Terrorist Interrogation

While the law itself condemns use of torture for any purpose, torture becomes necessary to be used in particular critical instances. According to Miles, the United States senate allowed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on a number of cases and detainees. The human rights should be considered first in any event whether in interrogation or any other course of action1. The policy makers have found themselves between hard and difficult decisions to make on the techniques for obtaining vital information from terrorists who are trained heavily on resisting from giving information when caught in the wrong side of the law.

President W. Bush believed that lives were actually saved with the EITs in action. However President Obama believed quite the opposite in saying that the CIA Interrogation programs are a “dark and painful chapter in US history”. President Obama also signed an executive order banning the techniques (CIA Tactics: What is enhanced Interrogation?, 2014). These polar opposite states of opinion don’t stop in the white house. In fact, if it were up to a vote, majority of U.S. citizens would not feel comfortable letting this program continue (See Appendix 1). Fifty-three percent said that they would not be willing to permit the implementation of torture even if the known terrorists are aware of future danger planned for America (Dugan,2014). The evidence of how CIA officials have exceeded what they were permitted to do is another factor that promotes the controversy on this topic. There are records of forced rectal rehydration using hummus. This has been brought to the attention of doctors and is unheard of as an accepted practice (CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou. Wake up, Your Next!, 2015). However President Bush says that these techniques were “designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our constitution and our treaty obligation.” (Vice News Exclusive, 2014). And possibly the most

Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. could prove the undoing of the Bush administration’s legal defense of the abuses at Guantanamo Bay. In this case, four British citizens are suing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as well as a host of Army and Air Force Generals and policy apparatchiks for allegedly authorizing the use of torture in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The four were captured in Afghanistan, either by Americans or America’s ally, the Northern Alliance, and transported to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they were held for over two years. Their status there was not as enemy combatant, which guaranteed them certain protections under the Geneva Convention, but rather as

The abuse of power transcended national boarders as the U.S. government turned a blind eye to American troops engaged in the unleashed and unchecked torture of prisoners of war. The use of torture is not in the national interest, as it has been found that the intelligence gained through torture is unreliable. Like the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, America consistently presses or even oversteps its Constitutional boundaries in times of national security.

A new congressional report was released last week detailing the controversial CIA torture program during the years following the September 11 attacks on the twin towers. The report detailed several despicable ways detainees were treated at various CIA black sites, detainees endured waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinements, rectal feeding and death from hypothermia. The most despicable aspect of the report was that psychiatrists, psychologist, and some physicians originated some of the torture techniques used by the CIA.

This paper will explore three separate cases, providing facts about the apprehension and detention of enemy combatants, assessing the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and will explain whether any rights were denied or granted in contrast with each other. Anyone engaging in aggressive or hostile behavior towards a country is held to several political and constitutional legalities as explored in the three following cases.

‘Phycologists find these tactics immoral and beyond torturous, and a ticking time bomb for disaster (O’Donohue).’ Although not everyone disagrees with the tactics Research has shown that these interrogations both have pros and cons. Research from the Phycological association shows that these types of interrogations “betrays trust and human rights, professional ethics and the society's trust (Pope).” For example, many believe that the interrogations break the Miranda rights per the 5th amendment, but others argue that the 5th amendment rights should be reserved only for people holding a valid US citizenship. (Rychlak) Medical ethics of the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, because these facilities are not on US soil the 5th Amendment rights should also apply to these detainees that are detained, making it a national policy. (Quinn) After the 9/11 attacks congress authorized president Bush to authorize “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons’ (Worthington).” However, this was quickly shut down by former

As part of the “war on terror,” the US began a revolutionary practice of holding "enemies" in military detention without charge and without according them basic rights. Guantanamo Bay is a notorious United States military prison, known for the frequent mistreatment of its inmates. Hundreds of people have gone in and out of GTMO, but none were afforded the rights granted to regular American prisoners. These inmates have spent years holed up in a secretive compound, where some aren't even cognizant of the charges against them. Furthermore, these detainees have reported incidents of abuse and torture, direct violations of the eighth amendment. Bush appointed officials, like Susan Crawford, have conceded that torture occurred at GTMO, validating claims made by those imprisoned. This controversial detention center is infamous internationally, as a 2005 Amnesty International report called the facility the "Gulag of our times.” The U.S. government opened this base as a holding center for the “world’s most dangerous criminals,” and perpetuates its existence to ensure national security. Guantanamo Bay may not seem relevant to most Americans, but its existence is a blatant violation of the Constitution, and foreshadows more encroachment upon the personal liberties enjoyed by

The appeal of the McCain-Feinstein amendment is its comparatively restrictive nature. In the words of constitutional law professor, David Cole, with particular reference to the past actions of the Bush administration, ‘the new legislation seems designed to prevent future administrations from interpreting existing laws to permit what they were plainly designed to prohibit’ (Cole, D 2015). In other words, the amendment approaches the problem from a different perspective in contrast to previous prohibitions. Rather than expressing a broad prohibition, it restricts interrogators to a definitive list of approved techniques (Feinstein, D 2015). This approach, thus, essentially avoids the ambiguity that has become an enduring quality of international human rights law in relation to torture (Cole, D 2015; Levinson, S 2015, pp. 2017-2018). In succinct terms, if a technique is not authorised, it is affirmatively prohibited. To this avail, in stark contrast with its predecessors, this legislation may yet prove to be instrumental in the prevention of torture.

The current policies on interrogation standards are per “Executive Order 13491—Ensuring Lawful Interrogations states on Sec. 2. Definitions. “Convention Against Torture, means the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, December 10, 1984, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100 20 (1988).” OBAMA 2009

Not only are the prisoners abused and neglected but they are also isolated for most of the time they serve. Along with the abuses already listed, they deny medical and family visits, food, and pay for prisoners (“Background Note: Cuba” 6). The people of the United States may find out about these horrid interrogations, they have much more to learn. Many people are shocked to find out the Pentagon has denied claims of any abuse in Guantanamo, although the people at the Pentagon admit to finding cases of the torture (Ardiente 2). To authorities this scheme acts as a minor problem, and it’s apparent they aren’t making it as much of a concern as they should. Techniques for interrogation were considered to be life threatening conditions that should not be tolerated by any presidential administration (Woodward 1). Detainees’ had no trial and no charges to bring to court so they went on many hunger strikes to protest (“Guantanamo Bay” 3). As a response to the prisoners’ hunger strikes, the American officials made the detainees undress completely, and they force fed them (Greenberg 5).

The detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are terrorist from numerous countries, who want to inflict death on the U.S. citizens and their allies. All types of mechanical detection devices should be use to enforce the credibility of the interrogator and to determine if the detainee is telling the truth or not. #Supreme Court Justice John P. Stevens found “a host of studies that place the reliability of polygraph tests at 85 to 90 percent. Should be used on all detainees. The use of electrogastrogram, radar vital signs monitor, facial expressions

Secondly, Pfiffner (2005) contends that the traditional boundaries set on treatment of prisoners were relaxed by governmental memorandums and policy changes developed by the Bush administration. The first memorandum came from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee in early January 2002. Here Bybee wrote that Al Qaeda members were not protected by the Geneva Convention because they were “Non-State Actors” (Pfiffner, 2005 p. 318). The second influential memo came from Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales on January 25, 2002. This memo reiterated the reasoning behind Bybee’s memo and stated that war on terrorism was “a new kind of war” therefore this “new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.

Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism. The court overturned a ruling that no U.S. court has jurisdiction to hear petitions for habeas corpus on behalf of the detainees because they are aliens detained abroad, but left questions involving prisoners’ and status unanswered. The 9/11 Commission recommended a common coalition approach to such detention. The senate voted to deny detainees access to federal courts to file habeas petitions, but to allow limited appeals. (Elsea, 2005 p. 1)

Essentially, the more recent executive order mandates that the Central Intelligence Agency is held accountable to the same legal standards for coercive interrogation techniques that the U.S. military is which are extremely similar to general U.S. law regarding these same measures. In that sense, both bodies are circumscribed to "use of the largely innocuous and non-coercive techniques" (No author, 2009). Therefore, while holding the CIA to the same standards for coercive interrogation techniques as the U.S. military, the more recent executive order also calls for a task force to determine if the army has sufficient latitude in its usage of these interrogation techniques in order to gather enough intelligence to still protect America from any harmful foreign invaders.