TV torture scenes trouble human rights activists

Desperate to get answers from a terrorism suspect who is refusing to talk, steely eyed U.S. intelligence agent Jack Bauer bursts into an interrogation room and shoots the prisoner in the leg. In an instant, the squirming, grimacing villain fesses up, revealing the target of an assassination plot. On other occasions, our hero seeks to obtain crucial information from bad guys by suffocating them with a plastic bag, administering pain-inducing intravenous drugs or even cutting off a finger.

Welcome to an evening of television in post-September 11 AmeriKKKa.

Whether it shocks the conscience of civil libertarians or warms the hearts of vigilantes, this kind of drama has made the Emmy-winning spy thriller "24" one of the Satanic Fox network's biggest hits