Philippe Sands interviews a broad cross-section of US and international lawyers. Many are direct participants in the Bush administration's efforts to remove legal restrictions to torture, effectively stripping detainees of legal rights afforded to them by US or international law (to which the US is a signatory). In addition, Mr. Sands cites the many documents, made public or not, providing a time line of the origin of each - along with when the participants claimed to know - and actually (likely) knew of the content, purpose, writers, and approval. He takes a realistic, global view of the potential criminality of the actions of the US attorneys, who conspired to circumvent detainee rights under US law and particularly Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.