CZ Talk:Cold Storage/Extreme Abuse Survey

Definition of extreme abuse
Unless it's in an unlinked CZ article, I believe it essential that the introduction of this article clearly define "extreme abuse", not by external citation, but what is meant in this context. As far as I know, it's not a DSM-IV definition, although I don't have a copy here. Frankly, it comes across as a non-neutral term; there may be sufficiently objective definition to modify that impression, but the material needs to be in the article.

The term "mind control" also does not give a sense of neutrality.

Looking further at the references, I see they are all books, not peer-reviewed publications.

Howard C. Berkowitz 05:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment above. One book is written by Karnac, a respected publisher. The second is edited by Noblitt, a respected researcher in the field. I am unsure what you mean about the term "mind control" not giving a sense of neutrality. Neil Brick 05:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I should note that I consider it extremely premature to claim that an article is "Ready for Approval" on the same day it is created. Book sources -- and I speak as an author of published books in my field -- are generally less preferred to peer-reviewed articles, consensus statements of professional organizations, etc.


 * Mind control? Sourced, neutral definition, please. I am very familiar with the literature on pressures in, for example, Korean and Vietnam War POW camps, and I don't remember it as a term of art. I don't remember it in the MKULTRA documents. It's not something seriously believed possible in human-source intelligence.


 * Is it a DSM-IV or ICD definition? Searching for "mind control" in  Medical Subject Headings of the National Library of Medicine returns "no entry." Howard C. Berkowitz 05:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments
As a brief and stricly factual article about the EAS I have no fundamental problem with this. I am a bit concerned about the "Attacks" section which seems to be innuendo, and of no fundamental relevance to what the EAS is. I also think it right to consider some wording carefully - these surveys as I understand them do not collate date on abuse; the collate allegations of abuse. If the wording is changed to reflect this then I am fine with it. Otherwise there would need to be neutral text on the potential unreliability of such data, referencing false memory syndrome etc.Gareth Leng 11:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment on this. I have made a change to the first line of the article that should address your second point. I do believe that the attacks section is important, since it does discuss an important problem that could have stopped the study from occurring. The section itself simply states the facts about the attacks. I will delete the word "however" from the section to avoid any inference that the attacks were meant to stop the study from occurring, though this is probably what they were meant to do.Neil Brick 03:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Background" section
First, I'm not sure, from an article design standpoint, what this adds. If anything, it gives more of a sense of belonging in a press release or essay than in a neutral article. Following CZ conventions, I have moved problematic text here for discussion, and explaining my reasons for moving it.

"Wanda Karriker is a retired psychologist in the United States. She was interviewed on Court TV as an expert in Extreme Abuse. She wrote about the after-effects of extreme abuse in her novel “ Morning, Come Quickly.”" Court TV and a novel are not what would usually be assumed as source qualifications on CZ. Her background as a psychologist might be much more relevant, but "retired" doesn't give any information.

"Carol Rutz is a healed extreme abuse/mind control survivor in the United States. She wrote “A Nation Betrayed: The Chilling True Story of Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on Our Children and Other Innocent People (2001)." It has not yet been agreed, in CZ consensus, what "extreme abuse" and "mind control" actually mean. They are not used in child abuse. Without definition, they give me a strong flavor of being terms that evoke emotion rather than add information. The title of Rutz's book does not remotely seem neutral; it seems a strong advocacy position.

"Thorsten Becker is a social worker and freelance supervisor in Germany. He served as a case consultant in several suspected cult-related cases in Europe. In 1994, he received the “German Child Protection Award” for his team’s work with severely abused children."

I don't know what "freelance supervisor" means. Supervision usually implies an organizational structure inconsistent with "freelance".

"Suspected" is clearly not authoritative. "Cult" is also an emotionally laden term, not defined in context. There is no reference obvious to me, a non-German, on the significance of the "German Child Protection Award."

I am also troubled by "team" and "severely abused". There is no indication of the team's affiliations. Did it, perhaps, not address moderately abused children?

CZ now has a child abuse article, which does have a taxonomy although the general acceptance of the taxonomy is not completely clear. Nevertheless, the word "extreme" never occurs in that article; "severe" is used once with a context and citation.

The more I reread here, the more I am concerned with the neutrality of language. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your ideas on this. At this point, I accept the removal of the above section from the article, until the above problems can be worked out. Neil Brick 03:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I do thank you for discussing these things, which are meant constructively. It's always a little tense when one first criticizes.


 * Have you looked at the child abuse article? What do you see as its relationship to here? Now, if there is a distinct syndrome that is addressed here and not there, that's fine &mdash; the goal is articulating the syndrome and showing the difference. We can take on controversial topics, but the goal is neutrality and accuracy. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have looked at the article and it appears that this is not addressed there. Any ideas on articulating the syndrome further would be appreciated. Neil Brick 04:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me make what might seem a radical solution. Rename this article "extreme child abuse" or something that ties strongly to the professional literature that deals with the subject. I can help with the mechanics if you do want to do that.


 * Even if you keep the current title, start out by giving a solid, unemotional, sourced definition of the concept; it's confusing to read about a survey trying to measure something I don't recognize. I've just done a PubMed/Medline search for "extreme abuse survey" and gotten no hits. After 7 pages of Google search for the exact string, there were no hits from anything that appeared to be a scientific journal or general medical/psychological professional association. There were, however, a great many hits on what seemed to be websites with a strong position, a considerable amount of mention of "ritual abuse", and a nontrivial amount about satanism. I have to say that it is starting to concern me that this survey has a preconception that there is a widespread, not generally recognized in the medical or behavioral literature, but there is a great deal of emotion about it.


 * Speaking for myself, I've never encountered the term in this usage, but I don't work with children. From the military/intelligence side, I've had a fair bit of exposure to principles of trauma, including the psychological aspects of torture and such things as ideological "reeducation" in prison camps. I'm reasonably familiar with the DSM stress syndromes and current concepts of diagnosis and treatment, but I don't still haven't found a clear definition of "extreme abuse".


 * It further concerns me that I see, in these searches, quite a few references to "mind control." Again, there is little scientific support that such a thing exists, and the practical matter that intelligence agencies tried very, very hard to produce it and failed.


 * I can't help you articulate a syndrome I don't understand and for which I can't seem to find mention except in...well, sources that don't strike me as obviously objective. Howard C. Berkowitz 05:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You make some good points above. A "solid, unemotional, sourced definition of the concept" sounds like a good idea.


 * How about this for a definition "Extreme abuse is child abuse that includes torture, threats, confinements, violence, and other types of unlawful or immoral exploitation that children may have endured during the abuse, which results in debilitating after-effects." This is basically a definition by the authors of the survey. Neil Brick 02:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It may be what the survey authors were looking for, but using that to define the subject is rather circular. There is no question there that child abuse exists, and it is real. The "extreme" term, however, seems to belong, on my review of web sources and inability to find it in PubMed, seems to be the term of activists, rather than a different sort of child abuse not generally recognized in the medical literature, makes me concerned that this different concept comes from activists.


 * Respectfully, I am a bit concerned about the statement, in your webpage, that you focus on coverups of child abuse. The McMartin and other more extreme cases simply did not hold up. There is, clearly, a community of people that believes in the existence of large ritual abuse systems, and, in some cases, things termed mind control.


 * The authors of a responsible survey do not get to define the subject. They start with something recognized in medical or social science literature. Survey techniques are not necessarily the best instruments of research. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Howard, you make good points above, about definitions and about surveys, as well as your concerns about this particular set of surveys. We could say something like Neil said, but add:
 * "The authors of the surveys focused particularly on types of child abuse that they considered "extreme" (thus the name) such as torture, threats, confinements, violence, and other types of unlawful or immoral exploitation that children may have endured during the abuse, which results in debilitating after-effects."
 * We wouldn't have to do this if we were to find that there was indeed a set of abuses that were defined as extreme.
 * D. Matt Innis 04:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me preface what I'm about to say next with that my reading is preliminary. Some critics of the survey, however, suggest that the authors looked for allegations of child abuse that met their criteria, rather than externally validated cases. Take a look at pseudoscience, with emphasis on footnote 5, which is what I would call a reputable source. Satanic ritual abuse and "the use of hypnosis for memory recovery", among other things, are questioned. If you'll pardon a slight rolling of eyes at the Rorshach test, my mother was a psychotherapist, and I grew up surrounded by all of the normally restricted psychological test manuals. She had what I called an annoying habit of volunteering me for research studies, and I must say that it was an interesting research test of my own to experiment with the psychologists performing Rohrshachs and some of the other less well-validated projective tests.


 * If, for example, the authors here believe that Satanic ritual abuse is a real issue, some authoritative criticism of the article section I just cited would seem appropriate within Citizendium. We've had a recent experience that may suggest that contributors that focus only on one controversial subject in a very limited number of controversial articles may not be in the interest of CZ as an authoritative, expert-guided resource. That, in turn, gets into uncomfortable issues of Neutrality Policy. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My reading is certainly preliminary as well, and the more I read, the more I see why you are worried. I do agree that if this article were to make specific claims, that those claims should be fully discussed and include other perspectives, including the quality of the studies and the case study type style with confirmation bias, etc., etc..  However, I don't think we need worry about what specific authors think as long as we all collaborate toward a neutral article.  As far as authors focusing only on certain limited number of controversial article, well, I don't see that we need worry about them any more than we need to worry about those that keep arguing with them :-)  Most people only write about things that interest them, don't ya think?  The CZ:Neutrality Policy should prevail.  D. Matt Innis 04:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * "Most people only write about things that interest them, don't ya think?" Not necessarily, for at least two reasons, one of which is not pertinent here. If you are correct, why, then, should other authors or editors care to enter into extensive discussion of a topic where they believe the subject is irretrievably flawed? My answer would be that they care about the integrity of CZ. There are, however, finite resources. I want to create readable new content from reasonable expert knowledge and sourcing. If, however, the limited number of people with specific knowledge that might move an article to an utterly neutral position simply don't want to spend time on neutralizing rather than creating, what happens? Do they simply allow what they believe to be non-neutral material to stand, leaving the field to people that believe fervently in a biased source? Do you really think that people will continue to want to be associated with CZ if their choice is mostly to counter bias and keep integrity, turning the initiative over to anyone who wants to bring in a partisan position? Howard C. Berkowitz 09:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps some general clarifications, meant constructively
Don't assume CZ will not cover things that are not generally accepted. While it was a hard effort, the homeopathy article eventually got to a point that both its advocates and critics felt was fair, although it was neither an endorsement nor a condemnation. The sourcing did have to be authoritative, generally meaning as coming from accepted peer-reviewed sources, or, in some aspects dealing with government policy, the primary government sources.

While I won't try to give a general explanation of the Neutrality Policy, it is possible to have discussions of controversial subjects, but not from one side alone. CZ is not the right place if the goal is to "expose" something. Forgive me if I am assuming anything improperly, but your user page, and possibly some web links, suggest you are concerned with coverups of child abuse, mind control, ritual abuse, and recovered memory. Do not assume that other Citizens will automatically agree with your positions, or that this is a place to convince them.

It is a place where umemotional descriptions could be written, as long as you are prepared for equally unemotional and sourced disagreement. Frankly, it bothered me that this article was immediately called Ready for Approval; approval often takes quite a bit of consensus-building and expert approval. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My asking for approval prematurely was an error on my part due to my inexperience with the citizendium process. I can withdraw that request if it would help with the consensus-building process. Neil Brick 02:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Definitely so. Right now, it is not at all clear why extreme abuse is not a subset of child abuse. Even there, I am a bit concerned that most of the citations seem to be to websites, when there is, indeed, a large body of peer-reviewed data on child abuse, as well as, for example, reasonably well-established child pornography operations. The ritual abuse area, as well as the technique of recovered memories, do not appear to have strong expert acceptance, although the idea is understandably very emotional for some. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Apparently there are a set of surveys that are being called "Extreme abuse Surveys". I think the title can be used as long as it is placed correctly, and I haven't decided how that should be.  We could use this with, as a resource for, a subpage of child abuse or an extreme abuse article that has links to all sorts of those types of abuse that have been characterised as extreme abuse.  Certainly linked to satanic ritual or Ritual abuse (which seem to overlap).  It seems that the name (extreme abuse survey) is not so much a diagnosis, per se, but a proper name being given to these surveys.  Since notability is not a prerequisite here, it's not so much how notable, but more of how to appropriately use the information to give it the proper place.  A good psychology editor can help decide the location, but that shouldn't stop the article from progressing yet.  Neil, I would suggest that you use our mailing list to contact an editor and see if anyone responds.


 * I am concerned that the first reference seems to point to a book with a different title than the description, which does in fact lead us to the list of surveys. I think this is an error, right? D. Matt Innis 03:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Matt, I noticed you have a pink link to satanic ritual. When I did a search on "satanic", there didn't seem to be such an article; the closest things that mentioned it are conspiracy theory and pseudoscience. I'm not suggesting there isn't such a thing as Satanism, as in the late Anton Levey's Church of Satan . I've even met a few self-identified Satanists.


 * Your point that it is the name of a group of surveys is well taken. My concern is that the current form of the article seems to suggest that "extreme abuse" is assumed to be an established diagnostic syndrome. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean, Howard. However, when I google extreme abuse that is the first thing that comes up - not that I trust a google search, but it does get us started.  It seems that extreme abuse might not be a diagnosis, but it does seem to be used to differentiate between lessor forms of abuse and looks like it might be related to Dissociated Identity Disorder which certainly gets serious.  I'm no psychologist, so I don't know if "extreme abuse" is used as a proper noun, or if it fits into some heirarchy of abuse, but we do know there are some surveys that are named "Extreme Abuse Surveys", so we can develop the article and then figure out where it goes.(Ha! I forgot you hate doing it that way!) I agree that this article should mostly describe the surveys for now, but it has to give some feel for what the surveys are about, which of course would be abuse of extreme dimensions. D. Matt Innis 03:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right; I hate developing that way. Seriously, though, even looking at the link you gave, it seems to be a very common term in a particular community, but, if I can't find a single peer-reviewed paper on it, it begins to suggest that it is ... ummm ... an ideological position, not to be confused with a diagnosis. Indeed, while I am not a psychologist, I do have considerable experience with military stress, the history of torture in interrogation, and psychological warfare. In the small world department, I have just started an interesting correspondence with a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, about the use of torture in the Algerian War, and was able to provide him with some information here (i.e. Roger Trinquier).  The issue of torture is a current news issue; Obama is, in my somewhat professional opinion, quite properly shutting down techniques that have never been widely accepted in intelligence circles; the commander of Guantanamo Detention Camp, who set up Abu Ghraib, was not an intelligence officer.


 * I will probably start editing the torture article, which can stand a good deal of work and is apt to get a number of hits. In the interest of CZ, I'm hesitant to see discussions of torture that are not well sourced. Some of the surveys have been questioned as attempting to document a preconception. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems that these surveys might also consider some of those even "acceptible" torture methods as extreme, huh. You say: Some of the surveys have been questioned as attempting to document a preconception.  Let's make sure that perspective is included in a neutral description of those surveys.  I do agree that extreme abuse is not a diagnosis, but there is no doubt that abuse that is extreme does exist and these surveys play a role in the big picture of the ways people try to study and/or document it, or as I am sure some think - exagerate it into a conspiracy theory. It's all still okay to write about. D. Matt Innis 04:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Acceptable torture? Acceptable to whom? Having known a few Satanists, I'm not sure they would want Dick Cheney. :-( We do need a Psychology/Health Sciences Editor giving some guidance here. If, however, torture, especially in the context of human-source intelligence interrogration, gets mixed in with this &mdash; which I'd really like to avoid in this article discussion since children were not being tortured as terrorist suspects &mdash; that would reasonably bring the topic under the Military Workgroup as well. See, for example, ; I have been corresponding with Prof. Moran and even got some nice words about our Roger Trinquier article. That the Naval Postgraduate School's research center, the Senate Armed Services Committee, etc., consider torture an issue in counterterrorism and intelligence, I believe, substantiates that it does fall into the Military area. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of references
Inline references are generally preferred; when a source is not tied to a specific portion of text, such as the Becker and Rutz books, that sort of reference is usually best put in a Bibliography page, with annotation about its significance. Bibliography pages are not intended to replace the references, but supplement them. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Confused
The opening paragraph says "Extreme abuse is child abuse that includes....." but then later i read that one of the surveys is focused on adults. This seems contradictory. Chris Day 04:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Is the adult survey of "adult survivors" the adults recalling abuses from their childhood. This would settle my confusion above, however, then I have to ask, can adults not be targets of "extreme abuse"? If this is a technical term its usage should probably be defined since in laymans terms I think many would say that adults can be the victims of extreme abuse. Chris Day 05:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe there is a way to clarify this better. You make a good point above. I would agree that adults can be victims of EA also. I will attempt to fix this on the page.Neil Brick 05:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem in discussing EA of adults is that as I understand it, it was not the subject of the EAS. If this article is to be limited to the EAS, then EA of adults is out of scope. Howard C. Berkowitz 10:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not suggesting the article folds in adult abuse, rather that it needs to be clearer that the surveys are about child abuse. But, on the other hand not imply that extreme abuse only applies to children. Chris Day 13:44, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Definition fixes
As per talk page requests, I have made several fixes to add sourced definitions to the page. I have defined EA and mind control as per the authors of the survey. I also added a definition from Lifton of MC. I have attempted to make the intro more neutral and I have moved a book and article to the bibliography section. Neil Brick 05:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Neil! If you find anything else to add, go ahead and do it. They will all help us answer some of these other questions.  D. Matt Innis 05:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See "mind control" below. Unfortunately, Lifton never actually uses the term; he uses "thought reform", which is quite different. The authors may define mind control to suit their goals, but it simply is not something that has ever been achieved, not by lack of trying by intelligence agencies and political police. I just can't accept that definition as neutral, even if it's just the study authors defining it for their own purposes. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Mind control
I am increasingly concerned with the use of the term "mind control", and, in particular, the redefinition of the term "thought reform", used by the respected academic psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, to mean what an apparent advocacy group calls mind control. I've read quit a bit of Lifton's work, the best known being The Nazi Doctors; I have never seen anything indicating he uses "mind control". Lifton's book title contains "thought reform", which has a well-understood meaning in Communist ideology (I can provide Mao Zedong's text) and is decidedly different than I quote from the article, "The authors of the study defined mind control as “all mind control procedures designed to make a victim follow directives of the programmer without conscious awareness.”"

One advocacy site, Steven Alan Hassan's Freedom of Mind Center states (my emphasis) "Dr. Lifton's work was the outgrowth of his studies for military intelligence of Mao Tse-Tung's "thought-reform programs" commonly known as "brainwashing." In Chapter 22, Lifton outlines eight criteria for when any environment can be understood as exercising "thought-reform" or mind control. Lifton wrote that any group has some aspects of these points. However, if an environment has all eight of these points and implements them in the extreme, then there is unhealthy thought reform taking place." Even accepting Hassan's reformulation, it is decidedly different than "follow[ing] directives of the programmer without conscious awareness"

The following text was removed from the talk page; if Lifton is cited, I want to see a direct quote in which he uses the term "mind control" as distinct from "thought reform": "Lifton describes eight mind control elements: milieu control, mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, sacred science, loading of the language, doctrine over person and dispensing of existence."

A text search on the Google Books copy of Lifton does not return the string "mind control". The individual words "mind" and "control" are present, but not together. There are numerous websites that cite Lifton and reinterpret "thought reform" to be "mind control". That is simply not justified by the evidence.

If "brainwashing" is still cited directly or indirectly as evidence of a total form of mind control, that should bring the article under the purview of the Military Workgroup, which includes such topics as psychological warfare. If the Military Workgroup does get such oversight, I will make an Editor Ruling that primary sources on Communist prison camp indoctination, in North Korea and North Vietnam, never suggest that brainwashing implies this sort of mind control. Yes, it was used to force confessions used for propaganda. While the excellent novel, The Manchurian Candidate, does have a theme of such control, I have neither seen anything in military or intelligence literature, nor had mentioned in my psychological warfare classes (e.g., Dr. Ferenc Molnar, School of International Service, The American University), nor had been suggested in my work at the Center for Research in Social Systems or from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare center.

The Central Intelligence Agency attempted to break Nguyen Tai, and failed after several years of effort. Other extreme measures including the strict detention of Yuri Nosenko. .

Soviet "show trials" of the Great Terror of the 1930s indeed obtained dubious confessions, although some prisoners, who unquestionably were tortured and knew there was no possibility the court would acquit them, still argued innocence. (See Robert Conquest, The Great Terror) Howard C. Berkowitz 05:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this article should concentrate on the Extreme Abuse Surveys only. There are certainly responders to the survey that accuse governments of being perpetrators of extreme abuse. I don't doubt there are those that do blame governments for such actions that resulted in personality disorders - and that is what these surveys accumulate.  I can imagine that some of them are totally accurate, just as I can imagine that some are imaginary and pathological fabrications from minds that were already having issues.  We can't know which are which and we can't create original research to pretend to know, but we can repeat what the authors say and we can illustrate weaknesses in the studies, especially if we have an authority that can reflect this. I don't feel comfortable making a workgroup comment as I would not want to mislead you on the workgroup choices. D. Matt Innis 06:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Matt, I cannot agree with the assertions, especially when they actively redefine Lifton. Also, I make a distinction between "extreme abuse" and "mind control". I will, very reluctantly, accept the use of extreme abuse in terms of child abuse. Speaking as one with considerable direct experience in intelligence and psychological warfare, there were certainly very serious attempts to produce a state of mind control, as in MKULTRA, North Korean POW camps, the Soviets under Beria, etc. They failed.


 * I do not consider it worthy of the neutrality policy to have to counter every conspiracy theory brought into CZ. I have emailed a Psychology editor with my concerns, and, specifically if the "mind control" and "brainwashing" allegations are continued, I will seek to have those terms, used in political warfare and intelligence, brought under the purview of the Military Workgroup. Get references to mind control and brainwashing out of the article and I back off the position.


 * There may be a survey that goes out and asks people about the aliens that controlled them, but I cannot see taking the assumption of alien or demonic possession without abundant evidence. Now, that cats may have me well trained is quite another matter. Nothing secret about that, especially when they determine it is time to be scratched, fed, or amused. When Rhonda or Mr. Clark decide to groom my beard or lick my nose, resistance is futile. The dogs use pitiful expressions and claims of imminent starvation as their technique of control. :-)


 * Howard C. Berkowitz 06:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict)I'm not sure what you are sorry about, I agree with you concerning the assertions and think we should fix them. Let's just try not to pretend that "extreme abuse" is a proper noun and give it any more credibility by trying to define it using well established terms.  The article is about "extreme abuse surveys", a set of surveys that were performed over the internet over the last year or so...  They have all kinds of responses, some of which are government related, some aren't.  I haven't read them all, yet.  If it's the workgroup issue that you are sorry about, I just don't want any misunderstandings to occur as a result of whether I agree with you or not.  I've gone there before and got the T-shirt, no thanks :-)


 * It is my understanding that the neutrality policy needs to used on every article on CZ, whether about a conspiracy theory or not?


 * By the way, I am just acting as an author on this article.
 * D. Matt Innis 06:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I cannot accept that neutrality policy requires a discussion of every possible issue, with subject matter experts expected to spend their time presenting alternate views rather than writing original articles. If, when you wrote "we can repeat what the authors say and we can illustrate weaknesses in the studies, especially if we have an authority that can reflect this", I cannot accept that there is no CZ discretion in being unable to choose not to repeat the statements of dishonest authors. As far as the specific survey, if the authors cite Lifton as defining "mind control", and it can be established that Lifton's book never contained the term but used a quite different one (in the title), I have to say that I find the scholarship irretrievably flawed and the study simply not worth discussing. That's not a matter of alternate views or neutrality policy; that's a matter of intellectual dishonesty sufficient to throw serious doubt on the integrity of the surveys themselves.


 * Just in case that Google book search might have missed the phrase, I have the book on order through interlibrary loan. They cited Chapter 22. If Chapter 22 does not contain the phrase "mind control", and other sources are available that show that "thought reform" means something quite different than what the authors imply, where are we then? Does neutrality policy extend to falsification, or the inability to understand the sourced material? There's a legal concept of "fruit of the poisoned tree", in which material derived from tainted evidence is inadmissible. Where does that fit in neutrality policy?


 * I am sorry that this is happening with Neil, who seems to be a gentleman and trying to contribute. There is no reason to believe he is not accurately citing what the survey authors said. If it was his bias, then CZ: Article Deletion Policy, "the article is of such low quality (in terms of inaccuracy, bias, poor writing, or whatever) that it would be more efficient to start over than to try to clean up the current one (this also can be achieved by blanking, if one does in fact wish to start over)" would apply.


 * That policy, however, is not clear about what to do if the subject has severe problems with accuracy and bias. I have sent a request to a Psychology Editor as well as a Health Sciences Editor to review this matter. If the military/intelligence terms "brainwashing" and "mind control" continue to be used, or are in the surveys themselves, I shall seek a consensus that the article also falls under Military. My initial thought would be to put the jurisdictional issue to the CZ-Editors list. As I have said, if this does fall under Military, I believe a ruling can be made on the use of those specific terms, as well as the applicability of the Lifton reference. Howard C. Berkowitz 09:43, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Additional sourcing
I don't want to change my comments, but to add additional sourcing. One or two things are at hand in hard copy; the government document is probably online, and perhaps the Robert Conquest material is on Google Books. I will get back on POW materials. Nguyen Tai is already sourced as is Nosenko. The CIA activities used drugs and caused at least one suicide as well as long-term damage; the Soviet purges in the Great Terror exerted confessions from many, often calling for their own execution. In neither case, however, did the victims come under unconscious control. Some of the Soviet victims actively defended themselves, regardless of torture, execution of family members, etc., until they themselves were put to death.


 * Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States ("Rockefeller Commission"), June 1975. (Note: far more detail was in the subsequent Church Committee hearings, and also documents at the George Washington University National Security Archive; these all should be online). "The Testing of Behavior-Influencing Drugs on Unsuspecting Subjects Within the United States", pp. 226-228.
 * Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: a Reassessment. Chapter 5, "The Problem of Confession", pp. 109-131. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Howard C. Berkowitz 10:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

attacks
I removed the following section: On January 2, 2007, the server that had the survey faced an intense amount of port scans at low and high ports and attempts to access non-existing server pages. These were carried out on a large scale. This used an enormous amount of bandwidth. The attacks diminished and after three weeks almost ended. In early March 2007, there was an attack to hack into the server, but this failed. Several attempts were also made to obtain the private data of some technicians and surveyors. The EAS survey was successfully completed on March 31, 2007. "Extreme abuse survey" produced no Google hits when paired with the North American Network Operators Group, Réseaux IP Européens (the European internet operations forum), or the Association for Computing Machinery RISKS digest. While investigations are continuing, this server attack does not appear to have been reported to any of the major Internet Service Provider operational forums.

It seems on the low side with regard to useful information. Chris Day 14:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

=Publicity by study author== I have added, to the main article, links and some content to a media kit issued by Wanda Karriker, which consists of about three-quarters of allegations about government abuses, and a relatively small amount about the study itself. The press kit itself is self-contradictory about the existence or nonexistence about documentation on the CIA ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA project; I have provided several references to it.

MKULTRA definitely existed, and at least one American government scientist died from being made an unwitting test subject for LSD as an interrogation drug. While it has been said that the records were destroyed, a considerable amount has surfaced &mdash; I was rather shocked to find that the CIA had paid for the Gorman Building at Georgetown University Medical Center, where I worked in the clinical laboratory in 1966. Georgetown provided academic cover for some of the work.

MKULTRA and related programs were eventually cancelled, because the CIA found them completely useless for the intended purpose of interrogation. If need be, I'll dig up quite a few citations. My basic point is that it makes no sense that they would have targeted children, who rarely have information of intelligence interest. Karriker, however, harps on this indeed highly illegal and immoral activity, which makes me wonder about her agenda.

The media kit. Lifton used inappropriately as a source. How much data need be presented before CZ can look at this not as a matter, under the neutrality policy, for different views about child abuse, but as what increasingly seems to be a much more general agenda by the survey team? How many inconsistencies need to be found before the question must be asked: is the survey project itself sufficiently credible to be covered? Howard C. Berkowitz 14:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)