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…
The DoD Inspector General Review of Investigations of Detainee Abuse focuses on “reports, investigations, and reviews of matters involving persons who were in custody of the U.S. military, without regard to the status of the person in custody… As of February 27, 2006, DoD Components opened 842 criminal investigations or…
Since the 1980s the American Psychological Association (APA) has had a unique relationship with Senator Daniel Inouye’s office. For nearly twenty five years, psychologist Patrick Deleon, Sen. Inouye’s top assistant was APA’s man on Capitol Hill who effectively lobbied on behalf of the APA for increased funding for research, training…
A 10-year Timeline “Psychology, Torture, and the APA” is posted on the website of the Coalition for Ethical Psychology documenting the active participation of psychologists, and the American Psychological Association (APA) with the CIA and pentagon in devising and testing torture techniques on suspected Al Qaeda detainees; and helping the government to…
“For more than two years, White House officials had been creating a counterterrorism infrastructure that stretched the bounds of American law, and they had relied on a junior attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, John C. Yoo, to provide them with the legal backing needed for their…
The “strictly confidential” International Red Cross (ICRC) Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody follows several other reports: Nov. 2004 and April 2006. The detainees had been transferred in 2006 from undisclosed CIA detention facilities to DoD Guantanamo prison where the ICRC was granted access…
Katherine Eban reports in Vanity Fair that the military, which has championed modern-day psychology since World War II, continues to be one of the largest single employers of psychologists through its network of veterans’ hospitals. The military also funded a prescription-drug training program for military psychologists in the early 1990s,…
Judge Susan Crawford, the Convening Authority for GTMO Military Commissions (Feb. 2007 – Jan. 2010), ordered the war-crimes charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. In June 2005, Time magazine obtained 83 pages of Qahtani’s interrogation log and published excerpts…
The comprehensive review by the Senate Armed Services Committee Report (hereinafter Armed Services Report, released April, 2009) reveals that in Nov./Dec. 2001, after Administration officials suspended U.S. adherence to the Geneva Conventions, they actively sought information about “enhanced interrogation” methods and detainee “exploitation.” “The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody…
The highly critical CIA Inspector General’s Report about the CIA’s interrogation tactics was withheld from the public. In 2008, a highly redacted version was released only after a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. A slightly less redacted version was released (Aug., 2009). The IG report is…
The authors of the book, Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror, are two constitutional scholars; David Cole (Georgetown University Law Center) and Jules Lobel (University of Pittsburgh). They argue that the “war on terror” has not actually made us safer. The problem, they argue,…
