A group of five Harvard Law School faculty members sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday, October 12, 2007, urging Senators to demand that Mr. Mukasey–who faced his first confirmation hearing for the position of Attorney General this Wednesday, October 17, 2007–investigate and punish the authorization, ordering, and use of waterboarding, a technique the U.S. has a history of prosecuting as a war crime.

See the letter here.

For the most accurate coverage of the hearings so far, see Slate’s The Senate Runs into the Arms of Michael Mukasey.

Soldiers in Vietnam use the waterboarding technique on an uncooperative enemy suspect near Da Nang in 1968 to try to obtain information from him. (United Press International) [Washington Post article]