>>>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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>Here's a no to that one for sure. It sounds like "If you let us wiretap illegally and otherwise infringe your privacy rights, (maybe) we won't torture suspects." Like we have to agree with one or the other. (Which do you want to make legal, burglary or drug smuggling?) To me the answer is neither

Unless you take the position that gathering intelligence is unnecessary you have to have ways to do it. My point was that intelligence gained in one way can remove the necessity (or focus the direction) of intelligence gathered in another.

I think a lot of people who are just concerned about thinking of themselves as defenders of all things right and pure simply say "Wiretaps. OOOH, yucky. Aggressive interrogation, OOOH gross."

and then

"Hey, how come you spy guys didn't know the bad ( oh, sorry, culturally misunderstood and misguided - though I can certainly see their point given that Bush and Cheney are the source of all the evil in the world ) guys were gonna pump Sarin gas into my daughter's (culturally diverse) pre-school? "