American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program | Hacker News Reader

American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program

nytimes.com

118 pointsmpnagle58 comments

People who were legally in the US, were literally picked up off of American streets, blindfolded, put into secret CIA aircraft, flown to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Uzbekistan, and then tortured [0].

Yet not a single person has gone to jail over this. The CIA hasn't been reformed structurally, and no additional oversights have been added. In fact the only difference between then and now is we have a different administration in the White House who are just choosing not to continue it...

Does this not disturb anyone? Isn't this exactly the type of stuff people used to joke about the USSR/KGB doing? Since when did the US constitution only apply to citizens and not residence?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#21st_c...

This is relevant:

"Are Foreign Nationals Entitled to the Same Constitutional Rights As Citizens?" http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...

The answer is "NO" because the Supreme Court has ruled that they are not. Unfortunately the Constitution grants judicial powers to the Supreme Court and not to David Cole, Law Professor.

Actually, the Supreme Court has not offered an absolute rule. If you read the article I offered, you would have learned about the nuances that the Supreme Court has provided in terms of areas of protection to non citizens and areas of no protection.

No, it's not. The fact that the person being tortured isn't a US citizen doesn't make torture any less of a contemptible, barbaric act that is unfit for civilized society.

If basic human decency is not convincing, I suggest reading 18 U.S. Code § 2340A, which says

    (a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit
        torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years,
        or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this
        subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

    (b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
        (1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
        (2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of
            the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.

The nationality of the victim doesn't matter.

Did you even read what I posted? Here is a copy-paste for you:

Thus, there is little reasoned support for the widely held no- tion that noncitizens are entitled to substantially less constitu- tional protection than citizens. While not identically situated in all respects, foreign nationals should enjoy the same constitu- tional protections for fundamental rights and liberties as United States citizens. The areas of permissible differentiation - admis- sion, expUlsion, voting, and running for federal elective office - are much narrower than the areas of presumptive equality - due process, freedom of expression, association, and religion, privacy, and the rights of the criminally accused. When we balance liberty and security, in other words, we should respect the equal dignity and basic human rights of all persons. In the wake of September 11, we have failed to follow that mandate. When we spy on foreign nationals without proba- ble cause but not citizens, selectively target foreign nationals for registration, detention, and deportation based on their ethnic and religious identities, and lock up foreign nationals in secret or without any hearings at all, we have chosen the easy way out: sacrificing their rights for our purported security. In the end, the true test of justice in a democratic society is not how it treats those with political power, but how it treats those who have no voice in the democratic process. How we treat foreign nationals, the paradigmatic other in this time of crisis, ultimately tests our own humanity.

That Wikipedia article lists 1 person who was deported from US territory (prior to their clearing border control, so they were not legally in the country).

Are you getting the "Hundreds of people who were legally in the US" from some other resource?

I guess people won't really change their views on the practice just depending on whether it occurs in the US or not, but I also don't see any reason to add noise to the discussion.

I misread Wikipedia. I have removed the "hundreds" wording which was clearly in error.

It also says nothing about anyone being picked up off of a US street.

US persons (not just citizens, but people legally living in the US) tend to enjoy more US Constitutional protections than people outside the US, so I think you are still quite wrong in your characterization.

Do we have a proper source? We really shouldn't go on any number mentioned in Wikipedia unless it is comprehensive and well sourced.

Following news over the past few years, just by the number of mentions in the media over that time, the distinct impression I have it that it is more than one.

This article, from 2005 says that hundreds of people have been taken (from the streets) since a couple years prior. (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-27-ci...)

The parent comment was very specific about saying "legally in the US" and "American streets".

This is simply not the case, there are not hundreds of extraordinary renditions that started with a kidnapping on US soil.

But sure, let's all get outraged about a blatant misunderstanding of reality, instead of discussing the still outrageous reality.

I agree we shouldn't get into a huff about what isn't reality - in fact I called for real data.

I don't personally see much of a non-legal distinction between geolocations.

We probably should have a little outrage at torture and rendition programs, though we should probably have some realism too.

Just some realism? What harm is done by asking people to accurately describe the program?

If OP had bothered to understand the actual nature of the rendition programs and understand why the legal distinction matters, they would have an answer to their question about no one being in jail. That is, under current US law, it is not illegal for the CIA to kidnap people in other countries.

So the interesting discussion, the one about whether the US should be engaging in these activities (it should not), ends up getting overshadowed by the stupid sideshow about accuracy. But pushing back on the inaccuracy is necessary, imagine if we had to respectfully discuss the coming Martian invasion every time someone managed to stick that into the top comment in a thread.

This appeals to me, but I think at this point we are preaching to ourselves.

Re: realism. Some outrage is a nice way to temper realism with civility. If we temper it instead with only a pragmatic calculus or some Randian or Social Darwinism there's a chance we can delude ourselves into a fascism, jingoism or militarism. I prefer to play tit-for-tat - lead with the pillow, reply to sticks with hammers. But if in pursuit of the pragmatic we abandon the ideals, we're going to optimize the 'wrong' objective. In other words - the outrage is a way to call for the US to recognize inalienable rights (which mean that no nationality, nor any government, gives them to you), to pursue fair trails, and to be accountable for mistakes, and to perform justice through a court system where it can be seen for the good thing it is. It is not outrage for outrage's sake.

I think it is a fine thing to be outraged about the US kidnapping people, it is pretty outrageous. I've used "kidnap" repeatedly to hint at that, rather than sticking to "extraordinary rendition".

I think it is really stupid to be outraged that the CIA is kidnapping people off of the street in the US, because they are not doing that.

I feel like I am repeating myself, but from what I can tell from your reply here, you don't seem to see what I am getting at.

No, I don't think I am.

The CIA definitely has taken people from the US - even innocent ones - not necessarily 'from the streets'. It has also targeted and killed US citizens without trials.

I think it is being informed by these facts along with similar feelings towards the CIA's 'kidnapping' and 'manslaughtering' of innocent non-citizens, that is repugnant to those with the palate for more civil tone and direction of real defense and intelligence objectives.

The wikipedia article you posted doesn't support your claim. Where are you seeing these "Hundreds of people who were legally in the US, were literally picked up off of American streets"

>who are just choosing not to continue it

Or so they claim. How many times in history has some group promised to stop some wrong doing only to continue, perhaps in a modified way?

I don't see anything in there about people being "literally picked up off American streets."

Yes, that's important. The Constitution grants civil rights to Americans and those on U.S. soil. Outside U.S. soil is the domain of the military and executive apparatus acting under the authority Congress gives them. What the military/CIA do abroad may be bad and maybe something they shouldn't do.[1] If the CIA is doing it on the streets of Milwaukee, that's illegal and something they can't do.

[1] And I strongly agree we shouldn't be grabbing random people off the streets in foreign countries.

Jose Padilla (although he was not rendered to a third country; they tortured him themselves).

Jose Padilla was not kidnapped on the streets--he was arrested at customs in Chicago while returning to the U.S. It's also not clear whether he was "tortured." I don't want to get into a debate about enhanced interrogation, but this article describes what we know about his interrogation: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1565798,0... (solitary, sensory deprivation, extreme temperatures, stress positions).

Padilla was clearly an example of the Bush administration overreaching. He's the only known example of the government holding a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without charge. But he was ultimately indicted, and the length of his detention would've been a lot shorter if his habeas petition hadn't been filed in the wrong jurisdiction in the first instance. The gears of justice sometimes grind slowly, but in that case checks and balances worked.

If you're going to say "the government is picking Americans off the streets and torturing them" you shouldn't have to lawyer your way around each of the elements in the sentence.

> I don't want to get into a debate about enhanced interrogation

The words 'enhanced interrogation' leave me with a bad taste. Either it's interrogation or it is torture, let's keep it simple that way you won't have to debate where the line lies, you stay well away from that line to avoid doubt.

A little ironic that you drop in the bit about "lawyering your way around each of the elements," while at the same time encouraging a shift of the language of the discussion from "torture" to "enhanced interrogation." Note, the Time article does not use the word "enhanced" at all.

Call a spade a spade: sensory deprivation, extreme temperatures, stress positions are torture. We don't have to treat potential criminals like our elderly grandparents, but we shouldn't intentionally make their lives more miserable than they need to be.

I'm certainly not the one shifting what "torture" means. In Bangladesh, at least 20 years ago if not still today, teachers would punish students by putting pencils between their fingers and squeezing down hard. In the U.K. in the 60's and 70's, caning schoolchildren was common. That's what people did to kids. 50 years ago, "torture" meant hanging soldiers from meat hooks, beating their already broken limbs, putting them in metal boxes in the sun. It did not simply mean making them miserable.

I'm not saying we can't shift our perceptions of how it's acceptable to treat prisoners. But you have to recognize that there's not much consensus that what happened to Jose Padilla was in fact "torture." That's why I used the phrase "enhanced interrogation"--so we can talk about it without having to agree on where the lines are drawn.

Calling it "enhanced interrogation" is using a euphemism with the intent of hiding what the act actually entails. If you are afraid of using certain words because there is a lack of consensus, then list the activities directly and let people derive the connotations the words carry themselves. Admittedly, you (Yoo?) did list the activities after using the euphemism, but why use the euphemism at all, if not to push the equivalent of the Overton window in a certain direction? Waterboarding, etc., do quite a bit more than make people miserable: I was understating for effect. [1] I understand that this conversation has devolved into the pit that you wanted to avoid, but as others have stated, "enhanced interrogation" sounds like doublespeak of the highest order.

By the way, Wikipedia, for all that it's worth, has come to quite a resounding and comfortable consensus: "Enhanced interrogation techniques is a euphemism for methods used in the U.S. government's program of systematic torture of detainees [...]". Well cited too. [2]

[1] http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/070925/akeller.pdf#page=6

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniq...

> Calling it "enhanced interrogation" is using a euphemism with the intent of hiding what the act actually entails.

But clearly I had no intent to hide anything since I listed the specific techniques right afterward.

> By the way, Wikipedia, for all that it's worth, has come to quite a resounding and comfortable consensus

The Wikipedia article does not distinguish between the range of techniques that fall under the umbrella of enhanced interrogation. That is relevant because there is no indication Padilla was ever subjected to say waterboarding.

We know he was subjected to sensory deprivation and stress positions. But the European Court of Human Rights has held that those are not torture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation#The_five_se... ("In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) examined the United Nations' definition of torture, and subsequently ruled that the five techniques 'did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture' . . .")

You left out the best part of that quote, which is part of that last sentence: "however they did amount "to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", which is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, article 3.[17]"

Even if the government didn't "torture" him (using your definitions), it's tarnish on the luster of American exceptionalism to condone this sort of behavior, regardless of it's broader classification. This is to say nothing of the hypocrisy in relying on a 1978 definition of torture, for evaluation of actions taken 30+ years later. By the same token, your "corporal punishment in school" example was legal then, but is no longer legal now. Should we go back to our 1978 laws to decide how we manage our children? If we shouldn't, then we shouldn't allow terrible (and useless [1]) degradation of fellow humans to occur at our behest.

[1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11948-004-0011-y

By the way, I would venture to say that we are both officially "lawyering" at this point. :)

The Constitution says nothing about borders and soil for the limits on the government's activity. It enumerates what the government is allowed to do, no borders no soil. Non-enforcement doesn't make it law.

There are so many of us that are sick and tired of reading this kind of stuff and knowing that no one will be held accountable. The general population is so apathetic, it's hard to gain any traction.

What can we do? Seriously? Can we start a kickstarter to raise funds, to hire lawyers or whatever is needed to make sure people are sent to jail over this? What can we do that will make an impact, without relying on the ignorant mainstream public? There's got to be something

You're not going to like this answer.

We can strike. If we organize enough people in the tech sector or the general public and withhold work until conditions improve, this country will be brought to its knees nearly instantly and we can get some real change to happen.

You think the people who run the country are going to tolerate reduced profits over some political mishaps committed by the last president? It'll be much cheaper to bribe their politicians to do some legal mumbo jumbo to put the proper people into hot water than to sustain a huge revenue loss.

While I support this idea and have believed for a long time now that a critical mass of the sysadmins, engineers, et al. that keep the world turning have more power than most politicians if they could just ignore the usual arguments for a while and organize. Look at the panic over Occupy; if the money stops flowing because nobody is there to keep the infrastructure working, I expect mass hysteria.

This kind of plan is dangerous - in this political climate, there is a good chance such a strike would be labeled a terror plot, and the people with guns will be sent in to do what they usually do.

Another consideration: similar to how "total information awareness" wasn't really canceled - it just got a new name and distributed into several departments - COINTELPRO wasn't really canceled either. Remember that any leader or central organizer is a target. Decentralize everything.

Shrug. Direct confrontation between the fascists and the public is inevitable if any real change is going to happen.

If the government goes in on people who are striking for better conditions, the world will be on their side.

You vote. If you don't like the way other people are voting, change their minds. If you can't change their minds then you lost fairly.

Throwing people in jail over things that were repeatedly ruled legal and done in good faith is not something that we do in the United States, and is not a can of worms you want to open.

The unfortunate truth is that the great majority of Americans are NOT ignorant. They are aware that we were torturing people. Most of them either support what happened or just don't really care that much about it. If that bothers you, try to change it.

but what do you do if you disagree with the US as a foreigner in a moderate country?

unfortunately the only option you have left is to decide not to visit the US ever (regardless if you have friends living there). because the risk you face by traveling to the US and getting questioned for why you posted which tweets is simply not worth it. anyone who disagrees as a foreigner with US policy has been made automatically a suspect by US legislation. Your mentality is black and white and your system is Orwellian. Sorry.

You and I face that risk whenever we travel abroad no matter what country we are from or travelling to. I have never imagined that I have the same protection as citizens whenever I have traveled abroad. We are in large part protected by diplomatic relationships between our home country and the country we are travelling to, as well as our host country's desire to maintain a positive reputation for tourism and business.

If you're really afraid, don't come here. But your absence won't even be noticed because your fears are not truly shared by many, or they would have stopped coming a decade ago.

> Throwing people in jail over things that were repeatedly ruled legal and done in good faith

Were these actions ever were ruled upon by a court. There was a memo by an executive branch lawyer, but there is a reason we have separation of powers.

It is well known that kidnapping and torture are illegal and morally wrong. Speaking generally about many people, I do not think they acted in good faith; they were doing what they thought they could get away with.

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

unfortunately peaceful demonstration will not change a thing. Remember Occupy WS? How have their efforts transformed anything in the banking sector?

The only way US citizens can bring change is by boycotting their system (e.g. stop paying your taxes all at once). Guess the challenge is in how to motivate the masses. As a collective we are cowards. And people simply don't care as long as they don't directly feel affected. The only way any of this will improve is if it first gets worse for the average Joe. Unfortunately by then it will be too late and the situation will have so badly deteriorated that they only solution is to burn everything to the ground before starting fresh. (if this sounds radical just look at other political systems throughout history which required transformation. It is never peaceful.)

What is even worse is that the world has always looked to the US as some kind of role-model. And we now continue to have rotten people in rotten governments or previously good people in good governments getting away with abusing their powers.

The only way to solve this imo is to support systems and countries undermining the petro-dollar. Saying this makes you a terrorist though. Saddam Hussein set out in this directions and failed. The Russians and Iran are trying the same. Crazy world we live in where we have to look for the bad guys in hope for getting the good guys back on track.

Maybe this situation better explain the horrors of ww2, rather than the more commonly cited stanford prison experiment. When neither mass media or the legal system are willing to hold people accountable, its hard to create change.

The Bush years made me so ill, I had to stop following the news in order to maintain my health. A generational low point for western society.

They made me ill too but I made a point to read about every ugly and evil little thing being done in my name. It's important to understand the costs being paid by innocent people in the misguided name of "freedom" at the direction of evil men and women.

I cannot close my eyes to the suffering of my brothers and sisters.

Um... when did it get better?

What makes me ill is people who think it was exclusive to Bush's term.

I think Bush had the audacity to push through extraordinary measures initially. He was responsible for a number of Bill of Rights attacks: Habeas Corpus, search and seizure, 1A, Gitmo, and this whole rendition thing. The author of the Patriot act has since come forward and indicated he had no intention of having it abused in scope as we're seeing. PA was not intended to quash dissent nor pursue common criminals.

Obama ran on a platform of repealing PA and restoring the Bill of Rights. Of course, he did a quiet 180 on the issue shortly after entering office and has since issued more secret executive orders than any other president. It makes one wonder what happens to Presidents after they're sworn in. Does someone read them in on the facts of life? Or are they simply always dirtbags whose principles are for sale?

> It makes one wonder what happens to Presidents after they're sworn in. Does someone read them in on the facts of life? Or are they simply always dirtbags whose principles are for sale?

This is precisely why I had someone recently tell me they'd like to see Ron Paul get elected. He's someone who has been relatively consistent on his views throughout his career as a politician - often to his detriment. They said if he got elected and also did the 180, it'd surely be the nail in the coffin on the "facts of life" reading you mentioned being a reality.

They said if he got elected and also did the 180, it'd surely be the nail in the coffin on the "facts of life" reading you mentioned being a reality.

You mean that he would have been corrupted? Or that there were secret truths that Presidents have access to that change their actions from what they claim in advance that they would do 'as President'.

Neither. They were implying that in the case of a 180 the President is a puppet.

What are you gonna do if the government does this to you?

I mean its entirely possible. First they came for < insert group > etc..

This is a pretty sick example of institutions being corrupted by the power of the government.

Where are the prosecutions of the APA? Where are the disbarments? Where are the war crimes trials for the Bush regime?

This stuff is done in our names without our consent, and we have an ethical obligation to act out and speak out.

We may not be able to move the DOJ on prosecuting Addington, Wu and the other architects of the torture program.

But the APA has an ethics committee

http://www.apa.org/about/governance/bdcmte/ethics-committee....

If the notion of American doctors aiding and abetting torture strikes you as a matter that that the APA should discipline it's members over. Contact the ethics committee.

The staff liaison's email is sbehnke@apa.org

The head of a body that advises U.S. terrorism interrogators on ethics on Thursday called for a special prosecutor to probe how the abuse of captured militants during the Bush administration's "war on terror" was allowed to happen.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/30/us-usa-torture-idU...

I guess this shows how deeply corrupt the leadership of the APA is? Realistically how would they say no to this?

Easy: document saying no, then go public with the fact that the government tried to pervert its medical apparatus into supporting the torture programs.

Boom, credibility of the USG's medical agencies goes to shit overnight, and you're inoculated from further manipulation.

This headline should not have been edited to remove the words "Report Says", which make it clear that this story is not the contention of the NY Times itself and not based on their own investigating reporting, but is rather a contention from someone else's report.

There are statements about legality, about outrage, about who should be punished, about the corruption of organizations.

That's not interesting to me. I'm not happy about it, but I'm actually more disappointed.

The thing is, something like the APA should, more than anyone, know how ineffective torture would be for getting the kind of information that they were looking to find.

The problem with torture, aside from the fact that it's hurtful, is that it is ineffective. We know this. We've studied it, we've already got a lot of data. The APA is supposed to be the professionals in this field that should be able to say that we shouldn't be torturing people.

It's like you find out there was a group of doctors that are contracted to create a virus to wipe out a segment of the population, and the doctors deliver something that causes extreme itchiness and the inability to control your bowels. It doesn't kill anyone, it just makes your city smell like shit and causes these people targeted to be angry and uncomfortable.

It's still heinous, and immoral. But not only that, it's ineffective and worthless. I mean, the torture argument comes up and there's always defenders that say "desperate times call for desperate measures". But the thing is, it doesn't matter how desperate you are, torture doesn't lead to good results, no matter how angry you are, no matter how bad you want it to.

The thing is, I can understand if people in the military might not know this, or believe it. But the thing is, the APA is supposed to represent an organization that understands our minds. They SHOULD know this. So more than just "Oh they did a heinous thing" I am thinking "Oh, they did an idiotic thing, AND it was heinous!"

I mean, if they were to do some horrific torturous mind control stuff, and because of that we got information that led to the safe return of troops abroad and a swift victory over the enemy, then I'd still be angry that they were willing to do horrible things to get that victory. But I'd respect their ability. In the same way that I think a nuclear bomb is a horrific weapon that should have never been used on a civilian population, but I think that the people who built it were really good at what they do.

But it's like asking for a nuclear weapon, and getting something that detonates and makes the city and surrounding countryside stink for years but doesn't harm anyone. I mean, it's detestable that they'd be working to try to murder massive numbers of civilians. But even more than that, it's awful that they failed so badly at it, and obviously never really knew what they were doing to start with. They didn't accomplish their goals, and just made people angry.

delete

Pearl Harbor was an attack by the Japanese military on orders from the Japanese government. The 9/11 attacks were not perpetrated by a government or nation. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian nationals. By your logic, why was there no military action against Saudi Arabia?

The grandparent shouldn't have deleted the comment. It highlights a nuance that isn't often explored while ruffling some feathers.

So, why didn't we go nuke Saudi Arabia? A: It would not have accomplished anything. Morality is absent from the decision making process when it comes to warfare. If killing a million Saudis were the answer, they'd be dead.

Technology has made it possible (or necessary) for non nation-state actors to levy something very similar to war against nation-states.

In the case of a nation-state in the industrial and post-industrial age, the approach is straightforward -- you engage the enemy in the field AND destroy his ability to make war. The US Civil War was the dress-rehearsal for this, and WW1 explored the limits of what could be done before the innovations of the 20th century were fully baked.

Today, you can't have total war, because tools exist to permanently execute a total war -- nuclear weapons. So we fight in the fringes by arming various individuals and engaging in an evolved form of guerrilla warfare.

I think that history will conclude that the last decade and a half has been a process of the ultimate, seemingly omni-potent superpower figuring out how to scale down its war machine down as low as the individual actor.

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