Report by Jen Perkins, WA Chapter
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before a Congressional Committee assigned to study the use of “advanced interrogation techniques” Thursday regarding the benefits of waterboarding. With the overwhelming success of waterboarding during the interrogations of enemy combatants, many domestic law enforcement agencies are adopting the strategy on citizen detainees. Waterboarding, a controversial interrogation tool utilized as early as the Spanish Inquisition and more recently by the CIA, has been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice for use by all domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies. Ashcroft defended the technique as a “valuable tool which does not constitute torture.”
Dorothy Allbaugh, a resident of Union Missouri, was subjected to waterboarding two weeks ago after being arrested for shoplifting. Local police officers, on a hunch that Allbaugh had shoplifted on previous occasions, strapped the suspect to a bench, lifted her dress up to cover her face, and poured an estimated five gallons of water over her mouth and nose. Allbaugh responded to the tactic by confessing to 35 previous criminal acts, and countless other acts that, while not technically illegal, were certainly morally detestable. Allbaugh was charged with each of the confessed crimes, and is now facing 150 years in prison and fines of over $47 million. Union Police Chief Martin Polock hailed the results as “proof positive” that waterboarding works. Coincidentally, Allbaugh is now claiming that she made up the confessed crimes believing that she was drowning to death, and was willing to say whatever she thought the officers wanted to hear to get them to stop the “torture”.
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