“U.S. military officials who engaged in ordering or carrying out the torture of individuals in custody can now rely upon an across-the-board legal defense that protects them from being sued for committing what amounts to an international crime, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling on Monday. The court affirmed an earlier ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in 2012 that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could not be sued for personally approving torture techniques used against prisoners held during the Bush administration’s terror war.”
