intelligence community

The war in the shadows

by News Sources 08.20.2012

Chris Hedges writes: A Swedish documentary filmmaker released a film last year called “Last Chapter—Goodbye Nicaragua.” In it he admitted that he unknowingly facilitated a bombing, almost certainly orchestrated by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which took the lives of three reporters I worked with in Central America. One of them, Linda Frazier, was the [...]

Read the full article →

U.S. to keep intelligence data on Americans with no terror ties

by News Sources 03.23.2012

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. intelligence community will now be able to store information about Americans with no ties to terrorism for up to five years under new Obama administration guidelines. Until now, the National Counterterrorism Center had to immediately destroy information about Americans that was already stored in other government databases when there [...]

Read the full article →

The Stream: America’s use for domestic drones

by Paul Woodward 12.07.2011

Read the full article →

The intelligence on Afghanistan that Obama refuses to reveal

by News Sources 11.26.2011

Steve Coll writes: In late 2008, the United States intelligence community produced a classified National Intelligence Estimate on the war in Afghanistan that has never been released to the public. The N.I.E. described a “grim situation” overall, according to an intelligence officer’s private briefing for NATO ambassadors. In late 2010, there was another N.I.E. on [...]

Read the full article →

On Iran, the U.S. has a broken national security process

by News Sources 11.10.2011

Reza Marashi writes: After weeks of hyping intelligence on the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration’s public statements on the recently released International Atomic Energy Agency report are curiously moderate. Off the record, U.S. officials say that not all of America’s intelligence findings were included in the I.A.E.A. report — which aims [...]

Read the full article →

Fresh or refreshed fears about a nuclear Iran?

by News Sources 11.03.2011

Tony Karon writes: President Obama’s point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, had written before joining the Administration that if governments reluctant to impose harsh measures on Iran believed the alternative was Israel starting a war, they would be more inclined to back new sanctions. And there’s certain a new sanctions push in the works, right [...]

Read the full article →

9/11: the tapping point

by News Sources 10.07.2011

David Rose writes: One morning in June 2001, three months before the 9/11 attacks on the United States, I happened to be interviewing a senior official from the British Secret Intelligence Service, M.I.6. His current focus was the war on drugs, not international terrorism, but he shared a piece of information that united the two [...]

Read the full article →

Top secret America

by News Sources 09.09.2011

Part One: Part Two: Part Three: Part Four: Part Five: Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Read the full article →

9/11 documents claim intelligence on Bin Laden, targets withheld from Congress’ probe

by News Sources 09.08.2011

Read the full article →

Federal judge agrees to limit writer’s testimony

by News Sources 07.30.2011

The New York Times reports: A federal judge dealt a setback on Friday to the Obama administration’s crackdown on the leaking of government secrets to journalists, sharply limiting what prosecutors can ask the author of a book about the C.I.A. in court. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., issued [...]

Read the full article →

Israel’s latest scheme to spring Pollard from prison

by News Sources 06.19.2011

Haaretz reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would submit an official request to the Obama administration requesting that convicted spy Jonathan Pollard be granted temporary leave to attend his father’s funeral. Netanyahu informed ministers from his Likud party Sunday of his decision to back the Pollard family’s own request to that effect. [...]

Read the full article →

NSA case unlikely to deter Obama’s take on leakers

by News Sources 06.12.2011

The Associated Press reports: Criminal defendants of all stripes in national security cases, including Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Iran-Contra affair and al-Qaida terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, have long sought to work government secrets into their defense. The hope is the prosecutors will skip a trial rather than expose sensitive information in court. This [...]

Read the full article →

Ex-NSA aide gains plea deal in leak case; setback to U.S.

by News Sources 06.10.2011

The New York Times reports: A former spy agency employee agreed late Thursday to plead guilty to a minor charge in a highly publicized leak prosecution, undercutting the Obama administration’s unusual campaign to prosecute government officials who disclose classified information to the press. The National Security Agency official, Thomas A. Drake, had faced a possible [...]

Read the full article →

Why sanctions against Iran won’t work

by News Sources 06.05.2011

Reza Marashi writes: To the surprise of few, new Iran sanctions legislation was recently introduced in the House and Senate, shortly before this year’s AIPAC conference commenced. In what has become a game of domestic political one-upsmanship, some members of Congress are now supporting Iran-related legislation that would effectively seek to impose an oil embargo [...]

Read the full article →

Dreaming spooks in search of digital metaphors

by News Sources 05.30.2011

Michael Rosen writes: News that a US government intelligence body is going to start analysing the metaphors used in various languages will have brought wry smiles to the faces of writers and critics. Presumably, “Metaphor Program” agents won’t restrict themselves to metaphors as that particular word is often used metonymically for the whole of figurative [...]

Read the full article →

Obama’s war against whistle-blowers

by News Sources 05.17.2011

Jane Mayer writes: On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is [...]

Read the full article →

How the Obama administration hyped the WikiLeaks threat

by Paul Woodward 01.20.2011

Glenn Greenwald writes (and my comments follow): To say that the Obama administration’s campaign against WikiLeaks has been based on wildly exaggerated and even false claims is to understate the case. But now, there is evidence that Obama officials have been knowingly lying in public about these matters. The long-time Newsweek reporter Mark Hosenball — [...]

Read the full article →

Who gets to feed from the trough of classified information?

by News Sources 12.16.2010

Robert Naiman points out that the only reason we know that President Obama’s Afghan “progress” report is at variance with the reports coming from the intelligence community, is thanks to classified information being made public — without being declassified. [T]he reason that we know that the collective assessments of the 16 US intelligence agencies give [...]

Read the full article →

House Democrats call for release of one of the most notorious spies in Israel’s history

by Paul Woodward 11.23.2010

A “relentless” campaign by David Nyer, a Jewish Orthodox activist from Monsey, New York, has succeeded in winning significant support from House Democrats who are now calling on President Obama to release Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is a former civilian intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Israel and through a plea bargain received a [...]

Read the full article →

Israel now in proximity talks with the US

by Paul Woodward 09.21.2010

Ever since — with much fanfare in Washington — Israel entered into direct talks with the Palestinian team led by acting president Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinians have insisted that the continuation of the talks would hinge on a continuation of a nominal settlement freeze due to expire on Sunday. Thus far, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu [...]

Read the full article →

The New York Times reveals a few open secrets

by Paul Woodward 09.19.2010

At the New York Times, Scott Shane divulges a national security secret: the National Security Agency (shown in the Google Earth image above) is known by the nickname the Fort. I guess you’d call that the definition of hiding in plain sight since the NSA is located in Fort Meade. Apparently anyone in the locality [...]

Read the full article →

Top secret America?

by Paul Woodward 07.22.2010

It’s out there — but you won’t find out much about it at the Washington Post! Memos being leaked from government agencies imploring lips to remain sealed; several days of media buzz in anticipation of a blockbuster investigative series… One of Hollywood’s hottest publicists must surely have been contracted to push the Washington Post‘s sensational [...]

Read the full article →

The Post covers spy town

by Paul Woodward 07.22.2010

At the Atlantic, the independent investigative reporter, Tim Shorrock, slams the Washington Post‘s Top Secret America series: Priest and Arkin offer an incredibly simplistic explanation for how the contracting bandwagon took off under President Bush, who they say manipulated “the federal budget process” to make it easier for agencies to hire contractors. Is that why [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries