Richard Burr in The Huffington Post

On Homeland Security: OpEd: Quashed release of report about CIA torture

As the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee--rather than exercising critical legislative oversight of the intelligence community's most controversial activities from paramilitary drone strikes to NSA bulk collection of phone records--Burr all too often is a cheerleader for whatever is going down.

No sooner had he become committee chairman this year when he staged an unheard of stunt in trying to reclaim from the executive branch copies of a classified report--revealing new evidence of torture via "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA--in order to bury it.

Thus, Burr attempted to erase from the official record the detailed report on the heinous conduct of clandestine operatives as the agency moved suspected terrorists from one black site to another around the world, while brutally mistreating them. If the declassified summary of the full report had not been published in national newspapers, there would have been no trace of what the senator has endeavored to cover up.

Source: Huffington Post coverage of 2016 North Carolina Senate race May 29, 2015

On War & Peace: We have effective oversight of CIA and drone strikes

The CIA has become a premier actor in the conduct of American foreign policy. Although President Obama has insisted that the CIA and Special Operations Forces take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties, drone strikes have resulted in numerous deaths of Pakistani, Afghan and Yemeni civilians. An investigation of American drone strikes in Yemen, for example, has concluded that the Obama administration did not follow its own rules to avoid civilian casualties.

Yet, Sen. Burr recently crowed: "I believe we do an incredibly effective oversight job on all of the CIA's programs. And there is no program that receives the level of oversight as the ones we carry out in Pakistan."

Look for Sen. Burr to go about the country pretending to know all about sensitive intelligence matters; but, alas, he is not free to discuss them. This is the perfect foil for an unaccountable public official, if he is allowed to get away with it.

Source: Huffington Post coverage of 2016 North Carolina Senate race May 29, 2015

The above quotations are from Columns and news articles on the Huffington Post blog. Click here for other excerpts from Columns and news articles on the Huffington Post blog. Click here for other excerpts by Richard Burr. Click here for a profile of Richard Burr.
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