The latest CIA document dump also provides more background on how Abu Zubaydah got subjected to extended sleep deprivation long before it was approved. PDF page 113-114 explains: After consulting with the NSC and DOJ, CTC[redacted] originally approved 24-48 hours of sleep deprivation. In April 2002 CTC[redacted] learned that due to a misunderstanding, that time [...]

As I noted in my last thread, the latest ACLU document dump is here. And this is, indeed, the set of documents John Durham was withholding for his investigation. I’ve long been interested in the role of the earlier destruction of the torture tapes in Durham’s investigation. As you recall, in December 2002, when the [...]

While we’re waiting to get the documents discussed in these NYT and WaPo and WSJ stories, in which (among other things) Dusty Foggo’s Deputy records that Porter Goss “laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat” about the destruction of the torture tapes, I wanted to look at [...]

I’ve been looking through some old FOIA documents and noticed an interesting email exchange turned over in one of last August’s document dumps (PDF 21-22). It’s an email chain between a CTC lawyer (whose name we don’t know) and John Rizzo and others regarding a draft of the Combined OLC Memo. I’ve reversed the order [...]

I’ve been poking DOJ’s version of the events leading up to the Bybee Memo and hope to elaborate on that at a further time. But for now, I want to point to this 2005 article, apparently attempting to scuttle Michael Chertoff’s nomination to be Secretary of Homeland Security by raising his role in approving torture [...]

Since the AP story on the Salt Pit death, reporters have focused a lot of attention to a particular footnote in Jay Bybee’s second response to the OPR Report and what it claims about intent (and, to a lesser degree, what it says about Jay Bybee’s fitness to remain on the 9th Circuit). In it, [...]

In my last post, I showed how the Bybee Two memo, purporting to find each of ten torture techniques used with Abu Zubaydah legal, was a very specific response to John Yoo’s July 13 memo to John Rizzo. The July 13 memo had basically said, “if you consult with experts that tell you techniques won’t [...]

It’s time to read the Bybee Two memo again. Since the OPR Report came out, we’ve learned the following (some of it was already out there, but I, at least, hadn’t noticed it): After his 63rd interrogation session, Abu Zubaydah experienced what his torturers call “hard dislocation” An “issue arose” during the interrogation of Abu [...]

My focus on the multiple versions of Abu Zubaydah’s psychological assessment led me to review the CIA OIG Vaughn Declaration from last August, and one document that was withheld caught my eye. The document strongly suggests that the July 13, 2002 John Yoo fax that appears to have been used as CIA’s general authorization for [...]

As I pointed out in an earlier post, when Counterterrorism Center lawyer Jonathan Fredman sent the torturers in Thailand a green light for torture in August 2002, he relied on language about intent from a July 13, 2002 fax from John Yoo to John Rizzo rather than the finalized August 1 Bybee Memo. In a [...]