Defining acceptable technique

[pecunium]

james_nicoll was talking about Michael Ignatieff (vis-a-vis this NYTM article).

Ignatieff, among other blather, says that we're going to have to accept torturing people. It's a trifle more dressed up, but it's the "ticking bomb" nonsense, clothed in delicate terms of, "Stress," and "disorienting" and the like.

So it occurs to me, as he says none of this is torture, and Alberto Gonzales, and the like, all say we don't use torture, we just use "means of, mild, physical coercion," that I (yes I, the rabid anti-torture hippie-interrogator) can see a way to make it something I won't condemn out of hand.

Those at the top. Those who have to approve the legislation (as well as the hacking authority, so some upper level, Colonels and suchlike will be included) have to test the approved methods.

If waterboarding isn't torture, then let them show it. We'll waterboard them. Someone who has no reason to go easy on them will get to subject them to every method they want to approve. If they say 1 hour of stress-position A is acceptable (say hanging from the bars in handcuffs, stripped naked and doused with cold water) then they get one hour and 15 minutes (to show that we are stopping well short of the point of you know, "actual" torture). The times in question can be kept classified, but some oversight committee will get to see that it's actually done.

Each approved method has to be renewed every year, and prior to renewal it has to be re-administered to all those who would be in position to authorise it.

After all, it isn't as if this was torture.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I *like* the way you think.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't.

But I know more of my dark thoughts than you do.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

You Da Man.

Also, I'd like proof that this produced reliable information. Not just information, reliable information. Because unreliable information can be worse than no information. I'd also like to know that utilizing these practices wasn't going to damage the interrogators. Yeah, those people.


ALso, a small, additional worry of mine: How many people in the interrogation MoS and related ones are Reserve/NG? How many of the MP troops on Iraq/Afghanistan now are Reserve/NG? How many of those are peace officers in their civilian jobs? Do we want that subgroup to come back to their civilian jobs thinking that such practices, which we have done our best to eradicate from civilian police work over many painful years, are acceptable and reliable? How about those MPs who are regular army now but retire and become civilian peace officers?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Also, I'd like proof that this produced reliable information. Can't be done. Forget my biases, the problem is, the only thing one can test is do they break? If you give someone a safe-word/phrase, etc., which will let them stop the tested method, you've only shown the method gets people to talk.

There's no way to control for that.

Don't get me started (again) on the problems with law enforcement models and interrogation.

And yes, the problem of how this sort of thing damages the doer is heavy on my mind (if you go back to 2003 (sometime in early August, I think... lesseee; nope, was Nov 5th I was pissed off at David Brooks (haven't, by choice, read him since) and vented about it).

Lots of cops (not all, but by no means an insignificant number) see suspects as less than completely worthy of decent treatment. Interrogators are in a position where that can become extreme. The result can lead to atrocities.

As for MPs becoming cops, not so much. The duties aren't really the same. Some do police work, most are glorified traffic cops and security guards.

TK

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

Fantastic suggestion.

And as to proof of it producing valid info, you give your top officials one piece of information that they have to hold onto to and then tell the interrogator that the suspect holds 2 pieces of information. If the interrogatee produces the second bit of information (out of thin sir) then you have a problem.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

No. The point of this isn't to validate torture. It's to make sure the techniques aren't torture.

If the subject has nothing to reveal, is it all right to do these things to them? It's a better question of what we can allow.

TK

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

To be honest I don't think it's alright to do these things to anybody.

But if they're so damned sure that it works then finding themselves giving out false information just to make the "not-torture" stop should provide an ample demonstration as to why it's wrong both ethically and pratically.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The point is, were they to e required to do this, it wouldn't happen.

TK

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

True

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

From a practical standpoint, that isn't what would happen. One of the interesting things the U.S. discovered in Viet-nam is that having a time limit, past which one can just give in, made it much easier to hold out.

Most people know nothing with a useful shelf life of more than about 72 hours (from when they learned it). There are a few, in a major war (the guy who had the plans for Operation Market-Garden with him when his glider was destroyed on landing, though not the plans is an example of that) but in the sort of thing we're dealing with, no. If someone has the details of a World Trade Center sort of attack, the plan will be changed.

So the guy will crack, about the first bit, and hold out for the second.

That's not what I propose.

I propose just doing whatever it is we plan to make legitimate, for some period of time; that period of time to be a tad longer than the allowed time frame, if it's allowed.

TK

[lietya.livejournal.com]

I love this plan. Ideally, it would cause everyone at the top to gulp and then blink (drop the idea). But I bet it would make the line between "unpleasantness" and torture come clearer right quick.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

If only it could be done ...

Do you ever watch Mythbusters? They did a water-torture segment.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We have crappy cable (probably a good thing). I did, however, get to see (online) the outtakes from that segment.

TK

[bastets-place.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good way to wind up with some *really* kinky people in positions of authority.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes... "not torture, just unpleasantnesses". Reminds me of "The late unpleasantness" between Nazi Germany and the UK (or between the Union and the Confederacy, in the US.

But... gee, Terry, you sound like one of those people who think that billionaires ought to pay at least as large a percentage of their actual income in Income Taxes as though of us in the c. 40-thousand-per-year range.

You know, I _used_ to live, just a few years ago, in a country that observed things like Warrents showing probable cause for Search or Arrest, Fair & Speedy Trials, and not imprisoning people indefinitely without a trial. One in which practically everyone recognized that the Constitution concentrates on specifying Freedoms & Rights for the People (& implies many more not enumerated), with the one amendment limiting their freedom quickly repealed. And I haven't moved.