Interragation memos...

[fusion]

Article: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/secret-interrogation-memos-to-be-released/

Memos: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20090416_memos.pdf

[Disclaimer]

Just reading the first 5 pages of the memos... that's pretty intense.

When will people realize torture isn't effective, anyway?

[fusion]

Yeah reading through as I get the chance. Much more in there than I thought there would be.

[flounder]

I read 8 pages of it and I dont see a damn thing wrong.. Sorry but thats just me..

[Disclaimer]

Emotions aside on what you WANT to do to these people...

What do you think you're going to gain from torture, other than making yourself feel better?

[KillJoy]

What do you think you're going to gain from torture, other than making yourself feel better?

Get information that can aid your cause?

KillJoy

[VanDy]

if we get even the smallest bit of info from them, I am all for it.

[fusion]

There is a problem with there sometimes being unreliable or even intentionally misleading information gained during interrogation especially where torture is concerned. There was an FBI report out about this sometime ago.

Honestly if it worked at all there should be some really good evidence to support it's continued use. We tortured guy A who gave information on B and we where able to verify it via C.

[flounder]

Emotions aside on what you WANT to do to these people...

What do you think you're going to gain from torture, other than making yourself feel better?

I dont have any feelings of WANT towards those people. The only thing I want is information that will potentially save hundereds/thousands of americans and our soldiers. With that being said, I do believe in if 1 has to suffer to save 100 then so be it. I understand there is a fine line with that statement but my personal feelings are that it sometimes takes extreme measures to preserve our way of live and protect our country and its citizens. Many of you absolutely despise the phone tapping laws in effect but I however have nothing against it. Im not doing anything wrong and the taps are a detective and preventative measure for future attacks.

[Disclaimer]

Seriously? Torture IS NOT EFFECTIVE. All you get is people telling you what you want to hear, not necessarily anything truthful.

Lets see, torture was used at the Salem witch trials. That was effective at getting people to admit they were witches - not only was that not true, but what purpose did it serve?

There are other examples to show the ineffectiveness - but the Witch trials was an easy one off the top of my head. I'm sure wiki has others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

Article on the effectiveness of torture

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

Directly from the National Defense Intelligence College "Educing

Information, Interrogation: Science and Art Foundations for the Future". 375 pages on this stuff...

http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

From pg 25:

Not surprisingly, the inquisitors also believed that imprisonment, often for long periods under cruel conditions including solitary confinement, was likely their most effective interrogation technique, surpassing the utility of torture. Bernard Gui described “imprisonment as an integral component of the inquisitor’s interrogation strategy…. [C]oupled if necessary, with hunger, shackles, and torture…[it] could…loosen the tongues of even the most obdurate.” In practice, such methods may have posed a dilemma for Gui and his fellow inquisitors, who zealously sought truthful confessions not only to root out heresy itself but also to save the immortal souls of the heretics – a dilemma over how to ensure the veracity of forced confessions. An account of the conditions in one notorious 13th century inquisitorial prison and their impact on the “truth” paints a grim picture:

Some of these cells are dark and airless, so that those lodged

there cannot tell if it is day or night…. In other cells there are

kept miserable wretches laden with shackles…. These cannot move, but defecate and urinate on themselves. Nor can they

lie down except on the frigid ground…. And thus coerced they

say that what is false is true, choosing to die once rather than

to endure more torture. As a result of these false and coerced

confessions not only do those making confessions perish, but

so do the innocent people named by them…. [M]any of those

who are newly cited to appear [before the inquisitors], hearing

of the torments and trials of those who are detained…assert that

what is false is true; in which assertions they accuse not only

themselves but other innocent people, that they may avoid the

above mentioned pains…. Those who thus confess afterward

reveal to their close friends that those things that they said to the

inquisitors are not true, but rather false, and they confessed out

of imminent danger.

Sadly, the conditions described above, although 800 years in the past, are

direct antecedents of conditions experienced by Iraqi prisoners confined in Abu Ghraib prison during 2003 and 2004, and perhaps by other prisoners in U.S. custody. The results of interrogations conducted under these conditions were just as unreliable as those in the 13th century. Why, in the 21st century, with all our accumulated knowledge about how human beings think and interact and function, are we still repeating costly medieval mistakes? “The problem,” according to Dr. Robert Coulam, “is that…there is little systematic knowledge available to tell us ‘what works’ in interrogation. We do not know what methods or processes of interrogation best protect the nation’s security (emphasis in the original).” In essence, this is why Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art in is so important and timely. Its conclusions demonstrate that the entire field of educing information needs critical reexamination; there are no easy answers or generic solutions when it comes to understanding these highly complex behaviors.

Also, p66-69:

Key Findings [on torture]

The review presented above is mainly descriptive. This section highlights

some of the more important findings and their potential implications.

• From the perspectives of both research and practice, educing

information is most productively viewed as a dynamic and reciprocal

process rather than as a discrete event, task, or series of face-to-face

encounters.

• U.S. personnel have used a limited number of interrogation

techniques over the past half-century, but virtually none of them — or

their underlying assumptions — are based on scientific research or have

even been subjected to scientific or systematic inquiry or evaluation.

• The potential mechanisms and effects of using coercive

techniques or torture for gaining accurate, useful information from

an uncooperative source are much more complex than is commonly

assumed. There is little or no research to indicate whether such techniques

succeed in the manner and contexts in which they are applied. Anecdotal

accounts and opinions based on personal experiences are mixed, but the

preponderance of reports seems to weigh against their effectiveness.

• The accuracy of educed information can be compromised by

the manner in which it is obtained. The effects of many common stress

and duress techniques are known to impair various aspects of a person’s

cognitive functioning, including those functions necessary to retrieve

and produce accurate, useful information.

• Psychological theory and some (indirectly) related research

suggest that coercion or pressure can actually increase a source’s

resistance and determination not to comply. Although pain is commonly

assumed to facilitate compliance, there is no available scientific or

systematic research to suggest that coercion can, will, or has provided

accurate useful information from otherwise uncooperative sources.

• Research studies on important related issues such as persuasion,

influence, compliance, and resistance have mainly (although not

exclusively) focused on persons from Western cultures. Findings from the

fields of intercultural psychology and anthropology suggest that patterns,

meanings and modes of interpersonal interaction may be different

in non-Western cultures, so there is not yet a clear scientific basis to

anticipate that results and insights will apply equally or evenly across

cultures. Moreover, many encounters involving information eduction

in intelligence-gathering contexts occur through translators. While

there is good reason to suspect that the effects and/or implementation

of interpersonal strategies may be different when using a translator as a

conduit for communication, the exact nature and extent of that impact on

educing information has not been scientifically determined.

• A moderately strong body of social science research provides

a potential road map to a new generation of strategies and approaches

for overcoming resistance without the use of high-pressure, coercive

techniques.

• Social science research on persuasion and interpersonal

influence could provide a foundation for creating an elegant, elaborate,

and powerful U.S. approach for educing information in intelligence gathering

contexts.

Edited April 17, 2009 by JRMMiii

[Disclaimer]

:thread revival:

New article on torture and it's ineffectiveness...

http://www.physorg.com/news175785587.html

The rationale behind torture is that pain will make the guilty confess, but a new study by researchers at Harvard University finds that the pain of torture can make even the innocent seem guilty.

Participants in the study met a woman suspected of cheating to win money. The woman was then "tortured" by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom. She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered during the torture, the guiltier she was perceived to be.

The research, published in the "Journal of Experimental Social Psychology," was conducted by Kurt Gray, graduate student in psychology, and Daniel M. Wegner, professor of psychology, both in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea—and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."

Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session—rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture—they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity.

"Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," says Gray. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."

The study included 78 participants: half met the woman who was apparently tortured (actually a confederate of the experimenters who was, of course, not harmed at all), and half did not. Participants were told that the study was about moral behavior, and that the woman may have cheated by taking more money than she deserved. The experimenter suggested that a stressful situation might make a guilty person confess, so participants listened for a confession over a hidden intercom as she was subjected to the sham "torture."

The confederate did not admit to cheating but reacted to having her hand submerged in ice water with either indifference or with whimpering and pleading. Participants who had met her rated her as more guilty the more she suffered. Those who did not meet her rated her as more guilty when she felt less pain.

Gray suggests that these results offer an explanation for the debate swirling around torture.

"Seeing others in pain can perpetuate ideological differences about the justifiability of torture," says Gray. "Those who initially advocate torture see those harmed as guilty, unlike those who initially reject torture and its methods."

The findings also shed light on the Abu Ghraib scandal, where prison guards tortured Iraqi detainees. Prison guards, who are close to the suffering of detainees, see detainees as more guilty the more they suffer, unlike the more distant general public.

The case is still open on whether torture actually makes victims more likely to tell the truth. This research suggests instead that the mere fact that someone was tortured leads observers to think that the truth was found.

Source: Harvard University (news : web)

[Likwid]

intense

I want to know what's blacked out on page 3 with the bug section!

Edited October 27, 2009 by Likwid

[Dave]

we should do ANYTHING we need to in order to obtain critical information relating to the potential for terrorist acts upon our country.

[Likwid]

we should do ANYTHING we need to in order to obtain critical information relating to the potential for terrorist acts upon our country.

I have reason to believe you have knowledge of a terrorist attack.

Now you are subject to interrogation and torture, congrats, hope you didn't want your civil liberties or freedom.

I don't actually have any information and that was simply political satire to express a point, noone in the FBI/CIA/DHS should torture Dave.

[wrillo]

I have reason to believe you have knowledge of a terrorist attack.

Now you are subject to interrogation and torture, congrats, hope you didn't want your civil liberties or freedom.

I don't actually have any information and that was simply political satire to express a point, noone in the FBI/CIA/DHS should torture Dave.

Come to think of it, that Todd guy seems pretty confrontational and anti-American.

[InyaAzz]

right... Or we could start by not funding them' date=' securing our borders and having our military on our own soil. (just off the top of my head..)[/quote']

qft

[Likwid]

The problem is with "what is credible information enough that we should throw out the constitution and do everything we can to get whatever information that person might have." We're talking about throwing out ALL rights for those people, due process, swift trial, etc. All for "credible information." And there is NOTHING to protect US citizens here... if someone is a US Citizen they can be held as enemies of the state.

As JRM mentioned, it's been shown that people undergoing torture or any physical duress simply provide whatever information they can to STOP THE THREAT, not necessarily true information. Now I don't necessarily think slapping someone or throwing them into a wall is "torture" but if you did that to Joe Smith in Akron he'd sue for police abuse... so at what point do we go from "arrested for trespassing" and "spying for terrorists"?

I'll be the first to argue "asking politely" isn't going to get us anywhere, but I also don't think torture, mass arrest, etc etc will solve the problem either.

[psyco1]

You get the best information by them telling you before they realize they told you. Even WWII vets that did the same job have denounced torture.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/240810

On Friday, President Bush lied to the American people, as he has many times before, telling us that "this government does not torture people." But the metastasizing record shows that Bush and a compliant Justice Department have repeatedly authorized harsh CIA interrogation techniques, such as head slapping, frigid temperatures and simulated drowning. Such techniques have been condemned by many decent and reasonable people in these last years. But the critics who gathered this past weekend to denounce these methods made for an unusual group. Meeting for the first time since the 1940s, World War II veterans who had been charged with top-secret interrogations of Nazi prisoners of war lamented "the chasm between the way they conducted interrogation during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects." [see the Washington Post's cover story, "Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII," by Petula Dvorak} John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a foreign service and ambassador to Denmark, told the Washington Post, " We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice."

Another World War II veteran--one of the few who interrogated the early 4000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, who were brought in to Fort Hunt, Virginia for questioning for days and weeks--spoke of how "during the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone. We extracted information in a battle of the wits." He added that he was proud that he "never compromised my humanity." Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist, told the Post, " We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or ping pong than they do today, with their torture." Several of the veterans used the occasion, upon receiving honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, to state their oppositon to the war in Iraq and methods used at Guantanamo Bay. Peter Weiss, a longtime friend of The Nation, a fearless champion of nuclear sanity, international law and human rights, spoke movingly. " I am deeply honored to be here, but I want to make it clear that my presence here is not in support of the current war."

Another veteran, Arno Mayer, a professor emeritus of European history at Princeton University and a longtime contributor to the Nation, refused the award out of concern that he and the others were being used by the military today to justify their acts. "We did spooky stuff then, so it's okay to do it now." But what the Veterans' revealed so strikingly was the disgust these former interrogators-- in a war that posed a greater threat to America's survival than the so-called "war on terror"--have for the cruel, inhuman, degrading and illegal techniques called for --and condoned-- by the Bush Administration.

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

i think we should use torture...

[chevysoldier]

Seriously? Torture IS NOT EFFECTIVE. All you get is people telling you what you want to hear, not necessarily anything truthful.

Lets see, torture was used at the Salem witch trials. That was effective at getting people to admit they were witches - not only was that not true, but what purpose did it serve?

There are other examples to show the ineffectiveness - but the Witch trials was an easy one off the top of my head. I'm sure wiki has others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture

Article on the effectiveness of torture

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

Directly from the National Defense Intelligence College "Educing

Information, Interrogation: Science and Art Foundations for the Future". 375 pages on this stuff...

http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

From pg 25:

Also, p66-69:

:thread revival:

New article on torture and it's ineffectiveness...

http://www.physorg.com/news175785587.html

What do you think should be used instead of torture? What would you do if it it was you family or loved ones that were in danger?

[Likwid]

What would you do if it it was you family or loved ones that possibly had information?

See what I did there?

[psyco1]

What do you think should be used instead of torture? What would you do if it it was you family or loved ones that were in danger?

If it were my loved ones, they better use techniques that actually yield good instead of suspect information.

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

If it were my loved ones, they better no be holding info back that could be hurting others in the first place.

[chevysoldier]

If it were my loved ones, they better use techniques that actually yield good instead of suspect information.

That's what I am getting at. What are the techniques you would use. Everybody likes to say torture is horrible yet few people can come up with something better. At least when we torture someone, it is to get information. Not like some of the countries that do it for the fun of doing it. When was the last time we dragged a dead Somolian body around cheering?

[Disclaimer]

That's what I am getting at. What are the techniques you would use. Everybody likes to say torture is horrible yet few people can come up with something better. At least when we torture someone, it is to get information. Not like some of the countries that do it for the fun of doing it. When was the last time we dragged a dead Somolian body around cheering?

Uhh, like psycho said... you use better techniques. Torture doesn't yield results. I'm not going to dig through all my links again, but I believe I read that the best results were yielded when you befriended the terrorist to the point where they saw that their 'enemy' wasn't really that bad - and as trust and rapport is established, the information and communication gateway is open. This method is much better at yielding ACCURATE information than torture.

You can't see how ignorant the stance is on using torture to gain intelligence? If I was getting sodomized by the worlds largest horse and it started becoming painful and you screamed at me "Tell me where my family is and the horse will stop".

1) If I'm innocent, I have no clue about your family, so what's the right answer? If I say "I don't know" you assume I'm a liar and punish me more. So, I'll makeup information just to get the torture to stop.

2) If I'm guilty, how would you know? You can't PROVE it, I'll just act like I'm innocent and we'll repeat situation 1. Even if you're absolutely SURE I'm guilty, and terrorist worth their salt isn't going to cave - they'll continually send you on wild goose chases, wasting YOUR time and resources as you investigate every potential lead, until you decide to kill them. And what do you benefit by killing them? Nothing other than to serve your own petty emotions of vengeance, as they're the only ones who knows where your family is. Besides, they're already prepared to die for their cause or they wouldn't be in that situation to begin with.

So, once again, tell me how much great information we ever got by torturing people? Mr. Salem Witch.

Edited October 28, 2009 by JRMMiii
while goose chases? No, WILD goose chases. Silly me.