one interesting connection that might be made in the discussion of officially sanctoned abuse of foreign prisoners, which the administration insists that it has the right to perpetrate, is the alien act of 1798, in which president adams in essence claimed that foreign nationals had no protections under the constitution. obviously the administration's policies entail that foreign nationals in american custody have absolutely no protections under the constitution. (of course even if this were true, there might be other arguments against torturing prisoners: like we'd rather not be torturers or that we are concerned with the treatment of our own people in the hands of others.) unfortunately the constitutionality of the alien act was never tried in the supreme court. but jefferson ran against it (and of course against the sedition act, with which it is paired in history) and won, repealing the law and pardoning and compensating the victims.