Torture Report Reveals CIA’s Manipulation of US Media

Torture Report Reveals CIA’s Manipulation of US Media

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The Senate report makes clear that CIA officials attempted to play the media like a fiddle by selectively releasing classified information about the detention and interrogation program.

“The CIA manipulated rules on classified information to serve it’s own interests,” Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said. “And the Senate report cites several examples of that.”

In fact, one of the findings of the report is quite blunt on that front:

“The CIA's Office of Public Affairs and senior CIA officials coordinated to share classified information on the CIA' s Detention and Interrogation Program to select members of the media to counter public criticism, shape public opinion, and avoid potential congressional action to restrict the CIA's … authorities and budget. These disclosures occurred when the program was a classified covert action program.”


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“We either get out and sell, or we get hammered, which has implications beyond the media. (C)ongress reads it, cuts our authorities. messes up our budget. …We either put out our story or we get eaten. [T]here is no middle ground.”

The same CIA officer explained to a colleague that "when the (Washington Post)/(New York T)imes quotes ‘senior intelligence official,’ it’s us ... authorized and directed by opa (CIA's Office of Public Affairs).”