American Bar Association Sends Resolution to Congress (The Los Angeles Times)

The American Bar Assn. voted Monday to urge Congress to override a Bush administration order authorizing the CIA to use interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, and sensory and sleep deprivation…

The first resolution dealt with an executive order the Bush administration adopted last month allowing the CIA to use “enhanced” methods of questioning. Barbara Berger Opotowsky, executive director of the New York City Bar Assn., said the order was clearly “inconsistent with U.S. obligations” under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which requires humane treatment of detainees.

“The use of official cruelty has repeatedly been shown to be far from the best means of extracting truthful information,” said Opotowsky, who proposed the resolution. She noted that a U.S. Army field manual on intelligence interrogations issued last September barred the controversial interrogation techniques that will be available to the CIA.

“Unfortunately, the executive order sets a lower standard for the CIA,” she said.

The Los Angeles Times
August 14, 2007