In his inauguration speech, President Obama famously rejected as false the choice between America’s safety and its ideals. Has the new administration honoured this commendable position in political practice? After more than a year of steering American security, a fact-check appears to be in order.

I want to do this here with respect to intelligence governance. Examining first whether or not the new government has kept its promises, I then elaborate on  the driving forces behind the recent developments in this arcane domain.

Intelligence governance under Obama …

Unsurprisingly, the field of intelligence is replete with opportunities for the Obama administration to demonstrate its commitment to an « unprecedented level of openness » and its desire to « restore the standards of due process and core constitutional values that have made this country great ».

Under G.W. Bush, intelligence governance has severely damaged America’s international reputation. Key strategic decisions (such as the invasion of Iraq) were based on flawed and heavily politicised intelligence, US intelligence agents conducted torture and extraordinary renditions on suspected terrorists (often on the basis of equally flawed intelligence, see, for example, the el-Masri case), and the NSA engaged in illegal surveillance/wire-tapping of US citizens.

Unfortunately, this is only a selection of the most stinking turds that President Obama has found under the rugs of the White House upon his arrival. (For a fuller scope, see the ACLU’s Torture Report). On his first full day in office, Barack Obama has responded to this rather unpleasant dowry by promising the restoration of constitutional values. How did that go and what does the process reveal about the master and servants of US intelligence governance? [...]

For researchers interested in government secrecy, www.wikileaks.org can often be a valuable site. Sometimes, however, it presents information in an unbearably biased fashion. Consider, for example, this recent headline:

« US intelligence planned to destroy wikileaks ».

This sounded like quite a story. What would be the implications if that was true? Should Google pull out of the US? I was curious and started reading a bit in the leaked study commissioned by the US Department of Defense Intelligence Analysis Program (DIAP). It examined how wikileaks.org might jeopardise the interests of US forces by playing vital intelligence into the hands of its various opponents. Not surprisingly, it concluded that

« Wikileaks.org, a publicly accessible Internet Web site, represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army. »

Looking then for signs that US intelligence actually planned to disrupt this site, I only stumbled across a number of rather common-sense recommendations:

« the identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders,
leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site ».

Don’t get me wrong. I admire and support the power of investigative sources on the net. Still, it is also understandable (and a calculated risk for leakers) that those who would like to keep the information secret will not shy away from using all available legal tricks against them. That’s not anything new under the sun nor has this threat become more serious for leakers than before.

What I find disturbing, then, is the sensationalist headline. Based on what I’ve gathered from DIAP study, this is a far cry from any plan to “destroy » Wikileaks. This kind of reporting is, in my view, entirely inappropriate. A more factual approach would be in order.

Last month, to quote Kings of War blogger, Rob Dover,

« a veritable poo-storm hit the British Court of Appeal (…) as a private exchange of correspondence – between the government’s lawyer Jonathan Sumption QC and the Court – became public. The government had asked that part of the judgment relating to the alleged torture of Binyam Mohammed be redacted (or removed) in the interests of protecting the reputation of our Security Service (known to nearly everyone as MI5). »

The case of Binyam Mohamed is rather complex (see this piece for starters, see also this piece for the various court rulings in pdfs, see Scott Horton’s feed for a more holistic appreciation of recent developments news on this). First and foremost, it entails a credible allegation of torture complicity by British intelligence. Yet, on closer inspection, it provides researchers with a rare opportunity to depict more general, systemic flaws with the British « art » of celebrating intelligence accountability. Amongst other things, it reveals how national security has become conflated with national embarrassment throughout the oversight proceedings on this particular accountability case.

While the official British intelligence watchdog (aka as the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC)) has looked into this case (see its Renditions report (2007)), the most revealing information is to be found elsewhere. In Mohamed v. Foreign Secretary, the British High Court revealed (in 2008), how the ISC, which supposedly operates from within the ring of secrecy, has been kept outside of the loop in this (and arguably a number of other cases that will gradually come to the fore).

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