News The Case for Torture
posted by June 19 at 11:21 AM
onWait a minute… didn’t US Supreme Court Justice Scalia lose his shit when some of his colleagues brought up European laws and constitutions during deliberations?
And now Scalia is citing Jack Bauer—a fictional character in a television show—to bolster his case in support of torture?
“Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so. So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”
Says Andrew Sullivan…
Earth to Justice Scalia: Jack Bauer does not exist.
Comments
ARG!
WTF?
ARG!
Until I read this, I never knew it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time...
scary scary times we live in, no?
Fuck Dan, don't get your panties in a bunch. Why don't you read the original article. This had nothing to do with "deliberations", it was simply a panel discussion amoungst judges where someone else brought up the Jack Bauer hypothetical and Scalia responded. It was hardly a judgement from the bench.
The supreme court is legally wrong to say precedents from other countries don't count. First of all you can cite non-binding precedents. Alabama precedents are cited in other states all the time, although they are nonbinding-- in other states.
Second, international law including treaties and customary law is CONSTITUTIONALLY part of the supreme law of the us.
You know who ought to be convicted? The Noid. He ruins pizzas!
It's still a representative of the finest legal tradition in the history of the world using a vile, manipulative TV PROGRAM to justify the use of torture. Scalia is very upfront: he digs torture. He doesn't have a problem with indefinite detention without charges. He's a disgrace to the robes and a threat to the Constitution.
Fnarf @ 7,
You just described virtually everyone in the US Federal Government today.
Why does everyone at the stranger hate America?
Rest in Peace, oh final scrap of Justice Scalia's sanity.
Superman, however, would never stoop to torture. Which leaves me in a bit of a moral quandary. Which fictional hero should I look to for guidance?
@9
...what?
Who is Jack Bauer and what has he done with my freedom
Scalia's an asshole for many reasons, but he did write the 2004 dissent in Hamdi v. Rusmfeld, stating that the US government could not detain a citizen as an enemy combatant without charges.
Not to speak for Ecce, but I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm, Mr. Poe.
Comment #6 wins my coveted and just-invented Best Comment of the Month Award.
Fnarf, say what you will about Scalia, but 24 (as a work of fiction, not as a basis for governmental policy) rules!
@17 Ick, 24 is just "The Bachelor" with heavy explosives.
Who's going to get catty with the president?
Who's Jack going to give his torture ring to?
Who's going home (to hell) this week?
Jack Bauer never retreats, he just attacks in the opposite direction.
Professor Charles Xavier from X-Men once tried to read Jack Bauer's mind. Now he's sitting in a wheel chair.
When someone asks him how his day is going, Jack replies, "Previously, on 24..."
If they can write in a Constitution and work on protecting liberties, I'll just climb in my TV.
It really isn't a matter of where he said it (although I thought it was months ago), it's that he's a strict constuctionist and is thinking like a 12 year-old in public. Plus, he's talking like a cowboy. If they wrote crap lines likee it onto 24, it would be too corny. Thank god they serve for life.
If you didn't know that, it's the answer to your question 'why hasn't gonzalez fired Stevens, Breyer and Ginsberg?'.
This post overlooks the difference between refusing to look to international jurisprudence for guidance and relying on a TV character to bolster an argument: Bauer's 'merican.
It really, really sucks that people like Scalia, and Rush Limbaugh are sitting at home watching 24 (a show I love, adore, and watch religiously) and thinking "Yeah man, that Jack Bauer he's got the right idea." Fuck its SUPPOSED to be entertainment not strategic planning. Kiefer Sutherland is horrified by that shit.
I guess Scalia also forgot that the terrorist nuke in season 2 was sponsored by right-wing elements in the government that faked evidence to force the US into a war in the Middle East to benefit a consortium of oil companies.
Or that unless your name is Jack Bauer, torture has always proven to be an ineffective interrogation technique on the show.
A problem with TV shows is that the hero never acts on false information that the torture victim makes up just to get the torture to stop.
Another problem with TV shows is that the hero never misses the opportunity to save the world by spending 3 hours torturing some guy who doesn't know anything.
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