Welcome To the USSR, 1951

How much traction will this story in today's Times get?

Here's the crux of it in one paragraph...the US in 2007 has something ugly in common with late Stalinist Russia:

While billions are spent each year to upgrade satellites and other high-tech spy machinery, the experts say, interrogation methods — possibly the most important source of information on groups like Al Qaeda — are a hodgepodge that date from the 1950s, or are modeled on old Soviet practices.

The whole subject of torture and interogation surprsingly still seems to create little outrage or concern in the general public, and arguable, much of the mainstream media, particularly television. Two years after Abu Gahrib, it's still expert panels, hearings and shocklingly small -- though diverse -- chorus of dissent.