Torture Architect Argues For Indefinite Detention of Americans

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
By Paul Martin

ACLU: “Nothing short of chilling”

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, February 29, 2012

In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive which forbids controversial provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act from being used against lawful residents, a former architect of the infamous Bush torture program today testified in favor of indefinite detention for US citizens.

Following the release of a White House “fact sheet” which announced that “Section 1022 does not apply to U.S. citizens, and the President has decided to waive its application to lawful permanent residents arrested in the United States,” Steven G. Bradbury, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the United States Department of Justice under the Bush administration, testified today that the law should be applied to American citizens in order to deal with “homegrown terrorists”.

In his position as OLC head, Bradbury is widely acknowledged as one of the primary architects of the Bush torture program, having provided legal opinions that justified the kind of abuse that came to light in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, which included torture by hanging, beating prisoners to death, raping women, and sodomizing detainees with batons and phosphorescent tubes.

Bradbury told a Senate Judiciary Committee that legislation which would limit the arbitrary application of indefinite detention provisions, the Due Process Guarantee Act, was dangerous because it would prevent US citizens labeled “enemy combatants,” from being interrogated by the military.

“If we capture on our soil a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident who is such an enemy recruit and has been actively involved in carrying out or otherwise aware of an unfolding plot by a foreign power against the United States, this proposed legislation could seriously impede our ability to gather critical intelligence from that combatant through military questioning,” Bradbury told the committee. “By requiring that criminal charges be brought against the detainee as a condition of this continued detention, the [Due Process Guarantee Act] would threaten to disrupt the practical opportunity to conduct such intelligence gathering.”

In response, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who voted against the NDAA, requested that Bradbury’s involvement with the Bush torture scandal be included in the record.

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