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The United States' use of torture in recent years has led many in the international community to consider the United States a "rogue nation," an Amnesty International (AI) U.S.A. official told a UTD crowd Feb. 8.
Chip Pitts, AI U.S.A. chairman of the board, spoke to approximately 40 UTD students, faculty and staff in the Texas Instruments Auditorium of the Engineering Building on the increase in human rights violations, especially in the form of interrogation torture, at the hands of U.S. military.
Pitts, the former chief legal officer for Nokia, Inc. and a Stanford lecturer, noted the use of threats to kill detainees' families in order to elicit coerced confessions from suspected terrorists and Iraqi insurgents.
"Studies have shown that torture doesn't work," Pitts said, noting specific studies at Harvard, Syracuse and Yale, as well as the U.S. Department of State. "People have died in custody from human rights violations authorized by the highest level of U.S. government. There has been a real decline in the process of law."
Pitts suggested the use of torture tactics yields false confessions and misinformation - since people will tell interrogators anything to end the torture. Additionally, these harsh practices, he said, only act to increase the occurrence of terrorist activities.
The Patriot Act also drew criticism from Pitts, who said the measure authorizes constitutional violations that make the act inherently unconstitutional. Pitts said the increase in human rights violations hinders AI's objective to advance the International Declaration of Human Rights that, among other things, provides for the fundamental right to be free from torture or extra-judicial execution and the right to be free from persecution.
Pitts admitted human rights violations and terrorism could not be entirely wiped out, but reiterated Pres. John F. Kennedy's quote, "If you don't provide for peaceful evolution, you will have violent revolution."
During a question-and-answer session at the end of the lecture, retired UTD professor Mike Durbin noted the divergence of current practices with U.S. traditions.
"The recent violations (discussed here) are so contrary to what the Army and the United States have stood for," Durbin said. "It's important for students to not just understand what is being done, but why it's being done. We have lost a dialogue between separate perspectives."
Pitts agreed with Durbin's assessment that the United States has overreacted to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Dean of Libraries Larry Sall asked Pitts where he thought responsibility for torture tactics belonged. Pitts said responsibility rests with both the individual enacting the torture methods and the official authorizing the tactics.
Although many students in the audience responded favorably to many of Pitts's remarks, not all were convinced.
"Mr. Pitts is eloquent and impressive, but I don't really buy that Amnesty International is non-partisan," said Ashley Boothe, junior political science major. "I think what AI intends to do is terrific, but I thought Mr. Pitts impugns the Bush administration's motives."
The lecture was sponsored by the AI Student Group at UTD. Group member and senior molecular biology major Shruthi Naik said they would also sponsor the lecture of London sociology professor Kevin Bells April 25.
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