Investigate Bush administration officials who authorized torture

As you may recall, the ACLU has been trying to get Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos that provided the legal basis for the CIA’s illegal torture program.

Tomorrow, April 16, a deadline set in our FOIA lawsuit, we may finally see the documents authored by then-OLC attorneys Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee. The memos reportedly provided legal justification for the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation methods — at black sites like the ones Abd Al-Rahim Hussain Mohammed Al-Nashiri was held in — that amounted to torture. The memos also reportedly provided legal cover for the CIA’s interrogation methods in anticipation of Congress’s expected effort to outlaw “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” which it did in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, passed several months after Bradbury issued the memos.
In this new ACLU video, National Security Project Director Jameel Jaffer talks about why it’s so important for the Obama administration to live up to its promise of transparency by disclosing the memos.


If you haven’t already, please send a letter to Attorney General Holder. He’s taken the first step and signed-off on the release of the memos. Tell him now to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush administration officials who authorized torture.