<quote> "You can't come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good'," he said in a rare interview. *** Justice Scalia argued that courts could take stronger measures when a witness refused to answer questions.
"I suppose it's the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?" he asked.
"It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game.
"How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?" </quote>
The interviewer for the BBC presses Scalia a little bit by saying that the ticking time bomb scenario is "very unlikely."
Scalia continues: <quote> "It seems to me you have to say that as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say that you can't... I don't even say put something under his finger nails., smack him the face. It would be absurd to say that you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that we're into a different game. How close does the threat have to be and how severe can the infliction of pain be. I don't think that these are easy questions at all. In either direction, but I certainly know that you can't come in smugly [contempt pours from his voice when Scalia smugly says the word "smugly"- JM] and with great self-satisfaction [the greatly self-satisfied man again says the phrase "self-satisfaction" with smug contempt - JM] and say oh it's torture and therefore it's no good. You would not apply that in some real life situations. It may not be a ticking bomb in Los Angeles, but it may be where is this group that may be plotting some painful action against the United States. " [My transcription.] </quote>
What I am wondering is the following: Has there been any reaction to this at all in the United States? There has been no reaction in the New York Times or the Washington Post according to my searches, but if anyone knows otherwise I would appreciate hearing from you.. As far as I can tell none of the major U.S. papers reported on this interview. Does anyone know of any reaction at all in the U.S. mainstream media?
The advocacy of torture is such a common part of our intellectual culture now days that it seems it is no longer news, perhaps even on the left. (The interview was big news in Britain and on the Continent by the way. Clips of the interview were played over and over again in Germany and France along with the BBC World Service.) Has anyone read anything from the mainstream on the fact that we have a Supreme Court Justice _advocating_ war crimes? (Of course Scalia is just drawing his thought and phrasing from Judge Posner, who performed a cost-benefit analysis of torture and concluded, of course, that the benefits exceeded the costs. Outside of the legal weblogs I don't remember seeing or hearing much of a reaction to Posner either.)
Links BBC 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
Law In Action http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/law_in_action/default.stm
BBC News Article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7239748.stm