The CIA's "family jewels" (with a Canadian connection)

Pretty small beer, if one reflects about what might have been done to deal with a world that was perceived as very dangerous. Let us keep a certain perspective, especially given today's threats, and understand that an impeccably legal approach may not always be the answer. Here's a story comparing then and now. This link provides comment by various experts. The full report is available here.

Mark C.

We need to keep in mind that it's the overall approach of a polity to rights and freedoms that counts, not bending or breaking the rules from time to time.

Note also that the UK in 1940 legally interned thousands of enemy aliens, including many Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Several thousand of the internees were deported to Canada. But a governmental system that was fundamentally democratic came out of the war. Then there was the internment of some 2,000 people in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. In neither case did the sky fall into a fascist chasm.

It's not specific actions that prove a polity's essence, it's how that essence is demonstrated over the long run. "On ne fait pas d'omelette sans casser des oeufs". When making judgements much should depend on how many eggs were broken and to what end; moral perfection is unachievable.

A Globe and Mail headline June 27 nicely sums up the "jewels":

The bone-headed, bizarre and botched ops of the CIA

Ed Morrisey, however, is a lot more disturbed than I am (not that these were not abuses of power; I just don't find them all that horrific). Ed did notice this bit in the NY Times story (first link in this post) that I missed:

...A squad of C.I.A. officers grew their hair long, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe.

Thank goodness the Toronto Star prints what the Times did not deem newsworthy:

Ottawa was one of at least 10 foreign cities targeted by the CIA in a clandestine operation in which the agency tried to ferret out those who were fostering U.S. "extremism'' in the early 1970s.

[...]

The CIA apparently recruited Americans with "existing extremist credentials'' to travel abroad and infiltrate organizations that had fallen under U.S. suspicion, provide biographical and personality profiles of those believed to be working to foment dissent in this country and develop relationships with these people that could be "exploited'' by the agency.

It also appears that the program included wiretapping of those outside the U.S.

The documents do not specifically indicate why Ottawa was targeted or whether the program yielded any results. But it appears to have come during a time when Liberal PM Pierre Trudeau was in power in Canada...

It must bust the Star's guts that T.O. was overlooked.

Posted by markc at June 28, 2007 07:15 AM