Central Stupid Agency?
Okay, so here's a begging question: where are all the OTHER tapes?
Everyone is making such a fuss over two interrogation tapes the CIA chose to destroy to protect the torturer's identities (never thought I'd type such a statement in earnest), and meanwhile the whole debate obediently steers clear from asking about the rest of the tapes that must surely exist.
Does anyone here think that the CIA doesn't record video of EVERY interrogation? Their middle name is "Intelligence," after all. How could they overlook the benefit of being able to review past questioning sessions? It's easy to see why they would want that option available.
-- Trained interrogator A asks some questions of subject S, and the answers, or lack of them, guide A's further inquiries during that session. They also guide A's out-of-room checks on S's veracity, and A's approaches to further questioning of S and other subjects, if any. But even trained interrogators are only human, with limited brain power and memory. It's obvious that notes are kept in some fashion.
But beyond personal training and competence, the CIA is also an organized establishment of professionals. They check each other's work. They're all about teamwork. I can't see them overlooking the benefit of letting another set of eyes review the results of an interrogation. We see the basic setup in fictional portrayals like "24": a room with one-way glass, and behind that glass a phalanx of human observers and recording equipment. We also see subsequent review of interrogation tapes -- that handily reveals, always just barely in time, the miniscule clues that let the hero of the drama pull the fat from out the fire.
I know real life isn't that dramatically structured, but having tapes available for review is such an obvious benefit to interrogation that I can't see them not using the technology. Maybe if their official name were the Central Stupid Agency...
Beyond that, there are rife accounts of cameras being used as routine surveillance in cells , and here's a patent, yet, of a camera setup for the purpose.
(A word to right-wing trolls: if you choose to comment about the content on the above links, you have an obligation, imposed by me no less, to first READ the content. That will be my first question to you. One cannot responsibly comment on subjects one has not reviewed. I can't make you care about what you read, but I have a certain amount of faith that the words of prisoners carry their own authority. Who would know better than they, what they've been through? So the basement price you have to pay, for the privilege of having me take your comments seriously, is to expose yourself to the words of people who've had to suffer through what I'm talking about.)
So.... Where are the rest of the tapes, and what's on them?
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I spoke parenthetically above about the obligation of commenters to know what they are commenting on. Our society and culture have a coresponding obligation; to know what measures are being taken in our names to impose the strictures we choose to live under. If we feel the need to enforce the safety of our society, we are obligated to look in the face the measures that enforce that safety.
If our conceptions of freedom are limited to its benefits, and ignore its costs, then we are not really free at all. We are slaves to an illusion of brightness, that ignores the shadows cast by that light. We can't look at the blackness, for fear that we'll see the lie behind the "perfect world" fantasy. Those who insist that repression is justified to keep us safe, but prefer to think that such repression is somehow not inhumane, are actively deluding themselves and should deeply examine their personal definition of truth.
Another note to trolls: if you hate what I just said, then it's you I'm talking about. Use that hate as a guide for what to examine in yourself.
"Know the power of the Dark Side..."