(WASHINGTON) \u2014 CIA Director-designate John Brennan\u2019s vigorous defense of drone strikes to kill terror suspects \u2014 even American citizens \u2014 overseas is causing key lawmakers to consider lifting secrecy from what has become an important weapon in the fight against al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n
Brennan, President Barack Obama\u2019s top counterterror adviser, was grilled for more than three hours Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the drone program he leads, as well as on the CIA\u2019s harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration, which he denounced, and on leaks of classified information to the media, which Brennan vehemently denied being a part of.<\/p>\n
Despite Brennan\u2019s wide-ranging testimony and the White House\u2019s release of a top secret memo explaining its legal rationale for the strikes just hours before the confirmation hearing began, some senators said afterward it was time to bring the drone program into the open.<\/p>\n
In a hearing that was interrupted by anti-drone protests that brought it to a brief halt and forced Capitol Hill security to empty the room of all but credentialed staff and media, Brennan told the committee that missile strikes by the unmanned drones are used only against targets planning to carry out attacks against the United States, never as retribution for an earlier one. \u201cNothing could be further from the truth,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
Read more: http:\/\/swampland.time.com\/2013\/02\/08\/lawmakers-consider-regulating-drone-strikes\/#ixzz2KK2Jbnmo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(WASHINGTON) \u2014 CIA Director-designate John Brennan\u2019s vigorous defense of drone strikes to kill terror suspects \u2014 even American citizens \u2014 overseas is causing key lawmakers to consider lifting secrecy from what has become an important weapon in the fight against al-Qaeda. Brennan, President Barack Obama\u2019s top counterterror adviser, was grilled for more than three hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-important-news-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34036,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34035\/revisions\/34036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}