January 29, 2009

Will Obama Release The Remaining “Torture Memos”?

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After 9/11, the Justice Department became a “War on Terror” memo factory, churning out legal justifications for torture, illegal wiretapping, detention of prisoners, and on and on. Some of the memos have been declassified, thanks largely to lawsuits brought by the ACLU. But many have not. ProPublica has assembled a comprehensive list, sorted by author, date, and subject, showing those that have been made public and those that remain state secrets. The question now is whether President Obama, in his efforts to break with past government counterterrorism-related excesses, will choose to declassify the remaining memos. It would surely make compelling reading…

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