Fact Sheet on Section 327 of H.R. 2082 (the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008)
1.) Section 327 prohibits all members of the U.S. intelligence community, and their contractors, from subjecting detainees to any treatment or technique of interrogation that is not authorized by the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations. In effect this would extend the McCain torture ban (which currently covers only the military) to all U.S. intelligence agencies. The text of Section 327 can be found at the bottom of this document.
2.) H.R. 2082 (which includes Section 327) is a conference report – that is, it is the final product of a compromise between House and Senate conferees on two versions of the same bill. This conference report passed the House in December on a 222-199 vote. It is now before the Senate for its approval. The text of the conference report can be found at: http://intelligence.senate.gov/conference2008.pdf
3.) Senate Republicans have placed a hold on H.R. 2082 pending the outcome of a parliamentary objection to Section 327. Since Section 327 was not part of either the original House or Senate versions of H.R. 2082, Republicans may be able to raise a point of order against Section 327 and strip it from the bill. To overrule a point of order would require 60 votes.
4.) Senate Republicans have also threatened to filibuster H.R. 2082. To defeat a filibuster requires 60 votes.
5.) There are a number of Republican Senators who have voted against torture in the past, so even though we need 60 votes to pass this bill, it is possible.
Text of Section 327:
SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.
(a) LIMITATION.—No individual in the custody
or under the effective control of an element of
the intelligence community or instrumentality
thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location,
shall be subject to any treatment or technique
of interrogation not authorized by the
United States Army Field Manual on Human
Intelligence Collector Operations.
(b) INSTRUMENTALITY DEFINED.—In this section,
the term ‘‘instrumentality’’, with respect to
an element of the intelligence community, means
a contractor or subcontractor at any tier of the
element of the intelligence community.
