Jack Bauer Does Not Exist, People

One more thing about former MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller and her charges about being kept in the dark by the U.S. on torture. According to the Independent, Dame Eliza said that the Bush administration grew enamored of torture with the aid of a certain television show…

In her speech, highly critical of the US’s conduct during the war on terror, the former secret service chief implied that the leadership in Washington was inspired by watching the TV espionage thriller 24. She said: “Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld certainly watched 24″. Dame Eliza said: “The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing.” She insisted that she had been unaware of what was going on until her retirement in 2007.

That’s via Gawker.

Years ago, in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer explored the permeable membrane in the public consciousness between “24″ and actual counterterrorism.