Center for Investigative Reporting

ageofperil:

Drone missiles fired by the United States killed a German citizen last October for the first time, a man known to the public only as Bunyamin E.

German government officials have since begun debating whether its legal for them to supply the United States with counterterrorism intelligence if the information could lead to a German citizen losing their life. Der Spiegel reports that Bunyamin E. left Germany during the summer of 2010 for Pakistan, where he planned to live “according to the rules of Sharia law.”

A May 17 story says the United States was aiming for a Taliban commander, and American officials weren’t entirely concerned that Bunyamin E. and other Germans may also be killed in the drone strike. “However, their actual target, the Taliban strategist, had left the property before the attack.”

That’s created tension between Germany and the United States, Der Spiegel says:

    Although telephone numbers are still being passed on, details on exact locations are not. If the information ends up on the Americans’ so-called ‘Capture or Kill’ lists, the Germans note that it can only be used to arrest suspects. When providing information, the German intelligence agencies include wording to the effect that the Americans can use it ‘for intelligence purposes only’ or ‘to protect against threats’ — in other words, not to hunt people down.

Why is all of this noteworthy? Intelligence of questionable accuracy can come from many places, have a far deeper historical impact and create many more thorny legal issues.

If you read Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin’s 2007 book, “Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War,” you know that German intelligence played a role in America’s invasion of Iraq, whether intentionally or not. Curveball was the code name given to an Iraqi refugee living in Germany who claimed to have intimate knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s weapons manufacturing capabilities.

From an interview Drogin gave to Harper’s in 2007:

    Curveball proved to be very problematic — he kept changing his story, he tried to run away, and he became quite paranoid. Finally [Germany] put him in a defector protection program, changed his name, and gave him a new identity. The information he provided was put into intelligence channels, then sat there. After September 11, when there was new interest in Iraq at the White House, his reports were suddenly looked at in a new light. Whereas before the U.S. analysis of Curveball’s information was heavily qualified and skeptical, after September 11 all of the caveats and qualifications fell aside. Suddenly the story told by this one man, who had never been interviewed by the CIA and whose information had never been verified, was accepted as gospel.   

Curveball’s true name remained a mystery to most of the world, including U.S. intelligence, until he was eventually identified by 60 Minutes as Rafid Ahmed Alwan. He later admitted to the Guardian UK that he had lied intentionally hoping for Saddam to be toppled.

Image: Imam Hussein Shrine in Karbala, Iraq, courtesy James Gordon

When will sites like Twitter, Facebook, PayPal and others – with their hundreds of millions of users and massive caches of everything from cell-phone numbers to unique computer IDs – begin handing personal information over to the government?  Available documents shed light on such questions.