# Federal Torture Act

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Federal Torture Act," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-torture-act/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*United States statute criminalizing torture; per John Kiriakou, on the books since at least 1946, with concrete enforcement history — after World War II the United States executed Japanese soldiers convicted of waterboarding American prisoners of war, meaning waterboarding was at that time a capital offense under U.S. law. The act was effectively set aside for the CIA's enhanced interrogation program after 2002.*

- **Year cited by Kiriakou:** 1946
- **Prohibition:** Torture of prisoners
- **Notable application:** U.S. execution of Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American POWs
- **Effective suspension:** 2002 Justice Department opinions

The **Federal Torture Act**, as [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) described it, was in force well before the September 11 attacks and had concrete enforcement history. Following World War II, the United States executed Japanese soldiers who had [waterboarded](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/waterboarding) American POWs — establishing waterboarding as a death-penalty offense under U.S. law. Kiriakou has posed the resulting contradiction as a rhetorical question: *"Why in 1946 did we execute Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war?"* — a death-penalty offense in 1946 that the CIA treated as legal in 2002.[1][2]

In January 1968, when a *Washington Post* photograph showed a U.S. soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered an immediate investigation. The soldier was arrested, convicted of torture, and sentenced to twenty years at Leavenworth.[3]

Kiriakou juxtaposed this enforcement history with the post-9/11 [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) program: *"But then in 2002, like magic, it's all legal."*[3] He stresses the statute itself was never touched: Congress never voted on any change to the Federal Torture Act of 1946, and the text was never amended. What changed was only the Justice Department's own interpretation of it — Office of Legal Counsel opinions reclassified specific techniques as not constituting torture, making the practice legal in the executive branch's own reading without any actual legislative act.[4] He traces the statute's roots to Nuremberg: passed in 1946, the same year the U.S. executed the Japanese soldiers, it sits alongside the United Nations Convention Against Torture — a convention Kiriakou says the United States itself authored and is a signatory to — as the two legal bases on which he concluded the CIA's post-9/11 program was a crime.[5][6]

## 'The lawyers stood on their heads' (The Inquiry)

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) says torture is illegal *"by any measure"* under the [Federal Torture Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-torture-act) of 1946 and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and that Justice Department lawyers *"stood on their heads to somehow make it not illegal"* after 9/11.[7][8]

## The line he says he drew in 2002

Kiriakou distinguishes sharply between the lawbreaking his job consisted of and the lawbreaking he refused. *"When you're a CIA officer, your job is to break the law. It's to break the laws of other countries. I was thrilled to get on a plane, go overseas and commit espionage. That's what I was paid to do, and it was fun and it was rewarding. But I drew the line where it came to breaking US law."*[9][10]

The objection he says he made to his superiors in the middle of 2002 rested on two instruments: a domestic statute *"which specifically prohibits us from doing exactly the things that you're telling me we're going to start doing,"* and the international convention — *"not only were we signatories to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, we wrote the United Nations Convention Against Torture."* In this telling he dates the domestic statute to 1946; the Federal Torture Act was enacted in 1994, and the discrepancy is preserved here as spoken.[10][11]

## Why the case against the psychologists was only civil

Discussing [the Salim lawsuit](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/salim-v-mitchell) in 2017, Kiriakou treats the choice of forum as the defendants' good fortune rather than a judgement on the conduct. *"I think frankly that Mitchell and Jessen are very, very fortunate in that this is not a criminal trial, because this is a violation — their actions are a violation of the federal torture act and a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. So they're lucky, I think, that this is only a civil suit."* The year he gives for the statute, 1946, is preserved as spoken.[12]

## See also

- [Waterboarding](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/waterboarding)
- [Enhanced interrogation techniques](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/enhanced-interrogation)
- [Senate Torture Report](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-torture-report)
- [Mitchell and Jessen](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mitchell-and-jessen)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou: CIA's Secret Torture Programs, Mk-Ultra, 9-11, and Why Obama Threw Him in Jail (2025-06-04), at 23:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwBMKwt14IU&t=1417s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-04-tucker-carlson-cia-torture-mk-ultra-911/
2. How I Became a CIA Whistleblower (2018-06-05), at 8:31. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX2YMB6dWJw&t=511s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-06-05-tedx-foggybottom-how-i-became-a-cia-whistleblower/
3. John Kiriakou: CIA's Secret Torture Programs, Mk-Ultra, 9-11, and Why Obama Threw Him in Jail (2025-06-04), at 24:07. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwBMKwt14IU&t=1447s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-04-tucker-carlson-cia-torture-mk-ultra-911/
4. Explosive CIA Face-Off: Loyal Officer VS Dissident Spy (2024-08-12), at 13:43. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMSJDkqSYQ&t=823s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-08-12-danny-jones-loyal-officer-vs-dissident-spy/
5. Foresight with Ken Weaver--John Kiriakou, Whistleblower (2019-03-14), at 03:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcTHv1zLD7M&t=192s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2019-03-14-salem-access-tv-public/
6. 5-26-17 Nicole Sandler Show - Our Dangerous World with J (2017-05-26), at 44:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLiupCJPu_I&t=2663s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-05-26-nicole-sandler/
7. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Exposes Torture, Assassinations, and the Epstein Files (2026-03-01), at 01:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHt3dZqn6c&t=98s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-01-the-inquiry-torture-assassinations-epstein/
8. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Exposes Torture, Assassinations, and the Epstein Files (2026-03-01), at 02:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHt3dZqn6c&t=130s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-01-the-inquiry-torture-assassinations-epstein/
9. One America News Network (2026-02-27), at 20:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulc3YGqjKvk&t=1258s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-27-one-america-news-network-one-america-news-network/
10. One America News Network (2026-02-27), at 21:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulc3YGqjKvk&t=1289s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-27-one-america-news-network-one-america-news-network/
11. One America News Network (2026-02-27), at 22:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulc3YGqjKvk&t=1320s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-27-one-america-news-network-one-america-news-network/
12. Jeff Sessions Is Extending Obama's War on Leaks (2017-08-08), at 13:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4Cd-9lJA8&t=836s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-08-democracy-now-jeff-sessions-is-extending-obama-s-war-on-lea/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-torture-act/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt