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 Critics, including experts on the U.N. civil and political rights
panel, say the CIA program set up after the September 11, 2001
attacks on the United States included harsh interrogation methods
that constituted torture banned by international law.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee began a two-day examination of the
U.S. record on Thursday, its first scrutiny since 2006, attended by
nearly 80 activist groups.
"It would appear that a Senator Dianne Feinstein claims that the
computers of the Senate have been hacked into in the context of this
investigation," Victor Manuel Rodriguez-Rescia, a committee member
from Costa Rica, told the U.S. delegation.
"In the light of this, we would like hear a commitment that this
report will be disclosed, will be made public and therefore be
de-classified so that we the committee can really analyze what
follow-up you have given to these hearings."
Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said on Monday
the CIA may have broken the law by spying on Congress, searching
computers used by staffers researching operations including the use
of simulated drowning or waterboarding.
CIA Director John Brennan denied the agency had engaged in such
spying activities on the Senate committee.
A key issue is how the Senate committee acquired what Feinstein and
others describe as the CIA's own internal review of its
interrogation tactics and secret prisons, and its use of
"rendition", a practice by which prisoners are transferred between
countries without formal judicial process.
"ILLEGAL CONDUCT"
Activists welcomed the watchdog's efforts to shine a light on what
they say was an illegal program under President George W. Bush that
included water-boarding. The Obama administration has disowned and
condemned such methods.
"There is no reason to keep the program secret other than to protect
people involved in illegal conduct," Andrea Prasow of Human Rights
Watch told Reuters after the session.
The U.N. panel, composed of 18 independent experts, examines
compliance with a landmark international treaty on civil and
political rights ratified by the United States.
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Members grilled the U.S. delegation on a range of issues and urged
Washington to reverse its view that the pact does not apply to U.S.
facilities or officials holding suspects abroad in the context of
the U.S.-led "war on terror", including at Guantanamo Bay.
They voiced deep concerns about allegations of police brutality,
racial discrimination and profiling, the death penalty, access for
undocumented migrants to health care and civilian casualties caused
by U.S. drones in the Middle East.
"We have taken many steps to prevent torture, cruel and degrading
punishment in connection with our activities outside of the United
States," said Mary McLeod, principal deputy legal adviser at the
State Department, who leads the U.S. delegation.
Under U.S. law, all U.S. officials are banned from using torture and
the government conducts prompt and independent investigations into
allegations of mistreatment, she said.
Committee chair Nigel Rodley, a British law professor and former
U.N. investigator on torture, suggested lawyers in the Bush
administration who drew up memorandums justifying the use of harsh
interrogation techniques could also be liable.
"When evidently seriously flawed legal opinions are issued which
then are used as a cover for the committing of serious crimes, one
wonders at what point the authors of such opinions may themselves
have to be considered part of the criminal plan in the first place?"
Rodley said.
"Of course we know that so far there has been impunity."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Tom Heneghan)
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