"[P]sychologists are in a unique position to assist in ensuring that these [interrogation] processes are safe and ethical for all participants."
The case of Gelles' involvement in the King interrogation, of course, makes this assertion quite dubious.Gelles' involvement in the King interrogation clearly did not "assist in ensuring that" this interrogation was "safe and ethical for all participants." Furthermore, as Turley reports, Gelles ignored suicidal statements made by King, thus failing during his interview in his obligation to ensure that the process was "safe."
From the record of the King case, it appears that Gelles may have violated several other of the recommendations of the PENS task force. Among the recommendation that may have been violated were:
PENS: "Psychologists are alert to acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and have an ethical responsibility to report these acts to the appropriate authorities."
The detention and interrogation of King would likely meet the legal threshold of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." He was subjected to sleep deprivation for a month and isolated from all social supports. According to the Senate testimony of King's attorney, JAG Robert Bailey, NCIS agents threatened to harm King's family on at least two different occasions. While it is possible Gelles reported these abuses, there is no indication in the public record that he did so.
PENS: "Psychologists are aware of and clarify their role in situations where the nature of their professional identity and professional function may be ambiguous."
PENS: "Psychologists are sensitive to the problems inherent in mixing potentially inconsistent roles such as health care provider and consultant to an interrogation, and refrain from engaging in such multiple relationships."
PENS: "Psychologists make clear the limits of confidentiality."
In his videotaped interview with King, Gelles reportedly told King that he was a "doc" and not an agent while failing to tell him that he was part of the investigative team and that the interview was part of the interrogation. He thus confused his health provider ["doc"] and investigative roles. He di not, apparently, clarify "the limits of confidentiality."
It is important to stress that these comments on Gelles' behavior are provisional and are based solely upon accounts of his interview with King provided by King's attorneys. There may be other aspects of the case that would change the overall evaluation of Gelles' behavior. But such exculpatory information is not available in the absence of an investigation.
What is most important is that the APA Ethics Committee, faced with a complaint of very serious ethical lapses from a highly reputable attorney, failed to open the case or investigate these claims. It thus appears that they never even viewed the videotape containing the Gelles interview of King or sought information from King or his complainant attorneys.
This case is not the only ethics complaint filed against a member of the PENS task force. Another Task Force member faced charges for possible involvement in abuses at Guantà ¡namo in 2003. Here, too, the APA Ethics Committee declined to open a case, even though the same APA Ethics Director, Stephen Behnke, publicly admitted that the acts alleged are unethical. In yet a third case, an ethics complaint against a Guantanamo military psychologist was opened but remains open three years later. Government documents show this psychologist participating in the planning and execution of the torture of G uantanamo detainees al Qahtani. A fourth psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, has acknowledged training Guantà ¡namo interrogators in abusive interrogation techniques. Ethics charges could not be brought against Banks because he was not an APA member at the time of the abuse. Nor was he an APA member when Behnke appointed him to the PENS Task Force, though he has joined the APA since. Evidently ethics complaints against psychologists affiliated with the military [Gelles was a civilian NCIS employee at the time of the King interrogation] have an exceedingly high threshold before the APA will even open a case, much less investigate.
Equally important to the failure of the APA to investigate the complaint against Gelles was that Behnke allowed Gelles to be appointed to the PENS task force on the ethics of interrogations, in spite of the fact that an ethics complaint had been filed against him for interrogation abuse. Ordinary prudence would caution against such a step, at least without full transparency and explanation. The lack of such prudence, however, is not surprising on a task force on detainee abuse which is already known to contain four members from chains of command accused of detainee abuse.
Interestingly, as Kaye notes in his article, Gelles himself made reference to the King case on the listserv of the PENS task force in a manner that suggests that even he assumed members of the task force were well aware of his involvement in the matter:
"As Chuck Ewing has said on many an occasion" the Agency is entitled to consultation just as an individual". In the Squillicoate [sic] case referenced in the article, and to some extent my experience with the King case, a new demand to re-think how the profession was going to hold psychologists in practice accountable in contexts outside of the clinical and academic arena's was becoming more evident." [Emphasis added by Kaye.]
As reported in the PENS task force report, members of the task force were aware that the APA the ethics code included the Nuremberg Defense ["just following orders"] in its ethics standard 1.02, added in 2002.
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