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Comment by threezero | Hacker News Reader

The author really glossed over the reasons for the communications ban imposed on the terrorist prisoner - multiple people he spoke with ended up committing terrorist acts. Seems like a good enough reason to completely cut him off. In addition, the author really stretches when she complains that they brought in a gallon of liquid to feed him. If you’ve tried to feed a prisoner multiple times and you know they’re going to deliberately vomit it up, of course you’ll bring extra. There’s enough going on here where the author doesn’t need to add in things that actually seem logical, because now I’m questioning everything she wrote and how much of it was exaggerated.

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Force feeding is arguably a form of torture.

https://www.apnews.com/e0941d7d1b0d413b9d9a0b792c34dd26

Arguably. But if you let the prisoner die while in your custody, a lot more people are going to be screaming about how evil you are to allow that, and how it's your fault that they died because you didn't protect them, and it's even more your fault because you probably wanted them dead and at least encouraged it to happen, and and and...

Maybe we should house these prisoners under conditions where they don’t become suicidal, then.

While I agree with humane treatment of prisoners, that's a very slippery argument. Every prison is technically inhumane enough to send some people to attempt suicide.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Well, what's your alternative? The death penalty? Release them?

Make your prisons humane, don’t force-feed anyone, and accept the condemnation that occurs when one of your prisoners decides to starve himself to death anyway.

That's fair. But you aren't the one I was asking. I get the impression that that wasn't danharaj's alternative.

I don’t see how “Makes you think, doesn't it?” would imply anything more than the comment it was in response to.

I read it as implying that all prisons are inherently inhumane, and therefore that nobody should be in them. But that's one of the problem with drive-by questions like that - you can't tell for sure what their actual point is.

If prisons get too humane shareholders don't make as much profit, that's the real problem.

It’s not slippery at all. Life isn’t fair. Keeping prisoners means you’re responsible for them, and that means that sometimes you’re going to be responsible for problems. There doesn’t have to be a way out of this.

The restrictions placed upon the fellow are more “capricious” in the words of the judge than necessary. Perhaps all his communications need to be read. I somehow doubt that prevention of communications by his lawyers is an important part of counter-terrorism, or that it can take more than a day or two to make sure that correspondence does not promote terrorism.

And I fail to see why we should force-feed a prisoner in the first place, which is the main problem.

What anti-terrorist point is there in restricting his reading material? In what universe does 'Audacity of Hope' or any book pose a national security threat in the hands of a man who spends all but a few hours a day completely alone?

If he’s directing terrorist attacks from jail maybe the smarter move is to not force feed him.

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