Law and Ethics in Intelligence
1. An element of the National Security Act of 1947 stated: ‘No United States intelligence information may be provided to the United Nations or any organisation affiliated with the United Nations.’ Briefly defend this position from an ethical position.
There are many concerns about the United States sharing intelligence information with the United Nations as a lot of the information is highly confidential. Other countries have failed to commit themselves to protecting the information that the United States contributes, which makes intelligence sharing highly problematic from an ethical perspective due to the sensitivity of the information. Instead, the United States should embark upon maintaining cooperative relationships with different countries as other countries can provide geographic access, skills and expertise that the United States would struggle to obtain by itself. Unlike the information that the United States provides to the United Nations, the information shared as part of these cooperative relationships has remained highly confidential in order to ensure these cooperative relationships remain ethical. Nonetheless, many policymakers in the United States need to be conscious that U.S. intelligence agencies and individuals do not get entangled in the misdeeds of intelligence agencies in other countries which could jeopardise the ethical standards of these relationships also. There are many other ethical concerns about sharing information with the United Nations due to a lack of an effective system in the United Nations to ensure that the information the United States provides remains confidential. The United States needs to ensure that when appropriate information is shared, those sources of information are protected.
2. How would you define ‘morally intolerable’ and ‘morally acceptable’ from an intelligence operation perspective concerning national security? Is torture of terrorists or enemy combatants ever morally acceptable?
The use of secret agents can be considered to be ‘morally acceptable’ from an intelligence operation perspective because they can provide information that is unobtainable through technical means. Intelligence agencies should also assess whether or not the information can be obtained through ‘morally acceptable’ methods to ensure that no one is injured in the process of obtaining crucial information. Care is taken to ensure that innocent third parties are not injured during an operation, which helps to ensure that an operation is ‘morally acceptable’. However, a false-flag approach can be seen as ‘morally intolerable’ as agents can be placed at risk as a result of their task because the true purpose of the task is hidden from the agent. Agents can be seen to be victimised and corrupted as a result of an operation which can stretch an agent’s conscience, which can also be viewed as ‘morally intolerable’. Torture can be seen as ‘morally acceptable’ as long as legal authorities can ensure that the methods of torture are being used to save innocent lives because it is much better to inflict physical pain on the life of one individual rather than allowing hundreds of innocent lives to be murdered.
3. Explain what you would consider to be a working definition of integrity for an intelligence gathering government agency. What sort of attributes would be absolutes?
Different agency directorates all have their own definitions of integrity that are specific to their particular missions, but there are certain elements of integrity that can contribute towards a working definition of the term. Pekel has suggested that there are eight elements of integrity which should be considered as ‘absolutes’ in regards to working towards a suitable definition of integrity in regards to the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in America . These eight attributes include: there needs to be a belief in and sense of awareness towards the intentions of the Central Intelligence Agency’s mission; always ensuring that truth is contributed towards power, and that must apply to both the Central Intelligence Agency and the policymakers that form policy; ensuring that there is always enough information to decide upon a decision and ensuring that these decisions are always explained with clarity and honesty in terms of what the CIA can and cannot do; willingness to be held accountable for what we do and say; taking calculated risks in obtaining and analysing crucial information; responsible use of the public’s money and honour; ensuring that all employees in the CIA are provided with a chance to be rewarded for excellence in the CIA; accepting and learning from failure.
4. What sort of conclusion did Kent Pekel come to in his discussion of integrity and ethics in the CIA? What are his recommendations?
Pekel came to the conclusion that in the CIA, many people feel that they will be blamed for an outcome that is seen to be short of an optimal outcome and pressure emerges to do whatever is necessary to achieve that outcome, even if it means cutting ethical corners and hiding mistakes. Pekel argues that ethical decision-making and integrity is never rewarded, though this seems to be less tolerated than in the past. In order to prevent this situation from happening again in the future, Pekel’s recommendations include ensuring that the CIA grows its own programme of ethics education taught by intelligence ethicists who have studied ethical behaviour in other fields such as medicine and law. This would enable the CIA to learn about what is considered to be generally acceptable ethical behaviour to prevent past mistakes from being repeated. Pekel argues that the CIA needs to adopt a framework of values that requires constant thought and attention and consult participants who can provide advice on the connection between their professional and personal ethics whilst considering the substantial differences between the two. Pekel infers that a CIA ethics programme should ensure that students are always provided with the opportunity to identify, discuss and debate the ideals upon which the CIA’s mission is based.
5. Under what circumstances would war be a ‘just’ war? The law allows one to act justifiably in defence of self or defence of others. Would war also be allowed in defence of others?
There is no doubt that many politicians and militarists have used the just war theory to justify their own reasons for going to war, but there are certain circumstances in which a war could be considered to be ‘just’. These include: the proportionality of resort to war for such a cause, the requirement for war as a ‘last resort’, which emphasises the value of the peace that war breaks, the criterion of right intention, which orients the military action toward justice as opposed to revenge, keeping the resort to violence under the control of an appropriate authority in principle, the consideration of the realistic prospects of success and various moral criteria for the means used in waging war, such as noncombatant immunity. War would also be allowed in defence of others in certain situations. This includes ensuring that war helps contribute towards international peace in defending people who live within ‘dangerous’ or ‘failed’ states, such as Kurds in northern Iraq who are under the threat of being persecuted, world leaders under the threat of being removed by violent thugs such as President Aristide in Haiti and Somalians under the threat of a collapse in law and order. War would be acceptable in the defence of others in cases of genocide in places such as Kosovo.
Bibliography
Bagario, Mirko and Julie Clarke. Torture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Brown, Harold, and Warren B. Rudman. Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence. Darby: DIANE Publishing, 1996.
Coady, C.A.J. The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. Darby: DIANE Publishing, 2002.
Pekel, Kent. ‘Integrity, Ethics and the CIA.’ Center for the Study of Intelligence 41(5) (1998): 85-94.
Perry, D.J. ‘”Repugnant Philosophy”: Ethics, Espionage and Covert Action.’ Last modified March 1995. http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/Perry/repugnant.html.
