But My Hands Are Clean: The Ethics of Intelligence Sharing and the Problem of Complicity

摘要

Post-11 September 2001 (9/11) intelligence sharing has become more important than ever. Sharing arrangements have proliferated, involving additional types of organizations on all levels (local, state, national, and international), and more participants, including those from non-democratic regimes. The fight against terror has brought many new players together for the first time, united in combat against a common enemy. But since intelligence sharing arrangements are often informal and ad hoc, clear guidelines or common ground are seldom available in determining the rules governing such arrangements in the absence of shared norms and values on issues, including human rights, accountability, and transparency. That new controversies have arisen in the area of intelligence sharing is thus not surprising. Three specific ethical dilemmas involving intelligence sharing, have developed, among others, in recent years: In March 2014, documents captured and made public by a former National Security Agency contract employee, Edward Snowden, revealed that several United States allies in Europe and elsewhere were using technologies of surveillance to gather information both domestically and internationally. Several of these nations also participated in intelligence sharing with the United States. In the Netherlands, citizens were shocked to learn that Dutch law enforcement agents had engaged in surveillance and monitoring in order to listen in on the telephone and Internet communications of many Somali citizens living in Holland. While the ostensible reason for this surveillance was to aid Dutch authorities in combatting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, much of the information collected had been turned over to American authorities, including the United States military, which had subsequently utilized this intelligence in carrying out armed drone attacks on suspected terrorists in Somalia.1 Dutch citizens, who overwhelmingly oppose the use of armed drones in warfare, felt betrayed by their government for sharing intelligence in this way and failed to believe claims by Dutch authorities that they themselves did not know or suspect that the information shared with the Americans would subsequently be used to carry out activities which contravened the Netherlands' publicly stated foreign policies.