Subject: My case against the CIA

From: [email-masked] (Kenneth C Stahl)
Date: 23 Feb 1996 11:57:53 GMT

The 6th floor of the Original Headquarters Building of the Central 
Intelligence Agency had reasons to celebrate recently. Through considerable 
deceit, dishonesty, prevarications, malfeasanse and illegal actions, the 
agency lawyers apparently convinced a Judge of the United States District 
Court in Miami, Florida that they simply would not tolerate my case coming to 
trial. So, with the trial scheduled to begin in mid-January and with no 
substantive issues upon which to dismiss the case, the court just simply 
issued an adverse judgment against the plaintiff that was based on fantasy 
and fabrication rather then on any substantive facts. This action was 
apparently intended to indicate that the court does not want to be bothered 
with reverse discrimination cases and will permit such cases to be argued 
before a jury.

Over the past 27 months the courts and the CIA have had to go to great 
lengths to pursue their illegal, immoral and unethical actions. Luckily, the 
gross misconduct of the court, the U.S. Attorney's office and the CIA is so 
blatant that it doesn't take any effort at all to show that all illegal 
actions were taken by the defendant and the court and that the plaintiff made 
every effort to pursue the case using proper procedures but was prevented 
from vigorously prosecuting the case by circumstances beyond his control.

1.  When the case was first submitted in federal district court in 
Greensboro, NC, the U.S. Attorney contacted plaintiff's attorney and advised 
him that under no circumstances would the CIA mediate. The U.S. Attorney was 
either ignorant of existing laws or just chose to disregard them since the 
CIA simply believes that it is not subject to any law.

There is a law called Executive Order 12778 which basically states that 
whenever the U.S government is the defendant in civil litigation, mediation 
must be initiated by the U.S. government agency named as the defendant. 
EO12778 is extremely clear on this point. However, the CIA does not believe 
it is to abide by such laws - after all, they don't work for the President so 
they decided unilaterally that they would simply refuse to mediate.

After the case was transferred to federal district court in Miami, the court, 
also ignorant of the provisions of EO12778, issued an order which demanded 
that the plaintiff initiate mediation. Despite the fact that law required the 
initiative to come from the defendant, plaintiff's attorneys made every 
effort to instigate mediation, but the government was adamant that they would 
remain in violation of the law.

The court, being thoroughly intimated by the CIA and apparently having no 
desire to uphold the law and obviously having no power to enforce the law, 
ultimately rewarded the CIA for its violation of this law by accusing the 
plaintiff of failing to enter into mediation.

2. In August 1995 plaintiff agreed to travel to Miami for a deposition. The 
U.S. Attorney, seeing this as an opportunity to defame and denigrate the 
plaintiff, made personally insulting remarks to the plaintiff during the 
deposition without any provocation on the part of the plaintiff. Luckily 
these remarks are part of the official document and can be used to 
demonstrate the clear hostility on the part of the U.S. Attorney's office.

At the end of the deposition an agreement was reached that once the 
deposition was transcribed, the deposition would be provided to the defendant 
to permit any technical corrections. The copy of the deposition was 
subsequently received along with a bill for over $200. So not only did the 
defendant have to pay for travel to Miami, but he was also required to pay 
for the costs of the deposition. The government ended up with no costs 
whatsoever. Then on top of that, after the errata corrections were provided 
the defendant refused to provide a corrected copy of the deposition document. 
Did the court see anything wrong with this? Of course not. They are part of 
the government. They will quite naturally favor the government whenever 
possible. The problem here is that the Constitution of the United States 
provides that a citizen of the United States has an absolute right of equal 
standing before the court. By favoring the CIA in this matter, the court has 
violated the provisions of the constitution. I might also add that the 
quality of the transcription was extremely poor. The court recorder made so 
many errors that it was necessary to submit several pages worth of extensive 
corrections.

3. In December of this past year the U.S. Attorney contacted one of the 
plaintiff's secondary attorneys to schedule a meeting. No notification of 
this meeting was ever provided to the plaintiff's primary attorney, nor was 
the plaintiff notified of the meeting. On the day of the meeting it became 
clear that the secondary attorney had a scheduling conflict and notified the 
court that his presence would be slightly delayed. The court, desperate for 
any pretext to issue an unfavorable ruling against the plaintiff claimed that 
the attorney did not appear. Factually, the courts allegations are a gross 
distortion of the actual facts. Plaintiff's attorney did appear in court that 
day with the full expectation that the court would act in a normative civil 
manner and acknowledge plaintiff's attorney's prior declaration that he was 
unavoidably detained from meeting the exact time of the scheduled meeting. 
Had this been a habitual occurrence, the circumstances may have warranted 
comment by the court with perhaps a warning against future tardiness. 
However, this occurred on a single occasion and plaintiff was severely 
punished as a result.

4. When this case was first presented to the courts, the U.S. Attorney's 
office advised plaintiff's attorney that a security clearance was required. 
Plaintiff's attorney made numerous attempts to resolve this issue but was met 
with stonewall silence and the government refused to take any action to 
provide this clearance to the plaintiff's attorney. As a result the plaintiff 
was severely constrained from discussing vital aspects of this case with his 
attorney. This matter was placed before the court, but the court chose to 
ignore the issue. As a result, plaintiff was further punished because the 
plaintiff had been an employee of an agency which believes it is not subject 
to the laws of the United States but which would have pursued criminal action 
against the plaintiff if these crucial issues had been discussed without the 
benefit of a security clearance.

5. There is a issue of possible ethical complicity in this case. Rather than 
using its own lawyers, the CIA enlisted the services of the U.S. Attorney's 
office in Miami. The problem with this is that the judges in U.S. District 
Court and the U.S. Attorneys often work very closely together, they tend to 
develop personal relationships with each other and probably address each 
other on a first name basis outside of public conversations such as are held 
in courtroom. This placed the plaintiff at an extreme disadvantage in this 
case because plaintiff's attorneys did not have the same type of instant 
access to the judge as that which was enjoyed by the U.S. Attorney. Once may 
well imagine what might transpire in a casual conversation at the coffee pot 
on some listless Friday afternoon. 

Off-hand comments by both the judge and the U.S. Attorney regarding the case 
could be exchanged and together they decide what course of action should take 
place. This is an equal standing issue. The government enjoyed considerable 
access to the court in this case and they used that to their advantage in 
obtaining the adverse ruling. 

The point is, when there is a potential for a casual social relationship to 
arise they almost always occur. This tends to thwart justice. In cases such 
as this extra precautions must be provided to ensure an atmosphere of 
absolute fairness to both parties. If either the U.S. Attorney or the judge 
ever made any comments regarding this case in each other's presence without 
the presence of the plaintiff's attorney, then a serious breach of ethics 
occurred and both the judge and the U.S. Attorney should be severally 
censured for their actions and criminal proceedings should be considered by 
the appeals court. But, since it became evident in this case that the court 
was going to do everything in its power to favor the defendant - especially 
since this specific defendant has extraordinary powers to circumvent the law 
in ways that are not subject to public viewing - all sorts of ethical 
violations could occur and then the court rewarded both itself and the 
defendant for such violations.

Throughout the time the case was before the court the CIA maintained that the 
merits of this case were irrelevant. How can this be? There is a basic 
assumption in U.S. law that the primary consideration in any case must be the 
merits of the case itself. Whatever rules are fabricated by the courts must 
be ultimately be measured by the Constitution. If they do not support the 
same rights as those set forth by the Constitution, then it is those rules 
which must be disregarded rather then the Constitution. But, since the courts 
have virtually no experience with reverse discrimination cases, they are 
loathe to hear such cases because when the facts are finally aired the jury 
may decide, that the government was at fault and that the judgment must go in 
favor of the plaintiff. That, of course, would set a precedent. Courts detest 
precedence because once a precedent is established it can be used in other 
cases. This particular case was so riddled with blatant willful violations of 
the law by the CIA that it was apparently obvious to both the court and to 
the CIA that there was simply no means whereby the CIA's actions could be 
successfully defended. They would have lost. Since neither the court nor the 
CIA wanted that to occur, they apparently decided that they would use a 
fabricated pretext to dismiss the case.

It must always be kept in mind that one of the very basic stances of the CIA 
is that it retains the right to lie about any matter which it believes a lie 
will best serve its own internal interests. It is irrelevant that every CIA 
officer takes an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. The 
CIA lives by a concept called "plausible denial" which basically implies that 
if they can tell a lie and it serves their purpose better then the truth, 
then the lie is permissible and desirable. There have been countless books 
written which demonstrate that the CIA has made numerous public statements 
which have latter been show to absolute lies. The CIA has become so 
accustomed to lying on every issue that it is now incapable of telling the 
truth on any issue.

The CIA started its lies to the plaintiff back in 1989. It has yet to make 
any substantive truthful statements about this case. At one point, the 
statutory Inspector General even went as far as to say that the harsh, 
punitive and vindictive actions taken against the plaintiff were "reasonable" 
even though those actions were taken without due process of the law, were in 
clear violation of the law. Yet, because the CIA has the power to classify 
any piece of information, none of the documents which would clearly 
demonstrate their hostile intent against the plaintiff will probably never 
see the light of day. Why? Because "national security" might be jeopardized. 
If a government agency such as the Department of Agriculture had taken such 
actions against one of its employees and the same types of documents which 
clearly show the discriminatory intent had been written, the employee would 
have been able to make copies of the documents and retain them for his own 
personal use in civil litigation. But, in this case all of the documents were 
classified because the CIA routinely classifies almost every document ever 
produced internally. As it is, the CIA can now claim that such documents do 
not exist - and it knows that I cannot possibly have such documents because I 
could not remove them from the building when I was forced to resign. A 
Department of Agriculture employee might have a chance at a fair trial. 
Plaintiff, in this case, does not.

This case has also revealed that the U.S. government as a whole would rather 
support the continued illegal actions of the CIA rather then uphold the 
Constitution of the United States. Even prior to the time that this case was 
filed in court, plaintiff made numerous attempts to air the core issues of 
this case to various members of the government. On the whole, all of the 
plaintiff's letters were either ignored or received form letter replies. 
At no time did any public official attempt to determine the actual facts in 
this case.

Plaintiff wrote letters to the President of the United States. The President 
was never given the opportunity to read these letters. Mail clerks were 
designated to provide condescending and meaningless replies. Plaintiff wrote 
letters to the Attorney General. The Attorney General only pays attention to 
cases that are scrutinized by the forth estate. Plaintiff wrote letters to 
the Director of the CIA. The director was never permitted to view these 
letters and the statutory Inspector General - whose loyalty is supposed to 
lie with the Congress and with the President chose to side with the CIA and 
refused to investigate the matter. Plaintiff wrote letters to members of 
Congress. These letters were either ignored or provided replies which were 
filled with factual misstatements provided by the CIA.

Plaintiff even wrote letters to the elements of the print and broadcast 
media. In the few instances where initial interest was generated by the 
letter the media refused to look into the matter. Many people argue long and 
loud about freedom of the press, but despite the provisions of the 
Constitution there is no free press within the United States. Journalists 
of every type rely on access to public officials and that access can be 
jeopardized by covering stories that the U.S. government does not wish to 
have covered. If any of the major networks, newspapers or magazines had 
actually published anything about my case they probably would have been 
punished by the government in a variety of subtle and covert means. I am a 
nobody. The media isn't going to risk its access privileges over a nobody. If 
I had been a woman or a minority the case could have been very different. 
But, this case has been about reverse discrimination from the moment that a 
high ranking official in the CIA told me that as a Single, White Male I have 
no rights because I am not a member of a protected class.

This case is not over yet. I intend to keep fighting until the day that 
someone finds me face down in a ravine with a CIA bullet in the back of my 
head. If the government wants to make this case disappear their only options 
are to either face the issues in an open and absolutely fair way or simply 
eliminate me in a executive action. I do not fear the latter - martyrs often 
have more power to change things then those who are living.