Mark Fallon

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Mark Fallon
Mark Fallon.png
Fallon in 2015
NationalityAmerican
OccupationCounter-terrorism expert
Known forobjecting to the use of torture in interrogation

Mark Fallon is a former Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent and counter-terrorism expert from the United States. [1] [2] [3] [4] He was the director of the Criminal Investigative Task Force at the US Military's Guantanamo detention camp, for two and half years, where his organization conducted a parallel and independent series interrogations and intelligence analysis from that conducted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo, the CIA and the FBI.

Fallon tried to use his influence to prevent torture from being employed at Guantanamo. [5] According to Ben Taub, writing in the New Yorker magazine , by August 2002 "Fallon's élite interagency criminal-investigation task force had been sidelined." [6]

Following his time in Government service Fallon became a vocal critic of the US Intelligence Establishment's counter-terrorism efforts. [1] [7] [8]

On 2008 Fallon joined The Soufan Group, a security firm founded by Ali Soufan, a former FBI counter-terrorism expert who also became a critic of the narrative common from members of the US Intelligence Establishment. [2]

In 2017 Fallon published "Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture." [9] [10] [11] Fallon said that he faced significant resistance from the government in publishing his book, including extended delays and censorship of 113 passages, often for information that was already part of the congressional record. [9] Department of Defense spokesman Darrell Walker disputed claims the Government was trying to suppress publication of his book. [12] Rather, he said, the Government imposed delays were due to his book requiring review from ten different Government agencies.

The American Civil Liberties Union mounted a defense of Fallon's First Amendment right to free speech, and contacted several members of Congress. [12]

Fallon and Maria Hartwig, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York, are developing a training curriculum for investigators based in actual science related to lying and deception. [13]

Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering (Méndez Principles)

In 2016 the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Prof. Juan E. Méndez, submitted a thematic report to the United Nations General Assembly calling for the development of international standards for interviews based on scientific research, legal safeguards and ethical principles. [14] Mark Fallon was a member of the global Steering Committee who guided the process of drafting such a document, consulting an Advisory Council comprising more than 80 experts from over 40 countries. In 2021, the Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering was approved by the Steering Committee to realize the call. [15] [16] These principles are also referred to as the Méndez Principles to honor Juan Méndez.

References

  1. 1 2 Marre, Klaus (2016-10-05). "Guantanamo Bay's (other) dirty secret". Who What Why . Retrieved 2016-10-15.
  2. 1 2 "Mark Fallon Joins The Soufan Group". Soufan Group. 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2016-10-15.
  3. ↑ "Mark Fallon". Conference on World Affairs . University of Colorado Boulder . Retrieved 2022-08-22.
  4. ↑ Blincoe, Ralph (2008-02-22). "Mark Fallon Farewell". markfallon.us. Retrieved 2022-08-22.
  5. ↑ Taub, Ben (2019-04-20). "How the War on Terror Is Being Written". New Yorker magazine . Retrieved 2019-10-05. In his role as the deputy commander of the detention camp's Criminal Investigation Task Force, Fallon had spent the previous months trying to prevent the military from adopting abusive interrogation practices.
  6. ↑ Taub, Ben (2019-04-15). "Guantánamo's Darkest Secret". New Yorker magazine . Retrieved 2019-10-05. By the time Salahi arrived at Guantánamo, on August 5, 2002, Fallon's élite interagency criminal-investigation task force had been sidelined, and Lehnert had been replaced.
  7. ↑ Fallon, Mark (2014-12-08). "Dick Cheney Was Lying About Torture". Politico . Retrieved 2016-10-15. The self-defeating stupidity of torture might come as news to Americans who've heard again and again from Cheney and other political leaders that torture "worked." Professional interrogators, however, couldn't be less surprised. We know that legal, rapport-building interrogation techniques are the best way to obtain intelligence, and that torture tends to solicit unreliable information that sets back investigations.
  8. ↑ "New Guantanamo Intelligence Upends Old 'Worst of the Worst' Myths". Military.com. 2016-10-07. Retrieved 2016-10-15. 'It was clear early on that the intelligence was grossly wrong,' said Mark Fallon, a retired 30-year federal officer who between 2002 and 2004 was Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Defense's Criminal Investigation Task Force. Most 'weren't battlefield captives,' he said, calling many 'bounty babies' -- men captured by Afghan warlords or Pakistani security forces and sent to Guantanamo 'on the sketchiest bit of intelligence with nothing to corroborate.'
  9. 1 2 Savage, Charlie (2 April 2019). "Ex-National Security Officials Sue to Limit Censorship of Their Books". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-05-12– via NYTimes.com.
  10. ↑ Grobe, Anna Mulrine (January 8, 2017). "If Trump wants waterboarding, this could be why". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN   0882-7729 . Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  11. ↑ Fallon, Mark (24 October 2017). Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1-942872-79-5 – via Google Books.
  12. 1 2 Landay, Jonathan (2017-08-03). "An ex-Gitmo employee says the Pentagon is suppressing his book on 'torture'". Business Insider . Retrieved 2019-10-05. Darrell Walker, chief of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, denied blocking Fallon's book. The delay, he said, is the result of 10 federal agencies having to scrub the manuscript. Two have yet to complete their assessments, including one outside the Defense Department, which he did not identify.
  13. ↑ Seigel, Jessica (25 March 2021). "The truth about lying" . Knowable Magazine. doi: 10.1146/knowable-032421-1 . Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  14. ↑ Méndez, Juan E. (August 2016). "UN Docs A/71/298". undocs.org. Retrieved 2024-05-20
  15. ↑ Méndez, Juan E.; Drummond, Vanessa (2021-06-01). "The Méndez Principles: A New Standard for Effective Interviewing by Police and Others, While Respecting Human Rights". Just Security. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  16. ↑ Barela, Steven J.; Fallon, Mark (2021-06-01). "The Méndez Principles: Leadership to Transform Interrogation via Science, Law, and Ethics". Just Security. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
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