Hearing Voices? Could Be the Lasers

An anonymous reader sends us to Wired for a piece about some declassified Pentagon research from 1998 that has been revealed in a freedom-of-information filing. Apparently the Pentagon has investigated lasers that put voices in your head, among other non-lethal technologies such as microwave heating. The report suggests the techniques could be useful for controlling crowds or in negotiations. There is no context for the research or any indication whether it has continued, although the microwave heating bit sounds rather like the Active Denial System we have discussed recently.

Comments

If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[WarJolt]

Torture isn't a reliable means to obtain information. I know...I have a great idea... Lets make them crazy.

Re:If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[vux984]

but I've never read a convincing explanation of why this would be the case. The standard arguments (e.g. "They'll say whatever you want to hear, just to make you stop") aren't particularly well reasoned - they don't really work unless you assume the torturer comes into the session knowing absolutely nothing related to the information they're trying to obtain.

Suppose I planted some bombs and you caught me and demanded the information by torture. First I'd deny, then I'd lie, and presumably eventually I'd give up the locations and the city would be saved. hooray! right?

The trouble is -- what if you caught my completely innocent brother instead? You'd start in on him, and he deny. And deny. And then deny some more... but if you don't let up, he'll give up and start naming places. Of course there won't be any bombs there unless he's incredibly lucky-- but really you expected him to lie. So you torture him some more, and he'll come up with some new locations.

And all the information he'll give you will be unreliable. But he'll swear by his mothers grave its the truth everytime. until you come back tell him he lied and you want the real locations this time... and he'll come up with another set. You see? He'll just keep saying what you want to hear.

Now if you happen to know where the bombs are, and tell him to confirm it. He'll do that too. He'll jump at the chance. And admit to planning it. Buying the explosives, etc... whatever you tell him... he'll give it back to you.

And when you look at some of the information that's come from people who've been tortured. They rarely want anything so verifiable as the location of bombs... they want

a) you to confess to crimes that they'll outline for you
b) tell you name co-conspirators

In which case you eventually do both. Except if your innocent the people you name in b) are just going to be random friends and family and acquaintenaces etc... which is unverifiable... because they all deny it... unless you torture them too, of course.

The trouble with torture is ultimately there is no real way to tell the difference between some who is supressing information and someone who simply doesn't know. Either will deny knowing. And either will give you false information -- the former in defiance, the latter because that's all they've got, and you don't let up until they give you SOMETHING.

And if you know the information your getting is false, well.. they must be in defiance... so you just torture them some more.

Re:If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[repapetilto]

Johnston: "It appears the intel was faulty again sir" Base Cmdr. Assertion Fallacy: "Well, then we obviously haven't tortured him enough have we"

Re:If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[MikeBabcock]

On the contrary -- people who say torture works watch too many movies. Ditto for people who think lie detectors work. You do realize the CIA has admitted to never actually outing an agent with a lie detector, right?

Torture is a useful way to justify your own actions and beliefs, and it may be a way to get information from someone IF they have that information but it is NOT a good reliable way of ascertaining if they even know that information nor if the information they give you is accurate.

Some people you can beat half to death and they'll just let you kill them out of spite. Some people will lie from the start just to see if they can outwit you. Some will give up everything after being threatened once. Can you tell the difference? I'll tell you one thing, a lot of those doing the torturing sure can't, not to mention that you wouldn't be able to admit to having torture training in the first place.

Re:If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[cyphercell]

So, lets say you spend months torturing the wrong person? Do you let them go? Let them back to their people so they can tell everyone what hideous hell awaits them whether innocent or guilty? Fuck no! you bury that shit, you either A) never let them out of prison OR B) finish it. The best case scenario here is where you have executioners and torturers in a total disconnect. The torturer thinks the innocents go free, the executioners think only the guilty are exterminated. But outside of a perfect world, the only thing that holds the soldiers' belief in upstanding behavior is denial.

So, knowing how it works, I know that if torture is going to be used against the enemy (whether innocent or guilty) the innocent will develop plans fashioned around protecting their loved ones, and the guilty will fashion plans to look innocent. What you get is a despotic snowball where both the guilty and innocent rat out their friends in order to protect their families and co-conspirators. Forcing the interrogating force to lock up or kill more and more of the wrong people. (possibly developing a paranoia that all co-conspirators are blood related - the interrogator will sense that everyone is lying about the same thing.)

If I were guilty I would go to the smartest innocent "friend" I have and make a deal that if either of us are captured we will protect our families. I would develop a wild goose chase complete with corroborating evidence, eventually framing my buddy or an enemy. I would instruct all of my closest recruits to do the same (creating more corroboration in a predatory fashion). Fear would drive my friend to do unspeakable things, he at the same time would assume I was under that same pressure of fear - he would be wrong. Spies often work by using people that do NOT know anything of value. Hell if I was a spy I'd set shit up and call the damn interrogators just to keep them busy. Torture is a crude tactic in the intelligence game - it only works against those that are bad at playing the game. What's more, is if your enemy is bad at playing the game, why do you need it?

obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the frequency, Kenneth?