“[T]he revised [torture] memo [written on December 30, 2004, by Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel Dan Levin] included two oddly contradictory lines. One was yet another description of torture that seemed specifically written to legalize waterboarding so long as the severe pain it produced was not of ‘extended duration.’ The other…evidently written to reassure the CIA–suggesting that although the earlier legal guidance was being withdrawn, nothing that the government had previously authorized would be considered criminal under the new interpretation of the law.”
– Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, Page 306