U.S. Lawyers Agreed on Legality of Harsh Interrogations

[BlueJessamine]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods themselves were legal.

Previously undisclosed Justice Department e-mail messages, interviews and newly declassified documents show that some of the lawyers, including James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general who argued repeatedly that the United States would regret using harsh methods, went along with a 2005 legal opinion asserting that the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were lawful.

That opinion, giving the green light for the C.I.A. to use all 13 methods in interrogating terrorism suspects, including waterboarding and up to 180 hours of sleep deprivation, “was ready to go out and I concurred,” Mr. Comey wrote to a colleague in an April 27, 2005, e-mail message obtained by The New York Times.

While signing off on the techniques, Mr. Comey in his e-mail provided a firsthand account of how he tried unsuccessfully to discourage use of the practices. He made a last-ditch effort to derail the interrogation program, urging Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to argue at a White House meeting in May 2005 that it was “wrong.”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/politics/07lawyers.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

---

Snip

The e-mail messages are now in the hands of investigators at the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which is preparing a report expected to be released this summer on the Bush administration lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh methods.

Attorney General Eric on investigation and potential prosecution:

ESSENCE EXCLUSIVE JUNE 4, 2009:
http://www.essence.com/news_entertainment/news/articles/attorney_general_holder_interview?Page=1

Excerpt:

ESSENCE.COM: Regarding interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration, such as waterboarding, what is the likelihood that the Justice Department will investigate officials who authorized these techniques?

HOLDER: The President has said, and I agree, that we don't want to investigate people who operated with the approval of the Justice Department and who acted consistent with the authorization that was given to them by the Justice Department. But beyond that it's a question of where the facts, where the law, takes us. No one is above the law, and it really is a question of what happens as time passes and as we become more familiar with the circumstances under which some of these decisions were made.

ESSENCE.COM: So in the event that the facts lead to the conclusion that the law was violated, then action would be taken?

HOLDER: If we were to find that there were in fact violations of the law, and that you've had cases that were worthy of investigation and potential prosecution, we would follow the law.

[TahitiNut]

1. It's a pity that Mr. Comey wasn't on Lynndie England's or Charles Graner's defense teams.

Talk about "two Americas" and the best 'justice' that money can buy! :puke: :puke:

[No Elephants]

2. I have no sympathy for those two. Others should have been prosecuted as well, but that

does not mean those two should have gotten off scot free. As it is, I think they got off way too easily.

[No Elephants]

3. "Legal" under what law? Is there a statutory, Constitutional or treaty provision somewhere

that says that waterboarding is not torture? That causing 100 deaths is not torture? (Even the "legal" memos, I believe, said that things short of serious organ damage or death were not torture. It follows then, that causing serious organ damage or death is torture.)

Which law says that cutting a man's genitals with a razor multiple times is not torture? That forcing Muslim men to pile on top of each other naked is not torture? That more than 8 days of enforced sleeplessness is not torture.

What laws say such things, so that people can say unequivocally that what Bushco did was "legal?"

The Geneva Conventions do not say such things are "legal." Neither does the 1975 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the US finally became party in 1988.

Obama did not even say these things are legal. He stopped them (he says) and said we are not prosecuting because we are looking forward, not backward. He did not say (yet) that we are not prosecuting because nothing illegal was done.

I call bs. BIG TIME bs. I want to know exactly which laws say these things are not torture. Because if they are torture, they're illegal. Period.

From the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

"Part I
Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3

No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. "

LMA. (Legal, my ass.)

[aquart]

4. Seems our law schools need more revamping than even our health care.

[frog92969]

5. Torture is clearly spelled out and easily recognizeable.

Everyone involved should be prosecuted immediately.
Following orders is not a defense.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. So I guess James B. Comey wouldn't feel sorry for American

service men and women, who might be treated the same way, at some unforeseen time or place in the future?

So this is how James B. Comey "supports the troops"? Just shit-can every law on the books that might protect our own troops in captivity some day, in order to provide "legal" cover for Bush and Cheney's guilty asses today?

[uppityperson]

7. U.S. Lawyers Agreed on Legality of Torture?

[Solly Mack]

8. It's called torture

but cowards (and the guilty) still insist on pretending otherwise


Harsh Interrogations Torture

[Politicalboi]

9. Can't they at least legalize

Robbing banks, so we can all get a crack at it. I need one of Bush's attorney's to change the law for me. I won't take all the money, just what I need. $50 million should last me. LOL! And I won't be breaking the law.

[DallasNE]

10. Legality Should Be Determined By The Courts

And not an underling in the Justice Department where a conflict of interest exists. Saying no would have resulted in a dismissal so these attorney's should not have even been put in this position. I would put no weight on the opinion of these conflicted employees in the Justice Department. Another option would have been to go to Congress and have them pass a law regarding policy on harsh treatment of prisoners. What happened was wrong from every single angle imagineable so I see no legal defense.

[badgervan]

11. I Forget Who Said This, But it Sure Does Apply:

"All it takes for pure evil to succeed is for good men to look the other way".

[elleng]

12. Justice Dept. Lawyers Sought Interrogation Limits.

Source: nyt/ap

Senior Justice Department lawyers in 2005 sought to limit tough interrogation tactics against terror suspects, but were overruled.

James Comey, then the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, tried to convince Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that some of the tactics were wrong and would eventually damage the reputation of the department.

The New York Times reported Comey sent an e-mail at the time describing his efforts to curtail the use and combination of the tactics that critics call torture.

''I told him the people who were applying pressure now would not be there when the (expletive) hit the fan,'' Comey wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Times. ''It would be Alberto Gonzales in the bull's-eye. I told him it was my job to protect the department and the AG. and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong.''

A person familiar with Comey's concerns, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Comey sought to put limits on the use of the interrogation tactics because he argued they were wrong on moral and ethical grounds, and they didn't work.




Read more: http://nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/07/us/politics/AP-US-Interrogation-Memos.html

[Wizard777]

13. Did the legal opinion on torture come from the DOJ or White House?

We know from the three day junta to CIA Headquarters to prepare the Iraq War Intelligence that the White House gets very hands on with the work of Subordinate agencies. Much like the Iraq war intelligence from the CIA. I think the legal opinion on Torture was handed to the DOJ by the White House to be presented to the White House. There were just too many complaints about Bush and Cheney's micro management for this not to be the case. We know they have done this in other area's. They have a bad habit of putting other peoples names and agency names on THEIR DIRTY WORK.

Prosecution should begin with Gonzales on up.

[elleng]

14. Where was yoo at the time?

Quite right that it went roundabout. Comey tried to convince Gonzales: The New York Times reported Comey sent an e-mail at the time describing his efforts to curtail the use and combination of the tactics that critics call torture.

''I told him the people who were applying pressure now would not be there when the (expletive) hit the fan,'' Comey wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Times. ''It would be Alberto Gonzales in the bull's-eye. I told him it was my job to protect the department and the AG. and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong.''

[SpiralHawk]

15. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL & Republicon Homelander Family Values Cronies

[SpiralHawk]

16. "Sneer" - xVP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney (R)

[BlueJessamine]

17. Glenn Greenwald: What the new Jim Comey torture emails actually reveal

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5799041

Excerpt:

The New York Times was provided 3 extremely important internal Justice Department emails from April, 2005 (.pdf) -- all written by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey -- which highlight how the Bush administration's torture techniques became legally authorized by Bush lawyers. As Marcy Wheeler documents, the leak to the NYT was clearly from someone eager to defend Bush officials by suggesting that Comey's emails prove that all DOJ lawyers --- even those opposed to torture on policy grounds -- agreed these techniques were legal, and the NYT reporters, Scott Shane and David Johnston, dutifully do the leakers' bidding by misleadingly depicting the Comey emails as vindication for Bush/Cheney (Headline: "U.S. Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic"; First Paragraph: "When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods themselves were legal").


:kick: