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Originally Posted by Antitrust32
wow. bin laden and crew flew planes into the WTC, Pentegon, and our great country gets to have people like you, who I guess get their panties in a bunch over the rights of terrorists. Why do you care so much about people who want to blow themselves up to kill you and any innocent non-muslim civilian? The only thing you should care about is stopping the terrorists so they dont have the chance to blow you up.
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because either we live under the rule of law or we don't.
did the constitution not survive 9/11? was it a casualty too?
you don't want to give someone the power to pick and choose the times that we have rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
Vietnam War
Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the
Vietnam War.
[109] On January 21, 1968,
The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a
North Vietnamese POW near
Da Nang.
[110] The article described the practice as "fairly common".
[110] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.
[109][111] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the
War Remnants Museum in
Ho Chi Minh City.
[112]
and...
U.S. government officials have at various times said they do not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture.
[13][14][15][16] To justify its use of waterboarding, the administration of
George W. Bush issued classified legal opinions that argued for a narrow definition of torture under U.S. law, including the
Bybee memo, which it later withdrew.
[17][18][19]
and...
Subsequently, the U.S. government released a
memorandum written in 2002 by the Office of Legal Counsel that came to the conclusion that waterboarding did not constitute torture and could be used to interrogate subjects. The OLC reasoned that "in order for pain or suffering to rise to the level of torture, the statute requires that it be severe" and that waterboarding did not cause severe pain or suffering either physically or mentally.
[47]
For over three years during the George W. Bush administration, the
Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an investigation into the propriety of this and other
memos by the Justice Department on waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
[48] The OPR report findings were that former Deputy AAG
John Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct and that former AAG Jay Bybee committed professional misconduct. These findings were dismissed in a memo from Associate Deputy Attorney General
David Margolis who found that Yoo showed "poor judgment" but did not violate ethical standards.
[49][50] Commentators have noted that the memos omitted key relevant precedents, including a
Texas precedent under then-Governor
George W. Bush when the state convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff for waterboarding a criminal suspect.
[51] Then Governor Bush did not issue a pardon for the sheriff.
[51]