American Civil Liberties Union

In an email sent to potential supporters a few days before releasing his book on CIA torture, Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and its former Deputy Director of Operations, complained that his book, Hard Measures, would “be attacked from many quarters—mostly by people who will never read it.” 

Having just finished reading Mr. Rodriguez’s book, I am confident that its readers will be critics, too. Hard Measures is a shameless defense of torture, and it is a dishonest one. At its core, the book has two central contradictions.

Today the Supreme Court was asked if federal officials responsible for the torture of an American citizen on American soil may be sued for damages under the Constitution.

After being shut out of U.S. courts, yesterday we filed a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of three Afghans and three Iraqis who were tortured while held by the American military at detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Pictured above are Sherzad Kamal Khalid, left, and Thahe Mohammed Sabbar, in front of the White House during a visit to the U.S. in November 2005.)

Nearly two years ago, a non-partisan, constitutional think tank called the Constitution Project assembled its blue-ribbon Task Force on Detainee Treatment to examine the treatment of detainees in the years following 9/11. Today, the Task Force released its report—a 550-page, comprehensive condemnation of the role of senior Bush administration officials in the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.