Monday, November 14, 2016

2.5 - Good News: 4th Circuit says "even the president" can't override laws against torture

Good News: 4th Circuit says "even the president" can't override laws against torture

Next up, an important court decision, particularly in sight of TheRump's proclaimed intention to bring back waterboarding and "even worse."

It happened a couple of weeks ago during our month off, but it's important enough to cover now.

Four men, held and tortured at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, sued an American military contractor for the company's role in the prison and the torture.

In June 2015, a district court in Virginia dismissed the suit, ruling that a "cloud of ambiguity" surrounds the definition of torture, and that despite laws banning torture, the decision to torture was a "political question" that could not be judged by courts.

On October 21, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals flatly and unanimously rejected those arguments, ruling that torture is illegal, period, full stop, in fact it is so clearly illegal that it is "beyond the power of even the president to declare such conduct lawful."

Take that, Rumpy.

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