Towards the conclusion:
[..] anyone in government who seeks an opinion from the [Office of Legal Counsel] as to the propriety of any action, or who authors an opinion for the OLC, is on notice henceforth that such a request for advice, and the advice itself, is now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism. It is hard to see how that will promote candor either from those who should be encouraged to ask for advice before they act, or from those who must give it.Eeek, criticism! Perhaps it will promote responsibility and accountability? What Hayden & Mukasey call candor, I call providing secret and illegitimate legal cover for the use of torture in CIA interrogations.
In his book "The Terror Presidency," Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls "cycles of timidity and aggression" that have weakened intelligence gathering in the past. Politicians pressure the intelligence community to push to the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity. He calls these cycles "a terrible problem for our national security." Indeed they are, and the precipitous release of these OLC opinions simply makes the problem worse.It seems Hayden & Mukasey don't like the results of our democratic process. As their president joked on multiple occasions: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier". Go figure.
Economist points out flaws in their argument. Ordinary E.D. Kain has more.
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