President Obama Repudiates The Torture Memos
Two days after taking office on January 20, President Barack Obama by Executive Order, released January 22, 2009, rescinded all the previous OLC guidance about "detention or the interrogation of detained individuals" and directed that no government agency may rely on any of OLC opinions on that topic between 2001 and 2009. He had declared shortly before taking office "under my administration the United States does not torture."
In April 2009, President Obama released redacted versions of the Torture Memos. Shortly afterward, he said that his administration would prosecute neither the authors of the memos nor those CIA or DOD personnel or contractors who carried out the acts described in them in the belief they were legal.
But in August 2009, the Justice Department announced that those who had exceeded approved "techniques" might face prosecution. The investigation by DOJ of such actions continued into 2010.
Read more about this topic: Torture Memos
Famous quotes containing the words president and/or torture:
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word—these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)