Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Marty Lederman, formerly of the OLC, has an important series of posts on the torture memos, including a discussion of the latest effort from the Justice Department, issued late in Dec. 2004.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Here's a sample,

it becomes clear that perhaps the most important part of the new Levin Opinion is footnote 8, which reads: “While we have identified various disagreements with the August 2002 Memorandum, we have reviewed this Office's prior opinions addressing issues involving treatment of detainees and do not believe that any of their conclusions would be different under the standards set forth in this memorandum.” In other words, despite its admirable and considerable repudiation of the 2002 OLC Opinion, the new OLC Opinion does not in any significant way affect what the CIA has already been specifically authorized to do. And the Administration has concealed from the public (and perhaps from the Congress, too?) the extreme forms of interrogation—just short of the strict statutory standard of “torture”—that the CIA presumably is authorized to use upon detainees overseas.

And, from the conclusion,

There are extremely strong arguments that if they approved or used certain of these techniques, military officials and other personnel have violated the law—including the UCMJ, article 16 of the CAT, the Geneva Conventions (as to detainees protected by those treaties), and the President’s directive that detainees be treated “humanely”—wholly apart from the torture statute that the OLC Opinions discuss. (Indeed, from the time of the 2001 enactment of the USA PATRIOT ACT until the enactment of the 2005 Defense Authorization Act this past October 28th, the torture statute itself did not even apply to GTMO because of a technical jurisdictional provision.)

And, in any event, if those recent accounts are correct about what the Pentagon has actually approved and implemented at Guantanamo, then the President’s assurance that all Armed Forces detainees be treated “humanely,” and that the military does not engage in cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, ring hollow.

It is a very salutary development that OLC has finally construed the torture statute with the care and judgment that typically characterizes OLC’s best work, and that the Administration has reiterated the Nation’s commitment that torture is never legal, not even for “a good reason.” But that is only half the story. The other half remains untold. We are yet to have an informed public debate about what forms of conduct OLC has sanctioned as lawful, about what forms of interrogation and coercion this nation does permit, and about what is, in fact, being done in our name. If we are to have such a debate, the Administration would have to be much more forthcoming with explanations of which ostensibly “humane” treatments have been approved for military interrogators at Guantanamo and elsewhere, and would have to provide some information concerning the forms of inhumane treatment the CIA has been authorized to use (subject, of course, to redaction where there are legitimate and compelling needs for classification).

If we begin such a debate, here's one modest question to consider: Would it be too much to ask that Congress approve—and the President sign—a statute that would unambiguously prohibit all U.S. personnel, everywhere in the world, from engaging in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment—including, at a minimum, conduct that would shock the conscience, and thus violate the Due Process Clause, if it occurred within the U.S.?