With all the squeaky wheels at the CIA of late, the vast majority being critical of the Bush administration, a very significant change has been made to the policies governing what ex-employees can say. For the agency’s entire life, censorship rules applied to past employees were intended to ensure they did not “reveal classified information or intelligence sources and methods.” I don’t believe anyone could argue with such rules, especially since the agency otherwise did not restrict what was said, even if it was critical of or contrary to the official position of the government.
Now, in what can only be deemed yet another move by Dubya et al to bring America closer to the old Soviet Union mentality of a police state, an update made recently to the CIA’s policies states disclosures, including speeches, memoirs, books, and other works “cannot impair the individual’s ability to do his or her job or the CIA’s ability to conduct its mission as a nonpartisan, nonpolicy agency of the executive branch.” What does this mean? They are now censoring anything political or that does not agree entirely with the administration’s views and public persona, even when that persona is dishonest or the information submitted for review is entirely opinion.
This is a significant change for the agency, and former employees and officials are already voicing concern about the move in that it may further endanger the agency. To wit:
“If this is the direction in which it’s going … the agency would be shooting itself in the foot,” said one former official who was involved in contracting with outside experts to solicit reviews of draft intelligence assessments. “At a time when the agency is being criticized at least as much as it ever has for ‘groupthink,’ unchallenged assumptions, and not practicing alternative analysis rigorously, this is one of the last changes it ought to be making.”
The former official predicted, “Those contractors who tend to express opposing viewpoints would be among the first to terminate their contracts.” If they bolt, the agency’s efforts will have been for naught: The CIA will have lost them, and they’ll publish their writings anyway, because the new policy review doesn’t apply to former employees who don’t have CIA contracts, the former official explained.
Another former official under contract, who has written critically about intelligence analysis, said the policy would encourage people to share their views with journalists anonymously. “I know they did it to scare people,” the former official said. “The problem is, they’re not dealing with fools here…. In my case, they took someone who is reasonably familiar with [the CIA] and made it so that anytime I can torpedo them, I will.”
What is essentially a move to outlaw dissent will ultimately be yet another nail in the coffin of both the CIA and administration as ex-employees sever all ties in order to “torpedo them” both.
“It’s just ridiculous that the biggest threat to the CIA seems to be the grumblings of former employees,” [Lindsay Moran, author of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, said in response to the new policy]. [Steven Aftergood, an authority on government secrecy policies with the Federation of American Scientists,] concurred [with Moran], saying, “It’s bizarre that the CIA is in such a weakened state that it feels the need to suppress criticism.”
Sadly, this is the increasing methodology used by this administration: hush critics, censor opinions, betray federal employees by way of deceit and termination, and ensure the American public hears only the official line, something we have already learned to mistrust. It is indeed a clear sign of our rapid progression toward heavy-handed tactics akin to the “free speech zones” the general public has been remanded to when the president is in town. It is essentially the “agree or perish” approach to government.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Aftergood contended. “One can envision an agency that is so self-confident and so willing to rethink its own positions that it actually welcomes criticism. But that’s not the agency we have today.”
Yes, one can envision such an agency, but this group has been made a political tool by the despots now running the country. There is no hope when they feel they can no longer allow anyone to disagree with them and, by proxy, with the president and his cronies. This is yet more strong-armed support for their failed policies, the intentional lawbreaker mentality permeating our federal government, the corruption that oozes from those in power, and the now un-American country in which we live. How did things ever get this far off track?