To the Editor:

The confirmation that the United States has tortured prisoners (“U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes,” front page, April 16) deserves a public reaction of outrage.

As a refugee from the depravities of two totalitarian regimes in Czechoslovakia, I had long trusted my chosen homeland to adhere to certain basic laws of the universal social contract. Torture is an egregious ethical violation that should never be permitted. The knowledge that it was practiced by my country has ruptured a basic foundation of my faith in America.

Highest regards, then, to the individuals who were willing to disclose our repulsive secret at great risk to their careers. I wish to thank the committee convened by the Constitution Project for its rational, unbiased review.

EVE STWERTKA

Great Neck, N.Y., April 17, 2013

To the Editor:

Re “Indisputable Torture” (editorial, April 17): Your renewed editorial condemnation of the extreme interrogation methods used by the Bush administration to extract potentially lifesaving intelligence from a handful of mass murderers in the wake of 9/11 brings to mind this observation of George Orwell: “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”