CIA agents’ identities exposed to terrorists by Gitmo lawyers and the ACLU

I am speechless (via Stop the ACLU):

Detainees Shown CIA Officers’ Photos
Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo

The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protecting classified information were breached when three lawyers showed their clients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparently attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the agency’s interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.

If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, either in federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers are expected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.

The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It was unclear whether the Justice Department is also examining those organizations.

Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate the CIA’s interrogation program at “black sites” worldwide as part of the defense of their clients. But government investigators are now looking into whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing the detainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes.

Where’s the mother freaking outrage? Ed Morrissey responds:

I recall a large number of people arguing a few years ago that the unmasking of Valerie Plame amounted to treason. I wonder if the same people making that argument about the leak of her identity as a CIA analyst (by Colin Powell aide Richard Armitage to the late Robert Novak) will remain consistent in this case. After all, here we have Americans exposing field agents at their homes, and not to a journalist β€” but to the enemy. If Plame’s exposure was treason, then this should be a hanging offense, no?

I will not hold my breath waiting for the duplicitous left to howl with rage day in and day out over this news in the same way they did over Valerie Plame’s alleged “outing.” It simply doesn’t fit in with their agenda: they can’t blame it on “the right,” they can’t pin it on Karl Rove or Bush, and – let’s face it – many of the same lefties who were supposedly so enraged over the “outing” of Valerie Plame were harsh critics of CIA tactics and cheerleaders for detainee lawyers during the Bush administration and remain so today, so I suspect there’s a lot of secret glee being felt by the same hypocrites who argued so forcefully during pLamegate about how it was so important to protect the cover of covert CIA agents in the field in the interests of both our national security and the personal safety of the agents involved.

Liars all. Disgusting.

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