First Polygraphs and Then Torture?

Declan McCullagh declan at well.com
Mon Nov 5 21:09:30 PST 2001


On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 05:05:03PM -0800, Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
> Who decides what is "cruel and unusual"?

Well, hell, who decides what "speech" is, or "religion," or a firearm?
(Is Politech speech, is Scientology a religion, is a stun gun a firearm?)

The answer, of course, is that the courts decide, influenced to some
extent by popular opinion and appointments to the federal bench. But
arguing that torture (or, perhaps, truth drugs) is not somehow cruel
doesn't get you all that far, at least not without the context of what
courts have said in the past, if you intend your post to be predictive 
at all.

-Declan





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