Does there exist no ethical line that cannot be crossed in national service?

In most cases, I think orders should be followed despite the agent's personal views. However, I can envision bright-line breaches of ethics that would warrant disobedience. For example, if a CIA agent was ordered to kill an American citizen without due process, that order is obviously improper and should be disobeyed.

I think that, in the absence of a codified standard of ethics that one can refer to and rely upon as authority (such as a criminal statute), one should not place his personal feelings on an issue above his duties in the job he has taken on. Thus, a government agent instructed to provide security to a person walking into a clinic to have an abortion should not refuse the order simply because he is pro-life and considers what he is doing to be facilitating an act akin to murder.

As a citizenry, our duty is vigilance. With the assistance of the media (without which our duty would be impossible), we can learn when orders are being disobeyed and judge for ourselves whether or not the failure to obey an order was proper. Similarly, we can also learn of government-ordered atrocities and verify whether or not the responsible government agent knew or should have known that what was being done was a clear violation of his duty. We may desire to impose penalties on parties who issue improper orders and on those who follow those they know to be improper (as in your example of the aspirational military standard). Thus, there can be some form of sanction against government misconduct.

My only caution with the specific scenario you outlined in your question is that the AG was dealing with a practice that many Americans believed to be acceptable as a means of protecting us from those who would do us harm. It is likely that many people who engaged in "torturing" (I put the term in quotes because the definition of it varies depending on who you ask) prisoners thought they were fighting the good fight as they did so. For this reason, it is not clear to me that they deserve punishment for following the orders they were given. Indeed, even to this day, there is an ethical debate on whether or not torturing prisoners in order to obtain safety-promoting intelligence is morally acceptable. Admittedly, the standing of the international community and our current administration is clear on the point, but a review of poll data taken a few years back may lead one to realize that Americans were not so clear on it.

I'll be looking forward to the other answers on this one. Good question.

I guess in hindsight those Nuremberg trials were a big mistake. They were just following orders!

THIS ANSWER IS FROM THE POLITCAL PERSPECTIVE:
You're right, Dr. Y, it doesn't make sense. When we recognize this fact, it is obvious that something else is driving the agenda our elected officials are engaging in.

If it was me doing the deed, what my superiors said about its acceptability doesn't matter. When it got to 'that point', I'd know it, and dismiss myself from the ongoings.

But, is there really something here? This, with regards to the question of whether or not a line was crossed. Which, by the way, is the inherent problem behind the way you choose to understand this issue. In other words, I think it's very difficult to attach that particular metaphor to the dynamic complexity which was underway when The USA went after these terrorists with military force...versus the way this current administration is conducting itself about it.

To me, when I look at the current ongoings, virtually to a person, people are taking sides based upon their POLITICAL leanings. They are not trying to understand from a truly unbiased 'justice is blind' point of view. This tells me that a definitive "line" was most likely not crossed.

I know that you, Dr. Y, would strive to not subsume this issue under your political point of view (as would I, not).

Consequently, the bigger problem I'm having as we grapple with this issue, is that the release of information from the Obama administration has been sparse and unintelligibly selective. This to the point, that they cannot justify the course of action thus far taken when scrutinized about it.

Would I like to know whether or not what went on was acceptable? Of course, and if the evidence warrants it, we should probably even have high ranking officials brought up on charges.

Unfortunately, we haven't gotten enough yet from the Obama administration to see the whole picture.

PS: Holder's statements are telegraphing the fact that The Obama administration knows this is all just an attempt to gain political traction.

The problem with the CIA is that it does not adhere to its mission. Presidents think that the CIA and FBI are their personal police force. The CIA is suppose to collect, correlate and report intelligence to the Security Council and the President. They are NOT agent provocateurs. Yet this is what they do. They are supposed to be observers only and are not to take any proactive action. Since so much of what they do is super secret, they get the feeling they are untouchable. They let their personal feelings interfere with their job and are shield and protected by their superiors who desire the exact same thing contrary to their mission statement.

All agents of the CIA should be ex-military and thoroughly schooled in ethical behavior. They should be protected by law against coercion. The administrative people could be college grads and lawyers (ex-FBI?). If and when they require unethical action, the agent can put the brakes on. This would keep the CIA an ethical and legal organization. Not some super secret strike squad that engineers the rise and downfalls of nations at the whim of whomever happens to President at the time.

Have you seen the movie Donnie Brasco? It is a drama based on the true story of an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the mafia at an unprecedented level. There is a scene where Donnie, in the company of high ranking mafioso, has been the accidental cause of an act of brutality at a restaurant where an innocent waiter came into conflict with the group merely because he was enforcing the rules of his employer. Donnie Brasco had to make a difficult choice: to protect the innocent waiter, or his cover as a mafioso and the priority of his mission.

Kurt Vonnegut also examines the question of cloak and daggery in his novel Mother Night, and the movie by the same name.

These two works illustrate how the subject of your question is very complicated. But the question itself is too simple. It confuses the mission of the CIA with the agents who undertake those missions.

There is no secret about the mission of the CIA. To date, it has largely been the overthrow of democratically elected governments, begining with the stunning double headers of Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s. But then, this answer is in danger of becoming a rant, which is prohibited by the community guidelines of Yahoo, and the common sense rule of length makes for loss of interest.

The short answer? Yes. You are confusing Holder's position by assuming that it pardons all government officials of any crime. It doesn't. It merely clarifies where the focus of criminal investigation should (or shouldn't) be.

In answering your question, there is no ethical line that cannot be crossed once National Service has succumbed to a criminal enterprise.

Limited power may corrupt and absolute power always corrupts absolutely. George W Bush and his fellow co-conspirators are absolutely corrupt. They absolutely stole the elections of 2000 and 2004. They entered America into a war of conquest in Iraq among many other criminal acts.

The CIA was/is simply an arm of the Bush Criminal Enterprise. Barack Obama was allowed to become president on the quid pro quo that the Bush Criminal Enterprise would be immune from prosecution.

This is a very dangerous precedence since America is within a hair's breath of an absolute dictatorship. Democracy is dead in America and the American People don't even know it. Elections are a farce where those handpicked candidates are predetermined by the party bosses long before even the Republican and Democratic Party regulars have a chance to voice an opinion.

The corporate media has stamped out dissent as does the militarized police around the country. The Internet dissent is fragmented and easily infiltrated and compromised by the FBI and other government intelligence agencies. Free speech is dead in America.

When you get into putting your life into providing for the rights and freedoms of others, often there are conflicts between ethical choices. The line that cannot be crossed is to choose the greater transgression when the lesser will suffice. My honor is less important than my fellow man.

my very simplistic reasoning was that this was a utilitarian thing here?

arnt they saying that what they did wasnt so bad as torture goes, like, not thumbscrews and that, and that they had been asked to do it to counter what they thought was a real threat to life so the information they were getting was worth the discomfort or distress they caused?

it still seems pretty nasty to me, but for like, devils advocacy purposes ....