After establishing when torture is justified, it is easier to answer who exactly should be tortured. Firstly, no innocent person should be tortured. As stated above, intelligence officers should not go fishing for information. Obviously, an innocent person does not have possession of information pertaining to an imminent threat, which does not pass the criteria listed above that justifies using torture. Further, if an individual is torturing an innocent person, it is reasonable to believe that the torturer is solely using this for punishment and to inflict pain. The only individuals that should be tortured are guilty ones! They are the ones who have knowledge of threats and created the attack. A terrorist is an example of this. By taking place in terrorist activities, the individual is no longer innocent. They are essentially in the game. Tiel (209) elaborates on this: Because a state of perpetual threat to the innocent persists, the terrorist actors have forfe
ited their rights and may be killed. It follows that their rights to liberty, health, and preservation of limb are likewise forfeit (p. 39). When a terrorist willfully engages in an act that threatens innocent lives, they relinquish any rights that they had. They are putting completely innocent lives at risk. Allhof (n.d.) also supports this stance: &we should not torture innocent people such that others may benefit&complicity in terrorist activities constitutes a forfeiture of innocence (p. 3). When the U.S. catches high profile terrorists, and intelligence officers have legitimate reasons to believe that the individual knows of terrorist activities and future threats, then intelligence professionals are justified in using torture. But even here there is a line that must be drawn, specifically when it comes to family, friends, and other people within the terrorists life. Tiel (209) defines specific ethical limits concerning individuals other than the terrorist: