TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given news articles and you need to generate a highlight, i.e., a short summary, with a maximum length of 10 lines.
PROBLEM: (CNN) -- After a multi-year odyssey marked by almost nonstop partisan bickering, CIA employees hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers, and former Bush administration officials launching a pre-emptive public counterattack against the committee's report, we finally have a summary of the CIA's use of torture. So what have we learned? The committee report confirms that six days after the 9/11 attacks, "President George W. Bush signed a covert action Memorandum of Notification (MON) to authorize the director of central intelligence (DCI) to 'undertake operations designed to capture and detain persons who pose a continuing, serious threat of violence or death to U.S. persons and interest or who are planning terrorist activities.'" That decision put the CIA on the path to revive and even expand coercive interrogation techniques it had employed during the Cold War. Some key facts we already knew were confirmed, most importantly that agency personnel violated U.S. and international law by repeatedly waterboarding several detainees, including 9/11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The summary of the report provides lurid details of "24"-like interrogation techniques, outlawed by international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory: running power drills next to the heads of detainees, days of forced sleep deprivation and, in the words of the committee summary, "threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to 'cut (a detainee's) mother's throat.'" The committee report summary also confirms what many have long believed -- that the torture program produced no actionable intelligence and did not to thwart al Qaeda's global activities. The former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and torture program participant Jose Rodriguez continues to claim that such intelligence was obtained, and that it did in fact save lives. The available record, as laid out by the committee, amply refutes that assertion. And the committee summary could not be clearer about the actions of agency managers and attorneys in the expansion of the use of techniques that were clear violations of international law. According to the committee summary: . " ... by the end of November 2001, CIA officers had begun researching potential legal defenses for using interrogation techniques that were considered torture by foreign governments and a non-governmental organization." CIA Director George Tenet subsequently sent a letter to Bush urging that the CIA program be exempt from Geneva Convention prohibitions on the use of techniques defined by international law as torture. Whether as federal employees or political appointees, CIA personnel took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Instead, they chose to engage in acts that clearly violated those laws, including international treaties banning the use of torture to which the United States is not only a signatory, but a putative leader as well. The response of multiple former intelligence community insiders who authorized or supported these programs is perfectly summed up in this quote from an anonymous former official offered to the Daily Beast earlier this week: . "It goes back to the one basic thing: Whether they did right or they did wrong, they were told to do something, they did it, and they feel like they had the rug pulled out from underneath them." Indeed, those CIA attorneys and managers who signed off on waterboarding and other tactics had an affirmative obligation to refuse to authorize, much less participate in, a torture program. Now, through de facto surrogates appearing on major media outlets and operating a website attempting to rewrite the history of this dark era, participants in the torture program claim they are the victims for simply following orders. The defense of "I was just following orders" is never a winning one. The use of mass surveillance and torture are the hallmarks of totalitarian governments. The United States has employed both since the September 11, 2001, attacks on our nation. While we have yet to renounce the former, the release of this Senate Intelligence Committee torture report summary is a long-overdue first step in renouncing the latter. Let's hope it's not the last step.

SOLUTION: Senate Intelligence Committee releases report on CIA torture .
Patrick Eddington: CIA violated U.S. and international law .
Mass surveillance, torture are hallmarks of totalitarian governments, he says .

PROBLEM: Barcelona, Spain (CNN) -- Not content with revolutionizing smart phones, mobile apps now appear to be in the driving seat of the auto industry as manufacturers increasingly surrender control of their vehicles to technology. Signs of the increasing dominance of the app came on Monday with Ford's decision to launch its newest B-Max compact at Mobile World Congress -- a phone industry gathering in Barcelona -- rather than a motor show. Read more: Powerful camera phone unveiled . Bill Ford, the U.S. auto giant's executive chairman, told CNN his company chose the event to debut its tech-filled car as a statement of its intention to work with app developers in shaping the vehicles of the future. The B-Max is the first car in Europe to feature SYNC, a voice-recognition system developed by Ford and already available in some U.S. cars. The system links audio, phone and GPS systems and will also call emergency services in the event of a crash. The increasing dependence of vehicles on computers has raised concerns that manufacturers are trading technology for safety, exposing drivers to hazardous distractions and malicious hackers. But Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford, insisted SYNC would "allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the steering wheel," and said his company was working with app makers to further improve security. "Today, often, drivers are looking down and we know that they're playing with their cell phone and texting and we want to stop all that," he told CNN. "We want them to be looking at the road with their hands on the wheel, and our tech is allowing them to do that, knowing they also want to be connected." Ford said his firm's current crop of hi-tech cars were capable of utilizing offboard "cloud computing" to expand their abilities, performing tasks like directing drivers to the nearest coffee shops, checking their health and keeping tabs on their daily diary. He acknowledged this raised the prospect of potential breaches that could put valuable personal data in the hands of criminals but said the technology was currently being rolled out on an "opt-in, opt-out" basis. The carmaker said the B-Max would eventually run its AppLink system, which will add control of smartphone apps to voice-operated commands. Among currently available apps are programs that read out Twitter updates and pick and choose radio stations. More functions will follow as it partners with app developers, the company said in a statement. "Ford aims to deliver voice-control compatibility with apps for a wide range of services, and is now actively seeking to partner with app developers on future opportunities," it said in a statement. Ford hopes the B-Max, which goes on sale in Europe later this year, will help expand its current 4 million U.S. SYNC users to 13 million worldwide by 2015. It says the car should appeal to drivers previously priced out of the hi-tech market. "The all-new B-MAX is going to be a game-changer in the European compact family vehicle segment. No other vehicle in its class offers such an attractive combination of style, versatility and technology," Ford Europe's chairman and CEO Stephen Odell said in a statement. "We think it will be among the most technologically advanced small cars you can buy at any price." Barry Neild contributed to this story from London.

SOLUTION: Ford chooses to launch compact car at mobile phone event rather than a motor show .
B-Max features Ford's latest voice-activated technology .
Ford says it wants to work with app developers in shaping its future vehicles .

PROBLEM: (CNN) -- Two leading Jewish watchdog groups are denouncing a prominent cartoonist's illustration about Israel's offensive in Gaza, saying it uses anti-Semitic imagery. The cartoon was published Wednesday in newspapers and on the Internet. The Anti-Defamation League, which has been fighting anti-Semitism since it was founded in 1913, called the syndicated cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning Pat Oliphant "hideously anti-Semitic." The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which, among other things, fights anti-Semitism and educates people about the Holocaust, said "the cartoon mimics the venomous anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazi and Soviet eras." Published Wednesday in newspapers and on the Internet, the cartoon shows the small figure of a woman, labeled Gaza, carrying a child. She is being pursued by a headless, jackbooted figure wielding a sword, marching in an apparent goose-step and pushing a fanged Jewish star on a wheel. The Anti-Defamation League said the cartoon used "Nazi-like imagery" and a "hateful evocation of the Star of David." Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL's national director, said the cartoon's "outlandish and offensive use of the Star of David in combination with Nazi-like imagery is hideously anti-Semitic." "It employs Nazi imagery by portraying Israel as a jack-booted, goose-stepping headless apparition," Foxman said. "The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart. Israel's defensive military operation to protect the lives of its men, women and children who are being continuously bombarded by Hamas rocket attacks has been turned on its head to show the victims as heartless, headless aggressors." The Wiesenthal Center, which also issued its statement Wednesday, said it urged The New York Times Web site and other Web sites to remove the cartoon. "There is nothing about Oliphant's cartoon not meant to denigrate and demonize the Jewish state, from the headless goose-stepping soldier to the horrific depiction of the Star of David about to devour a cowering innocent Gazan woman holding a baby," Rabbi Marvin Hier, the group's dean, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the group's associate dean, said in a joint statement. "The imagery in this cartoon mimics the venomous anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazi and Soviet eras. It is cartoons like this that inspired millions of people to hate in the 1930's and help set the stage for the Nazi genocide," the statement said. A spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Oliphant's work, issued a statement defending him, saying he, "like all editorial cartoonists, uses his art to comment on important issues of the day widely reported in the worldwide media -- in this case, the conflict over Gaza. That his cartoons sometimes spark intense debate is a testament to his talent." Universal said no media outlet had informed the syndicate that it removed the cartoon, but "Oliphant's clients are not contractually bound to inform us." A New York Times spokeswoman said, "We did not run the cartoon in the newspaper, nor do we plan to do so." She said NYTimes.com has, by contract with uclick.com, an "Oliphant" button on the cartoons page. "Yesterday, those who clicked on it saw the cartoon you mentioned, which is now relegated to the Oliphant archive," she said. Imagery and rhetoric comparing Israel to Nazis have been deployed by Israel's persistent critics, who decry the Jewish state's treatment of Palestinians as oppressive and brutal. Israel and its supporters defend the state as humane and say it has properly defended itself against attacks. There has been sharp criticism of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza who launched rockets into southern Israeli towns. Human Rights Watch said Wednesday the Israeli military's firing of white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas during the offensive "was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes," a claim denied by Israel. Israel has said that Hamas militants situated themselves among civilians during the offensive. Oliphant, who won the Pulitzer in 1967, has been a dominant figure in the editorial cartoon world. His work has been distributed since 1980 by Universal Press Syndicate, which calls the Australian native one of the "sharpest, most daring practitioners" among editorial cartoonists. He has received many honors, and his cartoons have been exhibited across the world. "In 1998, the Library of Congress commemorated the acquisition of 60 of his works with a special exhibition at the Library's Great Hall," according to an Oliphant biography on the Universal Web site. This isn't the first time Oliphant's cartoons have drawn criticism. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in 2005 "wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle and Universal Press Syndicate to communicate concern over racist depictions of Arabs," according to the group's Web site, and the Asian American Journalists Association criticized offensive stereotypes in cartoons in 1999, 2001 and 2007. Debates over offensive editorial cartoons are not uncommon. Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida, was asked to comment on the reaction to the cartoon, whether the cartoon was improper, and at what point in the editorial process an editor can say a product has gone too far. He said he understands the positions the Jewish groups and Israeli policy critics bring to the table. He said he believes Oliphant is saying that "Israel is behaving toward the Palestinians the way the Nazis behaved toward the Jews" and that he is stating an opinion shared by many in the Middle East and the world. "I believe that like the caricatures they are, editorial cartoons by their nature exaggerate their messages, so I don't think Oliphant is suggesting a one-to-one comparison. So I get the message, instead, that Israel is acting brutally toward the Palestinians." He also believes the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center "are saying that the cartoon is at least doing unintentional harm (if not more calculated harm)." "I see their point. There are symbols -- and the Nazi extermination of the Jews is surely one of them -- that can only truly be analogized to their equals. Unadulterated evil compared with unadulterated evil. Israel's ongoing battles with its Arab neighbors may be many things, but it is not The Final Solution." As for the question of how news organizations should handle and discuss such a cartoon, Woods said that "Oliphant clearly has the right to provoke or offend. The question for him is: Do you truly wish to conflate a complex, historic conflict with one of the most evil acts in history? And for the newspapers that carry the cartoon -- and their behavior here is equally open to critique -- do you wish to perpetuate such a comparison?"

SOLUTION:
NEW: Cartoon's distributor defends cartoonist, cites his talent to stir debate .
Work by Pulitzer-winning cartoonist shows jack-booted figure, Jewish star with fangs .
Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center say it uses anti-Semitic imagery .
Critics compare Israeli actions to Nazi aggression; Israel says it must defended itself .

