Tag: PENS

Jul 25 2009

Expose: Former Top Navy Psychologist Involved in Pre-9/11 Prisoner Abuse Case

Crossposted from The Public Record

A well-known spokesman for ethical interrogations by psychologists in national security settings was himself accused in 2001 of unethical behavior for his part in the interrogation of a suspect in an espionage case. Dr. Michael Gelles was at the time the Chief Forensic Psychologist for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). His work on the investigation of Petty Officer Daniel King was referred for ethical violations by King’s civilian attorney, Jonathan Turley, to the Ethics Office of the American Psychological Association, who declined to follow up the charges.

Lieutenant Robert A. Bailey of the Judge Advocate’s Corps, and one of two military attorneys for Mr. King, described the interrogation techniques used on his client as “abusive” and “unconstitutional.” The conditions of King’s custody were “intrusive, threatening, and illegal… coercive and inescapable.”

Daniel King was a Petty Officer and Navy cryptanalyst who was arrested for espionage in October 1999. The cause was an inconclusive, or “no opinion” polygraph examination made after he finished his assignment in Guam and was returning to the United States. The administration of such polygraphs is routine when exiting a high-security clearance assignment. King was subsequently incarcerated for 520 days without formal charges.

Nov 12 2008

APA Advisory Group Examines New Interrogations Policy

This weekend, a little-known group will meet in Washington, D.C. It’s the American Psychological Association’s Presidential Advisory Group on the Implementation of the Petition Resolution. The petition resolution, for those who may not have known or remembered, was the fruit of a successful campaign by anti-torture activists within APA to change that organization’s policy of allowing psychologists to participate in interrogations at “war on terror” sites like Guantanamo or Baghram, which had been implicated in use of torture and human rights violations, like the use of indefinite detentions.

APA officialdom had long argued that the presence of psychologists protected the prisoners from abuse. Unfortunately for them, a wealth of documentation proved that in fact psychologists had been implicated in the organization and implementation of U.S. torture.  

Aug 06 2008

Torture Trial Ends: Reflections on the Hamdan Verdict

Osama bin Laden's personal driver and bodyguard, who made the magisterial sum of $200 per month, 34-year-old Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was held years without charges at Guantanamo Naval Base prison, has just been found guilty of lesser charges in the first of a series of planned “military commission” trials by the Bush Administration. Comprehensive news coverage of the Hamdan trial can be found at the Miami Herald.

Hamdan was found not guilty on two counts of conspiracy to foment terrorism in league with Al Qaeda. He was found guilty on five of eight charges of providing material support to terrorists. He has yet to be sentenced, and faces possible life imprisonment. In any case, the Bush Administration has already said that whatever the verdict or sentence, no “enemy combatant” will be released until the “war on terror” is over, i.e., until hell freezes over.

Feb 10 2008

A Tale of Two Letters, or On Moral Courage and Moral Cowardice

Kenneth S. Pope, Ph.D., a distinguished psychological researcher, and former Ethics chair for the American Psychological Association, as well as a recipient of the APA Distinguished Contribution to Psychology Award, has resigned from APA. He argues that in the post-9/11 environment, APA has changed its ethical stance in a way that distorts the principles of ethical psychological practice. In particular, he singles out APA’s stance toward the treatment of detainees in Bush’s “war on terror” prisons.

The letter is published at Counterpunch and at his own website, and is reproduced below, followed by another letter, from APA’s President and Chief Executive Officer to Attorney General Mukasey. Both are printed in juxtaposition here, as they offer an interesting contrast in emphases. First, Dr. Pope: Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association.