Prison surveillance would end abuses

Uncle Sam is getting a huge black eye in regard to his treatment of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo and other detention facilities around the world.

The time has come to fix the problem and, more to the point, get visible credit for fixing the problem.

But first, let’s review the issue. Much of the Muslim world thinks that America is against Islam. So when Imran Khan, a sports hero in Pakistan, held a news conference on May 6 to call attention to the infamous Newsweek Quran-flushing story (since retracted), it was no great surprise that murderous riots ensued and the success of the Bush administration’s mission in the Middle East was called into doubt.

Meanwhile, the evidence – or at least the allegations – of abuse keep piling up. Last week, Amnesty International accused the United States of running “the gulag of our time.” The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has issued similarly tough assessments of Gitmo. Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, one Red Cross official said that the American wardens at Gitmo were “no better than and no different than the Nazi concentration camp guards.” (The Red Cross denied the quote.) Truth and precision are in order here and now. The Soviets killed millions in their “gulag archipelago,” and the Nazis killed millions in their concentration camps. Yet today, even the most ferocious critics of U.S. detention policies are hard-pressed to cite more than a handful of wrongful deaths. Obviously, the unjust killing of even a single individual deserves investigation and punishment, but it’s important for everyone to maintain a proper perspective.

Yet since perspective is exactly what’s lacking, the United States should provide it – literally. How? By putting cameras in each and every prison cell, so that the condition of each prisoner can be observed 24/7 by the world. After all, if we are preaching “transparency” as part of our democratizing plan for the world, why don’t we practice it?

Cameras for security purposes have changed the world for the better. Millions of video monitors, in public places and private spaces, have helped identify thousands of criminals and deterred countless more crimes. Many parents use cameras in their own homes to keep track of their children and their children’s caregivers. To put it simply, surveillance equipment has made the world safer.

In addition, cameras can protect officialdom against false accusations. Right now, any Gitmo prisoner can say just about anything about his American captors, and chances are that millions, even billions, around the world will believe him. The best way to counter the charge that the United States is running a “Gitmo archipelago” is to show that the alleged abuses aren’t occurring. And they wouldn’t be if cameras were always whirring.

So who would watch all those camera feeds? That’s the beauty of Internet Webcams: Anybody with a computer can watch.

But what about the privacy of prisoners? There are many possible answers. The United States could make the video feed available to each prisoner’s home government, or perhaps to Muslim religious leaders, not to mention outfits such as Amnesty and the Red Cross.

OK, so what of America’s interrogation process? That would have to be reined in, and that’s a good thing. Anything more than persistent questioning would play poorly on “television.” That’s the way it goes – no more rough stuff. The renunciation of such tactics might be a loss for U.S. intelligence, but not much of a loss because most of the prisoners don’t really know anything. The United States has been keeping these men locked up for preventive purposes, not because they know much about future conspiracies.

Is this a radical plan? Sure it is. But it’s also a solution to what’s becoming a huge “public diplomacy” problem for the United States. If nothing is done, pressure simply to release the Gitmo men – who could still be dangerous – will be unstoppable.

And besides, if every country got in the habit of making its prisons transparent through technology, there would be a lot less horror in this world.