How the OLC derived their limits on sleep deprivation
emptywheel has an interesting revelation about the OLC authorization of sleep deprivation. The CIA found that one person had once survived 264 hours of sleep deprivation, so that was the maximum the CIA allowed. But the CIA Inspector General thought that was extreme, given that CIA prisoners were shackled to the ceiling and had other stressors. So the kind folks at the OLC said 180 hours was enough:
So what they did, apparently, to set an “upper limit” to the amount of time they can shackle someone up so they can’t sleep was simply to look up the longest recorded incident of sleep deprivation and use that!
And then when someone–presumably the IG and the CIA’s own doctors–pointed out (1) that expecting detainees subject to incredible stress to be able to withstand what one single person once withstood under radically different conditions is just nuts, and (2) sleep deprivation had already been tied to deaths in US custody, they toned it down. And how they picked their new, eminently reasonable standard of 180 hours (7.5 days)?
Well, from the looks of things, they just figured out the longest they had kept any one detainee awake, and made that their new standard. They had to, of course, to ensure that the new standard still considered everything that had been done to be legal.
1 comment June 22nd, 2009