Sen. Mark Udall should release secret CIA torture report

Colorado’s Sen. Mark Udall (D), member of the Senate intelligence committee and now a lame duck, is in a unique position to do something critically important. He can read into the Congressional record the Senate’s still-classified 6,000-page CIA torture report. He can do so while still in office and be protected from prosecution by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate clause, as was former Sen. Mike Gravel when he read the top-secret Pentagon Papers into the record in 1971.

The Atlantic explains the situation:

Establishment voices believe Udall should wait for the CIA and the Senate to finish their negotiations about what parts of the report ought to be released to the public. Nonsense. The fact that the CIA is a party to negotiations about what parts of a report into its own criminal misconduct will be suppressed is itself an absurdity, and suggests that the CIA already has undue influence over U.S. politics.

Members of the Senate intelligence committee have access to more high level secret information than anyone else in Congress and Udall has been a tireless and outspoken critic of the government’s secret torture programs and Patriot Act abuses. It’s time to clear the air, once and for all, about what our government has been doing in the wake of 9/11.

I join many others in urging Sen. Udall to bring the truth to light while he still can because, as The Guardian notes, “With secrecy-fetishist Republican Richard Burr likely taking over the chair of the intelligence committee, the public cover-up is probably only going to get worse next year.”

Do it, Senator.