Some Tea Leaves

If you want to know why it will be more or less impossible to succeed in bringing claims against U.S. government employees for based on being tortured while in U.S. custody, read Harbury v. Hayden, D.C. Cir. No. 06-5282. The case stems from U.S. meddling in Guatemala in 1992.

Key takeaway: regardless of what the law says, regardless of what the cases say, courts are going to resolve every question in favor of letting the government off the hook. Noted, as they say, without comment.