>>>Sure, tickle his feet all you want, but don't start ripping out his nails. The truth is that torture has been shown over and over to be an unreliable method of obtaining valid information. It says more about the torturer than the victim afaic.
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>>Of course you're right. I do, however, see parallels to the moral absolutism that invades the anti-terrorism debate and that found in issues of reproduction.
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>>It would seem anti-abortion sentiment should be quite pro contraception. But the same token, anti-torture advocates should encourage wire-tapping and other non-violent means of obtaining the information otherwise to be extracted by force. No?
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>No. At least, not if not regulated or controlled in stringent ways.

Knowing a little about how intelligence is gathered and used ( mostly simply because I take an interest in the subject ) I find the anxiety about surveillance and the cavalier attitude toward security threats that are quite real to be a distortion of priorities. The wiretapping that is conducted without warrant is a threat to no American ( or Canadian ) who is not actively intending to harm people who do not deserve to be harmed. When you can go on television and say you hope Cheney has a heart attack and dies, do you think purpose of the taps is to create an 'enemies list' of those who might not vote Republican in the fall so they can be rounded up and interned? <s>

But I agree. Control on domestic surveillance is quite important. But the surveillance under discussion is on the communications of foreign nationals in foreign nation - i am not interested in protecting their rights under US law.