President Obama has authorised the publication of four secret memos detailing legal justification for the CIA interrogation programme during Bush’s presidency. Many have attacked the programme’s methods, especially the practice of waterboarding, as amounting to torture, which is unlawful under both US and international law and constitutes a grave violation of human rights.

However, President Obama has issued a statement guaranteeing that no CIA employees will face prosecution for their role in such interrogations. This has attracted criticism, not least from Amnesty International, who said that the Department of Justice seemed to be offering a “get-out-of-jail-free card” to individuals involved in acts of torture.

Announcing the release of the four memos, Attorney General Eric Holder said the US was being “consistent with our commitment to the rule of law”. “The president has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture,” he said.

Three of the documents were written in May 2005 by the then acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Stephen Bradbury. They gave legal support for the combined use of various coercive techniques, and concluded that the CIA’s methods were not “cruel, inhuman or degrading” under international law.

The fourth document, dating from 1 August 2002, was written by OLC lawyer John Yoo and signed by his colleague Jay Bybee. It contained legal authorisation for a list of ten harsh interrogation techniques, including pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation. The memo also authorised the use of “waterboarding”, which involves simulated drowning, and the placing of a detainee into a confined space with a harmless insect which they told the detainee could sting.

President Obama has outlawed the CIA’s use of these techniques. Nonetheless, critics insist that further investigation is necessary and prosecutions of high-level officials should remain a possibility.

Links to the Memos can be found here:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html