oh dear: Torture valid as it saves lives, says MI5

[Mailman]

Flip side of that argument though is, how do you defeat the enemy by becoming him?

Didnt Sun Zu (or some other equally silly looking chingaling name) say "to defeat your enemy you need to become him".

And even if you somehow manage to justify it, who is watching and controling those doing it in our name, and who is watching the watchers, to make sure none cross whatever imaginary lines we draw.?

I dont think anyone is trying to justify torture...merely stating that there is no way to absolutely guarantee any information gained wasnt gained from scum who had their finger nails pulled off or new knee caps drilled for them.

Mailman

[Not So Wise]

The whole crux of what the woman was getting at is that its impossible to assure all information received wasnt tainted by torturing. Also, why tie your hands behind your back when the very scum you are fighting have no such issues

Flip side of that argument though is, how do you defeat the enemy by becoming him?
We are susposed fighting for freedom, justice and liberty and all that jazz, so one has to ask what has torture, detainment without evidence or trial or murder got to do with that?
And even if you somehow manage to justify it, who is watching and controling those doing it in our name, and who is watching the watchers, to make sure none cross whatever imaginary lines we draw.?

History is jam packed with good groups of people who start doing bad things in the name of good and in every single instance it has always ended up the same way, the good guys become the greatest enemy of the very people they are meant to be defending.

[AtW]

Also, why tie your hands behind your back when the very scum you are fighting have no such issues

What's that -- Al Quaeda is now known to torture people big time to get state secrets?

[Mailman]

The whole crux of what the woman was getting at is that its impossible to assure all information received wasnt tainted by torturing. Also, why tie your hands behind your back when the very scum you are fighting have no such issues

Mailman

[sappatz]

Uk

well it shows how much corrupted UK has become under Bliar and his minions
They want to hold suspects for 3 months without charge and send them to Algeria in the meantime ?
Soon MI5 will dictate the government policy.

[OwlHoot]

As we all know torture someone and you can get them to admit to anything, even if that confesion will only garantee their death.

That assumes they're in a normal frame of mind, desperation aside - But how about pumping them full of scopolamine or some similar drug that changes their state of consciousness, with or without torture?

[AtW]

Nice Guy Eddie: If you ******* beat this ***** long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it ******* so!

[Not So Wise]

Is there some kind of international standards authority for torture?

I imagine that the definition can vary quite a lot. Electrodes on the bollocks would probably be counted by most countries, but what about being forced to listen to Robbie Williams at full volume non-stop for a week?

Or being fed nothing but Pot Noodles? ... or having to sleep on a lumpy bed? ... or having to share a cell with Chico?

I demand a full list of all acts which count as torture.

Thats the game the americans play constantly with guantalamo bay. When they say "we are tortureing no one there" what they actually mean is they are not doing things that cause direct, measurable phisical pain (aka Electrodes on the bollocks )
But they are doing 1001 other things, most that would get them into serious trouble, possible even jail time in their own country. It's is long past tme that things like the international declaration of human rights and the geneva convention were updated.

As to the original topic, slippery slope what they are going there. As we all know torture someone and you can get them to admit to anything, even if that confesion will only garantee their death.

For this reason alone, before you even get to human rights issues, any reasonable society that is interested in the truth does not use it.

So i would say nothing extracted via torture should ever be allowed to be admited as evidence , if they get such information from another country sure follow it up, use it to obtain real evidence against a person but the confesion it's self should never be allowed as evidence as it always will be "tainted"

[ratewhore]

Is there some kind of international standards authority for torture?

I imagine that the definition can vary quite a lot. Electrodes on the bollocks would probably be counted by most countries, but what about being forced to listen to Robbie Williams at full volume non-stop for a week?

Or being fed nothing but Pot Noodles? ... or having to sleep on a lumpy bed? ... or having to share a cell with Chico?

I demand a full list of all acts which count as torture.

The truth is out there...

http://www.jonronson.com/goats_04.html

[DodgyAgent]

torture

is that when they were looking for Witches

Lunching with contractors should be banned

[MrsGoof]

is that when they were looking for Witches

[AtW]

I demand a full list of all acts which count as torture.

CIA made up a list of "softening" techniques that their lawyers classified as NOT torture and thus acceptable for use. One technique was "simulated drawning (sp?)", ie force prisoners head under water pretending he will die, apparently that's okay.

[PRC1964]

Is there some kind of international standards authority for torture?

I imagine that the definition can vary quite a lot. Electrodes on the bollocks would probably be counted by most countries, but what about being forced to listen to Robbie Williams at full volume non-stop for a week?

Or being fed nothing but Pot Noodles? ... or having to sleep on a lumpy bed? ... or having to share a cell with Chico?

I demand a full list of all acts which count as torture.

[AtW]

Torture valid as it saves lives, says MI5
By David Sanderson

TORTURING detainees does help interrogators to obtain evidence that could save lives, according to Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the MI5 Director-General.

Dame Eliza also said it was impossible for agencies in this country to know if information supplied by foreign security services had been obtained by the use of torture. She added that to try to find out would jeopardise future relationships.

In a statement Dame Eliza cited the example of Kamel Bourgass, a failed asylum-seeker jailed this year for killing Detective Constable Stephen Oake and attempting to create ricin in his North London flat.

She wrote in the statement, obtained by Channel 4 News, that information about his intentions first came from an interview conducted by Algerian security services with Mohammed Meguerba, an al-Qaeda terrorist. The statement was submitted to the House of Lords, which is considering an appeal to a Court of Appeal ruling last year that British intelligence services can use information extracted under torture to detain suspected terrorists.

The appellants are foreign nationals, Algerians or other north Africans detained in Belmarsh under the indefinite de- tention of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001.

They are challenging the Government’s strategy of by-passing traditional standards of due process and the constraints of human rights law by allowing the executive to deport or detain without proof of wrongdoing.

--

What a load of balls -- take _any_ man on the street and torture them: they will admit to anything you want, just ask Stalin's henchmen of 1937.