It's another best-selling, close-held, classified memorandum by the
now-infamous JOHN C. YOO, once and future Bush co-criminal defendant.

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"Judge Plans To Review Opinion on CIA Tactics"

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 9, 2008; A08

A federal judge in New York intends next week to review one of the
Bush administration's most controversial legal opinions related to
detainee interrogations, to decide if it has appropriately been
withheld from public view.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of
New York said in an order yesterday that on Monday he intends to
review an Aug. 1, 2002, memo on specific CIA interrogation techniques,
marking an unusual review outside the executive branch.

The 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel
accompanied a broader document on the definition of torture that has
already been released publicly and disavowed by the administration.

The second, still-classified memo focuses on the specific
interrogation techniques that were deemed legally permissible at the
CIA, according to court documents and intelligence officials. The memo
was authored by then-OLC deputy John C. Yoo and includes discussion of
waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that the CIA has
acknowledged using on three al-Qaeda suspects in its custody,
officials have said.

Hellerstein had previously ruled that the memo could be properly
withheld by the government because it was subject to attorney-client
privilege. But Hellerstein said in his order yesterday that he had not
given "sufficient consideration" to several factors, including
evidence from the American Civil Liberties Union that all or part of
the memo may have been "incorporated into official practice and
policy."

The ACLU is suing the administration under the Freedom of Information
Act seeking records related to the use of harsh interrogation tactics.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the government was
reviewing the order.

ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer called the ruling "encouraging" and said
it could lead to the release of one of the most important documents in
the debate over whether the government sanctioned torture. The CIA
declined to comment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR200...