Many have been advocating for a "good faith" defense when a rogue employee does an act within the corporation that is diametrically opposed to company policy (see here).  There is an understanding that corporate compliance cannot control every action, and that on occasion the best of corporations will not be able to control the activities of an employee that goes beyond what the corporation authorizes.  The difficulty here is in deciding whether the corporation really allowed for this activity and then decided when caught that this was unauthorized, or whether the corporation truly had a corporate compliance program that tried to preclude this activity.

Place this backdrop on the recent disclosure that individuals may have destroyed videotapes that may have provided evidence of improper interrogation techniques by individuals, perhaps ones associated with the CIA. If there was an ongoing investigation into the interrogation methods being used, the destruction of evidence relevant to that investigation would be wholly improper and perhaps criminal. The first question will be whether there was an ongoing investigation, and whether these individuals were aware or should have been aware of that investigation.  If so, the destruction of possible evidence could be considered an obstruction of justice.

News reports say that white house counsel Miers and CIA lawyer Rizzo were "livid" and "upset" to learn of this destruction. (see Mark Mazzetti, NYTimes, C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes).  But the real question should be how could this have happened and what kind of compliance measures were in place to make certain that this would not happen. If this were a corporation, the fact that leaders were displeased with the activity of individuals within the entity would not serve to keep that entity from being held criminally liable of the conduct of the rogue employees.  

The CIA is not a corporation, but if the government is demanding that corporations are going to be subject to penalties for the acts of rogue employees, then they too must bear the same consequences when someone bypasses their internal directives.

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