Scalia: “Absurd” to Suggest that the U.S. Shouldn’t Torture Alleged Terrorists
February 13th, 2008Via: AP:
One of the United States’ top judges said in an interview broadcast in Britain on Tuesday that interrogators can inflict pain to obtain critical information about an imminent terrorist threat.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that aggressive interrogation could be appropriate to learn where a bomb was hidden shortly before it was set to explode or to discover the plans or whereabouts of a terrorist group.
“It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn’t, I don’t know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn’t do that,” Scalia told British Broadcasting Radio Corp.
Scalia said that determining when physical coercion could come into play was a difficult question. “How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be? I don’t think these are easy questions at all, in either direction,” he told the BBC’s “Law in Action” program.
U.S. interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, have been the subject of growing debate in the United States, and could play a role in the military trials of six men charged in connection with the Sept. 11, attacks. The issue also could find its way to the Supreme Court.
Scalia, visiting London during a break in the court’s calendar, referred generally to those methods as “so-called torture,” and said practices prohibited by the Constitution in the context of the criminal justice system β including indefinite detention β are readily allowed in other situations, such as when a witness refuses to answer a question in court.
“I suppose it’s the same thing about so-called torture,” he said in the interview. “Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution?
“Is it obvious, that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to the society? I think it’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.”
βIs it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution?”
So I guess the only time we’ve waterboarded anyone is when we were trying to find out where he’d hidden an as-yet-unexploded bomb. Sure.
Fascists in the White House, fascists in the Supreme Court, fascists and appeasers in Congress. Oh, well.
Hey anothernut, you think maybe Justice Scalia gets his ideas on constitutional governance more from watching episodes of “24” than by reading, you know, the actual Constitution?
Jiminy christmas.
God bless the black robe gang. First priests, now Supreme Court Justices.
Shouldn’t this gang be subject to the piss test for drugs that other folks on the us taxpayer dole are subject to ? Yeah.
If required, how many of these black robed “justices” would disrobe, and be outa here at the VERY IDEA that we the people, require them to disrobe and be subject to a piss test for drugs?
How much you want to bet Don Scalia would be the first to run?
This guy has been doing some heavy snorting, or mainlining, etc. and seems to have been “high” on somethun ever since his first date with DC. And his high ain’t been from huntin. No sirree.
Scalia is either being drugged by his best buds, or he is, unbeknownsted to himself, or any of his best buds, being eaten alive by his Scicilian DNA.
And Don Scalia? Look what happened to all those Catholic priests who hid behind their black robes while they wanked on all the poor pups who looked up at them in adoration. Like the priest was some kind of holy cow.
You represent the U.S. Constitution? I think not you sicko dead head. Better start running away dude, because there ain’t no where around here to hide you wank.