Music as torture
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Music as torture is the playing of recorded music on indefinite loop as a coercive technique, which John Kiriakou describes as long-standing CIA practice rather than a post-September 11 innovation. Asked whether the agency had ever considered using music on prisoners, his answer was that it had already been done for decades: "they did that all through the Vietnam War."

The two recordings he names from the later program are the Bee Gees and the theme song from SpongeBob SquarePants, both played on loop. His account of why the technique works does not depend on the music being unpleasant. Told that the SpongeBob theme is a good song, Kiriakou agreed that he liked it too, and located the damage in the count rather than the material, "but after you hear it 10,000 times, you start to..."

Music does not appear among the named techniques of the formal enhanced interrogation program, and Kiriakou discusses it in the same register as the cold cell, practices applied in the field without the Justice Department cover that waterboarding received.

See also

- Enhanced interrogation techniques
- Cold cell
- Waterboarding
- Sleep deprivation
