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FBI's Secret Interrogation Manual: Now At the Library of Congress

Posted by timothy on from the closed-stacks-though dept.

McGruber writes "The FBI Supervisory Special Agent who authored the FBI's interrogation manual submitted the document for copyright protection — in the process, making it available to anyone with a card for the Library of Congress to read. The story is particularly mind-boggling for two reasons. First, the American Civil Liberties Union fought a legal battle with the FBI over access to the document. When the FBI relented and released a copy to the ACLU, it was heavily redacted — unlike the 70-plus page version of the manual available from the Library of Congress. Second, the manual cannot even qualify for a copyright because it is a government work. Anything 'prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties' is not subject to copyright in the United States."

13 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Key paragraph by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Funny

    "A document that has not been released does not even need a copyright," says Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. "Who is going to plagiarize from it? Even if you wanted to, you couldn't violate the copyright because you don't have the document. It isn't available."

    "The whole thing is a comedy of errors," he adds. "It sounds like gross incompetence and ignorance."

    It's genius, all the way down.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:Key paragraph by deconfliction · · Score: 4, Informative

      Other key information-
      "
      The ACLU has previously criticized the interrogation manual for endorsing the isolation of detainees and including favorable references to the KUBARK manual, a 1963 CIA interrogation guidebook that encouraged torture methods, including electric shocks. The group has also expressed concern that the manual adopts aspects of the Reid Technique, a common law enforcement interview method that has been known to produce false confessions. A redacted sentence in the manual says the document is intended for use by the FBI's "clean" teams—investigators who collect information intended for use in federal prosecutions. That raises the question of whether teams collecting information that's not for use in federal courts would have to follow the manual's (already permissive) guidelines at all.

      Another section, blacked out in the version provided to the ACLU, encourages FBI agents to stage a "date-stamped full-body picture" of a detainee, complete with a bottle of water, for use in refuting abuse allegations at trial.
      "

    2. Re:Key paragraph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (Shrug) More power to them. I know that if I weren't a terrorist before being locked up in Gitmo without a trial, I'd certainly become one if they ever turned me loose.

    3. Re:Key paragraph by Antonovich · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Who knows, maybe that's the whole point? They didn't have enough hate to justify the trillions so they are manufacturing it. Might be taking it a bit far... Certainly Gitmo hasn't earned the US much respect as responsible caretakers of the "free world".

    4. Re:Key paragraph by DexterIsADog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about some other type "collateral damage" inflicted by the incompetence of the United States government and its allies? How about if you watched a hellfire missile destroy your daughter's or son's wedding party? Or you were the groom and survived the attack that ripped your bride apart, literally limb from limb? And the U.S. government stuck with its "surgical precision" claims and that civilian casualties are vanishingly small?

      Try that in Texas... hell, try it in any state in the union. A foreign aggressor who pulled that on Americans would without doubt create new "terrorists" more quickly than they could kill them.

    5. Re:Key paragraph by DexterIsADog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Regrettable things happen in war..."

      Thank you for plainly displaying the mindset that makes so many people hate the U.S. and prolong this "war" on terrorism with negligent and morally bankrupt tactics.

      My point stands - if you slaughter people, expect more of them to hate you. Your argument, "well the Taliban is worse!" doesn't pass the laugh test.

      Also, your claim that I or any of the parent posters said the "terrorists being held in Gitmo were created by fighting against al Qaida and / or the Taliban" is simply a lie. Try to argue without strawmen. Mine, and the other points being made were, "if you slaughter people or imprison them unjustly, they will turn against you", but I guess that's inconvenient to your ideological embrace of repugnant tactics.

    6. Re:Key paragraph by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is why the "they hate us for our freedoms" tripe seems to actually fly with a lot of those folks. They seem to honestly not know what kind of brutal regimes their government is supporting and arming -- in their name, and on their dime.

      The tripe is being served up mainly by people on the Left. The extremist Islamists such as al Qaida directly state that they want to take over the world, convert the population to Islam, and implement Sharia law in every country. They want to take back formerly Muslim lands, such as Spain.

      Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
      HAMAS Targets Spain

      They want to remove your freedom of worship or not worship, punishing any belief but Islamic belief to varying degrees. The general Muslim position has historically been that Christians and Jews are "People of the Book," close enough that they can be tolerated in Muslim lands, but heavily taxed to create an incentive towards conversion. Polytheists are a hated enemy to be converted, driven out, or killed. (The current extremists do not even want to make the traditional concession to Christians and Jews.) They want to use their religious law to remove your right to eat, drink, and read what you can now. They want to ban alcohol and pornography, for example. They want to remove freedom of expression and punish blasphemy, actively. They want to unify church and state as is the Islamic custom under the Calphate. They believe the problem their societies face will be solved not by digging more sewers and building more schools, but by chopping off more hands and heads. They want to bring that civilization to you, by force if necessary.

      I'm not sure who you could miss that. If you have looked into the question at all you must have seen this. Do you reject it? How do you explain the stated desire to return Spain to Islamic rule by blaming the US? If you have looked into the question of extremist Islam in Europe, you know they have the same goal there for Europe. How do you blame that on the United States?

      If you haven't noticed the US gets hated for acting and not acting at the same time. Don't interfere! You didn't interfere!

      Of course there is little consistency among the Left on related questions. As a practical example, you can see how this operated in 1991 with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. There was essentially no protest in Europe's streets when Saddam invaded Kuwait. The protests came when the US worked to remove Saddam's army. Saddams' invasion wasn't treated as imperialism, or aggression, but removing it was.

      As to my sig, I wasn't "guiding moderators" but reminding them that we are having a discussion here. That is hard to do if one viewpoint is removed from view simply because it is not your viewpoint. Some moderators took it to heart and the moderation of my posts become somewhat less harsh, although various intolerant ideologues continue to mod bomb me from time to time. Fascism isn't truly dead, merely resting, and some moderators seem to take it as a guiding principle for their use of mod points.

      As to my current sig, I suggest you read it again. I am not "threatening" people taking a contrary position to mine but am doing something different. Do you need assistance in parsing it? I realize that English isn't your first language.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. leaks by svirre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A useful way of leaking a document to the public while maintaining plausible deniability? The author may be sympathetic to ACLU.

    1. Re:leaks by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      More likely the FBI wanted to be able to charge anyone possessing or sharing it with copyright infringement.

      Makes sense. A few more years of RIAA lobbying and that will carry a heavier sentence than treason or espionage.

  3. left hand didn't know? by bitingduck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It could easily be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

    In the Reynolds case that established the state secrets privilege of the executive branch, the government fought hard to not disclose the accident reports that the widows of civilian contractors were trying to obtain to show that the government had been negligent in maintenance of the aircraft and that they should therefore receive substantial awards. The case started in 1949, and ran into 1953 before it was finally closed by the supreme court in favor of the government.

    In the meantime, a routine review in 1950 declassified the disputed reports from "secret" to "restricted", which is the equivalent of FOUO, which would have allowed the use of the reports in the case. Everyone involved in the case, from the plaintiffs up to the supreme court, and including all witnesses, was unaware of the declassification, which wasn't discovered until the 2000's. The case ran to its conclusion with everyone involved continuing to believe that the documents were classified. The case went on to be the legal basis for all future claims of state secrets privilege by the executive branch.

    ref:http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?civilliberties_patriot_act=civilliberties_state_secrets&timeline=civilliberties

    1. Re:left hand didn't know? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No. This is clearly demonstrates that the system actually works. In spite of the hysterical bitching that people "classify documents to hide crimes", the classification criteria and declassification criteria are very rigid, it's a felony to illegally classify something that is unclasified, and the declassification review system works. In both of these cases, the redaction decisions were appropriate in the context they were made. The declassification decisions were also appropriate, and the information now has sunshine on it. There is no requirement levied upon the government to keep track of everyone who's interested in a document and tell them when it's declassified. In fact, there was a reform about 7-8 years ago I think (fuzzy memory) that moved a lot of things out of special categories and into the review cycle.

  4. Re:What a waste of time. by jcr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I were sitting on a jury, and an FBI agent were testifying against the defendant, my first assumption would be that the FBI had concocted the caper in which the defendant was accused of participating. They've done it many times.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  5. Re:What a waste of time. by pupsocket · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And that is why you will not sit on a jury. You mind has been polluted by experience and reading.