The Washington Post reported yesterday on the release of a transcript of a House Judiciary Committee deposition of Judge Jay Bybee, concerning torture of detainees by the C.I.A. The transcript included this revelation by Judge Bybee: "many brutal techniques reportedly used in CIA interrogations were not authorized". This is startling for at least three reasons.
First, the idea that torture could be authorized or not authorized still, apparently, has not been so discredited as to be an embarrassment. Torture is illegal under U.S. law and (binding) International law, yet a Federal Appeals Court judge still feels comfortable distinguishing between authorized and unauthorized torture.
Second, it has been over eight years since Bush administration officials first took intelligence gathering to the dark side, and yet not one high government official has ever been held accountable for the torture and mistreatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Every effort by victims of torture to have their day in court has been dismissed before the government even had to file an answer to the charges. And yet, Judge Bybee, who has been serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 2003, was still aware that CIA interrogators were acting outside of the law.
And third, the authorization that Judge Bybee refers to--the Bybee Memo and others--are notoriously broad and poorly reasoned. Judge Bybee has practically acknowledged as much in public (and there is some disagreement as to whether he has been even more candid in private). Yet, even with the legal bar set so low, the culture of hostility to human rights, which was created by the Bush administration, overwhelmed any reasonable human restraint.