“The Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment is an independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel charged with examining the federal government’s policies and actions related to the capture, detention and treatment of suspected terrorists during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. The project was undertaken with the belief that it was important to provide an account as authoritative and accurate as possible of how the United States treated, and continues to treat, people held in our custody as the nation mobilized to deal with a global terrorist threat. On taking office in 2009, President Obama declined to undertake or commission an official study of what happened, saying it was unproductive to “look backwards” rather than forward. Senator Leahy (D – VT) introduced legislation to establish an independent commission to look into the U.S. behavior in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but Congress did not to act on it. In many respects, this Task Force report is the examination of the treatment of suspected terrorists that official Washington has been reluctant to conduct…The Task Force on Detainee Treatment is made up of former high-ranking officials with distinguished careers in the judiciary, Congress, the diplomatic service, law enforcement, the military, and other parts of the executive branch, as well as recognized experts in law, medicine and ethics. The group includes conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats.”