In a room of policy wonks, Alexander (a pseudonym the former Air Force officer uses because of the delicate subject matter he speaks about) was direct and quietly convincing.
"Torture cost us lives, and it will continue to cost us lives," he says, a idea he treats in depth in his 2008 book, How To Break A Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, To Take Down the Deadliest Man In Iraq (Free Press). By and large, fear, control, and coercive methods don't work in the interrogation room, Alexander said. "What worked time and time again were the same techniques that street cops use every day — applying your intellect."
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The Big Hurt: Clench and release(1), Screams from solitary, Elena Kagan’s shaky record, More 
- The Big Hurt: Clench and release(1)
Press-release time again!
- Screams from solitary
The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.
- Elena Kagan’s shaky record
As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.
- On doctors, psychologists, and torture
Last year, Physicians for Human Rights used government papers to document that CIA doctors and psychologists participated in the conception and monitoring of the agency's infamous torture regime at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other detention centers.
- An all-seeing eye for the FBI?
The latest Boston Phoenix is spread across your steering wheel. You're reading this article. In a legal parking spot. With the engine off. A transportation cop zaps your license plate with a computerized scanner, cycles your registration through the system, and records the time and position of your car.
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Air travel choices have evolved.
- Are Civil (Liberties) Unions America's Best Hope?
Ron Paul and Barney Frank make odd bedfellows, but one hopes theirs is more than a one-night-stand.
- Review: Generic Theater takes on Havel's tale of an intellectual amid revolution
In these days of ongoing revolution, many are drawn to look back to protest and uprisings of the past.
- Pot patients could be out in the cold
Mainers who live in federally subsidized low-income housing and legally use marijuana to ease symptoms of chronic conditions may find themselves forced to choose between their shelter and their medicine, if a new Maine State Housing Authority (MSHA) policy stays in place.
- John Silber, tough witness, R.I.P.
John Silber, like anyone, had his faults.
- Tapley racks up another award
Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley, who has covered conditions in the Maine State Prison and throughout the state's corrections system since 2005, will be honored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for "outstanding advocacy for prison reform."
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Topics:
This Just In
, Barack Obama, Maine Council of Churches, Ben Wizner, More
, Barack Obama, Maine Council of Churches, Ben Wizner, ACLU, human rights, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, U.S. Government, U.S. Congressional News, Politics, U.S. Politics, Less
