This shift has enormous implications for civil liberties, human rights, criminal justice, national security and foreign policy - implications that are not being sufficiently considered. We are moving away from our traditional reliance on deterrent and reactive approaches and toward more preventive and proactive approaches. The democratic world is experiencing a fundamental shift in its approach to controlling harmful conduct. He ought to have to sign a torture warrant in which he says, 'I'm taking responsibility for breaking the law, for violating treaties, for doing an extraordinary act of necessity.' That's a responsibility only the president should be able to take, and only in the most extraordinary situation." "If the president of the United States thinks it's absolutely essential to defend the lives of thousands of people, he ought to be on the line. "That's exactly what has to be debated," he says. What types of torture should be permitted? That would create "visibility and accountability. "The problem is that today, torture is being used promiscuously, and we deny we're using it."ĭershowitz says the government should acknowledge that it tortures suspects, and create rules for how torture is carried out. "I think torture will be used - and has, in fact, been used - whenever it is felt that by torturing an obviously guilty, the lives of multiple innocent people could be saved," he says.
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