It has to begin somewhere, and bringing cases against these Sinister Six is a start.

Perhaps more so as the hearings and evidence will be in focus in a country with not only a verified historical experience with the subject and application of torture as policy effected by will of the state, but significant living memory (cough - Generalissimo Franco - cough) of same.

Sí, se puede.

Mafia tactics? You betcha.

Under the woebegone previous administration, freedom meant lying and gagging. (emphasis added)

U.S. authorities asked a Guantanamo Bay detainee to drop allegations of torture and agree not to speak publicly about his ordeal in exchange for his freedom, according to British court documents.

A ruling by two British High Court judges, issued in October but released only on Monday, said the U.S. offered former detainee Binyam Mohamed a plea bargain last year - six years after he was first detained as an enemy combatant.

It was the first time details of the plea bargain offer were made public. The ruling said U.S. military prosecutors also asked that Mohamed plead guilty to two charges, accept a three-year sentence and agree to testify against other suspected terrorists.

[snip]

He was freed in February after months of negotiation between the U.S. and Britain. All charges against him were dropped last year.

Mohamed refused to agree to any deal that prevented him from discussing his treatment, Lord Justice John Thomas and Mr. Justice David Lloyd Jones said in the ruling.

“He wanted it to be made clear to the world what had happened and how he has been treated by the United States government since April 2002,” Thomas said in the ruling.

[snip]

Issuing a judgment on the case in February, Thomas said there was evidence to show Mohamed was tortured, but that the documents could not be made public because of the British government’s national security concerns. Source

More:

The High Court ruling, which was made Oct. 22 but hadn’t been published previously because of agreements covering classified information between the U.S. and Britain, said that Mohamed was asked to agree to a plea “in circumstances where there are no pending charges against him, where he has no idea how any new charges against him will be framed and where he is not to receive sight” of exculpatory evidence against him.

[snip]

Lord Peter Goldsmith, the British attorney general in the Labor government under former Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2001 to 2007, said Monday that he “did not know there were any attempts to silence the detainees.” If clear evidence of such attempts exists, it suggests that “the people who had been detaining him had something to hide,” Goldsmith said. Source

The most efficient time to change course of the ship of state is when one has control of the helm.

Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against “high value” Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. [“rough tactics,” even as a euphemism, is a decidedly milquetoasty and diluted defining construct — voxd] One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, said the memos were “ugly” and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a “truth commission” on torture.

Because of an executive order signed by President Obama on Jan. 22 banning such aggressive tactics, deputies to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. concluded there was no longer any reason to keep the interrogation memos classified. But current and former intel officials pushed back, arguing that any public release might still compromise “sources and methods.”… Source

Do it.

Especially do it before becoming subsumed in the groupthink of entrenched bureaucracy. Whether it causes embarrassment or ruffles feathers are irrelevant considerations. Agencies or their officials operating devoid of informed critique or restraint by that very nature operate outside the framework of the governmental system. Such shrouded policies and methods carried out under our name are either defensible under the rule of law and the Constitution or they are not. Being indefensible is no rationale for sweeping them under the rug.

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FYI (and, if an actual reversal and when assiduously followed through, much more than symbolic — a reaffirmation of leadership and partnership in the company of nation-states):

The White House is set to reverse a key Bush administration policy by allowing some of the 240 remaining Guantánamo Bay inmates to be resettled on American soil.

The US is pushing for Europe to take a share of released inmates, but the Obama administration is reconciled to taking some of them, even though there will be noisy resistance from individual states.

Washington has told European officials that once a review of the Guantánamo cases is completed, the US will almost certainly allow some inmates to resettle on the mainland.

George Bush’s refusal to countenance a resettlement programme on US soil contributed to European reluctance to play host to freed prisoners.

[snip]

Some of those to be released can return to their own homelands, but there are many others who cannot, such as the Chinese Uighurs who would face the risk of a death sentence.

A European diplomat said today the change of course in Washington would make it easier to persuade her government to take part in an international resettlement plan. “It changes the whole tone,” she said. Source