Doc. 11302 Report the contrary, the CIA depended on the United States Government to secure equally broad permissions and equally robust protections from its foreign allies and their respective intelligence agencies as the ones that had been granted at home. 75. The need for unprecedented permissions, according to our sources, arose directly from the CIA’s resolve to lay greater emphasis on the paramilitary activities of its Counter-Terrorism Center in the pursuit of high-value targets, or HVTs. The United States Government therefore had to seek means of forging intergovernmental partnerships with well-developed military components, rather than simply relying upon the existing liaison networks through which CIA agents had been working for decades. 76. One former senior CIA official told us that administration officials approached multilateral negotiations “like they wanted to raise [the CIA]’s status up to a kind of super military-civilian agency”. Specifically, the United States Government set out to achieve permissions “from as many allied countries as possible” that would allow CIA agents to collaborate directly with foreign military officials, operate “on a no-questions-asked basis” at military installations, and travel free from inspection in military or civilian vehicles and aircraft. 77. In relation to the last point, as I discussed in my report last year,31the lines between civilian and military classifications in the aviation world were about to become incredibly blurred. Conventional legal understandings of civilian and state flights32were about to be fundamentally challenged, or at least the latitude in those definitions exploited to its maximum potential. 78. The United States Government’s post-11 September 2001 detainee transfer operations would frequently make use of practices that were previously considered “anomalies”,33such as: civilian aircraft landing on state duty at military airfields; military cargo planes registered under civilian operators; and civilian agents and contractors travelling on military travel orders. The CIA’s expanding and evolving “rendition” programme, which would ultimately also be used for the transportation of high-value detainees, required cover that would encompass all of these anomalies and more. 79. In terms of protection, the United States Government insisted on the most stringent levels of physical security for its personnel, as well as secrecy and security of information during the operations the CIA would carry out in other countries. 80. Reflecting on what our sources have described in this regard, I consider that the stated United States policy has, in fact, on the pretext of guaranteeing security, intentionally created a framework enabling it to evade all accountability. We have been told that the United States Government sought a means of “insulating” the CIA’s activities (and those of its partner intelligence agencies) from conventional democratic controls in the foreign countries it operated in, not to mention from what it saw as any “unsavoury disputes over jurisdictional issues”. 81. Yet in my view, checks and balances through national parliamentary and judicial oversight, as well as accepted international laws governing territorial sovereignty, are the very foundations upon which our systems of democratic accountability are built. In times of crisis, such as the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, these foundations must be strengthened by demonstrations of collective resolve, not weakened by acts of unilateral brinkmanship. Force Base, 5 December 2005: “The intelligence so gathered has stopped terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives – in Europe as well as in the United States and other countries. The United States has fully respected the sovereignty of other countries that co-operate in these matters.” 31. For my discussion of means of transporting detainees between points on the “global spider’s web”, see The Marty report 2006, supra note 6, at Sections 2.2 to 2.4, pp. 15-18. 32. For an authoritative analysis of the applicable general principles of aviation law, see the Opinion on the international legal obligations of Council of Europe member states in respect of secret detention facilities and inter-state transport of prisoners, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 66th Plenary Session, 17 March 2006; Opinion No. 363/2005, CDLAD(2006)009, available at -AD(2006)009-e.asp (hereinafter “Venice Commission Opinion, 17 March 2006”); at paragraphs 86-104. 33. An aviation expert whom we consulted confidentially used the phrase “anomalies” to describe the practices I refer to here. There are numerous examples of each of these “anomalies” in the comprehensive database of aircraft movements I have compiled since the outset of my inquiry (database held confidentially by the rapporteur). In this regard I am especially grateful to Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, for having provided me with extensive records in various formats in response to my requests for information. I have been able to supplement and verify Eurocontrol records with information from multiple sources, including from the United States Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and state institutions in different Council of Europe member states, such as transport ministries, aviation authorities, airport operators and state airlines. Hereinafter my database of aircraft movements is referred to simply as “The Marty database”. 17