Talk:Detainee Treatment Act

Anon comments
This article is horribly biased. The law is the Detainee Treatment Act, not the McCain Hagiography Act. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.182.51.67 (talk) 07:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

this article is incredibly biased. And does 2/3 of the article need to be taken up by john mccain's own statement on the issue? It's totally ridiculous. -- '' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.133.247 (talk • contribs)

-I agree with this. Really, a simple link to McCain's speech would be sufficient. -- '' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.74.86.206 (talk • contribs)


 * On the likelyhood that it's also a massive copyright violation I have removed it. Even if it is actually PD, as the comments above show, it was not appropriate for this articel. 68.39.174.238 02:08, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Needs reorganization
I'll take a shot at it, following which those who see further improvements now that this article is linked from a high visibility article should do so. Jon 19:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * completed reorganization and update to present. However it's in strong need of a support section (with sources) for balance (unforunately none are on hand; there ought to be plenty out there with 90 Senators having voted in favor. Alternatively, I could snip the entire criticism section, but I'd prefer a support section & a criticism section to neither. In the mean time, I'll place a POV tag. Jon 19:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Is McCain's speech a [Work of the US Government]? If so, it's public domain.

Name of the law
Recent articles have Defense Department officials referring to a "Detainee Treatment Act of 2005". Is there such a law, or is it just an amendment to another law? --Uncle Ed 16:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect Information
Just for the record, there is NO, I repeat NOT A SINGLE page of the interrogation manual that is classified. This is outdated and incorrect information. The manual in its entirety can be found via Google (FM 2-22.3). There are no hidden or classified portions omitted.

Redefinition of torture?
The amendment was intended to put an end to rough interrogation tactics, by classifying such as waterboarding as "cruel":
 * “With the McCain amendment, Congress has clearly said that anyone who authorizes or engages in cruel techniques like water boarding is violating the law,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch.

It looks to me like "severe pain or suffering" and "cruel" are synonymous, so the effect of the amendment is to brand waterboarding as torture. This would either force the US military to stop doing it, or open them to accusations of "violating the torture treaty".

Are there any quotable sources which make this argument? I don't want to waste time drawing my own conclusions.

I reckon anyway that the effect of the amendment was to sharpen the distinction between forbidden and permitted methods of interrogation. I'm not sure how much hay Bush opponents managed to make of it. Calling it the "anti-torture amendment" seems partisan, because the US is already against torture.

We need to organize our articles relating to this:
 * rough interrogation
 * coercive interrogation
 * waterboarding
 * "torture"
 * prisoner abuse - I think I started this one, inspired by a story a fellow soldier told me. --Uncle Ed 20:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Field Manual Linked
The Field Manual (FM) linked in this article is not currently in use. The correct FM, titled FM 2-22.3 - Human Intelligence Collection Operations can be found at: http://www.army.mil/institution/armypublicaffairs/pdf/fm2-22-3.pdf which is the one that the DTA of 2005 binds to the current FM that lists the only authorized approaches and techniques allowed to DOD interrogators. I will not actually modify the article, since I am not well versed in wikipediaease. Jerry.mills (talk) 07:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Undiscussed move
Renaming an article without discussion to what certainly is a less accurate name appears to beg to be undone. Please make it so. Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 16:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems that it is now actually called the Detainee Treatment Act even though it is an amendment to another Act, not a separate Act in itself? Is there a better name for it than the colloquial, non-official "McCain Detainee Amendments" or suchlike? —Centrx→talk &bull; 01:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Article is a complete mess
Only cursory mention of relevant court rulings on the Act, lots of unencyclopedic cruft, and a huge unbalanced WP:COATRACK for criticism of the Act, without any balance. THF (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of the Wikipedia policy WP:COATRACK is that a summary of criticism of, for example, a specific law, in an article dealing with that specific law, would not qualify as a "Coatrack". Rather than excluding relevant critical content, I would suggest that WP:NPOV in a case like this one would be better accomplished by including content that you feel would give a more balanced perspective. 174.101.53.148 (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

No mention of Boumediene v. Bush
The important case Boumediene v. Bush overturned the habeas corpus provision of the act, but isn't mentioned. --173.76.61.28 (talk) 00:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:45, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

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