The argument is that “some” are skeptical, therefore it doesn’t work. Way to go scientists!
The idea of a “truth serum” has never been widely accepted. Although there have been waves of enthusiasm for the idea of a drug that can extract information reliably, there has been even more skepticism. Ever since the 1920s, many judges, psychiatrists, and scientists have rejected the idea that there is a drug that can get memories out intact. They have claimed, instead, that it makes people feel like talking, but it also puts them in a state of extreme suggestibility: people will pick up on cues about what questioners want to hear and repeat that back. This is one of the reasons that statements made under the influence of these drugs have never, as far as I know, been accepted in an American court.
After 9/11, there were discussions in the national papers about whether it’s a good idea to interrogate suspects using these drugs. Every time there is a desperate need for information from people, you get speculation about whether these drugs are going to get that information. But you also get consistent warnings that the information may be less reliable than what you would get without the drugs. That skepticism was there right from the start 80 years ago.
It might be susceptible of experimentation, but that would take effort.
I kinda like the idea of extracting unreliable information reliably.
Heaven forfend that interogators of terrorists receive less than reliable information from their subjects. Whatever would they do?
…that it makes people feel like talking, but it also puts them in a state of extreme suggestibility: people will pick up on cues about what questioners want to hear and repeat that back. This is one of the reasons that statements made under the influence of these drugs have never, as far as I know, been accepted in an American court.
Yes, because corrupt prosecutors could give the person cues to lie so as to help their case. What does this have to do with a spook interogator giving cues that he wants the absolute truth out of you?
Or the fact that just about anything even remotely tangential from a know enemy is useful in one way or another. Even lies can be revealing.
Call me a starry-eyed idealist if you will, but it seems to me that in a well-constructed psychological operation, one could inject saline, tell the subject it was such a serum, and use that suggestion to good effect. This would of course be extremely distasteful to persons of highly developed ethical sensibilities, but after all, Jack Bauer’s degree was in English.
[a jest]
I’m telling you, I don’t know anything.
Come on, what do you know?
I know stuff that hasn’t happened yet.
How do you know stuff like that?
I don’t know.
What stuff hasn’t happened yet? Scary stuff?
Yes, scary. Except it hasn’t happened yet and I don’t know if it will.
Oh, do tell. When will it happen?
When it does happen is when it will happen. How’s that for happening?
That’s beginning to sound like a Bob and Ray routine. Which, these days, isn’t a happening thing.
I like the carrot and stick approach, personally. In this case use the truth serum as the carrot and a stick for the stick.
To paraphrase P. J. O’Rourke, the interrogators might administer the wrong dose and just give the suspect a good time.
I’ve had truth serum–sodium pentothal–and I recall babbling like a three-year old on a sugar buzz. The other folks weren’t interesed in directing the conversation. But I said some things which were embarrassing, and I said some things which were all about me, and if I’d been questioned along those lines, I’d have been a fountain of information.
But you also get consistent warnings that the information may be less reliable than what you would get without the drugs.
Hmmph. More pro-waterboarding propaganda from the torture fiends at Scientific American I think. Typical.
I’ve always found a few fingers of single malt does it for me.
When interogating terrorists I think I’d be a big fan of the ball peen pedicure. Even if the information is less than reliable at least it would be fun getting it.
One can train oneself to handle the effects of sodium pentothal; after some exposure and familiarity with it’s effects one can function-much like one can drive after far too much alcohol. ANd, the more they inject, the more buzzed you feel; until you reach a tipping point and pass out…
Now this; this is torture…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY
Bring in the comfy chair!
Sometimes the critics of interrogation lose sight of what information we want. We aren’t looking for a confession to last week’s crime, but prevention of next week’s bombing. If we get some reliable and some unreliable information, that’s OK. It doesn’t have to be 100% perfect information. If we have to search 3 houses and only find one bomb-making operation, that’s fine. At least we found the one bomb-making operation that we wouldn’t find otherwise.