CIA Identities Protection and the John Adams Project

The Washington Times has a bit more on a story they first reported two weeks ago concerning a conflict between the CIA and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over a certain type of legal assistance that DOJ allows for Gitmo detainees. Bill Gertz, a reporter with a long record of receiving leaks from inside the intelligence community, says that a CIA security assessment has concluded that the privileged interaction of certain Gitmo detainees with their legal teams creates a danger for CIA officers.

See CIA Says Gitmo Officers at Risk of Exposure:

A team of CIA counterintelligence officials recently visited the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and concluded that CIA interrogators face the risk of exposure to al Qaeda through inmates' contacts with defense attorneys, according to U.S. officials.

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.

The team also expressed concerns about the inmates' access to laptop computers in the past. Some of the inmates who are representing themselves in legal proceedings were granted laptop computers without Internet access. However, the officials fear that future unfavorable court rulings could provide the inmates with the capability of communicating outside the island prison.

The joint investigation, which recently added U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald to the Justice Department team, was stepped up earlier this month after a disagreement between Justice Department and CIA officials over whether CIA officers' lives were put in danger at the prison.

The probe was launched last year but was given renewed attention after CIA counterintelligence officials expressed alarm at the recent discovery of photographs of CIA officers, without their names on the photos, in a cell at the prison.

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.

Spokesmen for the CIA and Justice Department had no comment. The new chief defense counsel for Guantanamo, Marine Corps Col. Jeff Colwell, also declined to comment on the recent CIA security review conducted at Guantanamo.

Spokesmen for the ACLU and the John Adams Project have denied that any lawyers working to represent Guantanamo detainees have compromised the security of CIA personnel, asserting that they have operated within rules set by a military judge.

[TSB note: I'm sure no lawyer would violate those rules; well, some would, but the ACLU's word is good enough for me.]

Military lawyers and some civilian lawyers seeking to represent the detainees have held meetings with the detainees over the past several months.

[TSB note: the detainees are meeting lawyers who are "seeking to represent" them? The Gitmo Gang is such a hot property that they are fielding offers now? Next we'll hear that these lawyers compete for Gitmo clients by offering percentages of future book, movie and lecture revenues, and that the ACLU is sending literary agents to look out for the Gitmo Gang's interests.]

Regarding the interagency dispute, some CIA officials are said to be concerned that Justice Department investigators may have been advocates on behalf of the Guantanamo Bay detainees prior to joining the Obama administration.

The worries were heightened after the recent disclosure that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had signed Supreme Court briefs supporting a court review of the case of convicted terrorist Jose Padilla. Mr. Holder apologized last week for failing to disclose his role in the briefs during Senate confirmation hearings last year to be attorney general.

Mr. Holder announced in November that he would shift military trials of five al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo to a federal court in New York. However, under protests from critics, he reversed the decision and is expected to announce soon either another civilian trial location or military trials at the Cuban prison.

Newsweek magazine reported March 29 that CIA concerns were heightened after 20 color photographs of CIA officials were found in the cell of Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a detainee who U.S. officials think is one of the financiers of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Officials familiar with the photos said they included snapshots of CIA officers in public areas.

According to U.S. officials, the photographs were obtained by the John Adams Project through private investigators who were able to track down the CIA officials.

What Would John Adams Do About the ACLU?

The Washington Times has a story today about an escalating conflict between the CIA and the Justice Department that was brought on by Justice's toleration of certain practices by legal supporters of Gitmo detainees. See Justice, CIA clash over probe of interrogator IDs.

The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers' lives.

-- snip --

According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current [CIA versus Justice Department] dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks.

This is the part I found most interesting:

The officials said the photographs of the CIA officers found recently at Guantanamo were obtained by a joint program of the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the John Adams Project.

The project, according to a Washington Post report in August, hired contractors to photograph CIA officers who were thought to have carried out terrorist interrogations. Those photographs were then to be provided to defense lawyers representing some of the Guantanamo detainees as part of an effort to identify the interrogators, for possible use as witnesses in military or civilian trials.

Joshua Dratel, a lawyer representing the John Adams Project, declined to comment directly on whether his group hired investigators to photograph CIA officers and supply them to military defense lawyers.

However, Mr. Dratel said in an interview that "none of the John Adams Project lawyers have done anything inappropriate or contrary to the protective order or any other rules that apply" to the prisoners.

ACLU spokesman John Kennedy also declined to comment on whether the project obtained photographs of CIA officers. However, he said none of the John Adams Project lawyers disclosed the identities of CIA officers to detainees held at Guantanamo.

The John Adams Project of the ACLU is so named because future President John Adams provided legal representation to British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre. Presumably, the Gitmo Bar thinks that is analogous to what they're doing. But, after reading today's Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Gitmo's Indefensible Lawyers, I'd say the ACLU is lucky they don't have to answer to the President Adams who signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. That guy would have put the Gitmo Bar away for a loooong time.