First, telecom immunity, and now torture impunity...

... because Leon Panetta--who won the CIA directorship in part for public opposition to torture--has now told his employees that they don't need to worry about it if they did slip up and, uh, torture, because he won't allow anything bad to happen to them:

CIA Director Leon Panetta says agency employees who took part in harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects are not in danger of being punished.

Panetta delivered that message to CIA employees in an e-mail Thursday, reiterating what he told Congress last month. He said then that he would oppose prosecutions of any CIA employee who adhered to their legal guidance on interrogations.

So much for the Nuremburg principle (not to menton the principle in the Uniform Code of Military Justice) that doesn't excuse obedience to illegal orders.