On 11 August, the Associated Press reported that the Homeland Security Agency will spend up to $20m to equip its agents with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks to the skin of a person deemed uncooperative. The “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices”– branded Glove, for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter – will be supplied by their manufacturer, Compliant Technologies, through a no-bid contract.

News of the acquisition inspired the editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes to publish a cartoon of an ICE agent wearing the glove, underneath which are a branding iron, an iron maiden, a rack, and other compliance technologies. AKA, instruments of torture.

Indeed, Amnesty International reports that portable, convenient electric shock devices made for law enforcement like the glove can be, and have been, used for torture. Once called weapons, they’re now marketed as “humane”. They are the former. A prisoner in Kentucky died of a heart attack after 27 successive shocks, directly following 13 Taser hits.

ICE tactics, already sadistic, are looking increasingly like torture. The Geneva conventions define torture as the infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, by an agent of the state acting in their official capacity, to obtain intelligence or confession or to intimidate, coerce, or punish a prisoner or detainee. More than 90% of detainees are held in privately-owned immigration detention facilities, but their employees are contractual agents of the federal government.

According to an investigation by the Guardian, at least 10 immigrant detainees have been subjected to force-feeding and involuntary medical procedures. The detainees are on hunger strikes in protest of the appalling conditions of their incarceration, including, ironically, inedible food and denial of necessary medical treatment. One of the victims, a Kurdish film-maker, described being held in solitary confinement, tackled, shackled, and force fed twice daily for eight months. HSA anticipates hunger strike management will cost........

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