The ACLU has come to a similar conclusion:
"In the run-up to the release of the Senate’s scathing report on CIA interrogation techniques, American Civil Liberties Union Director Anthony Romero called on President Barack Obama to pardon George W. Bush and Bush administration officials for their hand in allowing those techniques.
"Romero argued that a pardon would establish precedent—torture is a crime that requires a pardon. Without that acknowledgment, he said, there is little legal pressure preventing techniques like those outlined in the Senate report from being used again.
"'The spectacle of the president’s granting pardons to torturers still makes my stomach turn,' Romero wrote in a New York Times editorial. 'But doing so may be the only way to ensure that the American government never tortures again.'"
http://www.newsweek.com/aclu-calls-obama-pardon-bush-officials-torture-290640
