The Daily Swarm

George Washington University’s National Security Project Torture Archive:
On behalf of a coalition of U.S. and international musicians, including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Tom Morello and Jackson Browne, the National Security Archive today filed a series of FOIA petitions requesting the full declassification of secret U.S. documentation on the strategy of using music as an interrogation device at Guantanamo and other detention centers.

LIST OF GUANTANAMO‘s JUKBOX OF TORTURE MUSIC
Bands and Recording Artists Named in the Requests
The National Security Archive has requested information held by the U.S. government about the use of music by the following bands and recording artists during the detention and interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo and other US facilities…The names come from declassified and published reports on the treatment of detainees, as well as interviews with former detainees and guards.
AC/DC
Aerosmith
Barney theme song (By Bob Singleton)
The Bee Gees
Britney Spears
Bruce Springsteen
Christina Aguilera
David Gray
Deicide
Don McClean
Dope
Dr. Dre
Drowning Pool
Eminem
Hed P.E.
James Taylor
Limp Bizkit
Marilyn Manson
Matchbox Twenty
Meatloaf
Meow mix jingle
Metallica
Neil Diamond
Nine Inch Nails
Pink
Prince
Queen
Rage against the Machine
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Redman
Saliva
Sesame street theme music (By Christopher Cerf)
Stanley Brothers
The Star Spangled Banner
Tupac Shakur

The Archive also posted several declassified documents and published reports that refer to the use of “loud” music to “create futility” in uncooperative detainees at Guantanamo. A 2004 Defense Department report on abuses at the military base in Cuba, for example, stated that the “futility technique included the playing of Metallica, Britney Spears and Rap music.”

Archive analysts filed the FOIA requests with the CIA, U.S. Special Operations Command, and the FBI, among other agencies, requesting all documentation pertaining to how the music was chosen and the specific role it played in interrogations of detainees at the Guantanamo base.

“At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture,” said Thomas Blanton, the Archive’s executive director. “The musicians and the public have the right to know how an expression of popular culture was transformed into an enhanced interrogation technique.”

The documents posted here today are drawn from “The Torture Archive,” a collection of more than 83,000 primary source records related to the detention and interrogation of individuals by the United States, in connection with the conduct of hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the broader context of the “global war on terror.”

Close It Tomorrow:

MUSICIANS PROTEST MUSIC USED FOR TORTURE AT GTMO – SEEK DECLASSIFICATION OF SECRET DOCUMENTS ON MUSIC-RELATED ABUSES:
JOIN NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT’S CALL TO CLOSE PRISON

Tom Morello, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, Jackson Browne, T-Bone Burnett, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Steve Earle, the Entrance Band, Joe Henry, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Trent Reznor, Rise Against, The Roots

Washington DC – A coalition of US and international musicians, including Trent Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rise Against, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots today announced they were joining the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo—a campaign led by retired Generals Robert Gard, John Johns, former member of Congress, Tom Andrews, and Vote Vets Chairman and Iraq War veteran, Jon Soltz. The musicians also launched a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at the prison and other facilities and announced they were supporting an effort seeking the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilized as an interrogation device.

Musicians include Trent Reznor and Tom Morello whose music with the bands Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine has been linked to torture tactics at the prison, according to public records.

Retired General Robert Gard, a critic of the previous administration and staunch advocate to close Guantanamo said, “the torture that went on there is disgraceful and puts our troops at risk everyday – Guantanamo will remain al Qaeda’s biggest recruitment tool unless it’s shut down – I sympathize for the musicians whose music was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration’s misguided policies.”

“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts – playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums,” said Morello. “Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”

The United Nations has banned the use of music as torture under the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, although the Convention has gone largely unenforced. Colin Powell and General David Petraeus have both advised President Obama to shut the Guantanamo facility down.

“Having these acclaimed artists join the campaign to close Guantanamo will help ignite a prairie fire of grassroots support across the nation. We are thrilled and grateful to have them aboard” said Tom Andrews who is a former Congressman (ME) and director of the National Campaign To Close Guantanamo.

“At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture,” said Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a freedom of information act organization that is assisting the musicians in seeking the documents. “The musicians and the public have the right to know how an expression of popular culture was transformed into an enhanced interrogation technique.”

The Archive has already found at least 20 declassified documents that refer to the use of “loud” music to “create futility” in uncooperative detainees at Guantanamo. A 2004 Defense Department report on abuses at the military base in Cuba stated that the “futility technique included the playing of Metallica, Britney Spears and Rap music.” An investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee cited one detainee who was subjected to hours of the Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.” Other detainees have been quoted as saying they were blasted with hours of the music of Eminem, Bruce Springsteen and the Bee Gees played a loud volumes, as a sleep deprivation technique.