WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA interrogators use "unique" methods to obtain "vital" information from prisoners, but strictly obey laws against torture, CIA Director Porter Goss said in an interview published on Monday.

"This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work," Goss said in an interview with USA Today.

"We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture," Goss told the newspaper.

Coming as they do from a member of the administration of proven liar George W. Bush, reading comments from the CIA director that they don't use torture but instead use "unique" methods to obtain information leads me to believe that what they have done is conveniently redefined what everyone ELSE in the world would consider torture. After all, this administration is circumventing the Geneva Convention AND the US Constitution by redefining suspected terrorists and foreign fighters as "enemy combatants." The reason the administration did that was because then they could consider them something other than enemy troops, who are guaranteed rights and humane treatment by civilized governments.

Americans may not be concerned right now, but in the future, American citizens are going to fall into the hands of foreign governments, and they will also be denied the rights and humane treatment that the United States is now denying its captives. At that future date, we will do doubt demand that international agreements such as the Geneva Convention be observed, but the demnds will have little effect coming from a nation that disregarded the international laws when it was convenient.

Goss declined to describe interrogation methods exclusive to the CIA during an interview on Friday at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

"An enemy that's working in an amorphous network that doesn't have to worry about a bunch of regulations, chain of command, rule of law or anything else has got a huge advantage over a stultified, slow-moving, bureaucratic, by-the-book organization," Goss said.

"So we have to, within the law and within all the requirements of our professional ethics in this profession, develop agility. And that means putting a lot of judgment in the hands of individuals overseas."

This is a classic instance of obfuscation to justify questionable behavior. Because the CIA is slow-moving and bureaucratic, it is allowed to do whatever it feels is necessary to fight terrorists who are working in an "amorphous network." If you think about his comment, you might be wondering what advantage is gained by working in an "amorphous network," whatever the heck that might be. It sounds like a fuzzy, ill-defined, and unorganized thing to me, which doesn't really sound like much of an advantage over a slow but organized adversary. Even so, why does the CIA's own ineptitude give it leave to cut corners?

You know, organized criminals don't have to fire warning shots or follow the rule of law, or get a court order before breaking into a residence or business, or do much of anything like that. Using the simplistic argument of the CIA director, the police should be free to do anything—shoot first, use excessive force, break and enter any time at the discretion of individual police officers—all because criminals do not follow the rules. That is nonsense, and I'm stunned to hear such a ludicrous thing come from the man in charge of an army of spooks.

The one thing that Americans MUST remember is this: These methods are not ONLY applied to terrorists. These methods are applied to innocent people. Consider the hundreds of people America has kept detained at Guantanamo Bay FOR YEARS. THINK ABOUT THAT. If they were guilty of something, shouldn't they have been charged and tried? If they haven't been investigated, is it right to hold people indefinitely "just because"? My conclusion is that political prisoners who have been detained by the United States for over two years are probably innocent of wrongdoing and they are being held and treated in a suspect manner by a government that is ignoring international human rights.

If these people are guilty, let's hear the proof and try them. Otherwise, they are INNOCENT VICTIMS of a repressive government being held against their will in violation of international law. When that is determined to be the case, high governemnt officials must be held accountable for their actions. And the American people should be embarrassed and ashamed for allowing it to happen.