Alan Dershowitz, the civil libertarian defender of O.J Simpson, believes the law should sanction torture so it may be applied in certain cases, such as terrorist acts.

In a 60 Minutes report, Dershowitz tells Correspondent Mike Wallace that torture is inevitable. “We can’t just close our eyes and pretend we live in a pure world,” he says.

After the events of Sept. 11, with many al Qaida members in custody, Dershowitz says he wants to bring the debate to the forefront. He gave the “ticking bomb” scenario - a person refusing to tell when and where a bomb will go off – as an example of the type of case warranting torture.

The FBI has anonymously leaked to the press the belief inside the bureau that torture may be an option. But Lewis Schiliro, former New York bureau director, warns of problems with torture.

“If anybody had the ability to prevent the events of Sept. 11… they would have gone to whatever length…The problem becomes, where do we draw that line?” he tells Wallace.

Interesting- so if you could have 3,000 people by torturing one, would you do it?
How about 30,000?
300,000?
One million?

Interesting ethical questions