Destruction of CIA Tapes

Recently there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the CIA. The CIA destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes that showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two high level Al Qaeda operatives captured early on. Many Democrats have come out strongly against it. Ted Kennedy even said that “We haven’t seen anything like this since the 18½ -minute gap on the tapes of Richard Nixon." The CIA argues that it acted legally, and that they destroyed the tapes "to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value." Once the investigations begin, we will see for ourselves what really happened. In the mean time, it brings up a bigger question, one posed by the New York Times: how is it possible to run a secret spy service within a democracy.