Fred Crawford on “The Policy of Intelligence Law”

Last Friday, Fred Crawford, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus (class of 1983) gave a lecture on “The Policy of Intelligence Law: ‘This Shall Never Happen Again'”. Crawford, who received his law degree from Georgetown University, has had many impressive accomplishments thus far, including obtaining his undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon in only three years. He also served as an intelligence officer to the United States Navy for twenty years. Crawford currently works as a lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In his lecture, Crawford brought up the idea of a “reverse history lesson” multiple times. He used this phrase to describe what he saw as today’s policy of intelligence law. What does he mean by this, exactly? Well, as he sees it, intelligence agencies today often act in a reactive more than a proactive way. It is only when a problem comes up that they address it, and through efforts of finding solutions, they seem to claim, “This shall never happen again”.

He also acknowledged from the lecure’s start that the typical citizen is often under the false impression that the law is a perfect set of rules. However, he clarified that in reality, the law is quite the opposite; he related it to a patchwork quilt, a piece of work that is ever-changing. He also emphasized the importance of understanding the historical context when addressing these issues. Without this, it is impossible to propose a solution that takes into account everything that must be considered.

Crawford focused the discussion on three controversies. The first took place in the 1970s, when a CIA report was released that described some of their practices. The Frank Church of Idaho (also known as “the Church Committee”) argued that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were undermining citizen’s constitutional rights.

The second event took place in the 1980s, when controversy arose regarding Nicaragua. At the time, Nicaragua faced the chaos resulting from the resistance of rebel groups, “Contras”, against their government. Both the U.S. government and the CIA supported these rebel groups, but it became problematic when some of these covert relations were not truthfully communicated with Congress. In an investigative report released by Congress, it stated that these events portrayed “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law”.

The final event Crawford discussed, one that still faces us today, is the global war on terrorism. Crawford focused on the historical context arising since 9/11, and described how being in a war both changed policies and puts previous rules/laws into question in regards to how a country addresses these issues.

In all three of these events, Crawford emphasized the importance on the part of both the government and intelligence agencies to reflect on the outcomes and identify “structural and performance level flaws”. Overall, he presented this idea of reacting to aftermath as the main reason why the policy of intelligence law is the way it is today. In some ways, it seems acting “reactively” is the only possible way, but Crawford was confident that the CIA was working hard to act more proactively, especially in identifying “friends vs. foes” in today’s war on terrorism.