A top CIA lawyer is asserting the kidnapping practice known as extraordinary rendition is legal under US law, even if it leads to torture. Writing in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Daniel Pines, an assistant general counsel at the CIA, states, “There are virtually no legal restrictions on these types of operations… Indeed, U.S. law does not even preclude [the] rendering [of] individuals to a third country in instances where the third country may subject the rendered individual to torture.” Pines adds that he is expressing his individual view, not an official US government stance.