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Lawfare is hurting the CIA?s ability to gather information, and capture or kill
terrorists. Lawfare is the use of lawsuits, against the CIA, individual CIA
agents, and other government officials, by domestic and foreign opponents to
whatever the government is doing. Sometimes the suits have merit, sometimes they
don?t. But fear of litigation is causing many CIA operatives to back off from
many operations. For example, if you pay a foreigner for information on
terrorists, and later the informant turns out to be a drug lord, with blood on
his hands, and he gave you bad information in the bargain, you could get sued
for supporting drug lords, and accused of being incompetent for getting burned
with bad info. Accusations of torture are also tossed around freely, and this
has turned into lawsuits as well. Back in the Fall of 2003, as terrorist attacks
increased in Iraq, intelligence officers were tempted to lean on suspects a
little more, in order to get life-saving information. A prudent man, in that
situation, would take the long view, go by the book, and save his career. There
are always operators out there who will take chances, and damn the possible
consequences. Lawfare practitioners live to find and sue these fellows. Not all
chance takers fall prey to lawfare attacks, either because they don?t get
caught, or because their payoff is so obvious and spectacular that they become
untouchable. But the call for justice and ?fighting by the rules? has a wide
appeal, especially to people on the other side of the political fence. Most of
the damage is being done to the majority of intelligence operatives who just do
their job, and don?t like to take chances. The threat of a lawfare attack makes
sure these folks take no chances.
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