said Feinstein\u2019s torture report will be \u201ca footnote in history.\u201d Willfully forgetful leaders repeat mistakes. That\u2019s unfortunate. But it would not be for lack of effort on the part of the gutsy senator from San Francisco, whose choice was to provide a historic lesson on the good that a public servant can do.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/feinstein-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=1665b10c-af8c-4290-9044-6782d5d3c709"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8857128452509642, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}