But who will do it?  Is there a Frank Church in the wings?

I just don't see it happening.  Other events have overtaken this issue...the economy, the wars, terrorism (of course) and did I mention the economy?

Extraordinary rendition is just torture in another country.  It's not like it works better depending on longitude and latitude.  And at this point Bush has screwed us so badly with the results of his extraordinary rendition program that I can't even see how we would have plausible deniability.  Plus Gerecht is misleading when he says we have "no control over the questioning" - apparently "The Americans could give the Egyptians interrogators questions they wanted to put to the detainees in the morning...and get answers by evening" during Clinton era renditions[quote from Mayer's "The Dark Side"...yes I keep this book near my computer all the time!]

It all highlights again the basic need to have someone who agrees with Obama re: torture as DNI/CIA Director.  Digby's point about Hayden:

"It seems to me that if he honestly believed that the danger to the country would be "substantially" increased if the CIA were not allowed to torture, he cannot in good conscience work for someone who disagrees. Or he was lying."

bear in mind, the cia is the same "gang that couldn't shoot straight" that gave us the shah of iran and cuba's batista. as well, it gave us pretty much every right-wing dictatorship in latin and south america. we've all seen the ends of those movies.

Same goes with intelligence services. Not everyone uses waterboarding or rendition. Other intelligence services may be milder or harsher, but in most democracies they don't cross the line too frequently. Their repective courts prevent crossing lines from being repeated. The CIA is contorted and doesn't do a very good job lately. (They tend to strike wedding parties in Afghanistan.) It runs by the Village rules.

To start with the bottom line, the C.I.A.'s human spy business is not answering the hardest questions. How can I know this, three years out of touch with the secret stuff? The answer is rather simple: because Osama bin Laden is still the head of Al Qaeda. And no one has been held accountable for failing to catch him.

By the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, every serving C.I.A. officer -- indeed, every American -- knew that the agency had one prime mission: "Get him!" But, after more than seven years and billions of dollars, we have failed. I recognize much has been done to damage Al Qaeda's networks but, make no mistake, no amount of "rendition" of bin Laden lieutenants can mask our failure to bring to justice the man who ordered 9/11.

If there is one area of government that can and should be privatized it is intelligence.  A little investigative reporting and restoration of private international bureaus would do nicely.