Mike Levin: “let me begin by saying I intend to vote to confirm Judge Chertoff to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security…”

“let me begin by saying I intend to vote to confirm Judge Chertoff to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security based on what I know of him. What deeply troubles me is that information relevant to his confirmation has been arbitrarily denied to the Senate by the Justice Department. In the course of preparing for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Judge Chertoff's nomination, a document came to my attention bearing on Judge Chertoff's responsibilities when he headed the Justice Department's Criminal Division. The document was recently released by the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request by the American Civil Liberties Union. It is dated May 10, 2004. It indicates that FBI personnel working at the Guantanamo detention facility had major concerns about interrogation techniques used on detainees from Afghanistan by Department of Defense personnel, which techniques "differed drastically" from traditional methods employed by FBI personnel, DOD and FBI techniques differed so drastically that FBI agents decided they had to "step out of the picture" so as not to participate in DOD-led interrogations. Department of Defense interrogation techniques have been the focus of a number of investigations into detainee abuse allegations, including abuses graphically depicted in the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison.”