I wanted to grab the text of the Federal definition of torture, so I searched on “cfr torture” via trusty old google. CFR stands for Code of Federal Regulations. If you’re looking for a regulation related to a topic, adding cfr to the beginning of the search string is a great way to narrow the results.
Anyway, there at the top of the page was the result I wanted:
Section 1208.18 Implementation of the Convention Against Torture. | USCIS
(1) Torture is defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether .... OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS (8 CFR) \ 8 CFR PART 1208 -- PROCEDURES ...
Great! I clicked. The link now redirects to the page in the header image — which is info on Title 8 Aliens and Nationality.
Searching on “torture” on the ecfr site brings many pages of results. I clicked through several, pages, but gave up without finding a link to the page containing Section 1208.18.
The link that’s being redirected was used in a recent Washington Post article on June 15 explaining that the current child separation policy constitutes torture under US law. I can’t help but wonder if someone in charge of ecfr saw the spike in traffic and decided to add a redirect to prevent people from finding the US Federal law on torture. I wonder why?
Luckily, Google has the old version of the URL cached… for now. The cached version of the page was created on June 18, so sometime in the last 8 days, someone added a 302 redirect to ecfr.gov to prevent direct access to the Federal law defining torture.