Torture's Bad, Mmmmkay?

Julian Sanchez | December 31, 2004

The Justice Department takes a step in the direction of the civilized world by expanding its definition of torture, which (one hopes) may reduce the frequency of "fraternity pranks" of the sort complained about by FBI agents in these documents. The full memo is here (PDF). Note that it backs away from, but does not explicitly repudiate, the previous assertion that the president may, at his discretion, suspend treaty-based proscriptions on torture.