When Bob Parsons, the CEO of Go Daddy defended his
posting the other day on the controversy over prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, he repeatedly made the assertion that he didn't believe that the types of environmental manipulation (temperature and sound, for instance) described in the recent TIME magazine article on Gitmo qualified as torture. His stock response for the day was:
I do not advocate the use of torture. You saying that I support torture connotes much more than what I talked about in my article. I personally don't believe that mild interrogation techniques like sleep deprivation or playing rap music qualifies as torture.
What is torture? South Carolina Senator James DeMint equates paying taxes to torture, but I don't think that's the definition covered by, say, the Geneva Convention. This is from Human Rights Watch's "Torture Q & A" (emphases added):
Q: What is torture?
The Convention against Torture defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession...." (Art. 1). It may be "inflicted by or at the instigation of or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
The prohibition against torture under international law applies to many measures--e.g. beating on the soles of the feet; electric shock applied to genitals and nipples; rape; near drowning through submersion in water; near suffocation by plastic bags tied around the head; burning; whipping; needles inserted under fingernails; mutilation; hanging by feet or hands for prolonged periods.
International law also prohibits mistreatment that does not meet the definition of torture, either because less severe physical or mental pain is inflicted, or because the necessary purpose of the ill-treatment is not present. It affirms the right of every person not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Examples of such prohibited mistreatment include being forced to stand spread eagled against the wall; being subjected to bright lights or blindfolding; being subjected to continuous loud noise; being deprived of sleep, food or drink; being subjected to forced constant standing or crouching; or violent shaking. In essence, any form of physical treatment used to intimidate, coerce or "break" a person during an interrogation constitutes prohibited ill-treatment. If these practices are intense enough, prolonged in duration, or combined with other measures that result in severe pain or suffering, they can qualify as torture.
The prohibition against torture as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not limited to acts causing physical pain or injury. It includes acts that cause mental suffering--e.g. through threats against family or loved ones. As the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, "coercion can be mental as well as physical...the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition" Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 448, (1966) citing Blackburn v. State of Alabama, 361 U.S. 199 (1960). As discussed below, the use of mind-altering drugs to compel a person to provide information would at least amount to inhuman or degrading treatment under the Convention against Torture.
Note that mental intimidation and the use of third parties are covered in these rules. If you hurt one prisoner in order to get his compatriots to confess, that's torture. If you threaten to to rape someone's wife and children while they're forced to watch to get them to confess, that's covered under the definition of torture. You're not killing anyone, you don't have to touch the subject you want a confession from, you don't even need to cause lasting physical injury to anyone. But it's torture, all the same under the rules of the Geneva Convention.