Eric Holder at border and airport, as well as in intelligence operations. During his confirmation hearings, Holder agreed with Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont) that a technique used by U.S. interrogators under the George W. Bush administration known as waterboarding is torture. Consequently, Senate Republicans delayed the confirmation vote on Holder though Senate Democrats accused them of applying a double standard. He has been critical of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the NSA warrantless surveillance program, accusing the Bush administration of a "disrespect for the rule of law... [that is] not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism." Holder has
Enhanced interrogation techniques Guantanamo prosecutor, and a military tribunal judge, have called "enhanced interrogation" a euphemism for torture. In 2009, both President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder said that certain techniques amount to torture, and repudiated their use. They declined to prosecute CIA, DoD, or Bush administration officials who authorized the program, while leaving open the possibility of convening an investigatory "Truth Commission" for what President Obama called a "further accounting". In July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights formally ruled that "enhanced interrogation" is torture, and ordered Poland to pay restitution to men tortured at a CIA black site