Bush era waterboarding details revealed
Monday, April 20th, 2009When admitted to practice law in Oregon, attorneys take an oath to support the Constitution. Many of us shirked those obligations when we failed to protest the Bush administration’s breathtaking assault on the U.S. Constitution.
That’s not hyperbole. This is the administration that suspended habeas corpus, that expanded the use of warrantless wiretapping, that groundlessly asserted executive privilege, and that re-defined “torture” to make it legal.
The early revelations of the use of torture were accompanied by profound understatement as to whether, when and how often CIA interrogators used waterboarding. We’ve now learned otherwise.
This is not really surprising, I suppose. Still, it’s a stark reminder of how bad things were and how much we abdicated to the lawlessness of the Gonzales Department of Justice. There are those who want to keep this in the past.
At the very least, we must chronicle the revelations. This is likely a naive effort, but at least writing it down creates one more data point as a caution for those who may look backwards next time around.
David Sugerman