Truth must be not only discovered,
but perennially rediscovered and redefined.

Via MI5 chief Jonathan Evans defends ‘torture intelligence’ – Times Online , we learn the MI5 chief’s position on complicity with torture:

The Director General of MI5 has issued a powerful defence of Britain’s co-operation with intelligence agencies in America and other countries accused of the abuse and torture of detainees, saying they had stopped “many attacks” in the aftermath of the September 11 strikes.

Speaking for the first time about charges of MI5 complicity in the abuse of suspects overseas, Jonathan Evans said Britain had had to get overseas help at the time of the strikes on New York’s World Trade Centre as its own knowledge of al Qaeda was inadequate and the terrorist network might have hit again “imminently”.

I am reminded of Pitt the Younger’s remarks in a 1783 speech to Parliament:

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

While these are allegations, not facts, it is shocking that they can be seriously made in the UK:

Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of an anti-corruption inquiry.

The torture claims are part of an investigation which also includes accusations that evidence was fabricated and suspects’ property was stolen. It has already led to the abandonment of a drugs trial and the suspension from duty of several officers.

However, senior policing officials are most alarmed by the claim that officers in Enfield, North London, used the controversial CIA interrogation technique, in which water is poured on to a cloth covering the suspect’s face, causing them to feel they are on the point of suffocation.

via London’s Metropolitan Police accused of waterboarding suspects – Times Online .

Britain has been condemned in a highly critical United Nations report for breaching basic human rights and “trying to conceal illegal acts” in the fight against terrorism.

The report is sharply critical of British co-operation in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US rendition programme.

The report accuses British intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held incommunicado in Pakistan in “so-called safe houses where they were being tortured”.

via Britain condoned torture, UN finds | World news | guardian.co.uk .

What a vile pass we have come to.

Decades after a notorious experiment, scientists have found test subjects are still willing to inflict pain on others – if told to by an authority figure.

US researchers repeated the famous “Milgram test”, with volunteers told to deliver electrical shocks to another volunteer – played by an actor.

Even after faked screams of pain, 70% were prepared to increase the voltage, the American Psychology study found.

via BBC NEWS | Health | People still willing to torture.