Clear and Present Danger/Useful Notes

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/wiki/Clear and Present Dangerwork

The novel "Clear and Present Danger" by Tom Clancy touches on several aspects of law that are not fully addressed within the book itself.

The below contains spoilers.

The "Clear and Present Danger" clause

While the line itself has context to the book, as it's a quote by the President on the ongoing danger of drugs to the American people, the line itself has nothing to do with the book. It is derived from a Supreme Court case presided over by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in which he claimed the government had a right to suspend ordinarily guaranteed freedoms for the average citizen such as freedom of speech if the danger to the country was clear and present, thus requiring such action so those freedoms could later be fully resumed.

While the law is bent within the novel under similar logic, no issue of free speech is directly involved. In fact, the decision from that case would have no bearing whatsoever on the legality of the anti-drug operations that take place, which are legal from a domestic point of view, but would still be invasion of a foreign friendly country since at no time do they get Columbia's willing cooperation with their activities. They had plans to do so, but they are forgotten by the middle of the book after the assassination of the FBI Director.

Legality of the operations

While at no point are the operations legal from an international perspective, aside from an aborted attempt to make them so by gaining official Columbian sanction, the major players in the anti-drug operations are all guilty to some greater or lesser extent of the following illegalities.

• The CIA operates within the bounds of the law up to the point the FBI Director is killed, at which point they break the law by agreeing to the President's demand to not inform Congress what they have done, in direct defiance of how Congress must be notified of any covert action initiated by the executive branch either before or shortly after the action is taken. Ritter and Moore temporarily compound the illegality by silently cooperating with Cutter's plan to make the whole thing disappear, but redeem themselves by deciding to reverse course, save the soldiers Cutter left to die, and report everything to Congress. Since neither works for the CIA past that point by the next book, it can be presumed they arranged to avoid prosecution for their earlier indiscretions by agreeing to leave public service in exchange.

• The President breaks the law on two occasions. First, his illegal order to keep Congress ignorant of the anti-drug ops, and second, purposely turning a blind eye to Cutter's activities so long as he himself can remain ignorant of any possible illegal acts on Cutter's part, which he would still be responsible for since Cutter is his direct subordinate.

• The US military as a whole does not commit any crimes, though the crew of the USCG cutter Panache is guilty of mock torture and a fake extralegal trial that taints the prosecution's case. The Air Force personnel under Colonel Paul Johns technically defy orders given them by Admiral Cutter, though this becomes a moot point since those orders later turn out to be wholly illegal.
  • Admiral Cutter is also, despite being National Security Advisor, still not in their operational chain of command. He therefore has no authority to order them to abandon a mission they have already been assigned by said chain of command. Colonel Johns is himself a senior enough officer to be entirely familiar with this admittedly complex point of military law.

• Ryan himself technically is guilty of illegal access to government documents he doesn't have clearance to access (though this is questionable since in recovering the documents and reporting them to Congress and the FBI he is exposing the illegal acts of others as an informant), and later rendered moot when those he obtained the documents from also turn informant on their corrupt superiors.
  • Ryan actually does have the clearance level to access the documents -- while they are Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information material he actually has that level of security clearance, and Director Moore's attempt to exclude Ryan from the relevant compartment is itself illegal because Ryan's job as acting Deputy Director (Intelligence) requires him to have "need-to-know" on everything -- as the CIA official in charge of briefing Congress on CIA activities, deliberately excluding Ryan from knowledge about specific CIA activities is in itself an illegal conspiracy to evade oversight.
• The police in charge of detaining the pirates before their trials are guilty of criminal conspiracy to commit murder and corruption, as well as improper evidence handling.

• The FBI turns a blind eye to the illegal acts of the Panache crew, and Daniel Murray comes very close to obstruction of justice when he has the Panache captain tipped off about their illegal acts being exposed.

• Cutter breaks the law on three occasions. First, by helping the president keep Congress ignorant of the truth. Second, by blackmailing the CIA into helping him bury evidence of illegal acts, and finally, by conspiracy to commit murder by helping Cortez get the US soldiers sent into Columbia killed to clean up loose ends and save himself from exposure.
  • Arguably speaking Cutter also commits treason -- in the legal as well as ethical sense of the word -- on that last one, as he is actively helping an opposing force kill US troops deployed in combat. The undeclared and unofficial nature of the combat operations and the lack of the constitutionally required # of witnesses (two) to his actions are about the only two things that would make him unable to be prosecuted for it, the acts themselves are unmistakably giving "aid and comfort to the enemy".