Constitutional Law

CIA Admits Waterboarding

CIA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden said “waterboarding has been used on only three detainees” in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. In light of Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey declining to define waterboarding as torture, Human Rights First issued a statement saying that, “Waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances.”

At an ACS event on the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes, Elisa Massimino, Washington Director of Human Rights First, said:

I really think that the reason why those tapes were destroyed is that people who knew what was on them [knew that they contained] . . .  conduct that shocks the conscience under the legal standard and is not permitted. 

Also in response to General Hayden’s statements, Human Rights Watch declared:

General Hayden’s acknowledgment that the CIA subjected three detainees to waterboarding is an explicit admission of criminal activity. Those who authorized these crimes have to be held accountable.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).