For the record, I am not sure whether torture works or is morally justified in the circumstances where it has been applied over the last 20 years, but I find this article entirely unconvincing.
I think we have to accept that sometimes we are, at least temporarily, operating according to ideas we can't fully justify. We have to be willing to be temporarily wrong or misguided.
Whereas whatever the hell people want to talk about with 24-esque do-or-die scenario begs dozens if not hundreds of follow up questions, all of which have one thing in common: they've nothing to do with torture as conducted by the US to date, which has taken place over the course of years in a systemic fashion in which no assurances that the people we're torturing are even involved with "the enemy" have been able to be given.
But that's a different argument entirely from "this tool can never work."
This is not to say that the torture is justified in the case of a 'ticking time bomb', but it is both a possible situation, and a useful scenario to think about.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/world/kidnapping-has-germa...
[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CasStuTerTicBom
They are looking very hard for scenarios to justify their use of torture, and the results they have revealed (e.g. from waterboarding Al Qaeda members) aren't inspiring, so far.
It appears, for instance, that waterboarding people many times (in a few cases, 100+ times) isn't enough to keep them from lying to you.
Some might argue that the US was simply too restrained in the pain and suffering it subjected the subjects to; others might argue that the US 'tortured hard enough', but it is not possible to achieve 'better' results. Similarly, there could be a discussion of whether it was morally permissible for the US government to torture.
But if they're anywhere near an upper bound, then whether they (a well-informed first-world superpower with a huge budget and a willingness to extradite people to places like Syria where there are effectively no rules) can make torture work is very relevant.
Because if they can't, and torture is useless, then clearly the question is effectively resolved, at least in the real world. If torture is simply ineffective in real-world scenarios then the question goes away.
It's also significant to note that even though police thought it was a 'ticking bomb' situation, it actually wasn't. "But the police honestly believed X" is a real example of the 'slippery slope', that we see violated time and time again. There have been sting operations to expose the misuse of "honestly believed X" - my favourite being the guys (in Texas, from memory) who put high power heat lamps in an empty house, pointed at a christmas tree. Police helicopters illegally using FLIR noted the heat, and had an officer walk past and "smell cannabis" coming from the house, which lead to a SWAT raid. All caught on cameras positioned inside the empty house.
We already have provisions in law to allow for the very rare and unusual situations where someone is guilty of a criminal act for a good reason. Therefor the people using the mythical "ticking bomb" scenario are asking for something else.