Above the Law: Unlawful, Executive Authorizations Regarding Detainee Treatment, Secret Renditions, Domestic Spying, and Claims to Unchecked Executive Power

Whether they constitute "torture" or "violence to life and person," it is quite clear that the tactics portrayed in photos from Abu Ghraib Prison, namely the stripping naked and hooding of persons for interrogation purposes and the use of dogs for interrogation and terroristic purposes, are patently illegal interrogation tactics. Such treatment violates the explicit rights of detainees of any status covered by various treaty-based and customary international legal prohibitions of cruel, inhuman, degrading, and humiliating treatment, physical coercion, threats of violence, measures of intimidation, and terrorism during any armed conflict and regardless of purpose or feigned excuses on the basis of reciprocity, reprisals, or alleged necessity.