APA has notified President Obama and other key federal officials of its new policy that includes a prohibition against psychologists' participation in national security interrogations.
APA President Barry S. Anton, PhD, and APA CEO Norman B. Anderson, PhD, sent letters asking these officials to safeguard psychologists from involvement in any national security interrogations or detention settings that would risk placing them in conflict with APA's Ethics Code and policies related to national security.
"APA requests that military psychologists be protected from actions that might pose a conflict with the APA Ethics Code and that they be withdrawn from any role in national security interrogations or conditions of confinement that might facilitate such interrogations," the letters state. "They may provide general consultation on policy related to humane information-gathering methods that are not related to any specific national security interrogation or detention conditions."
Sending these letters was the first major step in the implementation of the new policy, adopted by APA's governing Council of Representatives at its meeting in August. Recipients of the letters were: President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Director of High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group Frazier Thompson IV, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services, Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.
Under the new policy, psychologists may not:
- Participate in national security interrogations or conditions of confinement that might facilitate such interrogations;
- Work at detention settings operating in violation of the U.S. Constitution or international law (as deemed by specific U.N. authorities), including the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, unless providing treatment to military personnel or working directly for the detainees or for an independent third party to protect human rights. APA asked that any such psychologists be offered deployment elsewhere.
The letters note that "through their professional work, psychologists in national security roles strive to achieve, and are responsible to uphold, the highest levels of competence and ethics in their field."
The letters also reaffirm APA's commitment to human rights and urge the federal officials to "take affirmative steps to ensure that national security detainees in U.S. custody are treated fairly and humanely."
— Kim I. Mills
