7 ms·

The Dark Science of Interrogation

52 points by blago 12y ago

angersock 12y ago
Is there a lighter side, one wonders?
- gjm11 12y ago
  The actual title is "The dark science of interrogation", which makes rather more sense than "The dark side of interrogation" which is the current HN title.
- meowface 12y ago
  I think the article does a good job of elaborating on legitimate, empirical, helpful, and non-harmful interrogation techniques. So I would say yes, there is, even if many organizations tend to prefer the darker side.
RandomCode 12y ago
This is proof that God is perfectly just. Nobody can tell truth from lies. Otherwise the evil NAZIs and CiA would be too powerful. God is even more powerful and laughs at wicked men.
s_q_b 12y ago
For anyone interested in modern interrogation techniques, I'd recommend the book "How to Break a Terrorist."[0] [0]How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/B0085S1S5K http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brut...
pluma 12y ago
The essence of the article: "He found that the most productive interrogations in terms of information were those in which interrogators essentially acted like therapists. Investigators in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom are now trained to focus not on extracting admissions of guilt but on gathering evidence. That information can back up an innocent suspect’s story, or it can be used to nail a guilty one." "Hartwig reasoned, the typical interrogation room—claustrophobic, locked, austere—was exactly the wrong sort of space to get someone to divulge information. In a yet unpublished study, she redesigned the space around the theme of openness: open windows, an open book on the table, open desk drawers, “a picture of open water under an open sky,” as the paper describes it. She found that subjects provided more detail when questioned in the redesigned interrogation room." In other words, "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". If only we had known this before Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. /s
- noonespecial 12y ago
  That information can back up an innocent suspect’s story, or it can be used to nail a guilty one." Except not that first part. That's the part prosecutors sweep under rugs.
- rdtsc 12y ago
  > If only we had known this before Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. /s Somehow I suspect they didn't really want to get more info. They wanted to punish, and to instill fear, mostly because deep down it felt good to them. Officially there was an excuse "War on terror". But it could have been done just as easily under another slogan, maybe "War on Drugs" or "War on Communism" and so on. Going a back a step, I also believe there is a high number of psycopaths who rise to power in intelligence agencies. Even if you look at something silly like reliance on passing polygraphs, for entering and staying in the organization. Psycopaths would do much better there. After many iterations, shit like that rises to the top.
  - leereeves 12y ago
    After 9/11, a lot of Americans wanted to see "the terrorists" suffer, but there may be something dangerous about a person who can bear to personally inflict the torture. Just having people in power who are willing to order torture worries me.
    - afarrell 12y ago
      More than being able to order thousands of men to storm a beach or an entire city of wood and paper to go up in a storm of fire? Being a head of a state has always required making decisions about using force in horrific ways. Torturing O(30) people is dwarfed by that.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    You're assuming that information gathering is the primary purpose of the actions. Maintaining control or proviking a response are two other possibilities among others. Polygraph is a great example. It is clearly pseudoscience, but the fact that your employees know that they can be interrogated on a broad variety of topics at will guides their behavior.
hiroprot 12y ago
The title of the article is "THE DARK SCIENCE OF INTERROGATION", not "Dark Side".
- sctb 12y ago
  Thanks, we updated the title.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
Shocking, more evidence confirming what we already have known for decades (at least since WWII), torture is one of the least effective methods for obtaining reliable information from suspects. Sadly, I wish the debate about torture didn't focus as much on effectiveness instead of morality and legality (since it is neither moral nor legal).
coldtea 12y ago
The dark side of the press trivialiasing an issue, opening the Overton window...
- nl 12y ago
  One doesn't open the Overton window, ones widens it. It's a window in the "range" sense. But I don't think one can blame the press. There are plenty of people outside the press who believe the Geneva convention doesn't allow "sufficient flexibility". One can't blame the press for reporting that.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Well, one can still blame the press for trivializing that with articles like this. What happened to the CRITICAL press?
    - TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
      It got bought long ago by the people in power?
nl 12y ago
It's bizarre. Pretty much everyone understands that better information can be extracted by gentle methods than by harsh techniques. That's not why the harsh techniques are used. In the second paragraph of this article it give away the real problem: Sometimes I got to the point where I had to literally order them to stop. Even then there was surprising blowback. People thought I was coddling terrorists. The priority of those harsh integration techniques isn't to get information. It's a form of punishment, and a threat to stop others acting against US forces. One needs to understand that frame of thought before one can stop the techniques.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Seems to sum up the whole mentality of the US system. And i find myself wondering if it can be traced to the background of the original colonies.
  - nl 12y ago
    No, that's not it! The bizarre thing is the reaction on HN, not the US system. The US system functions exactly as intended, assuming you realise that it is designed to punish suspects.
    - TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
      But how could anyone think that punishing in itself is helpful in any way whatsoever? This is an honest question, I really don't get how the American system could have been designed the way it is.
afarrell 12y ago
Folks interested in an intro to the history and law surrounding interrogation should check out The Illustrated Guide to the Law, drawn by a NYC defense attorney. Here is where the relevant section starts: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2282 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2282 It also has sections on a bunch of stuff like... * Probable Cause and Arrest: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1789 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1789 * traffic stops, searches, and consent: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1859 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1859 * self-defense: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864 * entrapment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633 * memory and eyewitness identification: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=3044 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=3044 * A flowchart for the 4th amendment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 * A flowchart for the 5th-amendment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897

52 points by blago 12y ago

angersock 12y ago

Is there a lighter side, one wonders?

gjm11 12y ago
The actual title is "The dark science of interrogation", which makes rather more sense than "The dark side of interrogation" which is the current HN title.
meowface 12y ago
I think the article does a good job of elaborating on legitimate, empirical, helpful, and non-harmful interrogation techniques. So I would say yes, there is, even if many organizations tend to prefer the darker side.

RandomCode 12y ago

This is proof that God is perfectly just. Nobody can tell truth from lies. Otherwise the evil NAZIs and CiA would be too powerful. God is even more powerful and laughs at wicked men.

s_q_b 12y ago

For anyone interested in modern interrogation techniques, I'd recommend the book "How to Break a Terrorist."[0] [0]How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/B0085S1S5K http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brut...

pluma 12y ago

The essence of the article: "He found that the most productive interrogations in terms of information were those in which interrogators essentially acted like therapists. Investigators in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom are now trained to focus not on extracting admissions of guilt but on gathering evidence. That information can back up an innocent suspect’s story, or it can be used to nail a guilty one." "Hartwig reasoned, the typical interrogation room—claustrophobic, locked, austere—was exactly the wrong sort of space to get someone to divulge information. In a yet unpublished study, she redesigned the space around the theme of openness: open windows, an open book on the table, open desk drawers, “a picture of open water under an open sky,” as the paper describes it. She found that subjects provided more detail when questioned in the redesigned interrogation room." In other words, "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". If only we had known this before Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. /s

noonespecial 12y ago
That information can back up an innocent suspect’s story, or it can be used to nail a guilty one." Except not that first part. That's the part prosecutors sweep under rugs.
rdtsc 12y ago
> If only we had known this before Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. /s Somehow I suspect they didn't really want to get more info. They wanted to punish, and to instill fear, mostly because deep down it felt good to them. Officially there was an excuse "War on terror". But it could have been done just as easily under another slogan, maybe "War on Drugs" or "War on Communism" and so on. Going a back a step, I also believe there is a high number of psycopaths who rise to power in intelligence agencies. Even if you look at something silly like reliance on passing polygraphs, for entering and staying in the organization. Psycopaths would do much better there. After many iterations, shit like that rises to the top.
- leereeves 12y ago
  After 9/11, a lot of Americans wanted to see "the terrorists" suffer, but there may be something dangerous about a person who can bear to personally inflict the torture. Just having people in power who are willing to order torture worries me.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    More than being able to order thousands of men to storm a beach or an entire city of wood and paper to go up in a storm of fire? Being a head of a state has always required making decisions about using force in horrific ways. Torturing O(30) people is dwarfed by that.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  You're assuming that information gathering is the primary purpose of the actions. Maintaining control or proviking a response are two other possibilities among others. Polygraph is a great example. It is clearly pseudoscience, but the fact that your employees know that they can be interrogated on a broad variety of topics at will guides their behavior.

hiroprot 12y ago

The title of the article is "THE DARK SCIENCE OF INTERROGATION", not "Dark Side".

sctb 12y ago
Thanks, we updated the title.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

Shocking, more evidence confirming what we already have known for decades (at least since WWII), torture is one of the least effective methods for obtaining reliable information from suspects. Sadly, I wish the debate about torture didn't focus as much on effectiveness instead of morality and legality (since it is neither moral nor legal).

coldtea 12y ago

The dark side of the press trivialiasing an issue, opening the Overton window...

nl 12y ago
One doesn't open the Overton window, ones widens it. It's a window in the "range" sense. But I don't think one can blame the press. There are plenty of people outside the press who believe the Geneva convention doesn't allow "sufficient flexibility". One can't blame the press for reporting that.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Well, one can still blame the press for trivializing that with articles like this. What happened to the CRITICAL press?
  - TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
    It got bought long ago by the people in power?

nl 12y ago

It's bizarre. Pretty much everyone understands that better information can be extracted by gentle methods than by harsh techniques. That's not why the harsh techniques are used. In the second paragraph of this article it give away the real problem: Sometimes I got to the point where I had to literally order them to stop. Even then there was surprising blowback. People thought I was coddling terrorists. The priority of those harsh integration techniques isn't to get information. It's a form of punishment, and a threat to stop others acting against US forces. One needs to understand that frame of thought before one can stop the techniques.

digi_owl 12y ago
Seems to sum up the whole mentality of the US system. And i find myself wondering if it can be traced to the background of the original colonies.
- nl 12y ago
  No, that's not it! The bizarre thing is the reaction on HN, not the US system. The US system functions exactly as intended, assuming you realise that it is designed to punish suspects.
  - TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
    But how could anyone think that punishing in itself is helpful in any way whatsoever? This is an honest question, I really don't get how the American system could have been designed the way it is.

afarrell 12y ago

Folks interested in an intro to the history and law surrounding interrogation should check out The Illustrated Guide to the Law, drawn by a NYC defense attorney. Here is where the relevant section starts: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2282 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2282 It also has sections on a bunch of stuff like... * Probable Cause and Arrest: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1789 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1789 * traffic stops, searches, and consent: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1859 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1859 * self-defense: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864 * entrapment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633 * memory and eyewitness identification: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=3044 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=3044 * A flowchart for the 4th amendment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 * A flowchart for the 5th-amendment: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897