On 09 December 2014, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary, findings, and recommendations of its comprehensive report on the "Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program" - the Torture Report, as it is sometimes known.
The report describes a careful, deliberate, and finally pointless program of torture and deceit. The torture accomplished nothing positive - torture 'was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence'. The CIA lied about its practices to the Department of Justice and others, and actively impeded investigation, making a mockery of the oversight process.
The Obama administration must abandon its policy of looking only to the future. It must prosecute those responsible for this program of torture and deceit.