OH, OK

Scalia: Constitution Silent on Torture

Doesn’t “think it’s so clear at all.”

According to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the torture described in the Senate’s report on the CIA is, all things considered, maybe not that bad. During an interview with a Swiss broadcast network, Scalia characterized American and European liberals’ response to the report as self-righteous, saying he doesn’t “think it’s so clear at all” whether the torture could be justified if millions of lives were on the line. “Listen, I think it’s very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible,’” Scalia said. “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 so clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?” Scalia went on to say that despite U.S. laws against torture, the Constitution is silent on the matter. “I don’t know what article of the Constitution that would contravene,” he said.