Here’s how Steve Bradbury, author of those 2005 memos, describes what he was told by CIA about diapering in the May 10, 2005 “techniques” memo. It comes in a discussion of sleep-deprivation-by-stress-position:

If the detainee is clothed, he wears an adult diaper under his pants. Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity as a separate interrogation technique will at times be nude and wearing a diaper. If the detainee is wearing a diaper, it is checked regularly and changed as necessary, The use of the diaper is for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee; it is not used for the purpose  of humiliating the
detainee, and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique. The detainee’s skin condition is monitored, and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper. You have informed us that to date no detainee has experienced any skin problems resulting from use of diapers.

There are other references, but this is the most substantive, and the others tend to recapitulate this factual information. Notice that Bradbury says CIA tells him diapering is “not considered to be an interrogation technique,” although two years before he wrote those words, it was included in the CIA director and Office of Medical Services’ own guidelines explicitly as an interrogation technique.

Bradbury’s memo, of course, is written after the CIA inspector general’s report. But it’s unclear what would have prompted any technique change from the CIA’s perspective. Former OLC chief Jack Goldsmith revoked the OLC’s memos authorizing torture in June 2004. But it’s far from clear why that would provoke the CIA to downgrade the technique’s status. Diapering may be traumatic, but it’s a far cry from waterboarding.

What’s more, it’s also misleading to describe the purpose of diapering as “for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee.” The whole use, even as Bradbury portrays it, is for supporting a detainee’s immobility while he’s contorted to the point of physical trauma necessary to prevent sleeping. And it’s not at all how the CIA’s Office of Medical Counsel described the purpose of the technique in its September 2003 guidelines: “In all instances the general goal of these techniques is a psychological impact, and not some physical effect, with a specific goal of ‘dislocat[ing] his expectations regarding the treatment he believes he will receive…’”

In a letter — sorry, I don’t have a URL — Feingold wrote to Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder after April’s decision to declassify the Justice Department’s 2002 and 2005 rulings authorizing CIA torture, he urged the new administration to go further:

[O]rder the public release of other memoranda and letters associated with that program, including the July 22,2004 letter of the Attorney General; the August 6,2004 letter of the Acting Assistant Attorney General; the August 2006 OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] memoranda on detention; and the July 2007 OLC memo on interrogation. Moreover, the OLC memoranda should be withdrawn.

Obviously, not all of these are related to surveillance. But Feingold noted that on January 15, outgoing acting associate attorney Steve Bradbury reaffirmed a 2006 unclassified “white paper” on the surveillance programs in a letter clarifying that Bradbury had … withdrawn most of his office’s work authorizing that program. Bradbury:

As set forth in the Justice Department’s white paper of January 19, 2006, addressing the legal basis for the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency publicly described by the President in December 2005, the Department’s more recent analysis is different: Congress, through the Authorization for Use of Military Force of September 18, 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001) (“AUMF”), confirmed and supplemented the President’s Article II authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to prevent further catastrophic attacks on the United States, and such authority confirmed by the AUMF could reasonably be, and therefore had to be, read consistently with FISA, which explicitly contemplated that Congress could authorize electronic surveillance by a statute other than FISA. See U.S. Department of Justice, Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities of the National SecurityAgency Described by the President (Jan. 19, 2006) (“NSA Legal Authorities White Paper”). As the January 2006 white paper pointed out, “[i]n the specific context of the current armed conflict with al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Congress by statute [in the AUMF] had confirmed and supplemented the President’s recognized authority under Article II of the Constitution to conduct such surveillance to prevent further catastrophic attacks on the homeland.”

Feingold wants that white paper released and formally withdrawn, along with its ilk. The stakes, as the senator puts it:

It is particularly important that your administration act soon to provide the.clarity that is needed before Congress considers the reauthorization of provisions of the USA Patriot Act, as well as possible changes to the FISA Amendments Act. By formally affirming the executive branch’s commitment to adhere to the statutes governing surveillance, your administration can provide the necessary basis for a productive public discussion on how we can defend the American people and their freedoms while fighting terrorism aggressively.