Psychology of Interrogation from Boing Boing

I suppose I knew there was a science to interrogation, but it's not something I really want to think about. Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrr!! And this guy really creeps me out(!) New Scientist has a really intriguing and intense interview with Michael Koubi, the former chief interrogator for Israel's Shin Bet. How do people behave when they are interrogated for the first time? Every detainee behaves differently. It depends whether he's from the city or the village, or a Bedouin from the desert. It depends whether he's educated or not. Prison is unimaginably different to normal life. People behave in unexpected ways. People who talk tough in public often submit in interrogation. I once interrogated a Bedouin who said nothing at all for a few days. He was a very tough man. During one session I was playing with a stick, and this idea came to me: I said to him, do you realise there's a snake hidden in the stick? And suddenly he became very afraid. He said he'd tell me anything. This man was used to dealing with snakes in the open, but in a cell it was a different matter. Freakin' scary he is...