Brave Legal Eagles, All

Here's a surprise:

From the NY Times, "at least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials."
The vague, lawyerly suggestions and advice came from the unlamented former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former star White House counsel Harriet Miers, Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, and former senior lawyer at the National Security Council, John Bellinger.
As Marty Lederman points out,

"countless government officials 'advised' the CIA not to destroy the tapes . . . but no one actually instructed the CIA not to do so, nor, presumably, did anyone go so far as to tell the CIA that it would be unlawful to destroy the tapes."

Perfect, illuminating legal behavior. No one says anything directly, concretely. The parties merely "advise," express "vigorous sentiment" that the tapes be destroyed and, wink-wink, the message is clear to all and sundry. It certainly seemed clear to Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA deputy director of operations. He authorized the destruction.
So why would the White House seek the destruction of evidence that illuminated its brave stand on "agressive interrogation"? John Bellinger, in a Guardian interview in November, tells us

"With respect to interrogation techniques, there has been change in that area as well. The interrogations that may be done today are not the same techniques that may have been used a number of years back."

Ah, yes. A "change in that area" has taken place. Or has it? In response to a question about waterboarding specifically, Bellinger said

"we've decided that we just don't want to get engaged in hypotheticals and applying the law to the facts of these particular cases."

He cited the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits, among other things, waterboarding. Then he added,

"critics will say, well, what about the CIA? But remember as far as the change - and I think we've been talking about change in tone and change in policy - where we were a few years ago was that there were not clear rules that anybody could point to and that they might have been applied differently in different places. And now there are clear rules applicable to all of our military in any place in the world and you can just go and read them."

Having brought up the CIA's exclusion from the manual's restrictions, he behaves as if prohibitions apply to them as well, but declines to specifically say so.
To sum it all up, although the CIA apparently hasn't altered its interrogation methods, it almost certainly doesn't tape them any longer.
Again, Marty Lederman:

"a slew of people evidently advised the CIA that it would be unwise or even illegal to destroy the tapes. Thereafter, most or all of those officials, in the CIA, in the White House, in Congress, etc., eventually found out that the CIA did destroy the tapes -- and not a single one of them did a thing about it. Why not? Well, perhaps it's because this entire group finally issued a collective sigh of relief that, finally, the CIA had failed to heed their 'advice.'