Plausible deniability refers to the denial of blame in loose and informal
chains of commandIn a military context, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units...
where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such act. Of course, career
intelligence officerAn intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile and analyze information which is of use to that organization...
s are not plausibly deniable, although outside intelligence agents may be.
In
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
and espionage, deniability refers to the ability of a "powerful player" or actor to avoid "
blowbackBlowback is the espionage term for the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government...
" by secretly arranging for an action to be taken on their behalf by a third party—ostensibly unconnected with the major player. In political campaigns, plausible deniability enables candidates to stay "clean" and denounce advertisements that use unethical approaches or innuendo based on
opposition researchOpposition research is:# The term used to classify and describe efforts of supporters or paid consultants of a political candidate to legally investigate the biographical, legal or criminal, medical, educational, financial, public and private administrative and or voting records of the opposing...
.
More generally, "plausible deniability" can also apply to any act that leaves little or no evidence of wrongdoing or abuse. Examples of this are the use of
electricityAn electric shock can occur upon contact of a human body with any source of voltage high enough to cause sufficient current through the muscles or hair. The minimum current a human can feel is thought to be about 1 milliampere ....
,
waterboardingWaterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, causing the captive to believe he or she is dying. By forced suffocation and inhalation of water,...
or pain-compliance holds as a means of torture or punishment, leaving little or no tangible signs that the abuse ever took place.
Overview
Arguably, the key concept of plausible deniability is plausibility. It is fairly easy for a government official to issue a blanket denial of an action, and it is possible to destroy or cover up evidence after the fact, and this might be sufficient to avoid a criminal prosecution, for instance. However, the public might well disbelieve the denial, particularly if there is strong circumstantial evidence, or if the action is believed to be so unlikely that the only possible explanation is that the denial is false.
The concept is even more important in espionage. Intelligence may come from many sources, including human sources. The exposure of information to which only a few people are privileged may directly implicate some of those people in the exposure. For instance, suppose a government official is traveling secretly, and that only one of his aides knows the specific travel plans. Suppose further that the official is assassinated during his travels, and that the circumstances of the assassination (an ambush, perhaps) strongly suggest that the assassin had foreknowledge of the official's travel plans. The only logical conclusion is that the official has been betrayed by his aide. There may be no direct evidence linking the aide to the assassin, but the collaboration can be inferred on the facts alone, thus making the aide's denial implausible.
Plausible deniability in the context of espionage dates back to at least
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the
AlliesIn general, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose. In English usage, those who share a common goal and whose work toward that goal is complementary may be viewed as allies for various purposes even when...
' use of
ULTRAUltra was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of encrypted German radio communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the United States for all intelligence from high-level cryptanalytic sources...
intelligence, which had secretly broken German Enigma ciphers. For example, if ULTRA revealed a U-boat position, the Allies would not simply send a ship to sink the U-boat. Instead, they might send up a search plane, which would "fortuitously" sight the U-boat, and also ensure that the U-boat saw the search plane. In other cases, the inability to provide plausible deniability forced Allied commanders to avoid taking direct action despite having useful intelligence. In this case, the purpose of going through extra steps or not taking action was to not let the Germans know that their ciphers had been broken.
History
The expression "plausibly deniable" was first used publicly by
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
(CIA) director Allen Dulles. The idea, on the other hand, is considerably older. For example, in the 19
th century,
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was...
described the importance of having "a few simply honest men" on a committee who could be temporarily eliminated when "a peculiarly delicate question arises" so that one of them could "declare truly, if necessary, that he never was present at any meeting at which even a questionable course had been proposed."
Church Committee
A U.S. Senate committee, the
Church CommitteeThe Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
, in 1974-1975 conducted an investigation of the intelligence agencies. In the course of the investigation, it was revealed that the CIA, going back to the Kennedy administration, had plotted the assassination of a number of foreign leaders, including
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
's
Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
. But the president himself, who clearly was in favor of such actions, was not to be directly involved, so that he could deny knowledge of it. This was given the term
plausible denial.
Plausible denial involves the creation of power structures and chains of command loose and informal enough to be denied if necessary. The idea was that the CIA (and, later, other bodies) could be given controversial instructions by powerful figures—up to and including the
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
himself—but that the existence and true source of those instructions could be denied if necessary; if, for example, an operation went disastrously wrong and it was necessary for the administration to disclaim responsibility.
Legislative barriers after the Church Committee
The
Hughes-Ryan ActThe Hughes-Ryan Act is a 1974 United States federal law that amended the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The Act was named for its co-authors, Senator Harold E. Hughes and Representative Leo Ryan...
of 1974 put an end to plausible denial by requiring a Presidential finding that each operation is important to national security, and the
Intelligence Oversight ActThe Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 is a United States federal law that amended the Hughes-Ryan Act and requires United States government agencies to report covert actions to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence . The previous...
of 1980 required that Congress be notified of all covert operations. But both laws are full of enough vague terms and escape hatches to allow the executive branch to thwart their authors' intentions, as the
Iran-contra affairThe Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States which came to light in November 1986, during the Reagan administration, in which senior US figures agreed to facilitate the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo, to secure the release of hostages and to fund...
has shown. Indeed, the members of Congress are in a dilemma: when they are informed, they are in no position to stop the action, unless they leak its existence and thereby foreclose the option of covertness.
Media reports on the Church Committee and plausible deniability
Iran Contra Affair
In his testimony to the congressional committee studying the
Iran-Contra affairThe Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States which came to light in November 1986, during the Reagan administration, in which senior US figures agreed to facilitate the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo, to secure the release of hostages and to fund...
, Vice Admiral
John PoindexterJohn Marlan Poindexter is a retired American naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran-Contra...
stated: "I made a deliberate decision not to ask the President, so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the President if it ever leaked out."
Declassified government documents
- Pentagon papers October 25, 1963 Telegram from the Ambassador in Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Vietnam and the Vatican . He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.-Early life and career:Lodge was born in Nahant, Massachusetts...
to Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge BundyMcGeorge "Mac" Bundy was United States National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson from 1961 through 1966, and president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979...
on US Options with Respect to a Possible Coup, mentioning the term plausible denial Alternative link (See Telegram 216)
- CIA and White House documents on covert political intervention in the 1964 Chilean election declassified. The CIA's Chief of Western Hemisphere Division, J.C. King, recommended that funds for the campaign "be provided in a fashion causing (Eduardo Frei Montalva
Eduardo Frei Montalva was a Chilean political figure and president of Chile from 1964 to 1970. His eldest son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, also became president of Chile .-Early life:...
president of Chile) to infer United States origin of funds and yet permitting plausible denial"
- Training files of the CIA's covert "Operation PBSUCCESS
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala...
," for the 1954 coup in Guatemala. According to the National Security ArchiveThe National Security Archive is a 501 non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located within The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1985 by Scott Armstrong, it archives and publishes declassified U.S. government files concerning selected topics of...
: "Among the documents found in the training files of Operation PBSUCCESS and declassified by the Agency is a CIA document titled 'A Study of Assassination.' A how-to guide book in the art of political killing, the 19-page manual offers detailed descriptions of the procedures, instruments, and implementation of assassination." The manual states that to provide plausible denial, "no assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded."
Flaws
The doctrine had six major flaws:
- It was an open door to the abuse of authority; it required that the parties in question could be said to have acted independently, which in the end was tantamount to giving them license to act independently.
- It rarely worked when invoked; the denials made were rarely plausible and were generally seen through by both the media and the populace.
- One aspect of the Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States in the 1970s. Named for the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, President of the United States, on August 9, 1974...
crisis is the repeated failure of the doctrine of plausible deniability, which the administration repeatedly attempted to use to stop the scandal affecting President Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and is the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States ....
and his aides.
- "Plausible denial" only increases the risk of misunderstanding between senior officials and their employees.
- It only shifts blame, and generally, constructs rather little.
- If the claim fails, it seriously discredits the political figure invoking it as a defense.
- If it succeeds, it creates the impression that the government is not in control of the state.
Other examples
Another example of plausible deniability is someone who actively avoids gaining certain knowledge of facts because it benefits that person not to know.
As an example, an
attorneyA lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver...
may suspect that facts exist which would hurt his case, but decide not to investigate the issue because if the attorney had actual knowledge, the rules of ethics might require him to reveal those facts to the opposing side. Thus his failure to investigate maintains plausible deniability.
Council on Foreign Relations
"...the U.S. government may at times require a certain deniability. Private activities can provide that deniability." --
Council on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improving the understanding of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
, an American foreign policy think tank, in the 2003 report, "Finding America’s Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy"
Thomas Becket
King
Henry II of EnglandHenry II, called Curtmantle ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France...
is often said to have stated of
Archbishop of CanterburyAlso see Leaders of ChristianityThe Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, the see that churches must be in communion with in order to be...
Thomas BecketThomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to his death. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Becket was indeed murdered, although the king denied that his plea was to be taken in such a way.
Use in computer networks
In computer networks, deniability often refers to a situation where a person can deny transmitting a file, even when it is proven to come from his computer.
Normally, this is done by setting the computer to relay certain types of broadcasts automatically, in such a way that the original transmitter of a file is indistinguishable from those who are merely relaying it. In this way, the person who first transmitted the file can claim that his computer had merely relayed it from elsewhere, and this claim cannot be dis-proven without a complete decrypted log of all network connections to and from that person's computer.
Freenet file sharing
The
FreenetFreenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and open source software...
file sharingFile sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multi-media , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented in a variety of storage, transmission, and distribution models...
network is another application of the idea. It obfuscates data sources and flows in order to protect operators and users of the network by preventing them (and, by extension, observers such as
censorCensorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...
s) from knowing where data comes from and where it is stored.
Use in cryptography
In
cryptographyCryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. Modern cryptography intersects the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, and engineering...
,
deniable encryptionIn cryptography and steganography, deniable encryption is encryption that allows its users to convincingly deny the fact that the data is encrypted or, assuming that the data is obviously encrypted, its users can convincingly deny that they are able to decrypt it...
may be used to describe
steganographic techniquesSteganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity. The word steganography is of Greek origin and means "concealed writing"...
, where the very existence of an encrypted file or message is
deniable in the sense that an adversary cannot prove that an encrypted message exists.
Some systems take this further, such as
MaruTukkuIn computing, rubberhose is a deniable encryption archive containing multiple file systems whose existence can only be verified using the appropriate cryptographic key.- Name and history :...
and (to a lesser extent)
FreeOTFEFreeOTFE is an "on-the-fly" disk encryption program for PCs running MS Windows and Windows Mobile PDAs...
/
TrueCryptTrueCrypt is a software application used for real-time on-the-fly encryption. It is distributed without cost, and has source code available, although under a restrictive licence. It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or a device-hosted encrypted volume on either an individual...
which nest encrypted data. The owner of the encrypted data may reveal one or more keys to decrypt certain information from it, and then deny that more keys exist, a statement which cannot be disproven without knowledge of all encryption keys involved. The existence of "hidden" data within the overtly encrypted data is then
deniable in the sense that it cannot be proven to exist.
Programming
The
Underhanded C contestThe Underhanded C Contest is a programming contest to turn out code that is malicious, but passes a rigorous inspection, and looks like an honest mistake. The contest rules define a task, and a malicious component. Entries must perform the task in a malicious manner as defined by the contest, and...
is an annual programming contest involving the creation of carefully crafted bugs, which have to be both very hard to find and plausibly deniable as mistakes once found.
See also
- At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA is a memoir co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs...
- Black op
A black operation or black op is a covert operation typically involving activities that are highly secret.-Origins:Black ops missions often fit into the deniable category, a situation in which there is no claim of responsibility for the action, and/or a false flag operation is used to give the...
- Church Committee
The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
- Deniable encryption
In cryptography and steganography, deniable encryption is encryption that allows its users to convincingly deny the fact that the data is encrypted or, assuming that the data is obviously encrypted, its users can convincingly deny that they are able to decrypt it...
- Equivocation
Equivocation is classified as both a formal and informal fallacy. It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense ....
- Willful violation
In the North American legal justice system system and in US Occupational Safety and Health regulations,willful violation is an "act done voluntarily with either...
- Willful blindness
Willful blindness is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable...
- Lone wolf (terrorism)
- Leaderless resistance
Leaderless resistance is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and civil disobedience to bombings, assassinations and other violent...
- Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the apprehension and illegal transfer of a person from one state to another...
involves flying terror suspects abroad to countries where it is likely that they will be tortureTorture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may be motivated to inflict torture on others for similar reasons to those of a state; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of...
d. This is done to avoid the illegality of ordering their torture or carrying it out on US soil. By having another government order it, the intention to torture the suspect can be plausibly denied.
- Operation PBSUCCESS
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala...
- opposition research
Opposition research is:# The term used to classify and describe efforts of supporters or paid consultants of a political candidate to legally investigate the biographical, legal or criminal, medical, educational, financial, public and private administrative and or voting records of the opposing...
Church Committee links