Al Franken Flags Torture Program Architect at NDAA Hearing [View all]

[steve2470]

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/al-franken-flags-torture-program-architect-ndaa-hearing

Yesterday we told you that Steven Bradbury — one of the top legal architects of the Bush administration’s torture program — would be testifying at the first Senate hearing about the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). (For more background about the hearing, read this post).

An important moment was when Sen. Al Franken took the opportunity yesterday to publicly condemn the torture program and question the credibility of Steven Bradbury's testimony. Franken said that he was disappointed to see Bradbury was called to testify because he was the author of the torture memos. The senator then listed the various torture techniques that Bradbury ok’d and concluded his public rebuke by making clear how wrong Bradbury’s role in trying to legally justify torture was and said, “if OPR [Office of Professional Responsibility] questions your [conclusions] we should as well.”

Stay tuned to hear more about NDAA developments, and check out our resources and activist toolkit to fight the NDAA’s dangerous detention provisions in your community! We’ll have more about yesterday’s hearing on the Blog of Rights soon.