Ethics

Excusing Torture

By Ed Brayton

I'm sure by now you've seen the New York Times report on the new memos released that detailed the specific forms of abuse and torture that were approved by Bush administration attorneys. The release came about as a result of an ACLU lawsuit after denials of their FOIA requests, but apparently there was quite a debate inside the Obama administration over whether to release them or not.

The release of the documents came after a bitter debate that divided the Obama administration, with the C.I.A. opposing the Justice Department's proposal to air the details of the agency's long-secret program. Fueling the urgency of the discussion was Thursday's court deadline in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had sued the government for the release of the Justice Department memos...

The documents were released with minimal redactions, indicating that President Obama sided against current and former C.I.A. officials who for weeks had pressed the White House to withhold details about specific interrogation techniques. Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, had argued that revealing such information set a dangerous precedent for future disclosures of intelligence sources and methods.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).