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Originally Posted by Indy Coug
So back to my original question: Where is waterboarding explicitly prohibited by US law? If all we have here is the vague language of "severe" or "extreme" or "harmful" or whatever, there is going to be reasonable differences of opinion.
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as you know, laws are usually written to deal with general circumstances, and judges and juries interpret them.
What is self-defense?
What is manslaughter?
Even if for some reason you thought that waterboarding did not constitute:
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1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
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You would then look at the case law, right? You would say to yourself, has waterboarding previously been considered torture, and have people been prosecuted for it by the US government?
I guess Bybee was just too lazy or incompetent to look at case law.