ACLU - FBI Overseas Interrogation Policy lyrics

The ACLU obtained through FOIA the fifth version of an FBI interrogation manual for conducting custodial interrogations in overseas environments, which was written by a supervisor in the FBI's counterterrorism division in 2011 (the third version was copyrighted in 2010, it is unknown when the earlier versions were published).278 The manual is troubling for many reasons, but particularly because it recommends that FBI agents ask the foreign government or U.S. military officials holding the detainees to isolate them at capture “for several days before you begin interrogation” and throughout the “multi-session, multi-day” interrogation process.279 Isolation has long been recognized as a coercive technique that can cause serious psychological distress, and the manual advises FBI agents that in addition to security concerns, an important purpose for requesting isolation is to allow interrogators to take advantage of “the natural fear of the unknown that the detainee will be experiencing.”280 This advice directly conflicts with FBI policy. The FBI Legal Handbook for Special Agents, and the U.S. Supreme Court, explicitly recognizes isolation as a coercive technique that undermines the voluntariness of detainee's statements.281 The manual also makes repeated, positive references to the CIA's notorious KUBARK interrogation manual and “the Reid Technique,” both of which have been criticized for promoting coercive interrogation practices. The ACLU has asked the FBI to end this practice and provide remedial training to any agents who received this manual.282 If FBI agents request isolation of detainees prior to interviews—or participate in interviews in which detainees are being or have been mistreated, tortured, or threatened with torture— they are violating FBI policy and U.S. law.Congress must act to investigate the FBI's conduct abroad and curb this troubling activity.