BLITZER: And joining us now, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. She's the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator, thanks very much for coming in.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: You're welcome, Wolf.

BLITZER: The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says that, when she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she was misled by the CIA. She goes further. She says members of Congress are routinely misled by the CIA in their briefings on sensitive intelligence-related matters.

You have been a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for a long time. You're now the chair of that committee. Do you -- do you believe the CIA routinely misleads members of Congress about sensitive issues?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I will answer that.

But let me say something, first of all, about the speaker. I have never known her not to tell the truth. And I have known Nancy Pelosi for at least the past 30 or 40, 50 years. So, this is a longstanding knowledge. And I have never seen her not tell the truth. So, I think that's worth saying.

Secondly, with respect to the briefings, I obviously was not present. I was not briefed until some four or five years later. These briefings, the ones I have been in, are very bland. They're antiseptic. They are given in the most benign way. You are generally alone. You cannot take notes. You have no staff. You have no one really to discuss it with, other than perhaps if you're being briefed with another person.

I think all of this should be relayed to the full committee, with the classified staff that's present, so there can be a back-and-forth, questions can be asked, questions can be answered. And I'm going to seek to change it in an intelligence bill that we will be doing very shortly.

BLITZER: So, I take it you basically agree with her that, over the years, at least in your personal experience as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I don't know if you want to go as far as to say you have been misled, but you certainly feel that you haven't been satisfied in the kinds of briefings that you have received; is that right?

FEINSTEIN: Well, that's right. As a matter of fact, I did have a follow-up briefing with General Hayden when I heard. I did indicate my concerns, but it took some time, and time to understand what was happening.

BLITZER: General Hayden when he was the CIA director?

FEINSTEIN: That's correct.

BLITZER: And do you feel now, with Leon Panetta, someone you know very well...

FEINSTEIN: That's right.

BLITZER: ... former member of Congress from California, former White House chief of staff, do you feel that you are, right now, getting the information you and your colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee need to know to conduct proper oversight?

FEINSTEIN: We have a commitment from Mr. Panetta and from Director Blair, who oversees all 16 intelligence agencies, that we will have every cable, every document, every piece of paper that is relevant unredacted.

So, we -- and every e-mail -- so, we will have a complete dossier of everything that happened to and about every high-value detainee.

BLITZER: This is what "The Wall Street Journal" is now reporting. Let me read it to you: "The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil indefinitely and without trial as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

What do you know about this?

FEINSTEIN: I know of no plan, right now, to put anybody on American soil. That has not been shared with me. I will inquire and see if there is such a plan.

However, I do know this. There are probably some people at Guantanamo who need to be classified, if they aren't already, as enemy combatants, and a process set up to review their detention. And they should, in fact, be kept in detention, and not released into the community at large.

BLITZER: In detention in the United States, on U.S. soil?

FEINSTEIN: Look, there are a whole raft of major terrorists that are in high-security prisons in the United States.

There's all the 1993 World Trade Center bombers that are there. There are at least 12 to 15. And I will be making those names available. They don't escape. They are held in solitary. The prisons are designed for that.

And, so, this shibboleth, which is largely used by Republicans, to say, oh, the Democrats want terrorists in your -- in your neighborhood, in your community, that is a lot of baloney. That is not true. And that's the message that is being pushed, because it frightens people.

We have very good maximum-security prisons. They are isolated. Their security is high. The individuals are kept virtually incommunicado. And there are more than a dozen terrorists in these facilities now. And no community, no neighborhood is affected by them in the least.

BLITZER: They're called supermax, some of these penitentiaries.

FEINSTEIN: That's exactly right.

BLITZER: All right.

FEINSTEIN: And one was built specifically for this.

BLITZER: Senator Feinstein, thanks very much for joining us.

FEINSTEIN: You're very welcome. Thank you.