Scott Horton: When Does an FBI Investigation Look Like Omertà?

[seafan]

When Does an FBI Investigation Look Like Omertà?

By Scott Horton
December 21, 2007

In Italy’s Mezzogiorno, haven since the Renaissance to well-organized criminal gangs with their own elaborate social structure, there is a code of conduct known as “omertà.” Letizia Paoli defines it, in her classical study Mafia Brotherhoods, as “the categorical prohibition of cooperation with state authorities or reliance on its services, even when one has been victim of a crime.” The object of the prohibition is to thwart the objectives of law enforcement, ... Those who break the honor code can be subject to immediate and extremely violent retribution. Today we see the announcement of an FBI investigation. But this doesn’t look like a normal FBI investigation. In fact it looks remarkably like omertà.

John Kiriakou, a retired CIA agent, recently made dramatic appearances on ABC and NBC in which he discussed the CIA’s use of waterboarding techniques and laid out in some detail the process for vetting and approving the use of these techniques. Strictly speaking, nothing Kiriakou said was really news. The use of waterboarding is long known, and well documented, particularly due to the investigation and writing of reporters such as the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, ABC News’s Brian Ross and Time Magazine’s Adam Zagorin. It even came out in statements made repeatedly by Administration officials in testimony before oversight bodies, and Vice President Cheney decided to make the official use of waterboarding a subject of his typically dark humor when, in a interview with a Dakotan radio station, he compared it to bobbing for apples at a country fair.

Today we learn that the FBI has, at the request of the CIA, launched a criminal investigation targeting Kiriakou. His supposed crime? The “unauthorized disclosure of classified information.”

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So why is it harmless when Dick Cheney talks about the CIA’s use of waterboarding, but a violation of national security concerns when Kiriakou does? The answer to that is fairly obvious. If you disclose things classified as “secret” for purposes of advancing the political agenda of the Bush Administration, things are fine. If you disclose things classified as “secret” and articulate even the slightest criticism, then you’re obviously a criminal. We call this using the criminal justice system to attack perceived political adversaries. A Bush Justice Department specialty. ..... It was not Kiriakou’s discussion of waterboarding which gave rise to concern, according to the source, but the fact that he described the decision-making process, linking it straight to the Department of Justice and the White House. Figures at Justice and in the National Security Council were said to have been furious over the public exposure of their intimate involvement in decisions to apply specific torture techniques in specific cases.

Why would they be concerned? The answers here are simple. Waterboarding was and is a serious crime. Those who gave the go ahead to use it bear direct criminal responsibility and are likely at some point to be prosecuted. Anonymity is a key aspect of the culprits’ defense. ..... And this led to a decision to go after Kiriakou. “You’ll read that Justice got a request for a criminal investigation. That’s literally true. It’s highly misleading. The fact is that folks at Justice and the White House were clamoring for it. They want to make an example of Kiriakou.” Another typical feature in the Bush presidency: decisions to use the criminal justice system to go after people start at the top and work their way down. Some, of course, would call this a badge of tyranny. ..... In other words, they view Kiriakou as a snitch. And they’ve decided to retaliate against him.

But the action is clearly intended as a signal to others who have direct knowledge of the torture regime. If you talk publicly about this, we’ll come after you. It’s designed to stop leaks, block exposés and impede Congressional investigation. It’s a reminder that this Administration may be the Government, but it has adopted the behavior patterns of a criminal gang.
And in this sense, the investigation of Kiriakou may be an FBI probe. But it has the classical hallmarks of a crime boss engaged in enforcement of the code of silence.

Kiriakou is about to be Joe Wilson'ed, for daring to pull back the curtain on the Bush Crime Family.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. ..... "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

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December 23, 1776----Thomas Paine

[Richard Steele]

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