A message from the National Religious Campaign against Torture:

TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE

Dear Friends:

An important vote is going to take place tomorrow, Wednesday, February 13.

The Senate will decide whether we stop the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” — or as we would call them, torture. Section 327 of the Intelligence Authorization Conference Report (H.R. 2082), would prohibit the CIA from using abusive interrogation techniques (such as waterboarding) by requiring the CIA to comply with the Army Field Manual while conducting interrogations. The Army Field Manual prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Please call your Senators now — and urge them to support Section 327 of the Intelligence Authorization conference report. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Senators’ offices. You can also go to the NRCAT website (www.tortureisamoralissue.org) and click on the link in the upper right red box. It will take you to a page that makes it easy to email your Senators.

This is the most important anti-torture legislation now before Congress with a real chance of passage. (The House has already passed this bill.) Every phone call counts.

Thank you for all that you do to end U.S.-sponsored torture.

Sincerely,

Linda Gustitus, NRCAT President
Richard Killmer, Executive Director

Justice Antonin Scalia gave a radio interview in Britain in which he suggested that “smacking someone in the face” should be legally justified in certain cases. Justice Scalia posed a hypothetical in which he claimed not allowing “so-called torture” would be “absurd.”

See the BBC report on the interview here. Check out a trascript on IntLawGrrls here. The full audio is available here.