If waterboarding is not torture, can the police use this technique?

Question

Just curious if waterboarding can be used by other individuals to get information. Schools could even use it on students who sell drugs to see who their suppliers are. Are there any limits to this?

Answer 1

Waterboarding is absolutely torture.  After WWII, Japanese war criminals were tried and convicted for using this technique.  The time will come when the Americans who conducted the waterboarding torture, and those who ordered it, will be made to pay for their crimes.

As for the police: the moment the police start torturing people, police deaths in the line of duty will increase.  Why not fight to the death if you know you're going to be tortured at the station?

Answer 2

The police are not prohibited from torturing people, per se.  They are prohibited from coercing confessions from people and/or from using excessive force.  

Waterboarding, whether or not it's considered torture, would be both coercive and excessive force in any rational person's mind.

The question seems a little troll-ish.

Answer 3

LOL ...how silly. Police waterboarding jaywalkers, speeders and shoplifters. If waterboardoing is not torture can  mom' s wash their kids mouth out with soap?

Answer 4

Well schools can't even spank kids, so no. But theoretically the police should be able to if it's not torture.

Answer 5

It shouldn't be much longer and EVERYTHING in the "war on terror" arsenal will be brought to bear on American citizens.

It's for security.

It's for security.

It's for security.

That's what your neighbors will be saying while your child is being tortured down at the police station.

In time, perhaps gang-rape of our children, while we are forced to watch, will be a common method of finding out who is a terrorist, and who isn't, in Anytown, U.S.A.

Someone will pipe up, and say, "We haven't had a SINGLE terrorist attack, since the detectives began raping our daughters down at the city jail.  This stuff WORKS!  We are all safer because of it."

Bet on it.  It's a matter of time.

Answer 6

If its not torture then it should be looked into.  Along with sensory deprivation, since that is also not torture.

Answer 7

water boarding is a terrible torture, we water boarded my friend and he didnt sleep for three or four days.  If we let the public find out how bad it is, by letting them experience it, then they will be very apposed to its use.

Answer 8

Technically, cops can do whatever they want. I don't think that would ever be a technique that'd be used on a local level; but they have those tasers, which is actually worse because they kill people.

Answer 9

the government doesnt see it as torture but the community probably does and the community is above the police chief no matter what people think. (community is not the one dumb@ss that thinks he's above the community)

Answer 10

Very good point. As far as international standards are taken into account, waterboarding is torture. Because the US says it isn't, it isn't. But they're using it on enemy combatants. I can't imagine it being used on citizens. Although, there were a few citizens who were attained without the right of habeaus corpus.