Amnesty says the US government is turning a blind eye on the trade, even though it's illegal for many of pieces of equipment to be used in America. Amnesty's Brian Wood has been describing some of the items under debate to our Washington correspondent Agnes Cusack. Well, what we mean by torture weapons are three different things. One is that those weapons that are designed for cruelty and inhumane treatment and torture, and then there are things that are legitimate for use in law enforcement but nevertheless are abused. And then there's a certain number of new kinds of equipment that have been brought into the market that are untested and not properly monitored.
Leg irons are a relic from the slave trade.
And a new device is an electric shock stun belt which is tied to the prisoner's waist and can inflict a 50,000 volt shock through the kidneys going through the nervous system and the brain. That goes on for eight seconds of excruciating pain. One of the prisoners described it as putting a very long needle through the base of your spine, up through the bottom of your neck. That kind f thing we regard as inherently inhumane. And we would want those things banned.