New at Reason

December 18, 2006

In response to proponents of torture's  "ticking time bomb" scenario, Jim Henley postulates a few hypotheticals of his own.

Comments

|12.18.06 @ 3:31PM|#

I loved this essay when I read it in the latest edition. The ticking time bomb senario always bugged the hell out of me, but I was never able to argue why as well as Jim did.

|12.18.06 @ 3:37PM|#

Is this like on "24" when they use any excuse to fire up the stun guns, electrodes and "truth" serum on their fellow co workers suspected of aiding "terrorists"?

ed|12.18.06 @ 3:47PM|#

Henley could have made his "what if" silliness much more entertaining just by replacing Manhattan with Cleveland.

|12.18.06 @ 3:54PM|#

Jim:

Stupid column. How do you think Mary got pregnant?

Eagle|12.18.06 @ 4:06PM|#

Henley's first hypothetical is silly for many reasons that I'll allow others to explain. His second hypothetical is excellent; however, there is also an excellent answer. Make the penalty for being wrong extreme ("wrong" means unable to prove beyond reasonably doubt afterwards). 10 to 20 years in prison, no parole, if you wrongfully torture someone.

|12.18.06 @ 4:09PM|#

I'm sure Henley's got this wrong. I don't doubt that state agents would willingly supply incentives to get results...and I have no idea how far they might go.

The question is why the public will countenance some actions, but not others. (Most Americans supported Carter's decision not to turn the Shah over to Iran.

Obviously, it is because the terrorist is guilty...the child is not.

Henley's whole post is wrong-headed and strained. Not brilliant at all.

Christopher Monnier|12.18.06 @ 4:11PM|#

> Obviously, it is because the terrorist is guilty...the child is not.

Presumably. And the whole point is to extract information, not to punish the terrorist. That's a separate issue.

|12.18.06 @ 4:12PM|#

pretty much a summary of every argument I've ever heard for increasing government power.

Jennifer|12.18.06 @ 4:13PM|#

Great article, Jim! Congratulations!

I am still waiting for a ticking-bomb-scenario proponent to explain to me how we'd find ourselves in a ticking-bomb scenario to begin with. Let's see: our intelligence is so good that we know beyond doubt there's a bomb, we know beyond doubt it will go off at X o'clock, killing many people in Y city, and we know beyond doubt that the guy currently in custody is The One With The Answers. . . yet we have no idea where the bomb actually is?

|12.18.06 @ 4:21PM|#

The writer also made an excellent point that's come up before. All of this is not "authority" to torture; its seeking immunity from prosecution for tortuing.

After all, if you're trying to save a million Manhattanites from a nuke, maybe the right thing to do is to torture the guy. Of course, the right thing to do then is to accept your punishment and go to jail.

|12.18.06 @ 4:24PM|#

Neither scenereo is particularly useful. In a true ticking time bomb scenerio, I would hope the police would knock the snot out of the person and be willing to take the consiquences. I know I would and I seriously doubt that anyone would ever be sent to jail because they tortured someone to prevent a bomb from going off. Given that fact, I don't see how the scenerio shows anything one way or another.

The ticking time bomb scenerio just begs the question which is; what do you do when someone has valuable information and will not talk? Does our aversion to torture mean that you can only ask them nicely once and as soon as they say no, you leave them alone? Does it mean you can ask them over and over again until finally they break down and tell you? Does it mean you can deprive them of sleep or use psycological tricks like lying to them to get them to talk? Can you make them uncomfortable without causing harm? There is a whole spectrum of things lying between taking the first no for answer and cutting their balls off and making them eat them. That is a really hard question that no one on either side seems very interested in answering.

|12.18.06 @ 4:36PM|#

"The ticking time bomb scenerio just begs the question which is; what do you do when someone has valuable information and will not talk?"

That's not what "begs the question" means.

|12.18.06 @ 4:38PM|#

The child rape scenerio is a pretty stupid and poorly thought out analogy even by Reason's stardards. In the ticking bomb scenerio, the person being tortured is a murderer who is withholding information in hopes of the bomb going off and is therefore not an innocent victim if he is totured. In the child rape scenerio, the child has done nothing to deserved being raped and unlike the victim of torture a truly innocent victim. In this first scenerio you are torturing a guilty person. In the second you are victimizing an innocent person. The two situations are not analogous.

The better objection to the ticking time bomb scenerio is that you don't know until after you torture the person if he has any information or not. You could just as easily be mistaken and wind up torturing an innocent cab driver as you could getting the right person and saving the day. At what point if ever is your information about a subject so perfect that it is worth torturing them and risking torturing an innocent person? Moreover, if your infomation about the subject is that good, how do you not know where the bomb is?

Warren|12.18.06 @ 4:38PM|#

The TTB is just a pretext that allows barbarians to pretend they're decent people.

...you somehow just had to torture this bad guy to stop the bomb, then you ought to do it anyway and face your punishment. Right? Leave possible pardons and runaway juries aside. We are hard men for hard times, and we want hard make-believe conundrums.

Damn-straight. It's the most disgusting aspect of the neo-con mindset, "we make the rules... and they don't apply to us". And then they hang it on their piety. ARRRGGG! I'm still hoping I live to see GWB and Rummy sent to a federal pound-em-in-the-ass prison, over the torture.

|12.18.06 @ 4:41PM|#

Jim,

Good article but it has a major flaw, I don't think there are 1 million Manhattanites worth saving so I would let the bomb explode.

|12.18.06 @ 4:53PM|#

When we capture someone like OBL or KSM

1.) It's possible to establish their identity...many terrorists might concede who they are.

2.) No doubt whatever about their guilt, in general. Again, terrorists like to brag.

3.) Little doubt that they are concealing useful, and even lifesaving, information.

The violence visited on the guilty in this instance can be seen as extending the violence required to apprehend them (by concealing information they are continuing to commit crimes) and the violence involved in the punishment they incontestably deserve.

|12.18.06 @ 5:08PM|#

I just don't get the knee-jerk putive moral outrage to torture. I have yet to see ANYONE on this site defend a position that torture is immoral. Personally, I have no objections whatsoever. If you can blow someone up, what's the big deal if you slap him around a little first?

|12.18.06 @ 5:27PM|#

putative, not putive

|12.18.06 @ 5:32PM|#

Thomas,

You have just eliminated a wide range of restraints on torture--not only for "terrorists", but also any criminal suspects in any capital crime, anyone capture in battle, etc. You have singlehandeledly flushed 300 years of post-Enlightenment advances, the Geneva Conventions and , oh yeah, the cruel and usual clause of the US Constitution. Things will be so much better now.

Enjoy your world, you deserve it.

|12.18.06 @ 5:35PM|#

Henry,


As I said, I have yet to see ANYONE on this site defend a position that torture is immoral.

|12.18.06 @ 5:36PM|#

Oof. Lovely bunch of belly-ups, today.

Good essay, Jim.

Jennifer|12.18.06 @ 5:44PM|#

As I said, I have yet to see ANYONE on this site defend a position that torture is immoral.

And I have yet to see anyone on this site defend the position that freedom is better than slavery. I guess that means it isn't.

|12.18.06 @ 5:50PM|#

"And I have yet to see anyone on this site defend the position that freedom is better than slavery. I guess that means it isn't."

And I guess I'm still waiting. Tick, tick, tick...

Rommel|12.18.06 @ 6:06PM|#

Guys, there's a ticking time bomb. Who's going to do the morally correct thing and argue that it's wrong to torture people? Note, however, that you will enjoy no immunity for your arguments. Tick, tick, tick....


I thought so. See, we do need a law for this.

|12.18.06 @ 6:24PM|#

Q. You're an Iraqi Militia man. You have captured an American solder and you know he has information that can be used to save many of your compatriots but he just keeps giving you his name and serial number. Can you torture him to get the information and be assured of immunity later?

A. Only if your side wins.

|12.18.06 @ 6:35PM|#

"As I said, I have yet to see ANYONE on this site defend a position that torture is immoral."

Fine. Torture is immoral because it involves the initiation of force against someone who is unable to defend herself.

|12.18.06 @ 7:05PM|#

Damn, Thomas, you GOT us! Not quite.

Torture is also immoral because it is the act of meting out cruel and unusual punishment (no matter the goal), at the hands of actors whose judgment is subjective at best.

But regardless, the bigger issue than the moral one is the simple issue of setting an example and drawing a line so that we can bring the level of interaction up to a more civil plane. Or, put differently, I wouldn't want anyone to torture me, so I don't think we should torture others.

Jack Bauer|12.18.06 @ 8:35PM|#

I am still waiting for a ticking-bomb-scenario proponent to explain to me how we'd find ourselves in a ticking-bomb scenario to begin with. Let's see: our intelligence is so good that we know beyond doubt there's a bomb, we know beyond doubt it will go off at X o'clock, killing many people in Y city, and we know beyond doubt that the guy currently in custody is The One With The Answers. . . yet we have no idea where the bomb actually is?

One thing I've learned from television is that type of scenario happens quite frequently.

Eagle|12.18.06 @ 9:18PM|#

"Or, put differently, I wouldn't want anyone to torture me, so I don't think we should torture others."

But someone bombing you is ok?

The question is pretty simple, why is bombing terrorists (and worse, collateral civilians) ok, but torture of any kind the height of barbarity?

|12.18.06 @ 9:30PM|#

As a kid, I recall seeing a movie about a life-boat scenario. A surviving ship's officer made some tough decisions, and got most of an overcrowded open boat through a night storm until rescuers arrived.

Although all of the ultimate survivors benefited from his choices, and none demurred at the time, none defended him at his subsequent trial...for fear of civil actions and social opprobrium.

We all sleep comfortably in the assumption that men, either more ruthless or daring than ourselves, will do what is sensible in "ticking-bomb" scenarios. But those who like to indulge in cheap moral posturing, would prefer to with-hold the sanction such men deserve.

Cheap, and hypocritical.

|12.18.06 @ 9:34PM|#

Not a moral argument against torture, but a practical one:

It might save some lives in the short term, in a ticking time bomb scenario. But for every enemy combatant that you torture, you create several new ones out of his friends and family. So in the long term, you are creating more ticking time bombs.

|12.18.06 @ 9:51PM|#

OK Jennifer

A Pakastani nuke goes missing. An AQ website posts some serial numbers that makes it sound like they know what they are talking about. Subsequently a senior AQ operative is caught.

1.) You don't know if he knows where the nuke is.

2.) you don't know whether AQ will or even can use the nuke.

3.) You don't know what the target or time-frame is.

4.) You don't know whether AQ even has the nuke. (The serial numbers could be explained in other ways)

Can you imagine the public reaction - after a tragic event - if you learn that the captors accepted the AQ's refusals, and sent him to his cell pending a consultation with his court-appointed attorney...if it turned out he did know?

Or...if you learned some warm and personable Hill-Street-Blues type cop roughed up a couple of gang-members to (successfully) prevent a reprisal against your family, would you be on the phone to get the DA after him?

|12.18.06 @ 10:16PM|#

"We all sleep comfortably in the assumption that men, either more ruthless or daring than ourselves, will do what is sensible in "ticking-bomb" scenarios. But those who like to indulge in cheap moral posturing, would prefer to with-hold the sanction such men deserve."

Bullshit. You've managed to get it completely back-fucking-ass-wards. The people who are asking for protection from the law are exactly the cowards who aren't willing to face the consequences of their actions if it turns out they're wrong.

You don't have to be very brave, ruthless or daring to beat the shit out of someone who's tied up and can't fight back. Doing so makes you a fucking turd.

What takes balls is deciding whether or not to torture on someone when you believe it will save lives AND you know full well that that doing so will land your virgin ass in prison. But you decide to do it anyway because the lives you'll save matter more to you than the years of unwelcome anal sex you'll receive behind bars. That might be considered courageous.

Asking for Congress to cover your ass before the situation ever arises... that's for pussies... or dicks... or assholes. Whatever.

Jennifer|12.18.06 @ 10:16PM|#

Andrew, as plausible as your situation sounds, that is NOT the ticking-bomb scenario ("we know everything except where the bomb is!") so beloved by torture apologists. What you're talking about is torture-as-fishing-expedition. Here's a question right back: if the AQ guy you capture knows nothing about any bomb, and you torture him, how will you know that he's telling the truth when he says he knows nothing?

|12.18.06 @ 11:56PM|#

Oh dear god. The idiotic ticking bomb scenario is the time torture is least likely to be effective, since the subject knows just how long they have to hold out, that every false lead they give has to be followed up, burning off even more time, and that their questioners can neither kill them nor injure them so badly that they can't communicate. A subject without time-sensitive information, on the other hand, is screwed. (And I fully second all the arguments made about the immorality of torture; and I would add that a victory won by sacrificing the principles you're fighting for is in fact a defeat.)

|12.19.06 @ 3:41AM|#

I think the Israelis have determined that they won't say in advance whether an act of torture is legal, but if a cop does it in a time-bomb scenario and then gets prosecuted, he can invoke their equivalent of the defense of necessity.

Here's *my* scenario: Some big-government apologist keeps carrying on about his stupid ticking time bomb. How far are you willing to go to force him to shut the heck up?

|12.19.06 @ 3:47AM|#

Incidentally, here's something I heard vaguely: These's supposedly some kind of truth serum that gets people talking without torture. Could we use that on prisoners? Or is the truth serum just a myth?

|12.19.06 @ 4:03AM|#

The question is pretty simple, why is bombing terrorists (and worse, collateral civilians) ok, but torture of any kind the height of barbarity?

You're going to have to stop asking questions like that around here, it's fogging up the mirror.

Can't you tell the obvious difference between an enemy soldier and a prisoner? Can't you feel the difference, at that exact moment when it occurs? You know, the moment when you're no longer allowed to shoot him and have to take nice good care of him.

Use the force man, you have to feel it.

Sam Franklin|12.19.06 @ 8:20AM|#

I am still waiting for a ticking-bomb-scenario proponent to explain to me how we'd find ourselves in a ticking-bomb scenario to begin with. Let's see: our intelligence is so good that we know beyond doubt there's a bomb, we know beyond doubt it will go off at X o'clock, killing many people in Y city, and we know beyond doubt that the guy currently in custody is The One With The Answers. . . yet we have no idea where the bomb actually is?

Or, worse yet, the government knows where the bomb is and yet chooses to torture the suspect and let the bomb go off. That way, when the bomb does go off, the government gets to nuke Iran, while at the same time highlighting the fact that they almost prevented the horrible bombing with some torture. Wait, scratch that last thing, the government would actually say that it was not allowed to use extreme enuf torture methods and that they must be allowed more secrecy, more immunity from prosecution and more violent techniques. Because of the war with Iran and the act or terrorism, US citizens would suddenly love that approach.

The only trhing worse than this scenario would be if the suspect really didn't know where the bomb was because it was a false flag attack. Then the government gets its war, its interrogation techniques, its secrecy and it doesn't even have to wait for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to have his sleeper agents actually plant anything.

I mean, look at it this way Jennifer: if the US government has some strategic bits of information but not others, then it is probably because the people who actually planted the bomb would want the US government to have only those bits of info. Now what kind of terrorist would have the ability to set up the US government in this way? What kind of terrorist would have motive to do such a thing? And who did do those anthrax attacks in 2001 anyway?

|12.19.06 @ 9:28AM|#

In this first scenerio you are torturing a guilty person. In the second you are victimizing an innocent person. The two situations are not analogous.

Yes, they are, because not even guilty people deserve to get tortured. Guilty != outlaw.

|12.19.06 @ 9:38AM|#

What I'd like to know is how the libertarian defenders of torture here are so sure that whoever the government captures is guilty. I think that there's going to be a lot of New York taxi drivers tortured to death in your brave new tough libertopia.

|12.19.06 @ 10:08AM|#

"""In this first scenerio you are torturing a guilty person. In the second you are victimizing an innocent person. The two situations are not analogous."""

At face value, they are not analogous. But what happens after the terrorist give you the information? What if the only way to stop the bomb on time is to drop another bomb on it from the air, via F-16?

Hundreds of innocent lives have been killed/victimized while we and allies hunt terrorist. And that's without the ticking bomb scenario.

If you include possible outcomes, then the scenario becomes much closer to being analogous.

Sam Franklin|12.19.06 @ 10:19AM|#

What I'd like to know is how the libertarian defenders of torture here are so sure that whoever the government captures is guilty.

This is one reason that I believe the government would let the bomb go off. If the bomb actually goes off, then you know that the American public would assume that whoever they were torturing was guilty and that there would be little inquiry into the issue of whether the person(s) being tortured had anything to do with the bomb or not. The way the American public thinks, the very fact of the bomb going off makes it unpatriotic and freakish to look to hard at who really did the bomb and why. Same way people roll their eyes when you tell them Flight 93 was shot down. Same way people roll their eyes when you tell them that Tim McVeigh had accomplices. Same way they roll their eyes when you say that the us government doesn't care about solving the anthrax attacks of 2001.

When a tragedy happens, especially a terrorism tragedy, certain rules about what it is polite and what it is not polite to inquire about kick in, and the government's version of events becomes the only version that non-freaky ppl will believe. You make sure to keep the tortured suspect alive so that anybody who questions the official story is essentially defending somebody who is an unsavory character and is on trial for terrorism.

|12.19.06 @ 10:38AM|#

Seriously people... how is this even up for debate?
______________________________________________
One of the basic tenets of the English Bill of rights (1689) is freedom from cruel and unusual punishments.

The Eight Amendement to the United States Constitution (1791) states that "cruel and unusual punishments" shall not be inflicted. There are no exceptions or limitations on this prohibition.

Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention (1929) states "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) clearly states "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

Section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) declares "Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."
______________________________________________

So, 300 years of constitutional law and international treaties make it pretty safe to say that just about everyone in the Western world agrees that torture ought to be prohibited.

But some people here still think otherwise...

John Spragge|12.19.06 @ 10:58AM|#

Andrew mangles George Orwell's quote about rough men doing violence on our behalf to justify... torture? Not only have we killed irony, we've put literacy into palliative care. As it happens, George Orwell said something much more to the purpose when it comes to torture. He said "The purpose of torture is torture."

If the bloody history of the last two centuries has not made it clear to you that at least some human beings like inflicting harm on helpless victims; if indeed you don't know that this impulse exists in everyone, and we need to keep it on a very tight rein, then take another look at yourself, your history, and the world around you. And this time, pay attention.

We ought to have put this perverse debate to rest centuries ago. At the very least, our governments now have access to hydrogen bombs, as well as even more frightening technology. We ought not to let them get into the unforgivable habit of behaving like John Wayne Gacy, Clifford Olsen, or Ted Bundy.

By all means, if peace officers ever find themselves confronted with a situation where they believe, and have reason to believe, that thousands or millions of lives depend on their breaking the law, let them have the fullest and most ample benefit of the legal defence of necessity. But let us not pretend that this will often happen, or imagine that it ever will. And let us not use the irrelevant possibility to indulge in corrupting fantasies about giving into temptations a civilised society should have resolutely set its face against a long time ago.

|12.19.06 @ 12:00PM|#

What I'd like to know is how the libertarian defenders of torture here are so sure that whoever the government captures is guilty.

They let non-libertarians post here to, Rich, as you well know.

|12.19.06 @ 2:12PM|#

Basically the argument is really not about techniques but about attitudes towards sadism.

a) The pro-torturers think you are morally suspect for not wanting to brutalize a terrorist (especially for some, if the t is bearded and Muslim).

b) The anti-torturers think you are morally suspect for wanting to brutalize a captive of the State (especially, if the advocate is willing to take government/military declarations at face value.)

I am far closer to b, as indicated by my parenthetical aspersions. But a has its understandable emotive roots.

But if I am correct, the argument isn't wholly about the torture but about the people making the argument and how trustworthy they are in making or advocating policy.

|12.19.06 @ 4:13PM|#

What if the terrorist says: "I'll tell you where the bomb is if you let me torture Alan Dershowitz to death first?"

I wonder if Dershowitz would support a "torture Alan Dershowitz to death" warrant.

That also, incidentally, eliminates the "innocent victim" objection to Jim's child rape analogy.

Seriously, though, you'd probably have more success averting a disaster by appealing to a terrorist fanatics synmpathy than trturiung him. Showing him videos of children playing in a park, at birthday parties, praying in a mosque with their parents.

Then asking him whether he really, really wants to slaughter all of those people.

If he's not a sociopath, he might actually crack. IN fact, I'd argue a fanatica Islamic suicide bomber is more likely to be swayed by such an appeal (as he's clearly a man of conviction who belives he's a martyrt for a greater goos -- even if we thin he's a loon) than somebody like Dick Cheney who doesn't give a flying rat's ass about anybody but himself or his narrow self interests.

|12.19.06 @ 4:15PM|#

Mr Spragge has hit on something.

Generally, people who are empathetic and moral, make really bad torturers. Thus, the job tends to be fall to the sadists and the misanthropes.

People who are psychologically whole and "normal" are averse to torturing other human beings.

|12.19.06 @ 4:48PM|#

If he's not a sociopath, he might actually crack. IN fact, I'd argue a fanatica Islamic suicide bomber is more likely to be swayed by such an appeal (as he's clearly a man of conviction who belives he's a martyrt for a greater goos -- even if we thin he's a loon)

Even the ones who walk into bowling alleys and restaurants and such and see the innocent people they're about to kill before they blow themselves up?

Sam Franklin|12.19.06 @ 5:33PM|#

Even the ones who walk into bowling alleys and restaurants and such and see the innocent people they're about to kill before they blow themselves up?

How many of those people in the bowling alley and at the restaurant are soldiers, or do you even know?

|12.19.06 @ 6:28PM|#

Historically, governments have used torture. Used to produce information they might act on, used to produce information that they can use to justify other actions, etc., etc., and so forth.

One of the reasons torture got dropped out of the Western legal tradition is IT DOESN'T WORK. You end up getting what you want to hear. You end up torturing innocents. You end up getting even more people mad at you.

I'm surprised to see so many pro-torture people posting here. I thought you guys were against the power of the state.....

|12.19.06 @ 6:50PM|#

I thought you guys were against the power of the state.....

The libertarians here are. The covert conservatives and the open Team Blue and Team Red folks vary.

|12.19.06 @ 9:03PM|#

Whoa, there's a lot of free-floating stupidity in this thread!

1) 'poster in a H&R thread' != 'libertarian'. Please, drive-by posters, if you learn nothing else from this thread, learn that. I am so tired of 'wow, I didn't realize you libertarians thought that [insert insane bullshit some commenter said]!'

2) The moral difference between bombing and torture: Bombing is waging war. War is waged to destroy a declared enemy's ability to engage in violence against your nation or your nation's people. Note some words in that sentence that shed light on why so many libertarians are not happy with the Iraq situation: 'declared enemy', 'violence against your nation/nation's people'.

You don't wage war against a surrendering opponent, or an opponent you have already defeated. You might police them; you might curtail their freedoms to ensure they stay defeated. You don't, however, bomb your own prisons.

Torture is bombing your own prisons. It's trying to apply the morality and logic of warfare to a non-warfare situation. A prisoner is an enemy whose ability to inflict harm on you has been neutralized. You interrogate him to further the actual war effort, but you don't engage in war against him any longer.

This isn't rocket science. This is basic stuff, enshrined in common law and the Geneva Convention. When you're fighting a war, you're stepping outside some of the boundaries of civilized behavior, presumably for good reasons. If you give up or are captured, you're treated decently because you're no longer an active agent of warfare, and thus the behavior permitted in war is no longer permitted against you. Countries that don't agree to that are rightly considered vile affronts to human dignity.

3) The goofy scenarios described all sound a lot like the setups in the 'Saw' series of movies. I'm bothered by the idea that it's even vaguely reasonable to have a national policy discussion that begins with plot elements from a horror movie.

|12.19.06 @ 9:30PM|#

Even the ones who walk into bowling alleys and restaurants and such and see the innocent people they're about to kill before they blow themselves up?

Yes. Prevented from acting on their martyrdom, and being faced with a constant barrage of reality might break them down psychologically.

Robert|12.19.06 @ 11:22PM|#

His conclusion is that if it's better to be convicted by 12 than carried by 6, then don't complain when you're convicted by 12, because you still got the better deal.

|12.20.06 @ 12:44PM|#

Yes. Prevented from acting on their martyrdom, and being faced with a constant barrage of reality might break them down psychologically.

Actually, I can buy that possibility - I just don't think that's very likely. I think it's more likely that we just need to accept that we'll apprehend bad people that we won't be able to get information out of in any decent manner - and that we should be willing to accept that ignorance, or failing that, let those of us willing to step over the line pay a severe, personal price for that information.