Waterboarding & Strip Searches

I read somewhere recently that something like 40% of Americans think that waterboarding is an extreme sport and don't quite understand why there would be a fuss about using this extreme sport as a torture device to extract information from suspected terrorists or random taxi drivers erroneously taken into custody.

For those of you among that 40% who think waterboarding is just a day at the beach let me explain that waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent. In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex. Although waterboarding can be performed in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.

Is there not a more humane way for Americans to extract information from suspected bad guys than to resort to Gestapo-like tactics that the Nazis would have been comfortable with? Isn't there a drug that can break down a person's defenses and get them telling the truth? It's like we are becoming something that is not what we like to think of as American.

And it's not just the torture of foreign bad guys, it's how we treat our own citizens as well. As in at what point in time did the practice of the strip search become the norm? Here in Texas you can get strip searched when arrested on a 6 year old arrest warrant for a $20 bounced check.

If I as a citizen forced someone to take off their clothes and then probed their body cavities this would be what is known as a crime, I believe it could even be considered rape. And yet it is considered okay when a jail employee orders you to strip and sticks his or her fingers where only your doctor or significant other should do any probing.

Why is an electronic means not used rather than the barbaric strip search? Would it not be easier just to walk a detainee through a security device like airports use? Come to think of it, even going through airport security has turned into sort of a minor strip search, what with having to take off your shoes and belt. My last time flying I wore really baggy comfortable pants and when the belt came off the pants almost did too. I think I was wearing boxers.