What we have become

It is becoming obvious that 911 did change everything, for the worse. The United States was once the beacon for freedom and justice but no more. Dana Priest gives us an example in the Washington Post, Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.

Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.

The Masri case, with new details gleaned from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.

How many mistakes indeed? I may be a bleeding heart liberal but one mistake is too many and there is no policing of the CIA's efforts except by the CIA itself. So how does the CIA get the names? Interrogations of others captured. Priest gives this example:

The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

And who knows how many were arrested due to "false intelligence" obtained through torture? There is much more in this excellent piece by Dana Priest. As one who loves the United States because it was a beacon of freedom and justice this story and others like it sadden me. It is still another example of the politics of fear practiced by the Bush administration.