What techniques do you think are acceptable as a means for potentially getting crucial information out of suspects? Say, a captive is suspected to know the location of a huge terrorist base or whatnot. Or suicide bomber training facility.
Personally I accept torture as a necessary evil as long as we do not develop painless technique of extracting information, such as drug-induced hypnosis or some advanced brain scan or whatnot. I hope we do, soon.
Let's face it: if the criminal does not feel serious discomfort, he will not have any reason to part with the information. It's not pretty, and innocents may suffer, but what are you gonna do? The info can potentially save many civilian lives.

So you would rather physically torture people than peek into their private information?
Keep in mind that only people who are suspected to have crucial information would be subjected, eg captive terrorists.

I am all for privacy myself, but between inflicting suffering and taking a peek in someone's head, i think the latter is more humane and efficient.

What about that chemical that supposedly makes people far more likely to tell the truth?

Honestly, I don't think the U.S. or any other nation that claims to be "civil" should torture. Capture people, if they wont talk, press them as hard as you can, but dont make them think are about to die, or rape them, or humiliate them. There is nothing civil about that and if anything it just proves you intelligence agency to be shite.

Honestly i think it's more of a movie thing (but I'm no expert).
As far as i know, you can get a person intoxicated and impede their judgment, but that doesn't guarantee they will let the relevant info out.


Appeal to their self-interest? Promise comfort and protection?
While that may work on some, it wouldn't work on fanatical brainwashed terrorists. Basically, what do you do if words fail?

Says you.
What about people who are mistakenly suspected to hold crucial info, and are tortured as a result? They either have to lie (thereby wasting our resources and facing brutal consequences) or attempt to last through it.
Moreover, think of what brain scans could do for death row criminals. Absolute, inerrant way to determine the guilt of a suspect. No more innocents dying.
At the very least, undergoing the scan should be a voluntary option for captive.

Well, ideally the country would move on, consider the prisoner a lost hope for getting info from and just keep them detained and maybe try them again every so often. You might not get the info out of them, but you also make good on all that schlock your PR folks tell everyone you care about, like justice, fairness, and being "better" than the average terrorist. It's a tad naive, I know :P and Im not totally against physichal coercsion, just not to the extent that the US was found to be using in Abu Grabe (probably spelled wrong)



That's a very good point. When does the line between trying to get info from a brainwashed person become simply re-brainwashing the person through pain and stress?


Sure, they can't sodomize you or water board you either. I'm sure they could, and have covered up a few dead folks. "Oh no, we accidentally this random terrorists whole life!" "throw him and in the ocean and be done with it" that sort of thing.

Only concretes exist, no?
Herp

PS: don't insult people here.

Many problems don't have any peachy solutions. No matter how you choose to resolve the issue, you will be wronging somebody. In such cases it comes down to efficiency.

and saving of many innocent lives and resources.