The new head of the CIA National Clandestine Service, Francis “Frank” Archibald, is listed in the Wikileaks Cables as authoring a confidential report from the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan regarding the naming of the embassy legal attache in a detainee torture case. Archibald discloses his involvement in communicating with other U.S. officials regarding public statements [...]

The FBI has long been searching for a way to bypass the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which they have claimed makes their job difficult, increasingly so in the information age. Previously the FBI just broke the law and hoped it would not get caught, now the agency wants a patina of legality to [...]

A Freedom of Information Act request by Gawker reveals that the CIA pushed through changes to the script of the film Zero Dark Thirty. The movie had already been condemned for being grossly inaccurate and dishonest and now it seems we might have more information on why. Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero [...]

The CIA faced some embarrassment when it was revealed that the intelligence agency had been giving Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai bags of cash for favorable treatment. This revelation was embarrassing for a number of reasons. First, it confirmed reports that Hamid Karzai was running a corrupt government with facilitation by agents of the U.S. government. [...]

According to Shakespeare suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.  Is it any wonder the American imperial government can’t stop itself from adding names to its enemies list? Torturing people at Gitmo, killing children in Afghanistan, drone strikes throughout the world – the suspicion piles up along with the bodies of innocents. And so Reuters reports [...]

Empires are run using carrot and stick policies. The American Empire is no different. In Afghanistan the Taliban’s refusal to comply has gotten them the stick – drones, special forces teams, and all manner of things as punishment. President Karzai for acting as a U.S. puppet, has gotten some nice carrots. And like everything else [...]

The government’s potential terrorist list includes a stunning 450,000 people. More than the security services can keep track off apparently as it seems one of the Boston Bombing suspects had been included prior to the Boston Marathon Bombing. The name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was listed on the U.S. [...]

Any time there is an intelligence failure the different intelligence agencies quickly blame each other in hopes of avoiding scrutiny. Let the blame game begin. The Central Intelligence Agency is now claiming they pushed to have Tamerlan Tsarnaev added to a terrorism watch list a year before the Boston Marathon Bombing. The CIA pushed to [...]

Ira “Gus” Hunt, the CIA’s Chief Technology Officer, gave a revealing presentation at GigaOM’s Structure: Data conference where he outlined the CIA’s approach to collecting data from the public. The approach as outlined is a recipe for a police state. “The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it [...]

With questions still unanswered on the President’s targeted killing powers, John Brennan was sworn in today as CIA Director. But in a ironically symbolic twist of fate the Constitution used to swear Brennan in did not contain the Bill of Rights. From emptywheel: According to the White House, John Brennan was sworn in as CIA [...]

During his confirmation hearing CIA Director nominee John Brennan was asked what role the Enhanced Interrogation/Torture Program had in finding the location of Osama Bin Laden. The question was raised due to numerous Bush Administration officials publicly claiming that torture yielded the information that was vital in planning the Osama Bin Laden raid. That view [...]