Supreme Court Justice Scalia says the Constitution does not prohibit torture
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said the moral and ethical issues brought up by the Senate's torture report are not "so clear at all," The Associated Press reports.
"Listen, I think it's very facile for people to say, 'Oh, torture is terrible.' You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it's an easy question? You think it's clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?" Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network in an interview that aired on Friday.
The 78-year-old justice has commented on the issue in the past, but he rehashed his remarks following Tuesday's release of a Senate report that outlines the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. Scalia noted that while there are U.S. laws which prohibit torture, the Constitution is silent on the subject.
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"I don't know what article of the Constitution that would contravene," he said.
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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.