Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Nuts & Boalts

Law Students

: Nuts & Boalts

DOJ "Torture Memos" Released

President Obama has released four ?torture? memos written by the DOJ Office of the Legal Counselor Lawyers. You can find the memos at the ACLU?s website. The memos were published with very little redaction ? it looks like mainly names have been taken out.

Also of note is Obama?s decision not to prosecute any CIA interrogators who relied on the memos in good faith. In some ways, I can understand this decision. He says ?nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.? On the other hand, how much of a difference is there between the Nazi guard at Auschwitz, or the Hutu who murders his neighbor because the radio told him to, or the interrogator who goes a little too far. If the premise in the first two cases is that these people should have known, superior orders or government information notwithstanding, that some acts are fundamentally criminal, shouldn?t that same premise apply in the third case as well? What?s more, I worry that this could set a dangerous precedent in future cases: will we now give immunity to all persons who commit acts of torture or other crimes so abhorrent that the international community has labeled them ?jus cogens? (acts that are always prohibited) if there is a legal memo authorizing these acts?

I?m not disappointed in Obama, nor do I feel betrayed by this decision. He ran as a centrist, and I think compromises of this sort are exactly what he promised in his campaign. I suspect that a lawsuit challenging the President?s constitutional authority to grant this immunity is next, but I?m not holding my breath for it.

As a side note, Kevin Jon Heller on Opinio Juris has an interesting argument on whether the CIA interrogators were actually acting in good faith.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).