A tortured debate

Tom Bevan notes a report in the Guardian that torture may have been used to elicit information that broke up the air terror plot last week: “Agonizing over torture.” And reader Dale Whitehouse notes the AP story reporting that an intercepted phone call was pivotal to detection of the plot as well:

Pakistani officials say Rashid Rauf’s arrest prompted an accomplice in the southern city of Karachi to make a panicked phone call to a suspect in Britain, giving the signal for the airliner plot to move forward urgently. The intercepted call was instrumental in foiling the bombing plot, officials say.

I would guess that the interception of that phone call came without probable cause or the blessing of a magistrate.

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