![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/torturrre.jpg\")
Will Americans allow their military and security services
\n to practice torture? If you asked a mythical representative sampling
\n of Americans "Should police and national security agencies be allowed
\n to use torture?" we are confident the answer would be a resounding NO.
\n If you rephrased the question as "Should police and national security
\n agencies be given discretion in the use of torture in cases of urgent
\n national security?" we suspect the answer would be quite different, and
\n with good reason.<\/p>\n
The topic of torture has entered the arena of national
\n debate, and was all the buzz around the water cooler at work and on the
\n talk
\n radio channels we listen to in the White Whale, so as to keep our finger
\n on the elusive pulse of public opinion.<\/p>\n
It seems that, like the Dowbrigade, millions of American In a real world parallel, Bush nominee for Attorney General The questions raised by juxtaposing Jack Bauer Pondering torture leads inevitably to the hypothetical: And if you accept torture in theory, in such an extreme Then there is the related question of the reliability of Are masochists immune to torture? Have there been any scientific Another uncomfortable question: What percentage of the The difficulty in talking about these subjects makes it Will Americans allow their military and security services to practice torture? If you asked a mythical representative sampling of Americans "Should police and national security agencies be allowed to use torture?" we are confident the answer would be a resounding … Continue reading
\n viewers (mostly male demographic) were too lazy to change the channel
\n after the second NFL playoff game and as a result ended up watching Jack
\n Bauer<\/a> on FOX in the season premiere
\n of "24<\/a>" pump a high-caliber slug
\n through the thigh of a terror suspect of Middle Eastern origin in an
\n effort
\n to obtain alacritous information. The predominant tone of the reaction,
\n as far as we could tell, was "Go Jack".<\/p>\n
\n Alberto
\n Gonzales<\/a> has been forced to go
\n on the record<\/a> as being opposed
\n to torture. Meanwhile, repeated reports are dragging Americans out of
\n denial and into reluctant admission that torture has been not only routinely
\n out-sourced<\/a> to our less scrupulous allies but practiced by US forces,
\n both in Guantanamo and in Iraq. It has happened, repeatedly, in the past. Captured
\n on film and video. Does anyone doubt that it is still happening, in some
\n dark, secret room, right now, as you read these words?<\/p>\n
\n and Alberto Gonzales are many and varied. How do Americans really
\n feel about torture? Is it’s use absolutely unacceptable, or does it depend
\n on the situation of each case? Do terrorists (and, by implication, terrorist
\n suspects) have different rights than conventional enemy combatants or
\n spies? Don’t we use psychological torture on prisoners all the time?<\/p>\n
\n If we knew a terrorist group had planted a nuclear device in a major
\n American city, and we had in our custody someone who we believed knew
\n the location of that device, would we not be criminally negligent to
\n FAIL to do everything possible to extract that information? Up to using
\n torture, if we believed it could save hundreds of thousands of innocent
\n American lives in imminent mortal danger?<\/p>\n
\n case, who should be in charge of deciding what torture methods should
\n be applied? Is there a more "humane" torture? And who decides which cases
\n are imminent enough and vital enough to warrant extreme coercion?<\/p>\n
\n the information obtained via torture. We have heard that all information
\n obtained by torture is unreliable because the better the torturer the
\n more likely the victim is to say whatever he thinks the questioner wants
\n to hear, whether it is true or not. We have heard that hardened intelligence
\n operatives and fanatical terrorists are immune to torture, willing to
\n endure into the afterlife rather than give up their comrades.<\/p>\n
\n studies done of the veracity of information extracted by torture? Common
\n sense tells us that it would be an effective method in cases where short-lapse
\n verification of the information is possible, like "What is the password
\n to access the information on this hard disk?" and less effective in cases
\n where stalling and equivocating is possible, like "Where is the nuclear device set
\n to go off at midnight."<\/p>\n
\n population of this country know we have signed the Geneva Convention
\n and understand what it says on the subject? More to the point, of those who know, what percentage
\n care?<\/p>\n
\n hard to gauge what Americans really think, but you can be sure policy
\n makers in and out of government are trying to figure it out. It is not
\n so much a question of whether some degree of government-sponsored torture
\n will continue to exist, but rather how extreme it will be, how widely
\n it will be applied, and how openly it will be discussed, if at all, on
\n and off the record.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"