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Extended abstract: Technical communication, ethics, and expediency

Citing Steven Katz's seminal article “The Ethic of Expediency” and Philippe Sands' research on GITMO interrogations, I analyze technical documents justifying the torture of high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay to argue for continued attention to ethics in technical communication. Employing precedents established in the Nuremberg trials and in the Third Geneva Convention, I scrutinize how these documents were created and used. According to international legal precedents and some international legal authorities, the authors of these documents could be indicted for war crimes. Careful analysis of complex case studies such as these can help technical communicators better anticipate and take responsibility for the consequences of their acts of communication.