Sleep Deprivation And Interrogation

I assessed that the use of sleep deprivation is not a useful interrogation tool with regards to intelligence gathering. Sleep deprivation should not be used as an interrogation technique due to the fact that torture as an interrogation technique leads to false confessions and sleep deprivation specifically can lead to memory loss and confusion, also leading to false confessions whether or not the subject realizes it. There is also the ethical debate regarding torture being used at all as an interrogation technique during the “Global War on Terrorism”, and the limitation of constitutional rights of those subjects.

The US Government should not be able to limit constitutional rights because they are in fact rights, if they were to be limited

or even ignored—as they are with the continued use of sleep deprivation—then they would be privileges. The government should not legally be able to limit them or violate them. Since 9/11 there have been documented accounts of torture, enforced disappearance, unfair trials, as well as arbitrary detention. As stated in the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the general rule for interrogation of prisoners of war is as follows: “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” I have assessed that not only is sleep deprivation a useless interrogation technique due to the fact that it leads to the gathering of unreliable evidence, but it is also a violation of the Geneva Convention and constitution rights.
I came to the conclusion that sleep deprivation is not a useful interrogation technique in order to obtain accurate intelligence based on the following evidence. Michigan State University conducted a study on cognitive impairment and determined that individuals are far more likely to give false statements to their interrogator in hopes that the sleep deprivation will end. According to the same study at Michigan State University, the odds of making a false confession are 4.5 times higher for participants that had been awake for 24 hours than those who had slept eight hours the night before; those who indicated a higher level of sleepiness were also significantly more likely to sign the false confession. The more an individual is sleep deprived, the more likely are that they will suffer memory loss, confusion, and even hallucinations.
Kimberly M.

Fenn, who conducted the research at Michigan State University, stated the following, “This is the first direct evidence that sleep deprivation increases the likelihood that a person will falsely confess to wrongdoing that never occurred,” said Fenn. “It’s a crucial first step toward understanding the role of sleep deprivation in false confessions and, in turn, raises complex questions about the use of sleep deprivation in the interrogation of innocent and guilty suspects.” Sleep deprivation was employed routinely and was seen as a key tool in many ‘enhanced’ interrogations. Many of these techniques overlap with other interrogation procedures—the use of stress positions, and in particular shackling a standing detainee with his hands in front of his body, this causes the subject to be unable to balance and support himself. In some cases of interrogations the shackles that their hands are in have an attached chain that the interrogator can yank if the subject begins to fall asleep. Among the most infamous was the use of loud music and white noise, sometimes played for 24 hours a day on short loops. The cells where the detainees were held were also reportedly kept deliberately cold to prevent detainees from falling asleep. The CIA was authorized to keep a detainee awake for up to 180 hours about a week, but told the Justice Department it only kept three detainees awake for 96 hours at the maximum. The Michigan State University study proved that cognitive impairment, impaired moral judgement, and decreased reaction time and accuracy are all caused by sleep deprivation which can lead to false confessions and having the individual say whatever they deem necessary for the torture to

end.
There is also the case that the detainees would be more willing to provide information if they were to simply be spoken to instead of tortured. For example, Abu Zubaydah, a senior member of al-Qaeda provided more information and intelligence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first two months than the following two months after getting tortured by the CIA. Waterboarding and other forms of torture ended up rendering him responseless.
I have assessed that the use of sleep deprivation is not a useful interrogation tool with regards to intelligence gathering. Sleep deprivation should not be used as an interrogation technique due to the fact that torture as an interrogation technique leads to false confessions and sleep deprivation specifically can lead to memory loss and confusion, also leading to false confessions whether or not the subject realizes it. The disorientation caused by the torture along with the impacts on the body can lead to the subject stating whatever they believe will cause the torture to end. The more an individual is sleep deprived, the more likely are that they will suffer memory loss, confusion, and even hallucinations; this in turn will lead to false confessions and in turn inaccurate evidence and intelligence being gathered.