New APA Policy Banning Psychologists from National Security Interrogations | Hacker News Reader

New APA Policy Banning Psychologists from National Security Interrogations

apa.org

105 pointsmocookie28 comments

By itself, this accomplishes nothing but giving themselves moral cover. It's just words; there are no consequences. Consider:

* The message is clear: You can do these things, we'll let them slide at the time, and much later, too late to have any effect, we'll issue meaningless condemation and policy. Does anyone doubt that the next time a President or other authority in the US government faces this choice, they will disregard the APA completely and assume they will go along?

* There is no punishment for the perpetrators. These people planned and aided the commission of viscious, brutal crimes on a mass scale. They are sociopaths and should be in prison, the same place we put the Nazi's, rapists and mass murderers.

* There is no concern for the victims. There is absolutely no mention of them, inquiry into the effects on them, attempt to help them, or restitution. It confirms the government's effective position that, as "terrorists", they are sub-human and their rights and welfare can be disregarded.

So many people lacked the courage to stand up to the criminal and immoral acts of the US government at the time. It remains one of the most depressing (literally, de-moralizing) experiences of my life.

EDIT: I should add that the APA may have taken other actions that address my concerns. I reworded some of the above to address that possibility.

The only lever the APA has is to revoke membership of participants, that won't stop the government and it won't stop many individuals from participating.

As far as I can tell, they aren't a licensing body, so that revocation wouldn't even stop someone from continuing to work in the field.

> The only lever the APA has is to revoke membership of participants

They have a voice and influence. They could push hard for these things; they could have pushed hard when they were happening. Certainly they have the resources to address my third point, about the welfare of the victims.

It's curious to see Guantanamo Bay mentioned by name. I wonder if one of the reasons we're having trouble closing it is because the psychological health of the inmates has deteriorated to a state which so obviously violates ethical guidelines on prisoner treatment and perhaps even human experimentation.

You think the authorities tortured these people so bad that their only recourse is to wait for them to die / kill them all before closing to hide the evidence?

I wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't use the word "torture", as there is a big distinction between the work psychiatrists at Guantanamo did and physical torture, even if the two overlapped (e.g. drown the person and then revive them for some psychological objective). I can imagine how the physical techniques used in "enhanced interrogation" might actually not be the most morally abhorrent ones.

It's all part and parcel. Psychiatry and psychology are used continually; the physical stuff is intermittent.

I wasn't just referring to the psychiatrists, but to the authorities in general, and torture is the only word to describe what's happening there.

The definition of "torture" you're using isn't a good one.

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture#Definitions

The UN Convention Against Torture, the first example in that section, doesn't make the distinction you're making.

Thanks for linking that. Perhaps I should have been more clear.

While some of the things done to Guantanamo detainees qualify as "torture" under the UN definition (e.g. waterboarding), I can imagine a smart and determined psychiatrist working around that definition of torture and yet leaving a person in a psychological state which makes clear the immense immorality of their work.

In other words, there exists a set of "enhanced interrogations" that are not technically torture (in the way that waterboarding is), but that are still morally abhorrent and would likely be prohibited if revealed.

> Work at detention settings operating in violation of the U.S. Constitution or international law (as deemed by specific U.N. authorities), including the Guantanamo Bay detention facility…

Well, that begs the question of whether or not the Gitmo facility is unconstitutional or illegal (literally: it's a textbook pætitio principi).

Never mind the fact that refusing to participate in legal, ethical interrogations intended to protect the lives of millions is itself a highly unethical act. That's exactly what this blanket policy prevents: it assumes that national-security interrogations can be neither legal nor ethical, when it's pretty obvious that they can be.

I read it as saying that there is no ethical way for a _Psychologist_ to participate in a law enforcement interview as an interrogator.

Which is reasonable, interviews conducted for law enforcement purposes are not therapeutic in nature and are not for the benefit of the interviewee.

That said, the APA should roundly condemn and participate in holding past members to account for their participation in creating protocols that clearly violate principles of civilised war and ethical practice by offering expert testimony to that effect in both civil and criminal cases.

For instance the two men profiled in this report http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-tort... should see an APA expert witness explaining how far they had strayed from their obligations any time they face a lawsuit.

No, it says that they cannot work at detention settings which are in violation of the US constitution or international law.

If it is legal, ethical interrogation, then it is not in violation of the US Constitution, or international law

It even says they can provide general consultation on issues related to humane information gathering

>No, it says that they cannot work at detention settings which are in violation of the US constitution or international law.

Who makes that determination?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-violent-mind/201502...

Only 14 years too late.

I'll take now over never.

They're not helping torture anyone right now due to a lack of demand, so it doesn't matter what their policy is. If they're needed again, they can quietly repeal or carve massive semantic exceptions to this e.g. is it an interrogation or an interview?

The government can just hire psychologists that don't give a shit about this policy.

I think they can probably find them.

If a psychologist is running the risk of losing his license to practice, why would he cooperate?

I briefly looked before making my comment in another thread, I don't think the APA has any say over licensing (it's done by the states).

As to reasons why they might anyway, they believe the interrogation is worthwhile, a sense of duty to country, money, etc (I'm not saying those are reasons I agree with, I'm saying they are reasons someone might use to justify participation to themselves).

The APA is a meaningless organization. They have zero authority over licensing. They also aren't the only professional psychological organization. APA membership carries with it no particular value; clients don't care about APA membership, they care about licensing.

The value of an APA membership is primarily that it makes access to published research affordable. If someone wasn't interested in accessing journal content, or required to present at conferences requiring APA membership to further their careers, I can't imagine why they'd pay to join.

Firstly, not all psychologists are men. Secondly, not all psychologists are American.

I don't understand the second point. Do you think USG would turn to foreign psychologists for interrogation assistance?

Absolutely. They have repeatedly turned to nationals from other countries to inflict cruelty upon detainees; why do you suppose they'd exclude psychologists in particular?

They'll turn to other countries for turnkey services, i.e. we hand you this person and maybe some cash and you'll tell us what you learned, if only because it's politically unfeasible to do it ourselves. Having been around government service most of my life, I can tell you that we're pretty lazy in that regard, so I can see why we'd practice rendition. Intelligence is already a really mercenary field, so our normal distrust of foreigners might well be disregarded in special circumstances.

I don't think that portions of services we are already providing, we'd contract, not just to some other American company, but to extra-national contractors, for tasks more complicated than manning customer-service-type posts, like mess halls. It's not the American way. When the service gets complicated, such as for maintenance of complicated military hardware, the government prefers to hire American contractors that use American workers, even specifying nationality in the contracts. It's a cultural thing.

Americans just don't trust foreign nationals. I could never see them trusting foreign psychologists, it flies in the face of everything I could ever consider to be "American".

Sure, they could. Things can always change for the worse in the future, but at least now the default state is different. Knowledge that something may change in the future doesn't render everything in the present futile, even for symbolic stances of self-governance. This is certainly toothless symbolism, but it doesn't make it meaningless. It's a reaction to the disgust most of the membership felt towards the organization. There will always be individual psychologists that will do what they're paid to do anyway, but I'd still prefer the body with the biggest political influence stake out a "not horrible" position on any given subject.

Relevant name for the comment, by the way.

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