The 'torture memos' is a term first used to cover three documents prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice, and signed in August 2002: 'Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 6 President Obama repudiates the torture memos.2 OLC head Jack Goldsmith's withdrawal of the torture memos.1.4 March 14, 2003, Memo from John Yoo to DOD re: Interrogation methods overseas.1.3 Letter from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales.1.2 Interrogation of al Qaeda operative.1.1 Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C.They were repudiated by President Barack Obama on January 22, 2009, shortly after he took office. In addition to these memos issued by the OLC to executive agencies, internal memos were written related to the use of torture in interrogation of detainees for instance, in 20, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, signed several memos authorizing 'Special Interrogation Plans' for specific detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in an attempt to gain more information from them.Īll of these memoranda have been the focus of considerable controversy over executive power, government practices, and the treatment of detainees during the Bush administration. Bradbury, ruling on the legality of the authorized techniques if agents followed certain constraints. The OLC issued three memos that month, signed by Steven G. In May 2005 the CIA requested new legal opinions about the interrogation techniques it was using.

It was used by DOD to 'justify harsh interrogation practices on terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay.' The legal opinion had been requested by William J. It concluded 'that federal laws against torture, assault and maiming would not apply to the overseas interrogation of terror suspects'. In 2008 another related memo by Yoo was revealed during a Senate investigation it was written and issued by Yoo, as acting head of OLC, to the Department of Defense on March 14, 2003. In December 2004, another head of OLC had reaffirmed the original legal opinions. He resigned that month without completing replacement of the legal opinions. Jack Goldsmith, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had already withdrawn the memos by Bybee and Yoo, and advised agencies not to rely on them.

They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the president on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques: mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding, and stated that such acts widely regarded as torture might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the ' War on Terror'.įollowing accounts of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, one of the memos was leaked to the press in June 2004. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. The Torture Memos, sometimes called the Bybee Memo or 8/1/02 Interrogation Opinion, was a term originally applying to a set of three legal memoranda drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S.

Torture memoranda