The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

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torture regime: the classic example of this is the oft-cited case of Abdel Karim Murad, whose torture by the Filipino police “produced self-proving thoughtful information that was necessary to prevent harm to civilians.” (Dershowitz, Understanding Terrorism: p. 137) 5 Just as 'hard cases make bad law,' any justification of torture must rely not on whether torture works or has worked in an individual case, but whether torture can work as an epistemic system. That is, the proper question to ask is not 'can torture ever work?' but 'does torture as a system lead to better information?' Let us begin by considering how we think of torture as happening. This process is often conceived in dramatic terms as a battle of wills between the interrogator and the captive over who will break first: will the captive yield up the truth which she has (presumably) kept hiding, or will the interrogator end the torture, convinced that the captive does not know anything. This drama climaxes when the captive “breaks” - when the pain become too much, and the captive's will surrenders to the interrogator. This drama of dominance, however, contains within it a curious assumption: how does the interrogator know when the captive has broken? In the drama of popular imagination, the interrogator knows all, and punishes and rewards accordingly: but if torture is geared towards yielding information that the interrogator does not already know, then the interrogator may not recognize the truth when he hears it. Sheila Cassidy was tortured by the Chilean secret police to name the individuals who had hidden her: after several days of torture, she revealed the identities of several nuns and priests. The interrogators refused to believe her, and the torture continued. (Rejali, p. 465) In a study of lie detection in police interrogations, Vrij et al. (2007) examined how well police officers were able to distinguish truth from fiction while observing interrogations conducted according to three separate methods: accusatory (where the interviewer actively accuses the subject), information- gathering (the subject is asked open-ended questions without confrontation), and behavior analysis (the interviewer observes the subject's body language). The subjects were undergraduate students who either told the truth about a staged game against another subject, or who were given a false statement to present – they were told that if they successfully convinced the interviewer of their innocence, they would win £15. The study found that, while the information-gathering distinguished better between subjects who lied and told the truth, the police officers who observed the interviews performed no 5 As is often the case with just-so stories regarding torture, the truth is far more complicated. While Murad was tortured for months after his arrest, during which time he revealed plots to blow up airplanes and assassinate the Pope, the vast bulk of information used to disrupt the plots came from the computer, documentation, explosives and other assorted materials seized during his arrest. Murad's confessions came months after the Pope had visited the country, months after his associates had been identified and arrested. (Lathey, 2007) 3
etter than chance on average, no matter which style they observed. Worse, they were more likely to falsely accuse subjects under accusatory questioning, and more likely to be confident in their false accusations. Since of the three interrogation under torture is most likely to resemble the accusatory approach, this implies that torturers are more likely to believe false information offered by captives than to discount it, and are unable to self-correct due to their higher complacency. This bias towards false accusations is doubly concerning when we consider the danger of false confessions from the captives themselves, even when the interrogation is not conducted under torture, and where the captive has much to lose from a false confession. A review of 40 overturned murder and rape cases found that 96% of suspects who had falsely confessed gave “surprisingly rich, detailed, and accurate information” that must have been fed (perhaps unknowingly) to the suspects by the interrogating officers. These false confessions were enough, in at least one case, for the jury to disregard exculpatory DNA evidence. Interrogation by police can often mimic the logic of torture as well: when asked why he had falsely confessed, one individual argued “[t]hey were trying to get me the death penalty for something I didn't do … Why should I die for something I didn't do?” (Ibid., pp.1062 – 3) It has been noted as well that a similar logic holds with plea-bargaining: individuals confess falsely in order to prevent a worse punishment under trial. (Langbein, 1978) If innocent individuals can confess falsely and seemingly sincerely – relating a story to the interrogator that, while fitting the interrogators preconceived notions, does not fit the facts – then what prevents a knowledgeable captive from lying to the interrogator, revealing a plausible although false set of information? Torturers are unable even to rely on so-called 'lie detectors' to help them out in the torture chamber, and it is no mistake that they are not a common adjunct to the torture chamber. Lie detectors do not in fact exist: since truth and fiction are purely abstract concepts, there is simply nothing for a machine to measure. Instead, most lie detectors are at best stress-detectors and are more often a psychological ploy. In fact, lie detectors work only when the subject believes that they work: if the subject is convinced that the interrogator knows when he is lying, then he is likely to tell the truth. This effect can be reinforced by interrogators who ask questions designed to encourage the respondent to lie: a sort of 'control' question. Leonarde Keeler, the great popularizer of the device, asked subjects to pick a card from a deck, replace it, and deny each in turn was his: Keeler would then astound the subject by determining from the machine's readout which card was his. The deck was marked, of course – but it established the critical idea in the subject's mind. (Alder 2002, p. 15) Furthermore, many popular 4
Page 1 and 2: THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEG
Page 3 and 4: This work is dedicated to my wife,
Page 5 and 6: TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT vii 1. T
Page 7 and 8: ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Se
Page 9: judged by their effects. The deonto
Page 13 and 14: from fiction, and also in the time
Page 15 and 16: the cases differ in how well inform
Page 17 and 18: characterization by method. Torture
Page 19 and 20: gather such evidence was strong, to
Page 21 and 22: ineffective. Something must prevent
Page 23 and 24: The description which it would be n
Page 25 and 26: powerful themselves. 21 While histo
Page 27 and 28: known by the misnomer 'torture-ligh
Page 29 and 30: substitute for intelligence gatheri
Page 31 and 32: This lack of good data on torture t
Page 33 and 34: found that the procedure can cause
Page 35 and 36: captive who has faced torture, and
Page 37 and 38: state cannot credibly commit to pla
Page 39 and 40: incentive not to present as favorab
Page 41 and 42: units, those engaged in the applica
Page 43 and 44: of causal mechanisms in a very dire
Page 45 and 46: the threats they face are real, whe
Page 47 and 48: 3.1. Introduction. CHAPTER 3 THE WI
Page 49 and 50: discovered by Sir Thomas Newton and
Page 51 and 52: two, and the execution of the convi
Page 53 and 54: years preceding the outbreak at Sal
Page 55 and 56: these women - non-Church members, p
Page 57 and 58: Hubbard) and four grown and married
Page 59 and 60: innocent, and recalled that when he
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crowd was deeply and troublingly mo
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it was precisely in these terms tha
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came to an end. Misogyny was all to
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only the witch-trials that brought
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partners in their own (apparent) de
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possibility would be to question th
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John Bridges (whose own wife and da
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she again broke down and named seve
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forcing the already convicted to re
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We can thus see Tituba's confession
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Samuell Parris. 70 The strongest ev
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order to purge political dissidents
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torture as a failure based on this
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torture - the state will apply it e
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time, the government in Paris was c
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for two reasons - first, because Me
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The Soummam conference in the Summe
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one of the primary justifications f
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DOP in particular is instructive fo
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us stops in the city center. These
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one that would turn the dangers of
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dismantling of the ZAA organization
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found in the literature: the revela
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In fact, the use of torture did hav
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e.g.), by March (when the DPU had b
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Paul Teitgen appears to have been c
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the French public. 95 Secondly, the
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conditions theoretically necessary
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the reasons for holding the detaine
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y military interrogators. (Washingt
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fact come verbatim from a 1957 jour
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ole in the acquisition of intellige
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to those believed to have informati
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name for metanetwork analysis. 102
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other words, the CIA High Value Det
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Padilla was accused by KSM of plott
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and an enemy of the United States,
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alternative mechanism) by Darius Re
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York Times, 09/12/2005) Insofar as
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these interrogations were conducted
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al-Qaeda is structured, names of in
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CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: The Misleadin
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problem by the authorities - and ye
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situations (France in Algeria and V
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Jack Bauer was used as justificatio
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Biderman, Albert D. “Effects of C
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Crelinstein, Ronald and Alex Schmid
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History Teacher. 30:4 (1997): pp. 4
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International Council on Security a
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Lewis, Neil A. “Red Cross Finds D
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Obuchowski, Chester W. “Algeria:
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Schiemann, John W. “Interrogation
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Barack Obama is Inviting the Next A
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United States, Department of Defens
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Patrick Armshaw
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The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

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