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Thread: The US & Interrogation (catch all)

  1. #161
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    Default Hey Slap, definite agreement on legalisms ...

    from JMM (above)
    Now, Slap is right that "you Interview witnesses....you Interrogate Suspects." But, I would suggest that distinction arises from artificial legalisms. Once a person becomes the focus of an LE investigation, the legalisms change.
    and

    from Slap (above)
    jmm99,for me the legalism entered into the picture when a person or persons become the focus of the investigation, that is when you have to do the Miranda thing.
    Miranda entered the picture just as I was getting into the game[*]. Before that, confessions and admissions were governed by the "totality of circumstances" test. Under that test, warnings were but one factor to be considered. The FBI and Michigan State Police gave them.

    The "totality of circumstances" standard (IMO) was a good one. I suppose that some disparities in results did occur - e.g., a pro-LE judge might find the "totality" OK; a pro-defense judge might find the "totality" NOK. But, the same disparities happen today, except that the rationales are legalistic and technical. The "totality of circumstances" standard looked more to the spirit of the law; Miranda and the other "brightline" tests look more to the law's letter.

    It is interesting that the MCA (Military Commission Act) adopted the "totality of circumstances" standard for confessions and admissions. The DTA (Detainee Treatment Act) incorporates FM 2-22.3 as the standard, and the Exec. Order (Jan 2009) applies the manual to all US interrogations. A Wiki on the Field Manual and another on Enhanced interrogation techniques.

    Regards

    Mike

    [*] One of my major "ghost-written" appellate briefs while still in law school was to the Michigan Supreme Court, People v Doverspike 382 Mich 1 (1969), affirming People v. Doverspike, 5 Mich App 181 (1966), using the "totality of circumstances" standard. The confession was after Escabedo and before Miranda. A lost cause - the cops did a pretty good job, even if the warnings they did give were not quite Miranda. The case is not online free; you need a WestLaw or VersusLaw account to access it.

  2. #162
    Council Member Pete's Avatar
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    Default Fort Hunt

    I grew up in the vicinity of Fort Hunt and am a 1970 graduate of the old Fort Hunt High School. The old fort was then a park administered by the National Park Service, as it is now. The post was named for Gen. Henry J. Hunt, one of the chiefs of artillery in the Army of the Potomac. When I was there in the 1960s nothing remained of the World War II installation except for the roads and sidewalks. Concrete gun emplacements from its coast artillery days were still there, still bearing faint NO SMOKING signs painted in red. There was also a two- or three-story masonry observation tower that I believe was part of the original coast artillery fort. In around 1980 there was a minor Army scandal when the son of a general officer was involved in a vandalism and fire-setting incident at my old high school, which was closed about 20 years ago because there were no longer enough teenagers in the area to justify its remaining open. To read more about Fort Hunt Park click here.

  3. #163
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    Default

    Well, I finally got around to reading The History of Camp Tracy: Japanese WWII POWs and the Future of Strategic Interrogation, which is a history of Fort Hunt's west coast counterpart. Unfortunately, I found it quite disappointing.

    Near the beginning the author states: "By looking at how the United States conducted interrogations against the Japanese, valuable lessons can be distilled and applied for prosecuting the GWOT both today and in the future."

    I agree with that statement, but the author fails to even scratch the surface of accomplishing what he supposedly set out to do with this piece. Its an interesting read, but disappointing. Especially considering that he had the opportunity to personally interview several of the surviving interrogators who worked at Camp Tracy.

    The greatest disappointment was in his section on 'Findings' - which is where you would think to find a narrative of his perspective of how the lessons learned from Camp Tracy could be applied to interrogation today. But the author presented those findings simply as a purely descriptive narrative of the direct lessons in the WWII context, and completely failed to provide any analytic discussion of how those findings apply or could influence current interrogation operations. That, in my jaundiced eye, is a significant failing of this book.

    I would also like to have seen a bit of comparative discussion of how the interrogation methodology used at Camp Tracy compared with existing interrogation doctrine in WWII (FM 30-15) and how it compares with current doctrine (FM 2-22.3). I must emphasize that, despite the author's attempt at the outset to link his study with interrogation in the GWOT, there is no comparative analysis of anything in this book. This is a purely descriptive book discussing interrogation at Camp Tracy - and even in that narrow context, it lacks depth.

    More broadly, the book suffered from what seems to be a rushed publication from thesis to book, and lacks any attempt at refining the basic structure of the text and form of the narrative. The publication is also low quality, and the many illustrations are of very poor resolution and further detract from what could have been a decent volume covering a little-known piece of intelligence history.

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