Psyche, Science, and Society

Brutality official UCLA policy

John at AMERICAblog points out that

UCLA policy okays use of tasers against passive demonstrators

As John sums it up: “This is sickening.”

I further agree, as I’ve said all along “Someone very high up at UCLA needs to lose their job, now.”

To accept such an inhuman policy is to further degrade both higher education and our entire society.

Here is an update from the Daily Bruin campus newspaper:

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, who was stunned several times with a Taser in Powell Library Tuesday, plans to file a lawsuit against university police alleging “brutal excessive force” and false arrest, his lawyer said Friday.

Tabatabainejad, a fourth-year Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy student, was hit with a Taser after failing to present identification and after he did not leave the premises promptly after being asked to do so, according to police and eye-witness reports.

Stephen Yagman, the civil rights attorney Tabatabainejad has hired to handle his case, said Tabatabainejad was stunned five times with the Taser before being handcuffed and taken into custody.

Yagman said Tabatabainejad was asked to show his BruinCard, and did not do so because, as an U.S.-born student of Iranian descent, he believed he was being singled out in an incident of racial profiling. Yagman said that to his knowledge his client was the only person who was asked to show ID.

The university has said the check was routine and such procedures include a check of everyone present.

The 23-year-old student had begun to leave the room at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when he was approached by the police, Yagman said.

“Our client (was) … already on his way out,” the attorney said.

As Tabatabainejad was leaving the room, he was approached by two officers, one of whom grabbed the student”s arm. When officers did not let go of his arm, Tabatabainejad fell limp to the floor, Yagman said.

According to a UCPD press release, at this point Tabatabainejad was found to be uncooperative and resisting the officers who then deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a “drive stun” capacity.

Yagman said the case was an incident of police brutality, which he described as “the use of great force against somebody who posed no threat.”

Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams released a second statement Friday morning, but the university has not yet commented on the lawsuit, as it has not yet been filed. Neither the administration nor UCPD have commented further on the specifics of the incident.

“Since the incident, I have been in close contact with the chief of police and have asked that the investigation into the actions of all involved move at the quickest pace possible without sacrificing fairness,” Abrams said in the statement.

But Abrams also warned against jumping to any conclusions about the incident.

“I too have watched the videos and I do not believe that one can make a fair judgment regarding the matter from the videos alone,” he said.

About 400 students rallied on campus today at noon, and then marched to the UCPD station.

When they reached the station, UCPD officers closed down the station, locking the doors, turning off the lights, and dressing in riot gear.

Berky Nelson, director of the Center for Student Programming, announced at 1:40 p.m. that three students had met with UCPD officers and issued demands regarding the investigation of the incident. The students” requests included student input in the investigation process and the temporary suspension of the police officers involved in the incident.

Nelson said the UCPD was going to meet with the chancellor to discuss the students” requests.

Yagman said lawsuits of this nature typically take a few years, but he said he believes the case will be successful in Tabatabainejad”s favor.

“My expectation is that the brutal officers will be brought to justice,” he said.

To which I say: “Let’s hope.” But don’t forget about those university officials who authorized the purchase of these weapons or those who wrote or signed off on a policy allowing their use on nonviolent students.

One lesson to be learned is that, if brutal weapons are available, the temptation to use them brutally can be irresistible.

November 20th, 2006

Valtin on the CIA’s coercive interrogation strategy

Valtin, in his new Daily Kos diary, provides an introduction to the general strategy behind the CIA’s [aka "KUBARK"] coercive interrogation techniques, used so liberally at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the varied secret detention facilities maintained around the world.

As Valtin points out, this strategy was developed through decades of “scientific” research by psychologists and others.

As the CIA makes clear:

All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression. As Hinkle notes in “The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects Brain Function”(7), the result of external pressures of sufficient intensity is the loss of those defenses most recently acquired by civilized man: “… the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to meet new, challenging, and complex situations, to deal with trying interpersonal relations, and to cope with repeated frustrations. Relatively small degrees of homeostatic derangement, fatigue, pain, sleep loss, or anxiety may impair these functions.” As a result, “most people who are exposed to coercive procedures will talk and usually reveal some information that they might not have revealed otherwise.”

Read Valtin’s article to learn more.

2 comments November 20th, 2006

“Truth serum” for interrogations?

An article in the Washington Post reminds us that the desire for total control knows no bounds. It seems the government is seeking to harness new work in psychopharmacology to create the fantasized “truth serum.” Mind control, in its various forms, has long been a dream of those in power. Guantanamo, after all, is largely a laboratory for developing mind control techniques. No one in their right mind seriously believes that anyone imprisoned there for almost five years still has any valuable intelligence information left to give. But attempts to create the total environment for control are endless, and the total environment, subject to absolutely no legal constraints, is just the place to do it.

Question. Are efforts to develop “truth serums” being used there? After all, Jose Padilla’s lawyers claim that Padilla was drugged during his years of imprisonment. In an environment of illegality, such as Guantanamo, with no outside oversight,virtually anything is posible. Some day, the history of that evil place will be written. Until then, we can only speculate.

November 20th, 2006

Updated Death Squad video link

Many readers have come here looking for the British Channel 4 TV special on the Iraqi death squads linked to the government. The original poster of that video moved it yesterday, but his new link did not work. Here is another link to the same piece. [I have also replaced the link in the original post.]:

1 comment November 20th, 2006

Bush administration abolishes hunger, for real

Revere at Effect Measure informs us that hunger no longer exists in the United States, thanks to the USDA. It seems that the Bush administration, loving science as it does, has decided that “hunger” is too imprecise a term to be used used. They thus replaced it with “very low food security” [presumably soon to be "VLFS" in research grants and papers].

“Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said “hungry” is ‘not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey.’ Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, ‘We don’t have a measure of that condition….’

Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which ‘should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.’

To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether ‘lack of eating led to these more severe conditions,’ as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.” [from the Washington Post]

What next? Will they define indefinite imprisonment without trial as “freedom,” war as “peace,” religion as science,”? Oh yeah, they already did that.

November 20th, 2006