The Honorable Loretta Lynch
Attorney
General of the United States
US
Department of Justice
950
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington,
DC 20530-0001
Subject:
Reading the Senate Torture Report
Dear
Attorney General Lynch:
The
America we believe in does not torture. Yet for years, those who ordered and
committed torture, enforced disappearance and other human rights violations in
the CIA’s secret detention program have enjoyed impunity. That makes a mockery
of the U.S. justice system.
Recently,
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released to the public a summary of
its 6,700 page report on these matters, known as the “Senate torture report.”
It contains information about potential violations of federal and international
law.
But shockingly, the Justice Department has failed to commit to reading and reviewing the full report. In litigation the Justice Department has even said that its copies of the full report remain unread, in a sealed envelope.1 Presumably, no one at the Justice Department has even begun to read the full report—let alone take any action on any information it contains on human rights violations, including the crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance.
That’s why, along with this letter, we
are sending you a page, during each of the next ten days, for a total of 10
different pages of the de-classified report summary.
Reading
the report is just one step. The Department of Justice must also re-open and
expand its investigations into all CIA interrogations, detentions and
renditions. It must bring to justice in fair trials all the persons, regardless
of their level of office or former level of office, suspected of being involved
in the commission of crimes under international law, such as torture and
enforced disappearance.
Respectfully,
1 See Declaration of Peter J. Kadzik, Assistant
Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, ACLU v. CIA, Case 1:13--cv--01870
(filed January 21, 2015, D.D.C.). We are
concerned that the Justice Department and other agencies are not opening the
full report due to a cynical and hyper-technical effort to circumvent U.S. open
records law (the Freedom of Information Act) and prevent the release of the
full report to the public.
From Page 44 of the report:
Operations Handbook from October
2001 states that the CIA does not engage in "human rights
violations," which it defined as: "Torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading
treatment or punishment, or prolonged detention without charges or trial."
The handbook further stated that "[i]t is CIA policy to neither participate directly in nor
encourage interrogation which involves the use of force, mental or physical torture,
extremely demeaning indignities or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind
as an aid to interrogation."
From Page 166:
On September 17, 2001, the
President signed a covert action Memorandum of Notification
(MON) granting the CIA
unprecedented counterterrorism authorities, including the authority to covertly capture and detain individuals
"posing a continuing, serious threat of violence or death to U.S. persons
and interests or planning terrorist activities." The MON made no reference
to interrogations or coercive interrogation techniques.
The CIA was not prepared to take
custody of its first detainee. In the fall of 2001, the CIA explored the
possibility of establishing clandestine detention facilities in several
countries. The CIA's review identified risks associated with clandestine
detention that led it to conclude that U.S. military bases were the best option
for the CIA to detain individuals under the MON authorities.
