RSS Feed MenuThe ACLU has “outed” CIA operatives by showing pictures to the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.
Attorney General Holder has aggressively and publicly aired his feelings against the CIA; yet, he has not uttered one word about those who took pictures of the CIA operatives (as well as their homes and families) and then unlawfully showed them to the terrorist detainees.
A former high ranking CIA official noted this outing of operatives is getting very little play in the media and no one in the administration is commenting. All the former officials to whom NewMajority spoke expressed agreement with this official when he angrily noted that “the media who were absolutely up in arms over Valerie Plame Wilson being outed — as they should have been — seem pretty silent over someone surreptitiously taking photos of undercover officers at their homes and handing the photos to terrorists.”
What people have to remember is that there has never been a moment since its creation when the CIA was not there to defend America. Now, employees see that they are being put at risk by fellow Americans. As a former high ranking Bush official noted, “I am angered. People should be very distressed that active agents were being followed around by people trying to disclose their identities. It’s incredible. “
balconesfault // Aug 25, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Did the ACLU allegedly show these pictures to terrorists?
Or did “three military defense lawyers for detainees” show the pictures?
Your title is blatantly false, on a Fox News level of false. It claims that the ACLU showed pictures of CIA agents to potential enemies of the US. This is only true if you consider our military lawers to be potential enemies of the US”.
Do you hate the military, Ms. Cooper?
jreb // Aug 25, 2009 at 3:10 pm
The outrage is that the mainstream media for the most part has been strangely silent concerning the “outing of CIA operatives” versus their loud indignation at the outing of Valerie Plame. Is not the person that furnishes the name and location of the victim just as culpable in the commission of a crime as the criminal?
lasulasu // Aug 25, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Showing a picture does not out a person. That requires more information. That said, seems like this could have been handled better. Perhaps an argument for official DOJ investigation into CIA torture allegations…?
As for mainstream media, NY times and Washington Post seem mainstream to me. The outrage over Plame was that it political retribution by the White House for actions taken by her husband, more so than the actual outing…
balconesfault // Aug 25, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Is not the person that furnishes the name and location of the victim just as culpable in the commission of a crime as the criminal?
jreb – I think your problem is with this line in the article:
“It was not clear what law investigators may think had been broken. “,/i>
In the case of Plame, it was very clear to all what law was broken – the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which makes it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of a covert agent. Until there is a statement from the CIA that covert agents were actually involved, as there was very early on in the Plame case, then there’s no crime.
sinz54 // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:47 pm
According to the article,
those attorneys then showed the pictures to their clients–accused terrorists.
If those terrorists ever managed to smuggle that information out (say by one of the detainees who gets released from Gitmo), then those CIA operatives’ lives would be in great danger.
In the 1970s, it was the exposure by left-wing renegade Philip Agee of a number of CIA agents that got a couple of those agents assassinated. At the time, the Left thought that was cool.
balconesfault // Aug 26, 2009 at 1:28 pm
“If those terrorists ever managed to smuggle that information out (say by one of the detainees who gets released from Gitmo), then those CIA operatives’ lives would be in great danger.”
First, this only makes sense if we’re discussing covert agents. And as I noted, while the CIA was very quick to declare that Plame’s identity had been protected prior to being divulged by Bush Administration officials, they have made no such declaration with respect to these agents.
Second, let’s understand what was done. Photos of CIA operatives were shown to detainees in order to help defense attorneys identify potential witnesses to question as part of their defense. To “smuggle that information” means, in essence, detainees memorizing the faces of those operatives who they had never seen (since presumably they already knew the faces of those who had interrogated them) and then being released and then being able to give a good enough description of the photos they were shown briefly to a graphic artist to reconstruct … or to pick those operatives faces out of photos shown them.
Surely, for example, you don’t think that the military lawyers are giving the detainees these photos to keep, do you? Or providing them with name and address info for the photos? Do you really believe that our military legal system is filled with mouth breathing idiots who aren’t safe to protect our national security?
I’m sorry, but the idea that there is any potential security breach here is absolutely laughable. Notwithstanding, if the identities of any of the operatives whose photos were shown to detainees are protected, then it certainly does appear that the lawyers involved were in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. And I am sure that this is why the Eric Holder Justice Department is investigating this, even if the results have the potential to be politically embarrassing. It’s how a real Justice Department functions.
The Nuke Report » WHAT IS GOING ON? // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:20 pm
[...] ACLU “Outs” Undercover CIA Agents [...]
Reality Chick // Aug 28, 2009 at 8:12 pm
What intelligent, ethical, hard working, discreet and competent human being would even want to work for the CIA at this point. These CIA operatives and their higher ups have to make tough decisions, based on information available (at a point in time) that impact the lives of thousands if not tens of thousands and all we can do is criticize, expose and ridicule. We have become a nation of whiners and pretenders. Pretenders to ethics and good will and whiners when no one else is stepping up to the plate. Who is acknowledging all the good work done, all the crises avoided and all the lives saved. No one, and not just because we are not exposed to the scorecard. No other country would hesistate to protect and support their national intelligence employess, we seek to do the opposite. We (US residents) should be grateful we are not in the position to have to make those decisions but there is no appreciation, in fact no response would be better than this continuous stream of vitriolic criticism and finger pointing. This is not just an administrative illness, this is a public epidemic.