The New York Times reports today:
The opinions permitted the Central Intelligence Agency to use a number of methods that human rights groups and legal experts have condemned as torture, including waterboarding, wall-slamming and shackling for hours in a standing position. The opinions allowed many of these practices to be used repeatedly and in combination.
What's troubling here is the Times reporters don't refer to torture, and specifically waterboarding, as something more than just "condemned by human rights groups and legal experts" -- that torture is against the law.
In fact, later in their report they write:
Several legal scholars have remarked that in approving waterboarding,
the near-drowning method Mr. Obama and his aides have described as
torture, the Justice Department lawyers did not cite cases in which the
United States government previously prosecuted American law enforcement
officials and Japanese World War II interrogators for using the
procedure.
The report was put together by DOJ during the Bush administration and has yet to be vetted by AG Eric Holder.
