Torture: Your Messages Are Working, Keep It Up - FCNL

This week has brought dramatic developments in the public demand for Congress to outlaw U.S. use of torture. Your letters and phone calls have had a powerful impact, contributing to a wave of shock and disgust over the administration’s torture policy and practice. Your messages are reaching Washington, with profound impact.

The administration is responding with backroom efforts to debilitate the McCain anti-torture amendment to the 2006 defense appropriations bill (HR 2863), to add exceptions to the amendment that would allow the president to authorize torture, or worse, that would exempt the CIA from the legal prohibition against torture. FCNL expects a vote very soon in the House on whether to retain the McCain amendment without modification.

Action: Tell your representative that he or she must do everything possible to retain the Senate's bi-partisan "McCain amendment" as part of the military appropriations bill. Tell them that the amendment must not be modified to allow for exceptions - no exception for "presidential waiver," no exception for the geographic location of the detainee, and no exception for the CIA.



Related Information ::

Read the McCain Amendment
FCNL Background :: Torture
WaPo :: CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
NY Times :: Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials
Cheney Lobbies for Torture
CIA's secret prisons arouse rights concerns
Torture, Civil Liberties and Terrorists
UN seeks more data on CIA secret prisons