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Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and practice of interrogation

290 points by snthd 9y ago

danhess68 9y ago
Remember your training. STFU. Name, rank, serial number. @retard mods jumping to conclusions: US Army manual dickheads.
andrewl 9y ago
The Atlantic had a good article on this back in 2003: The Dark Art of Interrogation https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dar...
MaxBarraclough 9y ago
What a hopelessly uninformative title. It's not even taken from the article, which has a far better title. All scientists are in the business of extracting truth, no?
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> The suspect, who had a criminal history, had posted messages on social media in support of violent jihad. In a search of his residence, the police had found a bag containing a hammer, a kitchen knife and a map with the location of a nearby army barracks. I'll be honest, I kind of wish the police hadn't stopped him, because I would love to read a report of how this Mister Bean plan would have worked out for him.
- theoh 9y ago
  Hmmm, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby
- george_morgan 9y ago
  Well, soldiers aren't super human so I'm glad they did. (Echoes of Lee Rigby...)
- elorant 9y ago
  You're assuming that he intended to invade the camp. But all he could do was to wait a safe distant outside and just stab an unsuspected soldier who was off duty. It's not like every person serving in the army is a special forces officer who's in alarm 24/7.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    It's also important to note that, unlike the movies, most bases don't actually have a lot of people walking around armed. Combat gear is stowed and firearms are in the armory under lock and key. Most jobs don't actually require carrying a weapon while on duty. Even those that do need some sort of weapon don't require such at all times. The only time I regularly carried a weapon was when I was a transportation officer/chaser. I carried a .45 and a 12ga and only when I was performing duties that required such, namely while actively participating in the transfer of detainees. Keep in mind that my first four years was in the infantry and included combat. I probably carried a weapon a smaller percentage of the time with that MOS than I did while working at the brig.
21893120975 9y ago
Actually good article, especially with the disgusting reports about the torturer pseudoscientists that the CIA contracted for their walling and sensory deprecation torture techniques
mistermann 9y ago
The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and eventually his bosses replace him. When the new interviewer takes a seat, Diola repeats his promise to talk “openly and honestly” to the right person, and resumes his inquisitorial stance. “Why are you asking me these questions?” he says. “Think carefully about your reasons.” The new interviewer does not answer directly, but something about his opening speech triggers a change in Diola’s demeanour. “On the day we arrested you,” he began, “I believe that you had the intention of killing a British soldier or police officer. I don’t know the details of what happened, why you may have felt it needed to happen, or what you wanted to achieve by doing this. Only you know these things Diola. If you are willing, you’ll tell me, and if you’re not, you won’t. I can’t force you to tell me – I don’t want to force you. I’d like you to help me understand. Would you tell me about what happened?” The interviewer opens up his notebook, and shows Diola the empty pages. “You see? I don’t even have a list of questions.” “That is beautiful,” Diola says. “Because you have treated me with consideration and respect, yes I will tell you now. But only to help you understand what is really happening in this country.” This reinforces my belief that there is a sincere, rational (whether you agree or not) reasoned motivation for terrorist attacks, at least in some cases. We in the West just aren't interested in listening to those who we don't agree with.
- gadders 9y ago
  I'm sure there is, in their eyes. But if the price of compliance with it is unacceptable, that doesn't move us any further forward.
  - nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
    Making an effort to understand in no way implies moving in the direction of compliance.
  - brazzy 9y ago
    Understanding someone's motivation has nothing to do with compliance, unless you've already made up your mind that the other side is a comic book villain and their motivation is to be evil for evil's sake. In reality, understanding someone's motivation can lead you to discover factors that influence it which you can change without doing anything unacceptable or even detrimental to you.
theothermkn 9y ago
If you look at a presidential election as a negotiation between the political class and the electorate, or at the most recent one as an election that became a negotiation or interrogation, then the Trump voters who went for him as a “fuck you” to the system are better understood in this framework. So are the Clinton voters who reportedly stayed home. They felt victimized by the system, like their vote was a bargaining chip that the political class wanted to manipulate them into casting, and not a token to use to communicate their needs to their supposed representatives. Clinton’s and her supporters’ hectoring about being the lesser of two evils (voter-blaming, the Bernie Bro smear, and not-really-a-progressive who gets things done come to mind) suddenly seem especially inept. The bad news is that the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain for voters, which will continue to be reciprocated. The good news is that even Bernie could come up with a message that resonated enough to get as far as he did with as few connections as he had. Someone else could do the same.
- emeraldd 9y ago
  Your analysis is on point. Both Bernie and our the President gave the impression of putting everything on the table. However true or false the reality of that was didn't seem matter nearly as much as making people "feel" as though they were being completely frank with people. Which seems to fit quite well with what the article is talking about.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I think that's a bit of a stretch.
  - kevmo 9y ago
    It is a little bit of a stretch, but not so much of one that it is not a useful mental model. I talked to 1000s of people from many different walks of life about that election from 2014-2016 - top comment accurately describes how most middle and lower class people (i.e. the vast majority of America) felt about that election and their choices.
  - Meditato 9y ago
    It describes me perfectly. After being cheated by the DNC, I didn't vote for them as a "fuck you". I will continue to do this, possibly even vote for the opposition, for as long as you continue to treat me with disdain. And thinking that this is a bit of a stretch is the disdain that I'm talking about.
Bromskloss 9y ago
Well, what was Diola's reasons? I would have loved to be his interrogator! I would have let it take days of him explaining his views to me, if that's what it would have taken. I want to know!
- throw-away-8 9y ago
  Yeah, it's like debugging a particularly bad kernel bug in a convoluted spaghetti coded OEM driver.
mordae 9y ago
The truly sad thing is that all these interviews actually go to waste. Their only point is to prove the interviewee guilty, try and then punish them. I imagine that they have something to tell, time to time, about the reasons why they did what they did and comment on the state of the society. And I don't believe that we gather the findings and then communicate them back to the policy makers so that we are actually able to heal the society.
- dash2 9y ago
  First, a key reason for police interviews is to find people's associates, roll up terrorist networks and prevent future crimes. Second, I find it odd that you think putting killers in jail is "a waste". Should we just let them go and have another try? Last, you assume that these individuals murder innocent people because they have some valid point about society, which policy-makers need to learn and act upon. What point would that be?
- ejk314 9y ago
  You mean they might be committing acts of violence in the pursuit of political aims? You mean 'terrorism'? Should we really validate terrorism as a means of political protest? I mean, there is an argument to be made there. If people are lashing out violently, they've probably run out of non-violent options and that's something that should be addressed. But I think it sets a horrible precedent to allow violence to shape political discussion.
  - gasbag 9y ago
    Violence always shapes political discussion. When someone commits a terrorist act, there must always be a decision made on how to respond to it. Understanding what drives a terrorist does not necessarily negate any punishment for the act of terror. It does give you the opportunity to decide whether the grievance that led them to act is one that you agree is legitimate, or if not, perhaps it is one that you want to address anyway in the interest of lowering the risk of other terrorist acts. All of this can be done without excusing in any way the act itself.
pacaro 9y ago
The parallels with interviewing engineers are pretty clear to me, there is so much more information exchanged when interviewer and candidate work together than when the interviewer is confrontational and has a “prove that you’re good enough” approach.
eternalban 9y ago
Torture is a form of terror and generally used for its side effect on a target population. Terror as a form of psychological deterrent. Guardian kindly reframes it as a quest for "truth" complete with cartoon plot of knife and map in kitchen. "Extracting truth" ? http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progres...
- pessimizer 9y ago
  It's where we conveniently ignore the fact that we torture people who we have no reason to suspect know anything.
- scrumper 9y ago
  The article dismisses torture almost immediately, and talks extensively about how being curious and open produces vastly better results than any other style of interrogation.
petra 9y ago
It's definetly interesting, but if this was the secret behind something as important, would it be published ? Why ? '
c3534l 9y ago
> he later became the first military officer to speak out against such practices. He did so not just because he thought they were wrong, but because he thought they were stupid. You know, just in case you were tempted to think he was a morally decent human being. I still can't believe how casually people talk about one of the shameful human rights abuses in recent history as if torturing a person would still be okay if worked.
- unfamiliar 9y ago
  Well, it depends on your moral framework. If torturing someone could potentially save hundreds of lives then it could quite easily be argued for.
  - asfdsfggtfd 9y ago
    Only if you live in a moral vacuum. EDIT: Most of the moral decisions western society has taken about how we show act are on the principles of first doing no harm and respecting the rights of the individual. This ranges from medicine to the principle of innocent until proven guilty and using the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. By torturing someone you are defying almost every moral decision societies have ever made. EDIT AGAIN: Wow just wow. Heavy heavy downvoting for speaking against normalization of torture. Please explain yourselves?
    - Smaug123 9y ago
      Or you're one of many varieties of utilitarian.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. It's only logical. The think about morality is that everyone can have their own, or none at all. Not everyone is bound to value the welfare and freedoms of others as highly as they value their own. And the same goes on the tribal level--not everyone values Them as highly as Us. You can create any number of moral structures that would allow for torture that still do not allow for indiscriminate violence.
whack 9y ago
I've heard many times that "torture doesn't work" but I never understood how or why. In my naive mind, if someone pulls out my fingernail and threatens to pull out more if I don't talk, I doubt I would have the courage or resilience to stay silent and take the torture.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  And if you didn't know anything, would you sit there and keep losing fingernails, or tell them what they want to hear?
- Sevrene 9y ago
  The problem is that someone will tell you anything to stop you from pulling out their nails, so you can get a lot of really incorrect information.
- mankyd 9y ago
  Part of the problem is not that you would hide the truth, but that you would make up lies just to appease your interrogator. You want the torture to stop; the torturer doesn't know when to stop. They'll keep hurting you until they think you've told them everything, even if you already have.
- elevensies 9y ago
  It depends what your goal is. If you're trying to get a specific person to say a certain thing, then it works well. If I wanted you to confess to a conspiracy with my political enemies so I could execute them, the fingernail removal strategy works fine. If you're trying to figure out the truth in a fluid and confusing environment, then it doesn't work well because it motivates the victim to do whatever they can do to end the conversation as quickly as possible.
- 55555 9y ago
  Exactly! If someone pulls off my fingernails one by one, and I know the answer to the question they are asking, I will absolutely divulge the answer... Torture obviously works. It just also creates a lot of false information from people who don't know the answer and will say anything to make the torture stop. But that's much more nuanced and quite different from the refrain we constantly hear that "torture doesn't work."
AlexCoventry 9y ago
OK... How did they measure "rapport"? The most important relationship he measured was between “yield” – information elicited from the suspect – and “rapport” – the quality of the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. For the first time, a secure, empirical basis was established for what had, until then, been something between a hypothesis and an insider secret: rapport is the closest thing interrogators have to a truth serum. Above all, rapport, in the sense used by the Alisons, describes an authentic human connection. “You’ve got to mean it,” is one of Laurence’s refrains.
bitL 9y ago
So a good cop. After this article was published I am sure this is going to work well in the future...
rlpb 9y ago
"The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and eventually his bosses replace him." For all we know, the first interviewer was key in setting up Diola's mood such that the second interviewer would be a relief to him, leading to him opening up.
- neves 9y ago
  The very old tatic of "good cop"/"bad cop"
ilitirit 9y ago
To me - and this is completely anecdotal - is that there usually seems to be 3 criteria that strangers look for before they open up. They are somewhat overlapping, at least in the way that you can use these them to your advantage: Empathy; being impressionable; appearing weak/ignorant in one or more aspects relating to the topic. So, you don't ask what they did or why they did it. You ask about topics that they may have led them to doing something that they did. Better still, don't ask. Lead the conversation in a way that will make the question will seem more natural. Then you respond with something like: "Wow! How on Earth did you handle that? (Impressionable) If that were me (Empathy) I would have [something outlandish]!!! (Weakness/Ignorance)". So now you seem relateable, and somewhat flawed, even moreso than they themselves. Often, they will try to "teach" you about why your reaction is bad, and what a better reaction would be - often with a "real life" scenario as an example. "Aaah! That's pretty smart! (Impressionable) But I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it as well as that (Weakness)" From here they feel they are in a position of power. Especially if you seem more impressed by some more arbitrary aspect, than concerned about the more obvious implications (Weakness/Ignorance). They often open up more about other things they've done, which may or not be related to the original question. But you're still gaining their trust. Eventually you subtly stopped being impressed by what they are saying. And this is just by body language, not words. Your eyes don't light up when they are "expected" to (Impressionable). You don't smile wryly before they end their sentences as if to say you know you know where it's heading (Empathy). The other person starts thinking: "Why is he/she impressed any more? Is it because they're really that ignorant? Or maybe what I'm saying isn't really that impressive to them? Perhaps I should fill in more details, and maybe I'll tell about some other thing I did" Now I'm not saying this will work interviewing terrorists/criminals. But this has been my own experience for as long as I can remember. People tend to tell me their darkest secrets (even without me asking) within about 30 minutes of meeting me for the first time, especially when alcohol is involved. I rarely ask directly. People just end up telling me things.
twoquestions 9y ago
Horrifyingly enough, extracting the truth isn't always the point of these interrogations. In conversations with my friends about this (when I can hold my composure well enough), the main objective of "enhanced interrogation" is to terrify the target population into compliance, or failing that extract bloody satisfaction on the victim. Not like this is without precedent, Vlad the Impaler is named for his negotiation tactics, and the Roman Empire would on occasion react to a lawbreaker by murdering the city, crucifying the entire population. Modern Westerners (to our credit) don't have the stomach for such shocking brutality anymore, but I don't believe this vicious urge has completely gone away.
- sesqu 9y ago
  Or you know, throwing people into prison for manslaughter or drug possession. The thing is, that only works in fairly narrow circumstances, but is a common strategy regardless.
13of40 9y ago
There's no mention in the article of how likely or unlikely this technique is to produce false confessions when innocent people are interviewed. People do like to talk, and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more apt to say something stupid.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  > and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more apt to say something stupid. Huh? That's the exact opposite of what the article was conveying. Trying to intimidate or force people to talk gets them to just say whatever to make the intimidation stop.
e12e 9y ago
> “The last time the US government invested in studying interrogation was 1956,” Steven Kleinman, who works with the HIG, told me. “Great leaps forward in behaviour science have just passed us by,” he said. “Imagine using 1956 technology for signals intelligence!” Seems odd the article doesn't mention the nazi interrogator Hanns Scharff[h], who was invited to talk in the US after ww2, at all - as the scientist seem to be rediscovering his approach. Although doing some actual research to document what works is good, obviously.... [h] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff
tedmc 9y ago
Before you debate torture, consider what has been done in your name already. Torture is wrong. We should not do it. If you wouldn't want it done to an innocent person, because eventually our faulty systems will scoop up an innocent. "In November 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to the floor died, apparently from hypothermia." https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-t...
- SilasX 9y ago
  I don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. Should I oppose all imprisonment, since it will eventually happen? (I think a better standard for categorically ruling out a tactic/punishment/procedure is "would I want this on my worst enemy/Adolf Hitler?")
  - tedmc 9y ago
    I think a better metric is would I wish my grandma be treated this way? A society should be judged by how it treats those that are the weakest.
    - SilasX 9y ago
      That doesn't work for the reason above: I don't want my grandma imprisoned, but zero imprisonment is also impractical. [1] "A society is judged by how it treats its weakest", "would I want $GOOD_PERSON to fall victim to this" -- those sound nice, but don't translate into a practical metric for appropriately navigating real moral dilemmas. [1] I know the lectures about the evils of mass incarceration; those don't prove that no one should be imprisoned.
      - gervase 9y ago
        Perhaps an extension, then: "Would I want this to happen to $LOVED_ONE, if they were convicted of $HEINOUS_CRIME?" This may permit consideration of the relative social value of the punishment, alloyed with the emotional bias provided by the context.
deleted 9y ago
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Cozumel 9y ago
Unthinkable ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/ ) is a good film with Samuel L Jackson that covers torture and how far is it 'right' to go.
scardine 9y ago
My problem with torture is the same I have with death penalty: how would you live with yourself if you later find you got an innocent by mistake? I don't think you can just apologize and say you had the best of intentions.
- norikki 9y ago
  If the people kidnaped and tortured by the Bush regime weren't Islamic extremists hell bent on destroying America when they were caputred, they certainly are now.
kelvin0 9y ago
Oddly enough, while reading this I had a thought about how interrogations are like poking at non newtonian fluids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid If you push too hard, too fast the particles resist the most. Pushing slowly and gently through yields likes hot butter.
woodandsteel 9y ago
I was very glad to read that has finally been scientifically proven that a non-coercive style of interviewing that focuses on establishing rapport works better than a coercive style.
memracom 9y ago
I have noticed a change in the interview techniques portrayed in some police shows. Gibb's team in NCIS is one of those but the British TV series Scott and Bailey really comes closest to what is discussed in this Guardian article. Sometimes Soren in Law and Order comes close as well. Any police officer who wants to try this could get started by learning some basic psychology and watching a few episodes of these TV series. And also, you need to fix your own psychological issues because these techniques work best when you are not choked up with hate or other emotions. They require empathy for the criminal and to do that, you need to have firm control of your psyche otherwise it will break you to try it. I am reminded of one of those Sales empowerment books of the 60s and 70s written by a luxury car salesman. He said that you could not be successful unless you genuinely liked your customer, and only then could you help him to spend his money on what you are selling. Part of the book was exercises on how to turn on that "genuine like" within your own psyche. Let's face it, it takes years of daily practice to become a skilled musician, or a skilled skateboarder or a skilled parcour athlete or... Humans can do amazing things if only they apply themselves with a few years of daily practice. Stage magic is even more so because those folks never stop practicing the most impossible actions.

290 points by snthd 9y ago

Remember your training. STFU. Name, rank, serial number. @retard mods jumping to conclusions: US Army manual dickheads.

The Atlantic had a good article on this back in 2003: The Dark Art of Interrogation https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dar...

MaxBarraclough 9y ago

What a hopelessly uninformative title. It's not even taken from the article, which has a far better title. All scientists are in the business of extracting truth, no?

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> The suspect, who had a criminal history, had posted messages on social media in support of violent jihad. In a search of his residence, the police had found a bag containing a hammer, a kitchen knife and a map with the location of a nearby army barracks. I'll be honest, I kind of wish the police hadn't stopped him, because I would love to read a report of how this Mister Bean plan would have worked out for him.

theoh 9y ago
Hmmm, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby
george_morgan 9y ago
Well, soldiers aren't super human so I'm glad they did. (Echoes of Lee Rigby...)
elorant 9y ago
You're assuming that he intended to invade the camp. But all he could do was to wait a safe distant outside and just stab an unsuspected soldier who was off duty. It's not like every person serving in the army is a special forces officer who's in alarm 24/7.
- KGIII 9y ago
  It's also important to note that, unlike the movies, most bases don't actually have a lot of people walking around armed. Combat gear is stowed and firearms are in the armory under lock and key. Most jobs don't actually require carrying a weapon while on duty. Even those that do need some sort of weapon don't require such at all times. The only time I regularly carried a weapon was when I was a transportation officer/chaser. I carried a .45 and a 12ga and only when I was performing duties that required such, namely while actively participating in the transfer of detainees. Keep in mind that my first four years was in the infantry and included combat. I probably carried a weapon a smaller percentage of the time with that MOS than I did while working at the brig.

21893120975 9y ago

Actually good article, especially with the disgusting reports about the torturer pseudoscientists that the CIA contracted for their walling and sensory deprecation torture techniques

mistermann 9y ago

The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and eventually his bosses replace him. When the new interviewer takes a seat, Diola repeats his promise to talk “openly and honestly” to the right person, and resumes his inquisitorial stance. “Why are you asking me these questions?” he says. “Think carefully about your reasons.” The new interviewer does not answer directly, but something about his opening speech triggers a change in Diola’s demeanour. “On the day we arrested you,” he began, “I believe that you had the intention of killing a British soldier or police officer. I don’t know the details of what happened, why you may have felt it needed to happen, or what you wanted to achieve by doing this. Only you know these things Diola. If you are willing, you’ll tell me, and if you’re not, you won’t. I can’t force you to tell me – I don’t want to force you. I’d like you to help me understand. Would you tell me about what happened?” The interviewer opens up his notebook, and shows Diola the empty pages. “You see? I don’t even have a list of questions.” “That is beautiful,” Diola says. “Because you have treated me with consideration and respect, yes I will tell you now. But only to help you understand what is really happening in this country.” This reinforces my belief that there is a sincere, rational (whether you agree or not) reasoned motivation for terrorist attacks, at least in some cases. We in the West just aren't interested in listening to those who we don't agree with.

gadders 9y ago
I'm sure there is, in their eyes. But if the price of compliance with it is unacceptable, that doesn't move us any further forward.
- nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
  Making an effort to understand in no way implies moving in the direction of compliance.
- brazzy 9y ago
  Understanding someone's motivation has nothing to do with compliance, unless you've already made up your mind that the other side is a comic book villain and their motivation is to be evil for evil's sake. In reality, understanding someone's motivation can lead you to discover factors that influence it which you can change without doing anything unacceptable or even detrimental to you.

theothermkn 9y ago

If you look at a presidential election as a negotiation between the political class and the electorate, or at the most recent one as an election that became a negotiation or interrogation, then the Trump voters who went for him as a “fuck you” to the system are better understood in this framework. So are the Clinton voters who reportedly stayed home. They felt victimized by the system, like their vote was a bargaining chip that the political class wanted to manipulate them into casting, and not a token to use to communicate their needs to their supposed representatives. Clinton’s and her supporters’ hectoring about being the lesser of two evils (voter-blaming, the Bernie Bro smear, and not-really-a-progressive who gets things done come to mind) suddenly seem especially inept. The bad news is that the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain for voters, which will continue to be reciprocated. The good news is that even Bernie could come up with a message that resonated enough to get as far as he did with as few connections as he had. Someone else could do the same.

emeraldd 9y ago
Your analysis is on point. Both Bernie and our the President gave the impression of putting everything on the table. However true or false the reality of that was didn't seem matter nearly as much as making people "feel" as though they were being completely frank with people. Which seems to fit quite well with what the article is talking about.
Boothroid 9y ago
I think that's a bit of a stretch.
- kevmo 9y ago
  It is a little bit of a stretch, but not so much of one that it is not a useful mental model. I talked to 1000s of people from many different walks of life about that election from 2014-2016 - top comment accurately describes how most middle and lower class people (i.e. the vast majority of America) felt about that election and their choices.
- Meditato 9y ago
  It describes me perfectly. After being cheated by the DNC, I didn't vote for them as a "fuck you". I will continue to do this, possibly even vote for the opposition, for as long as you continue to treat me with disdain. And thinking that this is a bit of a stretch is the disdain that I'm talking about.

Bromskloss 9y ago

Well, what was Diola's reasons? I would have loved to be his interrogator! I would have let it take days of him explaining his views to me, if that's what it would have taken. I want to know!

throw-away-8 9y ago
Yeah, it's like debugging a particularly bad kernel bug in a convoluted spaghetti coded OEM driver.

mordae 9y ago

The truly sad thing is that all these interviews actually go to waste. Their only point is to prove the interviewee guilty, try and then punish them. I imagine that they have something to tell, time to time, about the reasons why they did what they did and comment on the state of the society. And I don't believe that we gather the findings and then communicate them back to the policy makers so that we are actually able to heal the society.

dash2 9y ago
First, a key reason for police interviews is to find people's associates, roll up terrorist networks and prevent future crimes. Second, I find it odd that you think putting killers in jail is "a waste". Should we just let them go and have another try? Last, you assume that these individuals murder innocent people because they have some valid point about society, which policy-makers need to learn and act upon. What point would that be?
ejk314 9y ago
You mean they might be committing acts of violence in the pursuit of political aims? You mean 'terrorism'? Should we really validate terrorism as a means of political protest? I mean, there is an argument to be made there. If people are lashing out violently, they've probably run out of non-violent options and that's something that should be addressed. But I think it sets a horrible precedent to allow violence to shape political discussion.
- gasbag 9y ago
  Violence always shapes political discussion. When someone commits a terrorist act, there must always be a decision made on how to respond to it. Understanding what drives a terrorist does not necessarily negate any punishment for the act of terror. It does give you the opportunity to decide whether the grievance that led them to act is one that you agree is legitimate, or if not, perhaps it is one that you want to address anyway in the interest of lowering the risk of other terrorist acts. All of this can be done without excusing in any way the act itself.

pacaro 9y ago

The parallels with interviewing engineers are pretty clear to me, there is so much more information exchanged when interviewer and candidate work together than when the interviewer is confrontational and has a “prove that you’re good enough” approach.

eternalban 9y ago

Torture is a form of terror and generally used for its side effect on a target population. Terror as a form of psychological deterrent. Guardian kindly reframes it as a quest for "truth" complete with cartoon plot of knife and map in kitchen. "Extracting truth" ? http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progres...

pessimizer 9y ago
It's where we conveniently ignore the fact that we torture people who we have no reason to suspect know anything.
scrumper 9y ago
The article dismisses torture almost immediately, and talks extensively about how being curious and open produces vastly better results than any other style of interrogation.

petra 9y ago

It's definetly interesting, but if this was the secret behind something as important, would it be published ? Why ? '

c3534l 9y ago

> he later became the first military officer to speak out against such practices. He did so not just because he thought they were wrong, but because he thought they were stupid. You know, just in case you were tempted to think he was a morally decent human being. I still can't believe how casually people talk about one of the shameful human rights abuses in recent history as if torturing a person would still be okay if worked.

unfamiliar 9y ago
Well, it depends on your moral framework. If torturing someone could potentially save hundreds of lives then it could quite easily be argued for.
- asfdsfggtfd 9y ago
  Only if you live in a moral vacuum. EDIT: Most of the moral decisions western society has taken about how we show act are on the principles of first doing no harm and respecting the rights of the individual. This ranges from medicine to the principle of innocent until proven guilty and using the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. By torturing someone you are defying almost every moral decision societies have ever made. EDIT AGAIN: Wow just wow. Heavy heavy downvoting for speaking against normalization of torture. Please explain yourselves?
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    Or you're one of many varieties of utilitarian.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. It's only logical. The think about morality is that everyone can have their own, or none at all. Not everyone is bound to value the welfare and freedoms of others as highly as they value their own. And the same goes on the tribal level--not everyone values Them as highly as Us. You can create any number of moral structures that would allow for torture that still do not allow for indiscriminate violence.

whack 9y ago

I've heard many times that "torture doesn't work" but I never understood how or why. In my naive mind, if someone pulls out my fingernail and threatens to pull out more if I don't talk, I doubt I would have the courage or resilience to stay silent and take the torture.

EliRivers 9y ago
And if you didn't know anything, would you sit there and keep losing fingernails, or tell them what they want to hear?
Sevrene 9y ago
The problem is that someone will tell you anything to stop you from pulling out their nails, so you can get a lot of really incorrect information.
mankyd 9y ago
Part of the problem is not that you would hide the truth, but that you would make up lies just to appease your interrogator. You want the torture to stop; the torturer doesn't know when to stop. They'll keep hurting you until they think you've told them everything, even if you already have.
elevensies 9y ago
It depends what your goal is. If you're trying to get a specific person to say a certain thing, then it works well. If I wanted you to confess to a conspiracy with my political enemies so I could execute them, the fingernail removal strategy works fine. If you're trying to figure out the truth in a fluid and confusing environment, then it doesn't work well because it motivates the victim to do whatever they can do to end the conversation as quickly as possible.
55555 9y ago
Exactly! If someone pulls off my fingernails one by one, and I know the answer to the question they are asking, I will absolutely divulge the answer... Torture obviously works. It just also creates a lot of false information from people who don't know the answer and will say anything to make the torture stop. But that's much more nuanced and quite different from the refrain we constantly hear that "torture doesn't work."

AlexCoventry 9y ago

OK... How did they measure "rapport"? The most important relationship he measured was between “yield” – information elicited from the suspect – and “rapport” – the quality of the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. For the first time, a secure, empirical basis was established for what had, until then, been something between a hypothesis and an insider secret: rapport is the closest thing interrogators have to a truth serum. Above all, rapport, in the sense used by the Alisons, describes an authentic human connection. “You’ve got to mean it,” is one of Laurence’s refrains.

bitL 9y ago

So a good cop. After this article was published I am sure this is going to work well in the future...

rlpb 9y ago

"The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and eventually his bosses replace him." For all we know, the first interviewer was key in setting up Diola's mood such that the second interviewer would be a relief to him, leading to him opening up.

neves 9y ago
The very old tatic of "good cop"/"bad cop"

ilitirit 9y ago

To me - and this is completely anecdotal - is that there usually seems to be 3 criteria that strangers look for before they open up. They are somewhat overlapping, at least in the way that you can use these them to your advantage: Empathy; being impressionable; appearing weak/ignorant in one or more aspects relating to the topic. So, you don't ask what they did or why they did it. You ask about topics that they may have led them to doing something that they did. Better still, don't ask. Lead the conversation in a way that will make the question will seem more natural. Then you respond with something like: "Wow! How on Earth did you handle that? (Impressionable) If that were me (Empathy) I would have [something outlandish]!!! (Weakness/Ignorance)". So now you seem relateable, and somewhat flawed, even moreso than they themselves. Often, they will try to "teach" you about why your reaction is bad, and what a better reaction would be - often with a "real life" scenario as an example. "Aaah! That's pretty smart! (Impressionable) But I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it as well as that (Weakness)" From here they feel they are in a position of power. Especially if you seem more impressed by some more arbitrary aspect, than concerned about the more obvious implications (Weakness/Ignorance). They often open up more about other things they've done, which may or not be related to the original question. But you're still gaining their trust. Eventually you subtly stopped being impressed by what they are saying. And this is just by body language, not words. Your eyes don't light up when they are "expected" to (Impressionable). You don't smile wryly before they end their sentences as if to say you know you know where it's heading (Empathy). The other person starts thinking: "Why is he/she impressed any more? Is it because they're really that ignorant? Or maybe what I'm saying isn't really that impressive to them? Perhaps I should fill in more details, and maybe I'll tell about some other thing I did" Now I'm not saying this will work interviewing terrorists/criminals. But this has been my own experience for as long as I can remember. People tend to tell me their darkest secrets (even without me asking) within about 30 minutes of meeting me for the first time, especially when alcohol is involved. I rarely ask directly. People just end up telling me things.

twoquestions 9y ago

Horrifyingly enough, extracting the truth isn't always the point of these interrogations. In conversations with my friends about this (when I can hold my composure well enough), the main objective of "enhanced interrogation" is to terrify the target population into compliance, or failing that extract bloody satisfaction on the victim. Not like this is without precedent, Vlad the Impaler is named for his negotiation tactics, and the Roman Empire would on occasion react to a lawbreaker by murdering the city, crucifying the entire population. Modern Westerners (to our credit) don't have the stomach for such shocking brutality anymore, but I don't believe this vicious urge has completely gone away.

sesqu 9y ago
Or you know, throwing people into prison for manslaughter or drug possession. The thing is, that only works in fairly narrow circumstances, but is a common strategy regardless.

13of40 9y ago

There's no mention in the article of how likely or unlikely this technique is to produce false confessions when innocent people are interviewed. People do like to talk, and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more apt to say something stupid.

0xfeba 9y ago
> and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more apt to say something stupid. Huh? That's the exact opposite of what the article was conveying. Trying to intimidate or force people to talk gets them to just say whatever to make the intimidation stop.

e12e 9y ago

> “The last time the US government invested in studying interrogation was 1956,” Steven Kleinman, who works with the HIG, told me. “Great leaps forward in behaviour science have just passed us by,” he said. “Imagine using 1956 technology for signals intelligence!” Seems odd the article doesn't mention the nazi interrogator Hanns Scharff[h], who was invited to talk in the US after ww2, at all - as the scientist seem to be rediscovering his approach. Although doing some actual research to document what works is good, obviously.... [h] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff

tedmc 9y ago

Before you debate torture, consider what has been done in your name already. Torture is wrong. We should not do it. If you wouldn't want it done to an innocent person, because eventually our faulty systems will scoop up an innocent. "In November 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to the floor died, apparently from hypothermia." https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-t...

SilasX 9y ago
I don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. Should I oppose all imprisonment, since it will eventually happen? (I think a better standard for categorically ruling out a tactic/punishment/procedure is "would I want this on my worst enemy/Adolf Hitler?")
- tedmc 9y ago
  I think a better metric is would I wish my grandma be treated this way? A society should be judged by how it treats those that are the weakest.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    That doesn't work for the reason above: I don't want my grandma imprisoned, but zero imprisonment is also impractical. [1] "A society is judged by how it treats its weakest", "would I want $GOOD_PERSON to fall victim to this" -- those sound nice, but don't translate into a practical metric for appropriately navigating real moral dilemmas. [1] I know the lectures about the evils of mass incarceration; those don't prove that no one should be imprisoned.
    - gervase 9y ago
      Perhaps an extension, then: "Would I want this to happen to $LOVED_ONE, if they were convicted of $HEINOUS_CRIME?" This may permit consideration of the relative social value of the punishment, alloyed with the emotional bias provided by the context.

deleted 9y ago

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Cozumel 9y ago

Unthinkable ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/ ) is a good film with Samuel L Jackson that covers torture and how far is it 'right' to go.

scardine 9y ago

My problem with torture is the same I have with death penalty: how would you live with yourself if you later find you got an innocent by mistake? I don't think you can just apologize and say you had the best of intentions.

norikki 9y ago
If the people kidnaped and tortured by the Bush regime weren't Islamic extremists hell bent on destroying America when they were caputred, they certainly are now.

kelvin0 9y ago

Oddly enough, while reading this I had a thought about how interrogations are like poking at non newtonian fluids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid If you push too hard, too fast the particles resist the most. Pushing slowly and gently through yields likes hot butter.

woodandsteel 9y ago

I was very glad to read that has finally been scientifically proven that a non-coercive style of interviewing that focuses on establishing rapport works better than a coercive style.

memracom 9y ago

I have noticed a change in the interview techniques portrayed in some police shows. Gibb's team in NCIS is one of those but the British TV series Scott and Bailey really comes closest to what is discussed in this Guardian article. Sometimes Soren in Law and Order comes close as well. Any police officer who wants to try this could get started by learning some basic psychology and watching a few episodes of these TV series. And also, you need to fix your own psychological issues because these techniques work best when you are not choked up with hate or other emotions. They require empathy for the criminal and to do that, you need to have firm control of your psyche otherwise it will break you to try it. I am reminded of one of those Sales empowerment books of the 60s and 70s written by a luxury car salesman. He said that you could not be successful unless you genuinely liked your customer, and only then could you help him to spend his money on what you are selling. Part of the book was exercises on how to turn on that "genuine like" within your own psyche. Let's face it, it takes years of daily practice to become a skilled musician, or a skilled skateboarder or a skilled parcour athlete or... Humans can do amazing things if only they apply themselves with a few years of daily practice. Stage magic is even more so because those folks never stop practicing the most impossible actions.