The Thinking Behind a Close Look at a C.I.A. Operation (NYT)

[struggle4progress]

By BYRON CALAME
Published: June 19, 2005

A STRIKING number of readers have denounced The New York Times for describing the Central Intelligence Agency's covert air operations for transporting suspected terrorists in a Page 1 article on May 31.

The 2,900-word article focused on a C.I.A.-affiliated company, Aero Contractors Ltd., whose planes are often used when the agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country. The legal term for this is rendition, and the practical result is interrogation in a country with looser rules on what constitutes torture. Given the heated public debate over the rendition program, the article's detailed look at the C.I.A. air operations was especially controversial.

The generally strident e-mail messages demanded to know why The Times had decided to publish information that the readers believe will aid terrorists and make life in the United States less safe for everyone - especially the people carrying out the operation. Most of them didn't seem to be aware that the once-secret air operations had been mentioned in earlier articles and broadcasts elsewhere. <snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/opinion/19public.html?hp

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