The Ninth Circuit contractor ruling is an approximately July 2025 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the legality of armed action — including killing and torture — performed by private contractors under contract to the Central Intelligence Agency. The court held that contractors operating under written CIA contract are legally protected as agents of the agency, extending the agency’s Executive Order 12333 authority to its contractor operations.[1][2]
Plaintiff and facts
The plaintiff was Abu Zubaydah — captured by John Kiriakou’s CIA team in Pakistan in March 2002, the first subject of the enhanced interrogation techniques program, and currently a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Abu Zubaydah sought to sue the private contractors who had tortured him during his interrogation. “The court was like, ‘Yeah, sorry. You got tortured, but they were acting on behalf of the CIA.’ And the CIA was legally permitted to torture people, so you’re shit out of luck.”[2]
Holding
The court ruled that contractors are protected “so long as they have a written contract” and that, under such a contract, they are deemed to be acting on behalf of the CIA — and that the CIA has presidential authority to carry out the operations in question under Executive Order 12333.[1]
Reception
Kiriakou received a call from an attorney involved in the case observing that the ruling — despite its categorical extension of CIA paramilitary authority to private contractors — had received almost no media attention: “I have no idea why nobody in the media gives a shit about this decision.”[1]