re: #30 Dr Lizardo

Ah, the old ‘ticking time-bomb’ scenario.

So, let’s say I put a 500 Kt device in Akron, OH, and it’s set to go off in one hour. You (the security services) know that I have a nuke that’s gonna go off sometime during the day. You capture me….I play you with for about 20 minutes, then you torture me. I tell you, “Geez, Louise….it’s in Boston, running around in a rented delivery van. A Ryder. My buddy X is driving it.”

So, in the 40 minutes it takes you (the security services) to mobilize and start looking at every Ryder van (or whatever I say) in Boston….

Boom.

That’s why that scenario is a total crock. A truly dedicated and committed terrorist will simply lie to his interrogators in order to throw them off the trail. A truly dedicated terrorist may well have already undergone the type of training administered to soldiers that helps them resist torture in the hands of their foes. End result: He (or she) achieves their objective and the security services now look like a bunch of damned fools.

What I would do is to call up the office in Akron, OH, ask them to arrange a live streaming camera at a park filled with mothers and children, preferably of similar ethnicity as the mad bomber (no, no forcing of people people to remain in place).

Then I would conduct a plain vanilla interrogation with a TV displaying the livestream in a prominent position, as well as multiple cameras trained on the subject. If asked, lie to the subject and say it’s a ruggedized CCTV camera in a protected DHS network, or otherwise hint at that it will at least survive until the shockwave hits (which can be up to 30 seconds after the fireball). Even better is if you have such a ruggedized camera with video link.

Other than that, nothing beyond normal questioning. The suspects mind will do the rest. Being trained to handle interrogators and torture doesn’t mean the treatment won’t get to you. However, preparing for a visual assault of the order of magnitude of a nuke going off up close and personal requires effort, which means that the subjects mind will be more pre-occupied with preparing for both the visual assault and keeping his mask the closer to T₀ you get, meaning he (or she) is more likely to make slip-ups.

Of course, this will only work for a perpetrator of such a bombing. Only plus side is that if you have the real perp, you are in a loose-win situation at worst. You may lose Akron, OH, but the perp will spill his guts fast and furiously if it goes off, especially if you had a camera which can hack being in a nuke blast (which isn’t as difficult as it may seem).

Why? Because there is nothing that can prepare you for the horror of a nuke going off. Even a trained member of a bomber crew is reported to have burst out “My God, what have we done?” one of the two nukes ever used in anger went off. And we all know what Robert Oppenheimer came to think of when he saw Trinity go poof.

Oh, and 30 mins of torture would do nothing. You need at least a day to soften up a subject, and even then, you have a clear risk of getting garbage out.