The Cia And Questionable Legal Practices: A Deep Dive

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of breaking the law on numerous occasions, both in the US and abroad. In the US, the CIA has been accused of conducting mass surveillance on Americans, with Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich revealing that the agency has been collecting data on Americans in bulk. The CIA is prohibited by law from collecting information on US citizens, but it has been able to circumvent this by collecting data overseas, where it is subject to fewer restrictions.

Outside of the US, the CIA has been accused of various human rights abuses, including the use of torture, funding and training groups that kill civilians and overthrow democratically elected governments, human experimentation, and targeted killings and assassinations. The CIA has also been implicated in the rendition and disappearance of suspected terrorists, transferring them to countries known to employ torture.

One of the most well-known CIA controversies is Project MKUltra, a human experimentation program that ran from 1953 to 1973, which involved administering high doses of LSD, hypnosis, electroshock, sensory deprivation, and other forms of abuse to unwitting subjects. The program was widely condemned as a grave abuse of power and a violation of individual rights.

Bulk collection of data on US citizens

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is specifically prohibited by law from collecting foreign intelligence concerning the domestic activities of US citizens. The CIA's mission is to collect information related to foreign intelligence and foreign counterintelligence.

However, there have been allegations that the CIA has been secretly collecting information on US citizens for decades. A partially declassified letter from Democratic Party Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich to CIA Director William Burns, dated April 13, 2021, revealed that the CIA has been operating a secret bulk data collection program under the authority of Executive Order 12333, originally issued in 1981 during the Reagan Administration. This program has been conducted without the knowledge of the US courts or Congress, the two branches responsible for oversight of the agency's surveillance activities.

The senators' letter states that the CIA's secret bulk collection program has been conducted outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection and without any judicial, congressional, or executive branch oversight. While the specific nature of the data being collected and the CIA's use of this information were redacted from the letter, the senators call for the declassification of reports related to the program to shed light on the nature of the data collection and the legal framework under which it is being carried out.

In response to these revelations, some have called for legislative reforms to limit Executive Order 12333 surveillance and bring it under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Human rights abuses

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of human rights abuses, including the use of torture, the funding and training of organisations that have participated in the killing of civilians and the overthrow of democratically elected governments, human experimentation, and targeted assassinations.

Torture

Following the September 11 attacks, the CIA engaged in the torture of detainees at CIA-run "black sites" and sent detainees to be tortured by foreign governments. In 2007, Red Cross investigators concluded that the CIA's interrogation methods for high-level al Qaeda prisoners constituted torture, which could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes.

Funding and Training of Organisations

The CIA has been involved in the support and training of military and paramilitary units that defend against enemies of US-backed governments. For example, in 2019, Human Rights Watch asserted that the CIA was backing death squads in Afghanistan, which committed "summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability". The CIA has also been accused of supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala.

Human Experimentation

The CIA has been accused of human rights abuses through its Project MKUltra, a human experimentation program (1953-1973) aimed at developing techniques and drugs for interrogation, brainwashing, and psychological torture. The program, conducted without the consent of participants, used methods such as administering high doses of LSD, hypnosis, electroshock, sensory deprivation, and other forms of abuse.

Targeted Assassinations

The CIA has admitted to involvement in assassination attempts against foreign leaders, such as Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In addition to these human rights abuses, the CIA has also been criticised for its role in the improper search of computers used by Senate investigators, its use of a vaccination program in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and its recruitment of Nazis after World War II.

Extraordinary rendition

The practice began under the administration of President Bill Clinton and continued under the George W. Bush administration. Hundreds of "illegal combatants" were abducted for US detention and transported to US-controlled sites as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture.

The Bush administration freely admitted to this practice, stating that they had specifically asked that torture not be used. However, torture can still occur despite these provisions, and much documentation exists alleging that it has happened in many cases.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the US Senate ratified at the urging of then-President Ronald Reagan, and a 1998 federal statute both explicitly prohibit extraordinary rendition.

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned the governments of Poland and Romania for participating in CIA extraordinary rendition, ordering Poland to pay restitution to men who had been abducted, taken to a CIA black site in Poland, and tortured.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents two survivors and the family of a third victim who were tortured in a CIA-run "black site" in an ongoing lawsuit against the two psychologists who designed and implemented the CIA's torture program.

The ACLU continues to demand justice for the victims and accountability for the torturers. They represent victims in court, press the government through lobbying and litigation to reveal details about the program, and continue to call for a comprehensive criminal investigation of the crimes committed under the program.

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee has completed a 6,000-page report that further details the CIA detention and interrogation operations with access to classified sources. In December 2014, the committee released a redacted 525-page portion of the report, which included its key findings and an executive summary of the full report. The rest of the report remains classified.

The CIA's internal rules from 2017 say that the information sought must be "related to a duly authorized activity of the CIA," as determined by the CIA itself.

Domestic wiretapping

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of domestic wiretapping, or spying on American citizens, which is prohibited by its 1947 charter. In the 1960s, the CIA conducted "Operation Chaos", during which it spied on as many as 7,000 Americans involved in the peace movement. The operation was exposed by the Church Committee in 1975 as part of the investigation into the Watergate scandal.

In 2013, a programme of data collection using extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence was disclosed to the public by Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower. A Washington Post analysis of the Snowden leak found that 90% of those being monitored were ordinary Americans "caught in a net the National Security Agency had cast for somebody else".

In 2022, a CIA domestic surveillance program was uncovered that had not been subject to congressional oversight. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich have raised concerns about the CIA's warrantless surveillance of American citizens and called for declassifying details of the programme.

The CIA's involvement in the NYPD's intelligence activities targeting innocent Muslim communities in the Northeast has also been criticised as treating Americans as suspected enemies.

Targeted killings and assassinations

The CIA has been accused of targeted killings of alleged terrorists through drone strikes, which some critics argue are a form of extrajudicial killings that may violate US and international law. The use of drones has been defended as a more humane and accurate method of conducting targeted killings compared to manned vehicles. However, the lack of transparency and oversight regarding drone strikes has drawn criticism.

The CIA's involvement in targeted killings is not a new phenomenon. Since World War II, the agency has been implicated in numerous attempts on the lives of foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. These attempts have employed creative methods, such as exploding cigars and poison-lined scuba diving suits.

In addition to foreign leaders, the CIA has also been accused of supporting death squads and extrajudicial killings in various countries, including Afghanistan, Latin America, and the Middle East. The agency's role in these activities is often described as ambiguous, with some claiming that the CIA provided training, equipment, and other support to local forces carrying out the killings.

While the CIA's targeted killing operations may have succeeded in eliminating specific individuals, they have also led to the deaths of civilians and raised questions about their legality and ethical implications. The debate surrounding targeted killings continues, with critics arguing for more transparency, oversight, and adherence to international law.

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