Flubug City Hall – Mayor Bobby Ornrey released photographs yesterday that depict the chilling extent to which harsh interrogation techniques were used by officials at the Flubug Police Department under his precedessor, Chuck Bylaw. The photos, taken by investigative reporter Anita Rimes (who has since left The Bugle for personal reasons), show a “dungeon” in the mine shafts below City Hall in which dubious methods were employed to extract information. Those methods, including tongue deprivation, simulated keelhauling and repeated exposure to Charlie Sheen’s tweets, have long been a source of controversy for personal liberty buffs.

But Mayor Ornrey tried to put that controversay to rest yesterday. “We can’t undo the past, but we can undo the future,” he proclaimed to an increasingly bewildered crowd. “Acts of barbarism have been committed and will not, God willing, be tolerated going forward. But I refuse to muddy the good names of our loyal officers just because they used thumbscrews and iron maidens in the course of their legal duties. Therefore, I’ve issued a pardon to everyone who participated in these unfortunate techniques.”

Liberty buffs were quick to cast Ornrey’s move as a political disappointment. “Who cares if cops were ‘following orders’?” said Rebecca Koons who works at the Red Flag Bookstore with known communist, Gus Haller. “They were torturing Flubug citizens!”

Others, like Heather Hart at the American Civil Rights Union in Balto, called the mayor’s actions a “green light” for future sadists. “Now every cop in Flubug knows they’ll be exonerated for any crime they commit. What’s to stop them from torturing people in the future?”

Calls to close the dungeon were referred to Sheriff Ramsey and the Greater Flubug Merchant’s Association who are mulling a joint effort to add the dungeon to the Flubug Caverns tour for a nominal fee.