The Navy's crazed researchers can only perform "severe or unusual intrusions" on human brains and bodies with approval of the undersecretary of the Navy, according to a new Pentagon memo -- and that covers the usual "consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques," too.

And there's some good news for the many people the U.S. military has locked up all over the world: For now, at least, strange and horrible research on "illegal combatants" or whatever the hell they're called this year is completely prohibited. On the other hand, the mad scientists are allowed to do cruel, bizarre experiments on actual U.S. military personnel locked up in the brigs. It would be interesting and possibly educational to see what's going on inside the minds of the Abu Ghraib rapists, torturers and murderers .... Anyway, if you really need to, say, turn an innocent Afghan opium farmer accidentally sent to Gitmo into a Manchurian Candidate/Sirhan Sirhan assassin to kill Barack Obama or something, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter is going to have to personally approve that, according to the DoD memo.

Mind Control, Prisoner Experiment Okays [Defense Tech]

Human Research Protection Program (PDF) [Department of the Navy]