Federal Judge to Review Claimed 2002 U.S. Torture Memo
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to turn over to him for in camera review by Monday a secret memorandum described by the American Civil Liberties Union as one of the most important documents concerning the treatment of terrorism suspects that hasn’t yet been made public.
The ACLU is seeking, as part of a federal lawsuit it brought with others in 2003 under the Freedom of Information Act to make the memorandum public. The 18-page document is described by Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, in an ACLU press release as a memorandum written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and sent to the CIA in 2002 that authorized the agency to use the so-called waterboarding technique on terrorism suspects.
As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, some consider the technique tantamount to torture.
In his order (PDF) today, a copy of which is provided by the ACLU, Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York grants the ACLU’s motion for reconsideration and says he didn’t give enough consideration to a 2005 federal appeals court case, National Council of La Raza v. Department of Justice, when he made an earlier oral ruling in January that he did not need to review the DOJ memo.
He held at that time that the memo is protected by attorney-client privilege, reports the Associated Press. The ACLU argues that the document isn’t privileged, because it has been adopted by the CIA as a matter of policy.
Additional coverage:
Reuters: “U.S. judge orders CIA to turn over ‘torture’ memo”
