The Justice Department yesterday disclosed the March 2003 legal guidelines they gave the military about interrogating terrorist suspects. In essence, the brief gave the Pentagon the same latitude Justice had given the CIA a year earlier: wartime powers justify skirting anti-torture laws. Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel later rescinded the memo, but not before it may have given the green light to the horrors at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti reports that the memo is in the public sphere thanks to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request finally coming through. It’s their job, of course, but the ACLU deserves credit for using the instruments available to illuminate torture’s legal justification.  Read Mazzetti here.  MB

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