After a month long inspection of Guantanamo Bay prison, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a report charging that American military intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners. The confidential report was distributed in July to lawyers at the White House, Pentagon and…
According to the United Nations Istanbul Protocol (2004), the Guide for doctors and lawyers who document and investigate allegations of prisoner mistreatment, reducing detainees to a state of helplessness and despair “is itself one of the central harms of torture”: “One of the central aims of torture is to reduce an…
In January 2003, after CIA personnel expressed concern about human rights abuses at CIA facilities, the CIA Inspector General initiated an investigation to CIA interrogation practices. It’s Report, “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation (Sept. 2001 – Oct. 2003) issued May 7, 2004, is devastating critique of the agency’s detention and interrogation…
In 2014, Pulitzer Prize winner, James Risen provided insider documentation for APA’s backroom collusion in his book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. Risen’s source is a treasure trove of internal e-mail correspondence documenting the secret backroom collusion between APA’s leadership and officials in the CIA, Pentagon, and…
The American Psychological Association (APA) has remained at the center of controversy following revelations of psychologists’ central role in the horrific inhuman treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and at secret CIA “black sites.” Other professional healthcare and medical associations distanced themselves from the government’s national security interrogations, and…
In the wake of the revelations that psychiatrists participated in torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison, in June 2005, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) solicited input from divisions within the APA to clarify ethical and professional boundaries, and to recommend guidelines for psychiatrists’ conduct…
Jose Rodriguez, the CIA Director of Clandestine Operations first ordered the Zubaydah torture sessions to be videotaped. He then tried, without success, to obtain permission to destroy the tapes. The Washington Post reported that at least five senior CIA and White House officials had counseled the agency, since 2003 to…
The Washington Post report, Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake, details the case of Khaled Masri, a German citizen who had been wrongly imprisoned for five months by the CIA “largely because the head of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center’s Al Qaeda unit “believed he was someone else… She just…
Under the updated American Medical Association Code of Ethics, (2006) Physicians have five ethical obligations To perform physical and mental assessments of detainees only to determine if there is a need for medical care and provide this care Not to participate in interrogations Not to monitor interrogations Not to participate in…
“Educing Information” a report issued by the Intelligence Science Board (ISB, 2006) is a comprehensive compilation about the scientific knowledge base of interrogation techniques since WWII that sought to address the question “What works?” methods that work in interrogations. It was a collaborative effort by U.S. interrogation experts from the…
In June 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (548 U.S. 557) that Al Qaeda prisoners were entitled to the Geneva Conventions’ protections against humiliating and degrading treatment, and “outrages on personal dignity.” And the Court ruled that the original military commission system for Guantanamo…
The Instruction memo, (3900.39D) titled “Human Research Protection Program” was issued by Secretary of the Navy, Donald Winter. While explicitly prohibiting the use of prisoners – including “unlawful enemy combatants” – for research, the memo states that waivers of informed consent for research, and suspension of protections are possible under…
