Readers React: CIA torturers shredded the Constitution

To the editor: The report on torture demonstrates that it may have taken 200 years, but at the first significant domestic attack since the War of 1812 — the 9/11 attack, which killed one-tenth the number of people who die annually in auto accidents — we were quick to jettison the principles we so energetically strive to export to the rest of the world. (“Graphic report on CIA interrogations, torture released by Senate panel,” Dec. 9)

One can argue that the damage caused by potentially very real, negative blowback to the transparent detailing of our moral lapse exceeds the theoretical value of disclosure. But to argue for secrecy on that level places the country close to the institutionalized tyranny the U.S. was founded to oppose. Without our theoretical principles foundationally intact, our democracy isn’t worth the paper the Constitution is printed on.

Mitch Paradise, Los Angeles

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