US Attorney General Holder: We Won't Torture or Kill Snowden (opens in new tab)

They might be banned, but allegations of further incidents of torture connected with US operations in Afghanistan (among other places) are still popping up regularly. When combined with Gitmo activities like force feeding (defined as torture by some authorities) and well, Gitmo existing at all, the US is maintaing a fairly poor record when human rights are concerned. Making a law doesn't change anything if you don't change behaviour by enforcing laws. I don't know what the sharp partisan divide refers to as I'm not American, but to say things are all ok now is very clearly incorrect.

http://rt.com/news/torture-body-afghanistan-base-611/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/torture-afghanistan/

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76653747/

Is there? http://www.salon.com/2007/12/09/democrats_9/

And solitary confinement is still fine, apparently. If people were waterboarded again, would anyone be punished? Maybe the private contractor doing it would be fined a portion of their annual profits. Maybe someone might step down -- down right into a private industry position or speaking tour. Seemingly every year since 2007 up to 2012, more and more people were pardoned for torturing. What's different in 2013?

> Of course, we're talking about a government that is in this predicament precisely because they just ignore the law when convenient.

No. The NSA surveillance is, at least putatively, permitted by the current laws in the US. You can argue about the appropriateness of the laws, even their constitutionality, but the NSA (and larger federal government) is almost certainly not ignoring the law in this case.

Are there plausible charges that would carry the death penalty in a superseding indictment? Assuming you happen to know off hand, of course, don't want you wasting time to look it up.

Utter bs... Obama and Holder have stated repeatedly that "enhanced interrogation" IS torture.

On January 22, 2009 President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual on interrogations. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInt...

> Water boarding, sensory deprivation, psychological torture, stress positions and starvation are not considered torture by the administration.

Really? That's news to me. Can you point me to the AG memo or E.O. clarifying that waterboarding and stress positions are now again not considered torture?

Well, that's what makes it so weird, honestly. By making the statement, they're in a way admitting that yes, that's what they're known for, otherwise it wouldn't have to be clarified.

You'd think that if they could keep Prism under wraps for so long, that they'd have resources to cover up the torturing stuff!

I was referring to the death penalty when I made the parent comment. Not the possibility of him being tortured.

Is treason not a crime punishable by death in the United States?

According to this link, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States

Or more realistically, someone from the justice department will write a memo saying that whatever torture he underwent wasn't torture. Or they'd secretly torture him overseas, like they've done many times in the past, and Holder's statement would still be technically true.

What else was Clapper supposed to say to Wyden's question? If he answered truthfully, he'd illegally reveal classified information. If he said that he could not answer without revealing classified information, he'd effectively reveal classified information. Wyden knew all this and asked the question anyway, most likely to try to get Clapper to reveal classified information.