Trump administration 'flirts' with reviving black sites, torture

President Trump.
(Image credit: Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images)

President Trump is poised to reopen the CIA's overseas "black site" prisons, The New York Times reports. Trump's draft order, titled "Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants," walks back restrictions on torture and handling detainees. If signed by the president, the International Committee of the Red Cross would also lose access to detainees in U.S. custody, a provision that was granted by President Barack Obama and is required in order to follow wartime rules detailed in the Geneva Conventions.

The order does not specify which CIA prisons would reopen, or specifically direct that torture be revived, but it is "flirting with a return to the 'enhanced interrogation program' and the environment that gave rise to it," said Elisa Massimino, the director of Human Rights First.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.