WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday left open the possibility that an agent might again pose as a journalist as part of an investigation, though he said such a tactic ought to be rare and “done carefully with significant supervision, if it’s going to be done.”
Comey told reporters at a roundtable discussion that he was “not willing to say never” when asked if the FBI would swear off future use of the tactic in response to an Associated Press demand made last month.
The AP sought assurances from the Justice Department and the FBI that impersonation would not be used again following revelations that an agent in Seattle posed as an AP journalist in 2007 during an investigation into bomb threats at a high school.
“I’m not willing to say never,” Comey said. “Just as I wouldn’t say that we would never pose as an educator or a doctor or, I don’t know, a rocket scientist.”
In the Seattle case, details of which Comey revealed in a letter to The New York Times, an FBI agent posed as an AP reporter to help catch a 15-year-old suspected of making bomb threats at a high school in Washington state.
The agent asked the suspect to review a fake AP article about threats and cyberattacks directed at the school to ensure “that the anonymous suspect was portrayed fairly.” The bogus article contained a software tool that could verify Internet addresses. The suspect clicked on a link, revealing his computer’s location and Internet address, which helped agents confirm the suspect’s identity.
The news cooperative said in a letter to the federal government last month that such a tactic degraded AP’s “legacy of objectivity, truth, accuracy and integrity” and risked endangering AP journalists around the world.
Comey said that, as far as he knew, no similar episode has occurred since, though he said he continued to believe it was appropriate in this particular case.
“I think it’s something that ought to be done carefully with significant supervision if it’s going to be done,” he said. “But I’m not in a position to say never.”
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Good for him, you should never say “never”. He is pretty clear that such a tactic might be used only in extraordinary circumstances. Good. This guy has shown a lot of integrity, especially when he stood up to Ashcroft and Bush. So someone trying to trap him into saying “never” is silly nonsense.
Just like torture. You can’t say you would “never” do it. You just don’t make it your stated policy, use it on prisoners, etc. There might be a very rare occasion in the field where an agent might need to use torture on someone in a life threatening situation, etc., but that should be the rare exception you hope you don’t have to use, not the rule.
There are those who think Cheney authorized torture to get people to say stupid stuff like “yes, an attack on a mall is likely” after being pressed about one through torture. Then they could say they had a credible threat about an attack on a mall, and act like they protected all of us when nothing happened. I don’t doubt that was part of the M.O.
Which treaty-bound agreement did the United States sign to outlaw posing as a journalist? Torture is illegal. Anyone that thinks it is necessary should be willing to accept the criminal penalty for using it. It wouldn’t make them any less immoral, but it would demonstrate some integrity.
That’s exactly what he got from KSM. They claimed that torturing him in 2003 gave them information to break up a plot to attack the Library Tower in 2002.