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Obama Administration Convicts Whistleblower, Gives Accused Torturers A Free Pass

This article is more than 10 years old.

I don't normally focus on civil liberties here, but today's news about John Kiriakou's guilty plea really strikes a nerve. During the last decade, CIA operatives allegedly tortured accused terrorists in an effort to extract information to them in violation of US and international law. Kiriakou, appalled by his colleagues' behavior, leaked the name of one of the participants to a reporter. The Obama administration brought charges against Kiriakou for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Kiriakou's guilty plea makes this the first successful prosecution under the act in the last quarter-century.

What about the torturers?

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. ruled out prosecuting officials who stayed within a list of techniques, like waterboarding, that Bush-era lawyers had blessed as lawful, despite anti-torture laws, in memos the department later retracted.

In 2010, Justice Department officials overruled a recommendation by its ethics office to sanction for professional misconduct the Bush-era lawyers who wrote those memos, and decided not to charge C.I.A. officials for destroying interrogation videotapes.

Then in August, Mr. Holder announced that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003, eliminating the last possibility of criminal charges by officials who carried out brutal interrogations in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The message here is clear: if you break the law with the approval of senior administration officials, you will be shielded from liability for your crimes by subsequent administrations. The senior officials who signed off on those activities will also not face any penalties. However, if you see your colleagues breaking the law and call attention to it, you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This is a terrible day for the rule of law.