R.E.M., Trent Reznor and Pearl Jam inquire about the use of their music at Gitmo
The National Security Archive in Washington is an independent non-governmental research institute that publishes declassified documents it obtains through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. As The New York Times’s Dave Itzkoff reports, the archive has filed an FOI request for a coalition that includes the likes of R.E.M., Trent Reznor and Pearl Jam, who are among a group of musicians concerned about how their recordings were used at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay. It’s already been established that Guantánamo prisoners were forced to endure loud music—including AC/DC, Britney Spears and Marilyn Manson—that interrogators believed would soften the inmates up for questioning. “At Guantánamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture,” says one National Security Archive researcher.