The Inquisition Will Be Televised: Lie Detector TV show

[brekin]

I just saw an ad for this television show:

http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/fox- ... w-5650.php

Fox announces new 'Nothing But The Truth' lie detector game show

Fox announced it has ordered Nothing But the Truth, the working title of a new game show that will quiz contestants on personal questions and use a lie detector to determine if they're telling the truth.

Contestants competing on Nothing But the Truth will be hooked-up to a lie detector and asked to answer 21 questions without fibbing for the chance to win the $500,000 grand prize. Not surprisingly, the questions' subject matter grows more difficult with each correct answer given and -- as friends and family members watch from the studio audience -- owning up to the truth becomes harder.

Sample questions contestants could be asked include have you ever lied to get a job; do you like your mother-in-law; do you really care about starving children in Africa; have you ever stolen anything from work; and have you ever cheated on your spouse.

Looks like it has been around for awhile in different guises.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02388.html

No Lie: TV Show Puts You to the Test

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Have you ever cheated on your wife? Stolen money from your boss? Do you consider yourself a better person than your mother-in-law?

Coming soon to U.S. television is a game show that has taken Colombia by storm. Similar productions are being sped up in Brazil, France and Britain. The concept: watch people squirm while they're interrogated.

The format of "Nothing but the Truth" is as simple as it is cruel: If the participants truthfully answer 21 increasingly invasive questions, they walk away with $50,000.

Tell a lie, though, and the lie-detector test they took backstage betrays them before a studio audience packed with unsuspecting friends and loved ones

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02388.html

I never caught this one either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_Detector_(TV_series)

Lie Detector was a television series on what is now ION Television (formerly PAX). Hosted by journalist and actress Rolonda Watts with assistance from polygraph administrator Dr. Ed Gelb, the show claims to "[examine] the truth behind real-life stories ripped from the headlines." It premiered on March 8, 2005 and ended after one season.

Its first episode featured a polygraph examination of Paula Jones, a woman who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.[

The secrets of Slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.
Harriet Ann Jacobs

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Now is a great time to popularize the myth of lie-detectors.
Only six months from now is the 40th anniversary of the murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the abuse of a lie-detector to cover it up.

The CIA agents in the the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Unit Senator covering up the CIA murder of Senator Robert Kennedy in June 1968 relied heavily on faking 'lie detector' results to intimidate, discredit, and get rid of witnesses who didn't support the cover story and keep the patsy, Sirhan Sirhan, stuck in the frame-up.

Manual Pena led the CIA-LAPD cover-up and Sgt. Enrique "Hank" Hernandez was the sole 'lie-detector' operator in that game show fixed for the house.

See page 572 of 'The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X,' edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease.

That book is the best collection of the best articles on those political murders and cover-ups.

Scientology uses the fake credibility prop of an "E-meter," too.
So-called lie detectors don't. They aren't allowable in courts and are about as accurate as flipping a coin. But making National inSecurity memes into entertainment is on old tactic and the UK has its show called 'Big Brother.'

[slow_dazzle]

The world is slowly falling to bits as various crises converge and we get this waste of fucking time, money and creative resources. That which the Gods would destroy they would first make ridiculous.

There is a scene in the film "Midnight Cowboy" where there are poodles dressed up in outfits on a TV that is running in the background. Even back then I understood what was being conveyed. Latterly, Mike Judge did something similar in the Beavis & Butthead Christmas Special (I think he might have borrowed from "Midnight Cowboy")

People are dying and we get this fucking shit. If this is what we spend creative resources on, our society richly deserves the collapse that is building as we speak.

Sorry people; I get really angry when I see inane shit like this teevee show in a time of crisis.

[orz]

If you switch on television it's just ridiculous and its destructive. It kills us. And talk shows will kill us. They kill our language. So we have to declare holy war against what we see every single day on television. Commercials and – I think there should be real war against commercials, real war against talk shows, real war against "Bonanza" and "Rawhide", or all these things.

[brekin]

I wonder how much of this is related to all the reporting about torture and interrogation? Could it be a collective way to normalize and/or process a lot of the heinous things the U.S. has been doing?

I was recently at a party and someone brought out this:


http://www.amazon.com/Jumpin-Banana-PP1080-Lightning-Reaction/dp/B000GUEUAU/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1198021707&sr=8-1

I think they had it on the highest setting, and I honestly couldn't hold on to it. It felt a few steps down from a livestock "hotwire" line. It was really interesting how excited everyone was about seeing how far they could hold up, and wanting to shock other people (Myself included).

But it was just a "game" right? ....right?

[brekin]

'Criminal Minds' Wins Human Rights Award for Portrayal of Interrogation
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/e ... alert/374/


New York – This evening Sam Waterston of Law and Order presented Andrew Wilder, the writer/producer of Criminal Minds, with Human Rights First’s inaugural Award for Excellence in Television, honoring the show’s realistic portrayal of interrogation.

Andrew Wilder is available for interview.

Human Rights First created this award in recognition of the impact pop culture, and TV in particular, has had on the way the general public and our junior soldiers in the field view torture and other human rights issues. At the award presentation during Human Rights First’s annual awards dinner in New York City, Waterston explained the impetus for the award: “Since 2001, there has been a virtual explosion of torture on television. Before 2001, Human Rights First estimates there were fewer than four acts of torture on television every year. Now, there are more than100. And it's not just villains committing these heinous acts - now, good guys are doing the dirty work.”
"Torture on television has a real impact on public opinion and it has influenced the actions of some junior American soldiers in Iraq who imitate the abusive techniques they see on television and in the movies," said David Danzig, director of Human Rights First’s Primetime Torture Project. “Military educators have told us that the popular depiction of torture now presents an enormous training challenge.”

Criminal Minds’ winning episode, “Lessons Learned,” which was written by active duty FBI agent Jim Clemente, demonstrates that the sophisticated use of non-violent interrogation techniques are more likely to yield credible information than abusive ones. The episode presents a twist on the “ticking time bomb scenario” seen on so many TV shows. Instead of torturing a detainee who has information that could stop the detonation of a biological bomb, Special Agent Jason Gideon (Mandy Patankin) talks to him. In the process, he learns more from the suspect in less than 48 hours than CIA interrogators did over weeks, using rougher tactics.

This year’s nominees—Lost, The Closer, Boston Legal, Criminal Minds and The Shield—were reviewed by a panel of judges with wide ranging expertise in intelligence gathering, interrogation and entertainment. The judges include Sidney Lumet, the film director; Ken Bacon, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Joe Navarro, a former FBI interrogator and supervisor; and Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army interrogator.

The nominees offer audiences a different view of what happens in the interrogation room than the typical TV formulation that suggests violence and coercion are effective intelligence gathering methods. Some like The Closer and Criminal Minds present an interrogator who “closes” cases without ever resorting to physical violence. Others like LOST and The Shield explore what can go wrong when interrogators turn to torture to get answers.

Along with an increase in the sheer number of scenes of torture, since 9/11, the way torture is shown on TV has also changed, Human Rights First has found. It used to be almost exclusively the bad guys who tortured people on TV. But today, heroes like Jack Bauer on 24 and Sydney Bristow on Alias use abusive interrogation methods regularly. And when the heroes use torture it almost always works.
On many TV shows today, torture is portrayed the same way every time. The hero stabs, punches, shoots, chokes or otherwise abuses a suspect who had been unwilling to talk. Seconds after the abuse begins the captive invariably reveals critical secrets.

“In the real world, torture does not work like that. Overwhelming evidence shows that the use of violence and coercion in interrogation actually hinders the ability to get good information,” continued Danzig. “Unfortunately, you rarely see what does work. Very few shows take the time to truly explore the issue.”

In determining the winner, judges considered:

· How the program will be viewed by junior members of the armed services who are training for a career in the armed forces. Will this program encourage them to handle detainees humanely and interrogate them creatively within the guidelines set out by the Department of Defense? Will it make them consider the ramifications of treating suspects poorly/well?

· How thought provoking is the program? Does it cause the audience to think more about what could happen when torture is used in interrogations? Or does it suggest that interrogators can crack cases – and suspects who are determined not to talk – without resorting to torture?

· How will the program be viewed by audiences overseas? What does it say about the United States?

· How much is the drama tied to questions of fairness/justice/accountability or other rights issues related to interrogation and/or torture?

Television programs that aired on network and cable during primetime in the Fall 2006 and/or the Spring, 2007 are eligible for the award. Nominations were based on particular episodes, a theme that is explored over a series of episodes or for an entire season.

To learn more about the award and the primetime torture program please visit: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/ ... /award.asp.

Human Rights First is a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York and Washington D.C.

[yathrib]

Permanent Universal Television Avoidance, or PUTA. (Any Spanish speakers here?)

[Seamus OBlimey]

So we'll get to see some waterboarding at last? Woo! I can't wait!

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Permanent Universal Television Avoidance, or PUTA. (Any Spanish speakers here?)

Ahem.

article-

“In the real world, torture does not work like that.

Missing the context. TV torture has a de-sensitizing effect on the audience regarding violence, one of the most important uses for TV during wartime.

Being exposed to the safe TV and movies before the Vietnam War and then the gory brutality of its realities created a cognitive dissonance that resulted in 'the sixties.'

Lesson learned. The war reporting was sanitized and the video entertainment was made gorier to close the aesthetic gap relying heavily on violence de-sensitization and the blunting of the ideals of youth.

THAT'S the reason for TV torture, to reduce sensitivity to suffering.

Plus in the "real world" torture isn't just used for info, either. It is an implied threat, a show of force, a display of commitment to a cause...psychological warfare on the masses.

sheesh. P.U.T.A. ...

[brekin]

Some analysis by Stephen King, no stranger to Horror, why the show 24 (Which he is a fan of, but admits should be renamed Tortureland.) is so "effective".
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20006667,00.html

'24': So Good It's Scary

This time the threat — and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is — seems too plausible. When I got to the shocker that ends episode 4, I could understand Jack Bauer's expression of disbelief; it's a perfectly human reaction to what has just happened. And yet at the same time I'm sitting in my office chair and thinking, This could really happen. And at some point, it probably will. I suppose my reaction was intensified by having just finished Nelson DeMille's excellent novel Wild Fire, which deals with a similar scenario, but mostly it was that clear and persuasive sense of plausibility. 24 doesn't always achieve that, but when it does, it's the best thing on TV. Really, no one does the old ''We're surrounded by enemies!'' bit better than Fox. Bill O'Reilly's going to love this baby.

"24 also remains fresh, I think, because it is regularly watered by the blood of supporting characters — the sort who used to be considered eternal. This grisly but effective ritual began with the murder of Jack's wife, Teri Bauer (Leslie Hope), in season 1 and reached its apogee last year, when writers and producers knocked off lovable teddy bear Edgar Stiles (Louis Lombardi). And just when you thought there was no one else worth mourning...along comes another of these shockers this year."

"Is 24 my idea of perfection in long-form TV? Indeed not. Just the most successful so far. That doesn't protect it from the occasional loopy plot twist (Kim Bauer and the cougar, case closed), the rather more frequent detour into the TV equivalent of Disney World (I couldn't believe who's president this time), or the sense — it usually sets in between episodes 16 and 20 — that the writers are stretching their material until it's almost thin enough to read a newspaper through. There's also a queasily gleeful subtext to 24 that suggests, ''If things are this bad, why, I guess we can torture anybody we want! In fact, we have an obligation to torture in order to protect the country! Hooray!'' Yet Jack Bauer's face — increasingly lined, increasingly haggard — suggests that extreme measures eventually catch up with the human soul."

[brekin]

From the Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/19/11445/8105

Scalia: The Jack Bauer Torture Test
by SusanG

Tue Jun 19, 2007 at 08:46:44 AM PST

This is what we have come to: Supreme Court justices citing Hollywood for constitutional principles:

Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge's passing remark - "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?' " - got the legal bulldog in Judge Scalia barking.

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.
"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

Lest we forget, Scalia was one justice dead-set against looking to international law for guidance last year:

Justice Antonin Scalia chastised the "arrogance" of U.S. judges who seek to decide politically charged questions involving gay rights and the death penalty by citing international law..... Scalia bemoaned a recent trend on the high court in citing international opinion to support decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution, including those decriminalizing gay sex and banning the execution of the mentally retarded.

Got that? Fictional super-heroes are perfectly reasonable to introduce into panel discussions about the legality of torture. International judicial opinions, on the other hand, are to be discarded as un-American.

[brekin]

[Sepka]

I wonder how much of this is related to all the reporting about torture and interrogation? Could it be a collective way to normalize and/or process a lot of the heinous things the U.S. has been doing?

I was recently at a party and someone brought out this:

Electric shock toys have been around since at least the 1880s. Here's an arcade version from 1900: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... e_id=10956

It's interesting too that the terminals on this one are banana-shaped