Showing posts with label Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Show all posts

Sunday, December 7, 2014

APA "Independent" Torture Review Led by Attorney Who Worked With CIA's Tenet

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA's interrogation-torture program may or may not be released in truncated form this week, but it is not the only investigation bearing upon the U.S. torture program that promises new revelations.

A much-touted "independent review" initiated by the American Psychological Association (APA) into charges it secretly supported the Bush administration's policy of torture after 9/11 turns out to be led by a man who worked with the CIA's George Tenet and Kenneth J. Levit over twenty years ago. Tenet went on to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the period the CIA initiated a torture and extraordinary rendition program. Levit was Tenet's choice for special counsel at CIA from 1998-2000.

David Hoffman, a Chicago attorney for the international law firm Sidley Austin, was handpicked by APA as an "independent reviewer" to investigate charges in a new book by New York Times writer James Risen that some of the American Psychological Association's (APA) top leadership colluded with the CIA and the U.S. military in the implementation of the Bush Administration's torture program. Hoffman is to report to a "special committee" drawn from APA's Board of Directors.

His Sidley Austin biography states that Hoffman "has conducted and directed many internal investigations involving serious allegations of fraud and corruption, frequently under intense media scrutiny.... His investigative experience in the public and private sectors has ranged from long-term, multi-national federal criminal investigations involving large teams of investigators and many wiretaps, to internal investigations involving senior corporate and political officials, lower-level employees, corporate entities, and others."

In a November 12 press release, APA called Risen's charges "highly charged and very serious." The release stated, "The independent reviewer [Hoffman] will consider and report to the special committee as to whether APA colluded with the Bush administration, CIA or U.S. military to support torture during the war on terror."

In an e-mail exchange, I asked Hoffman to comment on his links to Tenet and Levit when he worked as a Press Secretary and legislative assistant on foreign policy in Sen. David Boren's office. At the time, Boren was director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and George Tenet was SSCI's staff director.

Hoffman replied, "Yes, I worked with George Tenet and Ken Levit when I served on Senator David Boren’s staff over 20 years ago, prior to attending law school, from 1990 to 1992. I was on Senator Boren’s personal staff, as was Mr. Levit, while Mr. Tenet was on the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. Since then, I have not worked with either of them. Over the last ten years, I have seen and spoken with each of them occasionally, probably on a handful of occasions."

I asked Hoffman under what kinds of circumstances he spoke to Tenet and Levit in the past ten years, or whether he felt past associations could produce any kind of bias. Hoffman did not explain the nature of those contacts, except to say they amounted to "limited, occasional contact."

Hoffman wrote, "I appreciate your questions but I can assure you that my knowing Mr. Tenet and Mr. Levit from a job I held 22 years ago – before I was in law school and well before they were at the CIA – and my limited, occasional contact with them since then will have no bearing on how we conduct our review or our willingness to reach particular conclusions about the APA, the CIA, or any entity or individual. I can assure you that our review will be independent and driven solely by the evidence we are able to gather."

One example of Hoffman's work in Boren's office was recounted in a May 9, 1991 article in the Los Angeles Times, which identified Hoffman as a "spokesman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren." The article quoted Hoffman as stating Boren's support for the potential nomination of Robert M. Gates as CIA director. Gates, who indeed did serve as CIA Director in the early 1990s, later served as Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, running DoD during nearly half the time Guantanamo has been open as a "war on terror" strategic interrogation and detention center.

Hoffman's resume after leaving Sen. Boren's office has other links worth noting. He followed his Senate job with law school at the University of Chicago, and then clerkships for two conservative judges, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Dennis Jacobs, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Hoffman later went to work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago under Patrick Fitzgerald, and a stint as Inspector General for the City of Chicago. According to an article in The Hill, in 2010 Hoffman engaged David Axelrod's former media firm, AKPD, in a run for Democratic nominee for the Senate in Illinois. Hoffman lost, but his political career may not be over.

As regards any potential links to APA itself, Hoffman stated, "I have never done any work for or with the APA or any of its affiliated organizations or individuals. And a search shows that Sidley has not done any work for the APA, any affiliated entity, or any individual who is affiliated with the APA in Sidley’s records for at least the last ten years."

None of the press reports thus far, including articles in Science, The Intercept, and Forbes, have mentioned Hoffman's Tenet link. James Risen's article in the New York Times never mentions it. The same is true for statements by either the APA or the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology (CEP), a group of psychologists who have been highly critical of APA's policy of supporting use of psychologists in national security interrogations.

APA itself seemed to be nonplussed by the fact their "independent reviewer" had a past association with the man who would later lead his organization in the implementation of the very torture program the APA is charged with abetting. In an e-mail exchange with Rhea K. Farberman, Executive Director of APA's Public and Member Communications, Farberman said, "Mr. Hoffman was selected after a review process based on his experience as an investigator and in conducting independent reviews. We have full confidence in Mr. Hoffman’s ability to do a thorough and unbiased review."

Farberman said Hoffman was one of two attorneys first considered for the job, and that the "selection process was managed by APA senior staff."

APA is certainly not unaware of the influence of former Sen. David Boren on national security issues. APA's website listing of scholarships, grants and awards includes the David L. Boren Scholarship Program, which is sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP). The National Security Education Board, which administers the Boren scholarship and similarly named fellowship, includes members of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Homeland Security, Booz Allen Hamilton, the departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Education, and the CIA (see PDF, p. 8).

The NSEP was established by law in 1991. Sen. Boren authored the bill that created it. According to NSEP's own website, the program is "critical to U.S. national security." Furthermore, it states, "The program is implemented by the Secretary of Defense, who has delegated his authority to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness."

Hoffman is not known to have any association with the NSEP Boren scholarships or fellowship programs, but the program was a special project of Boren's office while Hoffman worked there.

Actual or Perceived Bias

The unbiased nature of the APA-initiated investigation is called into question not only by the chief investigator's links to the former head of the CIA, with which APA is charged with collusion, but also by the constitution of the APA's "special committee."

According to APA's press release, APA's committee consists of "2014 APA President Dr. Nadine Kaslow, 2015 President- Elect Dr. Susan McDaniel and APA CEO Dr. Norman Anderson. The special committee will be assisted by APA General Counsel Nathalie Gilfoyle."

In a undated response to APA's announcement of its "independent review," CEP issued a public announcement of its concerns about the investigation. First among these was the participation of CEO Anderson. According to the CEP statement, "The allegations in Risen’s book include claims of inappropriate activity by two top APA officials, the Ethics Office and Science Policy Directors. These officials reported directly to Dr. Anderson’s office, and Dr. Anderson had operational responsibility for APA actions during the entire post-9/11 period under review.... it is entirely inappropriate for Dr. Anderson, or any other APA leader who may be a subject of the investigation, to have any involvement, however tangential, in this process."

CEP has called for an investigation of Anderson's office. It also said the APA Special Committee should "include the participation of an equal number of prominent critics of APA policies regarding relations with national security agencies in general and interrogation and detention operations in particular." [Note: Since going to press, I've been told Anderson has since left the APA review committee. He's been replaced by APA Treasurer Bonnie Markham. Markham has her own history supporting the presence of psychologists in national security interrogations, as seen in this transcript from a discussion at the APA 2007 convention.]

But Anderson is not the only person who may or may not have bias on the committee. Both Kaslow and McDaniel have long histories at APA. Dr. Kaslow's mother, Florence Kaslow, was a former president of APA's Family Psychology division, and a past winner of APA's Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology Award. She also founded Division 41 of the APA, the division on Psychology and the Law, which is widely considered the division that concerns itself with forensic psychology. Div. 41 has in the past produced work around controversies in the science of interrogation, such as the production of false confessions.

Would Nadine Kaslow help render a decision that would taint the reputation of APA? One can't know, but without the presence of countervailing forces on the committee, it's hard to imagine Kaslow bucking any trend to cover-up past APA misdeeds.

Last February, Dr. Kaslow reportedly told APA supporters who lost a bid within the organization to ban psychologists from working with military interrogations, that she would work with them to get the proposal reintroduced at last summer's annual APA convention. But the interrogation ban was never reintroduced. (It "lost" in February only because it failed to get 2/3 of the votes needed; instead it got 53%.)

Dr. McDaniel, along with CEO Anderson, are both members of APA's Division 19, the Society for Military Psychology. Division 19 has been a strong supporter of the presence of psychologists at national security interrogations, including at Guantanamo.

As further evidence of potential bias, in 2007 Dr. McDaniel was the co-recipient of the $50,000 Psyche award from the APA-linked American Psychological Foundation (APF) and the Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Foundation. While there is no indication that Dr. McDaniel would let the award money influence her handling of "highly charged and very serious" charges against APA top personnel, the appearance of bias attaches to her participation by virtue of the large cash award.

The APF Board of Trustees include APA CEO Anderson, as well as psychologists Gerald Koocher, APF Treasurer, and Ronald F. Levant. Both Koocher and Levant were identified in an article by a former APA official Byrant Welch as strong proponents at APA of psychologist participation in interrogations.

According to numerous accounts, including one at the Washington Monthly in January 2007, "in February 2005, Koocher and APA president Ronald Levant led the creation of the blue-ribbon, 10-member Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force to study the problem" of psychologist's ostensible ethical participation in military and CIA interrogations.

The stacking of the PENS task force with members of the military and intelligence community was the source of later scandal. Not surprisingly, PENS issued a report which supported the continuing presence of psychologists in interrogations. The machinations behind the appointments for the task force forms a central part of the charges of CIA collusion in Risen's book.

An Opaque Review

New York Times writer James Risen made headlines with revelations stemming from his book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. Not least of these was a chapter that centered on links between APA officials and members of the Department of Defense and CIA. Risen's central evidence concerns various emails from a former RAND researcher, Scott Gerwehr. Gerwehr died in an motorcycle accident in 2008, but his emails and possibly other documents from his computer were mysteriously obtained by Risen and former Physicians for Human Rights official Nathaniel Raymond. The emails were reportedly turned over to the FBI, who did nothing with them.

Risen has refused thus far to publicly release the emails, so we do not know all the people who may have been involved in the alleged APA collusion. But Risen does name as involved in connivance with CIA and DoD on interrogation policy, Geoff Mumford, former director of Science Policy at APA (now associate executive director, Science Policy); former APA Senior Scientist, and Bush administration science official, Susan Brandon, who is currently Chief of Research for President Obama's High-Value Interrogation Group (HIG); and Stephen Behnke, APA Ethics Office director. (Neither Koocher nor Levant are named in Risen's book.)

The central incidents include a July 2004 email invite, which included top CIA and military psychologists, from Behnke to attend a private meeting to discuss ethical issues for psychologists in the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture revelations.

Behnke wrote: "The purpose of the meeting is to bring together people with an interest in the ethical aspects of national security-related investigations, to identify the important questions, and to discuss how we as a national organization can better assist psychologists and other mental health professionals sort out appropriate from inappropriate uses of psychology." [Risen, James (2014-10-14). Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War (p. 198). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.]

Behnke stressed attendance at the meeting would be kept secret. He reportedly wrote that APA wanted to "convey a sensitivity to and appreciation of the important work mental health professionals are doing in the national security arena” (p. 198).

The other primary piece of evidence Risen presents is a July 2005 email from Geoff Mumford to CIA psychologist Kirk Hubbard. According to Risen, who quotes the email: "Mumford thanked Hubbard for helping to influence the outcome of the task force. 'I also wanted to semi-publicly acknowledge your personal contribution... in getting this effort off the ground,” Mumford wrote. 'Your views were well represented by very carefully selected task force members'” (p. 200).

The CEP's statement in response to the APA's announcement of the "independent review" zeroed in on the nature of the APA's alleged collusion.

"The main allegations of APA collusion do not involve the direct promotion of torture," the CEP statement said. "Rather, the central concern targets the access and oversight that APA leaders apparently gave to Bush administration, CIA, and Defense Department officials to shape APA policies in a way that would allow continued psychologist involvement in abuses. That is, the primary issue is potential institutional corruption that served the interests of those promoting the enhanced interrogation program, not direct involvement in that program."

Whatever the involvement, one problem with Risen's book is that it buries the long history of such involvement, a history that the APA itself once owned up to many years ago, as exemplified in this December 1977 article in the APA house organ, APA Monitor. Risen also claims that before the "war on terror," "the U.S. military had a well-earned reputation for the humane treatment of prisoners of war" (p. 168). Apparently Risen never heard, for instance, about the tiger cages at Con Son Island during the Vietnam War, or Project Phoenix.

Everyone, myself included, who writes or works on the controversy around U.S. torture has an agenda of some kind. It's important that the public know what that agenda might be, whether it comes from Jeff Kaye, James Risen, APA, or David Hoffman.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Anti-Torture Psychologists Respond to Attack from APA Division Chief

The battle within the American Psychological Association (APA) to bring that organization into line with other human rights groups and attorney organizations in opposing the use of psychological personnel in national security interrogations accelerated last month when a prominent APA official came out strongly against a petition to annul APA's ethics policy on national security and interrogations.

In June 2005, the APA published their report on Psychological Ethics and National Security (the PENS report). APA, stung by criticism that psychologists had been involved in torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere, nevertheless stacked the panel hastily assembled that Spring with over fifty percent military and/or military connected members.

These were not just any military individuals, but included the former Chief of Psychology at Guantanamo, a SERE psychologist who supported use of SERE techniques in interrogations, and a Special Forces top psychologist who, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee, had actually trained interrogators in use of SERE torture techniques in interrogations.

Reposted below is a letter from the Coalition for Ethical Psychology (CEP), responding to an October 26  letter from the President of the American Psychological Association's Division 42, Psychologists in Independent Practice, who had written a reply to CEP's request for support for their call for annulment of the APA's PENS report.

The original petition to annul the PENS report was posted at CEP's website in October 2011. The petition called PENS "the defining document endorsing psychologists’ engagement in detainee interrogations."

The petition continued: "Despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations, the PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists play a critical role in keeping interrogations 'safe, legal, ethical and effective.' With this stance, the APA, the largest association of psychologists worldwide, became the sole major professional healthcare organization to support practices contrary to the international human rights standards that ought to be the benchmark against which professional codes of ethics are judged."

The political heat around the anti-PENS petition increased noticeably when CEP came out publicly against a so-called “member-initiated task force” to “reconcile policies related to psychologists’ involvement in national security settings.” This task force, actually established with APA Board and staff support, was opposed to the annulment petition, and likely was formed to blunt the impact of CEP's call for annulment, which was gaining much support. One of the prominent members of this new "task force" is William Strickland, the president and CEO of the long-time military contractor-research group, Human Resource Research Organization (HumRRO),

A number of APA divisions have signed onto CEP's petition, including Div. 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience & Comparative Psychology), Div. 27 (Society for Community Research and Action), Div. 39 (Psychoanalysis), and others. The CEP petition also gained the support of the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Physicians for Human Rights, and other organizations, as well as prominent individuals, including past APA President Philip Zimbardo, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, and Nobel Prize winning geneticist Richard Lewontin, among many others.

"Harming our practice of psychology"

The Div. 42 letter was written by Jeffrey Younggren, a psychologist who has long presented himself or been recognized as an expert in psychological ethics, and who has a long-time association with military psychology, including a posting as Colonel in the United States Army Reserve to the Office of the Surgeon General, 1999 – 2002, and four medals for service to the Department of Defense.

Readers interested in Dr. Younggren and the Division 42 board's point of view on PENS are encouraged to read their letter.

Quoted directly below is a portion of Younggren's letter, wherein he describes the response of Div. 42's Board to CEP's original request to them for support of PENS annulment. Dr. Younggren concludes Div. 42 "will not introduce or sign onto any resolution about recalling or annulling the PENS report," but his discussion goes farther than a mere statement of position on annulment.  He lambasted CEP itself (bold emphases are added for emphasis):
We request that your Coalition stop using the press to spread all negative information about its dissatisfaction with APA. You are harming our practice of psychology by giving false and biased information and therefore, impacting negatively on the ability of people who need psychological services to receive them from ethical and competent psychologists in independent practice....

[The PENS report] was properly vetted at the APA COR [Council of Representatives] meeting that voted to accept it. It is not APA policy. Rather COR merely accepted the information that may or may not be used in formulation of formal APA policies. Annulment [of PENS] would disenfranchise the COR members who voted to accept the report in 2005 and further would be disrespectful to the work done by members whose contribution may have helped the report be more honest than if only members who agreed with the Coalition's were represented on it....

By distributing copies of this letter, we will ask APA to maintain a vigorous response to any further complaints publicized by the Coalition in the media that may damage our members' independent practice of psychology. We believe that only by giving a partial story to the media, the Coalition is damaging the entire field of psychology.
PENS, Younggren, and APA's Council of Representatives

Describing anti-torture psychologists as providing "false and biased information" and "harming our practice of psychology" -- even unto "impacting negatively" the ability of individuals to receive psychological services -- Younggren and the Division 42 board make serious charges. I do not believe they can back them up.

Younggren does not indicate what he or his board consider "false or biased information," leaving one with only ad hominem assertions. (CEP also makes this point in their response to Younggren.) He also does not provide any empirical data for his assertion that people are unable to receive psychological services from clinicians in independent practice because of CEP's statements or policies.

On the contrary, it was APA's own Board of Directors who, in a June 2009 letter to its membership, admitted the participation of some psychologists in torture. Regarding the impact of such behavior on the field of psychology, the Board wrote, "The involvement of psychologists, no matter how small the number, in the torture of detainees is reprehensible and casts a shadow over our entire profession."

Younggren's position that anti-torture psychologists are "damaging the entire field of psychology" is bizarre hyperbole, and appears aimed at vilifying an entire group of professionals. Nowhere in Younggren's letter is there any indication that APA members engaged in unethical behavior when they participated in interrogations that even Guantanamo authorities labelled as "torture," i.e. John Leso's participation in the interrogation of Mohammed Al Qahtani, nor how that might have damaged the field.

Nor is there any mention of the role that psychologists played in the construction of the "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., the SERE-derived torture program during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by both the mainstream media and in Congressional investigations.

Moreover, Younggren appears to be confused about how PENS was integrated into APA policy. At first he claims APA's COR "voted to accept" the report. Then he says "it is not APA policy." But demonstrating either confusion or a return to a mistaken narrative, he follows this statement with the assertion, "Annulment [of PENS] would disenfranchise the COR members who voted to accept the report in 2005...."

But APA's COR never voted on PENS! Even so, APA officials first tried to present their ethics and national security report as something that went through normal organizational channels. Yet this story wasn't true, and ultimately APA had to admit that.

Here is what Mark Benjamin reported on the subject at Salon.com in Aug. 2006 (bold emphasis added):
In its original six-point response to Salon, the APA took exception to the use of the words “internal revolt” to describe the push against the association’s interrogation principles. It suggested the [PENS] policy had been formally embraced by the elected members of the APA’s council, who have broad authority to develop APA policy. “The reality is that APA’s Council of Representatives endorsed the current policy at its last meeting,” the association leadership said in the response.

That raised some eyebrows among some members, who pointed out the claim was incorrect. In a relatively unusual move, they said, the interrogation report bypassed the council (described on the APA Web site as the “most important governance body of the association”) and became policy through the imprimatur of APA’s smaller 12-person board of directors. “Council was not asked to endorse or approve the PENS task force report,” said council member Bernice Lott.

Farberman, the APA spokeswoman, acknowledged that the original APA statement on the council’s endorsement was technically incorrect. She said that members of the council had made “laudatory” statements about the report at a council meeting last February. When called on this issue last week by her own members, Farberman admitted to the council in an e-mail, obtained by Salon, that “Council took no official action on the report.”
Younggren's confusion does not stop with the issue of PENS and COR. At one point in his letter, he declares that APA has "clear policies enumerating exactly what is meant by torture, so that there can be no confusion or loopholes should a psychologist be asked to participate in such unethical behavior."

Yet towards the close of the letter, Younggren suggests that more study on the issue is needed. He writes, "We see a need for defining where the line crosses from interview to gain necessary information  to assess and create treatment plans to being a part of torture. We have asked our forensic committee to begin discussing the issue."

But what is the need for discussion if APA's policies are so clear? And what exactly is Younggren getting at by conflating psychological interview for the purposes of treatment planning and psychological interview to facilitate torture? Frankly, either Dr. Younggren or Division 42's Board (or both) appear to be confused about the entire issue here. Such confusion does not bode well for those who would advocate that psychologists act as safety monitors in interrogation settings.

Psychologists and the National Security State

The Younggren letter amounts to a polemical declaration of war against APA's opponents on interrogation policy. At the bottom of all this acrimony is a battle for the soul of the psychology profession, especially as it relates to services to the national security state.

Younggren maintains, "There is a role for psychologists to play in counterintelligence and counterterrorism provided it is done responsibly." But psychologists have no special training or unique skills to provide to interrogation functions that generations of police and military interrogators haven't already developed.

Instead, the presence of doctors and psychologists in interrogation settings has only served to legitimize inhumane practices, such as indefinite detention, isolation, and other coercive interrogation techniques. Despite assurances by the Obama administration to the contrary, abusive interrogations amounting to torture, or at least cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment continues under provisions of the current Army Field Manual, which includes provisions for manipulation of fears, sleep deprivation, use of isolation, sensory deprivation, and use of drugs, among other dubious or harmful procedures on prisoners and detainees, while "behavioral consultants" are still used to monitor and otherwise consult to interrogators on the use of such abusive techniques.

APA has deliberately played an adjunct role to the Pentagon and CIA in the "war on terror." As an example, even to the present day the APA has refused to call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay's prison.

CEP Responds to Div. 42 President's Letter

What follows is CEP's own response to Younggren's letter, reposted here to assist the public in understanding the basic issues involved in this discussion:
October 31, 2012

Dear Dr. Younggren and Members of the APA Division 42 Board:

Thank you for your recent letter in which you share your views with the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and with leaders of the American Psychological Association. We are hopeful that your criticisms of the Coalition's efforts to encourage accountability and reform within the APA will be an important step toward a long overdue, broad-based, transparent, and urgently needed discussion of psychological ethics in national security settings.

These ethics-based deliberations have not taken place within the APA, largely because the 2005 Presidential Task Force Report on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS Report) – produced after a single weekend meeting – rubber-stamped the Bush Administration’s claim that psychologists serve to keep detention and interrogation operations safe, legal, ethical, and effective. We therefore regret your position to “vehemently oppose” annulment of the PENS Report, and we hope that in reaching this stance the Board was not unduly influenced by those members of your division who, as you note in your letter, were directly involved in the PENS process.

At the same time, we are concerned that your letter misrepresents our work and our purpose. You emphasize that the APA does not condone “psychologist’s use of behavior defined as torture.” But the Coalition’s critique of APA leadership with regard to policies related to national security operations goes far beyond matters of “torture.” That a psychologist should not engage in torture is obvious; to highlight this precept alone is to present an exceedingly low bar for our profession. Professional ethics in psychology – based as it is on broad “do no harm” principles – expects much more of us. In violation of these standards, post-9/11 “war on terror” health professionals were given responsibility for overseeing and directing detention conditions and interrogation practices that were coercive, often abusive, and sometimes even torturous.

While recognizing and acknowledging the good work and dedication to public safety that characterizes so many of our colleagues in military and national security positions, the Coalition believes that greater awareness, engagement, and guidance are urgently needed in order to prevent ethically fraught aspects of national security psychology from undermining our profession’s most noble aspirations. In the long run, the public’s respect for psychology depends upon preserving our profession’s commitment to improving the lives of others and refraining from harmful actions. We believe that it does not serve psychology or psychologists for our profession to stand alone among the health professions in permitting our licensed professionals to join in abusive or coercive practices.

That is why, over the past year, a centerpiece of the Coalition’s efforts has been our Call for Annulment of the PENS Report. Annulment of the Report is essential, both as a matter of accountability and in order to provide the foundation for a fresh and uncompromised examination of the ethics underlying psychologist involvement in national security operations. Our annulment initiative has received substantial and wide-ranging support from highly respected organizations and individuals. Thirty-three groups have endorsed our online petition, including Physicians for Human Rights, the ACLU, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and the executive committees of eight APA divisions. The petition has also been signed by over 2,000 individuals, including current and former APA division presidents and former members of the APA Ethics Committee; non-psychologists such as psychiatrists Robert Jay Lifton and Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis (ret.) and bioethicist Steven Miles; scholar-activists such as Daniel Ellsberg; attorneys who have represented Guantanamo detainees; military and intelligence veterans; and many psychologists and human rights advocates (signers are listed at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens). Given the diversity of your own membership within Division 42, it is very likely that some of your own members – perhaps many of them – also support annulment of the PENS Report.

We understand that, for a variety of reasons, not everyone will agree with our position regarding the importance of annulling the PENS Report. But we hope that no one will disagree about the value of presenting the issues accurately. It is therefore a matter of concern to us that your letter overlooks or minimizes key considerations and evidence that have been presented in support of PENS annulment. In this regard, please consider the bullet points below (further documentation is available on the Coalition website).

• APA leadership has had a long and problematic relationship with sectors of the national security establishment involved in detainee torture and abuse. For example, in 2003 the APA conducted a joint conference with the CIA and the Rand Corporation on the “Science of Deception.” This conference was attended by psychologists who designed and implemented the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” torture program. Conference funding was arranged by the CIA psychologist who was instrumental in implementing this torture program. The conference report and journalist accounts also indicate that “enhanced interrogation” techniques were on the conference agenda.

• In 2002, soon after 9/11, the APA implemented a revised ethics code. Changes were made in the code that permitted psychologists, for the first time, to override ethical standards when they conflicted with “law, regulations, or other governing legal authority.” These changes, incorporated into the PENS Report, served to immunize psychologists from potential ethical accountability for detention, interrogation, and other activities that previously would have been considered unethical. APA leadership resisted numerous calls over the next eight years – from Council and others – to correct deficiencies in the code.

• As early as 2004, reliable reports circulated that psychologists – including APA members – acted as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers of abusive and sometimes torturous interrogations at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, Bagram Air Base, and CIA “black sites.” The PENS Task Force refused to evaluate the adequacy of APA’s response to these specific public reports.

• Six of the nine voting members of the PENS Task Force were on the payroll of U.S. military or intelligence agencies – presenting clear conflicts of interest – and several of them were drawn from the very chains of command accused of prisoner abuses. In consequence, the Task Force: (a) presumed, rather than deliberated, the legitimacy of psychologists as interrogation consultants; (b) tied the PENS Report to the permissive definition of torture in U.S. law rather than to international human rights law, even though the APA is an accredited NGO to the United Nations; (c) incorporated language from military behavioral science consultation protocols directly into PENS policy; and (d) voted to require confidentiality of Task Force proceedings.

• Undisclosed high-level APA representatives who attended the PENS Task Force meeting engaged in lobbying for Department of Defense and CIA funding and had a vested interest in a PENS Report compatible with then-current administration policy. A significant conflict of interest existed for the director of the APA Practice Directorate, who steered the Task Force meeting toward supporting the role of psychologists as interrogation consultants while emphasizing the need to put out the fires of public controversy surrounding such psychologist involvement. Furthermore, this director did not disclose to the non-military members of the Task Force that his wife was an active duty SERE-trained psychologist, who had served at Guantanamo. Along with two Task Force members, she also worked with the Army Surgeon General to revise instructions for psychologists participating in national security detention and interrogation activities based on the PENS Report.

• The PENS Task Force presumed, without deliberation, that the current APA Ethics Code adequately addressed complex ethical issues associated with psychologist involvement in national security operations, that no new ethical standards were needed, and that national security concerns justified subordinating individual welfare to government interests. The Task Force declined to consider the challenges in adapting the Ethics Code to operational psychologists working under military authority and military exigencies, including the difficulty or impossibility of ethical oversight or of obtaining independent ethics consultation in classified settings.

• The PENS process and Report departed from standard APA procedures in numerous ways for which adequate explanation has never been provided: the Ethics Office director produced a full draft report immediately at the close of the weekend meeting and Task Force members were given only 24 hours to accept or reject the report; the APA Board invoked its emergency powers to endorse the PENS Report, preempting a standard review and vote by the Council of Representatives; the identities of the PENS Task Force members were not included in the Report, were not posted on the APA website, and were withheld from members of the APA and members of the press requesting them; the Task Force chair designated two APA staff members as the sole spokespersons for the Task Force; and, by majority vote, Task Force members agreed not to speak about the PENS process or PENS Report with others.

Despite these and other serious grounds for concern, the PENS Report has been widely used to promote and expand operational roles for psychologists in national security settings, and the document continues to be used in this capacity. The Report is cited in current DoD policy memos to support psychologists’ involvement in detention, interrogation, and debriefing operations, including in the assessment and exploitation of individual detainee “vulnerabilities” for intelligence purposes. The Report is also being used to legitimize “operational psychology” in counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and anti-terrorism operations – which sometimes involve psychological interventions that directly harm those identified as potential adversaries – as an official APA area of specialization. And the PENS Report is repeatedly cited as a resource for ethical decision-making in the APA Ethics Committee’s recent – and widely criticized – draft “casebook” on National Security Commentary.

In sum, the PENS Report has facilitated harm to vulnerable populations by supporting policies that lack adequate protection against abusive treatment; has badly damaged the reputation of U.S. psychology both domestically and internationally; has diminished the APA’s commitment to advance psychology “as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare;” has compromised the integrity of the relationship between professional psychology and the security sector; and, as emphasized by some senior interrogators and intelligence professionals, has undermined national security.

In our work over the past several years, we have closely collaborated with and benefited from the guidance of military interrogators, counterintelligence professionals, military attorneys (JAGs) and ethicists, and military health professionals. The preponderance of psychologists whose work supports the U.S. military and other defense-related agencies – including the many clinical psychologists providing valuable services to soldiers and veterans in VA hospitals and other medical facilities – are not engaged in ethically fraught areas of operational psychology typified by behavioral science consultations to interrogations and conditions of detention. Our efforts are, in part, an attempt to protect psychologists in the military and in national security who strive to practice in accordance with psychological ethics and international law and are asked or ordered to be purveyors of harm. To the extent that these psychologists can point to clear guidance from the APA and state licensing boards, they are better positioned to refuse such orders.

As a final consideration, we have already heard from several colleagues who are concerned by what they perceive as your letter’s threatening and intimidating tone. We are disinclined to focus on that aspect of your correspondence because we believe there is much good that can come from greater engagement over the ethical issues at hand for the profession we share, especially among groups and individuals with differing perspectives. Toward that end, the Coalition will continue its efforts to bring wider recognition among fellow psychologists, national leaders, and the general public to the urgent need to examine psychological ethics in national security settings. We would like to respond to your claim that we are harming your “practice of psychology by giving false and biased information,” but your letter does not provide any specific examples of inaccuracies in any official Coalition statements or related communications. We welcome your bringing such instances to our attention, and we will try to respond with documentation and clarification in a timely manner.

We especially welcome what might appear to be your admonishment to us: “Please understand that your behavior needs to be honest and demonstrate what you state are your core values.” As a Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, our core values are indeed honesty, transparency, and ethical practice, and we hope that we share these values with the members of your division. Thus, our priority has been for the APA to acknowledge grave breaches of ethical principles, to hold those responsible for those breaches accountable, and to change misguided policies and institutional processes so that our profession is protected from similar harmful and discrediting actions in the future.

APA leadership has supported psychologists' participation in what were known to be abusive and coercive detention and interrogation practices; certain APA members have been directly implicated in these abuses in public documents, including congressional testimony and military investigations; and the APA Board put its ethics policy for national security settings in the hands of psychologists who were part of the very commands accused of detainee mistreatment. The Coalition believes these are very serious matters, and we hope you agree. We flatly disagree with any suggestion that the threat to the APA comes from publicizing these concerns and not from the unethical activities themselves.

Again, we extend our thanks to you for bringing greater attention to the call for annulment of the PENS Report. We welcome the opportunity to continue and to extend this important discussion. Please share this response to your letter with the full membership of Division 42.

Sincerely,

Roy Eidelson
Stephen Soldz
Steven Reisner
Brad Olson
Trudy Bond
Jean Maria Arrigo

Cc: APA Board of Directors
APA Council of Representatives
APA Division Leadership
[Full disclosure: the author of this article resigned from APA in January 2008. I am not currently, a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, some of whose leading members have been active in Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, though I have been a member in the past. I have never been a member of CEP, but have openly supported their positions, including PENS annulment. I also once took a Continuing Education class on Ethics from Dr. Younggren.

I'd note that Dr. Younggren, though not writing for publication, failed to notify the recipients of his letter that a prominent member of Div. 42's Board, Treasurer Gerald Koocher (who in 2005 was APA President-elect), served as official liaison from APA to the PENS panel, itself made up of an overwhelming majority of military-linked psychologists. Younggren also did not mention his own long-time military connections, which might have biased his position.]

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Ethics Process Fails at APA, Psychologists Demand Review

Two psychologists with the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology have written an open letter to current American Psychological Association (APA) President Suzanne Bennett Johnson. The letter excoriates the APA Ethics Office for refusing to censure blatant cases of psychologist involvement in torture or other related crimes.

Doctors Steven Reisner and Trudy Bond review three cases that were brought to APA on charges of ethics violations -- Michael Gelles, John Leso, and Larry James. The letter is reprinted below, reproduced from its online posting here.

I was pleased to see that some of my own investigations into psychologist involvement in torture were referenced by Reisner and Bond, in particular my work on the Daniel King-Michael Gelles case.

APA Confirms It Exonerated Gelles

On August 8, 2010 I received an email from APA Communications Director Rhea Farberman. I had written to her after I'd seen a copy of an unpublished letter she had written to USA Today. According to Farberman, she had written to the paper because they were going to publish an op-ed by attorney Jonathan Turley on Gelles and the Daniel King case. She "wanted to let the USA Today editorial page staff know that at least one of Mr. Turley’s assertions was incorrect." The op-ed was subsequently cancelled.

While Reisner and Bond state in their Open Letter (italics in original): "The Ethics Committee apparently found that Dr. Gelles’ behavior did not violate APA ethics," Farberman confirmed she had written the letter to USA Today, and told me in the August 8 email (bold emphasis in original): "APA did investigate the allegations against Dr. Gelles and found no violations of the APA ethics code."

In the unpublished letter by Farberman to USA Today, written after the 2009 summer APA convention, where former King attorney Jonathan Turley had spoken about the King case and Gelles, the APA Communications Director wrote:
• Mr. Turley asserts that APA ignored his complaint. That is totally untrue. In April of 2001 a complaint was filed against an APA member, Dr. Michael Gelles. As a result of this complaint, filed by Mr. Turley, an ethics investigation was initiated and a formal ethics case was opened.

• Material relevant to the investigation was provided to APA by Mr. Turley who as the complainant’s representative received correspondence from the Ethics Office regarding this case.

• The complainant was provided multiple opportunities to submit information. Materials submitted by Mr. Turley included a videotape which was part of the record and thoroughly reviewed. According to APA’s procedures, the record also included Dr. Gelles’ responses to the charges against him.

• The full APA Ethics Committee reviewed the case and, on the basis of all the facts in the record, including materials provided by Mr. Turley and Dr. Gelles’ responses, determined that there had been no violation of the APA Ethics Code. On September 26, 2002, the APA Ethics Office informed the complainant through Mr. Turley of the final outcome of this matter.
I tried on multiple occasions to get comment from Turley, but he never responded to requests. Nevertheless, another of King's attorney's did speak to me, and revealed that not long after the Gelles interview, Daniel King made a suicide attempt or gesture. I wrote up this interview with former JAG Robert A. Bailey in a follow-up article to my first King-Gelles story, Broken Faith: How a Navy Psychologist Drove A U.S. Prisoner to Attempt Suicide.

I followed up the Aug. 8 email and asked Farberman if APA could "verify if the ethics investigation also contacted Daniel King's military JAG attorneys, Lieutenant Robert Bailey or Lieutenant Matthew Freedus, or reviewed their testimony to the Senate Intelligence committee as part of the ethics investigation?" I also asked if APA would share the video of the King interrogation, if they had a copy.

Farberman refused to make further comment. "We will not be releasing any further materials related to the investigation and review of Mr. Turley’s allegations against Dr. Gelles beyond what I have already told you," she said in her email response.

Actually, what Farberman confirms is far worse than what Turley originally claimed. He said that APA ignored the ethics charge. Farberman insists the charges were investigated but APA found Gelles did nothing wrong. What that means is that from APA's standpoint, misrepresentation of roles, lying, and participation in an abusive interrogation, using sleep deprivation on a prisoner, is totally fine with APA, and such behavior doesn't even merit the most minor of rebukes. (For more details on the King case, see the link above.)

I'd add that I also wrote on the role Col. Larry James played in supervising the rendition of child prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. See Guantanamo Psychologist Led Rendition and Imprisonment of Afghan Boys, Complaint Charges. As one example of James' crime we have the testimony of Mohammed Ismail Agha, age 13, who told the Washington Post, he was "put on a plane with other prisoners, chained by the wrists and ankles, with a hood placed over his head." None of the parents of these children were informed what had happened to their sons.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to psychologists Steven Reisner and Trudy Bond, and other psychologists and medical professionals who have tried to stand up and get their professional associations, and the members of same, to be accountable. It is surely a dark, dark stain on the history of the helping professions to see them twisted into their exact opposites, agencies of cruelty and despair.

What follows is the text of the Open Letter. All italics were in the original.
Open Letter to
President Suzanne Bennett Johnson
American Psychological Association

A.P.A. has taken a very strong stance against the use of torture, inhumane, and degrading treatment, and if anyone is able to identify A.P.A. members who have been involved in such activities, we will take disciplinary action.
-- Gerald Koocher, former APA President, speaking on Democracy Now! (June 16, 2006)

September 18, 2012

Dear Dr. Johnson:

We are two psychologists committed to making certain that psychologists implicated in torture and prisoner abuse are held accountable by oversight bodies for their egregious ethical violations. We believe the public trust and the reputation of our profession depend upon such accountability.

We are writing at this time regarding ethics complaints filed with the APA Ethics Office against three psychologists who remain APA members in good standing: Dr. Michael Gelles, Dr. Larry James and Dr. John Francis Leso. Based on undisputed facts, these cases cry out for investigation and appropriate censure. We would like to briefly review some of the evidence for these complaints and express our concern with regard to the status of each complaint.

Attorney Jonathan Turley filed a complaint with the APA Ethics Office in 2001 against Dr. Michael Gelles for alleged complicity in the harsh treatment of US Naval Officer Daniel King, who had been accused of espionage.[i] [ii] King was held for 520 days without charge by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and interrogated for 29 days in 15-20 hour sessions. During this period, Navy investigators gave King multiple polygraph tests and lied to him about the results. By the end of the month, King had signed a confession despite having no recollection of the actions to which he admitted. Prior to his military hearing, King had become suicidal and felt he was losing his grip on reality, since he could not remember the event. He requested a consultation with a psychologist to help him remember, via hypnosis or truth serum, and King was sent to Dr. Gelles for a psychological consultation.[iii] [iv] [v] According to testimony of King’s defense attorney before the Senate Intelligence Committee, “Gelles virtually ignored the statement of King that he had suicidal thoughts…two days before the interview.”[vi] He focused instead on pressuring King to give the agents “corroborating” evidence, offering to hypnotize King if he did so. These allegations are supported by the videotape of Dr. Gelles’ session with King (made by NCIS without consent) which was provided by Turley to the Ethics Committee. (Ultimately, all charges against King were dismissed when a military judge concluded there was insufficient evidence even to sustain a determination of probable cause.[vii])

The Ethics Committee apparently found that Dr. Gelles’ behavior did not violate APA ethics; in fact, subsequent to this case, Dr. Gelles was chosen by the Director of the Ethics Office to sit on the PENS Task Force and help develop ethical guidelines for national security interrogations.

On December 5, 2007, Dr. Trudy Bond filed a complaint with the APA Ethics Office against Dr. Larry James for his alleged involvement in the harsh treatment of detainees. Among numerous ethical violations, Dr. James oversaw the transport of three child prisoners – one 12 years old and two 13 years old[viii] – from Bagram, Afghanistan to Guantánamo, where Dr. James was the Chief Behavioral Science Consultation Team member (“BSCT #1”).[ix] [x] According to the New York Times, during transport the boys were “put on a plane with other prisoners, chained by the wrists and ankles, with a hood” placed over their heads. At Guantánamo, Dr. James oversaw the daily interrogations of these boys. For ten months the boys’ families were not told what had happened to their children, who had been “disappeared” by American authorities. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has held that such “disappearance” is torture – not only for the subject, but also for the family of the child taken without public acknowledgement. In addition, there is no dispute that such treatment of children is a violation of international law.

The ethics complaint against Col. James was dismissed by the APA Ethics Office without investigation.

In 2006, Dr. Alice Shaw filed a complaint against Dr. John Leso with the APA Ethics Office, which was never officially acknowledged. On April 15, 2007, Dr. Trudy Bond filed a similar complaint against Dr. Leso, which also was not acknowledged. Dr. Bond refiled the complaint on September 4, 2007. That complaint was formally acknowledged by APA on February 27, 2008. Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that while serving at the U.S. Station at Guantánamo Bay Dr. Leso, in his position as BSCT #1 (he preceded Dr. James in this position), co-authored a document recommending that a series of escalating physically and psychologically abusive interrogation tactics be used on detainees there. Many of these techniques were applied to Guantánamo detainee “063,” Mohammed al-Qahtani, under Dr. Leso’s direct supervision.[xi] [xii] Susan Crawford, the Convening Authority for the Guantánamo Military Commissions appointed by George W. Bush, dismissed the case against al-Qahtani precisely because “his treatment met the legal definition of torture.” Many of the techniques and conditions that appeared in Dr. Leso’s written interrogation document were subsequently applied to other men and boys held at Guantánamo and eventually to detainees held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, more than five years after filing, the ethics complaint against Dr. Leso still remains unadjudicated by the APA Ethics Office (apparently the longest unadjudicated case in APA history).

The results of the case against Dr. Leso in New York clearly establish why the APA must take the lead in such cases. Unlike the NYOPD, the APA’s standards for psychologists do not permit the sidestepping of ethical issues through legal gymnastics. As the APA Ethics Code states:
This Ethics Code applies only to psychologists' activities that are part of their scientific, educational, or professional roles as psychologists. Areas covered include but are not limited to the clinical, counseling, and school practice of psychology; research; teaching; supervision of trainees; public service; policy development; social intervention; development of assessment instruments; conducting assessments; educational counseling; organizational consulting; forensic activities; program design and evaluation; and administration.
Most states follow the lead of the APA Ethics Office in determining ethical standards and in adjudicating cases.

Because of the Ethics Committee’s delay in adjudicating the Leso case, Dr. Steven Reisner initiated an ethics complaint against Dr. Leso with the New York Office of Professional Discipline (NYOPD), which grants his license to practice.[xiii] The NYOPD and the New York Attorney General acknowledged the fact that, “Dr. Leso, apparently, was asked to use his skills as a weapon; not to help the mental health of the detainees.” But the NYOPD used these very facts to determine that – since the aim of Dr. Leso’s activity at Guantánamo was explicitly to cause harm, and since there was no “therapist-patient relationship between Dr. Leso and any of the Guantánamo detainees” – Dr. Leso’s professional behavior could not be considered the “practice of psychology” under the New York Education Law and therefore the ethics code did not apply. The case was dismissed without investigation.

Dr. Reisner pursued the case against Leso in New York State Supreme Court. The Court refused to overrule NYOPD, not on the merits of the case, but based on a technicality: that harm to the profession at large notwithstanding, Dr. Reisner could not show that he had been personally harmed by Dr. Leso’s activities. But harm to the profession of psychology is precisely a central issue for the American Psychological Association. The ability of our association to establish and uphold ethical principles is the very basis upon which we garner and maintain public trust. And that trust has been sorely challenged by the failure of the APA Ethics Office to determine when a psychologist’s behavior in national security interrogations has violated our basic, time-honored ethical principles.

In light of the circumstances we have described here, we are requesting that you, as President of the APA:
1. Open a full review of the practices of the APA Ethics Office with regard to the investigation and adjudication of cases alleging torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in general, and the cases of Drs. Leso, James, and Gelles in particular.

2. Ensure that the case against Dr. Leso now receives a prompt adjudication, five years after it was filed.

3. Move to rescind the current statute of limitations on cases of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment so that there can be accountability for psychologists who participate in classified abuses whenever the evidence of such abuses becomes available.
Sincerely,

Trudy Bond
Steven Reisner

Endnotes

[i] Kaye, J. (2009, July 24). Former Top Navy Psychologist Involved in Pre-9/11 Prisoner Abuse Case. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from Invictus: http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/former-top-navy-psychologist-involved_24.html
[ii] Turley, J. (2007, August 20). Testimony in Senate Intelligence Committee on Abuses By Naval Intelligence and the Daniel King Case Published 1, Aug. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/20/testimony-in-senate-intelligence-committee-on-abuses-by-naval-intelligence-and-the-daniel-king-case/
[iii] (Turley, 2007)
[iv] (Kaye, 2009)
[v] Soldz, S. (2009, December 7). The "Ethical Interrogation": The Myth of Michael Gelles and the al-Qahtani Interrogation. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from The PsySR Blog: http://www.psysr.org/blog/2009/12/07/michael-gelles-and-the-al-qahtani-interrogation/
[vi] (Turley, 2007)
[vii] (Kaye, 2009)
[viii] James, L. (2008). Fixing Hell. Grand Central Pub. p. 43.
[ix] International Human Rights Clinic. Public Accountability for U.S. Doctors and Psychologists Involved in Torture. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from Human Rights Program Harvard Law School: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/clinic/current%20projects/current_americas_projects.html
[x] Center for Constitutional Rights. Evidence: Larry James. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from When Healers Harm: http://whenhealersharm.org/sources-call-for-an-investigation-on-larry-james/
[xi] Center For Constitutional Rights. John Leso. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from When Healers Harm: http://whenhealersharm.org/john-leso/
[xii] UC Berkeley School of Law. Do No Harm? Intelligence Ethics, Health Professionals and the Torture Debate. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from BerkeleyLaw - University of California: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/8307.htm
[xiii] The Center for Justice & Accountability. Reisner v. Leso: Accountability for One of the Psychologists Behind the Guantánamo Abuses . Retrieved September 7, 2012, from The Center for Justice & Accountability: http://cja.org/article.php?list=type&type=412

Sunday, June 10, 2012

US Army, Martin Seligman "CSF Research Fails the Test"

Last week, psychologists Stephen Soldz and Roy Eidelson published their analysis of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program. It's a professional look at the much-hyped program that finds it seriously wanting. A press release by Coalition for an Ethical Psychology details their findings, and I've reposted it below.

Their report, "Does Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Work? CSF Research Fails the Test" (PDF), seriously dismantles the structure and implementation of the Army's program, while understanding the rationale -- to lower rates of mental illness, suicide, and PTSD among enlisted personnel -- is both meaningful and important.

The conclusions of the report were foreshadowed in a March 2011 Psychology Today article by Eidelson, Soldz and Mark Pilisuk, "The Dark Side of 'Comprehensive Soldier Fitness'". The PT article stressed ethical concerns with the CSF program, particularly the fact that it constituted a research program, but that soldiers were not given informed consent regarding their participation, and no Institutional Review Board had reviewed the program.

In January 2011, Jason Leopold at Truthout published an investigation describing criticism of CSF from those who found its emphasis on "spiritual fitness":
CSF is comprised of the Soldier Fitness Tracker and Global Assessment Tool, which measures soldiers’ “resilience” in five core areas: emotional, physical, family, social and spiritual. Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far and more than 100,000 soldiers have participated in the remedial training.

But for the thousands of “Foxhole Atheists” like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to “train” soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.

Griffith, who is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, took the test last month and scored well on the emotional, family and social components. But after completing the spiritual portion of the exam, which required him to respond to statements such as, “I am a spiritual person, my life has lasting meaning, I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all humanity and all the world, ” he was found to be spiritually unfit because he responded by choosing the “not like me at all” box.
The Soldz/Eidelson paper does not focus on this "spirituality" critique, but on more technical matters of quantification of effectiveness, and the self-promotion aspect of program. Their work includes a "Technical Appendix" for those who wish to follow the statistical and methodological arguments.

The critique of self-promotion includes a look at the role of psychologists Martin Seligman and the American Psychological Association in promoting this shoddy program, dressing it up with the language of science, and reaping millions of dollars for those who are contracting with the government to implement the program. In October 2010, Mark Benjamin at Salon revealed Seligman's Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvannia was the ultimate recipient of a $31-million no-bid contract for the Army's resiliency program.

Seligman, of course, is best known as the primary theorist of "learned helplessness," a theory of the total psychological break-down of animals or humans due to uncontrollable stress. "Learned helplessness" (LH) became one of the primary theories behind the use of certain torture techniques used by DoD/CIA psychologists after 9/11. LH was taught to incoming members of the Behavioral Consultant Science Teams (BSCT) used by DoD to assist interrogations of "war on terror" detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Behavioral Science Consultants are psychologists or psychiatrists, and they are still used in interrogations to this day. A former trainer for BSCT teams is today the Chief Clinical Officer of the Washington DC Department of Mental Health.

Finally, there is the question of just what this program is actually trying to do. Reducing PTSD rates is one thing, but producing "indomitable" soldiers who can fight brutal wars without psychic damage to them is another, for it presents an unrealistic view of what war actually is, and hides the fact it seriously damages the mental health and psychic coherence of those who engage in it. (Of course, war outright kills untold tens of millions, both soldier and civilian, and physically damages tens of millions of individuals more.)
In a report released today by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology (http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/Eidelson-&-Soldz-CSF_Research_Fails_the_Test.pdf), two psychologists call upon the Army to retract or publicly correct a recent research report that claims the Army’s $140 million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) resilience program “works.” The psychologists Roy Eidelson and Stephen Soldz argue that the study design is flawed and that the results do not justify the researchers’ favorable conclusions.

Report coauthor Roy Eidelson stated: “The over-hyping of CSF’s effectiveness should be of concern to everyone, including taxpayers who have paid over $100 million for the program, and especially the one million soldiers who are forced to participate in this massive experiment, whether they want to do so or not.”

Without pilot testing, the CSF program was launched in 2009. It trains soldiers in thinking skills that purportedly diminish the likelihood of suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicide, and other combat-related psychological problems. CSF is based upon the “positive psychology” framework of University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman.

In their new report Eidelson and Soldz identify five areas of serious concern with the Army’s CSF evaluation: (1) the researchers’ failure to measure the important outcomes of PTSD, depression, or other psychological disorders despite the availability of validated measures for doing so, (2) a flawed research design that fails to control for important confounding variables, (3) significant problems with the method of data analysis, (4) the researchers’ failure to acknowledge plausible risks of harm from the CSF intervention, and (5) miscellaneous related issues of concern. Individually these concerns raise troubling questions regarding the CSF study. Taken together, they severely undercut the CSF researchers’ assertion that “There is now sound scientific evidence that Comprehensive Soldier Fitness improves the resilience and psychological health of Soldiers.”

Stephen Soldz, Professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and report coauthor, noted that CSF has been the subject of a wide range of criticism since it was rolled out in 2009: “The problems identified with CSF are legion. It is time for the Army to step back from uncritically promoting this untested program. A careful, independent, evaluation is urgently called for.”

Concerns raised by critics in the past span a wide range of significant issues, including indications that CSF is actually a research study involuntarily imposed upon troops without mandated protections such as independent ethical review by an institutional review board (IRB) and informed consent; the possibility that CSF may serve as a distraction from the documented adverse effects of multiple and lengthy deployments and high levels of combat exposure; potential negative effects of CSF, common in prevention programs, that have not been carefully considered or monitored; and the insufficient examination of ethical questions posed by efforts to build “indomitable” soldiers.

This new Coalition report follows a detailed critique last year of CSF by Eidelson, Soldz, and their colleague Marc Pilisuk, The Dark Side of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, which led to Congressional inquiries regarding the program. CSF has also been criticized in a series of comments in the October 2011 issue of the American Psychologist and by experts interviewed by the PBS NewsHour and other press.

About the research weaknesses they identify, Eidelson and Soldz conclude in their report:

“These scientific shortcomings are all the more troubling given the obvious importance of what is at stake here: soldiers’ welfare. It may be comforting to some to assume that, at worst, CSF is merely ineffective. However, we should not settle for such wishful thinking. It is not outlandish to suggest that CSF may negatively impact some soldiers, and unjustified enthusiasm about the program can prove costly in terms of directing attention and funding away from the consideration and development of alternatives that may be far more beneficial for our troops.

“It is not hard for us to imagine the tremendous pressures faced by those responsible for addressing and protecting the psychological health of the men and women who serve in our military. We recognize and admire the dedicated work of so many toward this goal. But in the search for answers, nobody benefits from research that, inadvertently or not, misrepresents the current state of knowledge and accomplishment in this arena. For this reason, we believe it is essential that the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness leadership correct the record in regard to their Research Report #3.”

For more information go to: http://www.ethicalpsychology.org
Both Eidelson and Soldz are past presidents of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Dr. Eidelson is also the former executive director of the Solomon Asch Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and today is the president of Eidelson Consulting. Dr. Soldz is Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He was also a contributing writer on the Physicians for Human Rights report, Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program.

Friday, February 24, 2012

APA Up to Old Tricks with New "Task Force" on Psychologists in "National Security Settings"

Last month, members of the American Psychological Association announced a "new APA members-initiated Task Force to reconcile policies related to psychologists' involvement in national security settings." The movement for a new task force to ostensibly replace the 2005 task force on "Psychological Ethics and National Security" (PENS), which in the midst of the controversies surrounding use of torture at Guantanamo and other US torture prison sites, validated the use of psychologists at such sites (even as psychologists were implicated in the torture), comes at a time when a strong movement for annulment of the PENS report is underway.

This new "APA members-initiated" proposal is spear-headed by Linda Woolf, the task force chair, and Ellen Garrison, APA's Senior Policy advisor and "staff liaison" for the task force. None of the supporters of the successful 2008 APA member referendum to end psychologist participation at national security sites that fail to meet international human rights standards have been asked to participate on the new "task force." Other task force members include psychologists Laura Brown, Kathleen Dockett, Julie Meranze Levitt, and Bill Strickland.

As Coalition for an Ethical Psychology note in their statement reproduced below, three of the five current task force members actually opposed that referendum, which was passed with nearly 60& of the vote. The referendum has never been operationally instituted by APA, which has failed to date to ever state its opposition, for instance, to the presence of psychologists at Guantanamo, a US national security setting long held to be out of compliance with international human rights standards.

But the facilitators of US torture at APA (despite their verbiage to the contrary) must never read articles like this one from only last month:
(Reuters) - The United States is still flouting international law at Guantanamo Bay, despite President Barack Obama's election pledge to shut the facility, the United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday.

"It is ten years since the U.S. Government opened the prison at Guantanamo, and now three years since 22 January 2009, when the President ordered its closure within twelve months. Yet the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained - indefinitely - in clear breach of international law," Pillay said in a statement.
The PENS report was fatally compromised by the overwhelming presence of national security/military psychologists. The new "task force" may be slightly differently constituted, as it is heavily loaded with members from APA's Division 48, the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence. But then, we have been living in an Orwellian world for decades now, and it's unlikely the new composition will fool very many people. Div. 48 is well-known for having as a group having opposed the 2008 referendum.

Task force member Dr. Stickland, from APA's Division 19, the Society for Military Psychology, is also the president of The Human Resource Research Organization (HumRRO). As Bryant Welch, himself a former APA official pointed out in an article at Huffington Post, "Today, fifty-five percent of HumRRO's budget comes from the military":
In 1951 the military established The Human Resource Research Organization (HumRRO) to develop techniques for "psychological warfare." HumRRO was run by psychologist Dr. Meredith Crawford who spent ten years as APA treasurer and was deeply involved in APA activities for three decades. Crawford's former student, Raymond Fowler, became Chief Executive Officer of APA in 1989 and stayed in that position until 2003.... The current President of HumRRO, psychologist William Strickland, has been an outspoken supporter of APA's policies on the torture issue. He served on the APA Council of Representatives throughout the APA deliberations on torture.
And so it goes.

The following is a statement (PDF) by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, which has been spearheading the drive to annul the PENS report. (The original statement announcing the new APA "grassroots task force," can be found here.)
Coalition Rejects New “Task Force”

With the support of the Board and Administration of the American Psychological Association (APA), a self-appointed group of APA members has just announced the creation of a “Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists’ Involvement in National Security Settings.” Superficially, the formation of this task force appears to be a step forward in addressing critical issues of human rights and professional ethics. But the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, referenced in the task force’s announcement, opposes this initiative for many reasons. Our call for annulment of the deeply flawed PENS Report has gained broad support. Yet this new task force attempts to redefine priorities and deflect attention away from this urgent issue, asserting that “the PENS report offers unique contributions to APA policy” which need to be integrated into a “unified, comprehensive APA policy.” As such, this task force is primarily an “anti-annulment” initiative. If successful, its agenda will further enshrine PENS policies – policies that were adopted through a fundamentally unethical process and that resulted in grievous harm and the tarnishing of our profession.

Any attempt to clarify possible ambiguities in APA’s statements and resolutions bearing on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment should be postponed until after the PENS Report has been officially annulled. Otherwise, from the outset the presumption will be that it is ethically permissible for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational psychology[1] roles, including consultation to interrogators of national security detainees. Yet a crucial question has never received broad and open discussion: Should psychologists serve in combatant and aggressive operational capacities in military/intelligence settings where our foundational “do no harm” ethical principle is subservient to military policy? The new task force states that it will not develop any new policy. Their initiative will merely delay these much needed deliberations and possible reform.

The Coalition is also concerned about the composition of the new task force. None of its five members actively supported – and at least three actively opposed – the 2008 member-initiated Referendum prohibiting psychologists from working in national security settings that violate human rights. This Referendum was overwhelmingly endorsed by 59% of voting APA members. Moreover, several members of this task force have been vehement opponents over the past several years of most attempts to change APA policies on interrogations. The three task force members from the Peace Psychology Division (Division 48) have taken this action without any discussion with the division membership, and despite the fact that the Executive Committee officially endorsed the annulment petition two months ago.

Returning to the key issue of annulment, when reports first surfaced that psychologists were aiding and even implementing U.S. programs of torture and abuse in national security settings, the APA turned its ethics process in this domain over to the military–intelligence establishment. The resulting 2005 PENS Task Force had six of nine voting members from that area, including several members who served in chains of command publicly accused of abuses at that time. The three voting members of the PENS Task Force without military ties have all subsequently renounced the report, and two of them have denounced the process as corrupt from the start. Military-intelligence advisors who analyzed the PENS process identified it as “a social legitimization process for a decision made at higher levels of the DoD.”

While stating that psychologists should not participate in abuses, the PENS Report gives the imprimatur of the APA to psychologists serving in detention and other national security operations where their activities are protected by secrecy and information is classified. The Report also reiterates the primacy of U.S. law and military regulations over professional ethics. These two assertions were all that the military and CIA needed from the PENS Task Force and PENS Report. In important ways, the remainder of the Report simply serves to obscure the importance of these two profoundly problematic conclusions.[2]

Thus far, the Coalition’s petition calling for annulment of the PENS Report has been endorsed by 33 groups and organizations – including nine within APA itself – and by over 1,800 individuals. The full list is available online at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens. Annulment is needed in order to (1) renounce the illegitimate process that enabled the military-intelligence establishment to control our profession’s ethics, and (2) move the profession to engage in a thorough and independent review of the ethics of psychologists participating in various national security activities. For the reasons we have summarized here, we strongly believe that this new task force will stand in the way of annulment. Indeed, its formation is reminiscent of the back-room deals of the PENS process itself. We also believe that the narrow interests currently dominating the APA’s agenda in this area must no longer supersede the ethical commitments and aspirations of the association’s membership and of psychologists outside the APA. The profession’s future depends on what we do now.

We therefore encourage psychologists to reject this new task force initiative, and to communicate your opposition to APA leaders, including Board members, Council members, and division officers. At the same time, we encourage you to visit the Coalition website, to review our materials on annulment of the PENS Report and, if you have not already done so, to sign our petition (www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens).

February 23, 2012

[1] Operational psychologists, who are licensed clinical psychologists, are purportedly using psychology to further military/intelligence operations, as in interrogation support. We distinguish between traditional operational psychology roles (e.g., personnel selection) and aggressive operational psychology, where psychologists are duty-bound to put the mission first and where military regulations and orders supersede the ethical standards of their profession. Further, they often work in classified settings, which severely impedes effective ethical monitoring as they and their employer can deny ethics committees access to the information necessary to adjudicate cases.
[2] Further details about the illegitimacy of the PENS process and PENS Report are documented here: http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/materials/PENS_Annulment_Background_Statement.pdf.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Petition to Annul APA's PENS Report Goes Live

A number of distinguished people have signed onto the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology's petition calling for the annulment of the American Psychological Association's report on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS), issued under dubious circumstances in 2005, and about which I've written a number of articles over the years.

The petition is a major campaign and an important effort by CEP, and I encourage readers to signe onto the petition (see link below):
A Call for Annulment of APA’s PENS Report
(www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens)

Over the decade since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, the world has been shocked by the specter of abusive interrogations and the torture of national security prisoners by agents of the United States government. Although psychologists in the U.S. have made significant contributions to societal welfare on many fronts during this period, the profession tragically has also witnessed psychologists acting as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to these abusive interrogations. Moreover, in the guise of keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective," psychologists were used to provide legal protection for otherwise illegal treatment of prisoners.

The American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2005 Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (the PENS Report) is the defining document endorsing psychologists’ engagement in detainee interrogations. Despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations, the PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists play a critical role in keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective.” With this stance, the APA, the largest association of psychologists worldwide, became the sole major professional healthcare organization to support practices contrary to the international human rights standards that ought to be the benchmark against which professional codes of ethics are judged.

The PENS Report remains highly influential today. Negating efforts by APA members to limit the damages – including passage of an unprecedented member-initiated referendum in 2008 – the Department of Defense continues to disseminate the PENS Report in its instructions to psychologists involved in intelligence operations. The Report also has been adopted, at least informally, as the foundational ethics document for “operational psychology” as an area of specialization involving psychologists in counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations. And the PENS Report is repeatedly cited as a resource for ethical decision-making in the APA Ethics Committee’s new National Security Commentary, a “casebook” for which the APA is currently soliciting feedback.

Equally troubling, the PENS Report was the result of institutional processes that were illegitimate, inconsistent with APA’s own standards, and far outside the norms of transparency, independence, diversity, and deliberation for similar task forces established by professional associations. Deeply problematic aspects include the inherent bias in the Task Force membership (e.g., six of the nine voting members were on the payroll of the U.S. military and/or intelligence agencies, with five having served in chains of command accused of prisoner abuses); significant conflicts of interest (e.g., unacknowledged participants included the spouse of a Guantánamo intelligence psychologist and several high-level lobbyists for Department of Defense and CIA funding for psychologists); irregularities in the report approval process (e.g., the Board’s use of emergency powers that preempted standard review mechanisms); and unwarranted secrecy associated with the Report (e.g., unusual prohibitions on Task Force members’ freedom to discuss the Report). These realities point to the impossibility and inadequacy of merely updating or correcting deficiencies in the PENS Report.

We the undersigned organizations and individuals – health professionals, social scientists, social justice and human rights scholars and activists, and concerned military and intelligence professionals – therefore declare that the PENS Report is illegitimate. We call upon the American Psychological Association to take immediate steps to annul the PENS Report. At the same time, in our own efforts, we aim to make the illegitimacy of the PENS Report more broadly known within our communities.

September 26, 2011

(Visit www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens to add your signature)

Organizational Signers

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Justice and Accountability
International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School
Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture
Network of Spiritual Progressives
Physicians for Human Rights
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Veterans for Peace
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Individual Signers (listed affiliations are for identification purposes only)

Roy Eidelson, PhD, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Associate Director, Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, Bryn Mawr College

Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, APA PENS Task Force Member, Project on Ethics and Art in Testimony

Michael Wessells, PhD, APA PENS Task Force Member, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Columbia University

Stephen Soldz, PhD, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis; Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Steven Reisner, PhD, Candidate for APA President; Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU Medical School; Faculty and Supervisor, International Trauma Studies Program, New York City

Brad Olson, PhD, President-Elect, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Bryant Welch, PhD, Program Director and Professor of Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA

Trudy Bond, PhD, Independent Psychologist; Steering Committee, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Philip Zimbardo, President, American Psychological Association (2002); Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, Brigadier General (Ret), U.S. Army

Nathaniel A. Raymond, Former Director of the Campaign Against Torture at Physicians for Human Rights

Leonard Rubenstein, Senior Scholar, Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor (ret.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert Jay Lifton, Lecturer in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance; Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York

Manfred Nowak, Professor for International Law and Human Rights, University of Vienna; Director, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights

David Remes, Appeal for Justice; Guantánamo habeas attorney since 2004

Gerald Gray, LCSW, Co-Director, Institute for Redress & Recovery, Santa Clara University School of Law

Morton Deutsch, Past President, APA Divisions 8 (Society for Personality and Social Psychology), 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues), and 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Nora Sveaass, UN Committee Against Torture; Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway

Steven H. Miles, MD, Professor of Medicine and Bioethics, University of Minnesota

George Hunsinger, Professor of Systematic Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary

Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, Senior Medical Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights; Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School; Senior Research Fellow, Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley

David DeBatto, former US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Iraq war veteran

Buz Eisenberg, Chair, International Justice Network; Attorney for Guantánamo detainees since 2005

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights

Vince Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights

Susan Opotow, Past President, APA Division 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues); Professor, City University of New York

Richard Wagner, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, Bates College

Marc Pilisuk, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, University of California; Professor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center

Ethel Tobach, PhD, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); American Museum of Natural History, New York

Joseph de Rivera, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Research Professor, Clark University

James Coyne, PhD, Director, Behavioral Oncology Program, Abramson Cancer Center and Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Luisa Saffiotti, PhD, President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Jancis Long, PhD, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Frank Summers, PhD, President-Elect (as of January 2012), APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis); Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Alice Shaw, PhD, President, Section IX, APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility)

Jules Lobel, President, Center for Constitutional Rights; Bessie McKee Walthour Endowed Chair Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School

Bernice Lott, Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women’s Studies, University of Rhode Island

Ruth Fallenbaum, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Dan Aalbers, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Anthony Marsella, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii

Ghislaine Boulanger, PhD, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Jean L. Hill, PhD, President-Elect, APA Division 27 (Society for Community Research and Action); Professor of Psychology, New Mexico Highlands University

Joseph Margulies, Attorney, MacArthur Justice Center, Clinical Professor, Northwestern Law School

Martha Davis, PhD, Visiting Scholar (ret.), John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Kristine Huskey, Director, Anti-Torture Program, Physicians for Human Rights; Guantanamo detainee habeas counsel (2002-2011)

Scott Horton, Columbia University School of Law

William P. Quigley, Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans

Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine; Executive Director, The Institute for Labor and Mental Health

Scott Allen, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside

M. Brinton Lykes, PhD, Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology, Boston College; Co-Founder, Ignacio Martin-Baro Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights

David Luban, University Professor in Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University

Jeffrey S. Kaye, PhD, Clinician, Survivors International, San Francisco

Sibel Edmonds, Founder & Director, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)

David Sloan-Rossiter, Boston Institute for Psychotherapy; Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis

Stephen R. Shalom, Department of Political Science, William Paterson University

Andrea Cousins, PhD, PsyD, Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture (MACAT), Northampton, MA

Lynne Layton, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Deborah Popowski, Clinical Instructor, International Human Rights Clinic; Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

(Names of additional signers and a link for new signers are available at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens/signers.php)

Note: An accompanying background report, available at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens, provides additional detailed documentation in support of this call for annulment.

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