Intelligence Interviewing

[rborum]

The Phase Two report from the Intelligence Science Board's Study on Intelligence Interviewing has been approved for release.

It distills the current state of social/behavioral science thinking on key issues in the Intelligence Interviewing process, including:

• Persuasion
• Power
• Interests & identities
• Stress
• Resistances
• Memory

It also includes a couple of detailed case studies with teaching notes.

You can find a link to the report on the next post.

- Randy Borum

[rborum]

You can access the report HERE.

Intelligence personnel who are trying to elicit information from a prisoner or a detainee can effectively do so in a non-coercive manner, according to the Intelligence Science Board (ISB), an official advisory group to the Director of National Intelligence.

The United States and other democracies can benefit from exploring and learning more in the area of non-coercive intelligence interviewing

The Board said in a sequel (pdf) to its December 2006 report on "Educing Information" (pdf). That earlier study found that existing U.S. intelligence interrogation practices were not scientifically well-founded.

The study team could not discover an objective scientific basis for the techniques commonly used by U.S. interrogators.

The newly disclosed follow-on report, dated April 2009,

is written primarily for individuals concerned with 'high-value' detainees and those who focus mainly on strategic interrogation.

It provides a survey of behavioral science perspectives on topics relevant to the interrogation process -- including persuasion, power, stress, resistance, and memory -- as well as two case studies of actual interrogations.

A copy of the ISB report was obtained by Secrecy News. See "Intelligence Interviewing: Teaching Papers and Case Studies," A Report from the Study on Educing Information, Intelligence Science Board, April 2009 (211 pages).

The ISB report adopted the new term "intelligence interviewing" instead of "interrogation" in part because it said "interrogation" is freighted with stereotypes often involving coercion. The report emphasized the utility of non-coercive interrogation but acknowledged the difficulty of empirically establishing its superiority to coercive questioning.

During Phases I and II, contributors could find no studies that compare the results of 'coercive' interrogations with those of non-coercive intelligence interviews. It is also difficult to imagine how such studies might be conducted in a scientifically valid, let alone morally acceptable, manner.

The ISB study notably dissected the "ticking time bomb" scenario that is often portrayed in television thrillers (and which has "captured the public imagination"). The authors patiently explained why that hypothetical scenario is not a sensible guide to interrogation policy or a justification for torture. Moral considerations aside, the ISB report said, coercive interrogation may produce unreliable results, foster increased resistance, and preclude the discovery of unsuspected intelligence information of value (pp. 40-42).

There also are no guarantees that non-coercive intelligence interviewing will obtain the necessary information,

the report said.

However, the United States has important recent examples of effective, non-coercive intelligence interviewing with high value detainees.

The ISB said its report could

provide experienced and successful interviewers a more formal understanding of the approaches they may have used instinctively. It may also help them to communicate their expertise to their colleagues... This [report] is intended to foster thinking and discussion and to encourage knowledge-based teaching, research, and practice. It does not, and cannot, offer doctrine or prescriptions. It is a start, not an end.

The mission of the Intelligence Science Board is

to provide the Intelligence Community with outside expert advice and unconventional thinking, early notice of advances in science and technology, insight into new applications of existing technology, and special studies that require skills or organizational approaches not resident within the Intelligence Community.

[Rex Brynen]

Thanks for posting that, Randy.

[Tracker275]

I read a lot of parts of the paper to first identify what the difference is between "coercive", and "non-coercive" interrogation techiniques. However, so far...I haven't been able to find in the paper where they clearly define what either means within the context of the paper in clear definition.

It is important to note what they consider to be the definition of the two, and the differences. Since that seems to be one of the main themes of the document, it would be helpful to know what they consider each to be by their definition.

...Still looking for that.

[jmm99]

in the 25 instances of "coerc" in the April 2009 Report linked in this thread, or in the 147 instances of "coerc" found in the "prequel" December 2006 Educing Information Report (several threads have discussed it), a precise, overall definition of "coercive" interrogation techniques.

The 2006 report discusses various "coercive" methods; and so, provides a better feel for that term than the 2009 report.

That being said, the best definition (by examples) of "coercive" interrogation is found in the so-called KUBARK Interrogation Manual (ToC snip):

IX. THE COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION OF RESISTANT SOURCES 82-104

A. Restrictions 82
B. The Theory of Coercion 82-85
C. Arrest 85-86
D. Detention 86-87
E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli 87-90
F. Threats and Fear 90-92
G. Debility 92-93
H. Pain 93-95
I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis 95-98
J. Narcosis 98-100
K. The Detection of Malingering 101-102
L. Conclusion 103-104

The 2009 report cites KUBARK nada; the 2006 report cites it 125 times and has a separate chapter devoted to it:

5. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review:
Observations of an Interrogator – Lessons Learned and Avenues for Further Research, Steven M. Kleinman, p. 95

I'm positing you are looking for a legal-neutral definition of "coercive" and "non-coercive" interrogation - if so, look to KUBARK (snip from ch IX):

L. Conclusion

A brief summary of the foregoing may help to pull the major concepts of coercive interrogation together:

1. The principal coercive techniques are arrest, detention, the deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, and drugs.

2. If a coercive technique is to be used, or if two or more are to be employed jointly, they should be chosen for their effect upon the individual and carefully selected to match his personality.

3. The usual effect of coercion is regression. The interrogatee's mature defenses crumbles as he becomes more childlike. During the process of regression the subject may experience feelings of guilt, and it is usually useful to intensify these.

4. When regression has proceeded far enough so that the subject's desire to yield begins to overbalance his resistance, the interrogator should supply a face-saving rationalization. Like the coercive technique, the rationalization must be carefully chosen to fit the subject's personality.

5. The pressures of duress should be slackened or lifted after compliance has been obtained, so that the interrogatee's voluntary cooperation will not be impeded.

We could, of course, spend a lot of fruitless and useless bytes talking about the evidentiary admissibility of "coerced" statements, and various aspects of the exclusionary rule and the fruit of the poisoned tree rule. I don't feel like doing that right about now.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

my position on "Intelligence Interviewing" is pretty much carved in stone by these posts on the second page of Interrogation in Afghanistan:

Comments on methodology (my major points)

Hi Ted (requesting Jedburgh's opinion)

Ted's Response - with a snip from his comments:

Mike, one comment you made about the article was that it illustrated that an interrogator could, ”…turn the 'interrogation' (perceptionally adversarial) into an 'interview' (perceptionally non-adversarial).” Your caveat about perception is astute – the interrogation remains adversarial in that we still need to extract information from the source that he is unwilling to share. However, developing rapport in such a way that it creates this type of source perception facilitates drawing out information from the source without his clear realization as to what he has just compromised.

One book that myself and others on this board have previously mentioned as regarded by military interrogators as “the” classic in the field is The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff: Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe. Although he does relate some coercive psychological methods – such as faking the execution of a prison during an interrogation of another – the majority of the content provides an outstanding illustration of the manipulation of source perceptions from adversarial toward non-adversarial communication for effective elicitation of intelligence information.

Hi Ted (#2 - violent agreement )

Excellent reference (my thanks for the reference to the Scharff book - Scharff, a South African German, was a really amazing guy).

So, BLUF (the "line up front" needed a brief intro): Jedburgh and I are kinda softies in this particular arena; i.e., we accept the "non-coercive" TT&Ps as a general rule.

Regards

Mike