They have gained political cover as more veteran F.B.I. agents and military interrogators have spoken out publicly against the use of physical pressure in interrogations, saying it violates American values and can produce false information.
Abdul Salem el-Massoudi, 42, the neighborhood military council's chief of "interrogations," said the militia was still hunting down the suspected perpetrators of a massacre by Qaddafi forces.
Esteban Rodriguez, the chief of interrogations, said that the interrogations at Guantánamo have provided invaluable information that may have saved American lives.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had proposed legislation banning contractors from conducting interrogations, saying the job was too important to outsource.
"There is some relatively sharp language in the opinions about the government's interest in interrogations," said Ruth Wedgwood, a law professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Others with knowledge of the interrogations said the Cumhuriyet journalists were repeatedly questioned on their editorial policies and decisions, and that they faced allegations of fomenting terrorist propaganda.
Scholars who study police interrogations say it is not uncommon for confessions to include traces of the detective's speech, particularly law enforcement jargon the suspect was unlikely to have used without prompting.
And he gives a detailed, firsthand account of the C.I.A.'s move toward brutal treatment in its interrogations, saying the harsh methods used on the agency's first important captive, Abu Zubaydah, were unnecessary and counterproductive.
"It certainly raises the very serious question about whether there is a pattern of practice of constitutional violations, of excessive force, denial of right to counsel, coercive interrogations," said Bagenstos, now a law professor at the University of Michigan.
In Belarus, officers of the K.G.B. — the secret police agency has preserved its Soviet-era name — now routinely quote activists' comments on Facebook and other sites during interrogations, said Alexander Lukashuk, director of the Belarus service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
