Lawyers Wield Their Extortion (Threat of Lawsuits), Again

Another Taxpayer-reimbursed Money Pot Created

Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
Over the past two decades, tort suits across the country have increased by 13 percent each year, to cite one statistic. The rising tide of litigation includes lawsuits against federal officials. At any given time, there are about 5,000 active suits against federal employees, said John Euler, retired deputy director of the Justice Department’s Civil Division Torts Branch. The Justice Department accepts about 98 percent of the requests to represent individual federal employees each year, said Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. But that leaves 2 percent without Justice Department representation... Fault Lines: Executives face more liability issues as suits against government increase source

Since the late 1990s, the CIA's senior managers have been eligible for reimbursement of half their liability insurance premium. The insurance, costing about $300 a year, would pay as much as $200,000 toward legal expenses and $1 million in civil judgments.

As part of the administration's efforts to protect intelligence officers from liability, Bush last week called for Congress to approve legislation drafted by the White House that would exempt CIA officers and other federal civilian officials from prosecution...Bush also asked Congress to bar federal courts from considering lawsuits by detainees who were in CIA or military custody that allege violations of international treaties and laws governing treatment of detainees.
The proposals are generally opposed in the Senate by Democrats (mostly lawyers) and a group of dissident Republicans (mostly more lawyers). source

The more lawyers in government, the more opportunities for lawsuits are created and funded (by us taxpayers).