Reply #15: at the margins, it may be a bit like pornography -- i can't define it, but i know it when i see it

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(justice potter stewart)

but some things are not at the margins. placing someone in a position to fear a real and imminent violent death or bodily harm is unequivocably torture. putting you naked in reach or in near reach of a vicious dog is unequivocably torture.

morally, the other things you mention are torture, as there's no reason other than to cause physical discomfort (presumably in the hope that some good somehow arises from this) but where it crosses the line into techniques that ought to be illegal is not clear.

generally speaking, though, if a confession extracted using bright lights is inadmissible, there's at least an argument that that's torture, albeit hardly on the scale of watereboarding.