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Secret Agents, State Secrets and One Angry Judge

By Joe Consumer

So I was at my local spy shop the other day, checking out the latest in bug and camera detectors (just cause I?m paranoid doesn?t mean I don?t have enemies!) when I came across a story that seemed appropriate for today?s blog.  It all started back in 1993, when then Drug Enforcement Administration agent Richard Horn, who was stationed in Rangoon, Burma, returned from a trip ?to find his government-issued rectangular coffee table had been replaced with a round one.?   Very strange indeed!

The person who supplied this new furniture was no interior designer, however.  It was the CIA, which was illegally wiretapping Horn because, apparently, he was ?at odds with the CIA over how to deal with Burmese drug trafficking.? Horn believed that ?Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him relocated.? 

So began a 15-year-old saga and legal case (over violation of his constitutional rights) that ended yesterday ? perhaps ? with a court decision and one very infuriated federal judge.  The judge sternly criticized the government for invoking the ?state secrets? defense in the case (asking that the lawsuit be dismissed without an airing of any evidence), but ?grudgingly approved a $3 million government payout in a case which the Obama administration managed to keep under wraps to protect national secrets.?

As Politico reported,

The government initially shot the lawsuit down on grounds it could expose state secrets, including the affiliation of Arthur Brown, the CIA officer named as a defendant. As the case was pending before an appeals court, the CIA rolled back Brown's cover, but never notified the courts and pressed on with claims that the case should end in part because Brown's identity needed to be safeguarded.

Lamberth ruled last year that the government's actions in the case amounted to misconduct and referred a CIA attorney for possible discipline. He also allowed Horn to file for sanctions against the government. The government soon agreed to pay Horn $3 million to settle the case but also asked that the rulings setting in motion the possible sanctions and discipline be withdrawn.

Lamberth wrote Tuesday that "the public interest is best served" by approving the deal, but he appeared to make that approval contingent on Holder urging some effort to get to the bottom of the matter.

"Another member of this Court last year approved the settlement of another case (involving the FBI's investigation of the anthrax mailings in late 2001) which involved payment to an individual plaintiff of almost $6,000,000 by the United States. ... It does not appear that any government official was ever held accountable for this huge loss to the taxpayer," Lamberth wrote.

"Now, this Court is called upon to approve a $3 million payment to an individual plaintiff by the United States, and again it does not appear that any government officials have been held accountable for this loss to the taxpayer. This is troubling to the Court," the judge wrote. He also cited "disturbing evidence in a sealed motion indicating that misconduct occurred in the inspectors general' Offices at both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency." The judge would not elaborate.

In the meantime, the Administration has issued a new states secret standard, that requires ?the attorney general and a panel of government lawyers to approve use of a state-secrets defense ?only when genuine and significant harm to national defense or foreign relations is at stake.?" 

That's good, but I?ll be stocking up on my mini bug Advanced Transmitter Detector anyway.  You never know.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on March 31, 2010 (boomark / email).