Andregg, Michael M.2019-11-202019-11-202019-11-20https://hdl.handle.net/11299/208757This paper was first presented at a foundational conference of a short-lived International Intelligence Ethics Association in Washington DC in 2006. It was updated and presented to another intel conference called "Intelligence in the Knowledge Society" sponsored by Romania's National Intelligence Academy (Mihai Viteazul) in Bucharest on December 5, 2014 and finally for the US Naval Postgraduate School on June 18, 2017. It addresses the very unusual ethical dilemmas faced by intelligence professionals including obvious topics like torture, assassination, propaganda, manipulation of others' elections, and threats to annihilate everyone by general thermonuclear war. It also addresses less obvious topics like how a profession that depends on constant lies, deception, and occasional betrayal can be an honorable path for people able to do 'the right thing' under incredibly stressful and often very rare circumstances.Attorneys and philosophers have presented detailed answers to the question of when it is permissible to break laws, some of which begin and end with the word “never.” Others answer “always” if reasons of state are compelling. To compound confusion, governments often write special laws for their “spies”* and other “intelligence professionals”* [1]. Some of these laws are publicly known, but others are classified, like a significant fraction of US NSDD’s (National Security Decision Directives) and NSPD’s (National Security Presidential Directives). So what is forbidden for ordinary citizens may be legally “OK” for intelligence professionals, but citizens cannot tell because some of the laws are secret laws administered by secret courts like the FISA court in the USA [2]. This situation can easily degenerate into simple codes: like “Do anything you need to accomplish your mission, but do not get caught” which has been noted by several CIA veterans [3]. That noted here, the CIA may be among the more restrained intelligence agencies in the world, because it is besieged by lawyers who have some actual laws to work with, unlike the secret services of some other countries. Many cases can be studied as dilemmas that challenge these simple, black-and-white views of the world and of moral codes of conduct. A modern classic is the ‘nuclear terrorist with a ticking time bomb’ scenario. Many people conclude that there are no limits at all on what one might properly do to stop him (or her!). A dilemma of longer duration is that of the small unit infantry commander whose surrounded troops will all die if he does not do something to a prisoner that is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions and the American Laws of War. Such cases often involve torture or murder. There is also a long, Catholic tradition called “Just War Theory” that attempts to bring systematic thought to both jus ad bellum issues (is the war just?) and jus in bello (is the war being conducted justly?). Even in a theoretically unified church (regarding fundamental moral issues) one can find substantively different opinions about this among highly competent commentators [4]. This paper will consider both of these hard cases in the context of many years of moral and legal thought with a final focus on two moral principles and one practical observation addressing the question of whether evil means can be morally pursued to achieve good end goals. They are: 1) the Do No Harm principle; 2) the Lesser of Evils principle; and 3) the lesson from human history that the Means Used Determine the Actual Ends Achieved.enintelligence studiesethics for spiesinternational lawConference Paper