Parsing the dark side

Recently the Central Intelligence Agency made news with a high profile announcement about “black sites” and interrogation methods.

CIA, as always, used very careful language:

CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the remaining sites…

This seems to make it clear that there remain such sites, that the CIA doesn’t believe it is the operating authority of them, but they do seem to believe they have the authority or at least influence to decommission them (this may be a red herring). It seems notable to mention that it has been a long-standing practice, before these apparently post-9/11 black sites, for the United States to hand-off prisoners to other countries who have widely been understood to use torture. They’ve always used the language of plausible deniability with regards to these relationships, so there is no reason to believe any similar language now.

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