Relationship of trust. Building legitimacy in the eyes of our community. Ifill then, as nations meeting in lima work toward a new Global Climate change treaty, perus indigenous populations call for better protection of their lands from environmental exploitation. This demonstration was set up as a kind of counter to the official Climate Change gathering taking place across town. The idea here was to raise the worlds awareness of increasing and increasingly violent encroachment on tribal areas here in peru and elsewhere around the globe. Woodruff plus, dissecting innocence, true crime and the justice system, week after week in the breakout nonfiction podcast serial. Ifill those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff the clock ticked down today on the life of the 113th congress and on authorizing enough money to keep the federal government operating. The funds run out at midnight, and House Republican leaders pressed for passage of a spending bill worth 1. 1 trillion. This legislation is a compromise. The product of hard fought negotiations between the house and senate with give and take from both sides. But at the end of the day mr. Speaker it reflects conservative priorities, keeps our spending in line, and reins in Regulatory Overreach that has been hampering our economy. Woodruff the g. O. P. Leaders struggled to corral conservatives who wanted to stop president obamas actions on immigration. On the democratic side, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was enormously disappointed that president obama endorsed the bill. She blasted several key provisions, including a rollback of regulations on big banks. This is a moral hazard. Were being asked to vote for a moral hazard, why is this in an appropriations bill . Because it was the price to pay to get an appropriations bill. I was told we couldnt get all these other things that have been described here so beautifully unless we gave wall street this gift. Woodruff Republican Leaders said whatever happens, they mean to avoid a government shutdown, by at least passing a shortterm spending measure. But the federal office of Personnel Management told the newshour its laying contingency plans, just in case. Ifill a powerful storm walloped the west coast today with up to eight inches of rain, knocking out power, disrupting flights and raising fears of landslides. In northern california, the rain flooded streets and overwhelmed storm sewers near sonoma. And, high winds and waves in San Francisco bay forced cancellations of commuter ferries and other mass transit. The storm was bringing blizzard conditions to the Sierra Nevada mountains, but it could also help droughtstricken farmers. Woodruff a top alqaeda leader in yemen blamed president obama today for the deaths of two hostages last weekend. American luke somers and south african Pierre Korkie were shot to death before a u. S. Special forces raid could rescue them. The alqaeda figure said the u. S. Acted recklessly, instead of negotiating. translated this message is for the American People about the killing of hostages in yemen. After our message we gave obama and his government three days to fulfill demands of the mujahideen, with it was an appeal from an american hostage. Obama made the wrong decision which was accounted as a signature of execution of an american citizen. Woodruff the message said alqaeda wanted to exchange luke somers for detainees at guantanamo. Ifill in hong kong, police cleared most of the main pro democracy protest site today, after a nearly twomonth standoff with demonstrators. John sparks of independent Television News reports reporter when 1,000 policemen turned up in Central Hong Kong this morning. Everybody knew that the final clearance was about to begin. For 75 days prodemocracy activists have occupied this site an eight lane highway in the heart of city. But their demonstration was over the authorities were taking it back. A collection of court bailiffs, opened the proceedings. Were enforcing an injunction said this official. You obstacles will now be removed. And men armed with sharp knives and bolt cutters got to work, tearing the protestors barricades apart. The protestors offered little resistance. Just a final rally in a place they called the main stage. Give us universal suffrage they cried but the territorys government and their masters in beijing have refused to negotiate. For protest leaders, it is a painful retreat. Two months ago, hundreds of thousands congregated in the city center. Representing the biggest challenge to Chinese Authority since the protests in tiananmen square. But the authorities have outlasted their youthful, tech savy opponents. And theyve censored their ideas in the rest of china. Hong kong will get its road back, but life is unlikely to return to normal. In a newly politicized city, there are many here who do not like where its going. Woodruff back in this country, a Justice Department report shed new light on rape and Sexual Assault among collegeage women. According to the findings, only about 20 of campus Sexual Assault victims go to police. One in ten victims say they did not think the incident was important enough to tell the authorities. And the rate of Sexual Assault was far higher for nonstudents than for students. The report spanned the years 1995 to 2013. Ifill on wall street, stocks rallied, then retreated some, as the falling price of oil hurt Energy Stocks again. Oil finished below 60 a barrel in new york trading, down 44 from its peak back in june. That limited the Dow Jones Industrial average to a gain of 63 points, closing at 17,596. The nasdaq rose 24 points to close at 4,708. And the s p 500 added 9, to finish at 2,035. Woodruff sliding Oil Prices Also sent the russian ruble to yet another alltime low. Meanwhile, chinas leaders reaffirmed a goal of slower economic expansion in 2015, in a bid for more sustainable growth. The new target is expected to be seven percent. Woodruff still to come on the newshour. A rare public response from the head of the c. I. A. Building trust between police and communities. Perus Indigenous People fight to preserve their land. Why more people are less hopeful about the American Dream. What you need to know about this years flu season. And, whats behind the success of the podcast serial. Ifill the director of the Central Intelligence agency struck back today at a scathing Senate Report on interrogations in the years after 9 11. John brennan took the highly unusual step of calling reporters to c. I. A. Headquarters, in langley, virginia, to make his case there were no easy answers, and whatever your views are on e. I. T. s, our nation and in particular this agency did a lot of things right during this period of time to keep our nation strong and secure. Ifill brennan was Deputy Director when socalled enhanced interrogation techniques, or e. I. T. s, began. He conceded today there were abuses, but he defended the c. I. A. s overall record. In a limited number of cases, Agency Officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorized, were abhorrent and rightly should be repudiated by all. It is vitally important to recognize, however, that the overwhelming majority of officers involved in the program at c. I. A. Carried out their responsibilities faithfully and in accordance with the legal policy guidance provided. They did what they were asked to do in the service of our nation. Ifill the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Report detailed a long list of brutal treatment and did not flinch from calling it torture prisoners stripped naked, beaten, deprived of sleep, waterboarded and subjected to hypothermia. Brennan said the committee was divided along partisan lines and did not interview c. I. A. Officers. He also defended the interrogation tactics, saying in some cases it led to or confirmed important information. Detainees who were subjected to e. I. T. s at some point during their confinement provided information that our experts found to be useful and valuable in our counterterrorism efforts. And the cause and effect relationship between the application of those e. I. T. s and the ultimate provision of information is unknown and unknowable. But for someone to say that there was no intelligence of value, of use that came from those detainees once they were subjected to e. S, i think that lacks any foundation at all. Ifill in the specific case of osama bin laden, the senate findings,reinforced in a Running Series of tweets today by Committee Chairman dianne feinstein, said information gleaned from tortured detainees did not help find him. Brennan, again, disagreed. It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against bin laden. Ifill on another key point, the c. I. A. Director said Agency Officials did not lie to the white house, congress, the public and the media. The record simply does not support the studys inference that the agency repeatedly, systematically, and intentionally misled others on the effectiveness of the program. Ifill brennans statements and a 136page c. I. A. Rebuttal suggest that Senate Investigators cherrypicked evidence to support pre determined conclusions. The c. I. A. Directors statements also appeared to put him at odds with the white house. Officials there would not say if president obama approved of brennans decision to speak out. But spokesman josh earnest did say he has the president s support. John brennan is a dedicated professional who has dedicated his time in Public Service to protecting the United States of america. That makes him a patriot, and it makes him somebody makes him someone who has the full confidence of the president of the United States. Ifill brennan said he ultimately agreed with the president s 2009 decision to ban torture. And, he said the agency now hopes to set aside the controversy over past behavior and look to the future. We take a closer look at brennans defense, and his agencys strained relations with congress and the white house, with wall street journal reporter Siobhan Gorman. She was at todays News Conference. Siobhan, you had the first question. How unusual was it for the c. I. A. Director to even have a News Conference . It was incredibly unusual. I think the last time it happened was in 2004 when c. I. A. Faced sort of a similar situation which was a scathing Senate IntelligenceCommittee Report about the iraq intelligence failures. But i dont believe that was one was televised. This stands out, certainly, for the live nature of it. Ifill he seemed to straddle the question about effectiveness. Reporters came at him in a couple of different ways on that question, the effectiveness of torture, in the end saying it was unknowable. How did it shake out to you . Well, hes trying to threat thred this really tough needle where he says, well, detainees who underwent what they called these enhanced interrogation techniques, which are things like waterboarding or slamming detainees against walls or putting them in these coffinlike boxes, that after experiencing those techniques, detainees provided information. But he says that doesnt necessarily mean that the techniques actually produced information. The individuals produced the information. So hes sort of trying to shift the discussion to say, well, the detainees were the sources of the information. We cant actually conclude that the techniques led to them providing that information. Ifill but he did concede sometimes these extreme techniques did result in false information. Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. At the very end of his session, he kind of offered a personal assessment, and he said that in his assessment, when these techniques are applied, oftentimes it will lead to false information, and thats not only unhelpful because its false information, but it creates a higher volume of information some true, some false that the intelligence analysts have to try to sift through and figure out whats what. Ifill c. I. A. Director brennan and other c. I. A. Defenders have been pushing back pretty hard on the Senate Report saying that democrats, in particular, on the committee, cherry picked evidence and ignored others and dint interview staffers. Is that part of an overall strategy of pushback . That i think has been the c. I. A. s argument for a while, and thats also byebye the argument of many republicans on the Senate Intelligence committee. I think that, you know, they director brennan repeated again today this notion of not having interviewed c. I. A. Officials and, you know, noted that, that probably would have been a better way to go. And i think ifill pardon me, i have to ask you, what is the what is the Senate Democrats response to that. Why didnt they . Right. What they say is that the Justice Department had an Ongoing Investigation through much of the same time period the senate was doing the investigation, and it didnt want to impede it. What the c. I. A. Says is that there was a sixmonth period after the Justice Department investigations ended and when the Senate Investigation ended, and so they say that they should have interviewed people during that time. Ifill the Intelligence Community is pretty tight in washington and around the world. Has this disagreement poisoned the relationship between the c. I. A. And the senate or the Senate Democrats will at least, or strained relations with the white house . Well, its certainly poisoned the relationship with Senate Democrats. We had mark udall, outgoing senator from colorado, who is on the Senate Intelligence committee, yesterday sort of reupping his call for mr. Brennans resignation. But something very interesting came in after director brennans speech today. It was the statement from senator feinstein. And you had mentioned, i think, the tweets that were going on from her account during the speech, which seemed still pretty critical, and yet she put out a statement this afternoon that suggested that he had persuaded her on not persuaded but kind of that they had reached agreement on a number of point. She seemed particularly happy that director brennan said the c. I. A. Had not concluded that these enhanced interrogation techniques, as they call them, did produce valuable intelligence. And, again, this is the distinction that director brennan is drawing between the individuals and the techniques producing the information. Ifill director brennan also said that the c. I. A. Fell short in its responsibility to punish some of the people who had done these things some years ago. So what is happening now. What has changed . Is the reform under way . Can we just say okay that was then and this is now . Well, he did point to changes they had made in accountability mechanisms, and he did say they should have held some officers accountable. What he didnt say was they were going to hold some of those officers accountable, and its hard to know how many of them are still there. However, a former c. I. A. Official told me yesterday that he would estimate that maybe 30 to 50 of the officials who are cited in the Senate Report are still working there, and the American Civil Liberties union about put out a response today to director brennans speech saying he still needs to hold people accountable. Ifill and finally, siobhan, is the word torture now a term of art in this discussion, where you hear people like director brennan using the term e. I. T. And the senate and the folks in the white house are using the word torture. That has been a point of tension between the c. I. A. And the white house for some time, and this is because president obama has a number of times, certainly, called these techniques torture. And director brennan is in a tough position. I, obviously, dont know what term he would prefer to use. But c. I. A. Directors i dont think director panetta, leon panetta used it, either, and i dont know if director petraeus confronted these issues all that much. But c. I. A. Sort of has legal liability if they start saying that their officers conducted torture. So the director is in a kind of a tough position when it comes to that characterization. And agai