Posted on 05/06/2010 12:59:29 PM PDT by mojito
Covertly taken photos of CIA interrogators that were shown by defense attorneys to al Qaeda inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison represent a more serious security breach than the 2003 outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the agency's former general counsel said Wednesday.
John Rizzo, who was the agency's top attorney until December, said in an interview that he initially requested the Justice Department and CIA investigation into the compromise of CIA interrogators' identities after photographs of the officers were found in the cell of one al Qaeda terrorist in Cuba.
"Well I think this is far more serious than Valerie Plame," Mr. Rizzo said after a breakfast speech. "That was clearly illegal, outing a covert officer. I am not downplaying that. But this is far more serious."
"This was not leaked to a columnist," he added. "These were pictures of undercover people who were involved in the interrogations program given for identification purposes to the 9/11 [terrorists]."
Mr. Rizzo's remarks are the first public comments by someone who was involved in the probe on the still-secret investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I'm just asking.
Holder and Company= America haters.
Of course it is. These agents were ACTUAL covert field agents -- not a former agent who was never going to return to the field. But hey! Competence is not expected from liberals! So nothing will come from this.
The agency’s “tiger team” of security specialists was dispatched as part of an ongoing investigation conducted jointly with the Justice Department into a program backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The program, called the John Adams Project, has photographed covert CIA interrogators and shown the pictures to some of the five senior al Qaeda terrorists held there in an effort to identify them further.
Details of the review could not be learned. However, the CIA team came away from the review, conducted the week of March 14, “very concerned” that agency personnel have been put in danger by military rules allowing interaction between the five inmates and defense attorneys, according to an intelligence source close to the review.
Mr. Fitzgerald, who investigated the press disclosure of clandestine CIA officer Valerie Plame beginning in 2003, has been meeting with CIA officials for the past several weeks as part of the probe.
The prosecutor was called into the case after agency officials voiced worries that Justice Department investigators did not share their level of concern over the danger that al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo, including Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, could secretly send information on the identities of CIA officers to al Qaeda terrorists outside the prison through the attorneys.
A senior Justice Department National Security Division official, Donald Vieira, recused himself from the probe earlier this month as a result of the interagency dispute. Mr. Vieira was a Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, before taking a post at the Justice Department.
[....]
“Mr. Rizzo said the photos “were pictures of agency people, some of which were captured paparazzi-style, clearly taken in a kind of surveillance mode.”
CIA agents identities exposed to terrorists by Gitmo lawyers and the ACLU
August 21, 2009
Detainees Shown CIA Officers Photos
Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo
The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protecting classified information were breached when three lawyers showed their clients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparently attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the agencys interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.
If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, either in federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers are expected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.
The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It was unclear whether the Justice Department is also examining those organizations.
Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate the CIAs interrogation program at black sites worldwide as part of the defense of their clients. But government investigators are now looking into whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing the detainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes.
ACLU Spying On CIA Agents In US, Outing Them To Jihadists (ACLU Claims It Is Patriotic Act!)
Michelle Malkin ^ | Michelle Malkin
Posted on Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:26:12 AM by MindBender26
Last week, The Washington Post reported on a new Justice Department inquiry into photographs of undercover CIA officials and other intelligence personnel taken by ACLU-sponsored researchers assisting the defense team of Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the report, the pictures of covert American CIA officers — “in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes” — were shown to jihadi suspects tied to the 9/11 attacks in order to identify the interrogators.
The ACLU undertook the so-called “John Adams Project” with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers — last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. She’s the far-left lawyer who helped sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing and N.Y. landmark bombing plot mastermind, smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2325637/posts
>John Adams Project, which is jointly backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Did these guys know that Adams authored the Alien and Sedition Act?
Seems to me this is prime for investigation.
Handing over the pictures, perhaps names of CIA officers to jihadis seems a little beyond the pale, even for these types of lawyers, but apparently not.
I bet the jihadis couldn’t believe it.
Right. Plame was a former. Plame was a desk jockey. Plame was important only in her own mind.
The Plame Episode was a non-started and a gust of hot air. This however put American lives at risk. The defense attorneys should be prosecuted and spend 10-20 behind bars plus lose their law license.
>John Adams Project, which is jointly backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Did these guys know that Adams authored the Alien and Sedition Act?
Seems to me this is prime for investigation.
Handing over the pictures, perhaps names of CIA officers to jihadis seems a little beyond the pale, even for these types of lawyers, but apparently not.
I bet the jihadis couldn’t believe it.
Except that I keep reading that a lot of these Gitmo defense firms have ties to the current AG, Eric Holder. So you know nothing is going to happen until the House of Representatives changes hands.
Anyone could have told you this. And no, Plamegate was NOT about national security. It was about the shadow government trying to take down the Bush administration from within.
Partisan hacks who sought to thwart the administration.
The missile secrets Hillary disclosed this week would’ve been treason in another era.
never going to see it in my local paper bookmark.
Is this odd or what?
If Plame was a covert officer, and revealing her potential role in the decision to send her lying husband Joe on his factfinding mission to Niger was "clearly illegal", then please tell me, Mr. Rizzo, why Richard Armitage was never prosecuted for that crime?
“And what if those “defense attorneys” are the same people who Eric Holder hired to staff the Justice Department?”
BINGO! Right on the button mojito; and how many of those same lawyers were assisting Nazi Peloski and her pogrom against the CIA??
This is a classic “can of worms”...only we have a can full of big stinking maggots...
I owe you a cigar mojito...
Are you saying our men could have their families threatened too? Or that they would be easier to kill in an unprotected area?
WTF!!!!
I suspect that naming this effort the “John Adams Project” is a historical reference to when our future president defended a squad of Redcoats accused of murder at the Boston Massacre.
This gives you an idea as to how twisted these ACLU types are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.