Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
There's a review up on waterboarding.org of the recent executive order ensuring lawful interrogations. Most people seemed excited enough on Thursday about closing Guantanamo, but many missed what I think is an even more important turning point in the history of civil and military justice. Obama's other executive order:
- Requires all interrogation practices of anyone in the custody of any American official to conform to Army Field Manual 2 22.3.
- Defines words like "torture" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" to mean exactly what the Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions say those words mean.
- Closes all CIA black sites.
- Guarantees ICRC access to all prisoners as required by the Geneva Conventions.
- Creates a Special Interagency Task Force on Interrogation and Transfer Policies to determine how or whether the practice of extraordinary rendition can continue.