(illustration by Mario Piperni)
From The Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON -- In a landmark showing, lawmakers Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to outlaw the practice of torture and solidify a noncoercive method of intelligence interrogation, indicating a firm departure from the years of the Bush-era torture program -- a period that many have characterized as one of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history.
The Senate voted 78-21 to tack an amendment onto the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that would forbid the use of torture by any agent of the U.S. government and standardize certain noncoercive interrogation methods across the government’s military and intelligence arms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The bill was written by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a victim of torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. It was supported by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Vice Chairperson of the Intelligence Committee.
This is a big deal, for a couple of reasons. One, we don't effing torture, and it is shameful that we did under George W. Bush. Two, it means more hard-to-answer questions for Dumbya's brother Jeb Bush, who just officially announced his candidacy for President.
And from the comments, CwV says it well:
What this does is it puts into law what Obama did on his first day in office by Executive Order.
The problem with an EO is that the next president can simply tear it up without having to consult Congress or the Courts.
Codifying this in statute makes it the law of the land and it takes Congress repealing it or the Courts overturning it to make it go away.
So Yeah! This is a good day for Justice.
Update 1:
From joe from Lowell in the comments:
This amendment also requires the US to notify the Red Cross and allow visits to all detainees, and it requires all agencies to follow the AFM, which will prevent a future president from issuing some other set of standards, that aren't made public, to some intelligence agency or military unit.
Again, these things are important not so much because it makes something formally illegal that previously wasn't, but because it puts teeth into that designation and prevents evasions of the law.