Psyche, Science, and Society

Jane Mayer: Could unreleased documents change public opinion?

In the TPMCafe discussion of Jane Mayer’s book, she has a new contribution in which she discusses so-far unreleased documents that might, just might, substantially change public opinion till the public demands accountability for US torture:

Explosive Documents: A Question of Evidence

By Jane Mayer

I agree that at the bottom of it all, the stumbling block to accountability is the complicity of the American public - AT THE MOMENT. But call me naïve, because I think that public opinion could shift if the next administration released certain explosive documents. The case of Abu Ghraib has hammered home the cliché about a picture being worth a hundred words. Humbling though it is for a writer, nothing written has matched the impact of those photographs. The international revulsion they stirred forced President Bush to publicly denounce them, and for the first time, call for some kind of investigation and punishment. As Eric Umansky and others have noted, it was only when President Bush acknowledged that a scandal had taken place, that the mainstream media - including network television news shows — reacted as if something was wrong.

The CIA clearly understood the potential power of incriminating pictures, which is why they destroyed them. I am told that if the CIA’s videotapes of Muslim detainees being waterboarded were seen by the public, the international political reaction would have been, as one former CIA office put it, “unmanageable.” It was bad enough watching Hitch sputtering away. So- this brings me to the question of other photographic evidence. What’s still in the federal cupboard?

Practically every detainee has described being photographed, often naked, with particular attention to their wounds. Presumably at least some of those photographs exist somewhere. In addition, there are numerous descriptions of videotapes other than those of the waterboarding, that were destroyed. The “High Value Detainees” held by the CIA describe constant closed-circuit surveillance. Presumably some was taped. Is it possible that none of these tapes were kept? There is also the interesting question of the frequent video-conferencing done by top administration officials. I am told by a presidential archivist that it is unclear at the moment whether those videotapes are required to be turned over, under the presidential records act. They include high-level conversations between the White House officials and top officials down in Guantanamo, about what to do with the detainees. They also include discussions with Cheney, speaking from his undisclosed remote locations. There were numerous discussions between Washington and Iraq and Afghanistan as well. In Watergate, the tapes were everything. In the Iran-Contra Affair, an early email system was how Oliver North got caught. It certainly would be worth knowing what is on those video-conference reels, and, where they are.

There are written documents too that might impact public opinion. One former Bush Administration official tells me that it is impossible for people to imagine the destructive power of the interrogation and detention program without actually reading the details. Among the documents believed to contain these details, in vivid color, are the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross spelling out what the CIA’s 14 high value detainees (now in Guantanamo) described having gone through. As far as I know, this report is NOT classified. It could conceivably be made public by future administration officials, if they choose to. Additionally, there are several internal investigative reports that were done by the CIA’s inspector general, which are said to be horrifying. They probably wouldn’t have the impact of photographs, but they certainly would make a lot clearer to the American public, what is meant by the euphemism, “enhanced” interrogation methods. There is also the still-secret specific list of authorized techniques, and numerous other Justice Department documents, not yet publicly available.

So, I agree that at the moment, there is not an overwhelming call for accountability inside America. But I also think that many Americans still don’t really understand what happened in this program. If they did, I think there would be a much stronger reaction. The question is whether the public will see the evidence before it goes the way of those videotapes…

PS: I’d be interested in what’s on others’ wish lists, in terms of documentary evidence that the public should someday see.

1 comment October 2nd, 2008

PHR on APA letter to Bush

Physicians for Human Rights has released the following statement on today’s dramatic letter from APA President Kazdin to President Bush, calling for removing psychologists from the illegal detention centers:

PHR Salutes APA’s Ban on Psychologists at Illegal US Interrogations

——————————————————————————–

Media Contacts:

Nathaniel Raymond
nraymond [at] phrusa [dot] org

——————————————————————————–

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) CEO Frank Donaghue congratulates American Psychological Association (APA) President Alan E. Kazdan, PhD, who wrote to President George W. Bush on October 2 to inform him of a significant change in APA policy that limits the roles of psychologists at illegal U.S. detention facilities, such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and CIA black sites overseas, where systematic torture has occurred.

Cambridge, MA. (PRWEB) October 2, 2008 - “APA’s announcement today is a historic victory for medical ethics and human rights,” said Physicians for Human Rights CEO Frank Donaghue. “PHR salutes the APA for telling President Bush that psychologists can no longer serve at illegal US facilities that violate the Constitution and international human rights standards. This dramatic policy reversal represents a massive transformation by an organization that has until now encouraged members to assist interrogations of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and CIA black sites overseas.”

The Association’s policy reversal was driven by a first-of-its-kind referendum, pushed by a reform movement among its members, with PHR’s active support. PHR has been campaigning since 2005 for the APA to end psychologists’ participation in U.S. national security interrogations. Government and press reports have confirmed that military and intelligence psychologists were central to the design, implementation, and supervision of the Bush administration’s regime of psychological and physical torture.

“The Pentagon and the CIA must now abide by the APA’s new policy and immediately cease employing psychologists as part of detainee interrogations,” stated Donaghue. “The Bush Administration’s interrogation policies have inflicted grievous damage to the core principles of medical ethics and the rule of law. The APA’s statement today is a watershed moment in the fight to stop psychologists from being used to cause harm and return them to their appropriate role as healers.”

The Department of Defense is expected this month to review the operational guidance for BSCTs (Behavioral Science Consultation Teams), which use mental health professionals in detainee interrogations—an application which violates international standards of health professional ethics. PHR has led the public and behind-the-scenes effort to shut down the BSCT program.

“While today is a proud day for the APA and its membership, the APA must now act to permanently prohibit direct participation by psychologists in interrogations and to ensure those psychologists who engaged in abuse and torture are held to account,” said Donaghue. “The APA has taken a tremendous step forward but has not yet reached the ethical standards of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, organizations which have banned direct participation by physicians in all interrogations. Also, the APA has not yet specified what rights abuses would render a detention facility illegal under its new policy.”

Add comment October 2nd, 2008

APA writes President Bush: Psychologists do not belong in the illegal detention centers

In a MAJOR development today, APA President Alan Kazdin wrote President Bush to inform him of the new APA policy from the referendum passed two weeks ago:

“The effect of this new policy is to prohibit psychologists from any involvement in interrogations or any other operational procedures at detention sites that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution or international law (e.g., the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture),”

The full letter is available here.

This is a truly wonderful development! We have worked for years for this day and should all be proud. And President Kazdin deserves credit for stepping up and doing the right thing.

We have many struggles ahead of us, for investigation of the roles of psychologists in detainee abuse, for accountability, for implementing the AMA/A Psychiatric A policy removing psychologists from all detainee interrogations, and for changes within the APA to prevent a recurrence when the next crisis hits.

But today is truly a day of celebration. A few highly principled people stood up and changed history. We should be proud and the APA should be proud.

Add comment October 2nd, 2008

UK soldiers who hand prisoners to US could face legal action

In Britain they have laws against cooperating with torture:

Soldiers who hand prisoners to US could face legal action, MPs warned

By Duncan Campbell

British troops who hand over prisoners in Iraq to US military personnel could find themselves facing prosecution, according to a legal opinion compiled for parliament. The finding has led to calls for the British government to rethink its current policy and investigate how the US treats its prisoners, and whether torture is employed against them.

Earlier this year the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition sought legal opinion from Michael Fordham QC on whether a human rights violation would arise under the European convention on human rights (ECHR) and the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) if an individual in British detention in Iraq were handed over to US military personnel, “despite substantial grounds for considering that there is a real risk of that person being subjected to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment”.

The conclusion reached by Fordham and his colleague Tom Hickman is that an offence would definitely have been committed. If acted on, the opinion could mean that UK troops would not be allowed to “render” detainees to the US military until it was clear that they would no longer face the possibility of torture or ill-treatment.

What prompted the inquiry was a statement made in February this year by Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier who was on active service in Iraq. In his statement, Griffin said that he was “in no doubt” that individuals handed over to the US military “would be tortured”. He cited what had happened to those detained at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram airbase and Abu Ghraib prison.

The opinion adds: “UK forces operating in Iraq are potentially also subject to UK criminal law, tort law and Iraqi law. Notably, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 makes it a criminal offence for a public official, whatever his nationality and wherever located, to commit an act of torture.”

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee which commissioned the report, said there had been a number of allegations that UK forces had been capturing people and handing them over to US authorities, knowing that these detainees were at risk of being tortured or mistreated.

“I commissioned a legal opinion to establish whether the UK acted unlawfully when they were handed over,” said Tyrie. “I now have the answer. The UK remains legally responsible for the subsequent treatment of anybody who has been detained by the UK. It is likely that British policy on this area is not only ethically questionable but is also unlawful. The government now needs to radically rethink its policy on this issue.”

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal action charity Reprieve, also welcomed the findings. “We are delighted that the all-party parliamentary group has recognised the illegality of British troops handing over prisoners to US custody in Iraq, ” he said. “These prisoners promptly disappear into an unaccountable prison network in which over 20,000 prisoners are held for illegal interrogation and torture. If it is confirmed that this has been happening, the British government must immediately reveal how many people have been handed over, where they are now, and what has been done to them.”

Paul Marsh, president of the Law Society, called on the government to investigate what happens to prisoners rendered from British custody. “Extraordinary rendition has been used by some states as a means of bypassing the formal justice system,” said Marsh. “To do so is a breach of the rule of law and puts individuals at risk of ill-treatment. The Law Society calls on the UK government to look beyond assurances from other countries and positively investigate and monitor whether individuals rendered from British custody are receiving equivalent standards of due process. It is time we returned to our values in the rule of law.”

Add comment September 29th, 2008

NPR: Psychiatrists protest Pentagon interrogations

NPR’s Morning Edition this morning had a story by Richard Knox on protests by the American Psychiatric Association [yes, the psychiatrists this time, not psychologists] protesting continued use by the Defense Department of psychiatrists for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams [BSCTs] consulting on detainee interrogations.The take home quote by current American Psychiatric Association President Nada L. Stotland is:

Stotland says the controversy is not “just about a rule.”

“This is about the soul of a psychiatrist, which is to be dedicated to helping people and healing people,” she says. “And in order to do that, we need to get and we need to deserve their trust.”
Gates has not yet replied, but a Pentagon spokesman says a response will be forthcoming.
Military officials say people have misconceptions about the way interrogations are currently done.

If only some leader of the American Psychological Association could speak so clearly and passionately about the soul of psychology. If we elect Steven Reisner APA President this fall, we will at last have such a leader.

The comments by the Pentagon spokesperson have a warning for us psychologists as we struggle over the exact meaning and implementation of the referendum that was approved by 59% of the American Psychological Association membership. If we do not make the referendum an enforceable part of the ethics code, the Pentgon will feel free to ignore it, if they choose:

Ritchie says the Army did not consider the psychiatric association’s 2006 policy statement to be an ethical guideline.

The other important point here is that DoD is listening to what our professional associations are saying:

In fact, military officials are going back to the drawing board. The Army’s 2006 policy memo on the role of “behavioral consultants” expires Oct. 20. Ritchie says work has begun on a new policy. She says it will take the current controversy into account.

You can listen to the report here. Here is the accompanying article on the NPR web site, which is close to, but not identical to a transcript:

Psychiatrists Protest Pentagon Interrogations

by Richard Knox

Morning Edition, National Public Radio, September 26, 2008 ·

The nation’s leading organization of psychiatrists says the Pentagon has reneged on an agreement not to use psychiatrists in interrogations of detainees at Guantanamo and other detention sites.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Dr. Nada L. Stotland, president of the American Psychiatric Association, says, “The use of psychiatrists to aid in interrogations is a serious violation of medical ethics and should be discontinued.”A Pentagon spokeswoman said the Pentagon’s rules on the use of psychiatrists, psychologists and other “behavioral science consultants” does not violate professional ethical guidelines set out by the APA and other organizations.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have been involved in the interrogation of detainees for years. Their participation has generated strong feelings among mental health professionals, lawyers and ethicists.

The controversy is coming to a head. Last week, the American Psychological Association also weighed in on the issue, announcing the results of an unprecedented referendum on the issue: Nearly 60 percent of voting members said psychologists should not serve at detention centers at all. The only exceptions are psychologists who work directly for a detainee or a humanitarian agency.

The issue is whether it’s ethically proper for mental health professionals, who vow to do no harm, to be instruments of interrogation.

Neither professional group can tell the Pentagon what to do. And the only direct power the associations have over psychiatrists and psychologists lies in being able to kick them out if they violate policies. But professionals’ livelihoods could be in jeopardy if state licensure boards were to find they violated ethical rules.

The American Psychiatric Association’s policy stems from a visit Dr. Steven Sharfstein made to Guantanamo in October 2005, when he was president of the group.

Sharfstein says he was disturbed to see what mental health professionals actually did there. He says they were advising interrogators as detainees were being questioned.

“They had headsets and microphones, and would be talking to (interrogators) as the interrogators were talking to the detainees,” Sharfstein says. “I just had lots of problems with the whole process.”

When he got home, Sharfstein resolved to get his association to oppose psychiatrists’ participation in interrogations. After a contentious debate, the association adopted that policy in 2006.

The association’s current president, Stotland, says the group thought it had an understanding with the Pentagon back then that it would stop using psychiatrists in interrogations. Then she read the Sept. 11 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

It contained a report by ethicists Jonathan Marks and Gregg Bloche, who obtained Pentagon documents through the federal Freedom of Information Act. The documents showed that the Army has continued to train some psychiatrists as behavioral science consultants.

The researchers also obtained — and the New England Journal published — a 26-page Army policy memo that states, among other things, that behavioral consultants are expected to do psychological profiles of detainees and identify their vulnerabilities as interrogations proceed.

She complained to Gates in the letter she sent Sept. 12. “Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association have taken official positions opposing the participation of psychiatrists in interrogation,” she wrote. “We understood that the U.S. military had acknowledged those policies. Has the military’s position changed?”

In an interview with NPR, Stotland says the controversy is not “just about a rule.”

“This is about the soul of a psychiatrist, which is to be dedicated to helping people and healing people,” she says. “And in order to do that, we need to get and we need to deserve their trust.”

Gates has not yet replied, but a Pentagon spokesman says a response will be forthcoming.

Military officials say people have misconceptions about the way interrogations are currently done.

Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a psychiatrist with the Army, says that at the beginning of the war on terror, there was misunderstanding of “what the rules were” for interrogations. “We don’t try to defend (that),” she says.

But abusive interrogations are in the past, military officials say.

“Interrogations are not abusive,” says Dr. Jack Smith, who works in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. “Anyone reading what’s been published in magazines and even some medical journals would begin to feel that, by definition, interrogation is abuse. And I think that is not correct.”

Pentagon officials say the presence of psychologists and psychiatrists prevent what they call “behavioral drift” — the erosion of ethical norms that they say can spiral into a situation like Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq where detainees were abused by some U.S. troops.

Ritchie says the Army did not consider the psychiatric association’s 2006 policy statement to be an ethical guideline.

“We appreciate their position, and we’ve listened to it and discussed it intensively,” she says. “But it is important to remember that information obtained from interrogation has been used, for example, to discover weapons caches in Iraq, and therefore has saved the lives of both Americans and Iraqis.”

The new challenges to the participation of psychologists and psychiatrists in military interrogations may have consequences.

“If they took these position statements seriously, they would have to stop using psychologists and psychiatrists as advisers on individual interrogations,” says Marks, a Pennsylvania State University lawyer-ethicist who co-wrote the New England Journal article.

“They would have to go back to the drawing board and seriously consider how they’re going to conduct interrogations,” Marks adds.

In fact, military officials are going back to the drawing board. The Army’s 2006 policy memo on the role of “behavioral consultants” expires Oct. 20. Ritchie says work has begun on a new policy. She says it will take the current controversy into account.

1 comment September 26th, 2008

Another Guantanamo prosecutor quits, citing ethics worries

The prosecutor of Mohammed Jawad has now joined several other Guantanamo prosecutors in resigning because of concerns about the unethical behavior of the prosecution. Evidently they are still withholding information vital to the defense. Given the materials already, albeit grudgingly,:released, one can only assume that the material being withheld is horrific and seriously damaging to the entire Guanatanmo project:

Guantanamo Prosecutor Quits, Says Evidence Was Withheld

By Peter Finn

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Sept. 25 — A military prosecutor involved in war crimes cases here has quit his position, citing ethical concerns about his office’s failure to turn over exculpatory material to attorneys for an Afghan detainee scheduled to go to trial in December.

Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a reservist, who declined to be interviewed, filed a declaration with a military court here Wednesday, laying out his concerns about the case and procedures in the military prosecutor’s office, according to defense attorneys.

“My ethical qualms about continuing to serve as a prosecutor relate primarily to the procedures for affording defense counsel discovery,” wrote Vandeveld in his filing. “I am highly concerned, to the point that I believe I can no longer serve as a prosecutor at the Commissions, about the slipshod, uncertain ‘procedure’ for affording defense counsel discovery.”

Vandeveld’s departure is the latest blow to the military trials process and a prosecutor’s office that has been buffeted by resignations over issues of fairness. Other officials have alleged that the leadership of the military commissions is sacrificing principles of justice in a rush to secure convictions.

Vandeveld was prosecuting Mohammed Jawad, 24, who is accused of tossing a grenade into a military jeep at a bazaar in Kabul in 2002, injuring two U.S. troops and their Afghan interpreter.

“I believe [Vandeveld's] view is that there is a systematic problem with the discovery process,” said Air Force Maj. David Frakt, Jawad’s military attorney, referring to the prosecution’s obligation under the law to turn over material to the defense even if it damages the prosecution’s case. “He decided he could no longer ethically serve on this case, or generally.”

Frakt said that Vandeveld wanted to reach a plea agreement that would allow Jawad, who was 16 or 17 at the time of the attack, to be released in the very near future. Frakt said there were serious questions about Jawad’s guilt and that the government failed to investigate two other Afghans who he said admitted to Afghan police to having roles in the attack.

Frakt, speaking to reporters here, said he would seek to have the case dismissed because of “gross government misconduct.”

The chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, declined to discuss any potential plea agreement. He said Vandeveld resigned because he is “disappointed” his superiors “didn’t see the wisdom of his recommendations.”

“There are no grounds for ethical qualms,” Morris said in a conference call with reporters here. “We are the most scrupulous organization you can imagine in terms of disclosure to the defense.”

A Pentagon official, Brig. Gen Thomas W. Hartmann, was ordered by a military court to have no further involvement in the Jawad case last month. Hartmann was the legal adviser to the Convening Authority, a Pentagon office that is required to exercise a neutral role in the running of the military commissions.

The defense alleged that Hartmann wanted Jawad prosecuted for political and public relations purposes. And the judge found that Hartmann had compromised his objectivity.

Hartmann did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Word of Vandeveld’s resignation came on the same day that a military judge rejected a formal motion by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described operational mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to disqualify himself because of bias and the possibility that his upcoming retirement could disrupt the process.

“It is clear you are retiring before [the trial] is completed,” Mohammed told Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann, the presiding judge, at a hearing earlier Wednesday, arguing that Kohlmann might inappropriately rush the proceedings. Three of the five defendants in the case, including Mohammed, are representing themselves with the assistance of military and civilian attorneys.

Kohlmann said Mohammed’s claims were “completely wrong” and briskly rejected each argument offered as a basis for disqualification.

Kohlmann told the court during a hearing this week on his impartiality that he is scheduled to retire April 1 and has lined up a new job. Defense attorneys said that factoring in unused leave time, Kohlmann could be gone as early as mid-January.

Kohlmann, who is responsible for appointing judges to cases here, selected himself for the trial, the most-watched proceeding at Guantanamo Bay.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. James E. Hatcher, the lead military attorney for defendant Tawfiq bin Attash, said that if a new judge is appointed, a new round of pretrial hearings would be required and the new judge would be forced to reexamine earlier rulings.

That could set back a process that still lacks a trial date and promises to be protracted.

The loquacious Mohammed, as he does on most days, took the lead in speaking for the other four defendants, all of whom face the death penalty if convicted on various murder and war crimes charges.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has confirmed that Mohammed was subject to waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, among other tactics when he was held by the intelligence agency. But the Bush administration has argued that the coercive interrogation techniques it sanctioned did not amount to torture.

Defense attorneys said they will seek to exclude from trial all evidence extrac

Add comment September 25th, 2008

Andrew Sullivan on APA referendum victory

Know Hope is Andrew Sullivan’s headline for his brief posting on the amazing American Psychological Association referendum victory. Since news come out of our 59% vote for removing psychologists from the detention centers, we have received emails from around the world expressing sentiments like that. “Finally some good news from the U.S.” said one. “You have literally saved our profession” said another.

Let’s hope our victory is a harbinger of many victories to come by psychologists, and by all of us, , on this and other issues.

Add comment September 20th, 2008

Associated Press on referendum victory

Associated Press on referendum victory:

Psychologists vote against role in interrogation

By LINDSEY TANNER - Associated Press

The nation’s leading psychologists’ association has voted to ban its members from taking part in interrogations at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other military detention sites where it believes international law is being violated.

The ban means those who are American Psychological Association members can’t assist the U.S. military at these sites. They can only work there for humanitarian purposes or with non-governmental groups, according to Stephen Soldz, a Boston psychologist. Soldz is founder of an ethics coalition that has long supported the ban.

“This is a repudiation by the membership of a policy that has been doggedly pursued by APA leadership for year after year,” Soldz said Thursday. “The membership has now spoken and it’s now incumbent upon APA to immediately implement this.”

The new policy should take effect at the association’s next annual meeting in August 2009. However, its council likely will discuss whether to act sooner, said spokeswoman Rhea Farberman.

The interrogation ban brings the psychologists more in line with the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association. In 2005, the psychologists association adopted a position that said, for national security purposes, it was ethical to act as consultants for interrogation and information-gathering.

Psychologists have been involved in decisions that approve of coercion methods, including “taking away comfort items like clothes and toilet paper from detainees” to help extract information from them, Soldz said.

He said that some even declined to diagnose post-traumatic stress in detainees because that would suggest detainees had been abused or harmed while in custody.

The group has no real power to enforce its new policy, although its council is expected to discuss whether to recommend the ban become part of its ethics code. That would mean a violator’s membership could be revoked, Farberman said,

Yale University psychologist Alan Kazdin, the group’s president, said the policy “will have teeth.”

“The organization will be disseminating our position to Congress and to other leaders and make it very clear what psychologists cannot do as part of our policy,” he said.

Add comment September 18th, 2008

New York Times on referendum victory

New York Times on referendum victory:

Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations

By BENEDICT CAREY

Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency overseas, the association said on Wednesday.

The vote, 8,792 to 6,157 in a mail-in balloting concluded Monday, may help to settle a long debate within the profession over the ethics of such work. Psychologists have helped military and C.I.A. interrogators evaluate detainees, plan questioning strategy and judge its psychological costs. The association’s ethics code, while condemning a list of coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, has allowed some consultation “for national security-related purposes.”

The referendum, first posted on the Internet as a petition in May, prohibits psychologists from working in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution, where appropriate,” unless they represent a detainee or an independent third party. The association’s bylaws require that it institute the policy at the next annual meeting, in August 2009.

“The good part of this is that the membership has spoken, the process worked, and we’re going to follow it,” said Alan E. Kazdin, the association’s president and a psychologist at Yale University. “Will everyone be happy? Well, it’s a typical human enterprise, and there are nuanced positions on both sides. So, we’ll see.”

Steven Reisner, a New York psychoanalyst running for the association presidency on the issue, called the vote “fabulous news.”

“The membership has sent a strong message to the leadership of the association that it wants to see this ethical prohibition as policy,” Dr. Reisner said, “and now it has to be policy.”

He added that the association should add the ban to its ethics code immediately and work out details of its enactment in the coming months. “This is a major step, but it’s a first step,” he said.

Like other professional groups, the association has little direct authority to restrict members’ ability to practice. But state licensing boards that can suspend or revoke a psychologist’s license often take violations of the association’s code into consideration.

Many military and civilian psychologists have resisted a prohibition, arguing that consultants provide some accountability, making sure that questioning does not become abusive, for example. The association, these experts contend, should focus on the behavior of individual psychologists, rather than abandon the work altogether.

Add comment September 18th, 2008

New York Sun on referendum victory

New York Sun on referendum victory:

Psychology Group Changes Policy on Interrogations

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the New York Sun | September 18, 2008

In a dramatic turnaround that could strain the long-standing ties between the psychology profession and the military, the American Psychological Association has reversed its policy of encouraging members to assist in the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other overseas prison sites.

The professional association’s new policy, which was reached by a referendum, goes beyond telling members, even those who are military personnel, that it is off-limits to participate in interrogations at detention centers abroad. Members would be prohibited from working at such sites in any capacity that directly assists the government. The prohibition would apply to psychologists who work as psychological profilers or even as clinicians who treat detainees as mental health patients.

“This goes beyond interrogations,” a Boston psychologist who has sought to change the APA’s position, Stephen Soldz, said. “The thought is that if you are there and a part of the military chain of command, then you are part of the system.”

The new policy represents “a significant change” in the association’s policy on the involvement of psychologists in interrogations, the association said in a statement. A spokeswoman, Rhea Faberman, declined to make any officers at the APA available for comment. According to the bylaws of the APA, the policy does not go into effect for another year.

Previously the APA has generally encouraged a policy of “engagement” - or involvement in national security interrogations - for the purpose of stopping “interrogations that cross the bounds of ethical propriety,” as the director of the APA’s ethics office, Stephen Behnke, wrote in a letter earlier this year. APA officials also had encouraged engagement in the interrogation process by psychologists, on the grounds that psychologists have expertise to lend and ought to assist in the country’s anti-terrorism efforts.

The APA had already banned its members from participating in any of 19 interrogation techniques, including the use of hoods, forced nakedness, and waterboarding.

Since June 2006, the Defense Department has relied increasingly on psychologists to staff the behavioral science consultation teams, which advise interrogators on how to attempt to elicit information from detainees. Before then, psychiatrists had participated on such teams, but the Defense Department announced it would increase its reliance on psychologists after the American Psychiatric Association began a policy of instructing its members not to participate.

The role that psychologists played in advising interrogators is not well-documented but is increasingly coming under scrutiny. During a court proceeding at Guantanamo last month, lawyers informed the court that a military psychologist would invoke her right under the military’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment, were she called as a witness. At issue was the psychologist’s role in devising the conditions of detention and the tactics of the interrogation of a detainee facing war crimes charges, Mohammad Jawad. The detainee’s attorney, Major David Frakt, claims in court papers that the psychologist advised that Mr. Jawad be put under extremely isolating conditions and that interrogators exploit his concerns about his family.

While not all licensed psychologists are members of the APA, a majority are, according to information provided by the association. The APA’s military psychology group has 442 members, although it was not clear whether all of those were uniformed military personnel. Because the APA can conduct investigations against its members for violating APA ethics codes and forwards any adverse findings on to state psychologist licensing boards, the new policy goes far beyond a statement of principles.

It is unclear how the military will respond to the APA’s new policy and whether it will remove psychologists from teams that advise interrogators. The new policy also would apply to any detention sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency, but would allow psychologists to be present at such sites if they were employed by an “independent third party working to protect human rights,” such as the Red Cross.

The measure could put pressure on military psychologists involved in detainee programs to seek other work.

“These people are going to want to go back into the civilian work force some day,” Dr. Soldz said. “This will make it harder for the military to recruit psychologists, if the military asks them to do things that are unprofessional.”

The new policy was decided by a vote put to the 90,000 members of the APA’s voting membership. Of about 15,000 members who returned ballots, 59% voted for the resolution and 41% against.

The chief executive officer of the group Physicians for Human Rights, Frank Donaghue, said the vote was a “blow against medical complicity in torture.”

The text of the resolution states, in part, that “psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law or the US Constitution.” Because the conditions at prisons in America are occasionally found, during the course of a civil rights lawsuit, to violate the Constitution, a strict reading of the new policy would suggest that APA members could not work in such facilities.

Add comment September 18th, 2008