Key Findings

Bakir, Vian. 2013. Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror: AgendaBuilding Struggles. Farnham: Ashgate. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472402554
Summary
Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror examines in depth the
agenda-building struggles of the Bush and Blair political administrations (and those of their
successors in the US and UK) over their use of torture to gain intelligence for the War on Terror
(2001-12). Given that the Bush Administrations torture-for-intelligence policy initiated soon
after 9/11 was kept secret for several years, as remains the level of complicity of the UK (and at
least 53 other nation-states governments, according to the report Globalizing Torture by the
Open Society Justice Initiative (2013)), this book deepens our understanding of processes of
Strategic Political Communication (SPC), and exposes dominant political discourses on the
torture-for-intelligence policy in the USA and its key ally, the UK. Importantly, it explores key
agendabuilding drivers that exposed the tortureintelligence nexus, not just in the Third Estate
(legislatures) and Fourth Estate (news and current affairs outlets), but also the Fifth Estate (that
realm of digital and social media that advances the peoples right and ability to communicate).
These discursive modes of resistance to SPC comprise unauthorized insider leaks and official
investigations (Third Estate); investigative journalism and real-time reporting stemming from
new media technologies (Fourth Estate); and Non-Governmental Organisation activity and
sousveillance (this comprising communitybased recording from firstperson perspectives) (Fifth
Estate). I unearth the power-knowledge relationships imbued within the torture-intelligence
nexus; and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the various modes of resistance to SPC. This
facilitates an assessment of the health of the public sphere across the Third, Fourth and Fifth
Estates.
Methodology
There is a large body of work on the medias role in agendabuilding processes
dating back to the1960s and continuing to flourish today, examining to what extent, and how,
policymakers, the media and the public influence each others agendas. This book is a
longitudinal agendabuilding study, overlaid with critical approaches concerning power and
knowledge. Unlike standard approaches to agenda-building that assume the permanent
importance of specific media outlets in agendabuilding, or specific measures of public and
political opinion and their hypothesized mutual influence, I am more interested in how
protagonists act to build agendas based on their own perceptions of what is significant
although the challenge was how to achieve this without insider access. My approach necessitated
a reconstruction of the web of influence of key texts publicly cited by key protagonists in the case
studies examined while remaining mindful of concurrent policy choices made in the use of
torture to extract intelligence, many of these policies remaining secret for years. I call this a
protagonistdirected approach to agendabuilding.
It generated an ever-expanding mass of key texts - such as news reports, current
affairs programmes, legal and policy documents, public inquiries, photographs, memoirs, and
NGO reports. I organized these into seven archives which were then cross-referenced, compared
and critically analyzed to unearth agenda-building struggles.
- Archive One: Once Secret Declassified and Leaked Official Documents
- Archive Two: Public Inquiries, Official Investigations and Court Proceedings
- Archive Three: NGO Documentation
- Archive Four: Memoirs and Accounts of Key Protagonists
- Archive Five: Histories Written by Journalists, Lawyers and Sociologists
- Archive Six: News and Current Affairs Articles
- Archive Seven: Artifacts of Sousveillance

I chose 4 case studies to examine. They were selected to enable understanding of the
operation and relative strength of the various modes of resistance to SPC, and to particularly
scrutinize the newest mode of resistance sousveillance.
The first case study is where sousveillant photographs of - at the very least - cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment of the first publicly known detainee in the War on Terror, John
Walker Lindh, should have alerted the public to Americas start of its secret policy of torture
forintelligence in 2001, but failed to do so.
The second case study examines a case where sousveillance was spectacularly
successful the publicisation in 2004 of torture photographs taken by American soldiers of
security detainees in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The third case study examines a case of hoax sousveillance published in the UKs
Daily Mirror linked to the treatment and subsequent death in 2003 of Iraqi civilian, Baha Mousa
at the hands of British troops in Iraq, raising the question of torture by the British military.
The fourth case study examines agendabuilding regarding complicity of British
intelligence agencies in the tortureintelligence nexus, through a case where there was no
photographic sousveillance that of Binyam Mohamed.
Key Findings
There are lots of specific details about the interplay of SPC and resistance in each of
the case studies, these examined at length across four chapters. More broadly, there are a number
of broader-based Key Findings, that:
- Delineate power-knowledge relationships constituting the torture-intelligence nexus;
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the various modes of resistance to SPC;
Explore the influence on the media of secretive, manipulative intelligence activities;
Re-evaluate agenda-building models;
- And discuss the health of the public sphere.
I shall discuss some of these Key Findings under the following headings: Istherea
SecretState?CantheSecretStatebechallenged?

IsthereaSecretState?
Yes. SPC used by the American and British Administrations in the War on Terror clearly
ranged from the secretive and silencing to the persuasive.
Secretive activity included legal memos on torture, guidelines on interrogations and
intelligence assessments. These positioned those in the know as part of an elite force pushing
forward legal and moral boundaries in their fight to prevent terrorism while relegating the wider
public to ignorant bystanders.
Activity aimed at generating silences comprised plea bargains that silenced
detainees, censoring Guantnamo detainees descriptions of their own torture in pretrial
hearings, deals with journalists to censor or withhold information that affected national security,
weeding out sousveillance of torture online, suppression of visual sousveillance of torture while
courtsmartial and criminal investigations proceeded; destruction of videotapes of CIA
interrogations; and withholding key information from intelligence oversight committees. These
position those in the know as part of an elite force policing the public sphere to keep the wider
public and their representatives ignorant of unpalatable but necessary official practices,
relegating the likely emotional and/or moral public dissent towards such practices as
unaffordable niceties.
Persuasive activity included the propagation and repetition of a few key messages
consistently over time, with the aim of misdirecting public attention from the secretive and
silencegenerating activities.

- Key Bush Administration messages were that detainees were evil,

dangerous terrorists; that the practice of extraordinary rendition was normal and
pragmatic; that interrogation techniques, although harsh, were legal (apart from isolated
acts of abuse), necessary and successful in preventing future acts of terror; and that
Guantnamo was a model prison.
- Key British Administration messages were of ministerial ignorance
(until June 2004) of American intelligence agencies new interrogation strategies, after
which intelligence agencies guidelines were tightened; and of no direct involvement of
British intelligence agencies in extraordinary rendition.
- Key messages common to both British and American Administrations
were that the Abu Ghraib sousveillance and similar visual evidence involving British
soldiers were examples of isolated abuse rather than a torture policy from which lessons
had been learned regarding Army training and interrogation guidance (new Army
guidelines on interrogation were produced under the Bush and Blair Administrations).
- These key messages were periodically bolstered by selective public
release of oncesecret documents. The consistency of key messages over time, together
with the offering up of specific evidence, gives the appearance of official disclosure and
truthtelling, positioning the public as a force to which political administrations willingly
hold themselves accountable. However, the strategic generation of key messages and
selectivity of supporting information presented means that full accountability is avoided,
while the public is potentially fooled into thinking that justice has been served, allthe
while being constant targets of manipulation.
Given that secrecy was a key part of SPC regarding the torture-intelligence nexus,
what strategies were used to justify and lend credibility to non-statements (silences), and what
strategies were used by those who sought to penetrate the secrecy? These are summarized in
Table 1.
Table 1 Discursive Strategies in the Torture-Intelligence Nexus
Propagated by US & UK Political Administrations
- Keeping secret the torture-intelligence policy on the grounds that the Geneva Conventions did not
apply, & that the ends justified the means.
- Making statements about terrorist threat and utility of intelligence from Enhanced Interrogation
techniques (EITs) difficult to challenge by: keeping secret the evidence on which detainees were being
held, their identity, intelligence reports & threat assessments.
- Preventing detainees talking about their torture via the theory that EITs effectiveness required
detainee isolation; that as an illegal enemy combatant, all words uttered were classified; and that
detainees privacy could not be invaded.
- Casting doubt on key early informants torture claims through delegitimizing techniques.
- Silencing later insider informants through terminating employment, restricting the public statements
of ex-CIA employees still contracted with the agency, & increasing use of the Espionage Act.
- Keeping secret evidence of British complicity in the torture-intelligence programme on the grounds of
protecting Britains intelligence-sharing relationship with America.
- Providing a credible alibi to misdirect public attention (normalizing torture & extraordinary rendition
via anonymous intelligence sources).
Propagated by Dissenters
- Appeals to universal principles of human rights as embodied in international conventions.
- Exposing the torture-intelligence policy through the political administrations own words and actions.
- Challenging claims of EITs success with experiential, anonymous and named, insider knowledge.
- Giving voice to, and conferring credibility on, past and current detainees claims.
- Maintaining archives of primary evidence to resist SPCs continuous reframing of the past.

Can the Secret State be Challenged?

The book shows that there was resistance to SPC including unauthorized leaks,
official investigations, investigative journalism, realtime reporting, NGO claims and
sousveillance. These provided evidence and frames to penetrate the secrecy and counter the
political administrations claims, and positioned the public as interested in the evidence
countering SPC, and capable and willing to be engaged in the debate about what is legally and
morally acceptable in the fight against terrorism. Some of the key strengths and weaknesses of
these modes of resistance are distilled below.
Third Estate Strengths
- Official political investigations and inquiries conducted at the international level
were able to find and collate evidence across multiple countries. Some investigations wield more
power than others: eg investigations by European institutions, like the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europes Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, as member States of the
Council of Europe are legally bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, allowing the
inspection and sanction that the USA avoids through its refusal to ratify enforcement mechanisms
in international treaties banning torture.
- Whistle-blowing (unauthorized leaks) provides insider evidence that would
otherwise remain secret, orienting those interested in resisting SPC, be this journalists, political
investigators or NGOs. Since the advent of social media, unauthorized leaking is facilitated as
whistle-blowing web-sites have proliferated.
Fourth Estate Strengths
- Investigativejournalistscanpursueastoryoveryears,allowingthebuildupof
subjectspecificexpertise.Investigativejournalismgivesleakersaplacetoleakandallows
indepth examination of their claims. Investigative journalism can now exploit the data
dumps of secret information that websites like WikiLeaks (that has experimented with
journalistic collaboration) enable such as the Cablegate dump and the Guantnamo
DetaineeAssessmentBriefs,thatwenowknowwereleakedbyBradleyManning.
- Real-time reporting - speedy publication can avoid censorship.
Fifth Estate Strengths
- NGOs can pursue an issue in-depth and over time. When their Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests were ignored, NGOs litigated to enforce compliance, this often
achieved several years later. NGOs can generate primary data, often comprising accounts from
detainees, ex-detainees and their families and lawyers. In cultivating in-depth knowledge and
generating primary data, NGOs can lobby various parliaments to investigate torture-forintelligence issues. Such activity also enabled NGOs to bring civil suits on behalf of released
detainees to sue their kidnappers and torturers for monetary damages. NGOs adhere to universal
moral principles that appeal to broad constituencies allowing a large coalition of NGOs across
many countries to coalesce around the torture-intelligence nexus.
- Sousveillance is persistent, especially in the era of social media, and can emerge
unpredictably.
Third Estate Some Problems
- Official political investigations and inquiries normally have narrow remits, operate
very slowly, are very expensive, and those conducted at national level are rarely independent of
the government and its perceived national political interests (those conducted at international
levels - eg EU - are more successful in probing national secrets).
- Whistle-blowing requires a brave individual to make the first move, especially
when this involves challenging national selfconceptions (eg America as champion of human
rights), or may be perceived as damaging national security interests.
Fourth Estate Some Problems
- Investigative journalists face the problem of denial of access to sensitive source
material while being dependent on official sources for a regular supply of stories. This is a
relationship that journalists can only push so far regarding critical stories, if they want to retain

access to the official sources. Journalism based on anonymous leaks can fall prey to authorized
leaking. Indeed, this is one of the ways in which professional communicators seek to influence
information environments, while the public remains under the (false) impression that the
investigative journalism is independently sourced and verified.
- Real-time reporting, while feared by political administrations for being
uncontrollable and unpredictable, was never evidenced as a mode of resistance in the tortureintelligence issue, pointing to its rarity as a mode of challenging official versions.
Fifth Estate Some Problems
- Some NGOS, to maintain their access to, and influence with, policymakers, are
conditioned to modify their claims and avoid public controversy (eg the International Committee
of the Red Cross regarding access to detainees and conditions of their incarceration in the War on
Terror). Also, NGOs can be delegitimized by claims that they are not party to all relevant
information, or that they are pursuing singleissue, idealistic interests and so ignoring the
complexities, practicalities and facts of the risks and benefits in protecting national security.
- Sousveillance relies on serendipitous recordings, and so may not exist; it needs
trusted agendabuilders (eg journalists, NGOs) to mobilize it as evidence; and it may be
destroyed before ever reaching a wider public.
Policy Implications
The problem with any study of agenda-building is that the broader knowledge can
be used for either side those who believe they should support the secret state to ensure the
greater good of national security, and those who believe that such manipulation of knowledge is
unwarranted and undesirable. Coming down on the side of freedom of information and speech;
the ability and right of citizens to know what their governments policies are; and political
accountability and transparency, the policy implications are presented here accordingly, to
encourage resistance to SPC.
Ensurethecontinuationofpoliticalinvestigationsandinquiriesatinternational
levels, and the timely, free and universal access to the reports. Threats to political
investigationsincluderesources(moneyandtime)andensuringmeaningfulremits.
Encourage whistleblowing by raising awareness of how to whistleblow, and
thesocialvalueofdoingso;andbyofferinggreaterprotectionstowhistleblowers.Threatsto
whistleblowingincludeignorance,apathyandfear.
Strengtheninvestigativejournalismbyallowinggreateraccesstothefullrange
of sources available; and ensure speedy compliance with their FOIA requests. Educate and
supportjournaliststobemorecriticalofapparentleaksfrompoliticaladministrationsthatin
factmaybesecretlyauthorizedleaksmadetofurthertheadministrationsagenda.Threatsto
investigative journalism range from political secrecy institutionalised by law (such as the
UKs Official Secrets Act 1989); official stonewalling (such as ignoring, delaying, or
incompletelyaddressingFOIArequests);andthecommercialandprofessionalpressureson
journaliststoensureregularaccesstoofficialsourcesofnews.
- Encourage sousveillance so that citizens continue to engage in personal
information flows and make their voices heard, for free. Threats to such engagement range from
monetizing access to social media and the wider digital media ecology (a barrier to participation),
through to scaring citizens from engaging (for instance, by high profile punishment of whistleblowers like US Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, and WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange; or by alerting people that their online activities are being surveilled).
EncouragecitizenengagementwithNGOs(awareness,donations,membership).
Threats to such engagement range from ignorance (from deliberate, to information
overload) to apathy. WhereNGOshaveaccesstospecialistknowledge(forinstance,gleaned
throughtheirprimaryresearchandaccesstothosetheyaretryingtohelp),encourageNGOs
toengagewithpolicymakers.ThreatstosuchengagementincludeblockingNGOsaccessto

primary information (such as ignoring, delaying, or incompletely addressing their FOIA

requests).

About the author:

Vian Bakir is Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the School of Creative Studies &
Media, Bangor University, Wales, UK.
She is co-editor of Communication in the Age of Suspicion: Trust and the Media and
author of Sousveillance, Media and Strategic Political Communication: Iraq, USA, UK.
She is on the Steering Committee for the Network of Media and Persuasive
Communication [ https://mpc.bangor.ac.uk/about-us ], and the editorial board for journals Media,
War and Conflict [ http://mwc.sagepub.com ] and The Open Political Science Journal [
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/topolisj/ ].
Email: v.bakir@bangor.ac.uk