The Obama administration is apparently going to release the 2005-era Office of Legal Counsel memoranda about what torture techniques the CIA could employ. Keep
“„The president, when he issued his executive order tying all American agencies to the Army field manual, also launched a six-month study to determine whether or not the field manual, the Army field manual and the 19 techniques contained therein, are sufficient in all cases facing the Republic. We’re in the midst of that study. To make these techniques public — and Andrea, I must admit, I’ve not seen the redacted version, so I don’t know the final decision — but to the degree to which we make these techniques public, to tell our enemies the outer limits of American interrogation techniques, it moots the study that the president directed, because it effectively takes these techniques off the table.
“„First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.