Back from the dead
By Sean Aqui | Related entries in Breaking NewsI’m writing this while sitting curled up in a window seat on the eighth floor of a hotel overlooking the Chicago River. No, it doesn’t suck.
But I digress….
The CIA thinks that it has found and fired the person responsible for alerting reporters to the existence of the agency’s secret prison network. Her name: senior analyst Mary McCarthy.
She apparently confessed after failing a polygraph test. If so she isn’t likely to face criminal prosecution, as polygraph tests aren’t admissible in court.
Predictably, some people are calling her a traitor and others are calling her a hero. I’m not sure “hero” is fully justified yet, but I still come down in the latter camp.
There’s no question that the leak was an important one, and necessary. A secret extrajudicial prison network is something so contrary to American values that it deserves public input and scrutiny. And the revelation that such a network exists is not detailed enough to damage security. If you think it is, then answer this question: tell me exactly where one of the prisons is located. I’ll wait.
McCarthy appears to have considered the leak carefully, telling reporters enough to get the story before the public but not enough to endanger operatives or compromise the operation of the system. That allows us to debate whether such a system should exist. If we decide “yes”, then it can continue to operate unhampered. If we decide “no”, then we can shut it down.
The administration cites the leak as having damaged relationships with other countries. Well, cripes, it should, if we’re using their facilities or airports without telling them. It’s only McCarthy’s responsibility if her information turns out to be false. So far, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The administration also says the leak has damaged the CIA’s credibility with other intelligence agencies, who question whether Americans are able to keep secrets. But that’s a false question. The secret prison network is an extraordinary operation. Like the NSA surveillance program, there are deep and legitimate questions about its legality and morality. I think it’s a positive thing that such troubling programs will always come to light somehow. Maybe it will limit the appetite for such programs.
Leaking classified information is a crime, and I’m not going to argue that it shouldn’t be. If something other than polygraph results tie McCarthy to the leak, she may well have to serve prison time. But there should be two acceptable defenses to such charges. One, that the information was improperly classified to begin with. Or two, that the activities being protected were illegal themselves, and thus by breaking one law McCarthy obeyed a higher law — the Constitution. If she can persuade a judge of either case, she should go free — and have a grateful nation’s thanks.
(crossposted at Midtopia)
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