Damage Control on Torture

[ChicanoPwr]

U.S. Releases New Memo Defining Torture
By Curt Anderson / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department released a rewritten legal memo on what constitutes torture, backing away from its own assertions prior to the Iraqi prison abuse scandal that torture had to involve "excruciating and agonizing pain."

The 17-page memo omitted two of the most controversial assertions made in now-disavowed 2002 Justice Department documents: that President Bush, as commander in chief in wartime, had authority superseding U.S. anti-torture laws and that U.S. personnel had several legal defenses against criminal liability in such cases.

The new document said torture violates U.S. and international law.

"Consideration of the bounds of any such authority would be inconsistent with the president's unequivocal directive that United States personnel not engage in torture," said the memo from Daniel Levin, acting chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20041231/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/justice_torture_memo

[Walt Starr]

1. Man, it took them long enugh to chuck that shit down the memory hole!

They're getting slow!

[Goldeneye]

2. So its kind of like ex post factos laws

in reverse...can't get in trouble for a crime you committed before you made it not a crime again.