US agents insured against 'terror' lawsuits
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 1:13am GMT 21/01/2008
Thousands of CIA, FBI and Secret Service agents are taking out insurance policies to cover them against the growing risk of being sued in the line of duty.
With the United States government's controversial post-September 11 crackdown producing a series of lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, those on the front line of the "war on terror" are finding themselves vulnerable.
Wright & Company, a Virginia-based law firm specialising in insuring such government employees, said its federal client list had grown from 17,000 to 32,000 since the 2001 attacks.
The firm, founded by a former FBI agent, said much of its new business was prompted by official investigations over the prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay, immigration crackdowns and other consequences of 9/11.
"The things that help us are any negative events related to the federal government, and there have been plenty," Bryan Lewis, Wright's chief executive, told The New York Times.
The government pays half the insurance premium for "high-risk" employees, including hundreds of CIA staff.
Comment: Are the vultures circling overhead? Bush's foreign policy has become a stinking corpse.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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