Rewards for Justice

The Rewards for Justice Program, administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in the U.S. Department of State, was created in 1984 by the U.S. Congress as part of the Act to Combat International [Page 318]Terrorism. The monetary rewards are an incentive to potential informants to provide law enforcement agencies with information about any terrorist act, planned or carried out, against U.S. citizens. Acts and people that the Rewards for Justice Program has specifically targeted include the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; Serbian leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic; Eric Rudolph for the 1996 Olympic bombings in Atlanta, Georgia; and the kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

More than $22 million has been paid to a total of 22 informants in recent years. Information about most of these cases is classified. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, later convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was arrested on the basis of information provided in exchange for $2 million—the largest single payment to date. In October 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act increased the amount that could be paid to an individual to more than $5 million, and up to $25 million specifically for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., additional money for the program was collected by public donations to the nonprofit Rewards for Justice Fund, established by businessmen Scott Case and Joe Rutledge. The Air Transport Association of America and the Airline Pilots Association also pledged $1 million each to be distributed as supplemental awards for cases involving aviation.

Following the nomination of a potential recipient by a U.S. investigating agency, an interagency committee evaluates the information provided, decides if a reward is appropriate, and how much is to be paid. Both the secretary of state and the attorney general must approve the committee's decision. The amount of the reward is based on the value of the information, the risk faced by the informer, and the degree of his or her cooperation.

Publicity for the program has included advertisements in local languages placed in both foreign and U.S. media, posters, matchbook covers, and an Internet site. The advertising firm Ogilvie & Mather Worldwide worked, pro bono, to create a new advertising campaign; the national campaign was launched in December 2001, with media sources within the United States running the ads free as public service announcements. Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Charlotte Beers oversaw the campaign.

The campaign has generated some controversy. It has been accused of creating misleading and inaccurate advertisements—notably a poster with a photograph of terrorist Mohamed Atta with unattributed text describing the activities of suspected conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. One critic claimed that a non-citizen offering information was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) rather than rewarded; meanwhile the Zionist Organization of America has complained that Palestinian killers of U.S. citizens in Israel are not named on the program's Web site.

In the four months following September 11, 2001, the program received 24,000 tips. The State Department has called the program “one of its most valuable U.S. Government assets in the fight against international terrorism.”