Rewards for Justice

The Rewards for Justice program, administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in the Department of State, was created in 1984 by the U.S. Congress as part of the Act to Combat International Terrorism. The monetary rewards are an incentive to potential informants to provide law enforcement agencies with information about any terrorist act, whether 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; and the kidnapping and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. A flight instructor named Clarence Prevost was reportedly paid $5 million from the program for testifying against Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006. The largest payout was $30 million, paid to an individual who pinpointed the locations of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of Saddam Hussein, who were subsequently killed in a U.S. military strike in 2003.

At least $80 million has been paid to more than 50 tipsters since the program's inception. Information about most of these cases is classified. One significant catch was Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, later convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who was arrested on the basis of information provided in exchange for $2 million. In October 2001, the Patriot Act increased the amount that could be paid to an individual to more than $5 million, while up to $25 million can be given 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, outside of Washington, D.C., additional money for the program was collected by public donations to the nonprofit Rewards for Justice Fund, established by the 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. In the four months following September 11, 2001, the program received 24,000 tips.

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 determines 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.

[Page 520]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 Ogilvy & 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 State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Charlotte Beers oversaw the campaign.

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