March 25, 2025 • 57 mins
In the United States, people accused of crimes are entitled to certain well-known protections under the law. And, in the international sphere, global agreements theoretically guarantee certain rights to prisoners of war. However, in the wake of 9/11 elements of the US government felt these protections were preventing them from obtaining justice. They needed locations off the books. Places where the normal rules didn't apply -- places that, officially speaking, did not exist. Tune in to learn more about the rise of black sites.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist, have you ever had the feeling that
you're in a place you shouldn't be?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Only every day of my life, buddy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You ever walk in and you know, like the vibes off,
or you wake up and you know, like, how did
I get on this plane?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Are we talking about a specific place? This is not
my beautiful house, nor is this my beautiful life. This is
a windowless room and I'm tied to a chair with
a bag over my head. That's a hold on what.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
A non consentually? Yet, this is the true story that
we explored in twenty nineteen. Here in these United States,
for now, people accused of crimes are theoretically entitled to
certain well known legal protections. And if you scope out
to the globe overall, you'll see things like the Geneva
(00:49):
Conventions that guarantee certain rights to prisoners of war. However,
the theory does not always translate to the practice, does it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now, there's some big butts in there, guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, are we both waiting for that Brazilian Buttlet's.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Joke, it was there all along.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Please please do not get a BBL at a black site.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Don't do it. Yeah, that's a place to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, black sites, we're uh, we're laughing by the gallows
because there is no whistle like a graveyard whistle. Black
sites are terrible. They're real. They are a violation of
international law. They are an active conspiracy, both in twenty
nineteen when we originally recorded this and in twenty twenty
five as we record today.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, call that because they don't exist, right, that's the concept.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And yikes, where you get disappeared too.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
That's roll the tape from UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn this stuff. They do want
you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
They call me Ben, and we are joined as always
with our super producer, Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. If you want
to be a part of the conversation as we delve
into today's rabbit hole, you don't have to wait till
the end of the show. You can just give us
(02:37):
a call directly and then you know, oh, push pause,
give us a call and then push play.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, and make sure your vehicle is not in motion
and you're not driving.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Or that you have one of those cool voice activated ones.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Definitely, and where should they point their telephonic device? Fellas well?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You type in the numbers one eight three three std
witk Yeah, give us.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
A call three minutes. Choose your time wisely and let
us know if you have something that you do not
want to end up on the air.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Just please be explicit, you know, you guys here in Atlanta,
I'm often taken in by these fake rap songs that
are on the radio that are actually just advertisements for
like one eight hundred, you know, buy gold or like
an ambulance chaser type attorney. There's a few of them
that are really good.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They're great, and I'll always.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Like find myself bopping to them, and then I'm like,
got it, got me again when they drop the call
to action. You know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I like the I Have No Regrets. I like the
ones of sick verses. And there are a few out
there actually where you're like, I know this is an ad,
but it slaps.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
There's one called one hundred and forty one one pain nice,
that's the big one.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
My favorite is uh one eight three three cars for
kids five seven two four five for kids.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Boom airhorn. Maybe that's it. Uh Yes, So we recently
did it episode diving into the strange story of closed cities.
These are places that in some cases did not or
do not officially exist.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Many of them are.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Radiated, and many of them are Cold War relics located
in Russia, but not all of them. It's an interesting
story and it may hit close to home for some
of our fellow listeners. Today we're looking at something kind
of related, another sort of invisible place, a place where
people officially disappear. So here are the facts. First prisons,
(04:38):
really starting on an up note today, guys, prisons are
an ugly fact of every nation's existence. And if you
have ever researched this or done some cursory googling in
your time on the internet, you have found that some prisons,
like those in Norway, are held up as models of
successful rehabilitation. There's a lot of good and bad press
(05:01):
out there about Norway's prisons. People who consider themselves hard
on crime will say that Norway is coddling criminals, and
people who consider themselves. I don't know, maybe more progressive
or people who have studied recidivism rates will say that
Norway is enormously successful rehabilitating prisoners. And you know what,
you can't lie. You can pull up the pictures, you
(05:22):
can check out the prisons. They are very nice, considering
that their prisons they don't look like jails or prisons.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, and some of the best attorneys in the world
have come out of Norwegian prisons or they got their degrees.
I did not know that. Well, well, hanging out in
bubble baths. It's not true. Oh okay, sorry, I'm still
back on the lawyer rap tip. But you know, there's
definitely a broad spectrum of the types of activities and
(05:50):
things that go on in prisons, Norway possibly being the
extreme and the positive or you know, if you're hard
on crime, you can say in the negative.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
But well, yeah, focusing on getting a person who's incarcerated
back to existing and functioning within normalized society, that's one extreme.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's one extreme. Then you have places like South Africa
where it's kind of just all bets are off. I mean,
they're absurdly notorious for the types of horrible things that
go on in there.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's correct. The violence, the crime, and the corruption are
incredibly high. There is a triad of gangs that run
many of the prisons in South Africa. I believe they're
the twenty five's, the twenty sixes, and the twenty sevens.
They are much more sinister than their names would lead
(06:40):
you to believe. For instance, one of the common punishments
for someone who has broken the codes or moraise of
the gang is for someone to This is incredibly graphic,
it may not be suitable for all listeners. Is for
someone to be wounded in their anus and then to
(07:05):
be assaulted by an HIV positive member of the gang.
That happens in South African prisons. In some cases, the
prisoners have almost as much power as the staff that
technically keeps an eye on them. So we have very
very very very very nice, sometimes called unfairly called Ikea
prisons in Norway, and then we have very very very
(07:26):
bad and dangerous places, and the US, depending on who
you ask, can fall somewhere in between. One thing that's
no secret is that there are a ton of prisons
and jails here in these United States.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yes, and you're speaking about a ton of different places, right,
and each of those is its own ecosystem in a
lot of ways. In the US, we have over seventeen
hundred state prisons, over one hundred federal prisons, and nine
hundred and forty two juvenile correctional facilities. But let's keep
going here, three two and eighty three local jails and
(08:04):
seventy nine jails that are on indigenous people's reservations.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And you might be saying to yourself, given the population
of our country, those numbers actually seem kind of low, Yeah,
which means severe overcrowding in many of the nation's prisons.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah. Let's keep in mind this does not count military prisons,
immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the
many US territories.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And that's not to say that the kinds of things
ben that you describe taking place in South African prisons
don't happen in the United States. Largely due to this overcrowding,
in New Mexico's State Penitentiary in February of nineteen eighty,
prison inmates essentially took over the facility and got a
hold of what you would call snitch files, where folks
(08:52):
that were actually you know, reporting on you know, illegal activity,
they end up in these physical files in the prison
wardens office, and the folks that kind of took over
the facility found those single those people out and did
things very much in line with the kinds of tortures
and punishments that Ben was describing taking place in South Africa,
involving genital mutilation and you know, hanging from the rafters,
(09:15):
you know, by their necks and things like that. Just
absolute unimaginable terror.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, And there has been a growing discrepancy between the
way that prisons in the US are depicted in works
of fiction versus how day to day life is for
the inmates and the staff alike. The truth of the
matter is that conditions at these sites can vary widely,
sometimes due to issues of funding, and sometimes due to
(09:45):
the type of crimes a given inmate may be found
guilty of committeing, for example. There are a lot of
people who might be in jail for a comparatively short
amount of time, and some of our fellow listeners may
had this experience at some point in their lives. In
some cases, you can also participate in work release programs.
(10:08):
This means that someone who's convicted of a crime and
has jail time to serve, can serve that time on
nights and weekends such that they are able to hopefully
maintain employment while serving out their sentence, still be a
part of their local community, and hints be less likely
to end up back in jail.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Jeffrey Epstein did definitely have an extreme version of a
work release program, and check out episode three on Jeffrey Epstein.
I think, depending on audience interest, I think we need
to do an episode four just to look at gislaying
Maxwell exclusively.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I would agree with you.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So what about the other extreme of prisons, like if
the Epstein's and the white collar criminals of the world
go to what has sometimes been described as camp fed,
you know, what's the what's the other the other far
end of the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Here you're talking about super max facilities.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And this is.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's a it's a different kind of torture. I think
being alone for long long periods of time. Inmates in
places that would be considered super max facilities could be
alone in solitary confinement for a year, more than a
year years, and then a lot of times when they're
(11:34):
when they're experiencing that kind of thing, they will get
some kind of moment to themselves, basically an hour to
be outside, I mean during a single twenty four hour period.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I'm not mistaken. There have been changes in the law
surrounding confinement to solitary, isn't it I mean a little
bit more regularly than it used to be. Or is
it still just completely up to the discretion of prison officials,
because I thought there were some human rights cases that
sort of prevented just willing la shoving people in solitary
and throwing away the key.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
In two thousand and twelve, there was a federal class
action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons and people who
run the ad X shoe or Secure House Security Housing Unit,
it's the nice name for these prisons. The case was dismissed,
So no, so that's off. I'm it's enormously controversial. The
(12:26):
UN has condemned the practice, but the UN writes a
lot of condemnations without a lot of teeth behind them.
And supermax is it's a prison within a prison. And
that thing that you're describing, Matt where they get outside
time for an hour or whatever, it's pretty depressing, right,
(12:47):
they're in a different cage outside. Yeah, so we see this,
We see this huge, this huge discrepancy between some prisons
or some detention facilities and another. But one thing is
not up for debate. Going to a point I believe
you raised earlier, This doesn't sound like a ton of facilities, right,
(13:09):
given that the population of the United States is in
the three hundred millions. The US prison population, however, the
actual people incarcerated is huge. There was a twenty eighteen
report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that found, okay,
the numbers are a little wonky, right, but they found
almost two point two million people are caught up in
(13:33):
the system, or as many as almost two point three
million people, and that came from the end of two
thousand and sixteen. That means, if we adjust for the
population of this country, we find a disturbing statistic. For
every one hundred thousand people residing in the United States,
approximately six hundred and fifty five are behind bars as
(13:58):
we speak, for one reason or another. But there's another
way to think about it. We can get lost in
these numbers, and I think a proportion is a good
way to slice the pie. Or let you see the
larger picture. But we have a good analogy to or
good comparison would be a better way to say it.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yes, so, if the population currently in US prisons was
the population of one city, it would be a city
larger than Dallas or Philadelphia, which as we know, are
pretty populous metro areas. It would in fact be one
of the ten largest cities in these United States, just
(14:41):
a little smaller than Houston and a little bigger than Phoenix.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Staggering numbers. It's also, again, even more disturbing when we
realize that these numbers do not count hundreds of thousands
of people currently held in those other facilities, the military,
the prisons in US territories, the detainment centers for immigrants
and their children, the.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Ones that are often much more difficult to even find
out what those populations look like.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
It's true, But wait, Ben, what if there's even more
to this story?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Surely you jest, No, I do not.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
What if there are other facilities, not detainment centers, immigration centers,
not your standard military prison. What if there's a much
more secret place where people could be held and are.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Held, Facilities like those closed cities of the Cold War
that do not officially exist. Right, places where the normal
laws do not apply, wherea's talking no real trials, none
of the normal avenues for parole, probation and so on,
severe constraints on your rights as an individual. What if
(15:58):
there are places where, in a very real sense, people disappear.
What exactly are these so called black sites?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And we'll get to that right after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, it's true. This is
one of the things where we have a conclusive, concrete,
definitive answer. Black sites did and this is speculative, but
they probably do still exist, almost certainly.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, And to really get a full picture of the
development of this, we're gonna have to zip back in
time to that fateful day on September eleventh, two thousand
and one, when what is officially recognized as a terrorist
attack in New York City and Washington d C caused
the Central Intelligence Agency to start to think outside the box,
(16:56):
outside the existing prison boxes a military situations that were
already in place, and to really go further and create
an entire new network of facilities.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I would say they're looking outside of that system as
well as the judicial system in general, as well as
maybe even oversight from the United Nations, and it.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Takes one of these. It takes something as you know,
life changing, as earth chattering politically, and just in terms
of like day to day existence as September eleventh, to
really cause this kind of sea change where it's like,
you know, the ends justify the means is sort of
the order of the day, right.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
The idea here is something that we've encountered in previous
arguments for torture, which is the ticking time bomb scenario.
You have an individual that you cannot legally arrest, but
this individual has knowledge that could help you prevent another
huge disaster. So you do what's called an extraordinary rendition.
(18:03):
You move beyond the law. You take them someplace where
the law does not fully apply. The CIA started looking
for outside facilities where they could do this. They could
detain and interrogate people they believed it's a very important distinction,
people they believed to be high level Al Qaeda suspects.
These secret prisons, known as black sites, were used by
(18:24):
the CIA to interrogate the folks they thought were terrorists,
often using what are called enhanced interrogation by some what
are called torture techniques by others to obtain intelligence. And
we know that this program began mere days after the
events of September eleventh. I mean, you want to dive
(18:47):
into the history.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, we should and can do that, and we're going
to do that with the help of a UN report
that was officially titled Report of the Special Reporteur on
the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
while Countering Terrorism by Ben Emerson. Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Uh, that's the guy writing the report.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
This is why they write names like this because people
have already like tuned out by the time they get
to Special Reputeur and they're certainly not going to read
the actual reporter. We will, and we're going to give
you a little exert here that I think we'll maybe
do this round robin style. On seventeen September two thousand
and one, President Bush authorized the CIA to operate a
secret detention program. It's obviously written by a brick because
(19:32):
he's spelled program p R O g r MM.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's the way. That's the type of English the un US.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Is that right? Interesting? That makes sense? Okay. A secret
detention program, which involved the establishment of clandestine detention facilities
known as quote black sites end quote on the territory
of other states, with the collaboration of public officials in
those states, And.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Just to continue the quote here. At about the same time,
he George W. Bush allegedly authorized the CIA to carry
out extraordinary renditions, the secret transfers of prisoners outside any
lawful process of extradition or expulsion, enabling them to be
interrogated whilst in the formal custody of the public officials
of other states, including states with a record of using torture.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
At the beginning of August two thousand and two, the
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel purported to authorize a
range of physical and mental abuse of terrorist suspects known
as enhanced interrogation techniques. So that's the end of the quote.
And that's a pretty pretty easy summation there. Now, people
(20:42):
who support the existence of black sites and the activities
that took place within these sites will insert one thousand
footnotes into that single paragraph, right, and we will give
those We will give those opponents of this ride up there.
Due However, everything in that paragraph is factual, that all
(21:05):
actually happened. It has been vetted. We can look at
examples of what black sites actually are. This iteration of
black sites. The first one was built in Thailand. It
was built shortly after the September eleventh attacks.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That is just surprising to hear. I think of thinking
of Thailand as being the first place.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, Thailand is not a place that pops up on
the map in a lot of areas. So, for instance,
if you suspected the CIA to do something like this,
one would naturally and rightfully imagine that they would have
a site that was closer to the fracas, right, but this.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I would think Saudi Arabia probably sure.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, I mean they would probably just rent one of
the one Saudi Arabia already has.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And this is all done with full cooperation from these
various governments, that is correct.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, So wonder what.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
That negotiations like in a favor. Is it saying like,
how can we do this together and make it mutually agreeable?
Or is it basically just saying like, this is what's happening.
We will withhold aid from you if you don't help
us out. I'm wondering, speculator.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, there's a later on we'll get to an example
from Poland that has a good blow by blow of
how this happens. But I suspect it is a case
by case basis. You know, this is very much a
situation in which US intelligence is building the car while
they're driving the car, you know what I mean. So
back to Thailand, the American officers there repeatedly water boarded
(22:36):
at least two detainees. This was part of those interrogation
techniques that the rest of the world, by the way,
would later call torture. So waterboarding, for anyone who has
an experience, it may sound relatively tame at first, it's
a simulation of the experience of drowning. So anybody who
(22:58):
has been in danger of drowning ever knows that it
is not a pleasant way to go what happens. And
there are you know, there are training courses where people
who will later use those techniques have to experience it
for themselves because you need to know at what point
to stop. But here's what happens. You take the victim
(23:21):
and you have a rag over their mouth and their
nose important, and then you just continually pour a steady
consistent amount of water into their mouth and goes through
the rag.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
While they're laying back or sometimes even at a lower
angle than.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Just while their feet are elevated above their head. Yes, yeah,
and you know usually on like a plank. Right. And
while that sounds tame because you could say, well, they're
not beating the snot out of people, They're not breaking
fingers or collecting fingernails or teeth or whatever. This this
is a incredibly from experience. This is an incredibly unpleasant thing.
(24:07):
I was not waterboarded by government agency, but it is
an extremely unpleasant experience. And more importantly, it is one
that can be repeated ad nauseum, so you can keep
drowning people, bringing them back, asking them to confess to something,
and then just almost drowning them again.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
It's like death simulation. I mean, you know the things
that kick in in situations like that are terror and
anxiety and panic and just utter, you know, like not
feeling safe in any way.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I think you hit it right on the head when
you use the t word terror being inflicted then on
someone you know, perhaps suspected of being a terrorist, because
you know, it's it's exactly what you're saying. You're simulating drowning, right,
but it's it's like the most advance DAN flight simulator
(25:01):
that's ever existed. If you're thinking about it as a
one to one to flying to drowning, because your body
experiences and ben you know this exactly physically, exactly what
it would do if it were drowning.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I need is a bucket and a rag a table.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It's also sometimes called dry drowning, which I think is
a more sinister phrase there. It can cause some serious
physical damage, even if a person does not die while
this is happening. And to be fair on the side
of people who support this interrogation technique, it is described
(25:44):
as something that the people administering it have received extensive
training and such that they're not going to accidentally keep
someone asphyxiated for too long. All in all, there were
ten CIA prisoners that we know of who were arrested
or held on the soil of Thailands before being transferred
to Guantanamo Bay, which we all knew would show up
(26:07):
at least partially in this episode. Guantanamo Bay is located
on the island of Cuba, and these folks were transferred
without any kind of due process or hearing. That's according
to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative from
twenty thirteen. Funny story about this. It is the worst
(26:29):
kept secret in Thailand. There have been successive members of
the Thai government in the military in the years following this,
and one thing they all have in common is they
have all denied that this ever happened, that there was
a black site. It's all a big misunderstanding. These are
not the droids you're looking for. These prisons were not
(26:53):
just in Thailand. They were initially located in at least
eight different countries. They were classified, and they were so
classified that inform on each one was known only to
the President, a few other US officials, and the people
doing the dirty work.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And you know, there were a lot of problems. Pretty
obviously on the face of these kinds of things, now
I would have seen that kind of well, yeah, but
a lot of these problems started to show up pretty
quickly after these sites were established.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah, at least twenty six people were held due to
cases of mistaken identity.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
There are a couple great documentaries around surrounding this. Something
about the taxi. I can't remember the name of it,
but there's a fantastic documentary that came out in the
mid two thousands about a taxi driver that just ended
up at Guantanomo crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
That's the thing. If you're there due to a case
of mistaken identity and you have no recourse to getting
you know, your case heard and proving that you're not
this person, at that point you just become like collateral
damage of the system and you're just stuck, like what
do you do? It gives me a panic attacks thinking
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Also, add to that the language barrier. Yeah, you know,
these many of these interrogators would have a translator of
some sort, but the interrogators themselves were often not fluent
in the language spoken by the people being detained. So yes,
at least twenty six people, at least twenty six people
(28:31):
were totally not supposed to be there. Their name just
sounded similar, or there was a vague description, or they
were turned over when reporting suspected terrorists became incentivized, which
is a different problem. Second thing that cropped up almost immediately,
the CIA gets caught line to Uncle Sam along with
(28:53):
some other members of the CIA who had a problem
with this. Because again, although it's tempting and it's easy
and cognitively delicious to think these are monolithic entities, they
are not. There are people within there are wheels within wheels,
there are people competing for the same positions. There's a
left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
(29:13):
Kind of situation that crops up. And that's what compartmentalized
intelligence is all about. So, according to The Washington Post,
in at least one case, an internal CIA memo relays
instructions from the White House to keep the program secret
from the Secretary of State, the guy whose job is
literally to know what's going on here. That was then
(29:35):
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and they wanted to keep
it a secret from him out of concern that he
would quote blow his stack if he were to be
briefed on what's going on.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Wow, the guy that was, you know, giving a hearing
in Congress showing the yellow cake.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
He's the guy who you're like, yeah, we can't let
him know about this.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
He got misled several times. Ye, he did in his career.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So of one hundred and nineteen known suspects who were held,
thirty nine of them were subjected to this. Well, this
story is full of these absurd terms, sort of these
sanitized versions of the same idea. Enhanced interrogation was that
a Cheney thing. That was a Cheney thing.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I feel like the I think it was the lawyer
who his name escapes you maybe yeah, no, oh ye
not you, yoh yes.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
The thing is these these these are like any other buzzwords.
Often the original author of the buzzword is not going
to be super jazzed about it.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, no, it's true. But these techniques referred to pretty
controversially as enhanced interrogation, were used, and we'll get into
more on that in just a bit. But some of
these things included being slapped and this concept of wall
which is new to me, and that's when people were
(31:02):
slammed against walls, along with of course waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
And you know, we've seen some of these photos with
the Forest Unity from the Abou Gray prison where folks
were forced to stand on buckets for extended periods of
time with like bags over their heads and completely strip naked.
It's just a lot of it comes down to humiliation
(31:23):
as well.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and at times, these this stuff included even more
egregious acts. There were incidents of physical view, sexual assaults,
threat I believe the photos you're referring to specifically feature
people being threatened with military dogs. The thing about these
techniques is they were chosen on purpose because they could
(31:46):
be applied repeatedly for days or weeks at a stretch.
And I just want to confirm off air. We checked
back to this to make sure that we were correct.
It was John You John chune U, an attorney, law professor,
former government official. He was the author of the so
called torture Memos, in which the phrase enhanced interrogation. As
(32:09):
you might assume, shows up quite often. Seven of the
people subjected to these techniques produced no intelligence whatsoever. What
do we mean when we say they produced no intelligence whatsoever?
We mean that they didn't even produce incorrect intelligence. They
didn't even panic and say, well, maybe that guy I
(32:30):
went to college with, maybe he's the one you're looking for.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Or yeah, I'll say anything you want me to, just
please stop drowning me.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And at least three were confirmed to be subjected to waterboarding.
We know about the two in Thailand. There's one other,
but there are many, many more reports. A little bit
earlier in the show, we mentioned that we had a
specific example that gives us a look at the money
and the operation. In the Blow by Blow Day by
day operation involved let's pause for a word from our sponsor,
(33:00):
and then let's travel to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Okay, so we're back and we are now in Poland.
You probably didn't expect to head that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Way, no episode.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
No one expects to go to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I know, well except for that Germany went there one time,
if I recall.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, yeah, I mean nowadays, no one expects to go
to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, but it is interesting that we ended up there
with one of these black sites. It was one of
the first and the probably the most important European black site.
It was it was there in Poland. The CIA made
a fifteen million dollar deal with their intelligence agencies, their
intelligence structure there to build the site, and they called
(33:51):
it Quartz, or at least they referred to it as
quartz Quartz.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yes, the accommodations wors were not on the level of
a Norwegian prison. Instead, they could only hold a handful
of detainees. There was very, very sparse accommodation. There was
a shed behind the house that was also converted to
a cell. Now if this sounds a little bit clandestine,
(34:20):
it's because it was, you know, the biggest, the biggest
task robstacle in front of the Polish and American authorities
was to make sure that this remained the stuff. They
don't want you to know very much. They wanted people
to think this was just a villa, right and if
someone were to look, say via satellite, and want it
(34:44):
to be too obvious that this was an illegal jail
prison torture chamber that did not officially exist. There was
one room where detainees could ride a stationary bike or
use a treadmill if they cooperated. We do know that
despite the p problems, despite the injustices evolved, the system
kept growing. It went global, it became an international franchise.
(35:10):
At least fifty prisons have been used to hold detainees
in over twenty well in twenty eight countries. And that's
in addition to twenty five more prisons in Afghanistan, twenty
in Iraq. There's also there's also this story, in this rumor,
in this allegation of floating prisons, which I thought was
incredibly devious and brutally clever.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And it's estimated that the US had seventeen of those
starting from two thousand and one, which brings the total
estimated number of prisons operated by the US and our
allies in order to house alleged terraces since two thousand
and one to more than one hundred and other countries
that held suspects on behalf of the US included.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I'm gonna caution, let's try not to do the Animaniacs.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So yeah, it's a lot long list. It's a lot
we got and I can't do it. Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosniah,
Didjibuti Djibouti, Yes, that's the Dasylam, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Katar, Romania,
(36:19):
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen,
and Zambia.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And according to the Human Rights Watch, the US held
detainees from many different countries around the world, twenty one
in all, including some that will be easily recognizable and
some that might be a little bit surprising. So detainees
from Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Gaza in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman,
(36:50):
Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK,
and Yemen.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Including a guy named Kelli Sheik Muhammad, the you know,
the quote mastermind of nine to eleven, outside of Osama
bin Laden, of course, but he was held in that
Poland spot for quite a while there where he was
waterboarded and all the he was enhancedly interrogated. Then he
(37:19):
was moved several times to different places. But it's interesting
too to think that someone of such a considered to
be such a high level target would be kept in
that two story villa in Poland, just hidden somewhere.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah. I'm sure the security was I'm sure it was robust, Yeah,
but it wasn't enough. In several of these black sites,
the detainees were you know, they had been tortured for
whatever information they were perceived to have, and then they
(37:55):
were shipped to a place that was deemed more secure
or at least marginally more legal. And that is where
Guantanamo Bay comes into play. Guantanamo or GITMO as it's
been called before, is not exactly the same as a
black site because it was not purposefully built for secret detention.
In the wake of nine to eleven Guantanamo Bay as
(38:16):
a US possession, has been around for a long time,
and it has a strange history because it's on Guantanamo
Bay Naval Base, right, and it's been there in some
form since nineteenh three. So even when the US and
Cuba have very antagonistic relationships or you know, interactions, Guantanamo
(38:40):
Bay is still around and has stood the test of time.
So it does have this in common with Black sites.
Detainees from these secret sites were sent to Guantanamo Bay,
and they were also subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques there
with some real psychologically disturbing torture as well. They tried
(39:02):
to get into not just physically threaten people, but also
get into their heads and humiliate them.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah. There's a two thousand and five report that was
presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee, I guess, and
it detailed the interrogation of one man who was considered
the twentieth hijacker in the nine to eleven attacks. His
name was Mohammed al Katani. Might remember his name from
news reports over the years. He was supposedly forced to
(39:33):
wear a bra to dance with a man and do
what we're called dog tricks. While tied to.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
A leash, set laid down, Yeah, rollover.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
So very much, just breaking him down essentially psychologically. But
military investigators said this was not considered something that was
prohibited and they did not consider it inhumane treatment either.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I kind of wonder, like, do you think there's a
committee that comes up with this stuff or is it
just sort of like improv do you mean the torture? Yeah,
Like that's so specific.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's like like like, do do you think it was
like the guards or like the interrogators that come up
with this or is there some higher level like committee
or board that comes up with quote unquote acceptable humane forms,
Because obviously waterboardings will go to because it's not going
to kill them, it's considered maybe less problematic than like
(40:29):
attaching electrodes to somebody in a car battery, you know,
but like it's definitely still pretty rough. But I'm wondering,
like where do these go to tortures come from?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Like it's definitely not improvised, Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Mean I don't think so either, But I'm wondering where,
like if there's a committee that there's specific job is
to come up with this stuff in some you know
darkened room.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well, a lot of these techniques have stood the test
of time. It's not for nothing that people decide to
pursue the similar taking of physical or mental stress. I
would draw everyone's attention to earlier published memos and pamphlets
from the CIA in that were put out in South
(41:14):
American countries and Central American countries that were meant to
educate people on how to be insurgents and meant to
give you some information about how to torture someone without
killing them, because the thing is you want to get
them right to the line right. There are some things
that are so messed up they sound like they occur
in fiction, but there are real cases. For instance, if
(41:37):
you read some of this stuff where someone who is
going to torture a detainee right will say whether for
this government or another government. They'll walk in and they'll
be your friend on a chat with you and make
sure you're hungry, you need anything, you like sprite? I
heard you like spit. Let's get this guy sprite. And
then they'll have a conversation like, okay, look there's some
(42:00):
stuff that we think you know. We know you know it,
and we want you to tell us, but to me.
It doesn't matter what you say. You and I are
going to be quite close. Check this out. And then
when they say check this out, they will harm themselves
in front of the person, you know, like cut their
(42:23):
arm such that it bleeds copiously, but not you know, lethally,
not a north to south kind of cut, just like
floah vertical cut like that with their arm hanging out
of kimbo. And then they'll hold it there and like,
I just did this to myself, What do you think
I'm going to do to you? That kind of stuff.
You're not physically hurting the person, but you're in their
head and that thing. While it sounds like a complete
(42:46):
malarkey written by a screenwriter somewhere, that has happened before,
and people do that because it works. So all this stuff,
in answer to your question is not is largely not improvised.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, And it's also one of the things where it's like,
to the subject being on the receiving end of said torture,
they're like, go back to being nice again. Whatever I
have to do to get you back to where you were,
where you were giving me a sprite, you know and
being my friend, I'll do that. You know it Literally,
it's like you're showing this juxtaposition. You're like you're baiting
(43:20):
and switching, and then you're like whatever it takes to
get back to that first version of you, you know.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
So let's jump back here in time. We were talking
about that two thousand and five report that went to
the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then the next year,
in September of two thousand and six, the president at
the time, George W. Bush, acknowledged that the CIA had
indeed held suspected terrorists in these places, these secret prisons
(43:47):
overseas in different countries. He also announced the transfer of
fourteen specific captured al Qaeda operatives. Again, like you're just
kind of he's just announcing this to the public, like
we just say, okay, those must be al Qaeda operatives,
but he's saying fourteen captured Alkayeda operatives who were being transferred,
(44:07):
including Mohammad bin al shib and Abu Zubaya to Guantanamo Bay.
So two thousand and six is when the President of
the United States says, yes, indeed, we are keeping people
in these secret places, and we're shipping people now to Guantanamo.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
And there's been a lot of work leading up to
this as well. There's some fantastic, i would say, heroic
journalists such as Dana Priest, who did a lot of
work for the Washington Post on this subject. So when
it was confirmed by the then president, it was already
something that was widely suspected or even already considered to
(44:46):
be true by people a little more on the fringes
of the national and international conversation. Let's fast forward twenty eighteen.
As you may know, neither the naval base nor the
detention center are closed. Posed last year January thirtieth, President
Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention
center open and also to approve the transfer potential new
(45:11):
prisoners to the site. So not only is it not closed,
it might actually grow. There was a well, they're having
a series of legal challenges to this because these people
are often, you know, they're not experiencing due process. There
have been people who have been held for years and
turned out that they were completely the wrong person. Right.
(45:34):
In June of this year, twenty nineteen, the Supreme Court
of the US rejected a challenge to the indefinite detention
of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have yet to be charged
imagine being detained indefinitely, no charges brought against you for
almost twenty years. Twenty years, that's how that's how long
(45:57):
ago this was.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Now it's basically saying we have enough evidence, like this
is what you have to imagine the authorities saying to you,
as the individual, we feel as though we have enough
evidence to convince us that you were definitely a heinous
person who has done heinous things or is plenty to
do heinous things, But we don't have enough evidence to
you know, take you to trial anywhere, or we don't
(46:20):
have a place in which we can try you for
these crimes.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I mean, it reminds me of the way they used
to just be able to, like, you know, a king
back in the dark ages could just throw somebody in
the dungeon, you know, and throw away the key, with
no trial, no due process, and they wouldn't even have
known what they have done.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Think of the abuses that are likely inherent in this system.
You know, people with a grudge, or people where someone
maybe has some dirt, who knows. I mean, you know,
I'm not trying it on. I mean, I think it's
certainly what I'm saying is when you when you lack accountability,
corruption tends to run free.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Well.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
And the other thing is just how how human beings,
through the legal eese and the manipulation of the law,
are categorized. We've talked about this before on this show,
but the concept of I believe it was during the
Barack Obama's presidency where I think it was under his watch,
(47:20):
where males of a fighting age in any country where
the United States is engaged militarily are considered an enemy combatants. Right. Yeah,
that means if you are within that age range and
you are a male, then you could.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Just be at a black site.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
The assumption is right. This is fascinating in a terrible,
terrible way. We do have to also, again to be fair,
we have to point out that because some of these
people were victims of mistaken identity, because some of these
people were accused of crimes that they did not commit,
it does not mean that everyone there was innocent.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Absolutely. That's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Right, And of the fifty four countries that the Open
Society that we mentioned at the top of the show,
the fifty four countries that Open Society confirmed is having captured, held, question, tortured,
or helped transport these detainees for the CIA, Fewer than
half of them have opened any kind of domestic inquiry
or had any court cases challenging their involvement. Means, in
(48:25):
a very real sense, this stuff continues to officially not exist.
But here is the ultimate question. Did these black sites
and the interrogations performed within actually produce results? Plot twist
spoiler alert. The CIA believes so, in case that was
a big Shamalan moment for anyone.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Yeah, they, I mean, they almost kind of have to
believe so. And we have a quote here from the
CIA Director John Brennan, or at the time CIA Director
John Brennan.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
He gave this official statement. Our review indicates that interrogation
of detainees on whom enhanced interrogation techniques were used, did
produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and
saved lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical
to our understanding of al Qaeda and continues to inform
(49:18):
our counter terrorism efforts to this day. Congress, this is
out of the quote. On the other hand, did not agree.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Right right, So for many of us listening, or at
least a few of us listening, This feels like an ugly,
ugly reality, you know what I mean. War is a
brutal thing. And when we are when we're in that
hypothetical situation where doing something abominable to one person may
(49:47):
save hundreds of thousands, we're very close to that needs
of the many outnumber the needs of the few kind
of cold logic argument.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Right, well, what if those numbers are are just towards
or do terrible things to one person and save ten.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Right, even then the ratio still holds your safe. You're
creating more net good by doing a little bit of evil.
And the problem with that kind of experiment is that
it is very very rare for someone to know with
certitude that their activities prevented a disaster or a catastrophe,
(50:30):
because by preventing it, it's never happened, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Absolutely, It's kind.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Of like the psychic prediction problem where someone says, oh,
I have a premonition, Paul, mission controlled decand do not
take do not take your car to I don't know
and to a trip on Thanksgiving or something, because there
will be an accident. So maybe they just go a
(50:54):
different route and nothing happens. You know what, I mean, yeah,
or take a flight, or take a flight and nothing weapons.
So amongst the people who disagreed with that stance, amongst
the people who disagreed with the CIA's pro interrogation, pro
black site stance were members of Congress. Actually just Congress
disagree because one thing Congress used to really have a
(51:17):
problem with was being lied to. In their December ninth,
twenty fourteen report, which was called the Committee's Study of
the Central Intelligence Agencies Detention and Interrogation Program. Again you
have to love the sexy titles, they found twenty different
findings that were published where they took the CIA to task.
They deemed the activities legal. They said, A, this doesn't work.
(51:38):
B stop lying, and it went on and on. The
weird thing about the report is that it is six
thousand pages long. Five hundred and twenty five of those
pages were declassified along with an executive summary, which is
where most people got the facts. Right now, we do
(52:00):
have an answer to the original question. We do know
the black sites did exist. They were highly illegal. Despite
the arguments made in court right and despite the clear
illegality as espoused by members of the legislative branch, it
appears the judicial branch of this government is stonewalling at
(52:24):
different turns, right, and they're saying, well, again, it's ugly,
but it's a special case. We have to protect the many,
and we don't know if there are other black sites
out there.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
It feels like one of those terrible, dark truths ugly
secrets that almost oh, it's so weird because on this end,
you know, as American citizens sitting in this room, in
the privilege that we have just by existing in this country,
(52:59):
it feels, in this really messed up way good to
know that this kind of thing is out there to
ostensibly protect us here in this country, right, And I
think we have to acknowledge that there's like a there's
a weird sense of like, okay, well, at least at
least it's our my people, our people, our side, the
(53:23):
good guy is doing this thing.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Those are all like subjective terms to put on the
American authorities, But I wonder what that feels like, what
it truly feels like inside from let's say, a Polish
citizen who finds out that there is a black site
in their country where this kind of thing is being
carried out on their soil.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Well, I guess that all depends on how much benefit
they feel like they're getting from their relationship with the
United States, which varies from country to country and those arrangements, right,
I don't know, like that, like the whole thing with
Trump supposed to withholding aid from Ukraine in that situation,
Ukraine really needed that aid. So there's a quid pro quote.
(54:07):
I mean, not to throw around the buzz term of
the moment, but there is an absolute benefit as a
country where you say, oh, Okay, the US is giving
us this military aid. Therefore maybe we'll turn the other
cheek or you know, well we'll turn the other way
if we think they're doing some nefarious stuff on our
turf because we feel like they're actually actively helping us
and having better lives.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Sure, I don't think it could. I don't think it
could occur without some kind of pretty heavy incentive like that.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
It's just to your point that you're thinking, like, how
the average citizen, how do they feel about it? Well, yeah,
I mean you're talking.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
I mean we listed off the number of places where
these black sites existed. In a lot of them, you
can imagine the citizens of those countries being at risk
of ending up and you know, it would be a
very small proportion of the citizens and almost not making
you know, wouldn't even be a blip on a calculator.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
It's just I don't know.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
To me, I'm interested in the mindset of just somebody
knowing that's happening, because it's very it.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Feels even though even though sitting in.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
This room as an American citizen, it kind of feels
not okay, but like I'm not scared about it.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Oh right, because you probably won't get black backed for now.
For now. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a very good
point because we know in our previous episode it is
completely possible for people to lose or hide entire cities
with populations of thousands. So having a small area where
you have a handful or at the most hundreds of
(55:44):
detainees who have been disappeared, it's so disturbingly plausible that
that could happen, could be happening now, and there would
be no proof, and maybe the people who live in
the next town or village over just have have been
have been given to understand that no one goes near
the old dairy factory, you.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
And that's all it takes yep, that's all it takes.
And this leads us to the question that we cannot
really answer. Will this happen in the future. Have these
black sites actually closed or have they just moved further
from the public eye. If that is the case, then
these locations remain the stuff they don't want you to know.
(56:31):
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
It's right let us know what you think. You can reach.
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook x and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok work Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (57:03):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist, have you ever had the feeling that
you're in a place you shouldn't be?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Only every day of my life, buddy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You ever walk in and you know, like the vibes off,
or you wake up and you know, like, how did
I get on this plane?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Are we talking about a specific place? This is not
my beautiful house, nor is this my beautiful life. This is
a windowless room and I'm tied to a chair with
a bag over my head. That's a hold on what.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
A non consentually? Yet, this is the true story that
we explored in twenty nineteen. Here in these United States,
for now, people accused of crimes are theoretically entitled to
certain well known legal protections. And if you scope out
to the globe overall, you'll see things like the Geneva
(00:49):
Conventions that guarantee certain rights to prisoners of war. However,
the theory does not always translate to the practice, does it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now, there's some big butts in there, guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, are we both waiting for that Brazilian Buttlet's.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Joke, it was there all along.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Please please do not get a BBL at a black site.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Don't do it. Yeah, that's a place to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, black sites, we're uh, we're laughing by the gallows
because there is no whistle like a graveyard whistle. Black
sites are terrible. They're real. They are a violation of
international law. They are an active conspiracy, both in twenty
nineteen when we originally recorded this and in twenty twenty
five as we record today.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, call that because they don't exist, right, that's the concept.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And yikes, where you get disappeared too.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
That's roll the tape from UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn this stuff. They do want
you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
They call me Ben, and we are joined as always
with our super producer, Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. If you want
to be a part of the conversation as we delve
into today's rabbit hole, you don't have to wait till
the end of the show. You can just give us
(02:37):
a call directly and then you know, oh, push pause,
give us a call and then push play.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, and make sure your vehicle is not in motion
and you're not driving.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Or that you have one of those cool voice activated ones.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Definitely, and where should they point their telephonic device? Fellas well?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You type in the numbers one eight three three std
witk Yeah, give us.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
A call three minutes. Choose your time wisely and let
us know if you have something that you do not
want to end up on the air.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Just please be explicit, you know, you guys here in Atlanta,
I'm often taken in by these fake rap songs that
are on the radio that are actually just advertisements for
like one eight hundred, you know, buy gold or like
an ambulance chaser type attorney. There's a few of them
that are really good.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They're great, and I'll always.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Like find myself bopping to them, and then I'm like,
got it, got me again when they drop the call
to action. You know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I like the I Have No Regrets. I like the
ones of sick verses. And there are a few out
there actually where you're like, I know this is an ad,
but it slaps.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
There's one called one hundred and forty one one pain nice,
that's the big one.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
My favorite is uh one eight three three cars for
kids five seven two four five for kids.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Boom airhorn. Maybe that's it. Uh Yes, So we recently
did it episode diving into the strange story of closed cities.
These are places that in some cases did not or
do not officially exist.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Many of them are.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Radiated, and many of them are Cold War relics located
in Russia, but not all of them. It's an interesting
story and it may hit close to home for some
of our fellow listeners. Today we're looking at something kind
of related, another sort of invisible place, a place where
people officially disappear. So here are the facts. First prisons,
(04:38):
really starting on an up note today, guys, prisons are
an ugly fact of every nation's existence. And if you
have ever researched this or done some cursory googling in
your time on the internet, you have found that some prisons,
like those in Norway, are held up as models of
successful rehabilitation. There's a lot of good and bad press
(05:01):
out there about Norway's prisons. People who consider themselves hard
on crime will say that Norway is coddling criminals, and
people who consider themselves. I don't know, maybe more progressive
or people who have studied recidivism rates will say that
Norway is enormously successful rehabilitating prisoners. And you know what,
you can't lie. You can pull up the pictures, you
(05:22):
can check out the prisons. They are very nice, considering
that their prisons they don't look like jails or prisons.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, and some of the best attorneys in the world
have come out of Norwegian prisons or they got their degrees.
I did not know that. Well, well, hanging out in
bubble baths. It's not true. Oh okay, sorry, I'm still
back on the lawyer rap tip. But you know, there's
definitely a broad spectrum of the types of activities and
(05:50):
things that go on in prisons, Norway possibly being the
extreme and the positive or you know, if you're hard
on crime, you can say in the negative.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
But well, yeah, focusing on getting a person who's incarcerated
back to existing and functioning within normalized society, that's one extreme.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's one extreme. Then you have places like South Africa
where it's kind of just all bets are off. I mean,
they're absurdly notorious for the types of horrible things that
go on in there.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's correct. The violence, the crime, and the corruption are
incredibly high. There is a triad of gangs that run
many of the prisons in South Africa. I believe they're
the twenty five's, the twenty sixes, and the twenty sevens.
They are much more sinister than their names would lead
(06:40):
you to believe. For instance, one of the common punishments
for someone who has broken the codes or moraise of
the gang is for someone to This is incredibly graphic,
it may not be suitable for all listeners. Is for
someone to be wounded in their anus and then to
(07:05):
be assaulted by an HIV positive member of the gang.
That happens in South African prisons. In some cases, the
prisoners have almost as much power as the staff that
technically keeps an eye on them. So we have very
very very very very nice, sometimes called unfairly called Ikea
prisons in Norway, and then we have very very very
(07:26):
bad and dangerous places, and the US, depending on who
you ask, can fall somewhere in between. One thing that's
no secret is that there are a ton of prisons
and jails here in these United States.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yes, and you're speaking about a ton of different places, right,
and each of those is its own ecosystem in a
lot of ways. In the US, we have over seventeen
hundred state prisons, over one hundred federal prisons, and nine
hundred and forty two juvenile correctional facilities. But let's keep
going here, three two and eighty three local jails and
(08:04):
seventy nine jails that are on indigenous people's reservations.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And you might be saying to yourself, given the population
of our country, those numbers actually seem kind of low, Yeah,
which means severe overcrowding in many of the nation's prisons.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah. Let's keep in mind this does not count military prisons,
immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the
many US territories.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And that's not to say that the kinds of things
ben that you describe taking place in South African prisons
don't happen in the United States. Largely due to this overcrowding,
in New Mexico's State Penitentiary in February of nineteen eighty,
prison inmates essentially took over the facility and got a
hold of what you would call snitch files, where folks
(08:52):
that were actually you know, reporting on you know, illegal activity,
they end up in these physical files in the prison
wardens office, and the folks that kind of took over
the facility found those single those people out and did
things very much in line with the kinds of tortures
and punishments that Ben was describing taking place in South Africa,
involving genital mutilation and you know, hanging from the rafters,
(09:15):
you know, by their necks and things like that. Just
absolute unimaginable terror.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, And there has been a growing discrepancy between the
way that prisons in the US are depicted in works
of fiction versus how day to day life is for
the inmates and the staff alike. The truth of the
matter is that conditions at these sites can vary widely,
sometimes due to issues of funding, and sometimes due to
(09:45):
the type of crimes a given inmate may be found
guilty of committeing, for example. There are a lot of
people who might be in jail for a comparatively short
amount of time, and some of our fellow listeners may
had this experience at some point in their lives. In
some cases, you can also participate in work release programs.
(10:08):
This means that someone who's convicted of a crime and
has jail time to serve, can serve that time on
nights and weekends such that they are able to hopefully
maintain employment while serving out their sentence, still be a
part of their local community, and hints be less likely
to end up back in jail.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Jeffrey Epstein did definitely have an extreme version of a
work release program, and check out episode three on Jeffrey Epstein.
I think, depending on audience interest, I think we need
to do an episode four just to look at gislaying
Maxwell exclusively.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I would agree with you.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So what about the other extreme of prisons, like if
the Epstein's and the white collar criminals of the world
go to what has sometimes been described as camp fed,
you know, what's the what's the other the other far
end of the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Here you're talking about super max facilities.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And this is.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's a it's a different kind of torture. I think
being alone for long long periods of time. Inmates in
places that would be considered super max facilities could be
alone in solitary confinement for a year, more than a
year years, and then a lot of times when they're
(11:34):
when they're experiencing that kind of thing, they will get
some kind of moment to themselves, basically an hour to
be outside, I mean during a single twenty four hour period.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I'm not mistaken. There have been changes in the law
surrounding confinement to solitary, isn't it I mean a little
bit more regularly than it used to be. Or is
it still just completely up to the discretion of prison officials,
because I thought there were some human rights cases that
sort of prevented just willing la shoving people in solitary
and throwing away the key.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
In two thousand and twelve, there was a federal class
action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons and people who
run the ad X shoe or Secure House Security Housing Unit,
it's the nice name for these prisons. The case was dismissed,
So no, so that's off. I'm it's enormously controversial. The
(12:26):
UN has condemned the practice, but the UN writes a
lot of condemnations without a lot of teeth behind them.
And supermax is it's a prison within a prison. And
that thing that you're describing, Matt where they get outside
time for an hour or whatever, it's pretty depressing, right,
(12:47):
they're in a different cage outside. Yeah, so we see this,
We see this huge, this huge discrepancy between some prisons
or some detention facilities and another. But one thing is
not up for debate. Going to a point I believe
you raised earlier, This doesn't sound like a ton of facilities, right,
(13:09):
given that the population of the United States is in
the three hundred millions. The US prison population, however, the
actual people incarcerated is huge. There was a twenty eighteen
report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that found, okay,
the numbers are a little wonky, right, but they found
almost two point two million people are caught up in
(13:33):
the system, or as many as almost two point three
million people, and that came from the end of two
thousand and sixteen. That means, if we adjust for the
population of this country, we find a disturbing statistic. For
every one hundred thousand people residing in the United States,
approximately six hundred and fifty five are behind bars as
(13:58):
we speak, for one reason or another. But there's another
way to think about it. We can get lost in
these numbers, and I think a proportion is a good
way to slice the pie. Or let you see the
larger picture. But we have a good analogy to or
good comparison would be a better way to say it.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yes, so, if the population currently in US prisons was
the population of one city, it would be a city
larger than Dallas or Philadelphia, which as we know, are
pretty populous metro areas. It would in fact be one
of the ten largest cities in these United States, just
(14:41):
a little smaller than Houston and a little bigger than Phoenix.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Staggering numbers. It's also, again, even more disturbing when we
realize that these numbers do not count hundreds of thousands
of people currently held in those other facilities, the military,
the prisons in US territories, the detainment centers for immigrants
and their children, the.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Ones that are often much more difficult to even find
out what those populations look like.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
It's true, But wait, Ben, what if there's even more
to this story?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Surely you jest, No, I do not.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
What if there are other facilities, not detainment centers, immigration centers,
not your standard military prison. What if there's a much
more secret place where people could be held and are.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Held, Facilities like those closed cities of the Cold War
that do not officially exist. Right, places where the normal
laws do not apply, wherea's talking no real trials, none
of the normal avenues for parole, probation and so on,
severe constraints on your rights as an individual. What if
(15:58):
there are places where, in a very real sense, people disappear.
What exactly are these so called black sites?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And we'll get to that right after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, it's true. This is
one of the things where we have a conclusive, concrete,
definitive answer. Black sites did and this is speculative, but
they probably do still exist, almost certainly.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, And to really get a full picture of the
development of this, we're gonna have to zip back in
time to that fateful day on September eleventh, two thousand
and one, when what is officially recognized as a terrorist
attack in New York City and Washington d C caused
the Central Intelligence Agency to start to think outside the box,
(16:56):
outside the existing prison boxes a military situations that were
already in place, and to really go further and create
an entire new network of facilities.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I would say they're looking outside of that system as
well as the judicial system in general, as well as
maybe even oversight from the United Nations, and it.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Takes one of these. It takes something as you know,
life changing, as earth chattering politically, and just in terms
of like day to day existence as September eleventh, to
really cause this kind of sea change where it's like,
you know, the ends justify the means is sort of
the order of the day, right.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
The idea here is something that we've encountered in previous
arguments for torture, which is the ticking time bomb scenario.
You have an individual that you cannot legally arrest, but
this individual has knowledge that could help you prevent another
huge disaster. So you do what's called an extraordinary rendition.
(18:03):
You move beyond the law. You take them someplace where
the law does not fully apply. The CIA started looking
for outside facilities where they could do this. They could
detain and interrogate people they believed it's a very important distinction,
people they believed to be high level Al Qaeda suspects.
These secret prisons, known as black sites, were used by
(18:24):
the CIA to interrogate the folks they thought were terrorists,
often using what are called enhanced interrogation by some what
are called torture techniques by others to obtain intelligence. And
we know that this program began mere days after the
events of September eleventh. I mean, you want to dive
(18:47):
into the history.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, we should and can do that, and we're going
to do that with the help of a UN report
that was officially titled Report of the Special Reporteur on
the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
while Countering Terrorism by Ben Emerson. Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Uh, that's the guy writing the report.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
This is why they write names like this because people
have already like tuned out by the time they get
to Special Reputeur and they're certainly not going to read
the actual reporter. We will, and we're going to give
you a little exert here that I think we'll maybe
do this round robin style. On seventeen September two thousand
and one, President Bush authorized the CIA to operate a
secret detention program. It's obviously written by a brick because
(19:32):
he's spelled program p R O g r MM.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's the way. That's the type of English the un US.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Is that right? Interesting? That makes sense? Okay. A secret
detention program, which involved the establishment of clandestine detention facilities
known as quote black sites end quote on the territory
of other states, with the collaboration of public officials in
those states, And.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Just to continue the quote here. At about the same time,
he George W. Bush allegedly authorized the CIA to carry
out extraordinary renditions, the secret transfers of prisoners outside any
lawful process of extradition or expulsion, enabling them to be
interrogated whilst in the formal custody of the public officials
of other states, including states with a record of using torture.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
At the beginning of August two thousand and two, the
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel purported to authorize a
range of physical and mental abuse of terrorist suspects known
as enhanced interrogation techniques. So that's the end of the quote.
And that's a pretty pretty easy summation there. Now, people
(20:42):
who support the existence of black sites and the activities
that took place within these sites will insert one thousand
footnotes into that single paragraph, right, and we will give
those We will give those opponents of this ride up there.
Due However, everything in that paragraph is factual, that all
(21:05):
actually happened. It has been vetted. We can look at
examples of what black sites actually are. This iteration of
black sites. The first one was built in Thailand. It
was built shortly after the September eleventh attacks.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That is just surprising to hear. I think of thinking
of Thailand as being the first place.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, Thailand is not a place that pops up on
the map in a lot of areas. So, for instance,
if you suspected the CIA to do something like this,
one would naturally and rightfully imagine that they would have
a site that was closer to the fracas, right, but this.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I would think Saudi Arabia probably sure.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, I mean they would probably just rent one of
the one Saudi Arabia already has.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And this is all done with full cooperation from these
various governments, that is correct.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, So wonder what.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
That negotiations like in a favor. Is it saying like,
how can we do this together and make it mutually agreeable?
Or is it basically just saying like, this is what's happening.
We will withhold aid from you if you don't help
us out. I'm wondering, speculator.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, there's a later on we'll get to an example
from Poland that has a good blow by blow of
how this happens. But I suspect it is a case
by case basis. You know, this is very much a
situation in which US intelligence is building the car while
they're driving the car, you know what I mean. So
back to Thailand, the American officers there repeatedly water boarded
(22:36):
at least two detainees. This was part of those interrogation
techniques that the rest of the world, by the way,
would later call torture. So waterboarding, for anyone who has
an experience, it may sound relatively tame at first, it's
a simulation of the experience of drowning. So anybody who
(22:58):
has been in danger of drowning ever knows that it
is not a pleasant way to go what happens. And
there are you know, there are training courses where people
who will later use those techniques have to experience it
for themselves because you need to know at what point
to stop. But here's what happens. You take the victim
(23:21):
and you have a rag over their mouth and their
nose important, and then you just continually pour a steady
consistent amount of water into their mouth and goes through
the rag.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
While they're laying back or sometimes even at a lower
angle than.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Just while their feet are elevated above their head. Yes, yeah,
and you know usually on like a plank. Right. And
while that sounds tame because you could say, well, they're
not beating the snot out of people, They're not breaking
fingers or collecting fingernails or teeth or whatever. This this
is a incredibly from experience. This is an incredibly unpleasant thing.
(24:07):
I was not waterboarded by government agency, but it is
an extremely unpleasant experience. And more importantly, it is one
that can be repeated ad nauseum, so you can keep
drowning people, bringing them back, asking them to confess to something,
and then just almost drowning them again.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
It's like death simulation. I mean, you know the things
that kick in in situations like that are terror and
anxiety and panic and just utter, you know, like not
feeling safe in any way.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I think you hit it right on the head when
you use the t word terror being inflicted then on
someone you know, perhaps suspected of being a terrorist, because
you know, it's it's exactly what you're saying. You're simulating drowning, right,
but it's it's like the most advance DAN flight simulator
(25:01):
that's ever existed. If you're thinking about it as a
one to one to flying to drowning, because your body
experiences and ben you know this exactly physically, exactly what
it would do if it were drowning.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I need is a bucket and a rag a table.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It's also sometimes called dry drowning, which I think is
a more sinister phrase there. It can cause some serious
physical damage, even if a person does not die while
this is happening. And to be fair on the side
of people who support this interrogation technique, it is described
(25:44):
as something that the people administering it have received extensive
training and such that they're not going to accidentally keep
someone asphyxiated for too long. All in all, there were
ten CIA prisoners that we know of who were arrested
or held on the soil of Thailands before being transferred
to Guantanamo Bay, which we all knew would show up
(26:07):
at least partially in this episode. Guantanamo Bay is located
on the island of Cuba, and these folks were transferred
without any kind of due process or hearing. That's according
to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative from
twenty thirteen. Funny story about this. It is the worst
(26:29):
kept secret in Thailand. There have been successive members of
the Thai government in the military in the years following this,
and one thing they all have in common is they
have all denied that this ever happened, that there was
a black site. It's all a big misunderstanding. These are
not the droids you're looking for. These prisons were not
(26:53):
just in Thailand. They were initially located in at least
eight different countries. They were classified, and they were so
classified that inform on each one was known only to
the President, a few other US officials, and the people
doing the dirty work.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And you know, there were a lot of problems. Pretty
obviously on the face of these kinds of things, now
I would have seen that kind of well, yeah, but
a lot of these problems started to show up pretty
quickly after these sites were established.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah, at least twenty six people were held due to
cases of mistaken identity.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
There are a couple great documentaries around surrounding this. Something
about the taxi. I can't remember the name of it,
but there's a fantastic documentary that came out in the
mid two thousands about a taxi driver that just ended
up at Guantanomo crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
That's the thing. If you're there due to a case
of mistaken identity and you have no recourse to getting
you know, your case heard and proving that you're not
this person, at that point you just become like collateral
damage of the system and you're just stuck, like what
do you do? It gives me a panic attacks thinking
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Also, add to that the language barrier. Yeah, you know,
these many of these interrogators would have a translator of
some sort, but the interrogators themselves were often not fluent
in the language spoken by the people being detained. So yes,
at least twenty six people, at least twenty six people
(28:31):
were totally not supposed to be there. Their name just
sounded similar, or there was a vague description, or they
were turned over when reporting suspected terrorists became incentivized, which
is a different problem. Second thing that cropped up almost immediately,
the CIA gets caught line to Uncle Sam along with
(28:53):
some other members of the CIA who had a problem
with this. Because again, although it's tempting and it's easy
and cognitively delicious to think these are monolithic entities, they
are not. There are people within there are wheels within wheels,
there are people competing for the same positions. There's a
left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
(29:13):
Kind of situation that crops up. And that's what compartmentalized
intelligence is all about. So, according to The Washington Post,
in at least one case, an internal CIA memo relays
instructions from the White House to keep the program secret
from the Secretary of State, the guy whose job is
literally to know what's going on here. That was then
(29:35):
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and they wanted to keep
it a secret from him out of concern that he
would quote blow his stack if he were to be
briefed on what's going on.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Wow, the guy that was, you know, giving a hearing
in Congress showing the yellow cake.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
He's the guy who you're like, yeah, we can't let
him know about this.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
He got misled several times. Ye, he did in his career.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So of one hundred and nineteen known suspects who were held,
thirty nine of them were subjected to this. Well, this
story is full of these absurd terms, sort of these
sanitized versions of the same idea. Enhanced interrogation was that
a Cheney thing. That was a Cheney thing.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I feel like the I think it was the lawyer
who his name escapes you maybe yeah, no, oh ye
not you, yoh yes.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
The thing is these these these are like any other buzzwords.
Often the original author of the buzzword is not going
to be super jazzed about it.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, no, it's true. But these techniques referred to pretty
controversially as enhanced interrogation, were used, and we'll get into
more on that in just a bit. But some of
these things included being slapped and this concept of wall
which is new to me, and that's when people were
(31:02):
slammed against walls, along with of course waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
And you know, we've seen some of these photos with
the Forest Unity from the Abou Gray prison where folks
were forced to stand on buckets for extended periods of
time with like bags over their heads and completely strip naked.
It's just a lot of it comes down to humiliation
(31:23):
as well.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and at times, these this stuff included even more
egregious acts. There were incidents of physical view, sexual assaults,
threat I believe the photos you're referring to specifically feature
people being threatened with military dogs. The thing about these
techniques is they were chosen on purpose because they could
(31:46):
be applied repeatedly for days or weeks at a stretch.
And I just want to confirm off air. We checked
back to this to make sure that we were correct.
It was John You John chune U, an attorney, law professor,
former government official. He was the author of the so
called torture Memos, in which the phrase enhanced interrogation. As
(32:09):
you might assume, shows up quite often. Seven of the
people subjected to these techniques produced no intelligence whatsoever. What
do we mean when we say they produced no intelligence whatsoever?
We mean that they didn't even produce incorrect intelligence. They
didn't even panic and say, well, maybe that guy I
(32:30):
went to college with, maybe he's the one you're looking for.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Or yeah, I'll say anything you want me to, just
please stop drowning me.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And at least three were confirmed to be subjected to waterboarding.
We know about the two in Thailand. There's one other,
but there are many, many more reports. A little bit
earlier in the show, we mentioned that we had a
specific example that gives us a look at the money
and the operation. In the Blow by Blow Day by
day operation involved let's pause for a word from our sponsor,
(33:00):
and then let's travel to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Okay, so we're back and we are now in Poland.
You probably didn't expect to head that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Way, no episode.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
No one expects to go to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I know, well except for that Germany went there one time,
if I recall.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, yeah, I mean nowadays, no one expects to go
to Poland.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, but it is interesting that we ended up there
with one of these black sites. It was one of
the first and the probably the most important European black site.
It was it was there in Poland. The CIA made
a fifteen million dollar deal with their intelligence agencies, their
intelligence structure there to build the site, and they called
(33:51):
it Quartz, or at least they referred to it as
quartz Quartz.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yes, the accommodations wors were not on the level of
a Norwegian prison. Instead, they could only hold a handful
of detainees. There was very, very sparse accommodation. There was
a shed behind the house that was also converted to
a cell. Now if this sounds a little bit clandestine,
(34:20):
it's because it was, you know, the biggest, the biggest
task robstacle in front of the Polish and American authorities
was to make sure that this remained the stuff. They
don't want you to know very much. They wanted people
to think this was just a villa, right and if
someone were to look, say via satellite, and want it
(34:44):
to be too obvious that this was an illegal jail
prison torture chamber that did not officially exist. There was
one room where detainees could ride a stationary bike or
use a treadmill if they cooperated. We do know that
despite the p problems, despite the injustices evolved, the system
kept growing. It went global, it became an international franchise.
(35:10):
At least fifty prisons have been used to hold detainees
in over twenty well in twenty eight countries. And that's
in addition to twenty five more prisons in Afghanistan, twenty
in Iraq. There's also there's also this story, in this rumor,
in this allegation of floating prisons, which I thought was
incredibly devious and brutally clever.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And it's estimated that the US had seventeen of those
starting from two thousand and one, which brings the total
estimated number of prisons operated by the US and our
allies in order to house alleged terraces since two thousand
and one to more than one hundred and other countries
that held suspects on behalf of the US included.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I'm gonna caution, let's try not to do the Animaniacs.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So yeah, it's a lot long list. It's a lot
we got and I can't do it. Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosniah,
Didjibuti Djibouti, Yes, that's the Dasylam, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Katar, Romania,
(36:19):
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen,
and Zambia.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And according to the Human Rights Watch, the US held
detainees from many different countries around the world, twenty one
in all, including some that will be easily recognizable and
some that might be a little bit surprising. So detainees
from Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Gaza in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman,
(36:50):
Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK,
and Yemen.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Including a guy named Kelli Sheik Muhammad, the you know,
the quote mastermind of nine to eleven, outside of Osama
bin Laden, of course, but he was held in that
Poland spot for quite a while there where he was
waterboarded and all the he was enhancedly interrogated. Then he
(37:19):
was moved several times to different places. But it's interesting
too to think that someone of such a considered to
be such a high level target would be kept in
that two story villa in Poland, just hidden somewhere.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah. I'm sure the security was I'm sure it was robust, Yeah,
but it wasn't enough. In several of these black sites,
the detainees were you know, they had been tortured for
whatever information they were perceived to have, and then they
(37:55):
were shipped to a place that was deemed more secure
or at least marginally more legal. And that is where
Guantanamo Bay comes into play. Guantanamo or GITMO as it's
been called before, is not exactly the same as a
black site because it was not purposefully built for secret detention.
In the wake of nine to eleven Guantanamo Bay as
(38:16):
a US possession, has been around for a long time,
and it has a strange history because it's on Guantanamo
Bay Naval Base, right, and it's been there in some
form since nineteenh three. So even when the US and
Cuba have very antagonistic relationships or you know, interactions, Guantanamo
(38:40):
Bay is still around and has stood the test of time.
So it does have this in common with Black sites.
Detainees from these secret sites were sent to Guantanamo Bay,
and they were also subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques there
with some real psychologically disturbing torture as well. They tried
(39:02):
to get into not just physically threaten people, but also
get into their heads and humiliate them.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah. There's a two thousand and five report that was
presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee, I guess, and
it detailed the interrogation of one man who was considered
the twentieth hijacker in the nine to eleven attacks. His
name was Mohammed al Katani. Might remember his name from
news reports over the years. He was supposedly forced to
(39:33):
wear a bra to dance with a man and do
what we're called dog tricks. While tied to.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
A leash, set laid down, Yeah, rollover.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
So very much, just breaking him down essentially psychologically. But
military investigators said this was not considered something that was
prohibited and they did not consider it inhumane treatment either.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I kind of wonder, like, do you think there's a
committee that comes up with this stuff or is it
just sort of like improv do you mean the torture? Yeah,
Like that's so specific.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's like like like, do do you think it was
like the guards or like the interrogators that come up
with this or is there some higher level like committee
or board that comes up with quote unquote acceptable humane forms,
Because obviously waterboardings will go to because it's not going
to kill them, it's considered maybe less problematic than like
(40:29):
attaching electrodes to somebody in a car battery, you know,
but like it's definitely still pretty rough. But I'm wondering,
like where do these go to tortures come from?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Like it's definitely not improvised, Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Mean I don't think so either, But I'm wondering where,
like if there's a committee that there's specific job is
to come up with this stuff in some you know
darkened room.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well, a lot of these techniques have stood the test
of time. It's not for nothing that people decide to
pursue the similar taking of physical or mental stress. I
would draw everyone's attention to earlier published memos and pamphlets
from the CIA in that were put out in South
(41:14):
American countries and Central American countries that were meant to
educate people on how to be insurgents and meant to
give you some information about how to torture someone without
killing them, because the thing is you want to get
them right to the line right. There are some things
that are so messed up they sound like they occur
in fiction, but there are real cases. For instance, if
(41:37):
you read some of this stuff where someone who is
going to torture a detainee right will say whether for
this government or another government. They'll walk in and they'll
be your friend on a chat with you and make
sure you're hungry, you need anything, you like sprite? I
heard you like spit. Let's get this guy sprite. And
then they'll have a conversation like, okay, look there's some
(42:00):
stuff that we think you know. We know you know it,
and we want you to tell us, but to me.
It doesn't matter what you say. You and I are
going to be quite close. Check this out. And then
when they say check this out, they will harm themselves
in front of the person, you know, like cut their
(42:23):
arm such that it bleeds copiously, but not you know, lethally,
not a north to south kind of cut, just like
floah vertical cut like that with their arm hanging out
of kimbo. And then they'll hold it there and like,
I just did this to myself, What do you think
I'm going to do to you? That kind of stuff.
You're not physically hurting the person, but you're in their
head and that thing. While it sounds like a complete
(42:46):
malarkey written by a screenwriter somewhere, that has happened before,
and people do that because it works. So all this stuff,
in answer to your question is not is largely not improvised.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, And it's also one of the things where it's like,
to the subject being on the receiving end of said torture,
they're like, go back to being nice again. Whatever I
have to do to get you back to where you were,
where you were giving me a sprite, you know and
being my friend, I'll do that. You know it Literally,
it's like you're showing this juxtaposition. You're like you're baiting
(43:20):
and switching, and then you're like whatever it takes to
get back to that first version of you, you know.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
So let's jump back here in time. We were talking
about that two thousand and five report that went to
the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then the next year,
in September of two thousand and six, the president at
the time, George W. Bush, acknowledged that the CIA had
indeed held suspected terrorists in these places, these secret prisons
(43:47):
overseas in different countries. He also announced the transfer of
fourteen specific captured al Qaeda operatives. Again, like you're just
kind of he's just announcing this to the public, like
we just say, okay, those must be al Qaeda operatives,
but he's saying fourteen captured Alkayeda operatives who were being transferred,
(44:07):
including Mohammad bin al shib and Abu Zubaya to Guantanamo Bay.
So two thousand and six is when the President of
the United States says, yes, indeed, we are keeping people
in these secret places, and we're shipping people now to Guantanamo.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
And there's been a lot of work leading up to
this as well. There's some fantastic, i would say, heroic
journalists such as Dana Priest, who did a lot of
work for the Washington Post on this subject. So when
it was confirmed by the then president, it was already
something that was widely suspected or even already considered to
(44:46):
be true by people a little more on the fringes
of the national and international conversation. Let's fast forward twenty eighteen.
As you may know, neither the naval base nor the
detention center are closed. Posed last year January thirtieth, President
Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention
center open and also to approve the transfer potential new
(45:11):
prisoners to the site. So not only is it not closed,
it might actually grow. There was a well, they're having
a series of legal challenges to this because these people
are often, you know, they're not experiencing due process. There
have been people who have been held for years and
turned out that they were completely the wrong person. Right.
(45:34):
In June of this year, twenty nineteen, the Supreme Court
of the US rejected a challenge to the indefinite detention
of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have yet to be charged
imagine being detained indefinitely, no charges brought against you for
almost twenty years. Twenty years, that's how that's how long
(45:57):
ago this was.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Now it's basically saying we have enough evidence, like this
is what you have to imagine the authorities saying to you,
as the individual, we feel as though we have enough
evidence to convince us that you were definitely a heinous
person who has done heinous things or is plenty to
do heinous things, But we don't have enough evidence to
you know, take you to trial anywhere, or we don't
(46:20):
have a place in which we can try you for
these crimes.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I mean, it reminds me of the way they used
to just be able to, like, you know, a king
back in the dark ages could just throw somebody in
the dungeon, you know, and throw away the key, with
no trial, no due process, and they wouldn't even have
known what they have done.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Think of the abuses that are likely inherent in this system.
You know, people with a grudge, or people where someone
maybe has some dirt, who knows. I mean, you know,
I'm not trying it on. I mean, I think it's
certainly what I'm saying is when you when you lack accountability,
corruption tends to run free.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Well.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
And the other thing is just how how human beings,
through the legal eese and the manipulation of the law,
are categorized. We've talked about this before on this show,
but the concept of I believe it was during the
Barack Obama's presidency where I think it was under his watch,
(47:20):
where males of a fighting age in any country where
the United States is engaged militarily are considered an enemy combatants. Right. Yeah,
that means if you are within that age range and
you are a male, then you could.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Just be at a black site.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
The assumption is right. This is fascinating in a terrible,
terrible way. We do have to also, again to be fair,
we have to point out that because some of these
people were victims of mistaken identity, because some of these
people were accused of crimes that they did not commit,
it does not mean that everyone there was innocent.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Absolutely. That's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Right, And of the fifty four countries that the Open
Society that we mentioned at the top of the show,
the fifty four countries that Open Society confirmed is having captured, held, question, tortured,
or helped transport these detainees for the CIA, Fewer than
half of them have opened any kind of domestic inquiry
or had any court cases challenging their involvement. Means, in
(48:25):
a very real sense, this stuff continues to officially not exist.
But here is the ultimate question. Did these black sites
and the interrogations performed within actually produce results? Plot twist
spoiler alert. The CIA believes so, in case that was
a big Shamalan moment for anyone.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Yeah, they, I mean, they almost kind of have to
believe so. And we have a quote here from the
CIA Director John Brennan, or at the time CIA Director
John Brennan.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
He gave this official statement. Our review indicates that interrogation
of detainees on whom enhanced interrogation techniques were used, did
produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and
saved lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical
to our understanding of al Qaeda and continues to inform
(49:18):
our counter terrorism efforts to this day. Congress, this is
out of the quote. On the other hand, did not agree.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Right right, So for many of us listening, or at
least a few of us listening, This feels like an ugly,
ugly reality, you know what I mean. War is a
brutal thing. And when we are when we're in that
hypothetical situation where doing something abominable to one person may
(49:47):
save hundreds of thousands, we're very close to that needs
of the many outnumber the needs of the few kind
of cold logic argument.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Right, well, what if those numbers are are just towards
or do terrible things to one person and save ten.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Right, even then the ratio still holds your safe. You're
creating more net good by doing a little bit of evil.
And the problem with that kind of experiment is that
it is very very rare for someone to know with
certitude that their activities prevented a disaster or a catastrophe,
(50:30):
because by preventing it, it's never happened, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Absolutely, It's kind.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Of like the psychic prediction problem where someone says, oh,
I have a premonition, Paul, mission controlled decand do not
take do not take your car to I don't know
and to a trip on Thanksgiving or something, because there
will be an accident. So maybe they just go a
(50:54):
different route and nothing happens. You know what, I mean, yeah,
or take a flight, or take a flight and nothing weapons.
So amongst the people who disagreed with that stance, amongst
the people who disagreed with the CIA's pro interrogation, pro
black site stance were members of Congress. Actually just Congress
disagree because one thing Congress used to really have a
(51:17):
problem with was being lied to. In their December ninth,
twenty fourteen report, which was called the Committee's Study of
the Central Intelligence Agencies Detention and Interrogation Program. Again you
have to love the sexy titles, they found twenty different
findings that were published where they took the CIA to task.
They deemed the activities legal. They said, A, this doesn't work.
(51:38):
B stop lying, and it went on and on. The
weird thing about the report is that it is six
thousand pages long. Five hundred and twenty five of those
pages were declassified along with an executive summary, which is
where most people got the facts. Right now, we do
(52:00):
have an answer to the original question. We do know
the black sites did exist. They were highly illegal. Despite
the arguments made in court right and despite the clear
illegality as espoused by members of the legislative branch, it
appears the judicial branch of this government is stonewalling at
(52:24):
different turns, right, and they're saying, well, again, it's ugly,
but it's a special case. We have to protect the many,
and we don't know if there are other black sites
out there.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
It feels like one of those terrible, dark truths ugly
secrets that almost oh, it's so weird because on this end,
you know, as American citizens sitting in this room, in
the privilege that we have just by existing in this country,
(52:59):
it feels, in this really messed up way good to
know that this kind of thing is out there to
ostensibly protect us here in this country, right, And I
think we have to acknowledge that there's like a there's
a weird sense of like, okay, well, at least at
least it's our my people, our people, our side, the
(53:23):
good guy is doing this thing.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Those are all like subjective terms to put on the
American authorities, But I wonder what that feels like, what
it truly feels like inside from let's say, a Polish
citizen who finds out that there is a black site
in their country where this kind of thing is being
carried out on their soil.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Well, I guess that all depends on how much benefit
they feel like they're getting from their relationship with the
United States, which varies from country to country and those arrangements, right,
I don't know, like that, like the whole thing with
Trump supposed to withholding aid from Ukraine in that situation,
Ukraine really needed that aid. So there's a quid pro quote.
(54:07):
I mean, not to throw around the buzz term of
the moment, but there is an absolute benefit as a
country where you say, oh, Okay, the US is giving
us this military aid. Therefore maybe we'll turn the other
cheek or you know, well we'll turn the other way
if we think they're doing some nefarious stuff on our
turf because we feel like they're actually actively helping us
and having better lives.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Sure, I don't think it could. I don't think it
could occur without some kind of pretty heavy incentive like that.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
It's just to your point that you're thinking, like, how
the average citizen, how do they feel about it? Well, yeah,
I mean you're talking.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
I mean we listed off the number of places where
these black sites existed. In a lot of them, you
can imagine the citizens of those countries being at risk
of ending up and you know, it would be a
very small proportion of the citizens and almost not making
you know, wouldn't even be a blip on a calculator.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
It's just I don't know.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
To me, I'm interested in the mindset of just somebody
knowing that's happening, because it's very it.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Feels even though even though sitting in.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
This room as an American citizen, it kind of feels
not okay, but like I'm not scared about it.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Oh right, because you probably won't get black backed for now.
For now. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a very good
point because we know in our previous episode it is
completely possible for people to lose or hide entire cities
with populations of thousands. So having a small area where
you have a handful or at the most hundreds of
(55:44):
detainees who have been disappeared, it's so disturbingly plausible that
that could happen, could be happening now, and there would
be no proof, and maybe the people who live in
the next town or village over just have have been
have been given to understand that no one goes near
the old dairy factory, you.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
And that's all it takes yep, that's all it takes.
And this leads us to the question that we cannot
really answer. Will this happen in the future. Have these
black sites actually closed or have they just moved further
from the public eye. If that is the case, then
these locations remain the stuff they don't want you to know.
(56:31):
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
It's right let us know what you think. You can reach.
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook x and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok work Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (57:03):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.