The ACLU's “John Adams Project”; sneakily photographing CIA officers near their homes, then showing them to imprisoned planners of the 9/11attacks

Source(s):

ACLU at work

Sources: Photo of Key CIA Interrogator Shown to Gitmo Detainees

As the Justice Department investigates whether Guantanamo Baydetainees were improperly given about 45 photos of CIA officers orcontractors, FOX News has learned that one of the photos was of a leadinterrogator of the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The interrogator, a now-retired CIA operative named Deuce Martinez,had spent more than a year trying to get information out of KhalidSheikh Mohammed, known as the mastermind of those attacks, and Martinezalso interrogated Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin Al Shibh.

Martinez's identity was first revealed publicly a year ago in anarticle by the New York Times, which published his name despite strongappeals by the CIA and its director not to run the story. The Timesargued that Martinez wasn't a covert agent, but the CIA said revealinghis name still would put his life at risk.

It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel,and it is a violation of military commission rules to discloseclassified information, even if only to the defendants.

The photos reportedly were provided to the detainees by the JohnAdams Project, a combined effort of the American Civil Liberties Unionand the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to assist inthe defense of the detainees.

Sources told FOX News that the ACLU and detainees' defense attorneyssent a photographer to Martinez's home in Northern Virginia and tookphotos of him that were later shown to some of Al Qaeda's worst of theworst at Gitmo.

But FOX News also learned from its sources that there is somequestion whether the Justice Department itself may have played a rolein relaying photos of covert CIA operatives — which would make thestory even more unbelievable, according to some lawmakers withresponsibility for intelligence oversight.

The Justice Department's investigation of the photos, led bycounterespionage chief John Dion, is trying to determine if militarylawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information orcompromised covert CIA officers.

The investigation was first reported by The Washington Post on its Web site Thursday night. The ACLU told the Post the organization was confident no laws or regulations had been broken. …

http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....detainees/

As if this isn't outrageous enough, be sure to reread this:

Martinez's identity was first revealed publicly ayear ago in an article by the New York Times, which published his namedespite strong appeals by the CIA and its director not to run thestory. The Times argued that Martinez wasn't a covert agent, but theCIA said revealing his name still would put his life at risk.

This from the very same New York Times that constantly rehashes the “outing” of Valerie Plame?!?!

From the Wall Street Journal

Liberals and the CIA

A real 'Plame-gate,' minus the outrage.

There is nothing more important than protectingthe identities of CIA officers. So I need everybody to be clear: Wewill protect your identities and your security as you vigorously pursueyour missions.

—Barack Obama at CIA headquarters, April 2009.

Once upon a time, Valerie Plame Wilson was a hero to liberals everywhere, a covert CIA operative whose cover was blown by a vindictive Bush administration out to ruin its critics.Today, liberals within government and without are betraying covert CIA operatives as if it were the very essence of virtue. Consistency,principled or foolish, has never been a hobgoblin of the liberal mind.

Consider Attorney General Eric Holder's decision Monday to investigate and potentially prosecute about a dozen previously closed cases involving alleged detainee abuse by CIA officers or contractors. Whether those agents and contractors are innocent or guilty—or whether they were simply working within parameters they believed were necessary and permissible, and circumstances they deemed urgent, but which the Obama administration has retroactively decided were not—are matters that will be determined in due course. The 2004 CIA report on which Mr. Holder based his decision says that the most damaging allegations are "too ambiguous to reach any authoritative determination regarding the facts."

Associated Press

The cover of a special review released Monday, Aug. 24, 2009, of a newly declassified CIA document.

What's nearly certain, however, is that the names of the agents will soon become a part of the public record, either directly or through leaks that the liberal press will have no scruple about printing. Last year,for instance, the New York Times published the name of a CIA officerwho interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This wasdespite the protests of the officer and the CIA that to identify himwould "put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassmentfrom critics of the agency," as the Times put it in an editor's note.

So much, then, for President Obama's solemn promises to the CIA troops. Nor is Mr. Holder's decision the only political missile tracing a course toward Langley.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is looking into allegations that military defense attorneys for top alQaeda detainees had shown their clients photographs of CIA officers and contractors.

The pictures, some of which were"taken surreptitiously outside [the CIA officers'] homes," were gathered by an outfit called the John Adams Project, jointly sponsored by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.The Project seeks to identify the interrogators to serve as witnesses if and when their clients are tried in federal court or by military commissions. "We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the Post.

He's got to be kidding. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, the law endlessly invoked in Mrs. Wilson's case, specifically proscribes anyone "in the course of a pattern of activities" from seeking to expose the identity of covert agents "to any individual not authorized to receive classified information." Equally plain is the penalty: "fined under Title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than three years,or both."

The Act was written in response to the public disclosure of the names of U.S. covert agents, at least one of whom, Athens station chief Richard Welch, was assassinated in 1975 by Greek terrorists. It was approved overwhelmingly in Congress. In a 2006letter to this newspaper, Sen. John Kerry approvingly quoted formerpresident George H.W. Bush's "admonition that those who expose ouragents are 'the most insidious of traitors.'"

Mr. Kerry was objecting to aneditorial warning that CIA officers would soon have to take outpersonal insurance against the risk of lawsuits and congressional subpoenas. But those officers will have considerably more to fear if the detainees they once interrogated learn their names and are able to get the word out to their associates (as the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdul Rahman was able to get messages out of federal prison through his lawyer Lynn Stewart), assuming they don't get out themselves. In that case, more CIA agents will be gunned down—and the John Adamses of our day will have given demonstrably material support to terrorists.

Liberals have never liked the CIA,except when it suited their partisan purposes. That's fine: There's much not to like about the agency, and the U.S. might well be betteroff without its bungled operations and laughable intelligence estimates. But having shouted themselves hoarse over Mrs. Wilson, their enthusiasm for this new round of outing is a bit unseemly. Especially when lives are actually at stake. Especially when a liberal president has pledged to protect those lives.

Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos

Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo

The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneysat Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, includingcovert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged withorganizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiarwith the investigation.

Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protectingclassified information were breached when three lawyers showed theirclients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparentlyattempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in theagency's interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside theUnited States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.

If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, eitherin federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers areexpected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.

The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, ajoint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the NationalAssociation of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel atGuantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition ofanonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It wasunclear whether the Justice Department is also examining thoseorganizations.

Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate theCIA's interrogation program at "black sites" worldwide as part of thedefense of their clients. But government investigators are now lookinginto whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing thedetainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiouslytaken outside their homes.

If proved, the allegations would highlight how aggressively bothmilitary lawyers and their allies in the human rights community aremoving to shed light on the CIA's interrogation practices and defendtheir clients. Defense attorneys, however, described the investigationas an attempt by the government to intimidate them into not exposingwhat happened to their clients.

When contacted about the investigation, the ACLU declined to discuss specifics.

"We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as weinvestigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as wehave vigorously defended our clients' interests," said Anthony D.Romero, the group's executive director. "Rather than investigate theCIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating themilitary lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend theseclients in these sham proceedings."

It is unclear whether the military lawyers under investigationidentified the CIA personnel in the photographs to the al-Qaedasuspects or simply asked the detainees whether they had ever seen them.It is also unclear whether the inquiry involves violations of federalstatutes prohibiting the identification of covert CIA officers orviolations of military commission rules governing the disclosure ofclassified information, including to the defendants.

The investigation is being overseen by John Dion, head of theJustice Department's counter-espionage section, who has worked on manyhigh-profile national security cases, including the prosecution ofAldrich H. Ames, the CIA mole who spied for the Soviet Union. The CIAreports security breaches to Dion's office. The Justice Department andthe CIA declined to comment.

Air Force Col. Peter R. Masciola, chief military defense counsel atGuantanamo Bay, and his deputy, Michael J. Berrigan, also declined tocomment.

The Washington Post could not determine how many and which CIApersonnel were photographed, which photographs were shown to detainees,or when.

Romero said he does not know what laws the government thinks the military lawyers may have broken.

"That is the most vexing part of it," he said. "Usually when you'reread your Miranda rights or visited by the Justice Department or theFBI, you are given some indication as to what laws are at stake."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also declinedto address the specifics of the inquiry but questioned its timing.

It is "customary in our experience that any kind of investigationlike these are conducted after legal proceedings are finished in thecase so as not to interfere with the defense function, not to interferewith the rights of defendants, not to give the appearance that thegovernment is looking to chill the defense function," said Joshua L.Dratel, counsel for the John Adams Project and a former board member ofthe NACDL, who spoke on behalf of the group.

He added: "The lawyers have a duty to find out what happened to theirclients, and to the extent that the government and certain agencies areresistant to that to protect themselves and to insulate themselves fromaccountability, there is a tension there, and to the extent that thisinvestigation is part of that tension, it's most unfortunate. But thelawyers will not shirk their duty."

A wide variety of groups, including European investigators, humanrights groups and news organizations, have compiled lists of peoplethought to have been involved in the CIA's program, including CIAstation chiefs, agency interrogators and medical personnel whoaccompanied detainees on planes as they were moved from one secretlocation to another.

"It's a normal part of human rights research projects, and certainlyin defense work, to compile lists of individuals who interacted withclients," Romero said.

Tracking international CIA-chartered flights, researchers haveidentified hotels in Europe where CIA personnel or contractors stayed.In some cases, through hotel phone records, they have been able toidentify agency employees who jeopardized their cover by dialingnumbers in the United States. Working from these lists, some of whichinclude up to 45 names, researchers photographed agency workers andobtained other photos from public records, the sources said.

The government has largely cut off the airing of details about theCIA's interrogation program during proceedings at Guantanamo Bay,although many have been revealed in government documents.

At the courthouse at the prison, a court security officer, who isthought be in contact with CIA officials, can cut off the audio feed tothe public gallery if there is any possibility of lawyers or defendantsdiscussing CIA detention. At a hearing in July, the audio feed was cutwhen a lawyer for Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the alleged Sept. 11conspirators, mentioned sleep deprivation, one of the "enhancedinterrogation techniques" used at the CIA's black sites.