Policing torture stays secret to preserve both legality and informational advantage

Evidence

Modern torture linked to policing is typically secret partly because inflicting physical pain on a prisoner is considered “uncivilized” and therefore illegal. It may also be secret because policing agents claim they do not wish to advertise what they learn from (tortured) prisoners—if and when they learn anything of significance. After all, the effectiveness of certain kinds of disciplinary knowledge is enhanced by its secrecy. The secret character of knowledge acquired in policing therefore relates at once to the uncertainty of outside critics as to whether, and if so how often, something illegal has been done by bureaucratic power to obtain it (“torture is intolerable in a civilized society”), and also to how, when, and where that power chooses to act given that it possesses secret information (“every society must protect itself against criminal and terrorist conspiracies”). — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 507 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Because of the slowness of communications in the 1950s and 1960s, it took a year or more for the message of abuses perpetrated in Algeria to sink in. Now, with the Internet and al-Jazeera, one set of photos from Abu Ghraib is enough to inflame hatred across the Islamic world against the West, providing excuse for all the beheadings and atrocities carried out by al-Qaeda. From the Inquisition to the Gestapo and the “Battle of Algiers,” history teaches us that, in the production of reliable intelligence, regardless of the moral issue, torture is counter-productive. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 52 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Suppressing illegally seized evidence is meant to deter police misconduct and preserve judicial integrity. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1844; Secret torture integrated with information extraction is a defining feature of policing — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 506; Secret torture merged with information extraction becomes a form of policing, not sovereign display — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 506 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Torture’s secrecy lets states claim civilized status while preserving coercive knowledge #corroborates (0.92) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 507
• Torture is counterproductive even for intelligence gathering #complicates (0.82) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 52