{"id":57872,"date":"2015-05-11T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57872"},"modified":"2015-05-08T14:59:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T13:59:29","slug":"the-american-psychological-associations-disappearing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/the-american-psychological-associations-disappearing-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Psychological Association’s Disappearing History"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a period of heightened scrutiny, APA webpages are vanishing. <\/em><\/p>\n

Amid mounting evidence (link is external)<\/a> that the American Psychological Association colluded with the CIA in protecting the Bush Administration\u2019s abusive \u201cenhanced interrogation program,\u201d APA\u2019s leaders are insisting that they will reserve (link is external)<\/a> all comment until attorney David Hoffman completes his \u201cindependent\u201d review (link is external)<\/a> of these allegations. CEO Norman Anderson has also offered assurances (link is external)<\/a> that the APA is \u201cfully cooperating\u201d with the investigation.<\/p>\n

But it seems that cooperation<\/a> is in the eye of the beholder. Because while APA executives have called for patience while everyone waits for the Hoffman report, it appears that someone has been steadily removing valuable, relevant content from the APA website (link is external)<\/a>. Perhaps it\u2019s true after all: idle hands are indeed the devil\u2019s workshop.<\/p>\n

A small corner of the APA\u2019s website is home to the Association\u2019s \u201cScience Policy News,\u201d a monthly electronic newsletter (link is external)<\/a> about the APA\u2019s science-related advocacy and its lobbying efforts for psychology research dollars from the Defense Department and related agencies. Until a few years ago, the newsletter was called \u201cScience Policy Insider News,\u201d which gave it the rather ironic acronym \u201cSPIN.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback Machine (link is external)<\/a>, it\u2019s possible to examine some of the history of the APA webpage (link is external)<\/a> that provides links to past issues of the SPIN newsletter. Ten months ago, in July 2014, the number of monthly SPIN issues available online was 131. Eight months later, in March of this year, the number had dropped<\/em> to 106. And today the available issues are down<\/em> even further, to only 81. In short, dozens of SPIN newsletters have disappeared from the APA\u2019s website over the past ten months, many of them over just the past seven weeks.<\/p>\n

This disappearance has taken place during a period of heightened scrutiny of the APA. As a reminder, last October James Risen published his book Pay Any Price (link is external)<\/a><\/em> alleging APA collusion with the CIA. In November, after first dismissing (link is external)<\/a> Risen\u2019s charges, the APA Board hired Mr. Hoffman to conduct a review. And then in December the Senate Intelligence<\/a> Committee released the executive summary of its scathing report (link is external)<\/a> on CIA torture, including details about the participation of James Mitchell, who was an APA member until 2006.<\/p>\n

Almost every SPIN newsletter from 2003 to 2007 is now missing \u2013 the very years during which much of the APA\u2019s collusive activities reportedly took place. As examples, this period includes the APA\u2019s invitation-only \u201cscience of deception<\/a>\u201d workshop (link is external)<\/a> in 2003, attended by Mitchell and Bruce Jessen; the private meeting<\/a> with the CIA\u2019s Kirk Hubbard and other intelligence professionals at APA headquarters in 2004; and the APA\u2019s PENS task force<\/a> meeting on psychological ethics<\/a> and national security in 2005, where Susan Brandon, now chief of research (link is external)<\/a> for the government<\/a>\u2019s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, was among the undisclosed observers. All of these events received mention in issues of SPIN that have now disappeared.<\/p>\n

APA\u2019s leaders have some difficult questions to answer. For starters, why has so much information been removed from the APA website at the very time Mr. Hoffman is being promised (link is external)<\/a> \u201cfull and unfettered access\u201d for his investigation?<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Roy Eidelson is a member of the TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting<\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/a>, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/a>. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 psychologytoday.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a period of heightened scrutiny, APA webpages are vanishing. APA\u2019s leaders have some difficult questions to answer. For starters, why has so much information been removed from the APA website at the very time Mr. Hoffman is being promised \u201cfull and unfettered access\u201d for his investigation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}