CALL YOUR SENATOR

In December, the House voted to restrict the use of interrogation techniques used by US agencies, including the CIA, to those permitted by the Army Field Manual. The manual specifically prohibits waterboarding, sexual humiliation and the use of dogs. A favorable Senate vote for this amendment is critical to stopping the use of torture by US agents around the world.

A vote on this Conference Report may come in the next two weeks.

Call the Congressional switch board at 224-3121 and ask to be connected with your Senator’s office. Let the person on the phone know that you are a constituent, and tell them:

• I urge you to support section 327 of the Conference Report on the Intelligence Authorization Act (H.R. 2082), which would ensure that everyone engaged in interrogations for the United States is bound by uniform interrogation standards. The ban on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute and the US should make every effort to ensure that no US agent is exempt from this fundamental principle
• Over the past six years, irreparable harm has been done to the US reputation and leadership abroad by the images of torture that have emerged, the government memos redefining torture and the public debates about the legality of specific interrogation techniques that have long been understood to amount to torture.
• By voting to restrict all US agents to the interrogation techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual, Congress will take a significant step forward in preventing torture and ill-treatment from occurring in the future.

If you only have time to make one point, say this:

• I urge you to support section 327 of the Conference Report on the Intelligence Authorization Act (H.R. 2082), which would ensure that everyone engaged in interrogations for the United States is bound by uniform interrogation standards.