April, 22 2016, 04:15pm EDT

Court Rules ACLU Lawsuit Against CIA Torture Psychologists Can Proceed
Judge Rejects Psychologists’ Motion to Dismiss Case Filed on Behalf of Three CIA Torture Victims
SPOKANE, Wash.
In a decision today that is unprecedented for a lawsuit involving CIA torture, a federal judge said that he would allow a lawsuit against the two psychologists who designed and implemented the CIA program to move forward.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three men -- Gul Rahman, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud -- who were tortured using methods developed by the CIA-contracted psychologists, James Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen.
Announcing his ruling from the bench at a hearing today on the psychologists' motion to dismiss, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Justin Quackenbush gave attorneys in the case 30 days to come up with a plan for discovery, a first in a lawsuit concerning CIA torture.
"This is a historic win in the fight to hold the people responsible for torture accountable for their despicable and unlawful actions," said ACLU Staff Attorney Dror Ladin, who argued in court today. "Thanks to this unprecedented ruling, CIA victims will be able to call their torturers to account in court for the first time."
The judge said that he would deny the psychologists' motion, which had argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the judiciary could not consider the case because it is a "political question" for only the executive and legislative branches to decide. Mitchell and Jessen also argued that they have immunity from lawsuits because they were working as government contractors.
Until now, every lawsuit trying to hold people accountable for the CIA torture program has been dismissed before reaching the merits because the government successfully argued that letting the cases proceed would reveal state secrets. But earlier this month, in an unprecedented move, the Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" in the case but specifically did not invoke the state-secrets privilege.
To the contrary, the government indicated that it would be open to the case proceeding to discovery if certain information is off limits, such as the identities of covert CIA operatives. The ACLU said it believes it can come to an agreement with the Justice Department on a set of procedures for information that is not relevant to the lawsuit.
The torture endured by the plaintiffs was detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee's landmark report on CIA torture. The U.S. has never charged or accused the victims of any crime. One of them was tortured to death, and the other two are now free.
Mitchell and Jessen helped convince the agency to adopt torture as official policy, making millions of dollars in the process. The two men, who had previously worked for the U.S. military, designed the torture methods and performed illegal human experimentation on CIA prisoners to test and refine the program. They personally took part in torture sessions and oversaw the program's implementation for the CIA.
Torture methods devised by Mitchell and Jessen and inflicted on the three men include slamming them into walls, stuffing them inside coffin-like boxes, exposing them to extreme temperatures and ear-splitting levels of music, starving them, inflicting various kinds of water torture, depriving them of sleep for days, and chaining them in stress positions designed for pain and to keep them awake for days on end. The two victims who survived still suffer physically and psychologically from the effects of their torture.
The plaintiffs include the family of Gul Rahman, who died because of torture. He was an Afghan refugee living in Pakistan with his wife and their four daughters, making a living selling wood to fellow residents of their refugee camp. An autopsy and internal CIA review found the cause of death to be hypothermia caused "in part by being forced to sit on the bare concrete floor without pants" with contributing factors of "dehydration, lack of food, and immobility due to 'short chaining.'" The family has never been officially notified of his death, and his body has never been returned to them for burial.
Another plaintiff is Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a fisherman from Tanzania. The U.S. military released him over five years after his abduction with a letter acknowledging that he poses no threat to the United States. He now lives in Zanzibar with his wife and his young daughter.
The third plaintiff is Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud. He fled his native Libya in 1991, fearing persecution for his opposition to Muammar Gadhafi's dictatorship. In 2003, Ben Soud was captured in a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid on his home and sent to two secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan, where he was held and tortured for over two years. Ben Soud saw Mitchell in the first of these prisons, later identifying him as a man present in a room where CIA interrogators were torturing him by forcibly submerging him in ice water. Ben Soud was freed in 2011 after Gadhafi was deposed, and he now lives with his wife and three children.
In addition to torturing prisoners themselves, Mitchell and Jessen trained and supervised other CIA personnel in their methods. In 2005, they founded a company -- Mitchell, Jessen & Associates -- that the CIA contracted with to run its entire torture program, including supplying interrogators and security for black sites and rendition operations. According to the Senate report, the government paid the company $81 million over several years. The CIA let Mitchell and Jessen themselves evaluate the effectiveness of their torture in "breaking" detainees, and the agency has since admitted that this was a mistake.
Citing experiments conducted on dogs in the 1960s, Mitchell and Jessen proposed to the CIA a program based on the intentional infliction of intense pain and suffering, both physical and mental. In the 1960s' experiments, dogs were subjected to random electric shocks, and they eventually collapsed into a passive state termed "learned helplessness." According to Mitchell and Jessen's theory, if humans were psychologically destroyed through torture and abuse, they would become totally unable to resist demands for information.
The CIA adopted Mitchell and Jessen's proposals, and in August of 2002, the agency secured Justice Department authorization in the so-called "torture memos," which were later rescinded by the Justice Department.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington State, where Mitchell, Jessen & Associates was based and where Jessen still lives. The plaintiffs are suing Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute -- which allows federal lawsuits for gross human rights violations -- for their commission of torture; cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes.
All case documents are at:
https://www.aclu.org/cases/salim-v-mitchell-lawsuit-against-psychologists-behind-cia-torture-program
A short documentary featuring interviews with a plaintiff and a psychology expert, plus graphics and more information, are at:
https://www.aclu.org/darkness
Photos of the plaintiffs for press use are at:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1u48invqaxeji5t/AACtreHhompyNo4uEQTopS2fa
This statement is at:
https://www.aclu.org/news/court-rules-aclu-lawsuit-against-cia-torture-psychologists-can-proceed
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Trump Taps 'Manifestly Unqualified' Peter Thiel Protégé as Acting CDC Director After RFK's Purge
A health researcher for Public Citizen said Trump's interim CDC director has "no medical or public health background and extremist libertarian views."
Aug 29, 2025
After pushing out his own handpicked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director, infectious disease expert Susan Monarez, fueling a wave of outraged resignations this week, US President Donald Trump has appointed a loyal acolyte to replace her at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s side.
On Thursday, the president tapped one of RFK's top aides as interim CDC director: biotech investor Jim O'Neill, a man with no medical experience but extensive experience profiting from healthcare while working at billionaire GOP megadonor Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Mithril Capital.
Unlike his predecessor, whose ouster came as she tried to push back against RFK's anti-vaccine agenda, O'Neill fits snugly into the secretary's efforts to restrict access to the Covid-19 vaccine, and potentially ban it outright, as the Daily Beast reported earlier this week.
"A tech investor with no medical or public health background and extremist libertarian views, Jim O'Neill was unfit for the number two position at HHS and manifestly unqualified to lead the CDC," said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's health research group, on Friday.
Just as Kennedy did during his confirmation hearings, O'Neill insisted he was "pro-vaccine," noting that he was "an adviser to a vaccine company." However, this is belied by his record on the subject.
He has championed unproven cures like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and vitamin D supplements to protect against Covid-19, and has accused the CDC under the administration of former President Joe Biden of downplaying the vaccine's dangers while railing against mandates.
O'Neill has also praised Kennedy's response to the measles outbreak that swept across the US earlier this year, during which the secretary downplayed the severity and cast unfounded doubt on the effectiveness and safety of the measles vaccine that had virtually eradicated the disease before vaccination rates began to decline.
"Unlike Susan Monarez," Steinbrook said, "O'Neill is likely to rubber-stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy's handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity."
O'Neill melds medical crankery with a Thielite strain of anarcho-libertarianism. He has served on the board of the Seasteading Institute, an organization founded by Patri Friedman, the grandson of the right-wing economist Milton Friedman, who advocates for corporations like Apple and Google to form their own floating cities at sea, which would be governed as corporate "dictatorships" free from the constraints of democratic governance.
That anti-government ethos extends to his views on the healthcare system, which O'Neill says is flawed not because of the rampant profiteering of the private companies that run it, but because it is supposedly not "free market" enough.
In 2014, he advocated for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin approving drugs for the market without conducting clinical trials to determine their effectiveness. "Let people start using them, at their own risk," he argued, "Let's prove efficacy after they've been legalized."
He has also argued for the government to allow people to sell their own internal organs. This process often results in deteriorating health for the disproportionately poor people who partake.
While working at HHS under the administration of former President George W. Bush, O'Neill also opposed the FDA regulation of companies that use algorithms to perform laboratory tests.
At the time, he was focused on DNA testing products like 23andMe, but a report from the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen says that "a decade after he made this remark, it's clear how dangerous such a concept is," noting that "with the development and proliferation of artificial intelligence, algorithms are omnipresent in the practice of medicine, including in diagnostic tools, medical devices, AI assistants to doctors, and personalized medicine."
In addition to Thiel's ideology, he reportedly brings several conflicts of interest to the CDC director job from his time working at Thiel's venture capital firm.
Accountable.US reported Friday that O'Neill "took money from, helped incubate, or was otherwise linked to at least eight medical industry startups with direct business before the department he could help run."
These include firms he advised, like the pharmaceutical company ADvantage Therapeutics or the National Institutes of Health grantee Rational Vaccines, which manufactures herpes drugs.
It also includes four companies seeded by his Thiel-affiliated venture capital firm Breakout Labs, some of which have received government funding or have products awaiting FDA approval.
Though O'Neill agreed to divest from some of these companies and abstain from involvement in decision-making with them as part of his ethics agreement, the report notes that "he did not promise to abstain from decisions involving these companies for the duration of his term, or to abstain from doing business with them after departing HHS."
"O'Neill would be in a prime position to ensure favorable outcomes for several medical industry startups he's been financially linked to that have direct business before HHS and the CDC," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk. "How can American patients be sure that proper vetting of these companies would take place on O'Neill's watch and that public health will be a higher priority over the profits of his former clients?"
Though Steinbrook describes O'Neill as "manifestly unqualified" for the position, he said, "No credible public health authority is likely to work for Kennedy, who is dictating the agency's decisions based on whim, not science."
"The only path forward," Steinbrook said, "is for Kennedy to go, which Congress, professional organizations, medical journals, and the public should demand."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'AI Death Panels': Trump Pilot Program Seeks to Bring 'Very Worst' For-Profit Insurance Practices to Medicare
The administration, warned two union leaders, "is inserting private AI companies, which have a giant financial stake in the denial of care, into the doctor-patient relationship."
Aug 29, 2025
Creating what critics are equating to "AI death panels" elderly Americans in need of care, the Trump administration is launching a pilot program in six states that will use artificial intelligence to determine whether Medicare recipients should qualify for certain procedures.
As reported by The New York Times on Thursday, the pilot program will hire private firms to deploy AI to make what are known as "prior authorization" decisions regarding whether Medicare should pay for certain procedures, including spinal surgeries and steroid injections. The program is set to run first in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington.
According to the paper, the program will rely on algorithms similar to those "used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities."
The way the program is being structured will also give AI firms big incentives to maximize the denial of claims for Medicare recipients, as the Times reported that "Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections."
Abe Sutton, the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, emphasized in an interview with the Times that this program would not be used to review emergency services or hospital stays.
Even so, some experts and advocates have warned that this program risks bringing the same problems experienced by people who use private insurance to Medicare.
"It's basically the same set of financial incentives that has created issues in Medicare Advantage and drawn so much scrutiny," Ohio-based surgeon Dr. Vinay Rathi, who is also an expert in Medicare payment policies, explained to the Times. "It directly puts them at odds with the clinicians."
Jathan Sadowski, a senior lecturer and research fellow in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University, also warned about private insurance practices creeping into traditional Medicare.
"The government is hiring companies using AI to make those determinations about healthcare," he wrote on X. "This is exactly the same tactic that private insurers like UnitedHealth use to delay and deny treatment."
The reported pilot program also drew harsh reviews from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), as president Randi Weingarten and the union's Retirees Program and Policy Council co-chair Tom Murphy issued a joint statement accusing the Trump administration of "attempting to transform Medicare into the very worst of private insurance."
"Instead of making life easier and better for older Americans, this administration is introducing extra hurdles that are burdensome to patients and often get in the way of their desperately needed treatments," they said. "And the administration is inserting private AI companies, which have a giant financial stake in the denial of care, into the doctor-patient relationship."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Another Act of Revenge': Trump Cancels Secret Service Extended Protection for Kamala Harris
"The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses," said a spokesman for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Aug 29, 2025
US President Donald Trump has canceled extended Secret Service protection for former Vice President Kamala Harris just as she was scheduled to go on a multi-city book tour.
CNN reported on Friday that Trump this week sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security that simply read, "You are hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by executive memorandum, beyond those required by law, for the following individual, effective September 1, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala D. Harris."
As CNN explained, former vice presidents are entitled by federal law to six months of Secret Service protection after leaving office.
However, former President Joe Biden late in his term signed a directive that extended Harris' protection past the standard six-month window. The reason for the extension—its existence not reported publicly until Trump moved to revoke it—has not been made clear.
Harris last year was the Democratic Party's presidential nominee after then-President Joe Biden decided against running for a second term.
As California is Harris' home state, both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are aware of and have been discussing Harris' security situation, and CNN noted she could get added protection in the future from the Los Angeles Police Department or potentially another state agency.
In a statement given to CNN, Bass delivered a scathing denunciation of the president for revoking his former rival's Secret Service protection.
"This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more," she said. "This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the Governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles."
Bob Salladay, a spokesman for Newsom, also ripped the president for his actions.
"The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses," he said.
Harris is scheduled to go on tour starting next month in New York to promote her book "107 Days," which reflects on her failed 2024 presidential campaign.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular