Steven Holt: “I am pleased that the bill includes language I developed that mandates video recording of detainee interrogations by the…”

“I am pleased that the bill includes language I developed that mandates video recording of detainee interrogations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This provision's purpose is simple: to improve the intelligence operations of the CIA and enhance our national security by ensuring the video recording of each detainee interrogation. It requires the Director of the CIA to promulgate and to provide to Congress the guidelines under which such video recording shall be done. And it requires that the video recordings have to be maintained and so forth. I note that this provision is extremely similar to the one that was included in last year's National Defense Authorization Act and that now serves as the legal basis for video recording of detainee interrogations within the Department of Defense. The benefits of video recording and electronically recording interrogations are evident, and law enforcement organizations across the United States routinely use the practice to both protect the person being interrogated and the officer conducting the interrogations and, importantly, to get better, more useful information.”