How Fox Helped Make Torture Happen

Philippe Sands shares mail he has gotten in response to his reporting that 24 influenced interrogation practices:

My writings on this subject have generated a decent mailbag over the past few months. But the most interesting correspondence came just last week. "I'm a US actor, living in Los Angeles," wrote the author. "In September of 2007, I was offered a role on 24." The actor told his agent to reject the offer, because he objected to the programme's message. His agent told him that Howard Gordon, the principal executive producer, wanted to speak. The actor sent Gordon an email, expressing his concerns about the positive depictions of torture on the programme. Apparently, a lengthy exchange followed, in which the two debated the morality of torture and the potential impact of 24 on the moral sentiments of its millions of viewers. The actor offered to make the dialogue public, and Gordon apparently responded with "some enthusiasm", until Fox's publicity department stepped in and warned him against any exposure of the exchanges.

The actor shared with me some extracts of Gordon's views. He told the actor that "I lack the conviction that torture is, under any circumstances, an unacceptable option". He lacked that conviction because "I lack the knowledge, I just don't know enough about the efficacy of torture". I've no reason to doubt that Gordon is a thoroughly decent man. He's smart; he went to Princeton. Through his work he would have access to a great number of lawyers, any one of whom would have told him, if he had cared to enquire, that torture is illegal in all circumstances. His own convictions, or lack of knowledge, are a total irrelevance.

Gordon also told the actor about his belief that it was "essentially true that ... 24 posits that torture is a necessary evil that works and is therefore acceptable". There was also an indication of concern. "I would hate to think," wrote Gordon, "that I've somehow been the midwife to some public acceptance of torture."

Well, the reality for Gordon, on the account given to me by Diane Beaver as well as others, is that he seems to have become the very midwife he feared. And not just to the public acceptance of torture, but to its actual use on real, living human beings.

Perhaps this might give Gordon and his colleagues some pause for thought. Perhaps this might encourage a rethinking of the entire thrust of the programme. Perhaps Day 7 might do the right thing and embrace reality: that torture is not justified, that it can never be lawful, that it produces unreliable information, and that it serves as one of the best recruiting tools for those who seek to do us serious harm. In short, torture doesn't work, and it's not a legitimate tool in the fight to protect national security.