Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA’s Torture Scandals by Glenn Greenwald and Peter Maass.
From the post:
NBC News yesterday called her a “key apologist” for the CIA’s torture program. A follow-up New Yorker article dubbed her “The Unidentified Queen of Torture” and in part “the model for the lead character in ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’” Yet in both articles she was anonymous.
The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted — even by some within the agency.
The Intercept is naming Bikowsky over CIA objections because of her key role in misleading Congress about the agency’s use of torture, and her active participation in the torture program (including playing a direct part in the torture of at least one innocent detainee). Moreover, Bikowsky has already been publicly identified by news organizations as the CIA officer responsible for many of these acts.
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Greenwald and Maass focus on reasons why naming Alfreda Bikowsky (who has her own Wikipedia page) is a reasonable thing to do, despite requests from the CIA to do otherwise.
I’m not sure what more justification is required other than Alfreda Bikowsky is a public official who committed criminal acts (see the Senate CIA Torture Report) and who is still in office. The public has a right to be informed about criminal activity committed by those in public office.
NBC, The New Yorker, don’t believe in accountability for those involved in criminal activity in the government. How can the public make sure unnamed/unknown people are held accountable by their superiors?
NBC and The New Yorker appear to consider their relationships with the CIA to be more important than serving the public interest. That’s their call but viewers and subscribers should start making calls of their own. To the sponsors of NBC and cancelling their subscriptions to The New Yorker, in droves.
If NBC and The New Yorker were willing to conceal this information from you, what else are they hiding? And why? Don’t know, can’t say. But you can know you aren’t listening to them any more.
BTW, to assist you with communicating your displeasure:
NBC General Contact form. It may be more effective to call the sponsors of commercials. Tell them that NBC is censoring the news and you won’t buy their products if they stay with NBC.
The New Yorker: Customer Service can be reached at www.newyorker.com/customerservice or 1-800-405-8085. I agree, it is was a great zine but great zines are not tools of the CIA.
I first saw this in a tweet by the U.S. Department of Fear.