Investigative Reporter AC Thompson: "Extraordinary Rendition: Kidnapping, American Style"

A.C. THOMPSON,

Award-winning investigative reporter and co-author of Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, speaking on

"EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: KIDNAPPING, AMERICAN STYLE"

How the CIA kidnapped more than 100 people and sent them to secret prisons around the world where they are detained and often tortured.

* With a special appearance by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War.


"We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to other countries so that they can kick the shit out of them." -- A U.S. official involved in CIA renditions

It's no longer a secret: Since 9/11, the CIA has quietly kidnapped more than a hundred people and detained them at prisons throughout the world. It is called "extraordinary rendition," and it is part of the largest U.S. clandestine operation since the end of the Cold War.

Some detainees have been taken to Egypt and Morocco to be tortured and interrogated. Others have been transported to secret CIA-run facilities in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, where they, too, have been tortured. Many of the kidnapped detainees have ended up at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo, but others have been disappeared entirely.

In this special event, investigative reporter A.C. Thompson, co-author of the new book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, will offer a detailed look at kidnapping, American style.

A.C. Thompson, winner of a 2005 George Polk Award, is a staff writer at the S.F. Weekly. He is the co-author (with Trevor Paglen) of Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights (Melville House). A two-time winner of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s PASS Award for crime reporting, he is twice the recipient of the Western Publication Association’s Maggie Award. He teaches investigative reporting at the New College Media Studies MA Program.

Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights
http://www.mhpbooks.com/tt.html

This event is FREE.

Sponsored by New College Media Studies MA Program
http://www.newcollege.edu/media_studies/

For more information about the event contact: Jon Garfield, 415-437-3425 or jon [at] newcollege.edu