Senators Susan Collins and Angus King should push for more details about John Brennan’s role in the U.S. government’s killing program during his confirmation hearing today to become the next CIA head, according to the ACLU of Maine. That issue, raised anew by the leak of a government white paper, is at the top of a list of longstanding concerns about what role Brennan may have played in torture, extraordinary rendition and secret prisons during his tenure at the CIA.
Sens. Collins and King will have the opportunity to question Brennan when he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee today at 2:30.
Brennan, the White House advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, has been described in the press as an architect of the Obama administration’s expansive killing program, which has left three Americans and thousands of others dead across two continents. Earlier this week, NBC News released a 16-page Justice Department white paper summarizing a much longer secret memo that reportedly lays out the government’s legal rationale for targeting and killing American citizens suspected of terrorism far from any battlefield and without due process. Under pressure, the Justice Department gave members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees the full secret memo this morning, but it has not been made public.
The following can be attributed to Rachel Healy, Communications Director at the ACLU of Maine:
“Today, Senators Collins and King have an opportunity to shine a light on the killing program and John Brennan’s role in it. The government’s legal justification for killing Americans without due process should not be a secret. We all deserve to know whether the potential leader of the CIA has been acting outside the rule of law and disregarding American values.”
