Ex-Rice Aide Blasts Torture Program

As to my can-there-be-a-decent-right question about torture, Philip Zelikow, the counselor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, provides a compelling answer in the affirmative. His post at Shadow Government is a delicate and thoughtful rejection of the More…

DOJ Sits on Secret CIA Interrogation Memo

The release last week of Bush-era legal memoranda justifying the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of extreme interrogation methods has opened a window on what former Vice President Dick Cheney famously called “the dark side” of the war on terrorism. But despite President Obama’s declaration that releasing the four Justice Department More…

OLC Torture Memos Were Based on Faulty Assumptions

To follow up on my post last week about how the Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted the recently released torture memos could have concluded that the bizarre techniques we’ve all read about do not “shock the conscience,” I thought I’d look up the Supreme More…

What Does It Mean to ‘Shock the Conscience?’

Assuming for the sake of argument that the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment does apply to U.S. conduct outside of U.S. territory, (though as I noted before the Office of Legal Counsel  lawyers thought it did NOT), the May 30, More…

Slamming a Prisoner’s Head Repeatedly Against a Wall Isn’t That Bad, Either

It’s called “walling” by the CIA.  As described in the International Committee of the Red Cross report obtained by Mark Danner, this technique involves placing a collar around the prisoner’s neck and using it to slam him repeatedly against a wall.

According to Steven Bradbury, however, “[a]lthough the walling technique More…

Torture Isn’t Illegal If It’s Done Overseas

Here are some highlights from the May 30, 2005 memo from former Office of Legal Counsel director Steven Bradbury:

1) The Convention Against Torture does not apply outside the United States, or anywhere where the US does not have de facto control: hence, it does not apply to CIA “black More…

Government Puts Off Producing Key OLC Memos on Harsh Interrogation Techniques

The Justice Department on Thursday again delayed disclosure of three critical legal memos written by Steven Bradbury, then a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), that reportedly authorized the the CIA to torture prisoners. This is at least the second time that the government More…