Scalia slaps around terrorist rights argument

Reuters:

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said on Tuesday some physical interrogation techniques can be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up.

In such cases, "smacking someone in the face" could be justified, the outspoken Scalia told the BBC. "You can't come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good.'"

His comments come amid a growing debate about the Bush administration's use of aggressive interrogation methods on terrorism suspects rights after the September 11 attacks, including the use of a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding.

Scalia said that it was "extraordinary" to assume that the U.S. Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" also applied to "so-called" torture.

"To begin with the Constitution ... is referring to punishment for crime. And, for example, incarcerating someone indefinitely would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment for a crime," he said in an interview with the Law in Action program on BBC Radio 4.

Scalia said stronger measures could be taken when a witness refused to answer questions.

"I suppose it's the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" he asked.

"It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game" Scalia said. "How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

Scalia, who has long supported capital punishment, also ridiculed European criticism of the death penalty in the United States.
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There is a distinction between interrogation for a trial and getting information to stop an act of mass murder. In the first case you are attempting to get information after the fact and in the second case you are trying to stop the crime. The greater the crime the greater the urgency in stopping it. When it comes to water boarding for example as I understand it, it is not so much painful as frightening because it producing the sensation of drowning. I am sure it is unpleasant, but I am not sure those who oppose it and would let Los Angeles be blown up are morally superior to those who would go to greater lengths to prevent mass murder.

The European opposition to the death penalty is irrational. For every criminal who is executed in the US 18 innocent lives are saved because of reduced murders. Again the opponents of the death penalty have a false sense of moral superiority by saving the guilty and letting more innocents be killed.

There is more on the BBC interview.