harsh interrogation

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CIA Psychologists to Face Waterboarded Defendants

James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen must testify in a pretrial hearing in 9/11 case

(Newser) - The trial of five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks doesn't begin until next year, notes NPR . But a crucial pretrial hearing gets underway this week featuring the two psychologists who designed the harsh interrogation techniques, roundly described as torture, used by the CIA to elicit statements. James...

Psychologists: We Won't Help With Interrogations

Major group bans participation after Bush-era controversy

(Newser) - The nation's biggest group of psychologists is done helping the US conduct interrogations. The American Psychological Association yesterday banned any more assistance after scathing criticism of its actions during the Bush-era interrogations overseas, reports NPR . Among other things, the group was accused of helping the administration justify sessions that...

Report: Psych Group Helped Bush Justify Torture

APA propped up Bush administration's interrogation program, critics say

(Newser) - The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA prisoner torture caused a massive stir in December, and now that pot is boiling over once more. A report by a group of what the New York Times calls "dissident health professionals and human rights activists" claims that the American Psychological...

NYT: Obama Must Prosecute CIA Torture

'Looking forward' no excuse for lack of accountability: editorial

(Newser) - The Senate report on CIA torture has revealed both despicable acts and a "fabricat(ed) legal foundation" for them, and it's time for those responsible to be held accountable, the New York Times editorial board writes. "No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in...

Torture Report's Footnotes Alone Are Frightening

One detainee may have been simply in 'wrong place at wrong time'

(Newser) - If you don't have time to read the 528-page summary of the Senate's findings on interrogation techniques , you can get a sense of its revelations just by reading the footnotes, Vocativ reports. The site offers material from just the first 200 of the report's 38,000 footnotes:...

Torture Report: The 13 Key Techniques

Waterboarding, 180-hour sleep deprivation among them

(Newser) - The Senate's newly released report on "enhanced interrogation" points to 13 different techniques used against detainees. They appear in a Justice Department memo to the CIA from May 2005, and the AP recounts them:
  1. Abdominal Slap: The interrogator slaps the detainee's belly with the back of his
...

Psychologists Were Paid $81M to Devise CIA Tortures

Air Force retirees had never carried out real interrogation

(Newser) - A pair of retired Air Force psychologists who had never interrogated anybody before were paid a fortune to devise the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program, according to yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee report . The psychologists—identified in earlier reports as Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen—helped develop interrogation techniques...

Report Hits Hard at CIA's 'Brutal,' Ineffective Torture

Senate report says spy agency actively misled White House, Congress

(Newser) - The Senate Intelligence Committee has dropped its long-awaited report on the CIA's use of torture, and it pulls no punches in its 528 pages, detailing a "brutal and far worse than the CIA represented" program that ultimately was "not an effective means of acquiring intelligence," reports...

Study: Nazi Interrogator's Unlikely Tactic May Be Best

Combining genuine friendliness with know-it-all attitude may elicit more info

(Newser) - If you need to extract useful information from someone, the best approach may be kindness, according to new research out of Sweden. Specifically, researchers compared a common, "direct" interrogation—where the questions are direct and specific—to the Scharff Technique, named after the highly successful German interrogator Hanns Scharff....

CIA Interrogation Program Saved Lives: Head
CIA Interrogation Program Saved Lives: Head
OPINION
Apr 5, 2014 3:00 PM CDT

CIA Interrogation Program Saved Lives: Head

Jose Rodriguez responds to Senate report

(Newser) - A Senate panel has voted to release a giant report slamming CIA interrogation methods, the Washington Post reported this week. But regardless of what the Senate report says, the interrogation program saved lives, its former head writes in the Post. "Unlike the committee’s staff, I don’t have...

Senators Clash With CIA Nominee Over Torture

Udall demands classified report

(Newser) - The Senate Intelligence Committee has formally requested a classified internal CIA study on its torture program, which lawmakers believe is deeply unflattering, the New York Times reports. Mark Udall revealed the existence of the report yesterday during a prickly hearing with Caroline Krass, President Obama's nominee for CIA general...

US Torture After 9/11 'Indisputable': Nonpartisan Probe

Top officials to blame, says panel

(Newser) - The news cycle might be focusing elsewhere , but a nonpartisan report out today offers a clear conclusion on US interrogation techniques following 9/11: "It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture," the report says. What's more, the highest officials are to blame...

54 Countries Aided CIA in Post-9/11 Interrogations

US helpers ranged from UK to Syria: report

(Newser) - The US was far from alone in its controversial counterterror practices after 9/11: More than a quarter of the world's countries helped the agency, a new report says. Some partners hosted secret interrogation prisons; some arrested suspects; others let the CIA refuel its planes at their airports, the New ...

Holder: We Won't Prosecute Harsh Interrogations

Attorney general closes last two cases from Afghan, Pakistan

(Newser) - It's official: The US won't level any criminal charges over harsh interrogation techniques. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday closed the final two cases involving the deaths of prisoners in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2002 and 2003, the New York Times reports. The move brings a three-year Justice department...

CIA Kept Secret Prison in Bucharest Neighborhood

AP investigation uncovers details of black site in Romania

(Newser) - The CIA's secret "black site" prison in Romania wasn't in some remote region of the country, but smack dab in the middle of a busy residential neighborhood near the center of Bucharest, the AP has discovered in a joint investigation with German public television. Sources say the...

CIA Heavily Edits FBI Agent's 9/11 Book

Cuts are due to criticism of CIA, author says

(Newser) - After the FBI submitted a former agent's 600-page memoir about the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath to the CIA, the agency responded with a 181-page list of cuts it wanted to make. Author Ali Soufan—an Arabic-speaking counterterrorism agent who played a central role in many investigations—says the...

Judge Lets Army Vet Sue Rumsfeld Over Detention

American contractor says defense sec approved his detention, torture in Iraq

(Newser) - An Army vet who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the US military in Iraq can sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages, a judge ruled yesterday. The veteran, a private contractor who worked as a Marine translator in the volatile Anbar province, says he was...

US to Investigate Deaths of Two Detainees

Holder orders pair of inquiries but drops nearly 100 others

(Newser) - The is-it-torture debate is probably going to rev up again: The Justice Department says it will launch criminal inquiries into the deaths of two detainees in US custody in 2002 and 2003, reports the Washington Post . Eric Holder gave the green light on the recommendation of federal prosecutor John Durham,...

Osama Intel Boosts Waterboarding Fans

'Enhanced' interrogation may have led to terror mastermind

(Newser) - Did waterboarding finally nail Osama bin Laden? Intelligence leading to the killing of the terror mastermind gleaned from prisoners, possibly during "enhanced" interrogation techniques, is reigniting debate about waterboarding. US officials learned the identity of bin Laden's key courrier from Guantanamo Bay inmates, and tracking that courrier led...

Al-Obeidi: I Was Interrogated for 72 Hours

Libyan who charged rape speaks to reporters after disappearance

(Newser) - A Libyan woman who accused Gadhafi loyalists of rape spoke to CNN today after going missing last week . After authorities hauled Iman al-Obeidi away from reporters, she says she was aggressively questioned for 72 hours, with interrogators tossing food at her and dumping water on her face. “They did...

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