The most important memo, dated August 1, 2002 and signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, relies upon an absurd definition of torture tailored to provide a pseudo-legal cover for methods that the Central Intelligence Agency, the recipient of the memo, was already executing.

According to the memo, obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act, so long as CIA operatives acted “in good faith” and under the “honest belief” that their interrogation techniques would not cause “prolonged mental harm,” then the methods could not be construed as torture and agents would be protected from legal sanction. The memo asserts that torture could only be defined as such acts that take place for no other purpose than the infliction of severe mental or physical trauma. In other words, if the purported aim of the interrogation techniques was to elicit information—for example regarding terrorist activities—then the methods used could not be defined as torture, no matter how brutal.

The memo was evidently a response by the Justice Department to a CIA request for legal advice, and aimed to lessen the agency’s fears that its personnel might face prosecution for torture. “You [the CIA] have asked this Office’s views on whether certain proposed conduct would violate the prohibition against torture found at Section 2340A of the United States Code,” the document begins.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/tort-j26.shtml