David K. Shipler Quotes
If you have never been tortured, or locked up and verbally threatened, you may find it hard to believe that anyone would confess to something he had not done. Intuition holds that the innocent do not make false confessions.
Shipler, David K. Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America. New York: Knopf, 2012.
It should be noted that at the beginning of the manual the reader is told that force is illegal. Then later, the manual tells the interrogator that headquarters approval is required for torture of use of chemicals. And still later there are instructions such as this quotation {597792}.
The “third degree” was widely used by police throughout the nation. It was in relatively progressive New York City that the practice was first widely investigate, exposed and curtailed. Most of the country followed suit, but unfortunately, the practice still exists, but is much less common than in the 1930s.
It should be noted that at the beginning of the manual the reader is told that force or involuntary interrogation is illegal. Then later, the manual tells the interrogator that headquarters approval is required for unwilling subjects. See {597792}. Throughout the beginning of the War on Terrorism the principle was quietly used in incarcerating Taliban and other terrorists.
Earlier in the manual, the illegality of such techniques is stated. Later there are suggestions for the use of duress. See {597790}
Under torture many people will tell their interrogators what they want to hear --- accurate or not.
The reason for these creative phrases was that President George W, Bush had publicly stated that it was United States policy to follow American and International Law and the U. S. does “not torture”. The CIA then decided that it should destroy the videos of the episodes where these euphemisms were used when they were accused of torture and there were calls for prosecution for violation of U. S. law.
Nixon staff assistant Chuck Coulson used a variant of this quotation. See {628753}.
David K. Shipler is an American author. He won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1987 for Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. He also wrote the book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Formerly, he was a foreign correspondent of The New York Times. He has taught at many colleges and universities. Since 2010, he has published the electronic journal, The Shipler Report.
