What I mean is that the legislative/administrative/executive actions making torture lawful in the sense of making a CIA operative refusing to carry it out liable for insubordination would have to be deemed unconstitutional but only the SCOTUS can do that, and you can only get to the SCOTUS after exhausting all the ladder of appeals (unlike in Spain where an unconstitutionality complaint can be lodged as soon as the law is published in the official journal).

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler