Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, cubic-dog wrote: On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 07:40 PM 11/24/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: Bullshit. I (and several others) built a tank nearly ten years ago. No big deal. Note that psychoactives (at least if you have any experience with them) don't modify the experience a great deal either. Certainly not to upset anyone this much, this fast. The biggest threat is wrinkled skin and bacterial infections. You've been watching way too many movies, you won't morph into a proto-ape or glow like lave either ;) You were using the wrong psychoactives then. Indeed. Hardly. What I suspect is that the effect is more related to the mental hardiness of the subject. Their ability to step outside of their normal perceptions and beliefs. Are they driven by fear or curiosity. The fact is that most people (I'd say somewhere in the mid to high 90%'s) are driven by fear. Those who can't would seem to have a much harder time of it. I've also noted that females (no insult intended, just a non-scientific observation) tend to last a considerably shorter time than males. I found the experience interesting but after a few times rather boring because the experience wasn't that different after you'd built up some experience. When I was 12 I was in a shop accident and lost the sight in my L. eye. As a consequence I spent about six weeks with both eyes patched so I'm quite familiar with SD effects. Perhaps that had something to do with it shrug. Pretty light shows for the first couple of days, after that it was just an annoying pain in the ass. I also suspect that a lot of people expand upon the experience since they expect it to be 'wild' because that's what they've been told it would be. Don't think I turned into an ape, but for about 30hrs (reconstructed) I'm not sure what I was. PS, anything less than a full cycle in a tank (16 hrs at least) is a bad place from whence to judge. Spent way more than that in there, and more than one or two times. I operated that tank for about six months. We finally ended up using it on the back porch to put a couch in so it was protected from the rain. -- We don't see things as they are, [EMAIL PROTECTED] we see them as we are. www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anais Nin www.open-forge.org
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
At 08:42 PM 11/25/2002 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 11:00:57PM +, Steve Mynott wrote: On Monday, Nov 25, 2002, at 22:18 Europe/London, Harmon Seaver wrote: Even if it were possible (which I doubt) what's the point in even mentioning it since most people tortured aren't are yoga experts anyway? All the more reason for people to enroll in yoga classes. Yoga is the best thing you can do for yourself physically, far better than lifting weights, etc. and the healthiest thing you can do mentally. So do yourself a favor and get prepared. Wonderful way to pass time sitting in solitary confinement. Excellent way to heal the body after those little sessio...er, accidents, as well. This tread reminds me of an old made-for-TV movie, Tribes starring Jan Michael Vincent http://us.imdb.com/Title?0066490 Plot Outline: A Marine Corps drill instructor who is disgusted by the fact that the Corps now accepts draftees finds himself pitted against a hippie who has been drafted but refuses to accept the military's way of doing things. In one scene Jan's character is being punished in front of the platoon by holding buckets of sand from his outstretched arms. He closes his eyes, places himself in a trance-like state, and appears to effortlessly hold the buckets for so long that the DI loses face becomes even more enraged. steve
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 10:00:59PM +, Steve Mynott wrote: It's not some New Age weekend camp when you imprisoned and beaten by your captors. And, BTW, yoga is hardly New Age. It's quite ancient, precedes written history in fact. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com War is just a racket ... something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small group knows what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. --- Major General Smedley Butler, 1933 Our overriding purpose, from the beginning through to the present day, has been world domination - that is, to build and maintain the capacity to coerce everybody else on the planet: nonviolently, if possible, and violently, if necessary. But the purpose of US foreign policy of domination is not just to make the rest of the world jump through hoops; the purpose is to faciliate our exploitation of resources. - Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General http://www.thesunmagazine.org/bully.html
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
Steve Schear [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I read some books in my youth on SH and found I could put myself in a self- induced altered reality state from which I could not be easily awakened. I've had that too, listening to pre-election party political broadcasts. physical abuse might be thwarted as well for the well conditioned. Time to start listening to election speeches... Peter.
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Monday, Nov 25, 2002, at 22:18 Europe/London, Harmon Seaver wrote: I've also worked with self hypnosis quite a bit, and it's useful, but I'll say again, anyone fairly adept at yogic meditation would not have much problem with sensory or sleep deprevation torture techniques. Of course, beatings, electric shock, burning, etc are a different story. But beatings are usually used as part of sleep deprivation torture and it's often how the victim is kept awake. A Briton who was arrested and imprisoned for a series of bomb explosions in Saudi Arabia and who confessed. They psychologically brainwash you, he said. You are deprived of sleep, you are constantly bombarded with abuse physically, mentally. To me your body just shuts down and says you can take no more. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1802600.stm Looking at a page of yogic meditation advice it talks of sitting comfortably and using breath control techniques. http://www.yogabasics.com/meditation/yogaMeditation.html You are hardly in an environment conductive to yogic meditation in an uncomfortable stance and with loud noise played into your ears. Attempts to breath deeply and slowly and relax would be easily spotted and probably punished. Even if it were possible (which I doubt) what's the point in even mentioning it since most people tortured aren't are yoga experts anyway? -- Steve Mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Steve Mynott wrote: On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Adam Shostack wrote: The Russians reputedly used sensory deprivation as a means of convincing western spies to talk. 24 to 48 hours in a tank broke nearly anyone. Noone has mentioned sleep deprivation which is supposed to be extremely effective, although with the potential for permanent psychological and physical harm if continued for days. I read an article in Pop Sci (of all places) back in the 60s to the effect of sleep deprivation as being completely effective. *IF* you had the time. Brutality and drugs can break a person in a matter of hours to days at the outside. SD can take weeks, or longer. Though the report thought that results gained by SD were more reliable.
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
At 07:00 PM 11/25/2002 +, you wrote: On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Adam Shostack wrote: The Russians reputedly used sensory deprivation as a means of convincing western spies to talk. 24 to 48 hours in a tank broke nearly anyone. The effects are supposed to be a lot worse than you would imagine while also allowing some degree of denial by a so-called civilized state. we keep them awake a bit .. big deal its not supposed to be a holiday camp. Yet it's one of the simplest and most effective ways of psychological torture. I should think that a bit of practical training in self hypnosis could thwart sensory deprivation. I read some books in my youth on SH and found I could put myself in a self-induced altered reality state from which I could not be easily awakened. I imagine you could make yourself lean up against a wall until your muscles failed without much of a problem. I've heard surgery without anesthetic is possible, so physical abuse might be thwarted as well for the well conditioned. steve
Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
At 07:40 PM 11/24/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: Bullshit. I (and several others) built a tank nearly ten years ago. No big deal. Note that psychoactives (at least if you have any experience with them) don't modify the experience a great deal either. Certainly not to upset anyone this much, this fast. The biggest threat is wrinkled skin and bacterial infections. You've been watching way too many movies, you won't morph into a proto-ape or glow like lave either ;) You were using the wrong psychoactives then.
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Monday, Nov 25, 2002, at 21:14 Europe/London, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 12:58:55PM -0800, Steve Schear wrote: I should think that a bit of practical training in self hypnosis could thwart sensory deprivation. I read some books in my youth on SH and found I could put myself in a self-induced altered reality state from which I could not be easily awakened. I imagine you could make yourself lean up against a wall until your muscles failed without much of a problem. I've heard surgery without anesthetic is possible, so physical abuse might be thwarted as well for the well conditioned. Practioners of yoga should have a ball. Just another yogic meditation exercize. Neither of you appear to understand what psychological torture is. Read some of the reports on the web about what happens. These techniques are employed by governments the world over to break fanatical and trained terrorists. It's not some New Age weekend camp when you imprisoned and beaten by your captors. -- Steve Mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
You probably should have tried it on about 5 (dried) grams of psilocybic mushrooms or a good dose of ayahuasca instead of the acid. They're both much more suited to dark and quiet while acid seems to really like light and music. Really very different things -- McKenna wrote quite a bit about those differences, the tryptamines being mainly a connection to the Other, and acid a sort of instant psychoanalysis with little telepathic or interdimensional communication. I always prefer solitude and a nice warm quilt in a dark room with the first two, so a tank would probably be pretty groovy, although probably not after the sacrement wore off. And the barf would likely be a problem, especially with ayahuasca. On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 03:15:01PM -0500, cubic-dog wrote: On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote: At 07:40 PM 11/24/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: Bullshit. I (and several others) built a tank nearly ten years ago. No big deal. Note that psychoactives (at least if you have any experience with them) don't modify the experience a great deal either. Certainly not to upset anyone this much, this fast. The biggest threat is wrinkled skin and bacterial infections. You've been watching way too many movies, you won't morph into a proto-ape or glow like lave either ;) You were using the wrong psychoactives then. Indeed. Don't think I turned into an ape, but for about 30hrs (reconstructed) I'm not sure what I was. PS, anything less than a full cycle in a tank (16 hrs at least) is a bad place from whence to judge. There were tanks and tanks. I used the one at LSU back in the seventies. It was completely illegal. The tank was properly ventilated, completely mechanically isolated (not easy to accomplish), anechoic and of course dark to the point there was no visible light, even to to the meters. There was some energy being devoted to the concept that folks could set up shop with these things, kinda like gyms. Go to the strip mall and reboot yer head in a hour kinda deal. Didn't really take off. I fasted for a day before entering the tank, I dosed with 300 mikes of LSD, cooked in the LSU labs by buddy chem students in 100 mike doses taken an hour apart, last dose before stepping in. I was already peaking badly when they shut the door. It was a bd weekend, I'll tell ya. Had a friend, aquaintence really, who did the tank at Ga Tech. Yes, there was one. Done on the original Doc John Lilly concept of full imersion with a free flow full face mask with a blacked out face plate. He stayed in for about 22 hours, had a hard time talking coherently about it. He was our inspiration to do our set of experiments. I bailed on the project after my time in. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com War is just a racket ... something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small group knows what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. --- Major General Smedley Butler, 1933 Our overriding purpose, from the beginning through to the present day, has been world domination - that is, to build and maintain the capacity to coerce everybody else on the planet: nonviolently, if possible, and violently, if necessary. But the purpose of US foreign policy of domination is not just to make the rest of the world jump through hoops; the purpose is to faciliate our exploitation of resources. - Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General http://www.thesunmagazine.org/bully.html
Re: sleep deprivation was Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 10:00:59PM +, Steve Mynott wrote: Practioners of yoga should have a ball. Just another yogic meditation exercize. Neither of you appear to understand what psychological torture is. Read some of the reports on the web about what happens. These techniques are employed by governments the world over to break fanatical and trained terrorists. It's not some New Age weekend camp when you imprisoned and beaten by your captors. Having been beaten by the pigs more than once, and one of those times so severly that onlookers thought I was dead -- if you've seen the videos of Rodney King's beating, I can only say that I thought that furor a real joke -- and also being a practioner of yoga, I can assure you that I don't think of it as some New Age weekend camp. I've also worked with self hypnosis quite a bit, and it's useful, but I'll say again, anyone fairly adept at yogic meditation would not have much problem with sensory or sleep deprevation torture techniques. Of course, beatings, electric shock, burning, etc are a different story. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com War is just a racket ... something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small group knows what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. --- Major General Smedley Butler, 1933 Our overriding purpose, from the beginning through to the present day, has been world domination - that is, to build and maintain the capacity to coerce everybody else on the planet: nonviolently, if possible, and violently, if necessary. But the purpose of US foreign policy of domination is not just to make the rest of the world jump through hoops; the purpose is to faciliate our exploitation of resources. - Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General http://www.thesunmagazine.org/bully.html
RE: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
Adam wrote: The Russians, Americans and I believe others have moved from physical to psychological methods which have proven to work better than actual physical pain. I recall reading a story on Abdul Murad, the Al Qaeda member arrested in 1995 in the Philipines, where the way they finally got him to talk ws threatening him with being turned over to the Israelis. I recently obtained an illuminating recording of a speech by a judge sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which was given before the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. In said recording, the honorable judge proposes the issuance of formal federal torture warrants. The reader may or may not take comfort in the fact that the honorable judge firmly insists that the needles he proposes to be inserted under the fingernails of suspects should be sterile. Clearly, at least hygiene has progressed in the last 300 years. --Lucky Green
Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 04:30:42PM -0800, Tim May wrote: | On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 12:49 PM, dmolnar wrote: | | On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Tyler Durden wrote: | | to have a big jpg of a hand with middle finger extended...) More than | this, | they will have unknowingly destroyed the real data. (Perhaps a 3rd | key is | needed that DOESN'T destroy the original data, just 'hides' it a la | Rubberhose.) | | The question I've seen asked about this is then -- how do you get them | to | stop beating you? If they know you might have some number of duress | keys, | one of which might undetectably hide the data, what stops them from | beating you until | | 1) you give them a key that shows them what they want to see | 2) you die | | Maybe this isn't that different from the ordinary unencrypted case, | where | if they don't find it on your HD they can accuse you of burying disks | in | the backyard or something. Or is the goal protecting the data and not | protecting your life? | | From my reading of tradecraft, as practiced by SAVAK, MOSSAD, GRU, | etc., there is rarely anything to be gained by letting the target of | torture survive. If he or she survives, she screams to the newspapers, | 60 Minutes, etc. There's also rarely anything to be gained from torture, as people will invent all sorts of crap to get out from physical pain. | The United States draws heavily on Israel for torture methods, as their | methods come from some of the best torturers the world has ever seen, | their teachers at Auschwitz and Berlin Central. The Russians, Americans and I believe others have moved from physical to psychological methods which have proven to work better than actual physical pain. I recall reading a story on Abdul Murad, the Al Qaeda member arrested in 1995 in the Philipines, where the way they finally got him to talk ws threatening him with being turned over to the Israelis. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001363 The Russians reputedly used sensory deprivation as a means of convincing western spies to talk. 24 to 48 hours in a tank broke nearly anyone. Adam -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 12:49 PM, dmolnar wrote: On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Tyler Durden wrote: to have a big jpg of a hand with middle finger extended...) More than this, they will have unknowingly destroyed the real data. (Perhaps a 3rd key is needed that DOESN'T destroy the original data, just 'hides' it a la Rubberhose.) The question I've seen asked about this is then -- how do you get them to stop beating you? If they know you might have some number of duress keys, one of which might undetectably hide the data, what stops them from beating you until 1) you give them a key that shows them what they want to see 2) you die Maybe this isn't that different from the ordinary unencrypted case, where if they don't find it on your HD they can accuse you of burying disks in the backyard or something. Or is the goal protecting the data and not protecting your life? From my reading of tradecraft, as practiced by SAVAK, MOSSAD, GRU, etc., there is rarely anything to be gained by letting the target of torture survive. If he or she survives, she screams to the newspapers, 60 Minutes, etc. And torturing a person to death maximizes the chances that a later confession will undo the earlier confession(s). To the torturer, once the target has confessed, crank up the heat some more. More shocks to the genitals, more fingers cut off, another child raped and executed before her eyes, another eyeball removed, etc., then the process _must_ continue. Once the target has actually died--not counting times brought back from clinical death with medical methods--then the Total Information Awareness (TM, DARPA) engineers can presumably say We've gotten all we can get. The United States draws heavily on Israel for torture methods, as their methods come from some of the best torturers the world has ever seen, their teachers at Auschwitz and Berlin Central. --Tim May He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -- Nietzsche
RE: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
At 06:34 PM 11/20/2002 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: I recently obtained an illuminating recording of a speech by a judge sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which was given before the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. In said recording, the honorable judge proposes the issuance of formal federal torture warrants. The reader may or may not take comfort in the fact that the honorable judge firmly insists that the needles he proposes to be inserted under the fingernails of suspects should be sterile. Clearly, at least hygiene has progressed in the last 300 years. To flesh this out a little more - the judge was Stephen Trott, speaking on September 18 2002 at the Commonwealth Club. Trott credits the torture warrant idea to Alan Dershowitz, whom he describes as a good friend and a great civil libertarian. Edited transcripts and a RealAudio recording of Trott's speech are available at http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-09trott-intro.html - Trott's discussion (and apparent endorsement) of torture begins at about 16:28 into the audio, and again during the QA session. -- Greg Broiles -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PGP 0x26E4488c or 0x94245961
Re: Torture done correctly is a terminal process
On Thursday, November 21, 2002, at 09:33 AM, Greg Broiles wrote: At 06:34 PM 11/20/2002 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: I recently obtained an illuminating recording of a speech by a judge sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which was given before the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. In said recording, the honorable judge proposes the issuance of formal federal torture warrants. The reader may or may not take comfort in the fact that the honorable judge firmly insists that the needles he proposes to be inserted under the fingernails of suspects should be sterile. Clearly, at least hygiene has progressed in the last 300 years. To flesh this out a little more - the judge was Stephen Trott, speaking on September 18 2002 at the Commonwealth Club. Trott credits the torture warrant idea to Alan Dershowitz, whom he describes as a good friend and a great civil libertarian. (I could check with Google, but wasn't Trott once a musician, in something like The Four Horsemen or The Information Highwaymen? Insert Hettinga-like grin symbols here if desired.) Hey, why not? Considering the state of the Bill of Rights and of liberty in general, why shouldn't the USG be torturing perpetrators until they confess additional sins? We've got secret courts, secret appeals courts, secret laws, warrantless searches, roving wiretaps, so many laws that nearly everyone is a felon in one way or another, selective prosecution, Orwellian gibberings from FL about The Evil Ones, proposals to data mine every customer purchase record (*), cooperation agreements between the IRS and other government agencies (so much for tax returns being not used except for taxes), more secret trials, persons being held without access to lawyers and without charges being filed, and on and on. (* Not being a lawyer, though reading widely, I have never understand this crap about how the 4th Amendment does not apply to Alice if Bob has the records. Perhaps _Alice_ cannot assert a 4th A. right, but _Bob_ still has all 4th A. rights to be secure in his papers and possessions, including his business records! If I have a letter sent by Greg, Greg may not be able to assert a 4th A. right about his letter, but Tim sure can! It became one of Tim's papers and possessions once he received it. Ditto for business records, purchase records, etc. This notion that K-Mart and Costco will be sharing customer purchase records with the Heimatsecuritat and that the 4th Amendment does not apply is ludicrous. Customers should, I think, organize boycotts of K-Mart and have K-Mart eventually tell Big Brother show us the specific warrant based on probable cause for a specific customer. I doubt this will happen.) --Tim May To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists. --John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General
