I thought this may be of interest to some on this list,Jacqui L
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Subject: PENS Annulment--An Important Update
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:42:13 +0000
PENS Annulment--An Important Update
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
human rights * ethics * social justice
Dear Supporters of PENS Annulment,
On behalf of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, I am writing with what is perhaps best considered a good news/bad news update. The good news is very good indeed: we now have 33 organizations and over 1,800 individuals as endorsers of our petition. Thank you again for your personal support, and for whatever actions you’ve been able to take to enlist the support of friends and colleagues (who can continue to sign on at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens).
But now here’s the bad or disappointing news. This week, with support from APA leadership and staff, a group of APA members announced the creation of a new “task force,” essentially in response to our annulment efforts. This group (the “Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists’ Involvement in National Security Settings”) aims to “reconcile” various APA policy statements and resolutions related to torture and interrogations into a single “unified, comprehensive document” – a document that will explicitly preserve (and thereby reaffirm) key parts of the PENS Report.
As one example, the PENS Report states that it is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in various national-security related roles, including (but not necessarily limited to) as a consultant to the interrogation of detainees. As a reminder, six of the nine voting members of the PENS Task Force were either employed by or had significant ties to U.S. military/intelligence agencies – and several of them likely knew that psychologists in fact had served as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to torturous and abusive interrogations.
The bottom line is that there is no legitimate basis for presuming that these aggressive operational activities are indeed ethical for psychologists. Annulment of the PENS Report will serve to make this an open question for transparent, broad-based, and urgently needed discussion. In sharp contrast, the agenda of this new APA “task force” will serve to cement into place the very PENS policies that are the source of such concern from the perspective of professional ethics and human rights (the agenda will also postpone indefinitely the pursuit of accountability for the corrupt process that led to the PENS Report).
A few days ago, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology issued a statement that stands strongly in opposition to the new “task force.” The text of our statement is provided below. We recognize that not all signers of the annulment petition will necessarily agree with our analysis. In any case, we want to make sure that you are aware of these recent events and our assessment of them, and we will keep you posted on further developments as they arise. In the meantime, whatever you can do to encourage additional support from friends and colleagues for the annulment campaign will be much appreciated (www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens).
In addition, if you would like to express your concerns to the five members of the new “task force,” they can be contacted directly via email at the following addresses: chair Linda Woolf ([log in to unmask]), Kathleen Dockett ([log in to unmask]), Julie Levitt ([log in to unmask]), William Strickland ([log in to unmask]), and Laura Brown ([log in to unmask]).
Thank you again for your support!
Sincerely,
Roy Eidelson, on behalf of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Coalition Rejects New “Task Force”
With the support of the Board and Administration of the American Psychological Association (APA), a self-appointed group of APA members has just announced the creation of a “Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists’ Involvement in National Security Settings.” Superficially, the formation of this task force appears to be a step forward in addressing critical issues of human rights and professional ethics. But the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, referenced in the task force’s announcement, opposes this initiative for many reasons. Our call for annulment of the deeply flawed PENS Report has gained broad support. Yet this new task force attempts to redefine priorities and deflect attention away from this urgent issue, asserting that “the PENS report offers unique contributions to APA policy” which need to be integrated into a “unified, comprehensive APA policy.” As such, this task force is primarily an “anti-annulment” initiative. If successful, its agenda will further enshrine PENS policies – policies that were adopted through a fundamentally unethical process and that resulted in grievous harm and the tarnishing of our profession.
Any attempt to clarify possible ambiguities in APA’s statements and resolutions bearing on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment should be postponed until after the PENS Report has been officially annulled. Otherwise, from the outset the presumption will be that it is ethically permissible for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational psychology roles [1], including consultation to interrogators of national security detainees. Yet a crucial question has never received broad and open discussion: Should psychologists serve in combatant and aggressive operational capacities in military/intelligence settings where our foundational “do no harm” ethical principle is subservient to military policy? The new task force states that it will not develop any new policy. Their initiative will merely delay these much needed deliberations and possible reform.
The Coalition is also concerned about the composition of the new task force. None of its five members actively supported – and at least three actively opposed – the 2008 member-initiated Referendum prohibiting psychologists from working in national security settings that violate human rights. This Referendum was overwhelmingly endorsed by 59% of voting APA members. Moreover, several members of this task force have been vehement opponents over the past several years of most attempts to change APA policies on interrogations. The three task force members from the Peace Psychology Division (Division 48) have taken this action without any discussion with the division membership, and despite the fact that the Executive Committee officially endorsed the annulment petition two months ago.
Returning to the key issue of annulment, when reports first surfaced that psychologists were aiding and even implementing U.S. programs of torture and abuse in national security settings, the APA turned its ethics process in this domain over to the military–intelligence establishment. The resulting 2005 PENS Task Force had six of nine voting members from that area, including several members who served in chains of command publicly accused of abuses at that time. The three voting members of the PENS Task Force without military ties have all subsequently renounced the report, and two of them have denounced the process as corrupt from the start. Military-intelligence advisors who analyzed the PENS process identified it as “a social legitimization process for a decision made at higher levels of the DoD.”
While stating that psychologists should not participate in abuses, the PENS Report gives the imprimatur of the APA to psychologists serving in detention and other national security operations where their activities are protected by secrecy and information is classified. The Report also reiterates the primacy of U.S. law and military regulations over professional ethics. These two assertions were all that the military and CIA needed from the PENS Task Force and PENS Report. In important ways, the remainder of the Report simply serves to obscure the importance of these two profoundly problematic conclusions.[2]
Thus far, the Coalition’s petition calling for annulment of the PENS Report has been endorsed by 33 groups and organizations – including nine within APA itself – and by over 1,800 individuals. The full list is available online at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens. Annulment is needed in order to (1) renounce the illegitimate process that enabled the military-intelligence establishment to control our profession’s ethics, and (2) move the profession to engage in a thorough and independent review of the ethics of psychologists participating in various national security activities. For the reasons we have summarized here, we strongly believe that this new task force will stand in the way of annulment. Indeed, its formation is reminiscent of the back-room deals of the PENS process itself. We also believe that the narrow interests currently dominating the APA’s agenda in this area must no longer supersede the ethical commitments and aspirations of the association’s membership and of psychologists outside the APA. The profession’s future depends on what we do now.
We therefore encourage psychologists to reject this new task force initiative, and to communicate your opposition to APA leaders, including Board members, Council members, and division officers. At the same time, we encourage you to visit the Coalition website, to review our materials on annulment of the PENS Report and, if you have not already done so, to sign our petition (www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens).
February 23, 2012
Endnotes
[1] Operational psychologists, who are licensed clinical psychologists, are purportedly using psychology to further military/intelligence operations, as in interrogation support. We distinguish between traditional operational psychology roles (e.g., personnel selection) and aggressive operational psychology, where psychologists are duty-bound to put the mission first and where military regulations and orders supersede the ethical standards of their profession. Further, they often work in classified settings, which severely impedes effective ethical monitoring as they and their employer can deny ethics committees access to the information necessary to adjudicate cases.
[2] Further details about the illegitimacy of the PENS process and PENS Report are documented here: http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/materials/PENS_Annulment_Background_Statement.pdf.
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