Misplaced Pages

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81-517: The Disposition Matrix , informally known as a kill list , is a database of information for tracking, capturing, rendering , or killing suspected enemies of the United States. Developed by the Obama administration beginning in 2010, it goes beyond existing kill lists and is intended to become a permanent fixture of U.S. policy. The process determining the criteria for killing is not public and

162-536: A CIA black site in Poland, and tortured. Torture is banned under the European Convention on Human Rights , which 46 nations, including Poland, have pledged to uphold. By 2004, critics alleged that torture was used against subjects with the knowledge or acquiescence of the United States, where the transfer of a person for the purpose of torture is unlawful. In addition, some former detainees, such as

243-552: A comparable position in the last 20 years". The database's creation also accompanied an expansion of the drone fleet, turning the CIA into a "paramilitary force" according to The Washington Post . It is associated with increased Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operations in Africa, and increased JSOC involvement in forming kill lists. The database has unified originally separate but overlapping kill lists maintained by both JSOC and

324-601: A day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons—referred to in classified documents as "black sites", which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe. Following mounting scrutiny in Europe, including investigations held by

405-574: A media blitz and claimed that the allegations made by Alexandrovna and Dastych were "...   part of the domestic political battle in the US over who is to succeed current Republican President George W Bush," according to the German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur." The United States has also been accused of operating " floating prisons " to house and transport those arrested in its War on Terror , according to human rights lawyers. They have claimed that

486-434: A necessary part of what we do". Paul R. Pillar , the former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorism center, has stated, "We are looking at something that is potentially indefinite". The database's existence was revealed in a three-part series published by The Washington Post . We can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us ... It's a necessary part of what we do. . . . We're not going to wind up in 10 years in

567-451: A no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.' Both the Bush and Clinton cases involved apprehending known terrorists abroad, by covert means if necessary. The Bush administration expanded the policy after the 9/11 attacks . In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer , an author of

648-566: A potential defendant in a lawsuit by Khaled El-Masri . Jeppesen was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on 30 May 2007, on behalf of several other individuals who were allegedly subject to extraordinary rendition. The suit was dismissed on 8 September 2010 by a federal appeals court because "going forward would reveal state secrets". In 2005, The Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published revelations concerning CIA flights and " black sites ", covert prisons operated by

729-590: A press conference in January 2006, he stated "he was personally convinced the US had undertaken illegal activities in Europe in transporting and detaining prisoners." Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame Warsame was captured April 19, 2011, aboard a fishing vessel transiting the Gulf of Aden in international waters between Yemen and Somalia by Navy SEALs of SEAL Team 6 . The Seals were on in Navy fast boats hidden behind

810-482: A principal architect of the "Disposition Matrix", stated in April 2012 that "in order to ensure that our counterterrorism operations involving the use of lethal force are legal, ethical, and wise, President Obama has demanded that we hold ourselves to the highest possible standards and processes". The Obama administration 's drone program received approval from Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney during

891-640: A report, regarding the allegations of CIA flights, on 13 December 2005, the rapporteur and Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Swiss councillor Dick Marty , concluded: "The elements we have gathered so far tend to reinforce the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees—outside all judicial procedure—in European countries." In

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972-579: A secret arrangement was made in Brussels by all members of NATO . Lord George Robertson , British defense secretary and later NATO's secretary-general, would later explain NATO members agreed to provide "blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other allies' aircraft for military flights related to operations against terrorism." On 23 October 2006, the New Yorker reported that Jeppesen ,

1053-448: A subsidiary of Boeing , handled the logistical planning for the CIA's extraordinary rendition flights. The allegation is based on information from an ex-employee who quoted Bob Overby, managing director of the company as saying "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights—you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way. It certainly pays well." The article went on to suggest that this may make Jeppesen

1134-456: A task force to provide recommendations about processes to prevent rendition torture. His administration distanced itself from some of the harshest counterterrorism techniques but permitted the practice of rendition to continue, restricting transport of suspects to countries with jurisdiction over them for the purpose of prosecution after diplomatic assurances "that they [would] not be treated inhumanely" had been received. Rendition , in law,

1215-467: A third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States -led program used during the War on Terror , which had the purpose of circumventing the source country's laws on interrogation , detention , extradition and/or torture . Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction , but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country. Extraordinary rendition began under

1296-587: A vehicle with explosives. As reported previously, United States citizens may be listed as targets for killing in the database. Suspects are not formally charged of any crime nor offered a trial in their defense. Obama administration lawyers have asserted that U.S. citizens alleged to be members of Al Qaeda and said to pose an "imminent threat of violent attack" against the United States may be killed without judicial process. The legal arguments of U.S. officials for this policy were leaked to NBC News in February 2013, in

1377-484: A violation of US law. New York attorney Marc D. Falkoff stated that such evidence, i.e. transfer for the purposes of torture, was an operational practice. In a court filing, Falkoff described a classified prisoner transfer memo from Guantanamo as noting that information could not be retrieved, as torture could not be used, and recommending that the prisoner be sent to a nation that practiced torture. The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that extraordinary rendition

1458-467: A wooden ship and stealthily boarded Warsame's boat. The SEALs subdued Warsame and his associate without a shot being fired. He was later transferred, held, and interrogated in military custody aboard the USS ; Boxer for two months. Several days later, he was given a Miranda warning by civilian officials, who proceeded to question him and then had him flown to New York , arriving July 5, where he

1539-621: A world of everybody holding hands and saying, 'We love America.' – Unnamed senior Obama administration official, The Washington Post , 23 October 2012. The creation of the Disposition Matrix database is part of an effort embraced by White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan to codify the targeted killing policies developed by President Barack Obama . Under the George W. Bush administration , Brennan served as top aide to CIA director George Tenet , where he defended

1620-450: Is a transfer of persons from one jurisdiction to another, and the act of handing over, both after legal proceedings and according to law. "Extraordinary rendition," however, is a rendition that is extralegal, i.e. outside the law (see: kidnapping ). Rendition refers to the transfer; the apprehension, detention, interrogation, and any other practices occurring before and after the movement and exchange of extrajudicial prisoners do not fall into

1701-405: Is only one meaning that can be gleaned from this short passage," the petition says. "The government believes that Mr. Ahmad has information that it wants but that it cannot extract without torturing him." The petition goes on to say that because torture is not allowed at Guantanamo, "the recommendation is that Mr. Ahmad should be sent to another country where he can be interrogated under torture." In

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1782-474: Is systematically monitored, stored, and analyzed". Greenwald concludes that the Disposition Matrix has established "simultaneously a surveillance state and a secretive, unaccountable judicial body that analyzes who you are and then decrees what should be done with you, how you should be "disposed" of, beyond the reach of any minimal accountability or transparency". Former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer Philip Giraldi has criticized

1863-720: The Los Angeles Times in 2005 seems to corroborate the claims of "torture by proxy." It mentions the attorneys for Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmad , a detainee held by the Pentagon at Guantanamo Bay, filed a petition to prevent his being transferred to foreign countries. According to the petition's description of a redacted classified Defense Department memo from 2004, its contents say "officials suggested sending Ahmad to an unspecified foreign country that employed torture in order to increase chances of extracting information from him." Mr Falkoff, representing Ahmad, continued: "There

1944-494: The 11 September 2001 attacks the United States, in particular the CIA , has been accused of rendering hundreds of people suspected by the government of being terrorists—or of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations—to third-party states such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. Such " ghost detainees " are kept outside judicial oversight, often without ever entering US territory, and may or may not ultimately be transferred to

2025-420: The 2011 Libyan civil war show that the CIA and MI6 rendered suspects to Libyan authorities knowing they would be tortured. In a number of cases, such as those of Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar , suspects caught up in the procedure suffered lengthy detentions, despite ultimately being found innocent. The CIA reportedly launched an investigation into such incidents of " erroneous rendition ". Following

2106-601: The Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib , claimed to have been transferred to other countries for interrogation under torture. In December 2005, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted: The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured. Between 2001 and 2005, CIA officers captured an estimated one hundred fifty people and transported them around

2187-558: The National Counterterrorism Center plays a greater role in determining targets, which they generate at the request of the White House. The criteria and decisions determining who may be targeted for killing are developed in large part by John Brennan, who "wields enormous power in shaping decisions on 'kill' lists and the allocation of armed drones". Targets are reviewed every three months with input from

2268-878: The Swiss State Councillor Dick Marty who released a public report in June 2006, the US Senate , in December 2005, was about to approve a measure that would include amendments requiring the Director of National Intelligence to provide regular, detailed updates about secret detention facilities maintained by the United States overseas, and to account for the treatment and condition of each prisoner. Media reports describe suspects as being arrested, blindfolded, shackled, and sedated, or otherwise kidnapped , and transported by private jet or other means to

2349-630: The United Nations Convention Against Torture . A large majority of the European Union Parliament endorsed the report's conclusion that many member states tolerated illegal actions by the CIA, criticizing several European governments and intelligence agencies for their unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation. Within days of his 2009 inauguration, Barack Obama signed an executive order opposing rendition torture and established

2430-616: The government of the United Kingdom is "guilty of breaking international law if it knowingly allowed secret CIA "rendition" flights of terror suspects to land at UK airports, according to a report by American legal scholars." According to Raw Story , the Polish site identified by reporter Larisa Alexandrovna and Polish intelligence officer David Dastych is Stare Kiejkuty . In response to these allegations, former Polish intelligence chief, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski , embarked on

2511-450: The security forces at Aviano Air Base at the time of the abduction. In 2007, Nasr's lawyer said Egypt had released him and he was back with his family. In 2009, an Italian judge convicted 22 suspected or known CIA agents, a U.S. Air Force (USAF) colonel, and two Italian secret agents of the kidnapping. These were the first legal convictions in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. A story in

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2592-532: The 2012 U.S. presidential elections. Robert M. Chesney has written for the Lawfare blog that "it certainly is a good thing to create an information management tool that makes certain that officials across agencies and departments can have real-time, comprehensive understanding of the options available (practically, legally, diplomatically, etc.) in the event specific persons turn up in specific places". He has also argued that The Washington Post article describing

2673-602: The CIA and JSOC, before being passed on to top officials in the NCTC, CIA, JSOC, the National Security Council, Pentagon, and U.S. State Department . Ultimately, the authority to kill a suspect outside Pakistan must be approved by the President. The review process also allows the killing of individuals whose identities are unknown, but who are thought to be engaged in certain activities, for instance packing

2754-602: The CIA and whose existence is denied by the US government. The European Parliament published a report in February 2007 concerning the use of such secret detention centers and extraordinary rendition ( See below ). These detention centers violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the UN Convention Against Torture , treaties that all EU member states are bound to follow. According to ABC News two such facilities, in countries mentioned by Human Rights Watch, have been closed following

2835-507: The CIA in Europe—thus qualifying as ghost detainees—and then rendered to a country where they may have been tortured. Marty qualified the sequestration of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (aka "Abu Omar") in Milan in February 2003 as a "perfect example of extraordinary rendition." ( See below: Council of Europe investigation and its two reports ) The Guardian reported on 5 December 2005, that

2916-423: The CIA on European Union soil with the cooperation of Council of Europe members and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centers (" black sites "), some located in Europe. According to the separate European Parliament report of February 2007 , the CIA has conducted 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture, in violation of Article 3 of

2997-416: The CIA to seek 'assurances' from foreign governments that rendered suspects won't be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was 'not sure' if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed. Scheuer testified in 2007 before Congress that no such assurances were received. He acknowledged that treatment of prisoners may not have been "up to U.S. standards": This is a matter of no concern as

3078-411: The CIA to the U.S. Department of Defense, while Dianne Feinstein has expressed doubt that the Pentagon would take the same level of care to avoid collateral damage . An American journalist and Syrian Civil War war correspondent Bilal Abdul Kareem reported drone assassination attempts by the U.S. military, which killed random civilians that were present nearby, including two attacks on vehicles he

3159-492: The CIA, and was originally proposed by former NCTC director Michael Leiter . The Disposition Matrix database catalogues biographies, locations, associates, and affiliations of suspects. It also catalogues strategies for finding, capturing, or killing suspects, or subjecting them to extraordinary rendition . As of 2012, the database continued to direct U.S. operations in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Somalia and Yemen , and

3240-596: The Rendition Program's goal was to protect America. The rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes. Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive ( PDD 39 ), the CIA elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian Mukhabarat . (→ Tal'at Fu'ad Qasim ) The CIA

3321-525: The Swiss senator Dick Marty as a "perfect example of extraordinary rendition". Abu Omar was kidnapped as he walked to his mosque in Milan for noon prayers. He was transported on a Learjet (using the call sign SPAR 92) to Ramstein , Germany. SPAR (Special Air Resources) is the call sign used by US senior military officers and civilian VIPs for airlift transport. A second plane took him to Cairo , where he

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3402-723: The U.S. for trial. A 2018 report by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament found the United Kingdom , specifically MI5 and MI6 , to be complicit in many of the renditions carried out by the U.S., by helping to fund them, by supplying intelligence, and by knowingly allowing the abductions to happen. In July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the government of Poland for participating in CIA extraordinary rendition, ordering Poland to pay restitution to men who had been abducted, taken to

3483-649: The UK's Houses of Parliament that his life and those of his friends and relatives are at risk due to his reported presence on the list. Criticizing strikes organized under the aegis of the database, the World Socialist Web Site has written that "the great majority of those killed in Pakistan are targeted for resisting the US occupation of neighboring Afghanistan, while in Yemen they are killed for opposing

3564-413: The US has tried to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. Although no credible information to support these assertions has ever come to light, the alleged justification for prison ships is primarily to remove the ability for jihadists to target a fixed location to facilitate the escape of high value targets, commanders, operations chiefs etc. Khalid El-Masri (born 1963) is a German citizen who

3645-519: The US-backed regime there". Regarding the effect of the database in the United States, the site has written that "the Obama administration has arrogated to itself the most extreme power that can be asserted by any dictatorship—that of ordering citizens put to death without presenting charges against them, much less proving them in a court of law". They later criticized the relative silence in the media and

3726-652: The abduction. Photos of Robert (Bob) Lady and other defendants surfaced on the Web. Marco Mancini , the SISMI director of anti-terrorism and counterespionage, and Gustavo Pignero, the department's director in 2003, have been arrested on charges of complicity in a kidnapping, with the aggravating circumstances of abuse of power . Italian judges have issued 26 EU arrest warrants for U.S. citizens in connection with this event. A judge also issued arrest warrants for four Americans, three CIA agents and an Air Force officer who commanded

3807-453: The administration assumes the right to judge and execute anyone without bothering about such minor things as proper court hearings, or the right of the accused person for proper legal defense". It has accused the Obama administration of violating U.S. principles of due process , stating, "the fact that such operations clearly violate the principles propagated by the U.S. itself, like the right of everyone for legal defense, does not seem to bother

3888-434: The administration of President Bill Clinton and continued under the administration of President George W. Bush . Hundreds of " illegal combatants " were abducted for U.S. detention, and transported detainees to U.S.-controlled sites as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture . Extraordinary rendition continued under the Obama administration , with targets being interrogated and subsequently taken to

3969-766: The administration". Speaking at Harvard Law School on 25 October 2012, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism, Ben Emmerson , stated that he would launch "an investigation unit within the special procedures of the Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks". Emmerson and Christof Heyns , UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, have described some U.S. drone attacks as war crimes . Emmerson said that U.S. drone strikes may have violated international humanitarian law . John Hudson, writing in The Atlantic Wire , has raised

4050-574: The administration's use of extraordinary rendition , enhanced interrogation , and torture by definition according to international standards. Brennan's association with the CIA's interrogation program was controversial and forced him to withdraw his candidacy for directorship of the CIA or National Intelligence in 2008. According to The New York Times , Brennan was the "principal coordinator" of U.S. kill lists. Former Obama administration counter-terrorism official Daniel Benjamin has stated that Brennan "probably had more power and influence than anyone in

4131-564: The camp, 300 of whom are special operations personnel. One terrorism suspect on the Disposition Matrix is Somali citizen Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame , who is currently a prisoner of the United States being held in New York . I tend to do what I think is right. But I find much more comfort, I guess, in the views and values of this president. – John O. Brennan in August 2012. The Washington Post , 24 October 2012. The database eliminates

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4212-452: The case, while Berlusconi 's government has denied any knowledge of a kidnapping plot. Just after the 2006 Italian general elections , Roberto Castelli ( Lega Nord ), outgoing Justice Minister, declared to Italian prosecutors that he had not passed the extradition request to the US. In 2005, The Washington Post reported Italian court documents which showed that the CIA tried to mislead Italian anti-terrorism police who were looking for

4293-419: The cleric at the time. Robert S. Lady, the CIA's substation chief in Milan, has been implicated in the abduction. In a written opinion upholding the arrest warrant, judge Enrico Manzi wrote that the evidence taken from Lady's home "removes any doubt about his participation in the preparatory phase of the abduction." Lady, however, alleged that the evidence had been gathered illegally, and has denied involvement in

4374-405: The concern that from a semantic perspective, the term "Disposition Matrix" sanitizes and perhaps obscures the more descriptive phrase "kill list". The United States Senate is split over how to handle the issue, with Democrats urging the creation of a special court to review the matrix. Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain called for control of all armed drones to be transferred from

4455-543: The custody of the United States. According to a 4 December 2005 article in The Washington Post by Dana Priest : Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be

4536-417: The destination country. The reports also say that the rendering countries have provided interrogators with lists of questions. Detainees, referred to as enemy combatants by the US administration, were commonly hooded and tethered to the floor of cargo planes during flights. As their movement was restricted by shackles they were required to wear diapers during the entire duration of flights. On 4 October 2001,

4617-458: The disposition matrix's "everyday" killing of targets with what he calls "little or no evidence", leaving the White House "completely unaccountable". Giraldi later commented that Brennan "feels the [drone] program has run its course as a CIA operation". In April 2016, peace worker and tribal elder Malik Jalal , who appears to have been targeted by repeated drone strikes, was invited to the United Kingdom (UK) by Ken Macdonald in order to explain to

4698-464: The form of briefing papers summarizing legal memos from October 2011. U.S. officials have described the Disposition Matrix as legally and morally sound, and The Washington Post has written that "internal doubts about the effectiveness of the drone campaign are almost nonexistent". U.S. President Barack Obama has called the decision to kill U.S. citizen and terrorism suspect Anwar al-Awlaki "an easy one", and shares counterterrorism views with Brennan,

4779-525: The host government ... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel , Lloyd Cutler , demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa . Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: 'Lloyd says this. Dick says that.' Gore laughed and said, 'That's

4860-424: The initial captor allows the possibility of torture by releasing the prisoner into the custody of nations that practice torture. The next distinction of degree is that of intent, where much of the search for evidence continues. It has been alleged that some of those detainees have been tortured with the knowledge, acquiescence, or even participation of US agencies. A transfer of anyone to anywhere for torture would be

4941-449: The political establishment following the revelation. In 2016, New York Daily News journalist Gersh Kuntzman has criticized the U.S. government's drone assassination program, and has even implied that the Obama administration may be guilty of war crimes . Describing the criteria for killing established by the database and drone program, Voice of Russia has written that "in essence, this means that based on intelligence evidence,

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5022-421: The principal architect of the criteria used when making suspects targets in the database. Referring to President Obama's view of drone strikes, Brennan has stated, "I don't think we've had a disagreement". U.S. officials speaking to The Washington Post seemed "confident that they have devised an approach that is so bureaucratically, legally and morally sound that future administrations will follow suit". Brennan,

5103-567: The prior system of dual (but not judicial) scrutiny by both The Pentagon and the National Security Council , instead using a "streamlined" system in which suspects were designated by multiple agencies and ultimately presented to Brennan. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , responsible for carrying out orders to kill suspects on the list, no longer contributes to the decision of whether or not to kill them. Instead,

5184-639: The program falsely implies that it has been associated with a change in U.S. counter-terrorism policy. According to research by the RAND Corporation , "drone strikes are associated with decreases in both the frequency and the lethality of militant attacks overall and in IED and suicide attacks specifically". The number of US drone strikes significantly increased under the Trump administration . Anyone who thought U.S. targeted killing outside of armed conflict

5265-587: The publicity. CIA officers say the captives were relocated to the North African desert. All but one of these 11 high-value al Qaeda prisoners were subjected to torture by the CIA, sometimes referred to as " enhanced interrogation techniques " authorized for use by about 14 CIA officers. In January 2005, Swiss senator Dick Marty , representative at the Council of Europe in charge of the European investigations, concluded that 100 people had been kidnapped by

5346-687: The rendering countries. Critics have accused the CIA of employing rendition for the purpose of circumventing American laws mandating due process and prohibiting torture , labeling the practice "torture flights". Sociological comparisons have been drawn between extraordinary rendition and the death flights implemented, most notably, by Argentina during the 1960s and 1970s. Defenders of the practice argue that culturally informed and native-language interrogations are more successful in gaining information from suspects. Hundreds of documents retrieved from Libyan foreign ministry offices in Tripoli following

5427-707: The rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted: In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt , making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally – including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea ... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.' Technically, U.S. law requires

5508-463: The requirement of due process before a death sentence is being proven conclusively wrong". It has also filed freedom of information requests regarding the database and filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Glenn Greenwald has written that "the central role played by the NCTC in determining who should be killed [is] rather odious ... the NCTC operates a gigantic data-mining operation, in which all sorts of information about innocent Americans

5589-663: The strict definition of extraordinary rendition . In practice, the term is widely used to describe such practices, particularly the initial apprehension. This latter usage extends to the transfer of suspected terrorists by the US to countries known to torture prisoners or employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture. The Bush administration freely admitted to this practice; stating, among other provisions, that they have specifically asked that torture not be used. However, torture can still occur despite these provisions, and much documentation exists alleging that it has happened in many cases. In these instances,

5670-570: The will of the American people," and Senator Susan Collins stated that captured foreign nationals "should be tried in a military commission, not a federal civilian court in New York or anywhere else in our country". In December 2011 Warsame pleaded guilty to nine terrorism charges and provided valuable intelligence information. This Somali biographical article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This naval article

5751-630: The world. Under the Bush administration , rendered persons were reported to have undergone torture by receiving countries. Journalists, civil and constitutional rights groups, and former detainees have alleged that this occurred with the knowledge or cooperation of the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom. Such revelations prompted several official investigations into alleged secret detentions and unlawful interstate transfers involving Council of Europe members. A June 2006 report estimated that one hundred people had been kidnapped by

5832-413: Was a narrow, emergency-based exception to the requirement of due process before a death sentence is being proven conclusively wrong. – The American Civil Liberties Union , 23 October 2012. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has condemned the database, writing in a press release that "anyone who thought U.S. targeted killing outside of armed conflict was a narrow, emergency-based exception to

5913-469: Was detained for four months in the " Salt Pit ", the CIA finally admitted his arrest was a mistake and released him. He is believed to be among an estimated 3,000 detainees, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, whom the CIA captured from 2001 to 2005, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. In 2003, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (aka "Abu Omar") was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan (Italy), and deported to Egypt. His case has been characterized by

5994-542: Was developed during the Clinton administration . CIA officials in the mid-1990s were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East , particularly Al Qaeda . According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke : 'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of

6075-704: Was expected to facilitate expanded operations in Algeria , Egypt , Mali , Libya , Iran , and throughout east Africa. A clear example of the expansion of targeted killing as managed by the database is the U.S. military base in Djibouti City, Djibouti , near Somalia . Called Camp Lemonnier and originally created by the French Foreign Legion , the camp has transformed into the largest overseas U.S. drone base outside of Afghanistan. About 3,200 U.S. soldiers, contractors and civilians are assigned to

6156-551: Was granted permission to use rendition of indicted terrorists to American soil in a 1995 presidential directive signed by President Bill Clinton , following a procedure established by George H. W. Bush in January 1993. The United States has since increasingly used rendition as a tool in the " war on terror ", ignoring the normal extradition processes outlined in international law. Suspects taken into United States custody are delivered to third-party states, often without ever having been on United States soil, and without involving

6237-399: Was heavily shaped by National Counterterrorism Director and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John O. Brennan . Though White House , National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and CIA spokespeople have declined to comment on the database, officials have stated privately that kill lists will expand "for at least another decade", if not indefinitely. One official stated "it's

6318-511: Was imprisoned and, he claims, tortured. In 2005, the Italian judge Guido Salvini issued a warrant for the arrest of 13 persons said to be agents or operatives of the CIA in association with Nasr's kidnapping. In December 2005, an Italian court issued a European arrest warrant against 22 CIA agents suspected of this kidnapping (including Robert Seldon Lady , Eliana Castaldo , Lt. Col. Joseph L. Romano , III, etc. ). The CIA has not commented on

6399-617: Was indicted by a grand jury and held for trial. Several American political figures have objected to his appearing in Federal court instead of being sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for a military tribunal . Representative Howard McKeon , chairman of the United States House Committee on Armed Services , said transferring Warsame out of Guantanamo "directly contradicts Congressional intent and

6480-476: Was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police , and handed over to the U.S. CIA . While in CIA custody, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was allegedly held in a black site , interrogated, beaten, strip-searched, sodomized, and subjected to other inhuman and degrading treatment , which at times escalated to torture, though none of those claims can be verified. After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and

6561-515: Was traveling in, including one where the car he was sitting in was blown up by a missile shot from a drone. In 2017, he filed a lawsuit against the United States government in the District of Columbia , claiming they had attempted to assassinate him, and requesting his removal from the Disposition Matrix. Extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping in another jurisdiction and transfer to

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