FBI Wants To "Advance the Science of Interrogation" 252
coondoggie writes "From deep in the Department of Creepy today I give this item: The FBI this week put out a call for new research 'to advance the science and practice of intelligence interviewing and interrogation.' The part of the FBI that is requesting the new research isn't out in the public light very often: the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, which according to the FBI was chartered in 2009 by the National Security Council and includes members of the CIA and Department of Defense, to 'deploy the nation's best available interrogation resources against detainees identified as having information regarding terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies.'"
This is one area we've regressed. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Also, how long until universities are diluting the techniques, and offering it as an undergraduate degree?
No it's just more high tech now (Score:2)
They still have enhanced interrogation techniques and still can do inquisition like activities only now it's something you can't prove they are doing in court because the technology is more sophisticated.
The real question is why does the FBI need this interrogation technology? Who is it for?
Quite the opposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure that those people tortured back then really did practice black magic with the Devil.
Or maybe torture just gets confessions whether they're factual or not.
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:4, Interesting)
Torture, by itself, only makes the victims say whatever they think the torturer wants them to say.
However, if the interrogator already has some information, s/he can teach the victim that lying causes pain in a way that saying the truth doesn't. If victims don't know the exact extent of the interrogator's knowledge, they'll be afraid to lie.
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].
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Torture, by itself, only makes the victims say whatever they think the torturer wants them to say.
However, if the interrogator already has some information, s/he can teach the victim that lying causes pain in a way that saying the truth doesn't. If victims don't know the exact extent of the interrogator's knowledge, they'll be afraid to lie.
It's also a possibility that the torturer can punish the victim until the victim follows the script of saying and doing what they ask. This might not work in all cases but it can work in some cases. The victim is just going to want to go home and survive the situation while the torturer wants control over the victim.
If it's just about information then there is no need for an elaborate overt FBI interrogation process. There is no need for intimidation, men in suits with badges, and threats. Simply wiretap an
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Whenever wiretapping is not effective because the subject is careful and does not transfer information in unsafe manners?
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:4, Funny)
> Can you give me a case where an interrogation would be required?
Internet Explorer 6.
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So you're talking about scenarios where there a prisoners of war such as World War 2 and Vietnam.
"On two occasions, Herrington has accepted U.S. Army requests to assess
its interrogation operations. After viewing interrogations at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay, he became a vocal critic of existing U.S. interrogation strate-
gies. He remains frustrated by his nation’s failure to develop a dedicated strate-
gic interrogator corps and eschew the coercive interrogation methods that he
believes run directly cou
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you care about moral standing and freedom and that kind of stuff that was supposed to make it a Good Thing that the US won the cold war, that should be quite significant.
As a Norwegian politically active youth - center-left - I sometimes find myself missing the Soviet Union. Do you have any idea how angry that makes me?
There Are Four Lights (Score:5, Insightful)
And how does the interrogator tell the difference between withholding information and ignorance?
They don't, of course. So they apply increasing amounts of pain until they get the answer they want. And you're right back to square one, with the victim saying whatever he things his captors want to hear.
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please cite references. Or are you refering to your own personal experience? Don't forget that since the captive must know his captor doesn't have all the information, and could even have distorted info, so even the truth may get him punished if the interrogator thinks its a lie. He is still just learning to say what they want to hear.
Torture techniques, like many modern less dramatic techniques are seldom aimed at getting the whole truth so much as producing a confession. Even without torture, standard modern interrogation techniques have shown, in testing, to be able to extract a confession 90% of the time, even when the confessor isn't guilty.
Of course, many of these techniques are simple subtle applications of psychological torture.... you can get considered for bail, or spend your days in here. You can confess to this lesser crime than we say you did, or else face trial for this list of crimes.
I have seen interviews with military interrogation experts who have said that torture has generally been found to validate the subjects view of his captors and results in less cooperation.
Far more effective is subtle "befriending". There was a german interrogator who was known for getting a lot of information by taking captured pilots for walks and just....chatting them up casually. Ever seen the police question someone.... Good Cop/Bad Cop is a cliche for a reason. They don't play bad cop bad cop for a reason.
Re:Quite the opposite. (Score:5, Insightful)
torture just gets confessions whether they're factual or not.
Which is the whole point. Nobody cares about the facts except historians. If we can torture enough people so that we can claim with a straight face to have prevented 14,000 suitcase nukes from going off in Toys "R" Us stores across the country, and get it repeated by the credulous press through the election cycle, who the hell cares if it's true? It wins elections, makes money, and makes inconvenient brown people with weird religious beliefs disappear.
Torture is extremely effective at its purpose. Its purpose is to elicit false confessions. This is not a flaw, this is by design.
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This is so true, especially if we're talking about something as foggy as terrorism. If you're in a flat out war and you want to know where the army will try to invade, a wrong confession will net you nothing because your failure will be obvious. However if you can claim you've thwarted terrorist plan x that may or may not have existed then it's all fine. Kinda like people thwarted the evil witches' plan to poison the well and hold a black mass back in the good olde da
Re:Quite the opposite. Britains Experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Quite the opposite. Britains Experience (Score:5, Informative)
LEO's in suspect interrogation often use a method called the Reid Technique. It usually starts with several hours of questioning and rapport building to wear down a suspect (fatigue plays a HUGE factor in our ability to deceive). At some point the interrogator will begin moving to a "help us out here, we want to understand" kind of attitude.
One facet of the technique is to identify the individuals values and priorities (kids, job, etc) and offering up potential explanations of the crime that implies they are a bad father, husband, employee etc. If the person is sufficiently fatigued and has built some kind of rapport with the interrogator, the idea is that they will offer up a full confession as a means of explaining why what they did makes them a good father, husband, employee, etc.
Military interrogation is more about general information gathering. Like you describe, a lot of that experience comes out of WWII where we would collect simply vast amounts of information from POWS that individually is largely meaningless, but in aggregate is informative.
Current research with body language, eye tracking, etc indicates most of that is junk. An increase in activity can identify when an individual is nervous about something, but it doesn't necessarily indicate deception and is incredibly sensitive to gender, culture, and (interestingly) language background. The literature talks about these kinds of things as Pinnochio's Nose; some behavior that manifest only when the person is lying, and every time the person is lying. Unfortunately this singular diagnostic behavior doesn't exist.
Source: Worked for a couple of years as a deception researcher, exploring various methods of deception detection.
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For me, torture is questionable simply on 5th amendment grounds, let alone humanitarian complications.
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No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; n
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
My point still stands...if you are interrogated for information that, if revealed, would tend to incriminate you, the 5th amendment applies.
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Only if admissible in court. When the interrogation is for a military objective (for example, Osama bin Laden's location), I don't think anybody is overly concerned about eventual trial. It is more important to win the war.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why they grant immunity.
And please, "winning the war" being used as an excuse to undermine one's civil rights is complete bullshit. Particularly in a war of aggression that we started in the first place.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
war on terror, war on the devil, war on teen pregnancies, war on drugs, war on jaywalking...there's a war on everything always. that's the problem with that.
if the interrogation is for a military objective you don't even need 5th amendment. international rules apply, you pretty much only need to state your id and get treated as POW.
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5th ammendment applies to US citizens/residents.
Really?
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It doesn't say citizen. It doesn't say resident. It says person. That's everybody not otherwise exempted by the war clause.
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Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Torture is a good way to get people to say what you want them to say. The FBI should be good at finding out what they know- hopefully this is a step towards that. From all accounts they were very good at it pre-war on terror, and they didn't need to resort to water boarding.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Research has shown that people under torture become prone to fantasy, and are no longer able to distinguish between memory and imagination.
Interrogation is a form of control (Score:4, Interesting)
And that is one of the problems with it. If you ask any question in the right way you can get any answer.
So basically it's about the method of interrogation that determines the result. So if they want someone to admit to being a terrorist they could get 99% of people to admit that if they used the right interrogation methods. This is the problem with "enhanced" interrogation. It's asking someone a question while in the backround applying coercion tactics so they answer it the way you want them to.
So the question stands why do we need to have this capability in the first place? Who exactly is it for? Every human is going to break under interrogation, and that break will be psychological, physical, or both, so whats the point?
If the goal is just to break people then why help them advance the science of destroying people?
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Effective, but not for getting information on which to act. It's very effective for scaring the hell out of the tortured and creating at least one more generation of enemies.
People don't forget when you torture their family members. And you know what? I think I would rather have a religious fanatic as an enemy than someone who has sworn a blood oath to avenge the death of his father. A religious fanatic, after all, is irrational by definition. There is no one more rational than someone who has grown up with the knowledge that you are the guy who tortured his father. He's got all those adolescent years to think about how to kill you, and I can tell you from personal experience that adolescence is a great time for coming up with creative ways to kill people.
I've spent a fair amount of time in the Balkans, in Serbia, Bosnia, etc. And I can tell you based on observation that when someone gets tortured, you create much worse trouble.
And then, there's what torture does to the people who torture. Assuming there's a time when the war ends, these are not people who are going to go home and teach high school.
Torture is ineffective and diminishes the society that condones torture. I still think that the stories that came out last decade are a big part of why American society is so psychotic today. And if someone wants to disagree with me that American society is psychotic, step right up.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Informative)
It's funny, but I don't recall that the NKVD [wikipedia.org], KGB [wikipedia.org], SMERSH, or other secret police organs of Soviet Power in the USSR worried about blood feuds from torture, or any of that. They simply tortured and killed in staggering numbers [harvard.edu].
The KGB prison [genocid.lt] in Vilnius at The Museum of Genocide Victims [muziejai.lt]
solitary confinement cell [travbuddy.com], KGB style.
Surprise! [youtube.com]
And the Gulags?
What Were Their Crimes? [gulaghistory.org] Living in the Gulag [gulaghistory.org] Stalin World - Lithuania [youtube.com]
The Great Terror: A Reassessment [amazon.com]
- - - - -
Torture is ineffective and diminishes the society that condones torture. I still think that the stories that came out last decade are a big part of why American society is so psychotic today.
Some small segments of American society did become unhinged, yes, but not anything close to all of American society.
Keep in perspective that: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA [go.com] The most recent of which was about 9 years ago.
Many people are also mistaken regarding what went on at Abu Ghraib. The Army put a stop to abuse by a handful of rogue soldiers who were abusing prisoners, court martialed them, and sent them to jail. All the news media really did was report the news of the Army investigation, and what had gone on. Of course it is more profitable, poltically and financially, to spin dark conspiracy theories when the reality is closer to Jackass: The Movie [wikipedia.org].
Iraq abuse photos were `just for fun' [taipeitimes.com]
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your interpretation of what happened at Abu Ghraib is flawed at best. It is true that the enlisted people probably did do some things on their own initiative and "for fun" but most of the torture practiced there was doctrine being pushed from the White House and Pentagon. It was happening in Gitmo and Afghanistan too which completely defeats your contention that it was just a few rogue enlisted people in Iraq.
The use of attack dogs and sexual humiliation were part of Pentagon and CIA directed interrogation techniques. It is fairly predictable that when you order low paid, untrained, poorly supervised, enlisted people, working in a hell hole, to torture and humiliate prisoners in certain ways that they would quickly lose their moral compass and start engaging in progressively more abusive forms of torture and humiliation until you reach the photos from Abu Ghraib. Only way for this abuse to not happen would be to either not allow any of it in the first place which should have been the case or failing that to only have highly trained, disciplined people under strict chain of command doing it who knew exactly where the lines were that they could approach but not cross.
There were officers who were directing many of the abusive practices at Abu Ghraib who got off scott free because they were doing what they were ordered to do. The Army had to nail someone once the photos hit the news and nailing expendable enlisted soldiers was incredibly easy.
Officers usually dont take these falls unless they've done something to go off the reservation and to invite the wrath of their superiors like shoot their mouth off to the press. As long as they keep quite and are doing what they were ordered to do they can almost literally get away with murder.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:4, Insightful)
And by doing so they turned pretty much everyone against the state, thus leading to the fall of the Soviet Union. So maybe they should had worried about blood feuds a bit more after all.
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Torture is a well known technique, shown to be effective many times in history. They're trying to find other ways to interrogate people.
They already have technology and they already can use torture so what other ways are there that they don't have and use?
Who are these "hard" targets that don't already break under torture or the current interrogation methods? My guess is they know torture is harmful to the target of the interrogation and they want to develop some methods which don't physically or psychologically destroy the person being interrogated. This makes sense if they could pull it off but given their track record it will probably be
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:4, Informative)
As others have pointed out, torture generally does not lead to useful intelligence. It leads to hearing exactly what the torture victim thinks you want to hear.
The FBI is obviously working on advancing the state of the art of educing information. Effective educing generally does not include torture. A detailed examination of various techniqure is here (pdf) [fas.org].
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Maybe they could MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS and stay out of countries that (rightfully) hate us.
Yeah i know. Totally insane... Lets go kill and torture more brown people who don't agree with us.
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Note the groups involved. Yes the CIA and the DOD
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Informative)
An example of the more recent advances in interrogation used by the US -- still actively taught today, actually -- came from studying how American POWs in WWII were interrogated by the Luftwaffe's master interrogator, Hanns Joachim Scharff. Sort of like the Erwin Rommel of interrogation.
I'm sure the image that most people have about Germans interrogating US POWs in WWII is like an ill-tempered Jack Bauer, but that wasn't the case at all, at least for Scharff.
Scharff's techniques were purely psychological, and did not rely on causing physical or (much) psychological distress. I'll try to briefly summarize what I recall reading quite a while ago. Scharff would treat prisoners well, and engage them in conversation, even giving them leave to walk with him outside the base. He would take note of what they said, at first without prying that much, and then in later conversation where they felt more comfortable around him, interject those things learned earlier in ways that the prisoner would elaborate on a topic that they would not normally divulge, perhaps even under torture... usually without even realizing they had given him the intel he wanted.
It required extreme attention to detail, patience, interpersonal skills, and getting to know and understand who he was interrogating. Much more difficult than torture, but it produced consistently good results.
I don't know what advances can be made in interrogation in the future, but as Hanns Scharff proved, they need not all be brutal to be effective.
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Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Interesting)
While we're at it, we should also mention MI6's method for high-valued prisoners. They rented a villa as accommodation for German POWs. It appeared to be an improvised makeshift housing, but was very luxurious. The Germans were mostly left alone, playing pool billiard and drinking scotch, and soon got rather bored. They even received an English newspaper. However, the newspaper was fake and reported great successes of English troops. The German officers became so concerned over the bad news that they started discussing them amongst themselves, trying to discern propaganda from reality and so on. Of course, the whole house was bugged and they freely gave away information that they would likely have kept to themselves even under torture.
I guess nowadays this wouldn't work, but it's nice to know that it seems to have worked.
Re:This is one area we've regressed. (Score:5, Informative)
From the accounts I've heard, the FBI aren't big supporters of torture. In the early days of interrogating prisoners from Afghanistan, there were FBI agents involved. CIA contractors asked for permission to get rough, against FBI recommendations and experience. When permission was granted, the FBI yanked their people from the interrogations. Things went steadily downhill after that.
At least that's what I've read and heard. If someone can clarify or correct this, I'd appreciate it.
1984 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh, that is a huge exaggeration.
as long as the subject remains lucid, and you have some way of verifying the information, torture is a pretty simple idea.
Make the subject want the torture to end more then he wants to not give up the information (it is identical to payment/bribery).
Yes, we know that it can be used in stupid ways, like getting people to admit to anything, but you would hope that the FBI knows enough about the uses and weaknesses of torture to not get into trouble like that.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
you have some way of verifying the information
If I can verify information, why am I torturing anyone?
Re:1984 (Score:4, Insightful)
This only works in movies.
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The way I read this, they want the kind of stuff that is in the head of only one guy, the mastermind stuff. If that's the premise, I kinda fail to see how they verify such details, or prevent someone from pulling a Keyser Soze on them.
It is quite telling that torture was liberally used in practically all widely known trials that relied on fake confessions in Stalin's Russia, yet I haven't seen a lot of references about torture when real foreign intelligence agents were involved. Of course, it may just be
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I am sure they have heard the theory that coercion does not produce useful intelligence. I'd assume they have in mind some kind of truth serum rather than a big basement with torture implements.
Picture this. It happened a few years ago, and was likely perpetrated by British agents. You and your husband are grabbed by masked men and stuffed into a truck. You are held in a dark tight cell and have no idea why you have been imprisoned or when or even if you will be released. You are then strapped to a board. Duct tape is wrapped around your feet. Then around your legs. Then upwards, pinning your arms. Upwards to your chest. Then over your face. One eye is taped open, so you can't blink, while
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Picture this. It happened a few years ago, and was likely perpetrated by British agents.
Not quite.
I am guessing you mean Abdelhakim Belhadj (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelhakim_Belhadj)
It was most likely the flying him half way round the world bit was perpetrated by US Agents since the US has the infrastructure to do this (ie, the black flights program). Us British just provided the land that the his rendition flight refuelled at and the information on where to kidnap him from. Not that this makes us any less complicit but you might as well be factually accurate :)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
Moving people around the jail system in cold, un cleaned cells for a few days- make a fuss and you get restraints and meds.
Mix in some pain compliance along the way and lost more paper work...
You are then found, re united with your family, good legal team and then get a one time offer to sign away years and inform...
Mix in state and federal, get bail form your state and a face federal case as you walk out
Can you still afford that fancy lawyer? Risk a federal court with a 85%+++ conviction rate?
Now the laws for the "duration of the armed conflict" set in
I plead the fif (Score:3)
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if Ali Soufan wasn't a consultant on this thing... (Score:2)
then its kind of pointless.
Threaten a Dog (Score:2)
Hey, it made me buy the magazine... [flickr.com]
or... (Score:5, Insightful)
"against detainees identified as having information regarding terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies."
or
"against hacker"
or
"against protestors"
or
"against any person we deem not conforming for normal standards"
Not all-out, no holds barred torture (Score:2)
Re:Not all-out, no holds barred torture (Score:5, Insightful)
"Uh, we know what we want to do isn't legal and isn't morally acceptable in a civilized society,...
Interrogation and intelligence interviews certainly are legal and morally acceptable in a civilized society. Do you think we're supposed to catch bad guys and then say "you sit over there, we aren't going to ask you anything about what your friends are planning because someone told us it wasn't morally acceptable to interview you"? Do you think that other civilized societies don't interrogate anyone?
What isn't legal or acceptable is torture, and if you read the fine article you'd notice that nothing at all was said about coming up with new and better torture methods, only evaluation existing interrogation methods to see how those could be improved.
Classifying this as "department of creepy" displays the author's bias. That it comes from NetworkWorld makes as much sense as the Zimmerman story that appeared in slashdot recently. Neither one has any special relevance to nerds or networks.
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"Uh, we know what we want to do isn't legal and isn't morally acceptable in a civilized society,...
Interrogation and intelligence interviews certainly are legal and morally acceptable in a civilized society. Do you think we're supposed to catch bad guys and then say "you sit over there, we aren't going to ask you anything about what your friends are planning because someone told us it wasn't morally acceptable to interview you"? Do you think that other civilized societies don't interrogate anyone?
What isn't legal or acceptable is torture, and if you read the fine article you'd notice that nothing at all was said about coming up with new and better torture methods, only evaluation existing interrogation methods to see how those could be improved.
Classifying this as "department of creepy" displays the author's bias. That it comes from NetworkWorld makes as much sense as the Zimmerman story that appeared in slashdot recently. Neither one has any special relevance to nerds or networks.
You really think with all the drones, spy satellites, wiretapped internet, hidden cameras and informants everywhere that they'd need to sit someone down in a room and interrogate them?
This isn't about good and bad guys. There's good and bad guys on both sides. It's about whether or not interrogations of this sort are still necessary. An overt interrogation is for intimidation. Why do you have to ask anyone what they are doing and try to get anyone to betray their friends when you can use technological means
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You really think with all the drones, spy satellites, wiretapped internet, hidden cameras and informants everywhere that they'd need to sit someone down in a room and interrogate them?
There are limitations to technology, and the cameras and wiretaps aren't everywhere yet.
When you're talking about crime why do you feel it's okay to interrogate any suspects? The suspect has a right to remain silent. There is no reason to interrogate anyone based on anything other than national security and I'm not convinced interrogation is the key to national security.
That's completely stupid. You interrogate people because even if they have a right to remain silent they still talk anyway! And very often people actually give you correct information that incriminates them.
Go watch this "Don't talk to the police" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE&feature=related [youtube.com]
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Not
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You have too many wild conspiracy theories, and too few facts. Most of what your wrote is nonsense. You should think about spending some time in the library researching militant Islam and the periodic outbursts of Islamist terror over the centuries. If you can't manage that you are likely to earn a reputation as a crank.
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Interrogation !=torture
Interrogation !=torture
Interrogation !=torture
How many more times do we have to say it. They are not synonyms. This effort is to improve interrogation so we don't have to let the radicals push us into torture (as happened in the early days of Afghanistan.)
Lol (Score:2)
Here's an idea. Stand up, in your cubicle, and ask out loud 'does anyone here know how to perform a formal investigation?'
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Here's an idea. Stand up, in your cubicle, and ask out loud 'does anyone here know how to perform a formal investigation?'
You laugh, but at Fox News [huffingtonpost.com] they apparently do!
Avoiding the T-word (Score:2)
Hey, ya gotta give 'em credit for trying to avoid torture. Technology will solve it eventually, though: just plug a cable in the back of their neck and download everything... so long as you can get the "detainee" to cough up his mental encryption key.
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And it's because we know technology is so advanced that we know torture is so wrong. We know that it's damn near impossible for anyone to keep a secret from the government so why does the government need "interrogations" when they know practically everything about anyone?
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Work with us, face court, a package of court options or payments or one last set up and freedom.
The rush for the US to normalise "interrogations" seems to be to provide cover for past political actions, the work of allies and friends around the world.
Why allow free internal FBI methods when you can sell/contract expensive, tested "interrogation" methods?
All the guards, hidden sites, weapons training, tra
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why does the government need "interrogations" when they know practically everything about anyone?
Despite the popular paranoia, the government knows very little about anyone; and what it does know is largely noise. Big Brother may know where you had been with your car, and it may know what you bought at a corner grocery store. But the government doesn't know what you are thinking, what you are planning, what - among gigabytes of miscellaneous data that your browser downloaded from the Internet is importan
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Considering that even after electing a "transparent" Democratic President we *still* have torture protocols in place, we should be happy for even getting them to be apologetic about it. Getting anything more ethical than that out of 'em will require the use of some re-purposed plowshares, if you get my drift.
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I'd like one of each, please. And make it a double.
Already failed (Score:5, Insightful)
If your interrogation program includes torture, you've already failed.
I guess the old techniques are wearing thin (Score:3)
Booze (Score:2)
I find booze works pretty well.
Visual Disorientation (Score:2)
If you keep someone visually disoriented, they can't keep track of their facts and lies and the paths between them.
Ever try to think of details while viewing a fast moving screen in front of you or when on a moving ride at the county fair. It is very difficult.
Hence, I would provide a visually disorienting "questioning center".
what about some kind of VR interrogation? (Score:2)
what about some kind of VR interrogation?
The Best of the Best at Interrogation. (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp19qiash2U [youtube.com]
Already exists... (Score:3)
See the TV series 'Lie to me' which is based on an actual psychologist Ekman.
It's known from analysis of police interrogations here in NL that being friendly in interrrogating gives most results. Even if they are totally oncooperative you can talk in such a way that people want to tell you something, because they want to brag or show how clever they are.
But I guess the FBI hasn't learned that lesson yet...
Btw., I think such analysis should also be applied to all politicians. It would prevent getting sociopaths like George Wanker Bush becoming presidents, but in lower positions too, such a-holes do enormous damage to society.
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I look forward to the day when politicians, prosecutors, journalists and accused criminals are all subjected to such scrutiny but only after the techniques have been carefully documented and replicate
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The FBI has learned this lesson. They want to get better at it. The US military has learned this lesson. They want to get better at it. I've talked with a US Army trained interrogator, and he was trained to make the subject comfortable and become his friend.
But in any organization, there are those with their own agendas. Some cops know that Joe Blow is a thief, has gotten away with stealing many times, and they don't really care if he's guilty of this specific robbery. Those kind of cops will coerce a confe
Ya know (Score:2)
If they just said please once in a while ...
whats the matter? (Score:2)
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I think they're looking for nicer ways to achieve the same effect. They aren't trying to cause pain, they're trying to get information.
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They aren't trying to cause pain, they're trying to get accurate information.
FTFY
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They aren't trying to cause pain
You have to keep in mind that there are many people working under them. Some of them may very well want to cause pain to the enemy. Torture is evil and should never be used even if you're 100% certain the person has useful information. I don't care how effective it is.
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Depending on who the enemy is. If he is a terrorist who has personally killed people (and you are 100% certain of that, maybe he brags about it), I'd say give him to Jack Bauer. Even if he does not have any useful information.
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Quite the opposite. Torture tends to be counter-intuitive. You condition people to tell you what they think you want to hear, which isn't necessarily the truth.
Interrogation however is critical for law enforcement on any level. Questioning how interrogations are handled and looking for better methods to gain information should steer away from torture.
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Quite the opposite. Torture tends to be counter-intuitive. You condition people to tell you what they think you want to hear, which isn't necessarily the truth.
Interrogation however is critical for law enforcement on any level. Questioning how interrogations are handled and looking for better methods to gain information should steer away from torture.
But what you fail to consider is that FBI agent asking questions might have coercive control over the person being questioned.
If this were Nazi Germany and the SS were sitting down with you with their guns and your family was sitting in another room and they started asking you questions wouldn't you tell them whatever they wanted to hear? The same sort of thing can happen when you're talking about FBI agents who have what seems like unlimited power going up against an ordinary citizen who just wants to surv
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First off, Godwin's Law. I think it's pretty disrespectful to lump the FBI and Nazi Germany together.
Secondly, if they were just abusing absolute power and intended to strong-arm everyone, then why bother studying the science of interrogation? You clearly missed my point. The fact that they want to study the science of interrogation pretty much speaks to the opposite of your suggestion.
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First off, Godwin's Law. I think it's pretty disrespectful to lump the FBI and Nazi Germany together.
You're right. He should have used the CIA as his example.
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But he did lump them together, which is what I said. I didn't claim he said they were exactly the same.
Re:Interrogation ideas (Score:4, Funny)
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In an attempt to go green they should try going solar powered or maybe wat.. oh, wait.
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The whole torture controversy is a bind to conceal the fact that the U.S. government has totally mastered the art of brain suck.
They give (relatively safe drugs), plug the subjects brain into the machine and make statements. The machine reads whether the statements are true or false. It is totally painless.
The whole art of interogation is reduced to the game of 20 questions.
With short-term memory supressing drugs given afterwords, the subject does not even remember what happened to him.
The "torture" controversy is ginned up to prevent the other side from trying to plug this hole.
Osama bin Laden was captured at Tora Bora. The US has been "running" him ever since. Every time a recruit talked to Osama they were really talking to the US. Government.That is why they have mostly failed. Osama could have been "run" a bit longer, but Obama wanted the credit. So Osama got "killed".
Yes but explain those torture pictures and the "enhanced interrogation" techniques and all the documents related to that. It's a fact that the US government has mastered torture and coercion. What this means is the US government (or any government) can use coercive techniques and torture to try and create terrorists out of random innocent people in a population. Some people are more vulnerable than others to this, people who don't have families or people who aren't particularly strong willed could be broken
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I know there must be better FBI Agents out there, but I once knew a couple. They were the most paranoid, scary people I've met. Guy had to have a gun everywhere he went, wouldn't give out his address (even though I was invited to his house) and I was accused of lying to him because,"We're trained to detect that kind of thing."
Family members who are in the military or are police officers warned me to get the hell away from them, which I did.
I don't know, maybe they SHOULD refine their techniques. Jesus, if they had a good way of actually getting information, instead of just insane, paranoid speculation it might help.
Then again, maybe they'd just stay insecure and paranoid...
It all depends on the situation. Generally speaking though if they want information out of someone they won't approach in a suit and tie with an FBI badge. One of your best friends will simply ask you about something and then tell the FBI everything you said.
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Here's the FBI trying to do the right thing...
Nobody will deny that you need to do interrogations. The objection is to using things like torture in the process.
So, why shouldn't we be looking for good ways to do this that don't violate human rights, etc.?
Hey, if they come up with a "brain scan"(tm) that can read out your memory non-invasively, painlessly and instantaneously, that would be a good thing (assuming that things like a warrant exist, and we somehow deal with fifth amendment issues)
having been through several interrogations, by very skilled interrogators, I will be happy to testify that the "more flies with honey" aphorism has more than a grain of truth. The best interrogators just make you think you're there chatting about inconsequential stuff, and only in retrospect do you realize how much information they have gained.
This hollywood inspired/24 hours medieval thing of "force him to talk" is totally bogus, and anybody who does any kind of investigatory work knows it. It's a blatant rationalization for either mean people to do bad things or for sub rosa extrajudicial punishment.
Okay. Tell us why we need interrogation in the age of technological surveillance?
If the government can see everything why does the government need to interrogate?
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Because technical measures don't provide everything you might want to know. Because the government can't see everything. Because it is often easier, cheaper, and more effective to simply ask questions.
The bartender might remember what my favorite beer is. I suppose the bar could invest in computers and data mining software to analyze my past purchases. Or the bartender might take a few seconds to ask me what I'd like. Sometimes human intelligence works better than technical means.
Keep in mind that most inte
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You left out an important word in Purpose 1: to obtain *false* information. Torture is used to get the 'right' answer, where 'right' means the answer that serves the torturer's agenda. Torture actively interferes with getting accurate information and encourages false information. Victims will say anything to make the torture stop. The torture doesn't stop with the first thing the victim says, it continues until the torturer hears what he wants to hear.
Otherwise, I agree with your three purposes. States ofte