Mark Dayton: “The oversight responsibilities of Congress have tragically been emasculated by this administration, and too many Members…”

“The oversight responsibilities of Congress have tragically been emasculated by this administration, and too many Members of Congress have acquiesced. They have bowed to this administration's wishes or demands that it be able to do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, and to whomever it wants. And then, if they are caught doing it, they say it is part of the war against terror, or that it is essential to our national security. You don't defeat terror with terror. You don't stop those inhuman beings who would commit atrocities by committing atrocities against them. And you don't make our citizens more secure by taking away other people's brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers to secret gulags and torturing them for months or years. Of those torture victims themselves, if you release them, does anyone suppose that they will not be filled with hatred and revenge towards the United States? After they have been tortured, you keep them secretly locked up forever so they can't torture Americans in return? These are not only hideous, horrible, and inhuman practices, they are stupid policies, shortsighted, misguided, and immoral policies which, if not illegal, should be, and which, to use the CIA's term, will blow back or boomerang against our own citizens in the years ahead.…”