Torture: A History of the Present

April 14, 2008
Speaker: Jameel Jaffer, Director, ACLU National Security Project
Presented by: Institute for Global Security Law and Policy
Summary: When the American media published photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the Bush administration assured the world that the abuse was isolated and that the perpetrators would be held accountable. Over the next four years, it refined its public position at the margins, but by and large its story remained the same. Yes, the administration acknowledged, some soldiers had abused prisoners, but these soldiers were anomalous sadists who had ignored clear orders.

Since 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been litigating for records relating to the treatment of prisoners held by the U.S. at Abu Ghraib and other facilities overseas, and the documents it has obtained tell a story that is starkly different from the one that has been told by the Bush administration. Jameel Jaffer, the Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, will talk about the litigation, the documents, and the Bush administration's controversial torture policies.

Jameel Jaffer is a litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union and Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. His litigation docket includes Doe v. Gonzales, a challenge to the FBI's "national security letter" authority; ACLU v. NSA, a challenge to the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency; American Academy of Religion v. Chertoff, a challenge to the government's refusal to grant a visa to Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan; and ACLU v. Department of Defense, litigation under the Freedom of Information Act for records concerning the treatment and detention of prisoners held by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantánamo Bay. His co-authored book, Administration of Torture, an edited collection of government documents relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners, has just been published by Columbia University Press. He was named to the National Law Journal's "40 under 40" list in 2005 and is currently a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. He is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School.

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[im4wur2]

Jaffer's point at 35:22 is referring to Yoo's memo defining torture as intense level of pain associated with: "...death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions". That phrase originally came from the Medicare+Choice Benefits and Beneficiary Protections statute. - So, Yoo's memo defines torture with verbage from a health care statute, but doesn't include opinions directly on point? - Yoo should be in jail for war crimes, but he still teaches law for UC Berkeley.

[im4wur2]

In the war crimes tribunals after World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

[im4wur2]

When John Yoo said he couldn't find any precedent for waterboarding prisoners, he was either grossly incompetent or lying. - For example, in 1983 Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.

[argent2020]

Eureka!. I finally discovered a way to fell asleep. I feel this video would definitely do!.

The first speaker equal dopamine, the second speaker, without a doubt; Valerian root.

However, the data is ok, but the speech of both of these two speakers (specifically their tone of voice of both) make a perfect combination for me to go to sleep, and perhaps; A good night.