Durham, N.C. — In September, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington will hear Salim vs. Mitchell, a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three former C.I.A. detainees. The lawsuit names as defendants the two psychologists who devised the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that became the basis for the C.I.A. torture program described in shocking detail in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 report.

Despite the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which held that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” these violations of body and mind continue to be exculpated and justified by the idea that they save lives. That, indeed, is the argument made in depositions by the psychologists in the A.C.L.U. case.

Donald Trump vowed, during his campaign, to bring back waterboarding “and a hell of a lot worse.” As yet, we have not seen that “worse,” since the counsel of his defense secretary, James Mattis — that such methods are useless and counterproductive — has prevailed. At least, as far as we know. It is not hard to imagine that a major terrorist attack is all it would take to revive such maltreatment. A recent survey found that almost half of Americans approved the use of torture if it led to information being extracted.

I am wary of judging my fellow citizens hastily. I understand the collective panic from which that blindness to the pain of the enemy stems. And I commiserate with their thirst for complete, if unobtainable, security.