Professor Amann Comments on CIA Abuse Investigation for NY Times Online
Professor Diane Marie Amann contributed an article on the U.S. Attorney General's plans to examine the abuse of prisoners held by the Central Intelligence Agency to "Room for Debate," a feature of the New York Times website. Professor Amann was part of a panel of legal and national security experts contributing articles on the issue on August 24.
Professor Amann's article, "A Long Way from Prosecution," explains that the Attorney General's action falls far short of calling for a prosecutor to investigate the conduct of C.I.A. officers, and in fact calls for only a "preliminary review" of whether federal laws were violated, specifically exempting from possible prosecution agents "who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel."
"All Mr. Holder did, in short, was to instruct a prosecutor to see if U.S. law was violated," wrote Professor Amann. "Given the descriptions in the just-released C.I.A. report of waterboarding and other abuses, how could he have done anything less?"
Diane Marie Amann is Professor of Law at the UC Davis School of Law and Director of the California International Law Center (CILC) at King Hall.