Debates arose over whether "enhanced interrogation" violated U.S. anti-torture statutes or international laws such as the UN Convention against Torture. In 2005, the CIA destroyed videotapes depicting prisoners being interrogated under torture; an internal justification was that what they showed was so horrific they would be "devastating to the CIA", and that "the heat from destroying is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain." The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, stated that waterboarding is torture—"immoral and illegal", and in 2008, fifty-six Democratic Party members of the US Congress asked for an independent investigation.