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CIA Blogger Fired For Citing Geneva Convention
Posted by Pile
(7176 views)      [E-Mail link]
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[Activists] |
Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could actually access it.
Only people with top-secret security clearances could read her musings, which were posted on Intelink, the intelligence community's classified intranet. Writing as Covert Communications, CC for short, she opined in her online journal on such national security conundrums as stagflation, the war of ideas in the Middle East and -- in her most popular post -- bad food in the CIA cafeteria.
But the hundreds of blog readers who responded to her irreverent entries with titles such as "Morale Equals Food" won't be joining her ever again.
On July 13, after she posted her views on torture and the Geneva Conventions, her blog was taken down and her security badge was revoked. |
On Monday, Axsmith was terminated by her employer, BAE Systems, which was helping the CIA test software.
As a traveler in the classified blogosphere, Axsmith was not alone. Hundreds of blog posts appear on Intelink. The CIA says blogs and other electronic tools are used by people working on the same issue to exchange information and ideas.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on Axsmith's case but said the policy on blogs is that "postings should relate directly to the official business of the author and readers of the site, and that managers should be informed of online projects that use government resources. CIA expects contractors to do the work they are paid to do."
A BAE Systems spokesman declined to comment.
Axsmith, 42, said in an interview this week that she thinks of herself as the Erma Bombeck of the intel world, a "generalist" writing about lunch meat one day, the war on terrorism the next. She said she first posted her classified blog in May and no one said a thing. When she asked, managers even agreed to give her the statistics on how many people were entering the site. Her column on food pulled in 890 readers, and people sent her reviews from other intelligence agency canteens.
The day of the last post, Axsmith said, after reading a newspaper report that the CIA would join the rest of the U.S. government in according Geneva Conventions rights to prisoners, she posted her views on the subject.
It started, she said, something like this: "Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong." |
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from the blog:
Posted by Pile on 2006-07-21 21:54:36 | The modern practice of waterboarding involves tying the victim to a board with the head lower than the feet so that he or she is unable to move. A piece of cloth is held tightly over the face, and water is poured onto the cloth. Breathing is extremely difficult and the victim will be in fear of imminent death by asphyxiation. However, it is relatively difficult to aspirate a large amount of water since the lungs are higher than the mouth, and the victim is unlikely to actually die if this is done by skilled practitioners. Waterboarding may be used by captors who wish to impose anguish without leaving marks on their victims as evidence.
In the United States, military personnel are taught this technique to demonstrate how to resist enemy interrogations in the event of capture. According to Salon.com, SERE instructors shared their torture techniques with interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.
On the 18 November 2005, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito described the CIA's "waterboarding" technique as follows in an article posted on the ABC News web site:
"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess. 'The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,' said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch."
Waterboarding is due to become a banned practice by U.S. personnel (including CIA officials) pending the release of a revised manual on interrogation procedures.
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| Posted by Anonymous on 2006-07-24 03:06:23 | | How much will it take for someone to impeach this asshole? |
???
Posted by JJ on 2006-08-04 22:57:06 | | This woman was trying to start a dialogue within the intelligence community about ethics. But I guess in the current climate ethics are whatever the President says they are. King George W. Bush. Why doesn't he just put in a signing statement, "Oh, by the way, I declare myself emperor of the US." |
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