Justice department weighs torture methods

Here’s a hypothetical: members of the FBI, CIA, and the military are in a room with a suspected terrorist, how do they get info out of him? That scenario has happened many times in recent years and the three interrogators act in different ways. A new report released by the Justice Dept. illustrates those differences and confirms that the CIA and military engage in harsh techniques such as waking prisoners every 15 minutes, and intimidating them with dogs. However the report says the FBI removes themselves from these situations, and often documents what happens. This professor says the FBI, CIA and military have different techniques because the agencies have different functions: the FBI is a law protection agency and wants to make sure they’re complying with the US constitution which gives protections to people who are brought to US court. But most detainees aren’t brought to US courts, so CIA and military interrogators have been operating under a different set of regulations, which has definitions hasn’t been sorted out. In other words, the Bush administration and the Justice Dept. make those rules, but the public doesn’t know what those rules are. This Duke professor says that’s a problem the new report fails to address, and the report raises more questions than answers. The professor says there’s a lot of confusion and disagreement between these interrogations techniques. Now some members of Congress are calling for one set of interrogation techniques. That’s the case in places like Israel. This professor says having clear rules protect the interrogator and the detainee and also make the public think about how far it is willing to go with interrogation, and it’s a discussion that needs to be had.