Past CIA activity has already been condemned & prohibited; this will most definitely have a chilling effect: Decision Sets Off Storm of Protest

From The Wall Street Journal:

President Barack Obama is battling to save his health-care plan, fortify the war effort in Afghanistan, restart Middle East peace negotiations, lay the groundwork for sanctions against Iran, close the Guantanamo Bay prison, bring the U.S. into a global climate-change effort, and end a global recession.

Now, he faces a political outcry over the Central Intelligence Agency, triggered by Attorney General Eric Holder's decision Monday to appoint a prosecutor to examine whether to bring charges against agency interrogators.

The divisions could hamper Mr. Obama's attempt to move ahead on, and seek Republican support for, a range of tricky domestic and foreign-policy matters. White House officials tried Monday to distance the president from the Holder decision, and to play down the political implications.

In a written statement, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that Mr. Obama wants "to look forward, not back" on matters regarding the conduct of the fight against terrorism. The White House emphasized Mr. Holder's decision that any interrogator who "acted in good faith and within the scope" of the Bush-era Justice Department's legal guidance on interrogation policies wouldn't be prosecuted.

But opponents of the attorney general's decision to pursue interrogators who may have gone out of those bounds remained critical.