A newly disclosed memo shows Bush administration lawyers told CIA interrogators they could use a series of harsh measures including waterboarding, so long as they believed they were acting “in good faith.” The August 2002 memo was apparently written to address CIA concerns its officers could once face torture charges for carrying out White House-approved techniques. The Bush administration’s instructions said officers needed only to believe they weren’t deliberately inflicting severe pain to cause harm. The memo says, “Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it.” It continues, “The absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture.” The administration ultimately rescinded the directive three years later. The memo was released under a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said, “These documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody. The Justice Department twisted the law, and in some cases ignored it altogether, in order to permit interrogators to use barbaric methods that the US once prosecuted as war crimes.”