The Spooks' Revolt?

There's long been rumblings of tensions between the CIA and Bush White House. But the latest rumblings is about something bigger:  Some spooks appear to be dabbling in civil disobedience. Here's what Ken Silverstein says on the new Harper's blog:

An ex-senior agency officer who keeps in contact with his former peers told me that there is a “a big swing” in anti-Bush sentiment at Langley. “I've been stunned by what I'm hearing,” he said. “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don't want to get caught up in it.”                                       

This former senior officer said there “seems to be a quiet conspiracy by rational people” at the agency to avoid involvement in some of the particularly nasty tactics being employed by the administration, especially “renditions”—the practice whereby the CIA sends terrorist suspects abroad to be questioned in Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and other nations where the regimes are not squeamish about torturing detainees.

That's all second-hand from an  "ex-officer," so don't write blaring headlines yet. But for what it's worth, human rights lawyer Scott Horton is  hearing the same stuff. Via email:

I am not Silverstein's principal source here, but I was able to corroborate a few things - in particular that a number of career officers have flatly refused instructions to work on the extraordinary renditions program.  Some have sought legal advice.  I was told that the internal FBI legal analysis of the program, which concluded that participants were potential targets of prosecution for conspiracy to violate the anti-torture statute, had been photocopied and widely circulated within the agency and was be relied upon for the view that the program was, essentially, a criminal enterprise.

If renditions are still ongoing, and some CIA agents have refused to take part...that's a heckuva story. And that's not even getting into what could be a heckuva FBI memo (assuming it exists). 

UPDATE: The memo does exist. (Thanks to commentaor Katherine for flagging it and to Scott Horton for confirming that's the one he's referring to.) It has been in the public domain for a long time, though for some reason it's never received much media attention.

Regarding renditions, the memo concludes:

"In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize outside the U.S., interrogations techinques which would violate 18 U.S.C. s. 2340 If committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute. Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. s. 2340. Any person who takes any action in furtherance of implementing such a plan would inculpate all persons who were involved in creating this plan. This techinque can not be utilized without violation of U.S. Federal law." 

Comments

[!]

A couple of days ago you wrote this:
" it might be helpful if the administration, rather than denying the reality, actually acknowledged the problem. "

Couple that with your citation of the Uighurs at Gitmo.

Treble it with the internal trepidations over rendition.

And, don't you have just three things that are problems which are not even being solved because admission that there are problems is a) a political black eye, b) hard work, or c) an admission that mistakes are *being* made, or d) all of thee above plus just a tip of the iceberg?

Combined with other facts, there's patterns, ya know.

[Katherine]

Hi Eric.

I assumed that the FBI memo they talked about was this one:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/rendition.fbi.memo.pdf

which briefly analyzes the legality of rendition as a proposed "Category IV" interrogation technique at GTMO. There could be a more thorough one, of course, about the existing CIA program. But it seems unlikely that the FBI would be called to give a legal opinion about a CIA operation.

[Nell]

Katherine, do you know when the FBI memo was made public? If I'm reading the fuzzy print correctly, it was written in late November 2002, shortly before Dana Priest's first story on torture at Bagram.

I'm assuming it didn't become public for at least another year or so.

[Nell]

Silverstein's and Scott Horton's reports are heartening. They restore some of my faith that there is a point to laws against torture.

But I have to suspect that more firings like the one of Mary McCarthy (reported in today's Post and NYTimes) are on the way if the resistance to illegal orders continues. A white rose to Ms. McCarthy.

[Katherine]

Nell, I think it was sometime in late summer 2005 but wouldn't swear to it.