Qz.com:
Much more at the link.
Cheers,
Scott.
US intelligence agencies “duty to warn”
However, US intelligence agencies do have a clear “duty to warn” any individual, US citizen or not, of any known violent threats against them. A 2015 directive to the National Security Act, issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, requires the US to give “non-US persons” notice of “impending threats of intentional killing, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping.”An IC element that collects or acquires credible and specific information indicating an impending threat of intentional killing, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping directed at a person or group of people (hereafter referred to as intended victim) shall have a duty to warn the intended victim or those responsible for protecting the intended victim, as appropriate. This includes threats where the target is an institution, place of business, structure, or location. The term intended victim includes both U.S. persons, as defined in EO 12333, Section 3.5(k), and non-U.S. persons.
The US knew that Khashoggi was a target. US intelligence agents intercepted a plan to lure Khashoggi back to to the US, the Washington Post reported Oct. 10. An unnamed National Security Agency official also told the Observer’s John Schindler that US intelligence had learned that Riyadh “had something unpleasant in store for Khashoggi,” at least a day before Khashoggi went to the embassy in Istanbul. The “threat warning was communicated to the White House through official intelligence channels,” Schindler writes, but it’s not clear whether Khashoggi ever received the warning.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has refused to comment on why Khashoggi was not warned.
FBI assistance
The FBI often investigates the murders of US citizens overseas, or deaths in cases of terrorism that occur on US or foreign soil. While reporters have been asking Trump if he plans to “send the FBI” to investigate, that’s not exactly how it works.
The FBI investigates terrorism overseas when it is “perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations.” In other words, Khashoggi’s alleged killers need to be designated a terrorist group by US authorities before the FBI got involved. Given the US’s close ties to the main suspect, the Saudi government, that’s very unlikely.
The FBI also needs a “request for assistance” from the Turkish authorities to travel to Turkey, and then from the Saudi authorities to enter the consulate where Khashoggi disappeared, as George Piro, the assistant director for international operations, explained in July:in these types of incidents where the FBI or the United States may not necessarily have jurisdiction, we are prepared to support our foreign partners if they ask for our assistance and support. And that is – that’s what kind of triggers or initiates the mechanism for the FBI to provide – whether it’s a technical support expertise, subject matter expertise, or things like that, it would require the foreign partner to ask for our assistance, and we will provide that.
Moral obligation and the Magnitsky Act
What the US should be doing in any situation where an outspoken critic of an authoritarian regime goes missing is another question. In the past, US authorities have sometimes intervened overseas under the flag of democratic American principles, (sometimes while pursuing other goals of their own).
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Much more at the link.
Cheers,
Scott.