As much as I detest short diaries that use breaking in the title, here is one. TPMmuckraker has a new story that the ACLU has just uncovered a previously undisclosed OLC opinion torture.
Just in time for Michael Mukasey's impending Senate vote to become attorney general, the ACLU has discovered that one of his would-be underlings, Steven Bradbury of the Office of Legal Council, penned three memoranda in 2005 on the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA. The discovery raises the possibility that the Justice Department has penned other as-yet-unknown torture memos since 2005.
Two of those memoranda were first revealed by The New York Times in early October. That story struck the ACLU as outrageous -- not just on the substantive merits, but because on January 31, 2005, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the OLC and other federal agencies demanding documentation on the treatment of detainees. Yet even though the ACLU had received documents from the government dated after the OLC memos described in the Times, it still had to read about material clearly relevant to its FOIA request in the paper.
It's too late to do anything about the Senate Judiciary vote but not to contact your Senators before they vote to confirm Mukasey. I'll add some more information shortly but want to get this up so people can start making calls.
Contact information for Senators of the 110th Congress. Another good political action link http://www.congress.org/..., from LNK in the comments.
Update [2007-11-6 18:56:59 by standingup]: The following are from the written questions from Senator Kennedy beginning on page 12 of 172.
- At the end of 2004, when the Office of Legal Counsel withdrew the Bybee memo, it replaced it with a less extreme opinion that did not address the most controversial parts of the earlier opinion. The Department made this new opinion public.
But on October 4,2007, we learned fiom the New York Times that the Office of Legal Counsel had issued two more secret "torture memos" in 2005-only a few months after publicly releasing the memo that replaced the Bybee memo.
The first secret memo reportedly authorized interrogators to use harsh techniques in combination, to create a more extreme overall effect. They could deprive detainees of sleep and food, bombard them with loud music, and subject them to freezing temperatures, all at the same time. These are techniques that our Judge Advocates General have said are illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. The second memo declared that none of the CIA'S interrogation methods violated the ban on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that Congress was preparing to pass. At the time, the CIA was using "waterboarding" and other abhorrent techniques copied fiom the Soviet Union and other brutal regimes.
Before he was sidelined by the White House, Deputy Attorney General James Comey told his colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of these opinions. The world has now learned of them, and once again there's a scandal involving opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel, issued in secret, authorizing interrogation techniques widely believed to violate laws against torture.
Questions:
Despite our repeated requests for the opinions relating to interrogation, Congress has not been given these documents. We had to learn about them from the New
York Times.
If you are confirmed, will you produce these opinions for this Committee?
ANSWER: My understanding is that these opinions are classified and reflect internal legal advice. If confirmed as Attorney General, I will make sure that the Department appropriately shares its legal views on matters of interest to the Committee while at the same time respecting the Executive Branch's interest in preserving the confidentiality of attorney-client communications.
Do you think it was appropriate that these opinions were issued in secret, at a time when the Department was publicly claiming it had rejected the Bybee torture memo?
ANSWER: I have not reviewed any non-public OLC opinions. Based on the press reports, the opinions in question appear to have addressed a classified CIA program, and therefore, it is not surprising that such opinions would not be publicly disclosed. Because I have not reviewed these opinions, I am not in a position to determine whether they were consistent with the Department's public statements, and the December 30,2004 opinion made public, concerning the application of the anti-torture statute.
If these memos really do say what the press accounts report, will you rescind them immediately?
ANSWER: As I stated at the hearing, if confirmed as Attorney General, I will review the legal analysis in these memos, and I will not hesitate to rescind any opinion that is unsustainable as a matter of law. The second memo was apparently written while Congress was considering the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading practices. The Administration seems to have concluded that the Act would have no effect, even before it was enacted. That information certainly would have been helpful during the legislative debate.
Do you think the Administration had an obligation to inform Congressof its view during our consideration of the Detainee Treatment Act?
If confirmed, will you be more forthcoming in sharing with Congress the information we need to perform our legislative and oversight functions?
ANSWER: I have no reason to believe that the Administration took the view that the Detainee Treatment Act would have no effect. To the contrary, my understanding is that seniorAdministration officials had stated publicly that the United States complied with the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment standard as a matter of policy, and that the Detainee Treatment Act would make that standard effective as a matter of law.
It is apparent the administration has not been forthcoming or honest about their "enhanced interrogation techniques" in spite of claims to the contrary. There is no way to know how many opinions or memos are lurking in the background and Mukasey's answers indicate he won't be sharing that information either.