CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
facility at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo as jargon by the U.S. military) is a United States military base located on of land and water on the shore of Guant ...
. Its name was taken from the Beatles song. Another Beatles song, "
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English Rock music, rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented ...
", was similarly appropriated in naming Camp Strawberry Fields where the CIA's most prominent detainees were to be kept "Forever".
Overview
Penny Lane was used to attempt to convert particular captives into
double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
s who would be released to penetrate terrorist organizations and inform on them from within. According to
Adam Goldman
Adam Goldman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist. He received the award for covering the New York Police Department's spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities, for coverage of Russian meddling in t ...
and
Matt Apuzzo
Matt Apuzzo (born October 20, 1978) is an American journalist working for ''The New York Times''.
Early life
Apuzzo was born in Cumberland, Maine and attended Colby College, where he edited the school newspaper, the ''Colby Echo''.
Career ...
, of the ''
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
'', Intelligence officials who insisted on anonymity asserted that the double agent program had successful graduates—individuals who were believed to be trustworthy enough to be released early, and who would then betray terrorists. However, they acknowledged that at least some of those individuals abandoned being a double agent and stopped reporting to the CIA.
In anticipation of the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
's ruling in ''
Rasul v. Bush
''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corp ...
'', which was going to allow access to
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...
for individuals held in Guantanamo, Penny Lane, and other CIA black sites, like Camp Strawberry Fields, were shut down.
The conditions of confinement were reported to have been comfortable, with every individual provided with a private suite, with a real bed, private bathroom, kitchenette, and private patio.
Following the release of the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's use of torture, some press reports later asserted that Penny Lane remained in operation, after the CIA stopped holding its own captives there, and that it was the site Scott Horton identified as "
Camp No
Camp No is an alleged secret detention and torture facility ( black site) related to the United States detainment camps located in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. On January 18, 2010, Scott Horton asserted in an article in ''Harper's Magazine,'' the resul ...
", when three captives died under mysterious circumstances, on June 9-10, 2006.
See also
*
Guantanamo Bay homicide accusations
Guantanamo Bay homicide accusations were made regarding the deaths of three prisoners on June 10, 2006, at the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp for enemy combatants at its naval base in Cuba. Two of the men had been cleared by the milit ...
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...