Trading in the business of torturing or executing human beings may soon require an export license from the federal government, if the Department of Commerce adopts new rules under consideration. The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security wants to regulate the sale of such devices as thumbscrews, spiked batons, stun cuffs, shock sleeves, multipoint restraint devices, restraint chairs and others because officials claim “equipment designed for the execution of human beings has a clear nexus to crime control and an obvious potential use in repressing human rights.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff