Invictus

Who Will Investigate CIA/RAND/APA Torture "Workshop"?

2009-11-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake

Back in May 2007, while researching the activities of the American Psychological Association (APA) in support of the U.S. government's interrogation program, I came across evidence that the APA had engaged in a discussion of torture techniques during a workshop organized by APA and the RAND Corporation, "with generous funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)."

The workshop was held at the Arlington, Virginia, headquarters of the privately-held but long linked-to-the-government RAND think tank. APA Director of Science Geoff Mumford acted as liaison to the CIA for the meeting. Susan Brandon, a key APA "Senior Scientist", and former member of the Bush White House's Office of Science & Technology Policy, helped organize the affair, along with psychologist Kirk Hubbard, who was then Chief of the Research & Analysis Branch, Operational Assessment Division of the CIA.

The workshop was titled the "Science of Deception: Integration of Practice and Theory", and it discussed new ways to utilize drugs and sensory bombardment techniques to break down interrogatees. Those are signal techniques of psychological torture long utilized by the CIA and other intelligence agencies and military around the world.

According to the brief APA account:

Meeting at RAND headquarters in Arlington, VA, the workshop drew together approximately 40 individuals including research psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists who study various aspects of deception and representatives from the CIA, FBI and Department of Defense with interests in intelligence operations. In addition, representatives from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security were present.... Following brief introductions and welcoming remarks... workshop participants divided into break-out groups to discuss thematic scenarios....

It was one of the particular "break-out groups" that concerned me. According to APA's Public Policy Office, which publishes an online newspaper called (with perhaps an unconscious taste for irony) "Spin," the workshops covered Embassy "Walk-in" informants, Law Enforcement Threat Assessment, and Intelligence gathering ("What are the dimensions of truth?"). But the workshop on Law Enforcement Interrogation and Debriefing had some shocking language (emphasis added, quoted material from APA Government Relations: Science Policy website):

Law enforcement routinely question witnesses and suspects regarding criminal activity. How do you tell if the individual is telling the truth, lying, or something in between? Acts of omission and acts of commission are both important to identify.

How do we find out if the informant has knowledge of which s/he is not aware? How important are differential power and status between witness and officer?

What pharmacological agents are known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior?

What are mechanisms and processes of learning to lie? Can these be demonstrated within relatively short periods of time (e.g., within a polygraph test session)?....

What are sensory overloads on the maintenance of deceptive behaviors? How might we overload the system or overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors?

According to writer, Katherine Eban, who wrote about the APA/RAND/CIA workshop in an August 2007 article at Vanity Fair, SERE-cum-CIA psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell were attendees at the workshop. Eban elaborated in a July 30, 2007 interview with Amy Goodman:

KATHERINE EBAN: ...The attendance list is divided into two parts. One was really academic researchers, and the other one was operational, operational psychologists. So these were a lot of people who were associated with the CIA, some whose identity was so classified that they were only listed by first name in italics. Mitchell and Jessen were there on the list, listed as CIA contractors. And I think without that attendance list, I don't know if we would have been able to put out this article.

AMY GOODMAN: The CIA funded this APA-RAND conference?

KATHERINE EBAN: Correct. And one of the main CIA participants and organizers, a man named Kirk Hubbard, told a key participant before the meeting, “Don't ask these psychologists what they do for a living. Don't ask them to identify themselves, because basically their identity is secret and classified.”

AMY GOODMAN: They debated the effectiveness of truth serum and other coercive techniques.

KATHERINE EBAN: Right. That's correct.

"Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of"

So, one participant is told not to even reveal names of who attended this CIA/APA/RAND affair. At least one APA member has written to Geoff Mumford and Stephen Behnke (the latter is Director of the APA's Ethics Office) asking for more information on the content of the meeting. To date, they have not bothered to respond.

The secrecy is not surprising, nor even relatively new. The APA and CIA have a very long history of working together on interrogation techniques, in particular on sensory deprivation and use of drugs like LSD and mescaline in interrogations, and other methods of breaking down the mind and the body of prisoners.

Use of drugs to influence interrogations, in addition to sensory deprivation, distortion and overload or bombardment were signal techniques in a decades-long interrogation research program that came to be known by its most famous moniker, MKULTRA (although these torture techniques were studied and tested by the CIA even earlier, in its 1950s projects Bluebird and Artichoke). Such techniques were codified by the early 1960s in a CIA Counterinsurgency Interrogation Manual, also known by its codename, KUBARK.

According to numerous researchers, the CIA, and the psychologists and psychiatrists they contracted to work with them, including many of the top behavioral scientists of their day, experimented with many drugs in their quest to find a "truth" drug that would open up the recalcitrant and expose the liar and the dissembler. The CIA has declassified a paper from its in-house intelligence journal from the early 1960s, "'Truth' Drugs in Interrogation," where they discuss research on drugs for interrogation ranging from scopolamine, amphetamines, and barbiturates to cannabis, LSD, and mescaline. The CIA authors discuss the limitations of using drugs, based on research, and conclude that a special use for drugs may be found in detection of deception.

(A discussion of CIA research into truth drugs, use of LSD, and other topics is thoroughly discussed in H.P. Albarelli's recently published book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.)

But the quotes from the CIA/RAND/APA deception workshop are not from 40 years ago. They are from 2003. Evidently the research into using drugs on captured or arrested or incarcerated prisoners or "enemy combatants" has not ended.

In an article last June, I noted that the current Army Field Manual carries an allowance for use of drugs on certain prisoners which is less restrictive than even John Yoo allowed for in the Bybee memos. For months, the the Pentagon Inspector General has been investigating the use of drugs upon prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere, but we have not heard where that investigation is headed, nor when it will be concluded. An email request for more information was not returned.

It is infuriating that the planning and implementation of torture, such as that which took place under almost public purview--i.e., it was practically bragged about by the APA on its own website--does not lead to a full set of investigations. Psychologists within APA who attempted to bring the issue up were unable to get any answers.

On November 9, members of Psychologists for an Ethical APA jettisoned its attempts to (for the most part) reform the APA from within, stating on their website that they have "initiated a movement to coordinate a mass resignation from the American Psychological Association (APA) on the part of APA members who are concerned about APA's actions and policies regarding psychologists' participation in interrogations and detention in extra-legal War on Terror prisons, as well as about APA's unresponsiveness to widespread member efforts to change these policies." They set up a petition site to record member's resignation statements, as well. Who can blame them, at this point? (For the record, I resigned from APA in January 2008, citing the APA/CIA/RAND workshop as one reason for leaving.)

Something very rotten is going on at the heart of American behavioral science, and I'm not talking about decades-old scandals -- I'm talking about right now. Along with collaboration with the CIA and military on possible new abusive interrogation methods, the APA is fighting to keep its links with the military, and to keep psychologists as essential components of their interrogation practice. This is the program behind the Intelligence Science Board's Educing Information (large PDF) report, which was accepted recently by the Obama administration as their new template for interrogation practice. In a future article, I'll discuss how this report was set up by the CIA and military as a snow job to mask the use of pernicious interrogation methods that include techniques of psychological torture.

In the meantime, won't someone with political clout open up an investigation of the CIA/RAND/APA meeting that plotted torture?

Marcy Wheeler & David Frakt on Torture & the 9/11 Prosecutions

2009-11-18T10:18:00.001-08:00

Marcy Wheeler, aka emptywheel, has an important post up today. She has solicited the opinions of Lt. Col. David Frakt on the issues behind the Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Shiekh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants in a New York federal court, and other prisoners in the newly reconstituted military commissions. Frakt was the military attorney for teenaged Guanatanamo prisoner Mohammed Jawad.

Marcy, and key commenter-contributor at her blog, Mary, and others, had been wondering if the decision to move KSM and the others to federal courts wasn't in part due to the fact they could charge the 9/11 prisoners with "material support to terrorism" charges, making it easier to convict them, as such charges have been "used to give wide leeway to prosecutors to charge those for whom intent to commit terrorism may not be easy to prove."

There's much to read and ponder at Marcy's post. I found the discussion of the bogus "laws of war" charges actually brought in the military commissions cases to be very interesting. But in this post of mine today, I'm going to pull from Marcy's blog a portion of Lt. Col. Frakt's comments, which Marcy found particularly important, concerning how the issue of torture was handled by the judge in the military commissions case concerning Mohammed Jawad:

I had another couple of thoughts about why the 9/11 case was transferred to federal court, aside from purely political considerations. The Judge in the case, Colonel Stephen Henley, had made a couple of rulings in the Jawad case (my case) which made the government very nervous. First, he ruled in response to a motion to dismiss that I filed on the basis of torture that he “beyond peradventure” had the power to dismiss all charges on the basis of pretrial abuse of the detainee. Although he declined to dismiss the charges against Jawad, the fact that he would even entertain such a thought was very frightening for the prosecution, since they knew that other detainees had been tortured and abused far worse that Jawad, especially the high value detainees. Judge Henley also indicated that he was declining to dismiss because there were other remedies available, such as giving extra sentencing credit against any ultimately adjudged sentence. Assuming that KSM and his brethren were to get the death penalty, the only remedy for their prior abuse would be to commute the death penalty, the government’s worse nightmare. Also, in response to multiple motions to suppress statements that I filed, he had ruled not only that Jawad’s initial confession was obtained by torture, but that all subsequent confessions were presumptively tainted by the earlier tortured confession. He held that the burden was on the prosecution to prove that subsequently obtained statements were no longer tainted by the earlier torture or coercion. Judge Henley applied the law correctly in each of these rulings, applying well-settled principles of due process from U.S. Supreme Court cases. These rulings provide an opportunity for the defense to put the U.S.’ treatment of these detainees on trial, potentially for months, before ever getting to the merits of the case. And in order for the defense to make comprehensive motions, they would have to be made privy to the full scope of the abuses that had been meted out by the U.S. on their clients and should be given the opportunity to develop such evidence in pre-trial evidentiary hearings, as I did in Mohammed Jawad’s case, including allowing the defendants to testify about the abuses they experienced. Those who claim that this type of sideshow can be avoided in federal court simply don’t understand criminal procedure. The real question will be whether the 9/11 defendants authorize their counsel to make such motions or whether they will continue to seek martyrdom and forgo the opportunity to fully litigate the torture issues. [my emphasis (i.e., emphasis by Marcy Wheeler)]

I would be curious, given Lt. Col. Frakt's suggestion that Judge Henley has provided that "pretrial abuse" is actionable and worthy of remedy, why this was not ruled to be the case in the Jose Padilla proceedings.

US District Court Judge Marcia Cooke, of the U.S. District Court, Southern District, Miami, in an ruling in April 2007 (made without a hearing) rejected Padilla's attorneys' motion for dismissal of Padilla's case due to "outrageous government conduct". That conduct included torture through isolation, profound sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, use of stress positions, use of drugs, and other indignities. Padilla had been held since June 2002 at the Naval Consoldidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina as an "enemy combatant". Original charges of constructing a "dirty bomb" had been dropped.

In Judge Cooke's ruling, she accepted "for the sake of this Order" Padilla's claims of mistreatment to be true, but the abuse supposedly did not amount to sufficient outrageous conduct to throw the case out of court. Why? Because the government claimed it would not use any evidence obtained from interrogations while Padilla was in the brig, i.e., from the time when he was tortured. Therefore, legally, Padilla supposedly has no "remedy" against the government.

It will be interesting to see how events unfold in the KSM et al. trial. I hope Lt. Col. Frakt will turn out to be correct, regarding his assumption the government has a lot to risk re bringing out in court the torture issue.

Meanwhile, I thank Marcy/Emptywheel for her excellent reporting, and Lt. Col. Frakt for his standing up for what is right, and fighting this all-important good fight. (If you haven't yet, do spend some time reading Frakt's closing arguments in the Jawad case. Many consider them among the most powerful words yet spoken on the injustice of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld-initiated military commissions system, a system that continues in only slightly modified form in the Obama years.)

Army Threatens Court-Martial For Mother Who Wouldn't Leave Her Child

2009-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Dahr Jamail has a story over at Truthout concerning the Army's arrest of U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother about to deploy to Afghanistan, who couldn't find child care for her 11-month-old son after her mother turned out to be unavailable for the job.

According to Ms. Hutchinson's civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, this case is "completely over the top."

The U.S., in its hunger to feed its war machine in Afghanistan, refused to give Hutchinson further delays in order to find appropriate childcare for her son.

Sussman says Hutchinson told her, "It is outrageous that they would deploy a single mother without a complete and current family care plan. I would like to find someone I trust who can take care of my son, but I cannot force my family to do this. They are dealing with their own health issues."

Sussman told IPS that the Army's JAG attorney, Captain Ed Whitford, "told me they thought her chain of command thought she was trying to get out of her deployment by using her child as an excuse." '

The U.S. could care less about its men and women in uniform. Famously, they sent soldiers to fight their illegal war in Iraq without proper body armor or equipment. It was only a few years ago that a Washington Post report exposed the Army's flagship hospital, Walter Reed Medical Center, as a chaotic mess, poorly serving its overcrowded population of injured and sick veterans.

(It's worth noting that Ft. Hood alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was a psychiatrist working with PTSD patients at Walter Reed from 2003 to early 2009. One can only imagine what a madhouse he worked in, and how it may have contributed to his presumed mental instability. -- Mark Benjamin also has a story up over at Salon, reporting on how a Navy psychiatrist was fired by his military contractor, after reporting conditions were so bad among returning Marines at Camp Lejeune, that stressed-out returning soldiers were ready to "blow" in serious violent outbreaks. The psychiatrist told military inspectors. "many patients' lives are imminently at risk." Instead of listening, they gave the doctor the boot.)

Spc. Hutchinson is still confined to base in Savannah, Georgia. She faces a possible military court martial. Her son, according to a recent AP update, is with his grandmother in California. Originally, after his mother's arrest, the child had been placed in a county foster care system. The grandmother apparently has her hands full with caring for another "special needs" child, and does not know how long she can keep the boy.

According to Hutchinson's attorney, Alexis will not be court-martialed... just yet:

"To me it sounds completely bogus," Sussman told IPS, "I think what they are actually going to do is have her spend her year deployment in Afghanistan, then court martial her back here upon her return. This would do irreparable harm to her child. I think they are doing this to punish her, because they think she is lying."

Sussman explained that she believes the best possible outcome is for the Army to either give Hutchinson the extension they had said she would receive so that she can find someone to care for her infant, or barring this, to simply discharge her so she can take care of her child.

Solitary Confinement, Cruel and Unusual: Stop Torture in U.S. Prisons

2009-11-15T18:20:00.000-08:00

Angola 3 News has an excellent an article over at Daily Kos on Torture and Human Rights Violations in U.S. Prisons. What follows is a video and a selection from the article, which is an interview with Bret Grote of Human Rights Coalition/FedUp!

Take Action at www.StopMax.org

Sometime prior to or during 2007, Fed Up! became an official chapter of the Human Rights Coalition, a prisoner rights/prison abolitionist organization whose founding chapter was and still remains active in Philadelphia. HRC was the brainchild of prisoners as well. Around the fall of 2007 and early 2008 HRC/Fed Up!—as we were then known—began to focus more exclusively on PA prisons for reasons of capacity and strategy, because, obviously, we have more potential and actual power in this state since we are based here.

During these last two years we have documented hundreds upon hundreds of human rights violations (to view a small portion visit our website) from over 20 prisons in the state system (PA has 27 state prisons). These reports have been collated from thousands upon thousands of pages of prisoner letters and reports, criminal complaints, affidavits and declarations, civil litigation documents, prison records, along with countless hours of interviews and dialogue with current and former prisoners and their family and support people.

What our investigations demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt is that the state of Pennsylvania is operating a sophisticated program of torture under an utterly baseless pretext of "security", wherein close to 3,000 people are held in conditions of solitary/control unit confinement each day.

Important New Book Links the Murder of Frank Olson with CIA Cold War Experiments

2009-11-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

The following is a review I wrote at Amazon.com for the newly published book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.

H.P. Albarelli, Jr. has written a fully detailed, compelling account of the murder of CIA-linked 1950s Army biochemist Frank Olson. The somewhat surprising death of an otherwise little-known Midwestern scientist would become for contemporary historians, journalists, and researchers -- years after the event -- a crucial nexus providing a gathering point for the multitudinous strands connecting a welter of secretive Cold War intelligence and military programs.
The Olson case burst upon the public's consciousness in the mid-1970s, along with other revelations at the time concerning CIA and military domestic spying and medical experimentation upon unwitting victims, thanks in part to a landmark expose by then-New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh. Pursued by Olson's family, attorneys, government commissions, newspaper reporters, and even some CIA agents, the truth behind Olson's death after a hundred-foot fall from a Manhattan hotel window on November 28, 1953, has been obscured over the years by a combination of myth, government misdirection, amateurish or hack "research," and, crucially, a lack of access to essential documentation. Now, after almost a decade of research, writer and researcher Albarelli has produced his magnum opus on Olson's death, and it has been well worth the wait.

"A Terrible Mistake" is part history book, part biography, part memoir, and part mystery tale. In order to understand the story of Frank Olson's life and death, and the cover-up surrounding that death, Mr. Albarelli must take the reader on a journey into the history of Cold War experimentation on mind and behavioral control, implemented by a welter of CIA and military programs whose names have passed into the iconic nomenclature regarding the underworld of American covert activities: Project Bluebird, Project MKULTRA, Project Artichoke, MKNAOMI, and others. In addition, because Olson was a government scientist with top secret clearance working on biological weaponry programs for the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the book also offers a peek into this very little reported corner of U.S. history.

The book is quite long, yet remains a page-turner. I won't reveal the mystery Albarelli solves, i.e., who killed Frank Olson and why, but the long build-up describing the various covert operations of the intelligence agencies, well-documented in the book, builds to a startling pay-off.

In the first half of the book, the author describes Olson's life, the government programs that touch upon his work, Olson's death and its aftermath. The latter part of the book picks up from the initial public revelations surrounding his death, coming over 20 years after it occurred, and the following investigations, including the reopening of the murder investigation by the New York City's District Attorney's office in 1996. Throughout, we are entertained by a kaleidoscopic sequence of characters, including former CIA chiefs Allen Dulles and William Colby, CIA psychiatrists, Watergate burglars (for instance, we learn James McCord was the CIA agent initially sent out to deal with Olson's death), former CIA agents, hotel managers, hired assassins, mobsters, high-priced attorneys, dubious informants, U.S. diplomats and generals, politicians (including a mid-1970s appearance by both Don Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney), and many, many more.

This is not just a book about a dusty, decades-old murder case. With the news of the past few years around U.S. use of torture, as well as recent revelations by Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights surrounding possible torture experimentation upon detainees held by the CIA, the history of similar activities by the same United States agencies, as narrated in Albarelli's book, has direct significance to crucial news events of our own day.

I strongly recommend this book. The author's honesty and willingness to look at the facts, rather than wishful thinking, or rely upon accepted wisdom, makes this investigatory journey well-worth the reader's time. The book has a fully-documented "Notes" section, which will satisfy the most avid researcher, or those who wish to double-check the author's assertions. Also included is a section with photographs of key documents.

It seems certain that "A Terrible Mistake" will take its place along other classics of its historical genre. But it is also the most fascinating and entertaining book you will purchase for a long time.

[Full disclosure: the author mentions me in his Acknowledgments section. I had no role in the writing of his book, and my earlier contact with the author amounted to literally a few e-mails. When I wrote the author later and wondered why I was included in the Acknowledgments section, it apparently was due to his appreciation of my own investigations into the current torture scandal, as published in various places online. I thank him for that, but wish to make it clear here that this review is solely based upon my own reading and reaction to this book.]

"The Way Men Live Is a Lie"

2009-11-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

The way men live is a lie.
I say that I get so goddamned sick
Of all these pigs rooting at each other's asses
To get a bloodstained dollar -- Why don't
You stop this senseless horror! this meaningless
Butchery of one another! Why don't you at least
Wash your hands of it!

There is only one truth in the world:
Until we learn to love our neighbor,
there will be no life for anyone.

The man who says, "I don't believe in war,
But after all somebody must protect us" --
Is obviously a fool -- and a liar.
Is this so hard to understand!
That who supports murder, is a murderer?
That who destroys his fellow, destroys himself?

Force cannot be overthrown by force;
To hate any man is to despair of every man:
Evil breeds evil -- the rest is a lie!

There is only one power that can save the world --
And that is the power of our love for all men everywhere.

By the incomparable Kenneth Patchen, from his book An Astonished Eye Looks Out of the Air (1945), as reproduced in Collected Poems

Andy Worthington on U.S. Tour: "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo" (video)

2009-11-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

As Andy Worthington is wrapping up his tour promoting the documentary, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo" (co-directed by Andy and filmmaker Polly Nash), a notice at his blog announces today that the Future of Freedom Foundation has made ~~the film~~ a talk Andy gave before the sceening of the film in Fairfax, VA, available as a 38-minute video entitled “An Evening with Andy Worthington”.

An Evening with Andy Worthington - "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo" from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

Andy was also interviewed at Democracy Now! yesterday. The discussion concentrated on plans by the U.S. to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners (Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi) in federal courts, and other Guantanamo prisoners, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Omar Khadr, at Obama's newly refurbished -- and deeply flawed -- military commissions.

What follows is from Worthington's interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman:

AMY GOODMAN: .... At the time of this broadcast, Eric Holder is about to hold a news conference, the Attorney General, announcing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried in a New York civilian court.

ANDY WORTHINGTON: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response?

ANDY WORTHINGTON: Well, I mean, this is what actually we’ve all been waiting for, to be honest. This was what it was all supposed to be about, was rounding up the people who had a connection to the 9/11 attacks. And, of course, what we’ve actually had over the years is eight years of a prison outside the law holding nearly 800 people, most of whom had nothing to do with it, not to mention all the other prisons that have been used, the secret prisons, the whole CIA program. So, to that extent, it’s good news.

I’m rather disturbed to hear that the second tier of justice, which is the military commission system, has been—we’re apparently going to hear that that’s where one of the men, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, is going to be prosecuted, because the administration and the Senate have tinkered with the military commissions, which were essentially revived as the terror trials by Dick Cheney in November 2001. They were once ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. Congress brought them back. They failed spectacularly throughout their history to demonstrate that they were a viable form of justice. And even with these latest amendments, they still fall short of the standards that we would expect from trials and the standards that we would expect from federal court. So it’s rather disturbing to hear that these two layers of justice are still planned....

And, I mean, there is already a problem, which was identified by the administration in summer, and they told the Senate about this, that the charge of providing material support for terrorism is a charge that they think will be subject to appeal in the military commissions system. But the administration has also said they don’t have any problems with trying that in federal courts. So I’m really confused as to why they’re going ahead with it. And, you know, the overall impression it gives me is that they’re trying to rig the system. You know, they have a premier league trial system, and if they have doubts maybe that that’s going to work, then they’ve got this reserve system. And that’s not the way that justice should work, and especially not after the horrors of the last eight years....

I’m surprised there’s no mention there of the habeas corpus petitions, because, you know, this has been an important, very crucial part of the story this year, is that when the men finally secured the right to habeas corpus. And, you know, the Supreme Court last June gave them those rights and made them constitutionally guaranteed, so that lawmakers couldn’t interfere, as they had before. We’ve had thirty-eight cases decided by judges, and in thirty of those cases the judges have said, you know, that the government has failed to provide the evidence used to justify holding these men. Now, that leaves eight people who have—the judges have said, you know, “By a preponderance of the evidence, you have demonstrated that these people had a connection to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and you can continue to hold them.” So, all these people have habeas petitions that are ongoing. And, you know, the administration has to, I think, let this process carry on. And it will result, I have no doubt, in some of these—was it seventy-five?—being cleared.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to an excerpt from your new film, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo. This is Omar Deghayes, a Libyan British resident who was freed from Guantánamo in December of 2007.
OMAR DEGHAYES: The interrogator said to us, “You will be released one day, yes. You will be released, I’ll tell you that. You will be released. But you will not be released from this place until you are broken wrecks. We will release you. You are terrorists. And we will release you, yes. But you will be physically finished, psychologically finished, and you will be nothing.”

The last time I saw my son was when they abducted us in Lahore, and he was six month years old, I think. Very young. Now he’s seven years old. I haven’t seen him since. I think it is the biggest loss I can, the biggest loss I have lost in Guantánamo, really. Not my eye, not my broken finger, not my broken ribs, not my broken nose, not the humiliation, not the sexual abuse, not all that transport and things. All these are bad enough, but the worst, I think, thing that can—that did happen, I lost there, is not the eye; it’s those years of seeing Suleiman growing up.
AMY GOODMAN: And here’s another clip from the film, featuring British lawyers Gareth Peirce and Clive Stafford Smith.
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: They will close Guantánamo, but so what? That’s not the end of the story, because there are many, many thousands of prisoners held in US secret custody around the world. Guantánamo is the tiniest tip of the iceberg of that.

GARETH PEIRCE: Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is being reinforced, rebuilt, has now far more prisoners than Guantánamo had.

I had the good fortune to catch Andy on his tour when he spoke in Berkeley at Revolution Books on Wednesday night. He is a rare specimen of an impassioned researcher and activist, a man who, with his landmark book, The Guantanamo Files, really shined light into the dark places of ignorance that surrounded the identities and stories of the hundreds of prisoners rendered to Guantanamo -- a darkness, I may add, deliberately engendered by the United States government. Thank you, Andy, for all your hard work.

U.S. Funding of the... Taliban?!

2009-11-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

From a new Democracy Now! article by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales, posted over at Truthout:

In a last-minute dissent ahead of a critical war cabinet meeting on escalating the Afghan war, US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has cast doubt on a troop escalation until the Afghan government can address corruption and other internal problems. Meanwhile, a report reveals how the US government is financing the very same insurgent forces in Afghanistan that American and NATO soldiers are fighting. Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack....

“How the US Funds the Taliban” is the cover story of the latest issue of The Nation magazine.

Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack. The practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. US military officials in Kabul told Roston that a minimum of ten percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts consists of payments to the Taliban.

Well, well, well. Just when I thought the inanity and corruption of the U.S. adventure in Afghanistan couldn't get any weirder... I thought the scandal about Karzai's heroin-kingpin brother had already topped it all. Then there was the excellent article by Jane Mayer on the Predator assassinations in the Ag-Pak war. Now it's U.S. funding of the Taliban. Oh boy, no wonder Obama reportedly doesn't like any of the options presented on Afghanistan.

How about this, President Obama? Withdraw now.

And, by the way, as long as I've brought up the Predator issue, Mayer is now reporting that:

Philip Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigator on extrajudicial executions, issued a formal warning to the Obama Administration, demanding proof that the C.I.A. program doesn’t violate international law:
While there may be circumstances in which the use of such techniques is consistent with applicable international law, this can only be determined in light of information about the legal basis on which particular individuals have been targeted, the measures taken to ensure conformity with the international humanitarian law principles of discrimination, proportionality, necessity and precaution, and the steps taken retrospectively to assess compliance in practice.

9/11 Families on Need to Prosecute Guantanamo Detainees in Federal Court

2009-11-12T17:08:00.001-08:00

This ACLU video features family members of 9/11 victims calling for federal trials of terrorism suspects. Reportedly, news about the transfers of some of the Guantanamo detainees for trial is due by the end of the week.

Bush DOJ Official Daniel Levin "Not Opposed" to Torture Investigations

2009-11-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake

Some days it appears that torture is a dead issue in America. But at other times, events occur that belie such pessimism. One such event was the admission by Daniel Levin, author of one of the Bush administration's infamous torture memos, that criminal investigations of Bush officials for their role in the implementation of torture was acceptable to him.

Here's the full statement, made last week during an American University/Washington College of Law conference on professional ethics and the torture memos (video):

“I personally am not opposed to criminal investigation of the conduct of myself and others during the period in question, because I think any government employee is appropriately subject to investigation of their conduct while they are serving in the government.”

Daniel Levin, as then Acting Assistant Attorney General, was the author of the December 30, 2004 Memorandum to then Deputy Attorney General James Comey, which took up the issue of the legal standards surrounding the CIA's use of torture techniques, previously allowed by opinions written in August 2002, and signed by previous Deputy Attorney General Jay Bybee. But these opinions were heavily ghostwritten by John Yoo, with assistance from Cheney's counsel, David Addington. (Addington's role was a matter of some caviling, as noted by Marcy Wheeler last May.) Levin famously critiqued a number of the conclusions in the Yoo/Bybee memos regarding torture, but as David Cole pointed out in his recently published book, The Torture Memos, the Levin memo "did not change anything with respect to the bottom line.... [it] was more an exercise in public relations than in law."

Reportedly, Levin also told the AU panel "he would support the creation of an independent commission to review the Bush torture policies."

The Alliance for Justice (AFJ), in a November 9 press release, coupled the Levin admission with news of John Yoo's withdrawal from this week's Federalist Society convention. Yoo was due to speak at a November 12 panel on "the role of government lawyers in the war on terror," along with his civil defense attorney, Miguel Estrada. (Yoo is being sued by former supposed "dirty bomber" and torture victim, Jose Padilla.) AFJ had planned a demonstration outside the Convention the day of Yoo's participation.

The President of the Federalist Society said Yoo canceled because of "a scheduling conflict." Yoo himself won't comment, but AFJ president Nan Aron, said:

John Yoo’s withdrawal from the Federalist Society Convention shows that pressure is building to hold accountable those who provided legal cover for torture....

AFJ intends to follow through with their D.C. demonstration at the Mayflower Hotel, site of the Federalist Society convention, on November 12, as part of National Torture Accountability Day. AFJ has been conducting a petition campaign aimed at getting Obama Attorney General Eric Holder to release the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility report on the torture memos. It's widely believed the OPR report is highly critical of the actions of the Bush Administration attorneys, and its footnotes and appendices may be a gold mine for anti-torture researchers and lawyers.

Meanwhile, the news on the other side of the torture fence, if you will, is not so good. Al Jazeera just published a well-documented article describing the ongoing abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo prison:

Authorities at the prison deny mistreating the inmates, but interviews with former detainees, letters from current prisoners and sworn testimony from independent medical experts who have visited the prison have painted a disturbing picture of psychological and physical abuse very much at odds with White House rhetoric on prisoner treatment....

According to the letter, prison authorities inflict "humiliating punishments" on inmates and prisoners face "intentional mental and physical harm".

"The situation is worsening with the advent of the new management," the prisoner writes, noting... that the new rules were imposed in January this year. Conditions, he says, "do not fit the lowest standard of human living".

Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights has joined psychologist Trudy Bond in pressing a licensure complaint in the State of Louisiana against Colonel Larry James, a former chief psychologist of the Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs), who has been accused of participation in torture at that facility. The facts behind the case have been described well in a couple of articles recently. Despite plenty of evidence of unethical and illegal conduct, the Louisiana Board of Examiners refuses to even investigate James (who has meanwhile decamped to the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Ohio, where he serves as dean).

The James case deserves a wider hearing in the court of public opinion, because, as Yoo's withdrawal from the Federalist Society Convention, and Levin's acceptance of investigations indicate, exposure and political protest are necessary if accountability for torture and other war crimes is going to ever be a reality. As a society, we cannot let the fact of U.S. use of torture slip out of the public eye. That is what the torturers want more than anything.

We cannot let that happen, because as the activities at Guantanamo even recently demonstrate, brutality and inhumanity once unleashed threaten the underpinnings of legality and morality in a society. We've been to the precipice. Let us decisively step back. That will only happen when wide-ranging investigations, open access to government documentation, and criminal prosecutions occur.

Leonard Cohen's New Song

2009-11-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

"It's like they tore away the blind and said 'We're going to let this man live'."

Leonard Cohen's new song, from a concert in Durham, NC on November 3, 2009. Some are calling it "Feels So Good" or "That Other Blues Song," but according to Greg Mitchell (for whom H/T for this link), the song is untitled. Whatever it's title, it sure sounds great!

Arar Decision Cripples Torture Rendition Suits

2009-11-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake

The Toronto Globe and Mail succinctly summed up the November 2 decision to dismiss the Maher Arar case, delivered en banc by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:

Victims of extraordinary rendition have no recourse to sue Washington for torture suffered overseas, appellate court rules

"No recourse." Americans should ponder the meaning of this decision, which explicitly places state interests above individual rights, even when such rights include not being sent to a country that will torture that individual. That such torture was done at the behest of the U.S. government, with written questions given to the torturers, only exacerbates the issue.

Maher Arar was a Syrian-born Canadian who was seized by U.S. authorities at Kennedy International Airport (following upon a bogus RCMP tip), held for thirteen days, and then, with U.S. connivance, and despite the fact Canada said it would accept Mr. Arar, rendered via a CIA jet to Syria for interrogation and torture. He was released in 2003, and the Canadian government, which ascertained Mr. Arar had no connections with terrorism, apologized and forked over a multi-million dollar settlement.

Mr. Arar has tried to find justice in the U.S. courts, and released the following statement after the Second Circuit decision:

“After seven years of pain and hard struggle it was my hope that the court system would listen to my plea and act as an independent body from the executive branch. Unfortunately, this recent decision and decisions taken on other similar cases, prove that the court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering. If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law.”

The core of the decision appears in this quote from the majority opinion (see full opinion at PDF link; the impressive dissent in the case begins on page 57 -- H/T Jeralyn at TalkLeft).

... we conclude that, when a case presents the intractable “special factors” apparent here, see supra at 36-37, it is for the Executive in the first instance to decide how to implement extraordinary rendition, and for the elected members of Congress -- and not for us as judges -- to decide whether an individual may seek compensation from government officers and employees directly, or from the government, for a constitutional violation. Administrations past and present have reserved the right to employ rendition, see David Johnston, U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but with More Oversight, N.Y. Times, Aug. 24, 2009, and not withstanding prolonged public debate, Congress has not prohibited the practice, imposed limits on its use, or created a cause of action for those who allege they have suffered constitutional injury as a consequence.

That citation of the August 2009 New York Times article reporting on Obama's embrace of the earlier Bush/Cheney rendition policy (with no more notable "oversight" than anything the Bushites promised) does more to expose the pernicious effect of the current administration's policy on torture than any number of blog postings. The Second Circuit practically shouts it out: if this country wants to do anything about torture, don't look to the courts to rule on "matters that directly affect significant diplomatic and national security concerns," unless Congress directs it by specific, lawful mandate.

And, if anyone were looking for the Democratic-majority Congress to take up these kinds of issues -- if anyone were so credulous as that -- they need look no further than the recent Homeland Security appropriations bill, signed by President Obama, which infamously grants the Department of Defense the authority to continue suppressing photos of prisoner abuse.

Or, the intrepid seeker after Congressional spine could consider the text of recently passed Military Commissions Act of 2009, which, according to Human Rights Watch and other observers, "still departs in fundamental ways from the fair trial procedures used in US federal courts and courts martial." Somehow, many of the due process concerns about the commissions the Obama administration said it would correct never made it into the legislation. Well, it didn't stop the President from signing the bill.

Both the Arar decision and the new laws limiting the release of detainee abuse photos and due process rights in military commissions trials were foreshadowed by a federal court decision on October 16 in the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit, which determined "that the government can continue suppressing [Combatant Status Review Tribunal] transcripts in which former CIA prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody."

There's no doubt that if these varied legal decisions, new laws, and executive branch actions had taken place under the former administration, there would have been no end of dire warnings about the end of democracy, and the maleficent intentions of the ruling classes. But this is a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress, and while the court decisions cannot themselves be placed upon a particular political party, it's worth remembering that torture victim Maher Arar was denied relief by a U.S. court citing, in part, the current administration's policy on rendition as a limiting factor in its deliberations.

Center for Constitutional Rights attorney and Georgetown law professor David Cole, who argued the case before the Second Circuit, summed up the situation coming out of Monday's ruling on the Arar case (bold emphasis added):

It effectively places executive officials above the law, even when accused of a conscious conspiracy to torture. If the rule of law means anything, it must mean that courts can hear the claim of an innocent man subjected to torture that violates our most basic constitutional commitments.”

The Arar decision did not escape the notice of Harper's Scott Horton, either, who concluded, soberly:

The Court that once affirmed that those who torture are the “enemies of all mankind” now tells us that U.S. government officials can torture without worry, because the security of our state might some day depend upon it.

The descent of the United States into a torturing country, all protestations by the president and his supporters aside, has accelerated to a vertiginous pace. Investigations into torture have all the substantiality of the smile of the Cheshire Cat, which, under time and duress, has morphed into the sinister grimace of one Richard Cheney. Interrogations policy continues to embrace a military manual condemned by major civil liberties and human rights organizations. And it all is barely enough to fit into the thimble of a news item in most media settings (although see this fine article on the Arar decision by Glenn Greenwald).

There's only one question left to ask, at this point: how low can we go?

"Justice Denied: Voices from Guantanamo"

2009-11-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ateqah Khaki from the ACLU's National Security Project conducted these interviews when many of the Guantanamo detainees were in London for a special Ramadan dinner hosted by Cage Prisoners.

The men in the video above were held at Guantánamo for years without charge, denied any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. But now they are finally free. This is their story.

Produced for the ACLU by Joel P. Engardio and Ateqah Khaki
Directed, Edited and Written by Joel P. Engardio
Production Assistance by Laila G. Nazarali and Maryam Hassan

For more information visit:
http://www.aclu.org
http://www.cageprisoners.com

Blogger on Interrogations Looking for Study Volunteers

2009-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Matt Semel, over at the blog HUMINT, is asking for volunteers for a study on interrogations he is conducting. Here's a link to a blog posting on it. Please don't contact me, but if you are interested, and I believe he's looking for individuals with interrogation experience, then contact him through his blog.

ACLU on Mohammed Jawad (Post-Gitmo), Also Appendix M

2009-10-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

The following is taken from ACLU's Blog of Rights, a site that should be on everyone's daily stop of websites:

Life after Gitmo

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports on the struggle of former Guantánamo detainee Mohammed Jawad to readjust to freedom after spending roughly a third of his life in detention. In August, as a result of the ACLU’s habeas corpus petition on behalf of Jawad, he was finally released and sent home to Afghanistan after six-and-a-half-years in U.S. custody.

While in U.S. custody, Jawad, one of the youngest prisoners held at Guantánamo, was held in solitary confinement and subjected to the infamous “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program. He attempted suicide in December 2003 by repeatedly slamming his head against his cell wall. Two judges — first his military commission judge, then a federal judge — ruled that evidence gleaned through Jawad’s torture and coercion was inadmissible.

The LA Times story sheds light on the difficulties of adjusting to life after Guantánamo:
[Jawad]…suffers from frequent headaches, he says, and often rests during the day. Prison memories haunt him, something doctors warn may never end. He worries about those left behind, his de facto family. He’s out and they’re not, and that’s a source of guilt. Though the Obama administration has said it will close Guantánamo, hundreds of detainees remain there and at Bagram.

He asks a reporter to tell President Obama, the United Nations, someone, to help them. “People there are sick,” he says. “They should be treated. They should be freed.”

As his anger rises, his uncle tells him not to think about the lost years.

But it spills out. He talks about having his hands bound behind his back and being forced to eat like a dog, being kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed and subjected to excessive heat, loud noise, solitary confinement.

After a year, Guantánamo records show, Jawad tried to commit suicide by banging his head against his cell wall repeatedly.

“I was tortured and faced many problems,” he says. “They also play with your mind.”
In spite of this, Jawad has hope for the future. The article states that Jawad wants to be a doctor and “[h]e wants to resume his education, he says, even if it means sitting with 13-year-olds at tiny desks.” Jawad goes on to state, “That’s my dream… I don’t know if it’s possible. But that’s my dream.”

The story also quotes one of Jawad’s military lawyers, Eric Montalvo, as saying, “We need to do more than just dump him on the corner with a bus ticket after seven years and say, ‘Have a nice day.’”

Promptly and justly handling the cases of remaining prisoners is one part of the Guantánamo challenge. Honestly confronting the crimes committed in America’s name at the notorious prison camp is another. Americans deserve to know who authorized, condoned and encouraged the abuse and torture of detainees like Jawad; let Attorney General Eric Holder know that you stand with the ACLU and support a thorough investigation of torture crimes.

In other ACLU-related news, check out this article at truthout, "Obama Urged to Fully Comply with Anti-torture Treaty":

The fifteenth anniversary of the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture passed last week with little fanfare and virtually no press attention from the mainstream media here.

But according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "U.S. policy continues to fall short of ensuring full compliance with the treaty."

For example, the organisation said that an appendix to the Army Field Manual (AFM) can still facilitate cruel treatment of prisoners and detainees at home and abroad.

The Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (CAT) is the most comprehensive international human rights treaty dealing exclusively with the issues of torture and abuse. It came into effect in 1987, and has been ratified by 146 countries....

After taking office, President Barack Obama issued an executive order prohibiting torture. But under an appendix to the 2006 revised U.S. Army Field Manual - the most recent edition - practices considered incompatible with CAT and international law are still allowed. These include force-feeding, psychological torture, sleep and sensory deprivation.

And under Appendix M to the AFM, detainees can be "separated" or held in isolation from other detainees for 30 days, or longer with authorisation, and allowed only four hours of continuous sleep per night over 30 days, which can be prolonged upon approval.

Bravo to the ACLU for all their great work, and a special thanks from this activist, who has made opposition to use of the current Army Field Manual as a template for interrogation, for reasons noted by the ACLU and amplified in articles of my own, a central component of my anti-torture writing.

Renee Fleming sings "Das Wunder der Heliane"

2009-10-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Das Wunder der Heliane (The Miracle of Heliane), 1927, Erich Wolfgang Korngold

At seven minutes long, the aria builds into something incredibly beautiful. Enjoy!

Per Obama: Torture Evidence Is "Protected" Against Release

2009-10-17T07:55:00.001-07:00

This is what a Nobel Prize gives you the chutzpah to do. From Jason Leopold at Truthout:

On Thursday, the House approved a Department of Homeland Security spending bill that included a provision to amend the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and grant Defense Secretary Robert Gates the authority to withhold "protected documents" that, if released, would endanger the lives of US soldiers or government employees deployed outside of the country.

According to the bill, the phrase "protected documents" refers to photographs taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009, and involves "the treatment of individuals engaged, captured or detained" in the so-called "war on terror." Photographs that Gates determines would endanger troops and government employees could be withheld for three years.

Leopold quotes Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter as saying "the language was quietly reinserted in recent weeks, 'apparently under direct orders from the administration.'" The bill's language is a cover for Obama, who was otherwise threatening an administration petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the release of the controversial, unseen "torture photos."

Will we hear much protest from the progressive blogosphere? Not likely, as the torture issue slips off the radar, and the trudging submission of the progressive punditry to Democratic Party faux-ameliorism continues (there are exceptions, and you know who they are). Millions more on unemployment. Wall Street dances in blue chips. War continues apace, and the torture industry revs up for more high-tech adventures in breaking individuals down. No pictures of war. Nothing messy. Just bright baubles, Nobel Prizes, and proud words about equality... some day. No one in a position of power must lose a wink of sleep: that's how change is measured in America these days.

Congress Fails, But Justice Speaks Out

Meanwhile, over in Great Britain, per the UK Guardian, some very welcome news:

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the [British] foreign secretary's claims that disclosing... evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born [Binyam] Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

Readers might remember the case of Binyam Mohamed, who was seized by the United States in Pakistan in 2002, secretly renditioned to Morocco, and later held at Bagram and Guantanamo "terror" prisons, suffering torture in all these sites. He is one of the plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case, a suit brought by the ACLU. That case engendered a decision last summer by the Ninth Circuit Court, which was one of the last legal victories in the U.S. in the struggle for accountability for torture.

In 2007, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of five victims of the United States government's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program. The suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear these five men to detention and interrogation. Shortly after the suit was filed, the government intervened and inappropriately asserted the "state secrets privilege," claiming further litigation would undermine national security interests, even though much of the evidence needed to try the case was already available to the public. In April 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court dismissal of the case, ruling that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit. The case is remanded back to district court, providing the first opportunity for Bush-era torture victims to have their day in court.

Outrage! DC District Court Rules FOR Suppression of Torture Evidence

2009-10-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

From the ACLU, this is important, if sobering news.

Court Rules Government Can Continue To Suppress Detainee Statements Describing Torture And Abuse

Transcripts Of Combatant Status Review Trials Essential To Accountability For Torture, Says ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 16, 2009

CONTACT: Rachel Myers, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON – A federal court today ruled that the government can continue suppressing transcripts in which former CIA prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody. The ruling came in an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) used to determine if Guantánamo detainees qualify as "enemy combatants."

While the CIA released heavily-redacted versions of the documents in June, it continues to suppress major portions of the documents, including detainees' allegations of torture. In August, the government filed a motion arguing that it should be able to continue suppressing the documents because releasing them would reveal "intelligence sources and methods" and might aid enemy "propaganda." In today's ruling, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declined to review "in camera" the documents the government is withholding in order to determine if they should remain classified.

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:
"The court's ruling allows the government to continue suppressing these first-hand accounts of torture – not to protect any legitimate national security interest, but to protect current and former government officials from accountability. While much is known about the Bush administration's torture program, the CIA continues to censor the most important eyewitnesses – the torture victims themselves.

"The public has a right to a comprehensive record of what took place in the CIA's secret prisons. The CSRT records will provide critical missing information about how the CIA's torture program was actually carried out and whether interrogators followed, or exceeded, Justice Department legal guidance that purported to authorize brutal interrogations.

"The courts have the authority and the responsibility to ensure that the administration does not deprive the public of critical information for improper purposes. The ACLU will appeal today's decision."
Attorneys on the case, ACLU, et al. v. DOD, et al., are Wizner and Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU National Security Project, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

Today's ruling is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/41291lgl20091016.html

More about the ACLU's CSRT FOIA is at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/csrtfoia.html

While we're looking at the ACLU's latest activity and news, take a look, too, at their report on the dismal Patriot Act Reauthorization by the cowardly, anti-civil liberties Congress:

The bill makes only minor changes to the disastrous Patriot Act and was further watered down by amendments adopted during markup.

Appeal Posted in Case Challenging License of Guantanamo Psychologist

2009-10-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

The following press release was issued today by Center for Constitutional Rights. It concerns the important ongoing fight to get accountability for the practice of torture at U.S. "war on terror" prisons.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2009
3:49 PM

CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
press@ccrjustice.org

Louisiana Court Battle Over Guantanamo Psychologist Continues Today

State Psychology Board Challenged over Refusal to Investigate Alleged Ethical Violations by Dr. Larry James

BATON ROUGE, La. and NEW YORK - October 15 - Today, attorneys filed an appeal before the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal, in the case Dr. Trudy Bond v. Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. Toledo-based psychologist Dr. Trudy Bond is calling on the Louisiana State Board of Examiners to investigate Louisiana psychologist and retired U.S. Army colonel Dr. Larry C. James, a former high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

According to his own statements, Dr. James played an influential role in both the policy and day-to-day operations of interrogations and detention at the prison camps. Publicly-available information shows that while Dr. James was at Guantanamo, abuse in interrogations was widespread, and cruel and inhuman treatment was official policy.

Allegations of abuse during Dr. James's January to May 2003 deployment include beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, is one of the prisoners who has alleged brutal treatment in the spring of 2003, when he was only 16 years old. James was also stationed in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and returned to Guantanamo in 2007. In 2008, he was named Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

In compliance with her ethical obligation to report abuse by other psychologists, in February 2008 Dr. Bond filed a complaint against Dr. James before the Board, the agency that issued and now regulates his psychology license. Dr. Bond alleged that Dr. James breached professional ethics by violating psychologists' duties to do no harm, to protect confidential information and to obtain informed consent, and she called on the Board to investigate whether action should be taken against Dr. James.

As Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantanamo, Dr. James had access to the confidential medical records of people he was charged with exploiting for intelligence. According to former Guantanamo interrogators, BSCTs used information from patients' records to help interrogators increase the patients' psychological duress, including by exploiting their fears. The very purpose of these mental health professional teams, the interrogators said, was to help "break" the prisoners. Dr. James denies that claim, but an extensive government paper trail supports the interrogators' accounts.

The Board summarily refused to investigate Dr. Bond's complaint, claiming that the statute of limitations had run, despite conclusive information to the contrary. Dr. Bond then filed suit against the Board in Louisiana's 19th Judicial District Court, which in July 2009 dismissed her case without looking at the merits. Today's brief before the First Circuit Court in Baton Rouge argues that the District Court should have reviewed the Board's clearly wrong legal decision.

Said Dr. Bond, "The five psychologists on the Louisiana Board were given plenty of credible evidence, but they chose not to investigate the head intelligence psychologist of prison camps notorious for their use of psychological torture. I don't think Louisiana lawmakers intended to give five fellow professionals total, unchecked power to make arbitrary decisions that deeply affect the public welfare."

Said CCR Cooperating Attorney Deborah Popowski, "The Louisiana Board is fighting awfully hard to turn a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse. We wish the Board would devote its resources to investigating unethical conduct instead. Everyone, including the people of Louisiana, would be better served." For more information on the involvement of health professionals in torture and abuse visit the Center for Constitutional Rights website http://whenhealersharm.org.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years - sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee" there. CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. In addition, CCR has been working to resettle the approximately 60 men who remain at Guantánamo because they cannot return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture.

To read the Bond Appeal Legal Brief, click here.

Update, 10/17/09: I see that Stephen Soldz has published an article on Col. James and Dr. Bond/CCR's suit over at OpEd News. Click here to read and give a recommendation.

DoJ Dithers on OPR Report - Tell Attorney General Holder to Investigate Torture

2009-10-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Alliance for Justice announces the release of its new documentary, Tortured Law, which examines the role lawyers played in authorizing torture. The film is being used to spark debate across the country, and calls on Attorney General Eric Holder to uphold the Constitution and the law by releasing the Justice Department's report on the "torture memos" and authorizing a full investigation of those who ordered, designed, and justified torture.

H/T for this video to Marcy Wheeler, who has an interesting post up on the latest delay in the Office of Professional Responsibility report on the OLC torture memos of Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury. She links the delay to the review of CIA attorney John Rizzo, and/or the CIA generally.

I'd say she is absolutely right. The reason is, I believe, in part due to the fact that the CIA's own Office of Technical Services (OTS) wrote an extensive report on the SERE-derived torture techniques for use by the Office of Legal Counsel in their construction of the first of the torture memos. The OTS report to OLC lied about the medical and psychological consequences of the proposed techniques. We know they lied because researchers in the same directorate of the CIA had themselves been studying the severe effects of these techniques going back at least to the 1990s.

The CIA must be working overtime to redact almost every culpable portion of the OPR report that links the OLC memos to the initial OTS/CIA report vetting the "enhanced interrogation techniques." If the latter comes out -- and the OTS paper is still classified, and according to my sources, until recently ACLU was not even aware of its existence -- then we will have a very clear picture of the culpability of the CIA in the construction of the torture program, just one short step away from the Oval Office orders, which Dick Cheney and Bush have already indicated they gave.

If the American public, and society in general, cannot totally dismantle this torture apparatus, bring its actors to the bar of justice, and ensure that this kind of serious criminality is stopped and prosecuted, then I fear for the future of this country... because it won't be very long before whatever the United States was, it will cease to exist, except perhaps in name only. It will be something too awful to contemplate, and a long dark chapter in history won't be ending, but just beginning.

NYC Event: "Reckoning with Torture"

2009-10-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

The ACLU, PEN American Center and the Cooper Union will be putting on an important event next Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00pm at The Great Hall, Cooper Union (7 East 7th Street @ Third Avenue, NYC) -- Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the "War on Terror"

The event features artists, writers, and other anti-torture activists reading from recently released secret documents -- torture memos, declassified communications, and testimonies from prisoners -- in an effort to promote awareness of acts of torture and abuse carried out by the U.S. government since 9/11.

Featured authors and artists include: Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Jonathan Ames, Eve Ensler, Nell Freudenberger, Art Speigelman, Ishmael Beah, and Susanna Moore, among others.

The event also features Constitutional law scholar, David Cole (who recently wrote the introduction to a published edition of the Bush Administration Torture Memos); former senior military interrogator, Matthew Alexander; former CIA special agent Jack Rice; and former ACLU attorney, Amrit Singh.

Anthony Appiah, President of PEN American Center, and Jameel Jaffner, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, will give opening and closing remarks.

It looks like it will a fascinating and revealing night. I encourage all to attend. Only $15.00 at the door, $10.00 for students and ACLU/PEN members.

Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00pm at The Great Hall, Cooper Union, NYC

National Lawyers Guild Spurs Open Letter to Attorney General Holder

2009-10-06T19:27:00.001-07:00

OPEN LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER

We, the undersigned, are writing to request that you hold firm against any attempts by former Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA directors, and the media to silence those who demand that the United States hold accountable those who have committed and authorized torture.

We call on you to appoint a special independent prosecutor who is not part of the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute all those who ordered, approved, justified, abetted or carried out the torture and abuse. The people who are held accountable should not be limited to low-level operatives.

We are particularly disturbed by the efforts of the reporters at the Washington Post to distort the facts and ignore the illegality of torture. They cited anonymous sources who allegedly said that torture works; these "reports" contradict the newly released report of the CIA’s Inspector General.

Cheney’s claim that your decision to open an investigation into the conduct of the CIA is a politicization of this issue is shameful. If anything, political pressure has led to your office taking too narrow an approach to the investigation.
The world community has expressed its revulsion at the use of torture in any form. Torture is illegal under all circumstances. The prohibition against torture is considered in international law on par with laws against genocide, slavery and wars of aggression. Under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, it is a crime against humanity.

The United States is a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the Geneva Conventions. Both treaties expressly require the United States to either extradite or initiate prosecution of persons who are reasonably accused – this is a legal obligation.
The U.S. Torture Statute that Congress passed to fulfill our obligations under the CAT outlaws torture committed outside the United States. The U.S. War Crimes Act punishes torture as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. In 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that all prisoners in U.S. custody are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

There are many who claim we should ignore the facts and the law and refuse to hold accountable all those responsible for the use of torture. Whether actionable intelligence was gained is not the issue. Nor is the morale in the CIA.

We believe the oath of office you took requires that you not pick and choose those laws you will enforce.

National Lawyers Guild
Center for Constitutional Rights
U.S. Human Rights Network 2
American Association of Jurists
International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Lawyers Against the War (Canada)
Droite-Solidarité (France)
Japanese Lawyers International Solidarity Association
National Association of Democratic Lawyers in South Africa
European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (England)
Progress Lawyers Network (Belgium)
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (Philippines)
Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers
Marjorie Cohn, President, National Lawyers Guild; Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights
Bill Quigley, Legal Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network
Jeanne Mirer, President, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Roland Weyl, First Vice President, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Micòl Savia, UN representative in Geneva, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Vanessa Ramos, President, American Association of Jurists
Max Boqwana, General Secretary, National Association of Democratic Lawyers in South Africa
Mike Mansfield QC, President, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Liz Davies, barrister, UK, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Richard Harvey, Bureau member of International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Executive member, Haldane Society
Bill Bowring, Professor of Law, University of London; President, European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights; International Secretary, Haldane Society
Sister Dianna Ortiz, U.S. Torture Survivor and founder of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Harold Nelson, Advocacy Coordinator, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Gail Davidson, Chair, Lawyers Against the War
Osamu Niikura, President, Japanese Lawyers International Solidarity Association
Edre Olalia, Vice President, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers
Neri Colmenares, Secretary General, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers
Jan Fermon, representative, Progress Lawyers Network
Fabio Marcelli, Executive Committee and Speaker for International and European Affairs, Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers
George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary
Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Dr. Thomas Ehrlich Reifer, University of San Diego; Associate Fellow, Transnational Institute
Jordan J. Paust, Mike and Teresa Baker Law Center Professor, University of Houston Law Center 3
Terry Karl, Gildred Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies
Department of Political Science, Stanford University
Marc Falkoff, Assistant Professor, Northern Illinois University College of Law
John W. Lango, Philosophy Professor, Hunter College of the City University of New York
Elizabeth M. Iglesias Professor of Law & Director, Center for Hispanic & Caribbean Legal Studies, University of Miami School of Law
Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Michael Avery, Professor, Suffolk Law School
Michael E. Tigar, Professor of the Practice of Law, Duke Law School; Emeritus Professor, Washington College of Law
Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files
Tom Hayden
Michael Rooke-Ley, Professor of Law Emeritus, Nova Southeastern University
William J. Aceves, Professor, California Western School of Law
Phyllis Bennis, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor, retired, Dept of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Daniel Ellsberg
Alfred W. McCoy, J.R.W. Smail Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Susan Rutberg, Professor, Golden Gate University School of Law
John Ehrenberg, Professor and Chair of Political Science, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY
Radhika Balakrishnan, Professor, Rutgers University
David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency
Kristina Borjesson, Member, Robert Jackson Steering Committee

URL http://www.nlg.org/10-0-09%20Holder%20letter.pdf (PDF)

More U.S. Videos of Torture, Judge Orders Some Be Made Available to Defense Team

2009-10-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

The following is a most important press release from Center for Constitutional Rights. After years of litigation, we are just now learning that the torture interrogation of Mohammed al Qahtani was videotaped. The government sought, and still seeks to block that evidence from coming forward. But now they have been thwarted, in part, by a legal decision which allow one week of these tapes to be made available to the CCR attorneys in the case.

Government Admits Guantánamo Detainee Mohammed al Qahtani’s Torture Videotaped

CCR Blasts Government for Failing to Disclose Existence of Videotapes for Seven Years

Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

October 5, 2009, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) learned today of the existence of video and audio tapes of the abusive interrogations of client Mohammed al Qahtani, the victim of the “First Special Interrogation Plan” personally overseen by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“After the intense scrutiny of the government’s torture and interrogation of Mr. al Qahtani, it is shocking that the government has hidden the existence of these tapes from the public for so many years,” said CCR Attorney Gitanjali S. Gutierrez. “The government’s interrogation of him has been the topic of multiple military, Justice Department and congressional investigations. These tapes should have been acknowledged long ago.”

Until recently, the Government had adamantly denied that any U.S. personnel engaged in acts of torture during Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation, but on January 14, 2009, Military Commission Convening Authority Susan Crawford conceded that by subjecting Mr. al Qahtani to systematic 20-hour interrogations, prolonged sleep deprivation, 160 days of severe isolation, forced nudity, sexual and religious humiliation, and other aggressive interrogation tactics, the government had engaged in acts of torture. Much of this information appeared in interrogation logs leaked to the press as early as 2006

Said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren, “Mr. al Qahtani’s torture is already well-established, with a clear paper trail that leads all the way up the chain of command to the desk of Donald Rumsfeld. The revelation of these tapes indicates the government carefully documented horrific evidence of torture and abuse at Guantánamo. The only question that remains is whether the people ultimately responsible for it will be held accountable for breaking the law and breaking faith with our system of justice.”

Mr. Al Qahtani has been incarcerated at Guantánamo since February 2002. Throughout his imprisonment, he has consistently maintained that he was repeatedly tortured and threatened with torture by U.S. military and civilian interrogators. And since Mr. al Qahtani filed his habeas petition in October 2006, he has continued to assert that any alleged admissions he made to U.S. personnel were extracted through this torture and threats of torture.

The government never disclosed the existence of these tapes as exculpatory information in Mr. al Qahtani’s habeas case. CCR had filed a motion in February 2009 to compel the government to turn over exculpatory evidence in their client’s case and to hold the government in contempt for it’s “flagrant violation” of a judge’s November 2008 order to do so. Judge Thomas F. Hogan issued an order in November 2008 (amended in December 2008) requiring the government to turn over promptly any exculpatory evidence it had on the men detained at Guantánamo to their attorneys. The government filed what was essentially a second motion for an extension of time on January 30, 2009. Since the original filing in June 2008, the government has twice delayed its compliance with the court’s orders, engaging in what CCR attorneys described as “improper self-help by granting itself an indefinite extension of time.”

Finally, CCR and co-counsel, Sandra Babcock, filed a motion for discovery in March 2009 seeking any video tapes of Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation and numerous other records. After seven months of discovery disputes, the court issued the publicly-filed order today.

The videotapes the government is required to produce will reveal the time period at the end of three months of intensive solitary confinement and isolation that immediately preceded the implementation of the “First Special Interrogation Plan,” a regime of systematic torture techniques approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for use against Mr. al Qahtani. In a letter to his superiors reporting possible abuse of men in U.S. custody, T.J. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI described Mr. al Qahtani during this time as “evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non-existent people, reportedly hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end).”

Mr. al Qahtani is represented by CCR and co-counsel Professor Sandra Babcock, Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law.

For more information on Mohammed al Qahtani’s case, click here.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee” there. CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. In addition, CCR has been working to resettle the approximately 60 men who remain at Guantánamo because they cannot return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture.

Attached Files

* MAQ Order to Disclose Videotapes (PDF)
* TJ Harrington Ltr 7 14 04 (PDF)

Judge Hogan did not release all the video and audio tapes the government has.

To provide relevant information to Petitioner and yet to ease the burden on the Government, the Court will order the Government to produce only those audio/video recordings of Petitioner created between November 15, 2002 and November 22, 2002.

The week in question covers the seven days prior to the beginning of the interrogation log for al-Qahtani, leaked to Time Magazine in 2006. That log begins on November 23, 2002. By Nov. 23, as we know from the log, al-Qahtani had announced he was on hunger strike. He repeats it numerous times during the first day of the interrogation log to which we have access, which speaks to perseveration and already a state of disabled functioning, if not also, a determined will to resist and hold onto a shred of his self integrity.

It’s amazing that we are only hearing of these tapes now. Let’s recall what the torturers were saying about videotaping at Guantanamo in October 2002, during a period prior to that about to be released to Al Qahatani's CCR defense team. Per the minutes of one major meeting at Guantanamo during that autumn:

– At this point a discussion about whether or not to video tape the aggressive sessions, or interrogations at all ensued.

Becker: Videotapes are subject to too much scrutiny in court. We don’t want the LEA people in aggressive sessions anyway.

LTC Beaver: LEA choice not to participate in these types of interrogations is more ethical and moral as opposed to legal.

Fredman: The videotaping of even totally legal techniques will look “ugly”.

Becker: (Agreed)

Al-Qahtani was also discussed:

LTC Phifer: Harsh techniques used on our service members have worked and will work on some, what about those?

MAJ Leso: Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees’ frame of reference. They are used to seeing much more barbaric treatment.

Becker: Agreed.

– At this point a discussion about ISN 63 [Mohammed al-Qahtani] ensued, recalling how he has responded to certain types of deprivation and psychological stressors. After short discussion the BSCT continued to address the overall manipulation of the detainees’ environment.

BSCT continued:

* Psychological stressors are extremely effective (ie, sleep deprivation, withholding food, isolation, loss of time)

COL Cummings: We can’t do sleep deprivation

LTC Beaver: Yes, we can — with approval.

Bravo to CCR for all their work on this. Together with ACLU and PHR, the torturers’ crimes and schemes will ultimately be fully revealed. I believe that accountability will be realized, and this country turned around from the disastrous course of the past decade. But the U.S. people will have to help.

Time again to send a donation to CCR, I’d say.

Largo

2009-10-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

Dahlkvist String Quartet performing live at Flaine Concert Hall in Flaine, France at a concert given by Musique à Flaine under supervision of Quatuor Ysaÿe. This is the second movement (Largo) of Haydn's String Quartet, op. 76/no.5.

Smoking Gun on CIA Torture Conspiracy? Human Experimentation Central to EIT Program

2009-09-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake and The Public Record

A close reading of the CIA's Inspector General Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee's narrative on the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memos reveals a more detailed picture of the CIA's involvement in the construction of the OLC memos. What emerges is consistent with recent charges of CIA experimentation on prisoners, and of the overall experimental quality of the torture program itself. It also points to a crucial piece of "analysis" by the CIA's Office of Technical Services, a memo which may or may not include damning medical and psychological evidence of the damaging effects of SERE techniques, and which the IG report maintains was utilized "in substantial part" in the drafting of the August 1, 2002 Bybee memos. If one is looking for a smoking gun in the torture scandal, in my opinion, one doesn't have to look much further than this.

The quote below is from the April 22, 2009 Senate Intelligence Committee narrative of the Office of Legal Counsel's opinions on the CIA's interrogation program. Please keep in mind as you read the quote and the added bolded emphasis, that recent documentation has shown that for years the CIA and Special Operations had researchers studying the effects of SERE training. Moreover, the research had been published in peer-reviewed journals, in part because the research was also meant to add to the psychiatric community's understanding of the mechanisms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Some of the research had also been published in the June 2000 edition of Special Warfare, "The Professional Bulletin of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School."

So, keeping this all in mind, consider the following from the Intel Committee's narrative (emphasis added):

According to CIA records, because the CIA believed that Abu Zubaydah was withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel met with the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Deputy National Security adviser, the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, and the Counsel to the President in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence community. At this meeting, the CIA proposed particular alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
The CIA’s Office of General Counsel subsequently asked OLC to prepare an opinion about the legality of its proposed techniques. To enable OLC to review the legality of the techniques, the CIA provided OLC with written and oral descriptions of the proposed techniques. The CIA also provided OLC with information about any medical and psychological effects of DoD’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School, which is a military training program during which military personnel receive counter-interrogation training.

While the fact that the OLC accepted at face value the CIA's statements regarding the safety or the effects of the interrogation procedures they were proposing is no surprise to anyone who has read the torture memos -- and evidence of the unprofessionalism and bias of the memo's authors -- the degree to which the conspiracy (by CIA or OLC, or both) to withhold evidence of the real effects of the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EITs) by the CIA has never been made more concrete than now.

To my knowledge, we do not have the specific document wherein the CIA provides the "medical and psychological effects" of SERE school. I have been told that this document is still classified. But it seems possible that the CIA did pass on the details of the research that was available to it, including the debilitating effects of SERE techniques, which sent stress hormone levels, according to one research report, "some of the greatest ever documented in humans." Another report cited "neuroendocrine changes... [that] may have significant implications for subsequent responses to stress."

One of the authors of these reports, Charles A. Morgan, III, M.D., who has identified himself in certain settings as a "Senior Research Scientist" on the CIA's Behavioral Science Staff, has criticized my coverage of CIA experiments on the psychological and physiological effects of SERE training upon human subjects. While he could not specify what aspects of this coverage he felt were "inaccurate and misleading," he did insist:

The research conducted by our research team at the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not, and never has been, conducted for any other purpose than to help us understand the pathophysiology of stress disorders and we might better help in the treatment of veterans.

In making his mea culpa, Dr. Morgan never mentions that some of this research was funded (over $400,000) by the Army and the Office of Naval Research. He doesn't mention his acquaintance with "great people who do military interrogations." He also forgets to cite his book contribution, where he states (emphasis added):

The SERE training environment affords the military services the opportunity to collaborate with various other government agencies in exploring old and new techniques in gathering human intelligence.

Of course, he neither confirms nor denies his affiliation with the CIA, an affiliation which I have traced to the CIA's Science and Technology directorate, through his association (large PDF) with the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center, which is "a research organization under the CIA's authority" that "answers directly to the CIA's Science and Technology directorate."

But most of all, Dr. Morgan's arrows fall way short of his target, as I have never accused him of personal involvement in the reverse-engineering of SERE techniques for use in the torture program. What is disturbing is his seeming lack of concern over the possiblity that the research he helped conduct was either used to further experiments upon torture victims in the CIA's clandestine prisons, or contrariwise, was withheld from Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who relied upon CIA advice concerning the effects of techniques derived from the SERE schools.

What is indisputable is that by virtue of his position, Dr. Morgan had access to CIA officials just at the time that another department of the CIA, one to which he is affiliated, was, according to the CIA's own Office of Inspector General Report (large PDF) involved in vetting the SERE techniques for use in interrogations. The other department was the Office of Technical Services (OTS), part of the CIA's Science and Technology Directorate. This, by the way, is the same division that was responsible for the MKULTRA experiments of the 1950s and 1960s. From the OIG report:

...CTC [CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center], with the assistance of the Office of Technical Service (OTS), proposed certain more coercive physical techniques to use on Abu Zubaydah....
CIA's OTS obtained data on the use of the proposed EITs and their potential long-term psychological effects on detainees. OTS input was based in part on information solicited from a number of psychologists and knowledgeable academics in the area of psychopathology....
OTS also solicited input from DoD/Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) regarding techniques used in its SERE training and any subsequent psychological effects on students. DoD/JPRA concluded no long-term psychological effects resulted from use of the EITs, including the most taxing technique, the waterboard, on SERE students. The OTS analysis was used by OGC [DoD's Office of General Counsel] in evaluating the legality of techniques.

OTS's solicitation of information on SERE from JPRA elicited some sort of feedback from JPRA, which supposedly told OTS that SERE training caused no long-term effects. The IG Report does not say if this was in the form of a memo and only speaks of OTS's analysis. In any case, we should not confuse any OTS "analysis" with the information provided by JPRA itself to the Office of General Counsel, which produced a number of memorandum and attachments in late July 2003. Marcy Wheeler has been analyzing the timing of these JPRA items, including the fact that one of these key documents is missing.

The CIA IG Report is relating a story whose emphasis differs from that produced in the narrative of the Senate Armed Services Committee investigation (PDF) into SERE torture. In the latter, JPRA is the main culprit in providing cover for the supposed safety of using SERE techniques. Yet, in the OIG account it looks like the CIA used DOD/JRRA as a cover for the safety of techniques that it knew were in fact harmful from their own analysis of the "data." Moreover, it was the OTS analysis that was used -- "in substantial part" -- as the basis of the August 1, 2002 memo approving the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EITs).

That legal opinion was based, in substantial part, on OTS analysis and the experience and expertise of non-Agency personnel and academics concerning whether long-term psychological effects would result from use of the proposed techniques.

Moreover, the CIA's Office of Medical Services was frozen out of "the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of EITs," and not even provided with a copy of the OTS report given to the White House Office of Legal Counsel. Such compartmentalization of information is indicative of a covert operation, such as a Special Access Program (SAP). This SAP would have included personnel in CIA's CTC, OTS, OGC, and Directorate of Operations, also portions of DOD (JPRA and Special Operations Command), and probably the White House's OLC, Office of the Vice President, and National Security Council.

It seems highly likely that the CIA report to the OLC on the medical and psychological effects of the SERE school program, mentioned in the Senate Intelligence Committee narrative quote above, is in fact the OTS report, which came from the same CIA directorate to which Dr. Morgan belongs. This does not speak to Morgan's foreknowledge of what would be used, nor to the amount of his involvement. But it does speak to the likelihood that the government research he conducted (with others) was available and likely used by his associates in the CIA.

To what purpose was this information used? It seems Dr. Morgan has serendipitously given us the answer himself: "exploring old and new techniques in gathering human intelligence." The CIA appears to have used torture to conduct what Physicians for Human Rights, in a "white paper" (PDF) recently published, called "possible unethical human experimentation, [which] urgently needs to be thoroughly investigated." The government should declassify the OTS report, and bring the process of investigating the CIA's role in the torture conspiracy fully into public purview.