2

Countering Terrorism: Integration of
Practice and Theory
An Invitational Conference
FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia
February 28, 2002

Sponsored by:
Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy
Science Directorate, American Psychological Association
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts & Sciences
and the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict
Decade of Behavior Initiative

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Preface _______________________________________________________________ 4
Introduction: Countering Terrorism: Integration of Practice and Theory ___________ 6
Executive Summary______________________________________________________ 8
Scenario 1: A trustworthy local businessman reports suspicious activity by an apparently
Middle Eastern neighbor. ________________________________________________ 12
Scenario 2a: A woman contacts her therapist about a friend of her son’s “martyrdom
mission.” _____________________________________________________________ 15
Scenario 2b: A Palestinian reports to the FBI that a recent suicide bombing in Israel was
committed by his brother. ________________________________________________ 18
Scenario 2c: A teacher tells an officer about her student’s father who talks about killing
himself “like the people who flew planes into buildings.” _______________________ 20
Scenario 3a: Without links to the local Muslim community, police receive an anonymous
call about a conversation in a local mosque about plans to attack an American city. _ 22
Scenario 3b: Law enforcement must evaluate hoax terrorist threats. They also must
construct media statements about possible threats and false alarms. ______________ 30
Scenario 4: Three persons are arrested near a nuclear power plant; two refuse to talk
and the third (who recently traveled to Indonesia, Yemen and Germany) will talk. ___ 34
Scenario 5: Improvised explosive device material is found in an apartment. The only
witness to activity there is an alcoholic in withdrawal. _________________________ 38
Scenario 6 (a-c): How can law enforcement build effective ties to local Muslim
communities, and what can these communities do to mobilize their members to speak out
against terrorism?______________________________________________________ 40
Scenario 7: Effective interview strategies for relatives, friends, or acquaintances of
terrorists or suicide bombers. _____________________________________________ 44
Additional issues for practice, training and research __________________________ 48
Conference Participants _________________________________________________ 50
Appendix 1: Information Management and Evaluation _________________________ 53
Appendix 2: Communications Technologies__________________________________ 54
Appendix 3: Community Policing Models ___________________________________ 55
Appendix 4: Psychology of Deception ______________________________________ 57
Appendix 5: Data Mining ________________________________________________ 58
Appendix 6: Decision Trees ______________________________________________ 59
Appendix 7: Training Guide for Hate Crime Training Program __________________ 61
Appendix 8: Psychology of Bias ___________________________________________ 62

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Preface
The movement from idea to actuality often involves the cooperation of many
individuals. This action becomes more complicated when it occurs within a bureaucracy.
It was during a meeting of members of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) and
members of the American Psychological Association, two large and complex
bureaucracies, when the idea of an invitational conference on countering terrorism was
born. The excitement of bringing together highly qualified law enforcement officers with
various terrorism experts and academics was palpable.
As exciting as the idea was, so was it daunting. The practical decisions of whom
to invite, what to discuss, where and when to convene were difficult to make. The
decision to hold the conference at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, VA, during the
week of February 24 was easy. Time and place were decided upon for the practical
reason of availability of space. However, restricting the list of invitees to only sixty
individuals from among the numerous experts in law enforcement and civilian
populations was most formidable. We recognize there are other individuals with
excellent credentials, experience and expertise, whose presence would have added much
to the results of the conference. Time, space and availability restricted the number of
invitations. We are most grateful to the invitees who accepted our request to participate.
From conference conception to convocation, only ten weeks remained to
orchestrate the various components of a successful conference: initiate and complete the
reams of paperwork to hold a conference at the FBI Academy, obtain necessary
clearances and permissions, create scenarios for discussions, invite participants, arrange
transportation, prepare special menus, and design graphics. This could not have been
completed without the assistance of many individuals and groups. We are most grateful
to all who shared in this endeavor. They include supervisors and support staff of the
American Psychological Association, the Decade of Behavior initiative, the University of
Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences, the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of
Ethnopolitical Conflict, and the FBI’s Training Division and Behavioral Science Unit.
A special note of thanks is extended to the FBI’s Training Division, specifically,
the BSU’s training technicians and interns; graphic design artists; maintenance workers;
and food service personnel. Our gratitude also is extended to members of the FBI’s
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime Unit for their assistance in the
preparation of the conference as well as their active participation in the conference.
The financial support and guidance of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of
Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania was vital to our bringing
together the diverse group of people whose expertise contributed to the conference and to
this report. For the original idea of having this conference, and for full participation and
guidance all along the way, we thank Professor Ian Lustick, Professor of Political Science

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and Merriam Term Chair in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and
Brendan O’Leary, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of
Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Co-Director
of the Solomon Asch Center.
During these meetings, individual and collective expertise worked together to
answer the questions posed by the scenarios. Results were two-fold. Answers,
suggestions, and theories were applied to questions, issues, and scenarios. Additional
questions – simple and complex – were raised. As with all good research, the conference
offered few complete answers and raised important questions. We look to the immediate
future to address these compelling questions and challenges.
While the content of this report reflects the observations and views of the
participants in this conference, the opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the
positions of the FBI Academy or the APA. The authors accept full responsibility for the
ways the observations and views are expressed in these pages.
Finally, it is with a deep sense of gratitude and admiration that we dedicate this
work and our continuing efforts in counter terrorism to the men and women who continue
to risk their lives on a daily basis keeping our Nation free and the American people safe.
Anthony J. Pinizzotto, PhD
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Behavioral Science Unit
Susan E. Brandon, Ph.D.
American Psychological Association
Senior Scientist
Geoffrey K. Mumford, PhD
American Psychological Association
Director of Science Policy
September 24, 2002

Introduction: Countering Terrorism: Integration of Practice and Theory
On February 28, 2002, more than 70 academic scholars and researchers, and
personnel from justice, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, met at the FBI
Academy in Quantico, Virginia, for an invitational conference on “Countering Terrorism:
Integration of Practice and Theory.” The meeting was sponsored by the FBI Academy’s
Behavioral Science Unit, the School of Arts and Sciences and the Solomon Asch Center
for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania, and the American
Psychological Association.
The participants, roughly half academic scholars and researchers and half law
enforcement personnel, dispersed into seven small groups to discuss scenarios that had
been developed before the conference by the FBI. These scenarios described some of the
current problems that the FBI, other law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies
are facing as they try to discover cadres of terrorists or those who harbor them, as well as
deter support for terrorism by individuals, designated groups, and communities. Two
hours of scenario discussions were followed by two hours of small group discussions
centered on questions that had been developed before the conference by the academic
researchers and scholars. These questions were about stereotyping and ethnopolitical
conflict, risk perception and communication, education regarding fundamentalism in all
religious traditions, analysis of intelligence data, and strategies to deal with bioterrorism.
The whole group convened for a final meeting where issues and concerns raised in the
small groups were described and further analyzed. Conversations continued at a dinner
provided in the large atrium meeting room at the Academy. The proceedings and
recommendations offered by the various discussion groups, after review by the members
of the individual groups, are the substance of this document.
The ten or so discussants in each small group were likely to be:
Scholars or researchers from psychology or political science or medical
science,
An attorney with expertise in immigration laws,
Someone from the Office of Science and Technology Policy or from the
National Academy of Sciences or the National Science Foundation,
A member of a training or operational unit of the FBI,
Personnel from the CIA, the U.S. Secret Service, the National Security
Agency, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Marine Corps, or the State
Department,
Someone on staff at the Office of Homeland Security or the new
Transportation Security Administration,
Officers from the New Mexico State or Stafford or Arlington, VA,
Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA or New York City Police or Sheriff’s
Departments.
Each participant was able to offer a different point of view and a different
expertise on the issues raised by the scenarios and the questions. The juxtaposition of

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people whose expertise lies largely in theory with those whose expertise lies largely in
practice, allowed each to expand on what they already knew and to be informed by the
view of the other. The conversations were reported to be alternatively lively and
sobering, informative and probing, and consistently collegial and respectful.
National and local government offices and agencies have received a large volume
of information and offers of assistance from Americans across the country, as well as
concerned individuals from other nations. One of the challenges has been how to collect
this information and organize people in order to take advantage of all that is offered, to
get relevant expertise to the people who are at the forefront of counter-terrorism efforts,
and to let the experience of those who are on the front lines inform the research and
inquiries of the scholars. This conference was viewed as one way to accomplish this
kind of interaction.

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Executive Summary
Three broad themes emerged from the discussions. These were:
Efficient and effective collection and dispersal of information,
Development and maintenance of working relationships among various
communities and law enforcement personnel, and
Effective communication with targeted people or groups that are important to
effective counter-terrorist strategies.
Information exchange. The volume of incoming information to local police and
local and regional FBI offices has greatly increased since September 11. The impact of
this increase is exacerbated by the unwillingness of law enforcement to ignore any of it,
given the perceived risk that some vital piece of information will escape notice, and the
felt need on the part of individual officers and agents not to be the person who let a
critical piece of information go unnoticed. Thus, triage procedures have changed,
concurrently with the increase in volume, without opportunities for planning and
evaluation, and without a significant increase in the number of personnel available to
receive and vet the information.
The social sciences have developed highly efficient methods for processing large
volumes of data that can be useful even at the level of a local police station – these
include data mining and decision tree techniques (Appendices 5 and 6). However, these
need to be tailored to the unique cultures in which they would be used, and their
development and implementation requires a cooperative effort on the part of those who
have developed these systems and those who will use them. The value of such systems –
that they can provide complete records that can be easily searched for target items, that
they offer a method of protecting the confidentiality of sources, that they can be queried
for changes in patterns of incoming data, that they can be tailored to sound alarms when
targeted items appear, while keeping the false alarm rate low – must be demonstrated to
the users, while assuring the user that he or she still will have the opportunity to make a
final judgment as to action.
There also are systems being developed and evaluated for the coordination and
effective communication among local responders, such as law enforcement, fire
departments and local health facilities, state-wide and national agents such as the INS,
National Guard, Department of Energy, FEMA, and the Department of Defense, and
allies that are outside the United States (Appendix 2). These also need to be made
available to local responders.
Concern was expressed at the lack of effective information sharing among these
groups, especially between those at the local level and those at the statewide and national
levels. The issue of the protection of the confidentiality of sources, while providing
important information to those who need it most, is an issue that social scientists can
investigate for the development of effective models that take into account human
information processing and cognitive limitations and capabilities.

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Relationships with key communities. Triage is made more difficult in instances
where law enforcement has little ongoing relationship with communities that have been
targeted both by law enforcement and by the American public in general to be most likely
to harbor terrorists, which are the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities,
especially those with significant proportions of immigrants. The argument was made that
a focus on such communities may be short-sighted (because such a focus will drive
terrorists either further underground or to seek refuge in other communities); however, it
is prudent and effective for both the FBI and local police to establish and maintain good
working relationships with such communities. Specific steps towards that end were
offered in terms of the characteristics of those chosen to approach the community, how
these people should approach and interact with it, and what kinds of information should
be solicited and offered. Some consideration was given to the appropriateness of
community policing models (Appendix 3) in this effort. Law enforcement should be
informed by previous, similar situations that have occurred in other countries, such as the
interactions of England with Irish terrorist networks and of Israel with Palestinian
terrorist networks.
Other “communities” which are or should be involved in triage efforts are
universities; professional groups such as those involving teachers, physicians, and clinical
psychologists (especially, the American Psychological Association); and other social
service and community agencies. Operating procedures for how law enforcement might
interact with these communities were provided; in some cases, issues of jurisdiction,
confidentiality, and civil liberties were considered.
Strategies were offered for how law enforcement can make most effective use of
the media to deliver messages to the public, especially in view of the human tendency
towards negativity bias (Appendix 8). Guidelines were offered for how to maximize the
effectiveness of the “speakers” and how to assess the status of the “listeners.” It was
recognized that the media serves an important role in providing critical commentary, and
that law enforcement can take advantage of this function as well by offering more
evidence of incidents that were avoided by effective intelligence and of the protection of
the citizenry from hate crimes, and by being more open about failures that occurred and
instances where expertise was not immediately available (for example, in the instances of
the anthrax mail-delivery attacks).
Interrogation/interview techniques. Suggestions were offered on how to most
effectively interview community members who may have information relating to
individuals who are involved in terrorist networks, either within or outside the United
States. Special focus was given to instances where these people are recent immigrants.
The impact on the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities of changes in
laws relating to immigration procedures and attorney/client interactions, of the
incarceration of individuals who may have information relating to terrorist networks but
are themselves not terrorists, and of other actions taken by the Department of Justice,
were described. These were recognized as posing additional obstacles for the creation

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and/or maintenance of effective relationships between law enforcement and these
communities, which cannot be ignored.
Specific strategies were offered for the evaluation of, and interactions with,
community members and those who are held as suspects or who might serve as assets.
The group recognized that the current tendency to view Arab-American and MuslimAmerican men as especially suspect is shortsighted and ineffective. Social scientists
have investigated and described the situational and behavioral characteristics of
individuals who are likely to be vulnerable to joining and supporting terrorist networks,
especially here in the United States. The applicability of these characteristics to
international terrorism is part of ongoing investigations within the social sciences.
Conclusions and recommendations. This conference highlighted both the current
distance between the academic/scholarship community and law enforcement and
intelligence communities, and the extent to which these two groups can greatly inform
each other. Law enforcement and intelligence personnel have the hard data that can
shape the course of social science in areas such as decision making, risk determination
and communication, communication analysis, characterization of terrorist and other
extremist networks, analyses of deception, predictors of fault lines within immigrant
groups, and information management and communication. The social scientists have
tools that have been developed, evaluated, and already shown to be highly effective for
communicating to the general public, developing triage procedures, predicting
individuals at risk for membership in terrorist networks, enhancing community relations,
dealing with large volumes of information, and so on.
The format of the conference was a fundamental determinant of its effectiveness.
It was generally agreed that the problems needed to be stated by those in practice; thus,
having law enforcement create the scenarios that served as the focus of the discussion
groups was vital. It also was agreed that creative solutions and strategies came out of the
opportunity for relatively small groups of people from both practice and theory to sit at
the same table and just talk about issues within and without their immediate expertise. In
some ways, the format made no one the perfect expert, so that particular skills may not
have been taken advantage of. However, the small-group, focused discussions avoided
the lecture format of an academic conference and forced the academics to think and speak
in concrete terms. It also allowed the law enforcement personnel to ask questions that
provided a way for the academics to offer evidence of the scholarship and research that is
available and can be used. It provided both groups with some practice at speaking in a
common language and applying old techniques to new problems. It was recommended
that further meetings maintain the same format, even while perhaps addressing different
issues and inviting different people.
It is vital to the health of both law enforcement and the social sciences that the
distance between these two groups, broadly-defined, not increase to the point that
common points of reference, language, and concerns cannot be found. One outcome of
September 11 was to heighten the awareness of the social sciences community to the
need for their active engagement in programs of national security. The events of that day

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also made our vulnerabilities transparent and indicated the strengths and weaknesses of
current law enforcement and intelligence practices. It is opportune for both sides, such as
were part of this conference, to take advantage of the momentum provided by the
September 11 attacks.
The interaction of good people who came with a wide variety of experience and
expertise provided a unique opportunity for the kinds of creative thinking that is so
critical to how America will protect its citizens from the immediate and long-term effects
of the terrorism that it certainly faces in this 21st century.

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Scenario 1: A trustworthy local businessman reports suspicious activity by an apparently
Middle Eastern neighbor.
A citizen contacts a detective in a small east coast city. The detective knows the caller to
be a trustworthy local businessman. He reports suspicious activity by a neighbor who
moved into a rental residence nearby. The neighbor appears Middle Eastern. The
neighbor claims to be a student at the local university; however, he is noticed to be
absent from the residence for weeks at a time. The caller engaged the neighbor in
conversation and learned that although he claimed to be enrolled in an International
Studies program at the University, he was very vague and clearly did not recognize the
names of the most prominent professors within that program. The neighbor has observed
three other Middle Eastern males intermittently staying at the neighbor’s home,
sometimes when his neighbor is not there.
Problem: This scenario was viewed as quite typical of the many that have come through
local police and FBI offices since 9/11. The problem is how to develop an effective
triage system that helps officers or agents handle the large volume of incoming
information while assuring that important details are not overlooked.
Strategies: Make use of data gathering/vetting systems already in use in other situations,
such as in the medical and legal professions. These are designed to (1) process all
incoming information and then sound an alert when a targeted item appears, and (2) show
changes in patterns of data flow that would not be seen by the casual, part-time observer
(an individual on duty at any particular time would see only that part of the incoming
data, whereas the artificial system sees it all). The pattern of change in incoming data
might be informative, in addition to targeted items.
For example, one such system already in use searches through large volumes of text for
specific words or phrases. When it finds a targeted item, an alarm is sounded. An
important aspect of this system is that it will find text that means the same without using
the same words. For example, if a target search specifies “racketeering,” one will get
documents that mention racketeering, but also documents that mention “unlawful
conspiracies.”1 Also, the data are kept in files that can be re-searched for words or
meanings that are of interest at some later date, to look for similar instances, as well as to
allow for the generation of graphs and other descriptors to evaluate changes in the pattern
of incoming information.
Further information is provided in Appendix 1 (Information Evaluation Systems).
Problem: What predictor variables do we have for the identification of potential
terrorists?
1

Example provided by Herbert L. Roitblat at www.dolphinsearch.com.

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Strategies: We might consider using the information that is known about the men who
attacked New York and Washington on 9/11. For example, it appears that the men who
attacked on 9/11 had not maintained their family relationships, perhaps in order to ensure
good cover. Thus, the presence or absence of family relationships might be used as
predictors of membership in terrorist networks. Such information also might be useful in
the interrogation and identification of suspects.
Problem: What should be the standard operating procedure for dealing with local
universities that might have students who are either under suspicion or know others who
are?
Strategies:
XShort-term standard operating procedures should include:
Find a way of ensuring minimal adverse impact. A student or a professor – or
any university employee – could be put at risk if he or she is approached by a law
enforcement officer in a manner that is obvious to their coworkers. There also is
risk involved in simply asking a professor about a student (or vice versa). One
way to minimize such impact is to ask about an entire class or an entire
department, so that individuals are not singled out (even if the law enforcement
agent only wants to know about one or two individuals).
The officer or agent should assess whether their procedure passes a “60
Minutes” test. That is, would their approach be an embarrassment either to them
or their department if it were exposed to the general public?
Decide in advance if the person being sought is a suspect or a citizen who
might be able to help, and modify the approach and advance accordingly.
Be prepared to offer assurances that if a person is willing to come forward
with information, they will not be penalized for doing so with prosecution for
minor violations (including minor visa violations).
Assure the individual that if they request legal representation, this will not be
viewed as an admission of guilt, nor will they subsequently be viewed as
uncooperative.
Offer an assurance that the law enforcement agent is bound by law and is not
the kind of police that immigrant populations are likely to have encountered in
their countries of origin.

X Recognize that an academic culture is, by nature, more likely to value its openness and
willingness to talk than other communities. Attempts to be secretive likely will be
viewed as evidence of ignorance of the university culture (and might expose an
undercover agent), and would be viewed as contrary to the open nature of the university
culture. Therefore, the long-term strategy of planting individuals in the university to

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serve as information conduits was rejected because the cost of discovery of such
individuals would, in the long run, greatly outweigh their usefulness in the short-term.
X A better strategy would be one that recognizes that the university culture welcomes
diversity and talking. Local law enforcement might participate in various lectures,
discussion groups, classes, and social events that are open to the public and also are
attended by members of the university. This would increase the perception of law
enforcement as part of the community, rather than outside it. Law enforcement agents
that like to talk, as well as listen, would be best suited for such an assignment.
Implications for practice, training, and research
Social scientists need to evaluate the implications of the current concerted focus on
Muslim- and Arab-Americans as potential threats, where these are the primary
characteristics that trigger responses of faster and greater scrutiny. We are making
assumptions about which terrorists are on the basis of essentially indiscriminate
characteristics (most Muslim- and Arab-Americans are not terrorists).
There are two dangers of using the trait rather than behavioral indicators. One is that
people will be unduly and inappropriately targeted. The other is that we will miss
terrorists who are operating in other religious and ethnic communities. This focus also
brings up issues of discriminatory practices and whether such a focus is occurring
because of an underlying racism. Would the current strategies (community surveillance,
etc.) be possible were the 19 terrorists of 9/11 Caucasian rather than Middle Eastern (e.g.,
what if they were part of the IRA)?

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Scenario 2a: A woman contacts her therapist about a friend of her son’s “martyrdom
mission.”
A woman contacts her psychologist from whom she has been receiving therapy for the
past year for bouts with depression. She reports that she has just learned that a friend of
her 19-year-old son appears to be recruiting her son for a martyrdom mission. This
friend has voiced some fundamental Islamic beliefs that are very anti-American. The
woman has overheard worrisome conversations between her son and his friend but had
tried to discount their significance until her son revealed today that he was asked to
become a Martyr for an unspecified attack against the United States. He is very
concerned that his friend is involved in something that may be planned for the near
future. They are afraid to report this to the police because her son has a juvenile record
and he is somewhat anti-American himself. They are naturalized citizens of the United
States after having moved here from Iran many years ago.
Problem: This situation is not covered explicitly by the American Psychological
Association's (APA's) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
Pertinent portions of this Code are as follows:
5.05 Disclosures.
(a) Psychologists disclose confidential information without the consent of the
individual only as mandated by law, or where permitted by law for a valid
purpose, such as (1) to provide needed professional services to the patient or the
individual or organizational client, (2) to obtain appropriate professional
consultations, (3) to protect the patient or client or others from harm, or (4) to
obtain payment for services, in which instance disclosure is limited to the
minimum that is necessary to achieve the purpose.
8.01 Familiarity With Ethics Code.
Psychologists have an obligation to be familiar with this Ethics Code, other
applicable ethics codes, and their application to psychologists' work. Lack of
awareness or misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not itself a defense to a
charge of unethical conduct.
8.02 Confronting Ethical Issues.
When a psychologist is uncertain whether a particular situation or course of action
would violate this Ethics Code, the psychologist ordinarily consults with other
psychologists knowledgeable about ethical issues, with state or national
psychology ethics committees, or with other appropriate authorities in order to
choose a proper response.
Comments (Robert Kinscherff, Director of forensic training at the Law and Psychiatry
Service of the Massachusetts General Hospital; senior forensic psychologist for the

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Boston Juvenile Court Clinic; member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School,
communication to Susan Brandon, May 5, 2002):
I do not believe that the Ethics Code explicitly mentions mandated
reporting of child abuse, elder abuse, etc. Rather, the Code handles it by
obligating psychologists to be aware of and to utilize whenever appropriate or
mandated the exceptions to confidentiality found in the law. This is partly
because most of the relevant law is state law and these laws governing
confidentiality and permitted/mandated exceptions to confidentiality differ in their
specific details. The law that permits or requires a psychologist to break
confidentiality in order to protect third parties from potential violence is the
closest body of law to the scenario. However, this law contemplates that it is the
client/patient who poses the serious threat of harm to a third party; it does not
contemplate violation of the confidentiality of the client/patient if the
client/patient is not the source of the risk of harm.
There is no specific mention of national-security related issues in the
Code, and I am unaware of any APA policy document or guidelines document
that refers to national security issues as they might arise in the practice of
psychology.
The Code as currently worded would actually permit breaking of
confidentiality despite the patient's/client's wishes in the "national security risk
from a third party" scenario BUT ONLY IF there were applicable state or federal
law that MANDATED the breaking of confidentiality or PERMITTED the
breaking of confidentiality in order to protect the client/patient or others (see, for
example, 5.05(3) which permits disclosure to protect others if mandated or
permitted by law).
Problem: Where might a psychologist help, such as by providing telephone numbers for
tip lines, going to the police with the client, etc.? Are there rules for such actions?
(Kinscherff:) There are no written rules for these steps. However, each of these
steps [referred to above] presumes that the patient/client will be taking the
affirmative actions, not the psychologist. The psychologist would only be acting
in a supportive role by providing information (telephone number) or support
(going to the police with the client). This situation is not unlike those situations in
which a client/patient may disclose being victimized by domestic violence; the
psychologist might help the client/patient access further supports by locating
shelter services or other related services, or might support the client/patient by
going with them to file a police report regarding the domestic violence. In either
case, the psychologist is not violating the confidentiality of the professional
communications without the consent of the patient/client.
Strategies: Seek guidance from the American Psychological Association and state
psychological associations to consider:

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Including statements regarding information related to national security in its
code of ethics;
Broadening training programs to include instruction on how to deal with such
situations, and
Teaching clinicians and clinical students how to become familiar with various
law enforcement agencies and rules, and how to deal with third parties such as
probation officers.
Problem: What information about the family might be useful to law enforcement
agencies?
Strategies: The woman and her son appear amenable to approach by law enforcement
for several reasons. First, both are naturalized citizens of the United States and have
lived in this country for many years. Second, the mother being in therapy suggests a
significant degree of acculturation of the family. Third, the fact that the son approached
his mother with his fears about his friend indicates that the son regards his mother as a
confidant and perhaps an authority figure.
Implications for practice, training and research:
This scenario highlights the fact that law enforcement may be in situations that challenge
current views of confidentiality. It would be useful to look at the literature regarding
precedents with organized crime.
Investigation is needed that compares the development and maintenance of informants in
counter-terrorism efforts with the support of informants in other contexts, such as
organized crime and narcotics.
One might ask how the appropriate response of the psychologist would be changed by a
reduction in the age of the child (e.g., from 19 to 15), or by the assumption that the
community in which the family lives is rural or middle America, where Christian
fundamentalist groups are known to be more likely to have strong support.
There is a need for the American Psychological Association and state psychological
associations to develop an ethical code for practitioners for instances where a client may
have information relevant to terrorism (similar to other mandates that already exist, such
as those for instances of abuse of children and the elderly and a client’s intention to harm
himself or another person). Such instances are peculiar because they involve third-party
harm. Psychologists need to be trained for what behaviors to look for, and how to report
information to law enforcement while protecting the client and their family and
community. This may include some kinds of cross-cultural training. The APA may have
to work with legislatures and licensing boards regarding some of these issues. Similar
training and issues of confidentiality need to be considered for the training of clergy,
teachers, and physicians.

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Scenario 2b: A Palestinian reports to the FBI that a recent suicide bombing in Israel was
committed by his brother.
A young man walks into a local FBI office and claims to be from Palestine. He reports
that the recent suicide bombing in Israel that is being widely reported in the international
media was committed by his brother. The reporting person is conflicted about his desire
to stay in the United States, his need to return to his family, and his previous thoughts
about becoming a martyr for the Palestinian cause. His work permit expires in one week,
and his family expects him to come home. He has met a young woman who is a U.S.
citizen, a devout Muslim, and will not leave her close-knit family here in the United
States. He doesn’t want to abandon his family or raise any suspicion from them. Both he
and his brother previously talked about becoming martyrs but they decided against it.
Apparently, his brother lied to him or changed his mind. He is dedicated to his family
and has many friends and associates at home.
Part of the investigation will be attempting to discern the young man’s reasons
for contacting the FBI.
Problem: What information should be sought from such an individual?
Strategies: Additional information should be sought about this individual’s particular
background:
What are the social and economic circumstances of his family in Palestine?
What part of Palestine does he come from, and, if he is religious, to what
religion and sect does he belong?
Does or has any other member of his family resided in the United States?
Why did he leave Palestine?
Are there pro-American forces in his local community (such as a local Imam)?
Problem: How to determine whether the person should be developed as an asset, either
via being encouraged to go back to Palestine, or by staying in the United States.
Strategies: This scenario was described by law enforcement personnel as a perfect
opportunity to open up the young man and work on developing his trust as a potential
asset. However, a contrary view was offered. The following comments were offered by
Brendan O’Leary, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of
Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Visiting Professor
at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Political Science, and Co-Director of
the Solomon Asch Institute (communication with Susan Brandon, April 29, 2002):
The scenario is highly implausible. If I were a police/intelligence officer in
the scenario I would assume it was an attempt to penetrate the FBI by outsiders,
rather than an opportunity for the FBI. Even if this initial surmise proved false, I

19

would assume that anyone with this level of cross-pressures would, in any case,
be unlikely to be stable. He would therefore merely, in my view, be useful for
obtaining useful information about past activities. People in his position do not, in
general, sell family and friends down the river just for a green card.
General comments: The Irish in Britain were subject to heavy surveillance
and organizational penetration after bombings in Guildford and Birmingham in
the mid-1970s. Police arrested, and judges and juries convicted, the wrong people
in both cases -- creating terrible miscarriages of justice, which was very bad for
the UK's reputation and did not help in counter-terrorism. Thereafter the Irish in
Britain were highly suspicious of the police and reluctant to help. Just as
importantly, from the mid-1970s the IRA rarely used operatives from amongst the
locally born or historically established Irish in Britain. They preferred to use
sleepers or active service units -- who were under strict instructions to avoid
contact with the social and other organizations of the Irish in Britain. In this way
they generally avoided capture and were highly effective in the early 1990s. Their
one surprise tactic was the occasional use of southern rather than northern Irish
operatives.
By analogy, smart members of al-Qaeda would stay away from Arab- and
Muslim-American civil organizations – and, by analogy, extensive penetration of
their organizations by the FBI and others may often be pointless and possibly
counter-productive from the point of view of obtaining spontaneous and voluntary
intelligence.
Implications for practice, training and research:
Research on cult recruitment in this country may be particularly relevant to questions of
how future terrorists become involved in these groups and which factors may predict a
movement towards proximate violence.2 Law enforcement personnel emphasized that
our models of criminal behavior most often presume that culprits want to escape capture
and stay alive, whereas these martyrdom paradigms do not meet those characteristics.
Thus, research on cult recruitment should also include data collected from outside the
United States, in particular, Israel, where substantial information has been collected about
the situations of Palestinian suicide bombers.3
Social psychology research, based largely on the study of domestic cult groups, suggests
that strong ethnic identity may not lead to separatism if there also is a strong American
(superordinate) identity. Does this apply to groups outside the United States as well?

2

See, for example, Pinizzotto, A. J. (1996). Deviant social groups: Investigations should use objective,
verifiable criteria. Law and Order, 44(10), 75-80.
3
See, for example, McCauley, C. (in press). Understanding the 9/11 perpetrators: crazy, lost in hate, or
martyred? In N. Matuszak (Ed.), History behind the headlines, Vol. 5. Farmington Place, MI: Gale
Publishing Group.

20

Scenario 2c: A teacher tells an officer about her student’s father who talks about killing
himself “like the people who flew planes into buildings.”
An off-duty law enforcement officer received a call from his neighbor who is a teacher at
a local private elementary school. Today a ten-year-old boy student told her that he was
worried about his father killing himself “like the people who flew planes into the
buildings.” The student asked if this school would put his father’s picture on the wall if
that happened. The boy claimed that the picture of his friend’s older brother was placed
on the wall in his previous school when he died a Martyr. The boy was recently enrolled
in this elementary school after moving from a foreign country. The boy also revealed
that his father is very strict and usually questions him every day after school about whom
he talked to and what they talked about. His father has been away for several days and is
expected home tomorrow or the next day. (What if the “foreign country” were
___________?)
Problem: A rapid response is required in order to do risk assessment. This assumes that
the local law enforcement has a good relationship with the FBI. And, whereas there is
likely to be an arranged vehicle for information sharing in large cities, this may not be the
case for small cities or towns.
Strategies: This is an instance where systems that are designed to facilitate
communication across agencies (groups, services, locales) are needed. Such systems
have been designed and are currently being evaluated. If no such system is available,
and if local law enforcement has no standing relationship with the FBI, it is suggested
that the strategies offered for Scenario 3a, which describe some rules to follow for
collection of information from members of a Muslim community, would be useful. If
the father and family came from another “foreign country,” such as Indonesia, these rules
would have to be modified according to the local customs of that country.
Problem: This scenario is similar to Scenario 2a in that is raises the question of how
persons in positions of some confidence should provide information to law enforcement.
Here, the question is what should rise to the level of reporting for teachers and social
services?
Strategies: It was suggested that the APA might develop guidelines for such reporting,
and offer these to other agencies (school systems, social services), where appropriate.
Problem: How can intelligence or law enforcement agencies share information and still
protect their source?
Strategies: It was agreed that this has been and remains a primary problem for
intelligence gathering agencies. The problem may be of even more concern to the FBI in
the immediate future than it has been in the past, because of the increased efforts that

21

recently have been mandated within the Bureau regarding the management of secret
intelligence information.
Implications for practice, training and research:
The social and behavioral sciences can aid in understanding this kind of person in more
depth – his motivations and possible behaviors – and making such information available
to law enforcement in a manner that would allow them to use the information without
violating civil rights or resorting to profiling or stereotyping.
Risk assessments rely on data about baselines of normal behavior within populations, so
that abnormal behavior may be clearly distinguished, but there are few data about
violence, for example, in Arab- and Muslim-American populations. In order to conduct
timely, appropriate risk assessments, law enforcement must have access to information
on minority communities, what their experiences suggest in terms of motivations and
behavior, and effective engagement with these communities and their citizens.
It was generally agreed that previous attempts to offer alternative models of information
management to intelligence agencies and/or law enforcement have been viewed as
unworkable, and that this problem deserves additional attention on the part of social
scientists who deal with artificial intelligence networks, modeling of information
systems, human cognition, and human perception under conditions of stress and duress.
Such work is currently underway. Notably, such a system would have to be created and
evaluated with the full partnership of those agencies that need and might use such a
system.
If multiple agencies (law enforcement, child protective services) become involved with a
family, clearly there is a need for some level of collaboration or at least communication
to avoid inadvertent, negative effects on the family and any investigation underway.

22

Scenario 3a: Without links to the local Muslim community, police receive an anonymous
call about a conversation in a local mosque about plans to attack an American city.
A city police department of a medium size U.S. city received an anonymous telephone call
to their published but non-emergency number. The caller reported overhearing a
conversation that took place in a local mosque regarding a plan to attack an American
city. The caller identified the mosque but did not provide the names or indicate if he
knew the people having the conversation. However, he expressed his confidence that the
individuals having this conversation hate the United States and have the ability to commit
a terrorist act. No law enforcement agency has any confidential source within the mosque
and the police department does not have a confidential source or cooperating witness
within the Islamic community. At least one concern of the police department is how to
develop assets or informants within this community.
Problem and general comment: The issue of the relationship between law enforcement
and the Muslim- and Arab-American communities was central to the conference. In
some sense, the issue posed by this question goes to the heart of the strategy of terrorism,
which is to alienate a people from its government.
Strategies: Discussions of the relationship between law enforcement and these particular
communities focused on how these two entities view each other and what each perceives
the usefulness of the other to be. Law enforcement agencies tend to view these
communities as relative unknowns and in terms of what information they can provide that
is relevant to terrorist activities or persons. Whereas people within these communities
sometimes view law enforcement as threatening – especially those who are more recent
immigrants – generally, they have a positive view of the local police and identify with the
larger American public.
For law enforcement to function more effectively with these groups for
information-gathering purposes, the following recommendations were made:
X Law enforcement should create a mechanism to meet regularly with the community.
The Community Affairs Officer of the New York City Police Department was viewed as
a good model. (See also Appendix 3, “Community Policing Models.”) The law
enforcement contact here should not be in a rotational assignment, but should be a longterm resident of the larger community. It may be less important that this officer be a
member of the targeted community than that he or she be viewed as a member of the
larger community because it is the larger community with which people in the targeted
community identify. For example, if the targeted community members are MuslimAmericans in Staten Island, the contact need not be a Muslim-American living in Staten
Island as much as a New Yorker because members of the targeted community identify
themselves as New Yorkers. Ideally, as well, the law enforcement contact should feel
personal commitment and identify with this larger community, either because they grew
up there or because they have family members within the community.

23

X The need is to establish a specifically trained group of local and/or state law
enforcement officers who have the mission (and the resources) to learn about Islamic
cultures and to establish the kinds of relationships that foster mutual trust, cooperation,
and regard – as well as the sharing of potentially useful/vital information. Depending on
the locale and circumstances, these officers would also attend to specific groups
operating in their jurisdictions that are thought to be at risk for supporting or fomenting
acts of international or domestic terrorism.
X The immediate goals would be to develop the relevant kinds of expertise, begin
addressing a current climate of mistrust between law enforcement and many persons from
the Islamic world, and begin effective collaboration among relevant federal and local law
enforcement agencies operating within the same jurisdictions.
X Given that the FBI may not have the opportunity to develop such long-term and close
relationships with targeted communities, it needs to adopt alternative strategies. These
might include:
Increasing the number of citizens academies, where local FBI personnel hold
a series of classes and discussion groups to which community leaders (corporate,
civic, religious) are invited. These academies offer the FBI a way of describing
its role and its needs to the community, and helping the community identify with
law enforcement.
The Boston FBI Office instituted a Citizen’s Academy in the spring of
1998, bringing together prominent civic, business, education, and financial
leaders for seminars.
Being invited by local law enforcement (such as Community Affairs Officer
or the local beat cop) to speak to community gatherings such as those that are in
churches, schools, and sports events.
Speaking at educational institutions, not just to provide information, but also
to be open about seeking information and help, and to explain the problems and
needs of law enforcement. People like to be asked to help.
In October 1998, the Boston FBI Office adopted South Boston’s Patrick F.
Gavin Middle School. The FBI’s Adopt-A-School Program is a 16-week
Junior Special Agent and Mentoring Program that provides a youth
program in which targeted sixth-grade students are counseled, instructed,
and mentored by Boston FBI employees, with the intent of raising levels
of expectation, improvement of school performance, and instilling a
respect for law enforcement.
Partnering with personnel from Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
and from local law enforcement to meet regularly with immigrants in the local
community. The FBI contact – who ideally would be assigned to these duties for

24

an extended period of time – would help explain the laws and regulations to these
new members of the community and would come to be viewed as a resource
rather than only as a police agent whose presence signals trouble.
Consider using a strategy that was viewed as successful in NYC with the
Muslim-American community who became distrustful after learning of apparent
harassment of African Americans in housing projects. NYPD engaged in a series
of role-playing exercises with Muslim-American youth in local mosques where
the youth played the part of the police and the police, the youth.
X The contact person should know the important cultural rules of the targeted
community, especially those that involve forms of greetings and the rules around social
interactions. This might involve training officers to distinguish among Muslim cultures
and religious groups. However, whereas the contact person should be sensitive to the
religious and social mores of the targeted community, they should not view members of
the targeted community as anything but fellow Americans, and they should avoid labels
and interactions that signal otherwise.
It should not be assumed that information about the Muslim- and Arab-American
communities must be provided by members of those communities. In some sense, an
intimate knowledge of a culture takes many years to acquire. However, much can be
learned about the history and culture of one group of people from those who are scholars
of the group (e.g., social anthropologists, historians) even though they may not be
members of it. This certainly can be the case if the need is to know basic rules of social
interaction and etiquette.4 Any scholar of Arab or Muslim history would know how to
recommend avoiding some of the errors already made (e.g., the use of terms like “evil,”
“crusade” and more recently the Attorney General’s use of the Responsible Collaborator
Program [“collaborator” translated into Arabic comes close to meaning “traitor”]).
X Both the police and the FBI should develop relationships with social agencies whose
primary functions are not law enforcement, such as the PTA, mental health agencies,
child welfare agencies, and agencies that help the homeless. These agencies are not
usually concerned with inter-group conflicts and tensions; however, as preexisting
entities and because their members and constituents are located within the community,
they can be used as vehicles for getting the law enforcement/FBI agenda out to the
community.
X Law enforcement should try to understand the fault lines within a community. That is,
when there is a crisis, who is likely to be perceived as vulnerable or culpable? If these
4

The important point was made that if the stated goal is to try to understand the terrorists of 9/11 as
apparent members of Arab and/or Muslim communities, that assimilated Muslim- and Arab-Americans
(much less Christian Arab-Americans, which are the majority) do not "understand" Osama bin Laden any
better than non-Arab scholars of (for example), militant Islamic movements. The Islamic terrorist
community is the Islamic terrorist community, not the Muslim community nor the Arab community, much
less the Arab-American community. Islamic terrorist communities have more in common with other
terrorist movements, such as the Tamil Liberation Tigers, than they do with Muslim-Americans.

25

individuals are identified solely on the basis of race, class or sex, then the community is
more likely to view the response on the part of law enforcement as being unjust and
unfair.
X The FBI and other law enforcement should be open about errors and mistakes that are
made in interactions with community members, and offer as much explanation as
possible, on an individual basis. They should not rely on media coverage for this.
X If information is sought from a community member, the following guidelines are
recommended:
When law enforcement agents approach community members for information,
they should be as transparent as possible about their needs and what they are
looking for.
Similarly, law enforcement agents must be clear to the members of the
community what the laws are, and changes in laws must be stated clearly and
loudly as soon as they occur, even if these new laws are likely to further alienate
the community members (because secrecy alienates them even more).
When practicable, interviewing community members should be done in a
neutral location, not in the person’s home and not in FBI or police headquarters.
When appropriate, law enforcement agents interviewing members of the
ethnic group associated with the terrorist acts should inform those individuals that
they can have an attorney or trusted community leader present (and if the person
decides to do so, this should not be viewed as evidence of guilt).
Law enforcement agents should know that if they ask most immigrants if
anyone in their family is known to have minor immigration violations, most
people will answer, “yes” if they are being honest. This immediately creates a
problem: The agent may not be able to ignore this information, and the
community member risks informing on family members for activities not related
to terrorism and may as well be put in legal jeopardy themselves. Given the high
incidence of minor visa infractions within many recent immigrant communities, it
is recommended that the Department of Justice consider developing policies that
facilitate acquiring relevant terrorism information from people who know others
or who themselves have minor visa difficulties.
Law enforcement agents who are interacting with community members should
be cognizant of information (including rumors) that the community has about past
apparent grievances (e.g., a case where a man who is viewed as having killed an
Arab-American is known to be living free in Israel). Even if no action is taken to
address the grievance, at least the agents will be seen as aware of the problems
and concerns of the community.

26

X Interactions with targeted communities should not be just to gain information, but also
to reiterate and provide evidence that law enforcement is there to protect members of the
community from attack by other citizens. Behavioral scientists have documented the
general human tendency to take more notice of bad things happening than of nothing bad
happening, or even of good things happening. It is important that law enforcement and
other government agents help to identify examples where citizens and law enforcement
personnel have engaged in exemplary behaviors which demonstrate their good will to
members of the community that may be feeling alienated. These examples could be
shared with community leaders and the media. It was noted that in therapeutic settings,
psychiatrists and psychologists sometimes reveal something personal about themselves to
patients as a way of engendering trust. Law enforcement might use the same strategy by
sharing some of their own personal experiences with community members, as a way of
building rapport.
X The actions by President Bush and Secretary Powell to declare solidarity with MuslimAmericans have been viewed as very positive. Certain government officials and media
representatives have asked the Mulsim-American community to be proactive on the part
of Islam and educate the rest of America about the peaceful nature of Islam. Targeted
communities themselves have made concerted efforts to speak out via public speeches,
visiting local community functions, websites, letters, and word of mouth.5 It should be
recognized, however, that:
There is some tension created by such community action: the community is
self-labeling itself as separate, which further heightens its sense of alienation from
the larger American community with which it has (perhaps more so before 9/11)
identified; and

5

The view of some segments of the Muslim- and Arab-American communities is that their relationship
with law enforcement has been damaged by incidents that occurred after September 11. Importantly, these
incidents are not seen as inevitable outcomes of 9/11 by members of that community, but rather, as
apparently arbitrary results of policy decisions made by the Department of Justice and the Bush
Administration. Among the events that have been most troubling to some of these individuals are (a) by
September 15, the INS was granted the right to detain people without charges from 24 to 48 hours or
indefinitely if there were extenuating circumstances; (b) On September 21, 2001, an internal memo was
issued by Chief Immigration Judge Michel Creppy stating that the Attorney General had implemented
additional security procedures for certain cases in the Immigration Court. It stated that these procedures
require Immigration Judges to close the hearing to the public. Thus, special hearings were created that
were outside the usual legal system, and which could be neither confirmed nor denied in instances where a
family member, attorney or other concerned citizen inquired; these people also were not allowed to attend
these hearings; (c) the Patriot Act was passed, whereby people can be held for up to seven days without
being charged, or indefinitely if they are suspected of being even connected to a terrorist – this effectively
expanded the definition of who was considered a terrorist; (d) the Bureau of Prisons passed regulations
stating that it can eavesdrop on client-attorney conversations; current laws already allowed this without
statutory standard; (e) the INS passed a rule that even if someone is cleared of charges, it may hold them
without being charged during an INS appeal; (f) the Attorney General announced that the Department of
Justice wanted to interview 5000 Muslim-Americans across the country; (g) at the end of the day, so to
speak, a Muslim-American offering information to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies was
perceived by many other members of that community as just as likely to end up in jail as to walk away.

27

Many Arab-Americans are not Muslims and that those types of public
requests reflect the fact that the speakers do not have an appreciation for the
diversity of most Arab-American communities.
X There is some risk in the manner in which people from the Muslim- and ArabAmerican communities appear to have been targeted for intensive and continued scrutiny.
The critical characteristics of the profile of a terrorist have been made out to be gender
(male), age (young), and ethnicity (apparently Arab, or at least, not Caucasian), but of
course, these are not discriminating factors at all (most people with these characteristics
are not terrorists). It should be recognized that there also is a real danger of ignoring
other people who do not have these characteristics, who may actively support or
participate in terrorist acts and are able to escape detection because they do not fit the
prevailing profile. It is advised that profiles be based on behaviors as well as traits, and
that every effort should be taken to reduce false positive and false negative hits that
would result from using them. A concerted focus on Muslim- and Arab-Americans may
be shortsighted.
X Finally, previous instances of law enforcement/community interactions have shown
the following:
Victimization within these communities is likely to breed solidarity. In the
current context, the short-term indefinite detention policy can be predicted to seed
long-term discontent.
Law enforcement personnel may suffer an image problem as a result of the
way that new immigrants perceive law enforcement in their country of origin. If
they are accustomed to rough treatment back home, they may assume they will be
treated the same way here. It also is likely that any intimidation tactics used here
will pale by comparison to what they may have been exposed to in their country
of origin, so such tactics will likely backfire.
Most Muslim religious organizations in the U.S. view themselves as
Americans: Richard Reid’s mosque was cooperative with the police not because
they were antagonistic towards Reid, but because the mosque leaders wanted to
maintain a good public image.
It is useful to recognize that the openness of American society is our strength,
not just our vulnerability, and that this openness generates great loyalty among
Americans who come from very closed and heterogeneous societies.
X Evaluate the generality of models based on similar situations, such as those that come
from organized crime and community policing. (Examples of such models are described
in Appendix 3, “Community Policing Models”).

28

Implications for practice, training and research:
It would be useful to develop a program to assess just how isolated any group (club,
mosque, etc.) is, because isolation is more likely to encourage anti-American behaviors.
We could ask, for example, about the percentage of people who speak English, who work
in other than ethnic employment, whose children go to public schools, or who live in
mixed neighborhoods. This might be accomplished within a context of providing both
incentives and opportunities for integration or assimilation. Assimilation strategies could
include free English lessons, informal contact with government (including law
enforcement) organizations, improved neighborhood patrols and schools, and so on. The
extent to which a particular group took advantage of such opportunities would be a way
of measuring whether assimilation is valued.
It may be strategic to consider the implications of how counter-terrorism measures are
framed. If we operate under a war model, then certain things follow:
Community policing models may not be appropriate for dealing with targeted
communities, because these models assume a criminal justice view, where
targeted individuals are criminals.
The enemy is a large group or collection of groups, unified by some ideology.
A suspension of civil liberties of certain groups is sure to occur.
Civil liberties for the populace at large are sure to be affected.
We have to deal with the question of a war between whom? Who are the
“good” and who are the “bad”?
We have framed counter-terrorism as a political issue (rather than a criminal
one) in large part because of the immensity of the threat (especially considering
the possibility of weapons of mass destruction), but also because of the amount of
resources we are allocating. The latter illustrates a tautology: It must be war
because we are acting like it is.
In some respects, counter-terrorism efforts may be considered similar to the
American war on drugs. Both are amorphous and ill-defined, and the enemy is
often unseen. Both are asymmetric, in that one side must use guerilla tactics
because the other had greater military strength. Both have been politicized, which
probably make them more difficult to win. That is, we have been inconsistent in
the war on drugs (e.g., trading with drug cartels for strategic purposes in
Nicaragua). On other respects, these are different. Terrorism reflects the larger
political problem of how America is viewed by the rest of the world.
Evaluate the generality of models based on similar situations, such as those
that come from organized crime and community policing.

29

Use the data we have about the men who attacked New York and Washington
on 9/11, as well as about Timothy McVeigh. Who knew these men? Who knew
their plans? If such people are identified, why did they not contact law
enforcement?

30

Scenario 3b: Law enforcement must evaluate hoax terrorist threats. They also must
construct media statements about possible threats and false alarms.
Investigators arrest an individual that has made several anonymous terrorist threats
directed toward a city facility. Substantial investigative and security enhancements have
occurred during the course of these threats. No financial or specific demands were ever
made but sufficient credibility was attributed to the caller's threats to generate a
significant investigative and security response, as well as a public notification and
closing of several city facilities. The subject was arrested at a public telephone in the act
of making his third related threat. It has been determined that he never intended nor had
the ability to carry out the events he threatened. Investigators involved in the case have
established rapport with the subject, and he has agreed to be interviewed. The subject
denies any history of mental illness or mental health treatment. City officials are asking
for law enforcement input to developing plans to prevent future hoax terrorist threats.
The responses to these threats have generated major media interest and daily reporting.
Problem: What are the likely motivations and behavioral issues that can be usefully
explored with the person here?
Strategies: Judgments about how to view this situation should include:
Assessment of the person’s perception of disadvantage and their explanatory
ideology or worldview;
Whether the person has a facilitating social network that may move them into
real action;
If they have immigrant status, determination of their fear of deportation;
Determination of their connection to their family either here or abroad;
Determination of the what social groups the individual associates with; if the
individual has a previous record, where and when were they incarcerated?
Problem: City officials are asking for law enforcement input to developing plans to
prevent future hoax terrorist threats. What kind of plan is most effective?
Strategies: A hoax threat can be identified as a hoax only to the extent that city officials
have information from law enforcement so as to adequately evaluate the situation. Direct
channels of communication should be established between city officials, law enforcement
and the media before an event occurs. A standard operating procedure for how to
evaluate the threat and how to alert the public via the media should be established.
The evaluation of incoming information is an issue here. The suggestions offered
earlier with regard to Scenario 1 might be useful.
The decision-making methodology described in Appendix 6 (Decision Trees)
offers a way of standardizing the responses to threats across agencies, and a way of
understanding how decisions to take a threat seriously or not, are made. Thus, this

31

method also allows for a systematic evaluation of threat assessment after the fact, so that
modifications in the decision-making process can occur on a regular basis as necessary.
Problem: What specific recommendations can be made regarding media releases, given
that these threats have generated major media interest and daily reporting?
Strategies:
X It is important to decide how messages to the public should be framed. Part of framing
is to decide whether to focus on risks and vigilance or on prevention, and then to frame
information in one format or the other. That is, do you want people to be vigilant and on
guard, or do you want them to be calm and behave as usual? Different levels of
instruction to the public can be within one context or the other, but which frame is used
should be recognized by those who construct the framing and be apparent to those who
read the messages.
X In interactions with the public and the media, law enforcement can point to events that
have been prevented in the past to make clear that conflict resolution strategies are in
place and are being successful, to reinforce their continued success. The public can be
persuaded with dramatic, personalized accounts of how attacks have been thwarted
(drama is a way to load a message with an emotional account, which greatly affects
processing and retention of information).
X In interactions with the public and the media, law enforcement should distinguish
between prevented events and lack of action. That is, if conflict resolution is successful,
then bad things don’t happen.
X Risk perception and communication is a function of both the speaker and the listener.
What both the listeners and the speakers know and believe should be assessed before any
message is delivered, so that it can be framed within those contexts.
Recommendations for the speakers:
Identify your valued outcomes (e.g., to make sure that the public is properly
alert for people whose activities might indicate some terrorist actions, and
specification of what priority this outcome holds).
Identify the contributing processes (e.g., making people alert will be a
function of previous history, such as degree of exposure and proximity to the
events of 9/11; degree of loss associated with such events; time since such events;
what previous such calls to action have been taken; cultural differences among the
public audience; cultural differences between the speaker and the public
audience).

32

Identify the relevant experts (e.g., engage experts in communication rather
than public officials who command attention because of their position; let the
message reflect those with the best estimates of risk or likelihood of terrorist
activities in that community).
Know what the beliefs, uncertainties, and controversies are among those who
are speaking. Seldom do even the experts all agree. Disagreements must be aired
and, sometimes, be part of the communication. If there is no expertise, it is
important to acknowledge this (for example, this might have been a better strategy
at the beginnings of the anthrax incidents).
Be as consistent as possible – with the caveat that it is better to admit mistakes
than to ignore them.
Find an independent audience to listen to the message and evaluate it for
comprehensibility and efficacy.
Points to know about an audience:
Current beliefs are the basis for future understanding. For example, in an
analysis of how best to communicate with the public in the event of tap water
contamination, it was found that many people thought that simply running the tap
for a long time would be sufficient to rid the water of pathogens, and that in the
event of water contamination, only cold tap water needed to be boiled. Thus, an
effective speaker will know what the audience already knows and believes.
People have limited cognitive capacity. For example, they are better
understanding a scale on one dimension than on two; they will remember a set of
instructions better if each step is associated with the letters of a familiar word.
Thus, keep the message simple.
People use robust but imperfect heuristics. For example, most people think
that there is some significant chance that they will win a state-wide or multi-statewide lottery, even though the odds are extremely low (and this is explicitly
stated); people think that if they get two heads in a row when they toss a coin, it is
more likely that the next coin toss will result in tails. This belief will affect what
people think about the likelihood of future events, such as more terrorist attacks
here in the United States: the longer since 9/11, the less likely more attacks are
likely to be considered possible.
Some concepts are inherently difficult. Low probability concepts are difficult
(as can be seen from the lottery example above). Random probability concepts
are difficult (as can be seen from the coin toss example above). Cumulative risk,
verbal qualifiers (such as “likely”), and experientially unfamiliar events also are
inherently difficult to understand. Avoid these concepts in delivering a message,
or anchor them in concepts that are well understood already.

33

Emotions both confound and support the understanding of risk. Information
that is coded within the context of emotions is likely to be remembered well, but
not accurately. Important aspects of the information will be lost or overshadowed
as a function of the emotional loading. The emotions that are most likely to be
elicited as a function of this country’s recent experiences with terrorism are fear
(direct and indirect effects of terrorism), frustration (with oneself as well as with
authorities), mourning, solidarity, and reflection (about oneself and society).
Consider the emotional content of the message, and whether it should be used to
increase the salience of the general message even though it will decrease
understanding of the details of the message.6

Implications for practice, training and research:
Research on the motivations of people who make vacuous threats is needed. Some of this
already exists within the U.S. Secret Service agency, which investigates more than 2000
cases involving threats or threatening behavior towards the President or another protectee
each year, and where fewer than 2.5% of such cases result in arrest.7 These data could be
used to provide behavioral profiles of the individuals that make terrorist-related threats,
which then could be made available to local law enforcement. This kind of research
could build on the model provided by previous instances of interactions between the
Secret Service and law enforcement that provided law enforcement and justice systems
with guides for forensic decision-making in areas of targeted violence.

6

These analyses of risk perception and communication come from a presentation of one of the Conference
participants, Professor Baruch Fischhoff, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon
University, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, titled “Science and Technology
in a Vulnerable World: Rethinking Our Roles.” The Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington D.C., April 1112, 2002.
7
Coggins, M., Reddy Pynchon, M., & Dvoskin, J. (1998). Integrating research and practice in federal law
enforcement: Secret Service applications of behavioral science expertise to protect the President.
Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16, 51-70.

34

Scenario 4: Three persons are arrested near a nuclear power plant; two refuse to talk
and the third (who recently traveled to Indonesia, Yemen and Germany) will talk.
Three individuals were arrested for trespassing near a nuclear power plant after having
been observed by plant security photographing and sketching the facility. The three
individuals have been separated and interviewed individually. Two individuals appear to
have limited English language skills. They have asked for an attorney and refuse to talk
with police. The third person has signed a waiver of Miranda and is fluent in English.
He has offered weak explanations about their purpose. A passport issued in Saudi
Arabia has been found along with information that he has traveled to Indonesia, Yemen
and Germany in the past two months. His interaction with investigators indicates he is
willing to keep talking to find out as much as he can about what the investigators know
and what his associates may have said.
Problem: How do we work out issues of jurisdiction? For example, here, should the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Immunization and Naturalization Service (INS)
be contacted immediately, as well as the FBI?
Strategies: It is recommended that agencies find a way to assure the necessary levels of
security clearance for front line responders who may need access to critical information.
The efforts by the FBI and CIA to create avenues of information exchange with local
police do not necessarily fit into the operating systems already in place. For example,
police officers may seek to protect their source of information, which means that they
cannot divulge their sources. This in turn means that the information coming from those
individuals cannot be adequately evaluated by anyone except those officers. Although
the FBI and the CIA have created system “tear lines,” below which unclassified
information can be freely exchanged, and “liaison officers” who can help evaluate
information, these may not have had much impact on the operating structure of most
local police departments.
Strategies: It may be appropriate that local police stations are instructed to contact their
regional FBI office, as well as the Department of Homeland Security.
Problem: How do we ensure that local law enforcement has access to all the necessary
languages needed to interrogate people in their own languages, as well as monitor what
these individuals might be saying to each other?
Strategies: A similar challenge exists in the medical profession. Physicians in the
Washington, DC area have a number to call that gives them access to 165 languages. The
same could be made available to police departments across the country. In this way, a set
of instructions about what law enforcement should ask of individuals engaged in such
suspicious behaviors could be made available.

35

Problem: How can we be sure that the procedures that we develop for security do not
also threaten individual rights, one of the hallmarks of the American justice system?
Strategies: Given the current laws of the United States, we could not detain people based
on the evidence given here. The INS could hold them only for as long as it would take
to establish their identity (which implies that the INS investigation should be instigated
immediately). In order to protect individual rights, we must ask the question of whether
we are creating procedures that will be evaluated as protecting our tradition of freedom
only if they work to deter terrorists. If people such as those in the scenario turn out to be
innocent, however, will these procedures mean that we are violating human rights?
Problem: How do we best interrogate such individuals?
Strategies: Conference participants suggested that effective practices on the part of the
interrogation team could include:
Fingerprinting the drawings to assess where they were pointing and then ask
the suspects why they were pointing to those spots.
Using interrogators who are disarming and good at getting others to talk.
Personality is very important in the interrogator. It may be that an American
simply could not develop sufficient rapport with a foreign visitor.
Exploring as many situational variables as possible: if a vehicle was used, was
it rented and were credit cards used? If so, what names do these cards carry and
do the individuals reside at the associated addresses?
Watching for denials and inconsistencies. In order to look for inconsistencies,
it is advisable to make transcripts and then have someone analyze them later.
Noting the order of events as they are described. The truth is likely to be less
chronological than lying.8
Knowing that the best strategy for a terrorist is to not discuss details because
details can be checked; thus, they may not have been given details, or even if they
have, they probably have been advised to stick to one brief story. Innocent
people, however, are likely to tell a lot of details.
8

Does lying look different in a different language? Psychologists have collected data on this question, but
they are limited in scope and the number of different languages investigated. (Some of these studies are
briefly described in Appendix 4, “Psychological evaluations of deception.”) These studies indicate that
people are good at detecting lying in people using a different language and coming from another culture. It
is possible to indicate lying across cultures by using gestures and to make people more likely to think that
you are lying by engaging in weird nonverbal behaviors, such as arm raising, head tilting, and staring.

36

Checking the travel itinerary. Did the others go to those countries as well, and
were any of them detained at any point?
Knowing that even in a well-trained person, being in the moment can take a
person off balance. Thus, it would be effective to implement interrogation
strategies soon after an arrest is made, when the person is most surprised and
emotionally charged. Delay will make it more likely that the person will have
time to construct a reasonable lie and practice it.
Implications for practice, training and research:
There is a need to create, simulate and evaluate an infrastructure for the people who will
be responsible in emergency situations. This requires:
Identification of who those people are (often, these are police or fire
departments, since they are local);
Setting up clean lines of authority and communication before the crisis occurs;
Creating communication lines that are independent of the general public so
that emergency workers can communicate even while cell phones are jammed,
and on the other hand, create ways for family members to contact each other even
when cell phone lines are jammed;
Using what social scientists already know about how best to communicate
information to the public: information should be as comprehensive and accurate
as possible, including admission of ignorance. It should be provided in
recognition that people inflate perceived dangers of disease, overestimate
problems initially and do not think in terms of long-term outcomes, especially
when under pressure to act quickly. However, people also adapt to situations that
are initially viewed as intolerable, in relatively short amounts of time (e.g., how
we have adapted to the high rates of automobile accidents in the U.S. and the high
possibility of sudden death from heart attacks);
Increasing the capacity for treatment of potential disease at local health
facilities apart from quarantine (during the anthrax incidents in 2001 and 2002,
many people did not want to leave the hospital because they felt safe there, thus
crowding the medical facilities);
Anticipating that there is a greater danger of imposing a useless quarantine
than of failing to impose an adequate quarantine, because official agents are afraid
of appearing careless or callous. This makes it likely that those who make the

37

decision will be viewed as incompetent. It also increases risk, because of the
“escape behaviors” that will occur when a quarantine is imposed.9
Making mental health professionals available for both the victims of the
disease and their caretakers;
Offering people coping strategies, such as gas masks, filters, hand washing
information that they can employ at no or little cost and with current technology.
These messages should be framed in terms of benefits, rather than risks; including
bioterrorist events in public education, along with other health information.
Taking advantage of large gatherings of people (e.g., football games) to offer
inoculations;
Making various vaccines and prophylactic medications available to the public
now to avert panic and give people a sense of control.
There is a need to develop rules for law enforcement in emergency situations as
well. These will include decisions as to whether law enforcement should be instructed to
shoot people who try to force their way into or out of quarantine areas subsequent to a
biological attack, and what constitutional rights (no loss of life and no loss of property)
and civil liberties should be ignored and under what circumstances (e.g., being in a
situation where one has to let some people die in order to save a larger group).
The Office of Homeland Security might consider making links to social service
agencies, as well as to the other groups with which it is already associated, to devise
some appropriate strategies.

9

Comments here were that in the event of an evacuation plan, most people will not follow the plan if it
means they cannot go find their family and that “the average guy is not going to stay put if it means
that he would be failing to protect his family.” A report also was offered of an event at B’nai B’rith
Hospital in Washington, DC, during the 2001-2002 anthrax threats. A quarantine imposed because of
a red Jell-O box found with a note saying, “anthrax.” People tried to escape and there was a lot of
trauma, even though the threat turned out to be a hoax. In fact, since humans are not a vector for
anthrax, the medically correct response would have been to let everyone go home.

38

Scenario 5: Improvised explosive device material is found in an apartment. The only
witness to activity there is an alcoholic in withdrawal.
Fire and rescue personnel respond to an explosion and subsequent fire in an apartment
building near an industrial section of the city. Arson investigators determine the cause
and origin to be detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) in a backpack near
or on the one deceased victim. Investigators found evidence that the detonated IED, and
other unrecovered IED's, were constructed in the apartment. Documents have also been
recovered that indicate that the resident of the apartment recently received inpatient
treatment at a mental health facility in a neighboring state. A neighborhood canvas
located one witness who observed several males in their early- to mid-20's carrying
backpacks leave the residence yesterday. The witness could not further describe the
individuals, stating that he only observed the people for a short period of time and did
not pay close attention to them. Their automobile may have been parked on the street but
the witness cannot be certain. The witness lives on the street and is in alcohol
withdrawal, having been unable to obtain alcohol in the past 48 hours.
Problem: How can law enforcement facilitate good reporting from individual citizens,
including those who might usually provide unreliable information (e.g., distressed
homeless persons, people who were inebriated when they saw the event)?
Strategies: Memories often exhibit what is called “state dependency.” That is, if an
event is perceived while someone is under the influence of a drug (e.g., alcohol), then it is
remembered better if the recall occurs under the same state (that is, while drinking). A
similar effect sometimes has been found to operate for moods – that is, memories also are
recalled better if the person is in the same mood they were in when they acquired the
memory. This poses a potential problem for effectively interviewing people with
histories of the abuse of alcohol or other drugs.
Problem: Can we identify the likely characteristics of suicide bombers in the Middle
East at present, ask how many of the same characteristics (especially, support structures)
might or do exist in the United States, and use these characteristics to identify people who
might be considered at risk? Similarly, can we use what is known about the men who
engaged in the attacks on the United States on 9/11, to offer a likely description of such a
terrorist?
Strategies: Data mining techniques might be useful here. The data mining technique is
useful when someone is confronted with a huge collection of individual items (e.g.,
telephone call narratives, case histories, medical histories, indices of aberrant behavior)
and needs these items be prioritized according to which should be pursued thoroughly. It
also allows the user to find patterns of behavior that are almost impossible for the human
observer to perceive. Importantly, then, this is not just a technique that is faster than a
human. It is a technique that allows a human to view aspects of a large data set that they

39

otherwise would not be able to see, and to discover interesting associations among data in
the database. 10 (Some examples of this technique are in Appendix 5, “Data Mining
Methodology.”)
Problem: How can law enforcement create standard operating procedures that could be
provided to local and regional offices to use when an event like that described in the
scenario occurs?
Strategies: Most real-life decisions involve multiple decision stages – that is, a sequence
of actions that are taken over time. Each action results in some consequence, which then
affects the next action. During the past 30 years, decision researchers have learned a
great deal about the basic principles of multistage decisions, which are represented in
terms of a decision tree. (An example of a decision tree is provided in Appendix 4,
Decision Tree Methodology.) The creation of a decision tree requires the collaboration of
a technical advisor with those who are the recipients of the incoming information (and
will use the decision tree). However, once such a tree is established, using it requires
relatively little technical skill, so that it can be broadly applied.
It is important to note that decision trees, like data mining techniques, serve only
to report to the user, who then makes a final decision regarding action and follow-up. It
is important also to recognize that the use of these techniques can be effective while
maintaining much of the privacy of the person or persons who supplied the information,
thereby not violating civil liberties of the populace at large and protecting important
sources of information.
Implications for practice, training and research
This scenario is an instance where it appears as if the social sciences have the necessary
and useful tools, and law enforcement and intelligence have the data. Research is needed
on how to:
Provide social scientists with the data without compromising security, and
Implement these research tools within the local and national cultures of law
enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Social scientists in Israel have collected data pertinent to the Palestinian suicide
bombers.11 Research in the United States is needed to understand whether similar
conditions exists in this country, and whether such conditions might develop in the
future. Research also is needed as to whether the 19 attackers of September 11 shared
characteristics with the Palestinian suicide bombers.
10

Data mining comes from analyses of self-organizing map (SOM) networks, one of the most important
network architectures developed during the 1980s. The main function of SOM networks is to map the input
data from an n-dimensional space to a lower dimensional (usually one or two-dimensional) plot while
maintaining the original topological relations. Therefore, it can be viewed as an analog of factor analysis.
11
McCauley, C. (in press). Understanding the 9/11 perpetrators: crazy, lost in hate, or martyred? In N.
Matuszak (Ed.), History behind the headlines, Vol. 5. Farmington Place, MI: Gale Publishing Group.

40

Scenario 6 (a-c): How can law enforcement build effective ties to local Muslim
communities, and what can these communities do to mobilize their members to speak out
against terrorism?
(a) FBI behavioral specialists have been requested to provide a local police department
and field office with specific recommendations to improve trust and cooperation within
their large Muslim community. There already have been two incidents of violent
retaliation against members of the Muslim community. These incidents, a homicide and
violent physical assault, remain unsolved. Both incidents are being actively investigated
by the FBI and local police, yet there is very limited cooperation from the victims'
families and the community.
(b) The wealthier families and the Imam of a moderate Muslim mosque are discussing
ways to attract and keep youth involved in religious and community activities. Many of
the community's young people have latched onto other charismatic speakers in mosques
who preach a strident, yet more hopeful sense of rules and order to the basic
interpretation of the Koran.
The families and the moderate Imam are wondering what is the best way to
mobilize the international Muslim community to speak out against abuses of the Koran
and negative perceptions of mainstream Islam. They are also wondering how the
mainstream Muslim community might help in deterring the development of extremist
ideas in mosques.
During this period of time, threats have been made to moderate and mainstream
Muslims. They are being accused of "watering down" the Koran. Several of the
moderates within the Muslin community received various damage to their cars and
homes.
(c) Members of the Muslim community are being harassed and victimized but are
reluctant to report these crimes to the police. In regards to community policing issues,
what strategies can the police use to build effective communications between the Muslim
community and the local, state, and federal agencies? Do the strategies depend on the
gender, age, and education of the community members?
Discussion notes regarding Scenarios 6a, b and c are presented together because of the
similarity of the remarks.
Problem: What can the FBI do to enhance its image with the public in general and with
the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities in particular?
Strategies: Ideally, good relationships with local communities are established before the
community becomes a focal point for investigation or for protection against hate crimes.
It is important to note that a long history of a good relationship between law enforcement

41

and specific communities can be negated almost instantaneously with some real or
perceived breach of faith on the part of law enforcement. In a real sense, law
enforcement seldom gets a second chance, once such a misunderstanding occurs.
Description of a training program for law enforcement agencies is provided in
Appendix 7, “Training Guide for Hate Crime Program.”
Outreach initiatives should include:
X Providing information:
Information should be as accurate as possible, and the manner of presentation
should be as consistent as possible.
If erroneous information is provided, this should be admitted and corrected as
soon as possible.
Law enforcement’s tendency to offer “no comment” in response to inquiry is
almost always taken as evidence that it is trying to hide something from the
community. An alternative response should be crafted, that is individually suited
to the particular issue at hand.
It also can be effective to admit mistakes, in order to provide a basis for
asking for help. The effectiveness of such a strategy may be related to the fact
that it gives the public a perception that it is an active partner in the process, and
not just an entity that is acted on.
It should be recognized that humans have what is called a negativity bias.
That is, they are more affected by bad things happening than by good things
happening. The psychological distance is even greater between bad things
happening and nothing happening (examples of “Psychological Evaluations of
Negativity Bias” are given in Appendix 8). This means that information about the
protections or other service that the FBI and other law enforcement has provided
will not be counted as much or remembered as well as what is done poorly. It
would be useful to reiterate successes as often as possible, both when they occur
and when failures occur.
X Knowing and understanding the perspective of the community towards law
enforcement and other U.S. government agencies. From the political perspective, there
appears to be a significant tendency for the actions of U.S. government agencies to be to
affected by political contributions. Here, this means (to the Arab-American and MuslimAmerican communities) that some groups which should have been shut down after 9/11
were not, whereas those with less political clout were. In discussions with these
communities, law enforcement should be aware of these controversial points and show
sensitivity towards their negative impact.

42

X The community can be contacted via local organizations and groups, including
schools.
X Ideally, law enforcement develops a regular and ongoing outreach initiative, rather
than an erratic one that appears to be responding only to the crisis of the moment. The
model of the beat cop is a good one, although this may be precluded for personnel who
are rotational.
X The lack of FBI presence in most communities – unlike the police – means that people
interpret its presence as “bad news,” rather than as potentially helpful or protective. This
means that the FBI might best work with local law enforcement in communities where it
otherwise is not often present.
X Law enforcement should know that whatever side they embrace, that side might have
its credibility with the larger community compromised. This is a cost of law enforcement
engaging in a public partnership with a community group, which should be considered
before such a strategy is used. Ideally, the potential for such compromise would be
determined before the partnership is considered or made public.
X There was some consensus that the relations with FBI are the good, and that mistrust is
limited to a fairly narrow segment of the Arab-American population. The FBI should
consider taking advantage of, and nurturing relationships with, the majority of ArabAmericans who are willing to trust the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. These
people also are those from whom agents can be recruited.
X See also discussion of Scenarios 1 and 3a.
Problem: What might be the expected impact of the long-term detention policies of
various suspects on the relationship of the Arab-American and Muslim-American
communities with law enforcement?
Strategies: Victimization within the Arab-American community is likely to breed
solidarity. In the current context, use of the indefinite detention policy can be predicted
to seed long-term discontent.
Problem: What can law enforcement and intelligence do to discourage Americans from
joining fundamentalist groups with anti-government agenda?
Strategies: It was recommended that law enforcement conduct information campaigns
that emphasize the:
Disapproval and even condemnation of such movements by respected
Muslim leaders and theologians (thus reducing the cognitive dissonance caused
by opposing or reporting terrorists).

43

Number of Arabs and Muslims who died in the WTC, Pentagon, and other
Islamic terrorist attacks (other than the terrorists themselves, of course, thus
emphasizing in-group solidarity).
Backlash against the larger communities from which the terrorists come,
making their lives more difficult.
The greater probability of success of nonviolent strategies for influencing
government policy and public opinion (reciprocity norms).
Problem: How likely is it that Muslim-American and Arab-American communities will
be assimilated into mainstream American culture, especially as the number of individuals
in these communities grows?
Strategies: Muslims do not need to do much assimilating to get along in U.S. society
because Americans expect very little in the way of conforming behavior. However,
Arabs living in America may feel like they are living in enemy territory because of the
way the United States has positioned itself in the Arab-Israeli conflict. This may serve to
produce conflicts within Arab-Americans who see the United States at war with their
country, and will make it increasingly difficult for law enforcement to enlist the aid of
these communities in counter-terrorism efforts.
Implications for practice, training and research:
Additional research is needed on the extent to which religion was important to the actions
of the 19 men who attacked on 9/11, as opposed to the social, economic, political and
historical conditions that are characteristic of the countries from which they came.
Additional research is needed on the variations of the practice of fundamental Islam as a
function of world region: for example, do the same conditions exist in India and
Indonesia, which also contain large Muslim populations?
As much as possible, this research must be longitudinal, so as to avoid making
conclusions based on only a recent or current analyses of the situation, given that the
social, economic and political conditions of many regions of the world are changing at a
fast rate. To this end, historians and political scientists must be engaged in the research
endeavor.

44

Scenario 7: Effective interview strategies for relatives, friends, or acquaintances of
terrorists or suicide bombers.
Officers and agents are sent overseas to interview relatives, friends, and/or
acquaintances of terrorists and/or suicide bombers. Identify interview strategies to be
utilized with Middle Eastern women, children, and/or relatives of terrorists (e.g.,
nonverbal behaviors, cultural practices, communication styles, gender differences, etc.).
Do these strategies differ depending on the outcome of the terrorist acts (e.g., attempted
terrorist acts vs. accomplished suicide terrorist, etc.)?
Problem: How can we ensure that we have access to reliable information in cases where
the sources of information are overseas?
Strategies: In instances of collecting information from sources that are overseas:
X There should be a mechanism for dealing with the turnover of overseas personnel; for
example, have overlap from one Legal Attaché to the next so that the next person gets the
benefit of the prior appointee there and can meet people through that person.12
X Overseas agents should be aware of the fact that the United States is viewed as a
country that cooperates based on a particular situation (like the current terrorism
situation) but disappears when its issue is resolved. Middle Eastern countries have a
moderate feeling of betrayal when someone comes in and out of their country for shortterm goals.
X Law enforcement agents who operate overseas should be prepared for encountering
more closed societies than in the United States.
X Law enforcement agents should be aware that the expertise of “knowing how to
investigate” (which the FBI has) is different than “knowing about a specific country”
(which the FBI may not have).
X Law enforcement agents should be aware that we are establishing relationships with
other countries now (because of American counter-terrorism efforts) that would
otherwise not exist, and this raises additional questions such as to what extent can we
trust agencies with whom we otherwise would not share information, and how can we
maintain some control over information that is shared?
12

One conference participant noted that, in the United States, with its varied ethnic communities, there are
likely to be people who would be willing (or could be effectively encouraged) to take on an important
position like this for extended periods of time. In the USAF, there are many who desire to remain at
particular overseas locations, sometimes because of marriage, but also sometimes because they embrace the
culture. He recalled comments about the Army's catastrophic rotation policies during portions of the
Vietnam War--just as platoon and company commanders became seasoned and effective (and earned this
badge or that ribbon), they were replaced by "green" commanders.

45

Problem: How should such interviews be conducted?
Strategies:
X Before the interview:
When practicable, interviewing community members should be done in a
neutral location; alternatively, one can change the environment depending on the
goal of the interview: if the person is considered a suspect, provide an
uncomfortable environment; if the goal is to gain information about a specified
third party, or general information about unknown persons, provide a comfortable
environment.
Call before coming to the individual’s home, and avoid going to their place of
work if possible.
Avoid going to a person’s home in the dark.
Be a plain clothed agent, with a discreet but clearly identifiable badge, so that
neighbors or coworkers don’t know what is happening.
Know the rules and nuances of the culture of the person being interviewed,
especially of rules that are differentiated on the basis of gender. Understand what
important nonverbal behaviors exist for that particular culture. For example, what
is the personal space allowed between strangers, between friends, or between men
and women?
Know the attitudes of that person’s community as expressed verbally. One
person’s “suicide bomber” is another person’s “martyr.”
X The course of the interview:
Avoid expressing one’s own bias (e.g., sympathy or distress) until it is
determined how the community members feel about the person who is being
interviewed or about whom information is being sought. Recognize that emotions
may be complex: the family members of the men who attacked New York and
Washington on 9/11 were likely to feel both anguish and pride. In some respects,
the greater the grief, the greater the need to take pride (in order to support and
justify the loss).
Begin with whole family present, and then see if any individual member
appears to want to provide more information, apart from the family;

46

Understand that most people who are being interviewed want to help, despite
what group they apparently belong to;
If people think that they are part of a screening process, rather than being
treated as a friendly source, they are less likely to cooperate.
Be fully briefed before the interview, with relevant data from FBI, CIA, INS,
etc., and with data from various sources cross-referenced.
X Information to be sought and given via interviews:
Whether the person who perpetrated the attack was considered part of the
family – i.e., in touch with the family;
Whether the person felt as if they had alternative behaviors available to them,
or did they feel stuck in that pursuit?
How does the family regards this person? Are they proud, or ashamed? Do
they distance themselves from the person?
Sometimes it may be useful to remind the party, or at least offer for their
consideration, the possibility that they may be being used by the larger cause.
X Have experts (including anthropologists, State Department) put together a DO’s and
DON’T’s bullet point sheet describing these rules. Provide these to local law
enforcement agencies, not just FBI or other regional agencies.
Problem: What are the best tactics of finding terrorists?
Strategies: Long-term, there are three possibilities: accidental discovery, interrogating or
screening an entire community (as the British did with the IRA), or detaining entire
communities (as the Americans did for the Japanese). Corresponding to the latter two,
law enforcement runs the risk of “frying the little fish and losing the big fish” (there may
be some parallel with anti-drug campaigns).
Both screening and detention run the risk of alienating the very people that are
needed to help. The paradox is that the more you treat a certain group as a stereotype, the
more they will conform to that stereotype. The British found that with the IRA, when
someone was harassed, jailed, or killed, there was a corresponding increase in sympathy
for the IRA from the community commensurate with the extent of the event.

47

Implications for practice, training and research
There is an increasing number of methods for detecting lies that appear to be crosscultural. These include using facial expressions as clues to deception13 and establishing a
baseline behavior of which the interviewee is unaware, changes in which can then be
used to assess the truthfulness of responses to set questions.14 These methods need to be
evaluated in the situations in which law enforcement and intelligence agencies encounter
potential informants.
Data on the differences between those who are willing to risk their lives for a political or
moral ideology and those who are not, are available by review of combat training
protocols and the men and women who go through them. Rather than view the suicide
bomber as a relatively aberrant person, we might consider that he or she has much in
common with members of the armed forces that agree to put themselves in positions of
great risk – and especially with individuals who have engaged in activities that were
viewed as highly lethal. What can these people tell us about their motivations, fears, and
support groups that were important to their behaviors? How might their behaviors be
investigated so as to provide an understanding of the differences between the hero/martyr
and the soldier who is not willing to put himself or herself at such risk?

13

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial
clues. NY: Prentice-Hall; Ekman, P. & Friesen, W. (1978). The Facial Action Coding System. Palo Alto,
CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
14
Sokolov, E. N; Cacioppo, J. T. (1997). Orienting and defense reflexes: Vector coding the cardiac
response. Lang, P. J. & Simons, R. F. (Eds.); et al. , Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational
processes, pp. 1-22. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

48

Additional issues for practice, training and research
There were many questions and issues raised either in discussions that were tangential to
the scenario focus sessions, or in the plenary session that occurred at the end of the
conference day. These included:
Can we characterize the relationship between culture and religion for the Saudis and
Palestinians in the same manner as we do for that relationship among Americans?
How can we make use of someone who has family or other close contacts with terrorist
groups?
How can law enforcement most effectively deal with the various culturally determined
attitudes about women that might be found in Muslim-American communities? How
might this limit or affect the efficacy of women officers?
How should response on the part of the teacher and law enforcement (in the instance of
scenario 2c) depend on the country of origin of the child? How might we educate people
both to know more about countries from which terrorists are likely to emerge, or – given
the international characteristics of such – to look for indices that cross cultural
boundaries?
How can we document the experiences and views of recent Arab- and Muslim-American
immigrants?
How might law enforcement might make use of the U.S.A. Freedom Corps?
How can we document the integration practices and outcomes in European communities?
How can we document how Arab- and Muslim-American communities deal with crime
within their communities?
What happens to people (psychologically and socially) when they inform on someone in
their own community?
Does admitting vulnerability engender trust? How can law enforcement agents use this
strategy, if it is effective, without compromising important information?
What are the effects of the U.S. policy position towards Israel on the Arab-American
community?
What is the role of misogyny in fundamental religious groups (especially, fundamental
Islam)?

49

How do terrorists cope with multiple, and perhaps quite conflicting, motivations? The
empirical evidence suggests that, like soldiers, they may be troubled by the acts of
violence they feel necessary to their cause.
Some cultures are explored more than others, some almost not at all. Cross-cultural
research needs to increase, but with attention as to how it grows and what cultures
become better understood in comparison to the parent cultures in which most
psychologists reside.
A phenomenon that may be grossly under explored by psychology is diaspora or "longdistance" nationalism. Long-distance nationalism provides funding for a number of
violent (as well as non-violent and charitable) organizations, both with and without
contributors' knowledge.
How will the strategies the FBI and police utilize to build effective communication
between the Muslim- and Arab-American communities and the local, state, and federal
agencies, depend on the gender, age, and education of the community members, or the
gender, age and education of the law enforcement agent?
Where within the United States might there be conditions that would support suicide
bomb attacks of the sort that are part of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis?

50

Conference Participants
Catherine B. Ahmad: FBI, Washington, DC.
Larry G. Ankrom: Behavioral Assessment Unit, West Region, NCAVC, FBI Academy,
Quantico, VA.
Stephen Band: Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Lara Baranowski: FBI, Washington, DC.
Constance Barrett: FBI, Washington, DC.
Stephen Behnke: Ethics, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Robert L. Benson: Office of Security, NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, MD.
Bev: CIA, Langley, VA.
Kristen R. Beyer: Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources
Center, NCAVC, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
George Bonanno: Department of Psychology, Columbia Teachers College, New York, NY.
Charles F. Bond Jr.: Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University,
Fort Worth, TX.
Susan E. Brandon: Science Directorate, American Psychological Association,
Washington, DC.
Alan C. Brantley: Behavioral Assessment Unit, West Region, FBI Academy, Quantico,
VA.
Frank Cilluffo: Office of Homeland Security, Washington, DC.
Charlotte A. Council: Philadelphia Police Department; currently in Leadership,
Management and Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Laurence A. Cove: OTI/VIDMAC, Washington, DC.
Dave Crane: Counter-terrorism Division, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Edward F. Davis: Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Raymond Davis: Criminal Investigations, Stafford County Sheriff’s Office,
Stafford, VA.
Dickson S. Diamond: FBI, Washington, DC.
Jonathan Drummond: Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Victoria M. Esses: Department of Psychology, Social Science Centre, The University of
Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
Stephen Etter: Behavioral Assessment Unit, East Region, NCAVC, Quantico, VA.
Baruch Fischhoff: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
James R. Fitzgerald: Behavioral Assessment Unit, East Region, NCAVC, FBI Academy,
Quantico, VA.
Joseph D. Foelsch, Jr.: FBI NY Brooklyn-Queens RA; Brooklyn, NY.
Sy Frenkel: (formerly) Defense Intelligence Agency
Deborah Frisch: Decision, Risk and Management Sciences, The National Science
Foundation, Arlington, VA.
Barry Galfano: Emergency Service Unit, Edwards Hall, Floyd Bennet Field, Brooklyn, NY.
Melvin Gravitz: George Washington University, Washington, DC.
James Griffin: Social and Behavioral Sciences, Office of Science and Technology Policy,
Washington, DC.
Rebecca Hackney: Arlington County Police Department, Arlington, VA.

51

Khalil Jahshan: National Association of Arab-Americans, Washington, DC.
Heather Kelly: Science Public Policy Office, American Psychological Association,
Washington, DC.
Harry Kern, Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Stephen Khoobyarian: Security Battalion, Marine Corps Base, Quantico, VA.
Kate Kilham: Professional Development Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Robert Kinscherff: Law and Psychiatry Service, Massachusetts General Hospital; Boston
Juvenile Court Clinic; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Arie Kruglanski: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
George Loewenstein: Department of Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA.
Ian Lustick: Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Martin Lustick: Operations for the Mid- Atlantic Permanente Medical Group,
Washington, DC.
Carlos Maldinado: New Mexico State Police, currently at Leadership, Management and
Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Clark McCauley Jr.: Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania; Solomon
Asch Center, Philadelphia, PA.
James McEniry: Emergency Service Unit, Edwards Hall, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY.
Faith Mitchell: Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National
Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council, Washington, DC.
James Mitchell: CIA, Langley, VA.
Geoffrey K. Mumford: Science Public Policy Office, American Psychological
Association, Washington, DC.
Kenneth Myers: Professional Development Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Eric Niederman: Transportation Security Agency, FAA, Washington, DC.
Brendan O’Leary: Department of Government at the London School of Economics and
Political Science; Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA.
Keith Perrigan: ATSAIC/USSS Intelligence Division, Washington, DC.
Anthony J. Pinizzotto: Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Stephen Romano: FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit, NCAVC, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Carol S. Rosenblum: CTC Senior Psychologist, Potomac, MD.
Marc Ross: Department of Political Science, Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia, PA.
Paul Rozin: Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania; Solomon Asch
Center, Philadelphia, PA.
Denyse Sabagh: Attorney and Counsel, National Association of Arab-Americans,
Washington, DC.
Eldar Shafir: Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, NJ.
Kareem W. Shora: Legal advisor, National Association of Arab-Americans,
Washington, DC.
Michael W. Smith: State Department, Arlington, VA.
Marla Sommerstein: American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Peter Suedfeld: Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, British Columbia.

52

Howard Timm: Defense Personnel Security Research Center, Monterey, CA.
Karl St. Valsson: Iceland Federal Police, currently at Leadership, Management, and
Science Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA.
Barbara Wanchisen: The Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive
Sciences, Washington, DC.
David O’Neil Washington: APA Congressional and Executive Branch Fellow,
Washington, DC.
Ron Wasson: Emergency Service Unit, Edwards Hall, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY.

53

Appendix 1: Information Management and Evaluation
Information Management and Evaluation Systems – an example
The words that people use in communication are ill suited to standard word-based
search engines. Frequently, new uses are invented for old words, ambiguous terms are
used (the word “strike,” for example, has more than 80 definitions), and multiple words
are used to refer to the same idea. People also constantly categorize, but these categories
are unstable both from individual to individual and from time to time, depending on the
user’s needs and interests. In short, human language is fuzzy and it requires fuzzy tools to
deal with its meaning.
The problem is that most knowledge management tools are based not on how
people use words, but on a symbolic approach to documents, where each word in a
document is a symbol with a discrete and specific meaning. As a result, document
retrieval systems that depend on the presence of exact words fail to retrieve relevant
documents.
Biomimetic information management systems provide those fuzzy tools by using
neural networks and other soft-computing techniques that emulate the way biological
brains work. These systems also are self-organizing and do not require the laborious
construction of rigid, expensive, prestructured rule bases. The result is an ad hoc
categorization system that adapts itself to the intelligence problem at hand. The
technology learns the meanings of words from the documents it indexes and can
recognize the relevance of particular words or phrases based on their meaning. For
example, if an investigator wants to search a document for the word “undercover,” the
system will not only indicate each place that the word “undercover” is used but also will
find phrases such as “secret agent” or “covert operative.” These systems are
independent of the language in which the documents being searched are written.
Kintsch, W. & Keenan, J. (1973). Reading rate and retention as a function of the
number of propositions in the base structure of sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 257274.
Barsalou, L. W. (1987) The instability of graded structure: Implications for the nature
of concepts. In U. Neisser (Editor), Concepts and conceptual development, (pp. 101140), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roitblat, H. L. & Henning, M. J. (1992) Connectionist investigations in language.
International Congress of Psychology, Brussels, July, 1992, and Roitblat, H. L. (2001)
Biomimetic Systems for Information Retrieval. In M. E. Williams (Ed.) Proceedings of
the 22nd National Online Meeting (pp. 423-430). Medford NJ: Information Today.
Herbert L. Roitblat, Ph.D., at DolphinSearch, Inc. (herb@dolphinsearch.com).

54

Appendix 2: Communications Technologies
Domestic Emergency Response Information System
One of the most critical problems in emergency response is the lack of
interoperable communications. No authority exists to arbitrate the choice of
communications systems across different community agencies (e.g., police, fire, or
medical) or the choice of systems across the same agency in neighboring jurisdictions.
This problem is compounded where support components (e.g., National Guard or military
units that may be charged with civil support) are involved.
The Domestic Emergency Response Information System is a set of interoperable
communications technologies designed to support emergency responses among multiple
organizations under crisis conditions. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command
Center (SSC) – San Diego has been charged by Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense with testing this system. The tests will include scenario development and the
establishment and maintenance of agency liaisons. To this end, SSC is working with a
consortium of private industry participants to develop scenarios that are relevant,
realistic, and appropriate to the information needs of the sponsor. This is being
accomplished by soliciting the input and approval of representatives from each
participating agency, as well as related stakeholders (e.g., city government).
The most difficult dimension of the evaluation of the introduction of new
technologies into group settings is social. These settings can be complex, especially
when they involve life-critical missions; such settings typically have well-defined
procedures and values that must be respected. The challenge is to evaluate system
performance in terms of support to an existing context, as well as to project changes to
that context that might be enabled by system use. Effective evaluation must establish
credibility and the buy in of agencies that typically are not the subject of technology
testing efforts. It must ensure that required data can be collected from conditions
embedded in an otherwise free-flowing timeline. It must accommodate the impact of
technologies on operating concepts; i.e., address the impact of new systems on current
task procedures and social interactions, and make that impact explicit. Finally, it must
ensure that data are collected in such a way that results may be compared with other
similar testing efforts.
The Domestic Emergency Response Information System is being developed under
the sponsorship of several companies by SCC – San Diego: murrays@spawar.navy.mil.

55

Appendix 3: Community Policing Models
Models of Community Policing
A series of strategies begun in the early to mid-1990s in Boston to address
violence among youth and the illicit gun market are given credit for greatly reducing
homicides, especially among the youth. The plan relied on:
The police generally adopting an active presence in the community within a
community policing model rather than a reactive model in which police simply rode
around in their cars and responded to emergency calls.
Creation of a specific group of officers into an anti-gang unit that was specially
trained to rely on street intelligence gathered by uniformed officers, and develop their
own sources of information within the (mostly) inner city area of Boston where gangs
were thriving.
Creating relationships with persons who lived in the community in order to address
an existing sense that the police were hostile and more of an "occupying force" in the
neighborhood and less of a balanced and fair law enforcement presence; and
Creating relationships with federal law enforcement agencies to coordinate activities
focused upon suppression of gang-related criminal activities. The end result of this way
of conducting police business substantially contributed to the activities of others in the
community in creating the so-called "Boston Miracle," the effective suppression of very
high rates of gang-related homicides and other gang-related crime between about 1987
and 1998.15 Boston, New York City and other municipalities developed and implemented
this model.
Another model is the National Institute of Justice’s Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design (CPTED). CPTED emphasizes a problem-solving approach to
crime prevention as well as a close cooperation between police and residents in reducing
both crime and fear of crime. Police, citizens, and government have a role to play: police
on foot patrol in neighborhoods and working with community groups; residents working
together to improve neighborhood appearance and deter criminals; government using
building codes and inspection power to increase environmental security and discourage
drug use and other criminal activities. The basic principles of CPTED include target
hardening (controlling access to neighborhoods and buildings and conducting
surveillance on specific areas to reduce opportunities for crime to occur) and territorial
reinforcement (increasing the sense of security in settings where people live and work
through activities that encourage informal control of the environment).

15

The number of homicides dropped from 152 in 1990 to 59 in 1996, and there was a 29-month period that
ended in 1998 when there were no teenage homicides.

56

Most community policing models include the decentralization of police services,
the collaboration of police departments with other city agencies (such as parks or utility
departments) to resolve problems, and regular police-citizen dialogues about perceived
problems.

57

Appendix 4: Psychology of Deception
Psychological Evaluations of Deception
Bond, Charles F. Jr; Atoum, Adnan Omar (2000). International deception.
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. Vol. 26(3), 385-395.
This article describes three studies of international deception. Americans,
Jordanians, and Indians were videotaped while lying and telling the truth, and the
resulting tapes were judged for deception by other Americans, Jordanians, and Indians.
The results showed that lies could be detected across cultures. They were detected across
cultures that shared a language and across cultures that did not, and by illiterates as well
as by university students. Perceivers showed no general tendency to judge persons from
other countries as deceptive; in fact, they often judged foreigners to be more truthful than
compatriots. There was, however, some evidence for a language-based ethnocentrism
when perceivers are judging the deceptiveness of a series of people from the same
multilingual culture.
Bond, Charles F; Berry, Diane S; Omar, Adnan (1994). The kernel of truth in
judgments of deceptiveness. Basic & Applied Social Psychology. Vol. 15(4), 523-534.
This article describes an investigation of the relationship between appearancebased impressions of honesty and individuals' willingness to engage in deceptive
behaviors. Neutral-expression photographs were taken of 133 study participants, and
these photographs were judged by other participants for whether the person looked honest
or dishonest. The study participants then were provided with an opportunity to engage in
deceptive behavior. Participants who were rated as looking dishonest by the third parties
(via the photographs), were more likely to volunteer to participate in research that was
described as requiring deception than were participants who were perceived to look
honest. The results suggested that naive judgments of deception are more accurate than
has been supposed.
Bond, Charles F; Omar, Adnan; Pitre, Urvashi; Lashley, Brian R; et al. (1992).
Fishy-looking liars: Deception judgment from expectancy violation. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology. Vol. 63(6), 969-977.
To explain how people judge that others are lying, the expectancy-violation model
is proposed. According to this model, deception is perceived from nonverbal behavior
that violates normative expectation. To test the model, three experiments were conducted,
two in the United States and one in India. In each experiment, people described
acquaintances while exhibiting weird nonverbal behaviors, such as arm raising, head
tilting, and staring. Other people watched the videotapes of the descriptions and made
deception judgments. Consistent with the expectancy-violation model, both American
undergraduates and Indian illiterates inferred deception from weird behaviors, even
when the people were telling the truth.

58

Appendix 5: Data Mining
Data Mining Methodology is a way of looking through large amounts of information to
find particular bits of information. The “looking through” can be done by computer.
Once the computer finds what it is looking for, it will sound an alarm or alert a human
operator, who can then judge whether the item is what was wanted. Also useful is the
fact that this methodology allows for a record of the search process, so that patterns of
object or item occurrence can be stored and graphed. This pattern-creation is an aspect
of the methodology that humans simply cannot perform on their own because of the very
large amount of information that must be processed simultaneously.
The methodology has been developed largely by businesses to help with
marketing, but it has also been useful to the medical profession and has real potential to
law enforcement and intelligence operations.
Shaw, Michael J; Subramaniam, Chandrasekar; Tan, Gek Woo; Welge, Michael
E. (2001). Knowledge management and data mining for marketing. Decision Support
Systems. Vol. 31(1) 127-137.
Due to the proliferation of information systems and technology, businesses
increasingly have the capability to accumulate huge amounts of customer data in large
databases. However, much of the useful marketing insights into customer characteristics
and their purchase patterns are largely hidden and untapped. A systematic methodology
that uses data mining and knowledge management techniques is proposed to manage the
marketing knowledge and support marketing decisions. This methodology can be the
basis for enhancing customer relationship management.
Dennis, Charles; Marsland, David; Cockett, Tony. Data mining for shopping
centers--Customer knowledge-management framework (2001). Journal of Knowledge
Management. Vol. 5(4), 368-374.
The question was what specific attributes of shopping centers were most
associated with spending for subgroups of shoppers. About 300 shoppers at six shopping
centers were interviewed. They were asked for comparative ratings of the shopping
center where the interview took place, as well as of the one where they shopped the most
(or next most) for non-food shopping. Participants also rated the importance of 38
attributes, provided estimates of travel distance and time to each shopping center, and
gave details such as monthly spending at each center. Conventional demographic
variables were examined (females vs. males, upper vs. lower socioeconomic groups,
higher vs. lower income groups, older vs. younger shoppers, and shoppers traveling by
car vs. those traveling by public transport). Data mining (cluster analysis) identified two
subgroups of consumers sharing particular needs and wants: those for whom service was
important, and those for whom particular shops were important. These two subgroups
differed in terms of high vs. low spending. These results demonstrate that data mining
from a simple dataset can identify high-spending target consumers. Aspects of customer
knowledge management for shopping centers are considered.

59

Appendix 6: Decision Trees
Decision Tree Methodology: Decision trees can be used to help make decisions. The
idea is to concretely identify the choice points and map the sequence of decisions from
beginning to end. The advantage is that how a decision is made is made explicit, and
others can use the decision tree if faced with the same questions.
DESCRIBES PLOT TO ATTACK
p = .1
INTERROGATE

1
p = .8

ARREST

NO EVIDENCE OF PLOT

2

2

p = .1

1

RELEASE

NO EVIDENCE
OF PLOTTING

1

SURVEILLANCE

PLACE
COVERT
AGENT

p = .2

p = .1

MEETS WITH
KNOWN
TERRORIST

AGENT
KILLED

4

SENT TO
GUANTANAMO
p = .8

p = .1
NO SURVEILLANCE

1

ARREST
ALL
SUSPECTS

10

3

2
p = .1

3

DISCOVER
PLANS TO
ATTACK

2

p = .8

DON'T
ARREST

10

-3

2

4
p = .6
RELEASED
ON BAIL

1

A decision tree is started with a decision that must be made: whether or not to
arrest a suspect. A square (representing this decision) is drawn on the left hand side of
the paper. From this box, lines are drawn out towards the right for each possible solution,
and the solutions are written along those lines. At the end of each line, the results are
considered. If the result is outside the decision-maker’s control – that is, if nature makes
the next move – then a circle is drawn at the end of the line. If the result is another
decision, a square is drawn. If there is a final consequence, a solid dot is drawn.

60

(Decision trees, continued)
The procedure for choosing a decision strategy from a decision tree is called
backward induction analysis. This analysis can be summarized as follows: First, each
terminal node (marked by the black dot) is assigned a number that represents the worth or
utility of the final consequence to the decision maker. For example, at the top of the
figure above, the consequence of “describes plot to attack” is given a high value of 10; at
the bottom right hand corner, the consequence of “released on bail” is given a low value
of 1. Second, each event node (the circles) is assigned a sum that represents the expected
utility of the node. This is the weighted average utility of the event node – for node (1)
for example, this is the consequence of “describing a plot to attack” multiplied by the
likelihood of that outcome (p) which is estimated at 1/10 or 0.1, or 10*0.1=1.0, plus the
consequence of “no evidence of plot” multiplied by the likelihood of that outcome (p)
which is estimated at 8/10 or 0.8, or 2*0.8=2.6, that is, [10(.10)+2(.8)=2.6]. Finally, each
decision node is a assigned a number that is the maximum value of the nodes that branch
out from it. Thus, for decision [2], since 2.6>1(.1), at decision point [2]. “interrogate” is
the best choice.
Working from right to left, these calculations are:
3

10(.2) + [-3(.1)] = 1.7

4

2(.8) + 1(.6) = 2.2

4

2.2>1.7 so choose (4). This means cutting off the top branch after
decision [4] and planning to move from decision [4] to event node (4).

2

Since 2.2>2(.8), move from (2) to [4].

3

Since 2.2>1(.1), move from [3] to (2).

1

10(.1)+2(.8)=2.6

2

Since 2.6>1(.1), move from [2] to (1).

1

Since 2.6>2.2, move from [1] to [2].

The value of decision trees are (1) the choices are made very explicit; (2) each choice is
explicitly evaluated in terms of the importance of its outcome and the probability of that
outcome; (3) how a decision will be made – or was made – can be communicated to
another person. As with any technique or tool suggested here, decision trees can be used
to guide decisions, not make them. The final decision is left up to the operator.

61

Appendix 7: Training Guide for Hate Crime Training Program
Training Guide for Hate Crime: Data Collection. Summary Reporting System,
National Incident-Based Reporting System (1997). U.S. Department of Justice, Federal
Bureau of Investigation: Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
The material in this training guide is intended to assist law enforcement agencies
in establishing a hate crime training program for their personnel. It was written in
response to the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 and the amended Hate Crime Statistics
Act of 1994, which mandated that the Attorney General establish guidelines and collect
data about hate crimes as part of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting.
Three learning modules are presented, intended for use in instruction of law
enforcement personnel on hate crime variables. Learning Module One: “The Social
Psychology of Prejudice,” is an introduction to the social psychology of prejudice, and
instructs the student to look at the relationship of bias to stereotypical beliefs, prejudicial
attitudes, and discriminatory behavior. Learning Module Two: “Bias-Motivated Crimes
– Definitions & Procedures,” provides definitions of the terms law enforcement personnel
need to know in dealing with hate crimes. The module describes a two-tier review
process, whereby incident is reviewed both by the responding officer and by a second
officer or unit with greater expertise in hate crime incidents. Learning Module Three:
“Case Study Exercises of Possible Bias-Related Crimes,” gives the student officer an
opportunity to apply their knowledge of hate crime to hypothetical cases.

62

Appendix 8: Psychology of Bias
Psychological Evaluations of Negativity Bias: psychologists have discovered that there is
a tendency for humans to give greater weight to negative events than positive events.
This should be considered when public officials are trying to communicate strategies for
protecting against attacks or coping with the outcomes of attacks.
Rozin, Paul; Royzman, Edward B. Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and
contagion (2001). Personality & Social Psychology Review. Vol. 5(4), 296-320.
These investigators found that there is a general bias, based on both innate
predispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to
negative events or attributes. This is evident in four ways: (a) negative potency
(negative entities are stronger than the equivalent positive entities), (b) steeper
negative gradients (the negativity of negative events grows more rapidly with
approach to them in space or time than does the positivity of positive events), (c)
negativity dominance (combinations of negative and positive entities yield
evaluations that are more negative than the algebraic sum of individual subjective
evaluations would predict), and (d) negative differentiation (negative entities are
more varied, yield more complex conceptual representations, and engage a wider
response repertoire). The authors review this taxonomy, with emphasis on negativity
dominance, including literary, historical, religious, and cultural sources, as well as the
psychological literatures on learning, attention, impression formation, contagion,
moral judgment, development, and memory. They suggest that one feature of
negative events that make them dominant is that negative entities are more
“contagious” than positive entities.
Stewart, Dennis D. Stereotypes, negativity bias, and the discussion of
unshared information in decision-making groups (1998). Small Group Research, Vol.
29(6), 643-668.
These investigators examined how stereotypic expectancies and the negativity
bias (the tendency to use negative information more than positive information) made
groups less likely to overlook unshared information. In the first study, 51 university
students were asked to rate applicants in terms of the likelihood of hiring, likelihood
of success, likelihood of promotion, starting salary of the applicant, and the amount of
effort that the applicant would put into the position by examining application
materials and interview notes compiled by the researchers for either a male or female
applicant. Results indicated that a stereotype was activated and resulted in
individuals rating a male applicant higher than a female applicant for a masculine
gender-typed position. In the second study, groups (rather than individuals) assessed
the same information as in the first study. No effects for stereotypic expectancies
were found in the group decision-making task, but the negativity bias was found to
increase the discussion of both shared and unshared information.