Here, here, and most scary, here you’ll find some news pieces on torture, or the lack thereof, in the eyes of our government.

It seems that the Administration, the new Attorney General and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America have developed a moving definition of what constitutes torture. The hell with the Administration and as it turns out the new “independent” AG. But, when a Justice of the Supreme Court says what Antonin Scalia said in a BBC interview, all may be lost when it comes to our country’s commitment to law as a means to do justice.

First some baby criminal law (I got a C+ in Substantive Criminal Law, my worst grade, so beware of my opinions). Laws have “elements,” especially criminal statutes. Statutes that are vague or ambiguous, that don’t put you on notice of what you can’t do tend to be found to be unconstitutional.

If you read the articles, what “is” torture in the view of the Administration, AG and Scalia is now situational. From the Slate article:

“[T]orture will not be measured by any objective standard of conduct but will turn on ‘the circumstances’ surrounding them … or the value ‘of the information you might get’ …. It will be a secret decision, made using shifting, subjective standards, for which neither the torturers nor the legal decision-makers will ever be held to account.”

And here’s Scalia in an interview with the BBC:

“’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?’”

So we have a sliding scale. Big consequences, easy going rules on beating up the suspect.

So you are before Scalia, as your judge, accused of torture. “Nino, listen it was like those spy novels, we were sure the perp knew where the bomb was stashed. I had no choice but to slap him around a bit. He’s still here, sitting over there. He was out of the hospital in ten days, two weeks max, good as new. Too bad the bomb wasn’t where he told us it was.”

“You say the bomb wasn’t there? But, you had a good faith belief that he knew where it was didn’t you?”

“Sure Nino, sure. You know we don’t just go around roughing people up for no good reason.”

“I find the Defendant not guilty under the rules of the new “game.”