In Israel they briefly had an exemption for this, when they said 'you should never torture anybody under any circumstances, but if you can demonstrate that you are preventing imminent harm by torturing people, then you will have some legal protection in the courts.' And of course, ticking time bomb scenarios started to appear all the time, not because they were really happening, but because the police and military knew they had a loophole and started to exploit it.

Writer Alex Adams examines the use of the ticking time bomb scenario in contemporary politics and media - as an absurd, ubiquitous and fictional justification for real life torture programs, and psychological cover for the fearful authoritarian personality and the actual authoritarians looming above us all.

Alex is author of the book How to Justify Torture: Inside the Ticking Bomb Scenario from Repeater Books.