American Civil Liberties Union

Since 2004, the ACLU and its partners — the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace — have been litigating under the Freedom of Information Act for documents concerning the abuse of prisoners held by the Department of Defense and CIA. The litigation has resulted in the release of thousands of pages of government documents, including the Justice Department torture memos that were released in April, the FBI emails that discussed the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo, and dozens of autopsy reports relating to the deaths of prisoners in the custody of the Defense Department.

Weeks after 9/11, Alan Dershowitz notoriously proposed that judges be empowered to issue warrants authorizing interrogators to use torture against suspected terrorists. His theory was that government interrogators would torture prisoners whether or not we authorized them to, and that, given this "fact," it would be better to regulate torture than to leave it unregulated. He argued that allowing interrogators to apply for "torture warrants" before using methods that would otherwise be illegal would make the practice of torture more "visible" to the public, allow interrogators to use torture without fear of criminal prosecution, and limit the use of torture to state-sanctioned methods. ("A sterilized needle underneath the nail might be one such approved method," Professor Dershowitz suggested, helpfully.)

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Since 2003, the ACLU and other U.S. human rights organizations have filed dozens of cases relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners. Some of these cases seek to enforce requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Others seek to impose civil liability on those who authorized or perpetrated the abuse.

The report issued Tuesday by Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's Inspector General, is overflowing with new information about the development and implementation of the Bush administration's torture policies. The report's most important finding is that some of the administration's senior officials — possibly including Condoleezza Rice, who was then the National Security Advisor — knew as early as 2002 that FBI agents and some Justice Department personnel believed that interrogation methods being used by the Defense Department were not just ineffective but also illegal.