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FC: Alan Dershowitz suggests judges could issue "torture warrants"

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 09:22:40 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: Alan Dershowitz suggests judges could issue "torture warrants" Send reply to: declan@well.com

See also:

"FBI wants to cast aside civil liberties, torture mentioned" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02684.html

"The Objectivist Center applauds national IDs, torture, snooping?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02709.html

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From: "Robert Helmer" <roberthelmer@earthlink.net> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com> Subject: Dershowitz and Torture Warrants Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:00:42 -0600

Declan, a few weeks ago on Cyberia I posted a satiric comment about the government seeking the power to issue torture warrants against terrorist suspects -- To my surprise, some took the posting seriously. And now, guess what? Speaking in St. Louis yesterday, Alan Dershowitz seems to have come out in favor of it. The Post-Dispatch reports the following in today's edition:

"Even torture may not be off the table as an information-gathering tool, Dershowitz said. But there must be a national debate about the circumstances in which torture is permissible and who should have the power to decide when to use it. Dershowitz suggested that judges could issue torture warrants in certain cases."

<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/news/D2614FEED94954 0D86256AFB0043EB5B?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2Cdershowitz?opendocument& headline=U.S.+now+might+have+to+consider+what+once+was+unthinkable,+De rshowitz+says>http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/news/D 2614FEED949540D86256AFB0043EB5B?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2Cdershowitz? opendocument&headline=U.S.+now+might+have+to+consider+what+once+was+un thinkable,+Dershowitz+says

What's interesting is that, besides the wholly unconstitutional nature of torture, no one seems to consider its complete lack of effectiveness as an information gathering tool, since the nature of the duress it causes will prompt the suspect to say anything he thinks the torturers want to hear.... Witness the Inquisition, where suspects routinely implicated every possible innocent bystander to simply meet the torturers' quota of truth....

Thanks,

Bob Helmer Daily Rotation <http://www.dailyrotation.com>http://www.dailyrotation.com Shell Extension City <http://www.shellcity.net>http://www.shellcity.net St. Louis, Missouri

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