Where is Mary McCarthy Now?

by emptywheel

Reuters reports that the EU report on secret prisons got much of its information from anonymous US intelligence officers.

Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.  

Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld's methods in hunting down terrorist suspects, and had agreed to talk to him on condition of anonymity.

 

"There were huge conflicts between the CIA and Rumsfeld. Many leading figures in the CIA did not accept these methods at all," Marty told European Parliament committees, defending his work against complaints it was based on unnamed sources.

Which makes me wonder where Mary McCarthy is now. You remember--she was the CIA's Deputy Inspector General fired last year for allegedly leaking classified information, including details on the secret prisons in Poland and Romania.

But another CIA officer -- the agency's deputy inspector general, who for the previous year had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan -- was startled to hear what she considered an outright falsehood, according to people familiar with her account. It came during the discussion of legislation that would constrain the CIA's interrogations.

That CIA officer was Mary O. McCarthy, 61, who was fired on April 20 for allegedly sharing classified information with journalists, including Washington Post journalist Dana Priest. A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading.

Whether McCarthy's conviction that the CIA was hiding unpleasant truths provoked her to leak sensitive information is known only to her and the journalists she is alleged to have spoken with last year. But the picture of her that emerges from interviews with more than a dozen former colleagues is of an independent-minded analyst who became convinced that on multiple occasions the agency had not given accurate or complete information to its congressional overseers.

I think it relevant to ask because it sure seems like we've got a lot of potential witnesses to Rummy's abuse out there, just waiting to speak to the appropriate authority. Now that we're in the majority, why aren't we contacting these people?

Comments

[Gunner]

Danm good qustion EW

[Mimikatz]

In a CIA prison?

[semiot]

EPU'd from an earlier thread. Seems relevant here, re. pushback against "rogue" CIA people - like McCarthy:

Headline story on Raw Story as I type:

"Fox guest claims CIA 'sabotaging our own War on Terror'"

Lead graph:

Fox News on Tuesday interviewed veteran Pentagon reporter Rowan Scarborough about his "startling allegation" that "elements within the CIA are sabotaging our own War on Terror." Scarborough, a former columnist for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times, is the author of Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA, which claims that "CIA bureaucrats are undermining President Bush and the War on Terror through disinformation, incompetence, and outright sabotage."

[snip]

"That, I think, gives you a little peak inside to the bureaucracy at Langley and how anti-Bush it is, and how they will do things like leak the existence of programs or leak false allegations against Vice-President Cheney or John Bolton," Scarborough added.

[snip]

According to Scarborough, his book, which criticizes the CIA for its reluctance to cooperate with Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans in its cherry-picking of intelligence during the run-up to the Iraq War, was inspired by "Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. He wrote a private letter to Bush, warning him that the CIA was undermining what he was trying to do."

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/
Fox_CIA_undermining_War_on_Terror_0717.html

[phred]

EW, which committee would be the appropriate one to interview McCarthy? Waxman's? One of the intelligence committees? Just curious, 'cause I would love to send email to the appropriate members of Congress. In addition to restoring habeus corpus, I would dearly love to shine a bright light on the secret prisons, shut 'em down, and see prosecutions of EVERYONE from Bush on down who approved of them and/or actively participated in the arrests and detentions.

[profmarcus]

"...why aren't we contacting these people?"

for the same reason "we" aren't initiating impeachment proceedings... as russ feingold said yesterday...
-----
"Many of you also wrote that if I recognize that the President and Vice President may have committed impeachable offenses, than it is our responsibility to impeach. As I pointed out, it is the role of the House to impeach, and it is the role of the Senate to try impeachments. But the Constitution left it up to the judgment of members of Congress whether or not moving forward with impeachment is best for the country."
-----
every day that those criminals are left to occupy the white house is yet another day they can spend shitting on the constitution... we are in the midst of the most serious constitutional crisis in our nation's history and the congressional leaderhip and the 2008 presidential candidates should be sounding the alarm from every courthouse tower in every county seat in the country... it's getting to be time to take to the streets...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

[Mary]

why aren't we contacting these people

Because no one has addressed the corruption at DOJ and Gonzales - McCarthy can't speak now without looking at criminal proceedings by DOJ.

All prosecutorial authority is vested in a corrupt DOJ. The power to go after, the power to cover up.

[rhfactor]

======================

I think it relevant to ask because it sure seems like we've got a lot of potential witnesses to Rummy's abuse out there, just waiting to speak to the appropriate authority. Now that we're in the majority, why aren't we contacting these people?

======================

Indeed, Why aren't we doing lots of things. Russ Feingold, whom I love as one of the country's best leaders, really disappointed yesterday -- but the rationale was absurd: all this legislation the Dems are working on to do the People's work.

You have to wonder if there is any staffer, within Pelosi's or Reid's offices, who is dedicated to tracking issues, like, on a computer, and using intelligent prioritization protocols to keep such things in focus...

So, how much would they have to pay you, Marcy, to take/create that job?

$100k / year
more?

name a number :)

[rukus]

But the Constitution left it up to the judgment of members of Congress whether or not moving forward with impeachment is best for the country."

Oh, I see. Feingold is The Decider now.

Feingold can't impeach because he has to do the work of the country? Isn't that Bush's reasoning?

Bush can't have habeus corpus, can torture, can ignore any law that he pleases, and can commit treason because he has to do the work of the country in the war on terror. My, my the corruption of bush/cheney is corrosive, isn't it? Even Feingold is echoing his corrupt betters.

See where all this unchecked lawlessness goes and what it produces.

F*ck you, Feingold. You are becoming bush.

[Sailmaker]

Personally, I think Marcy is worth at least 2 Karl Roves - so at least 2X $162k. She could be the bicameral oversite czar. ;)

[Neil]

So let's ask Feingold why it's in the best interest of the country to allow an imperial presidency that is above the law -unaccountable to the Constitution, Congress or the American people - to go unchallenged.