US Department of Justice releases new torture opinion

On 30 December the United States Acting Assistant Attorney General issued a memo on behalf of the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice overturning part of the previous memo and approved by then counsel to the President, newly appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. While some of the definitional deficiencies of that earlier document were reversed, the new memo failed to address those aspects of the memo concerning the power of the President to define and delimit the prohibition against torture.