Spies Say CIA Cheated Them

It seemed like a fair deal from the CIA: Spy for us and get lifetime financial support in the United States.

But years after working as spies during the Cold War, a former Eastern-bloc diplomat and his wife, who now live in Seattle, say the U.S. government is trying to freeze them out.

The Supreme Court is considering whether the couple may sue the CIA for allegedly breaking a promise of lifetime income.

At issue is whether a 130-year-old Supreme Court ruling automatically bars federal courts from hearing lawsuits over alleged spy contracts, which the CIA says are secret deals that may never be acknowledged.

The Bush administration argues that since the CIA was created in 1947, courts have dismissed spy lawsuits outright on the grounds that any disclosure could threaten security and undermine CIA recruitment efforts.

The couple, who are identified by the aliases John and Jane Doe, counter that the executive branch should not have the power to renege on spy contracts without some judicial review. Sensitive information could be kept secret by sealing records or other methods, they say.

"The agency pressured the Does into undertaking espionage that would virtually guarantee that their activities would become known" to their home country, "putting them at lifelong risk of retaliation, including assassination," their submission states.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling the couple had a right to obtain documents and other information from the CIA to build a trial case. It said recent rulings have allowed litigation to proceed in cases involving questions of national security if the government doesn't show a clear risk.

"We should not precipitously close the courthouse doors to colorable claims of the denial of constitutional rights," the 9th Circuit stated, noting that the Does have sought to keep sensitive information secret by clearing their complaint with the CIA first.

The case involves a former high-ranking diplomat and his wife who wanted to defect from their Eastern bloc country but were pressured by U.S. authorities to instead spy for the United States, according to the lawsuit. In exchange, the CIA promised to help them later defect as well as provide lifetime security.

When their spying was over in 1987, the CIA helped them resettle in Seattle with new identities, benefits and a bank job for the husband, the suit says. They initially received a $27,000 yearly stipend and became U.S. citizens.

The CIA stopped the subsidy when John Doe's salary from the bank hit $27,000, but the two were promised the agency would "always be there." However, the couple claims, when Doe lost his job in 1997, the CIA refused to reinstate the stipend, saying the couple had received enough pay for their spy services.

When the Does filed suit, the CIA pointed to an 1875 Supreme Court which found that a dispute between President Abraham Lincoln and a Civil War spy could not be litigated because the arrangement was supposed to be kept secret.

"Both employer and agent must have understood that the lips of the other were to be forever sealed," the court noted, so the filing of the lawsuit violated that agreement.

Tuesday's argument is the first since last term's enemy combatant cases that asks the high court to weigh an individual's constitutional rights to due process against the government's interest in national security. Last spring, the court held a U.S. citizen had a right to challenge his detention as an alleged "enemy combatant" in federal court.

By Hope Yen