"Alan 'The Needle' Dershowitz"
by C. Clark Kissinger
May 31, 2002
In early November controversy erupted on the internet over Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s proposal to legalize torture in the United States to extract information from terrorism suspects. So when Dershowitz appeared on January 27 for a long scheduled lecture on civil liberties at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the entire audience was given leaflets by the activist group Refuse & Resist! that quoted from his remarks. These included his suggested use of truth serum on suspects, and his remark to the Harvard Political Review that "There’s no absolute right not to be tortured."
That night the Kaufmann Concert Hall was packed with a graying and mostly Jewish Upper Eastside audience of 900. The format was a Charlie Rose-style interview on stage, with Dershowitz undergoing a friendly interrogation by noted civil liberties attorney Floyd Abrams.
Most people would have thought this a good time to moderate his views. But Dershowitz didn’t title one of his books Chutzpah for nothing. Holding the leaflet charging him with being soft on torture in hand, Dershowitz launched into a spirited defense of his position. The fact that a noted "civil libertarian" and critic of the Bush theft of the White House could make a serious pitch to a liberal New York audience for legalized torture -- and not get booed off the stage -- tells us just how close we are to the acceptance of police state methods in the wake of September 11.
Dershowitz warmed up the audience with a few liberal homilies like "it’s bad that people get more upset when a guilty person goes free than when an innocent man is convicted." Then Floyd Abrams went right to the topic on everyone’s mind -- Deshowitz’s views on torture. And Dershowitz obliged.
Dershowitz states that he is actually opposed to torture and wants to see it reduced to the extent possible. But then he goes on argue for a system of court authorized warrants to administer torture in extraordinary cases. Whether it was shock or acceptance, there wasn’t even a cry of "shame!" from the audience when Dershowitz went on to describe how it might best be done: the insertion of a sterilized needle under the fingernails to produce "excruciating pain..."
...In an attempt to take the house by storm in his January 27 appearance, Dershowitz suddenly called for the house lights to be brought up and demanded to know if there was anyone present who would justify letting hundreds die rather than apply some torture to a single individual. This writer waved his hand to be called on, but Floyd Abrams adroitly moved to prevent any opposition from being heard. He asked instead for a show of hands on how many supported Mr. Dershowtiz’s proposal. More than two-thirds of the house raised their hands. It took calls from the audience to get a showing of those opposed, and when a hundred or more signified their opposition to legalized torture, Dershowitz was positively outraged: "How could you!?" he cried.
In the rest of the program Dershowitz went on to expound on his call for a national ID card and reminisced some about his more famous cases. But unfortunately Dershowitz has yet to receive the rebuke that he has coming from the legal community. Even Floyd Abrams fumbled in dealing with Detshowitz’s outrageous proposal that evening. While opposing the idea of "torture warrants," Abrams accepted the inevitability of physical coercion of certain prisoners, but said that he preferred not to know about it. This led Dershowitz, with some justification, to call him a hypocrite -- one who wants to have his torture but still appear in public with clean hands.
I left that evening, keeping my own hands in my pockets, my fingernails a safe distance from Alan Dershowitz.
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