The FBI’s Right to Threaten Torture

The following op-ed is being shotgunned out today by the Future of Freedom Foundation.  

THE FBI’S RIGHT TO THREATEN TORTURE

by James Bovard

A federal appeals court has concluded that an FBI agent must go to trial on charges he coerced a false confession out of a prime suspect in the 9/11 attacks. But the FBI still insists that its agent did nothing wrong. And the feds swayed the court to suppress that portion of a recent decision detailing how the FBI agent used the threat of torture to break an innocent man.

Abdallah Higazy, a 30-year-old Egyptian student, arrived in New York City to study engineering at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn on August 27, 2001. A U.S. foreign-aid program reserved and paid for his room at the Millennium Hilton Hotel, next to the World Trade Center. After the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, Higazy hot-footed it out of the hotel. After the terrorist attack, the hotel was sealed.

Three months later, guests were allowed to retrieve their belongings. When Higazy went to the hotel on December 17, he was arrested and accused of possessing an aviation radio. (A hotel security guard reported finding the radio in a safe in his room.) Higazy denied owning the radio. He was arrested as a material witness and locked up in solitary confinement.

Higazy wanted to clear his name so he agreed to take a polygraph test. FBI agent Michael Templeton wired him up for the test but then proceeded to browbeat him for three hours until he finally admitted to owning the radio. Higazy said the FBI agent warned him, “If you don’t cooperate with us, the FBI will … make sure Egyptian security gives your family hell.” The FBI refused to permit Higazy’s attorney, Robert Dunn, to be in the room while he was given the polygraph. After the interrogation, Higazy was “trembling and sobbing uncontrollably,” according to Dunn.

On January 11, 2002, Higazy was indicted for lying to a federal agent. U.S. Attorney Dan Himmelfarb declaimed that “the crime that was being investigated when the false statements [about the radio] were made is perhaps the most serious in the country’s history. A radio that can be used for air-to-air and air-to-ground communication is a significant part of that investigation.” The Washington Post noted that “federal officials paraded [Higazy] before the media as a terrorist.” The feds never bothered checking with the U.S. foreign-aid program to find out whether Higazy’s story about why he was staying at the hotel next to the World Trade Center was true.

The prosecutorial celebration flopped three days later when an American pilot showed up at the Millennium Hilton Hotel and asked for the aviation radio he had left in his room when the hotel was evacuated on 9/11. It soon became apparent that the hotel security guard (a former cop who had been fired by the Newark Police Department) had lied about finding the radio in Higazy’s room. The case collapsed and, a few days later, Higazy was awarded $3 for subway fare and released from jail. The FBI conducted an internal investigation and absolved Templeton of any wrongdoing.

In late 2002 Higazy sued, asserting that the FBI’s coercive interrogation violated his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Federal judge Naomi Buchwald dismissed his case, declaring, “[Agent] Templeton’s conduct and threats as a matter of law cannot be classified as conscience-shocking or constitutionally oppressive.” Perhaps Buchwald believed that as long as Higazy’s mother and sister were not brutalized in front of him during the interrogation, the FBI had done nothing wrong.

A federal appeals court overturned this decision on October 19, declaring that Higazy’s case deserved to go to trial. The original version of the decision detailed the tactics Templeton purportedly used to get Higazy’s confession. Two hours later, the court removed that portion of the decision from the Internet. The redacted portion of the decision (captured by bloggers before it was taken down) noted that the FBI agent admitted to knowing that Egyptian “laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country … yeah, probably about torture, sure.” Thus, Templeton was aware that his threat would terrify Higazy.

The revised court decision replaced such key details with the following mundane notice: “For the purposes of the summary judgment motion, Templeton did not contest that Higazy’s statements were coerced.”

The FBI has long taught its agents that subjects of their investigation have “forfeited their right to the truth,” according to the ethics study guide at the FBI Academy. Perhaps, according to federal lawmen, it is a small step from lying to suspects to threatening to have their kinfolk tortured. The agency has done nothing in the nearly six years since this case began to indicate that the methods used in the Higazy case did not receive the full approval of FBI headquarters.

The initial Higazy arrest and release were landmarks showing how far feds would go to gin up evidence and headlines for the war on terror. The fact that the FBI approved of its agent’s methods — and the fact that a federal judge saw no problem with the interrogation — are further warning signs of constitutional decay. Keep your eyes on this case, because it could help determine how far feds can go to destroy innocent people.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation

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15 Responses to The FBI’s Right to Threaten Torture

  1. Tory October 26, 2007 at 2:45 pm #

    Stupid arab patriots; don’t they know aviation radios are hot potatoes.

    The shrub is a reckless war profiteer.

  2. Dirk W. Sabin October 26, 2007 at 4:45 pm #

    Gee, what’s his beef?…… at least he got subway fare, that Canadian and the West German were dropped off in the howling wastelands of Transylvania without a wooden nickel after they had been worked over…..oh, excuse me,how intemperate, extraordinarily renditioned I meant to say.

    Brushkutputshut II aint a reckless war profiteer, he’s quite methodical about it really….telegraphing each and every disaster well in advance, lulling the press into a wide pattern yammering cluckfest reminiscent of the pellet distribution of an un-choked sawed off before then shortsheeting everyone concerned to within an inch of their burnt-over lives. After all, he was events director at the Frat House, this requires a berserker-like discipline.

  3. Tory October 27, 2007 at 3:01 am #

    And he’s restarting the cold war. A missile shield in Europe is not neccessary (unless you’re selling them.) He should be impeached for stupidity. His endless barking at Iran is one of the reasons it pursues nuclear weapons. If he’d leave them be it would stop spending on such useless, expensive hot potatoe junk. This dictator/war profiteer is an enemy to our prosperity. Someone should take away his credit card.

  4. Dirk W. Sabin October 27, 2007 at 1:42 pm #

    Welcome to the New World Order of Counterintuition. El Deeciderfurioso is hardly at the root of all the various dysfunction, he’s merely the cute lil ole posterboy of it…..Mencken’s delivery vehicle for America getting the additional democracy it loudly requests “good and hard”. Impeach one sociopath, get an even bigger one. Anyone feelin lucky tonight?

    Interestingly enough, the human brain remains likely the most undiscovered country of human existence. There are 10 Billion Neuron and 10 Trillion synapse in the human brain…..more synapse than genes in the entire organism. To further a premise, I would say that the Founder’s….. 200 years before we even began to more clearly understand what their era knew as the “Cartesian Theatre” ….well, the Founders innaugurated a way of political life , with it’s checks and balances…liberty and cooperation, independence and association….. that uniquely capitalized upon and anticipated the emerging science of the human mind. Unlike other nations, we are less a geographic construct than an intellectual one. It is no wonder then that we find ourselves stymied by interests that have successfully seduced the American Public into labeling intellectualism as a pejorative and electing a President that is not as dumb as he is defiantly incurious and intellectually defensive. This president and the bulk of our Congress has the kind of glib popular intelligence that is emblematic of the larger popular culture. Popular Culture is nothing so much as a warden of our soft jail of Conventional Wisdom.

    Meanwhile, after years of being Blanche Dubois to the unitary executive’s Stanley Kowalski, the Democrat party, shorn of the urban support of widespread local vertical economies in the wake of globalism, has fulfilled it’s central role in the ongoing production of the United States of a Streetcar Named Desire. This, of course, happening precisely as the original locale of that story drowns. Counterintuition is of course, close to irony.

    When and if the people of this country recall that their former Republic is a product of a celebration of the human mind….conceived in liberty…and that Free Market capitalism is a means to pluralistic expression rather than a shibolithic end in and of itself, we might bail ourselves out of the fix. But my guess is that if it comes, it will be just in time to watch ourselves blow our brains out as the climax of this Hee Haw Kabuki our one and half party system is staging to Wagnerian perfection. There will be Corporate Sponsored Luxury Box Seats, of this we can be sure. The halftime show will involve a troop of dancers bouncing encyclopedias off a trailor park parade and the crowd will love it. United Technologies shall provide the bullets and they shall be called “attitudinal enhancifiers”.

    What this has to do with FBI excess I don’t rightly know but it came to mind anyhow.

    Sincerely,
    Pollyanna Springtime

  5. Tory October 28, 2007 at 4:27 am #

    Gloomy, but I’m not giving up. My house is wired by local pigs. One lives in close proximity to me. I’m watched 24/7. To avoid defamation I can’t mention a name or exact location.

    They can hear me on the toilet, in my bedroom and everywhere else. Everyone does anything they’re told under the excuse of either national security or crime prevention. Even judges are subservient, especially after the Kansas city (BLT) serial killer went ten years unnoticed (the pigs always knew him and where he was.)

    The nearest pig was required to keep the loudest, incessant barking hound dog to condition me to stay inside. They’d put him in a cage at the rear of their property – it could bark for two hours. So now I’m psychologically conditioned to be averse to any dog’s bark. Whenever I work outside sooner or later a pooch comes out and screams. And whenever this yes-man (G-man) does this I do the same – thank you Yard Man.

    In Chicago they (smoke filled back room types) installed a puppet to run the County to, of all things, implement more gun restrictions. It was the first thing he did. The worst rise to the top. His opponent was highly qualified. The news media first brainwashed the public into becoming gun phobes and hoplophobes. Then they warned the public if the higher, better qualified candidate got in the bullets would fly. Taxes are now flying.

    It’s impossible for everyone to stay inside all the time, and some are gunned down while inside by stray bullets. Gov’t and journalists are insane and diabolical. That’s why I call them what they are – nazis.

    My kid, after he becomes an adult will be their next target. Alone, they got him, but if I’m still around I can make it difficult. They want information.

    A better society is better than a perfect one.

    What was it about Joe Kennedy they hated ? The whole country needs to know everything there is to know about Prescott Bush. After that they’ll never trust anyone again. Gov’t can do no wrong.

  6. Tory October 28, 2007 at 4:37 am #

    I say he’s dumb. A bold faced liar is just dumb (why do they say “bald faced liar”). He should be impeached for stupidity.

    Ron Paul. Tear down these missile defense systems Mr Shrub. Doctor No is greater than Jefferson and Madison combined. Giulianni tries to cover him up – why.

    He was smart to run as a republican. Libertarians got their foot in the door.

    Hamiltonian

  7. Tom Blanton October 28, 2007 at 9:25 am #

    I remember the Higazy incident with the radio but didn’t know he had filed suit. I wish him luck, he’ll need a lot of it.

    I’m sort of surpirsed Agent Templeton hasn’t filed a counter-claim for citizen harrassment of a federal officer or defamation of character. After all, in a nation where no real definition of torture exists, what right does Higazy have to impune the integrity of Agent Templeton who merely threatened torture?

    I’m sure there are those who believe that Higazy was fortunate in that he wasn’t sent to Gitmo for 5 years prior to being released. I’m afraid his case may end up showing there is no limit on how far the feds can go. Remember, courts can’t even hear some rendition/torture cases because of national security reasons.

    I wouldn’t be shocked if a court ruled that Higazy has filed a frivilous suit and must pay the government for its legal costs. Perhaps my opinion of the legal system may be clouded – I did watch Kafka’s “The Trial” on TV last night with Anthony Perkins and Orson Welles on TCM.

  8. Original Steve October 28, 2007 at 11:03 am #

    You are all just “helping the terrurrists!”

    🙂

  9. Tory October 29, 2007 at 3:56 am #

    People will do anything police tell them. They will because of the reality based, edited for tv show COPS (Fox network.)

    If a cop tells a bank employee to suspend a customer’s account the employee will do it. I usually get charged double. If a cop tells an employee or a business owner the customer is a terrorist suspect they’ll do exactly what the cop (or cops) want. McVeigh made every angry proponent of gun rights, with a short haircut, a suspect. The Kansas city serial killer made every bogus suspect a suspect indefinitely. Roswell (N.M.) made every conspiracy theorist a crack-pot. The CIA exploited the Roswell incident. When people debunk theories about 9/11 they do it over the rediculous ones (always silent about the one where the US gov’t simply instigated the attack.)

    And then there is the imminent doomsday example to justify torture: someone has a nuclear bomb in a briefcase while the FBI is holding a suspect who knows this. Does this give the FBI the responsibility to torture the suspect to save the country. The argument is convincing. The important fact is always concealed by the news media; delivering such a sophisticated compact device is nearly impossible, or, equally important, that torture is the only means available to save the country.

    The bigger or greater the lie or deception, the more difficult to believe the truth or to uncover it. The people who watch COPS are mostly cops. If you watch it closely you can see the deception. Police keep stuffed animals in the trunks of their “squad” cars to give to the most needy children (image control.) Criminals on foot are miraculously caught (on tape.) The show even places some (innocent) cops in harms way to gain the public’s sympathy.

    To the cautious observer the show gives it all away and sometimes reveals deceptive police tactics.

    Force police to follow important rules. When they knock on your door, out of breath, demanding you let them search your home, tell them to get a warrant. When they imply you’re hiding something or you’re aiding a criminal tell them you’re forcing them to respect important principles, principles more important than the act of catching a single suspect.

  10. Tory October 29, 2007 at 3:59 am #

    People will do anything police tell them. They will because of the reality based, edited for tv show COPS (Fox network.)

    If a cop tells a bank employee to suspend a customer’s account the employee will do it. I usually get charged double. If a cop tells an employee or a business owner the customer is a terrorist suspect they’ll do exactly what the cop (or cops) want. McVeigh made every angry proponent of gun rights, with a short haircut, a suspect. The Kansas city serial killer made every bogus suspect a suspect indefinitely. Roswell (N.M.) made every conspiracy theorist a crack-pot. The CIA exploited the Roswell incident. When people debunk theories about 9/11 they do it over the rediculous ones (always silent about the one where the US gov’t simply instigated the attack.)

    And then there is the imminent doomsday example to justify torture: someone has a nuclear bomb in a briefcase while the FBI is holding a suspect who knows this. Does this give the FBI the responsibility to torture the suspect to save the country. The argument is convincing. The important fact is always concealed by the news media; delivering such a sophisticated compact device is nearly impossible, or, equally important, that torture is the only means available to save the country.

    The bigger or greater the lie or deception, the more difficult to believe the truth or to uncover it. The people who watch COPS are mostly cops. If you watch it closely you can see the deception. Police keep stuffed animals in the trunks of their “squad” cars to give to the most needy children (image control.) Criminals on foot are miraculously caught (on tape.) The show even places some (innocent) cops in harms way to gain the public’s sympathy.

    To the cautious observer the show gives it all away and sometimes reveals deceptive police tactics.

    Force police to follow important rules. When they knock on your door, out of breath, demanding you let them search your home, tell them to get a warrant. When they imply you’re hiding something or you’re aiding a criminal tell them you’re forcing them to respect important principles, principles more important than the act of catching a single suspect (to advance their careers).

  11. Dirk W. Sabin October 29, 2007 at 9:04 am #

    Jaysus H the terrorist helpmates are baying now….Blanton’s likely correct, this fellow Higazy aint got a prayer. This’ll teach em the hazards of coming here and going to school so they can go back and get their pictures taken throwing rocks at us whilst wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt.

    Kafka should file an anti-trust action against the Lone Deecider’s Government for infringement upon his plot lines. They’ve taken all the fun out of imagining the potentials of bad government.

  12. Ryan October 29, 2007 at 2:36 pm #

    Jim,

    Was anything done to the cashiered cop that lied about the radio. Seems to me he should be doing jail time and the previous cases that resulted in conviction when he was a cop need to be reviewed.

    Is post modern America a great country or not? Just think, you get thrown in jail, undergo a trial based upon lies and at the end have a tidy three dollar profit for your troubles.

  13. Archie1954 October 29, 2007 at 2:38 pm #

    What bothers me about these types of cases (besides the egregious human rights abuses) is the fact that while the FBI are manufacturing coerced confessions, some real terrorist is possibly getting away with murder. What if in this case there was a real terrorist behind the ownership of the radio? He would have gotten away with his dirty deed.

  14. Eric Lennick July 9, 2008 at 3:03 am #

    hey…I really need some help…I have no proof or anything but the fbi has been harrasing me for almost a year…An employer told me my phone was tapped and that I have to be a narc otherwise I will not have a very good life…While I was there they sliced me, blew filler dust at me and even had me dump their sump…I am sick and tired of the fbi…my neighbers, grocery store clerks, I guess anyone who wants to has the right to listen to my phone calls…there has been so much harassment I can’t even name it all…Can I do anything…I call the police and they say they need evidence and have even reported my phone calls to me…Yesterday, I believe the FBI even tried to stage my death, I went outside and one of my neighbors had a T-shirt on that said Stupidity is not a crime so your free to go now and then I was almost run-over by a semi and the light was green for probably like 30 seconds….

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