Talk:CIA prison system

Proposed Merge with Black Site

This proposal makes sense to me. Is there any reason not to move ahead? If none is registered by December 3, someone should go ahead with the merge. Mamawrites 09:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it needs to be. I created the Black site article three days before this one was created. The pictures will be highly useful.--Kross | Talk 10:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

As the author of *this* page, yup I agree, needs to be merged. No complaints about the merge whatsoever, can probably do so before Dec 3rd. Personally I prefer my title, although his article contains more useful information. "Black site" just isn't an official enough term, imho Sherurcij 10:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, merge them. And I agree that 'CIA Prison System' makes more sense as a title. Aaronwinborn 01:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I've asked on the Talk page of the other article for people to comment on the preferred article name. I don't have strong feelings either way. Looking at http://news.google.com, it seems like more newspapers are using CIA prison in their headlines than are using black site (though there are definitely some using the black site terminology, see [1]). I wouldn't want black site to become only a redirect, because some of the information in that article is not about the most recent scandal. Can we wait 24 hours or so to check the consensus emerging about which article should become the primary one? Mamawrites 07:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I've added the correct {{mergefrom}} and {{mergeto}} templates, so the discussion is pointed to just one place... wangi 12:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree with merge, but "US Prison System" gives the impression, to my Eurpean eyes anyway, that the article will be about something much more general than the current controversy. Has the CIA had prisons in the past or not? Would "CIA secret prisons" be considered insufficiently neutral? Sorry to muddy the issue. --Vjam 14:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Not all black sites are run by the CIA. Some may be run my State Department, DIA, ONI, and other secret agencies and foreign governments. Thus, the CIA secret prison system is a subset of Black Sites and should NOT be merged into CIA prison system. Secondly, black sites has far more information in it and has been there the longest. Much of CIA prison system information is already in Black Site. Note that Black Sites redirects to Black Site. Third, newspapers have been referring to the secret prison systems as black sites. What I would recommed is that CIA prison system merge into black sites and CIA prison system becomes a redirection. Kgrr 13:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)kgrr

While it is a older, and better, article - its name isn't as relevant as CIA prison system. Newspapers largely refer to "9/11", but as an encyclopaedia we refer to the "September 11, 2001 attacks". The point of merging means we're hardly deleting the information at the other article, we're moving it over here because we acknowledge it's a lot more in-depth than currently. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 15:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Kgrr writes "Not all black sites are run by the CIA." That is something I have wondered about. Prior to Dana Priest's November 2nd article, the references to clandestine extraterritorial interrogation centres were vaguely worded enough one might assume that they were run by a variety of agencies, including the CIA. But, I am highly skeptical of the suggestion that any are run by the State Department, DIA or ONI. There are fourteen official intelligence agencies in the US bureaucracy, if you don't count fly by night creatures, like Doug Feith's recent abortion. Most of them however, like the State Department's, aren't supposed to have actual spies. They are composed of analysts. 80% of the US intelligence budget is said to be consumed by the intelligence agencies that answer, indirectly, to the Secretary of Defense. But most of the big spenders use technical means, satellites, or big antennae, or big codebreaking supercomputers, for technical intelligence -- not human intelligence. They aren't supposed to run agents. The FBI and Secret Service do human intelligence, but, expect in circumstances like the USS Cole bombing, they are supposed to only work on US territory. To the best I can figure out, the only other US intelligence agency with an official mandate to operate clandestinely, in foreign territory, is the Drug Enforcement Agency.

So would the CIA allow the DEA to do counter-terrorism operations? Would the DEA have any reason to be in the Afghanistan area? Well, yes. Afghanistan has been the World's primary heroin growing area. So the Drug Enforcement Agency would have reason to be operating there. Presumably the local warlords, like Dustum, are heavily involved in the opium trade, so the DEA may have useful contacts and informers. But counter-terrorism is not part of their mandate. I think it more likely that if they had informants who could be useful in counter-terrorism operations they would just turn them over to the CIA.

Rumsfeld is said to consider 80% of the intelligence budget too small a share. He is said to want to run his own covert operations. I wouldn't put it past him to run unauthorized covert operations. There was a brazen guy, who was running his own not so secret prison in Afghanistan who ended up getting arrested about a year or so ago. He was brazen enough that he called on international peace keeping forces, for security, as if he had a right to do so. He dropped names, including Feith's, and implied he had a background in special forces. IIRC his most recent paramilitary enterprise, prior to going to Afghanistan, was running a paintball range, and organizing paintball matches. I wish I could remember his name. He was kidnapping Afghanis, and interrogating them. So what was his business plan? It sounded like it was:

1. kidnap Afghanis
2. torture them
3. ask them where Osama bin Laden was hiding
4. find one who really did know where OBL was hiding
5. profit!

It may sound like a crazy idea. But Osama does have a $25 million price on his head. And if the neocons weren't such big believers in free enterprise, there wouldn't be 20,000 mercenaries in Iraq. -- Geo Swan 17:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep in mind that most of the Victory act are being used to allow alleged drug dealers to be treated as terrorists. So many of these black sites could be used to iterrogate/torture supposed drug dealers as well. We just don't know about it. So think about it. Black sites could be used by the DEA 69.29.248.165 18:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)kgrr

I moved your comment, 69.29.248.165, so it didn't upset the numbering in my list. In general comments on these talk pages are supposed to follow the other guys comments. And the convention is to indent them, relative to the comment you follow by prefixing each paragraph with one or more colons. Each colon indents your paragraph one tab stop. Victory act? I am going to assume you mean patriot act... Twenty years ago I read James Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace", a definitive book on the NSA, the USA's code-breakers. It described how really vicious the internecine fighting between the various agencies over their overlapping mandates... Geo Swan 14:09, 2005 December 10

Yes ... I read the Puzzle Palace in the early 80's. It does describe how the various agencies all want their own copies of other projects, so it would not surprise me that there are CIA black sites, DEA black sites, State Department black sites, Secret Service black sites... etc. The point is that black site may be run by more than just the CIA for a variety of reasons. I propose that the CIA Secret prisons stuff be merged into Black Sites. Kgrr 19:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)kgrr

Do you have any suggestion how you would write about "DEA black sites" or "Secret Service black sites" without violating Wikipedia:NOR ? Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I am going to agree with Sherurcij. The existence US run black sites run by other agencies than the CIA is merely a theoretical possibility -- one that would have to be backed up by external sources to be worth talking about. Remember Lyndie England refering to CIA operatives, and their contractors, being referred to as OGA? For historical reasons the CIA wanted to obfuscate their role. There were no other spooks conducting interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kgrr, you are ignoring that foreign covert operations lie outside the mandate of the Secret Service. It is important not to aid the CIA's disinformation campaign, and aid them in implying other agencies were involved in the black sites, when this is extremely unlikely. -- Geo Swan 15:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Black sites is and should remain the original article, because

• the "black site" article has far more information, merge - waiting since early December - would be easier to do;
• it's a well-known and often used by media term;
• it refers not to a general "CIA prison system" but to those specific detention centers created in the midst of the so-called "War on Terror". Just as the term "enemy combatant" has been created for this occasion - which, have a look, seems to cause a problem to those writing that article - "black sites" has to. No wonder: "enemy combatants" and "black sites" are twin concepts: as CIA officials themselves reported, they became "forced" to create black sites after having collected hundreds of "enemy combatants" which they could not bring to justice - as they were "enemy combatants" - nor could let escape - same reason. Same goes for ghost detainees, which, juridically, have little difference with "enemy combatants", since both are deprived of any juridical status. Tazmaniacs 15:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I reverted the {npov} tag

I find that a significant number of people apply {npov}, {bias} and {dispute} tags without attempting to be specific about they have a problem with. I think this is irresponsible and disrespectful to the rest of the wikipedia community. The wikipedia tag puts a note that says:

The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see discussion on the talk page.

Well, if are going to put the tag, fulfill your obligation to initiate that dialogue on the talk page.

• If you don't say what passage you think displays a biased point of view how are the rest of supposed to figure out what we should think about changing to take your concerns into account?
• How will we know we are finished.

Some people slap on {npov} tags in order to suppress discussion of topics they think reflect poorely on their religion, ideology or country. That habit is, in my opinion, very destructive to the wikipedia community. IMO, if you can't make the effort to be civil and specific about what you consider biased, you don't really have anything interesting to offer in the discussing as to how the article should evolve. -- Geo Swan 22:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

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