~>  EC> ~> It's still waterboarding and it's still ilegal.  
 
~>  EC> You keep repeating that with no basis and without even indicating what
~>  EC> law.
 
~> You can start with:  "Excessive bail shall not be required; nor
excessive fines
~> imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

It is sort of sad that Ceppa needs help from others to substantiate even
his most basic of claims.  But the constitutional law on the eighth
amendment is a bit more specific than that.  Interrogation is not used for
the purpose of punishment of past crimes.  There is a whole string of cases
allowing a variety of things to be done to prisoners if they have a
rationale that is not "punishment."  There are various laws that restrict
what can be done to a person in custody.  In the specific instance of
detention of terrorists, for example, a guard was convicted and sentenced
to prison for punching a restrained prisoner in the stomach out of anger. 
It would be illegal to stick bamboo shoots under a prisoner's fingernails
to try to get them to talk, or to put out lit cigarettes on his skin, or to
put him on the ground and jump up and down on his stomach.  But there is a
series of well-researched legal opinions examining the various enhanced
interrogation techniques and concluding that they were legal as long as
done within very specific guidelines and conditions.  Those opinions
haven't been addressed at all in this discussion, except for one wild claim
by Ceppa that the lawyers somehow broke the law just by writing their
opinions on the law!
 
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