Sen. Mark Udall has been one of the Hill's strongest voices against CIA and NSA secrecy, and now, he's got a chance to expose some of those secrets. A clause in the Constitution largely protects lawmakers from prosecution over their comments on the House or Senate floor, the Denver Post reports. And with Udall on his way out after losing in the midterms, he can make classified information public without facing the loss of his Senate job and privileges, writes Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic. Friedersdorf calls on Udall to tell us more about the "CIA torture and mass surveillance of innocent people that the executive branch wants to hide."
Udall should ask himself: "What fulfills his obligations to his constituents, his country, and the oath of office he took to support and defend the Constitution?" Friedersdorf writes. Normally, Friedersdorf would call on legislators to think seriously before revealing secret information. But in the case of torture, we're talking about a "heinous" crime that has resulted in a still-suppressed 6,300-page report that took years of time and millions of dollars in taxpayer money to create. For his part, Udall has signaled an openness to the possibility: "I'm going to keep all options on the table to ensure the truth comes out," he told the Denver Post. Meanwhile, other observers have also called on Udall to take action—among them the senator who entered the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971, the Intercept reports. Click for Friedersdorf's full piece. (More Mark Udall stories.)
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