ooner or later, we're going to have to talk seriously about the atrocities committed in our name by elements of the United States government, and about the subsequent cover-up of those atrocities by elements of said United States government, only some of which were the same elements of said United States government who committed those atrocities. 

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

This would be an interesting topic for debate in, say, a presidential campaign. At least the American Civil Liberties Union is going to keep shoving until somebody notices.

"These newly declassified records add new detail to the public record of the CIA's torture program and underscore the cruelty of the methods the agency used in its secret, overseas black sites," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. "It bears emphasis that these records document grave crimes for which no senior official has been held accountable." The documents include new records about the death of Gul Rahman, who died at a CIA secret prison in Afghanistan in 2002. The CIA "Death Report" on Rahman released today details the horrific conditions he was subjected to: