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Intelligence Agency Corruption News Articles
Excerpts of key news articles on


Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


New Documents Cast Doubt on Federal Anthrax Case
2011-07-18, PBS Frontline/McClatchy News
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/2011/07/new-documents-cast-doubt-on-f...

The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago. Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they had identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the media. The case was circumstantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Md. On July 15, however, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab -- the so-called hot suite -- did not contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001. The government's statements deepen the questions about the case against Ivins. Searches of his car and home in 2007 found no anthrax spores, and the FBI's eight-year, $100 million investigation never proved he mailed the letters or identified another location where he might have secretly dried the anthrax into an easily inhaled powder.

Note: For more doubts on the FBI's case against Ivins, click here. For a detailed analysis of the anthrax attacks by Prof. Graeme MacQueen of McMaster University, showing that it was an integral part, with the 9/11 attacks, of a larger operation to launch two wars, click here.


This Is The Police: Put Down Your Camera
2011-05-13, National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/13/136171366/this-is-the-police-put-down-your-camera

There are more than 280 million cellphone subscribers in the U.S., and many of those phones can record video. With so many cameras in pockets and purses, clashes between police and would-be videographers may be inevitable. "All of us, as we walk around, have to understand that we could be filmed, we could be taped," says Deborah Jacobs, director of the ACLU chapter. "But police officers above all others should be subject to this kind of filming because we have a duty to hold them accountable as powerful public servants." Tom Nolan, a former Boston police officer, says police have to get used to the world of cameras everywhere. "There's always going to be a pocket of police officers who are resistant to change," he says. Nolan now teaches at Boston University. He says police in Massachusetts train their officers to tolerate video recording, as long as no other crime is taking place. And Nolan thinks departments around the country will eventually do the same. "The police will get the message when municipal governments and police departments have got to write out substantial settlement checks," he says. "Standing by itself, that video camera in the hands of some teenager is not going to constitute sufficient grounds for a lawful arrest."

Note: Yet police are lobbying in many U.S. states to make it illegal to videotape them, and according to this CNN article, it may already be illegal in three states. For much more information from reliable sources on government and police threats to civil liberties, click here.


US doctors 'hid signs of torture' at Guantanamo
2011-04-27, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-doctors-hid-signs-of-tort...

US government doctors who cared for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay deliberately concealed or ignored evidence that their patients were being tortured, the first official study of its kind has found. A detailed review of the medical records and case files of nine Guantanamo inmates has concluded that medical personnel at the US detention centre were complicit in suppressing evidence that would demonstrate systematic torture of the inmates. The review is published in an online scientific journal, PLoS Medicine, and is the first peer-reviewed study analysing the behaviour of the doctors in charge of Guantanamo inmates who were subjected to "enhanced interrogation" techniques that a decade ago had been classed by the US government as torture. [The report] concluded that no doctor could have failed to notice the medical signs and symptoms of the extreme interrogation techniques and unauthorised assaults that other physicians would recognise as torture, such as severe beatings resulting in bone fractures, sexual assaults, mock executions, and simulated drowning by "waterboarding". Many of the prisoners said they were also subjected to unauthorised abuses resulting in severe and prolonged physical and mental pain.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on torture committed by US forces and approved by the highest levels of government, click here.


American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy
2011-02-20, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia

The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time. Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January. Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity. Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. Washington's case is hobbled by its resounding silence on Davis's role. He served in the US special forces for 10 years before leaving in 2003 to become a security contractor. A senior Pakistani official said he believed Davis had worked with Xe, the firm formerly known as Blackwater. Pakistani suspicions about Davis's role were stoked by the equipment police confiscated from his car: an unlicensed pistol, a long-range radio, a GPS device, an infrared torch and a camera with pictures of buildings around Lahore.

Note: For further details on Raymond Davis' work for the CIA and Blackwater Corp., click here. Discussing the two Pakistanis killed by Davis, an ABC News blog states, "Pakistani government officials have told ABC News that the two were working for that country's intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, and were also conducting surveillance." Click here for that article.


Indefinite detention for suspects at Guantanamo Bay
2010-12-22, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/21/AR20101221055...

The Obama administration is preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for some detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ..., U.S. officials said. Some civil liberties groups oppose any form of indefinite detention. "Indefinite detention without charge or trial is wrong, whether it comes from Congress or the president's pen," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office. "Our Constitution requires that we charge and prosecute people who are accused of crimes. You cannot sell an indefinite detention scheme by attaching a few due-process baubles and expect that to restore the rule of law. That is bad for America and is not the form of justice we want other nations to emulate." Legislation supported by some Republicans ... would create a system of indefinite detention not only for some Guantanamo detainees but also for future terrorism suspects seized overseas.

Note: Why are so few people speaking out about indefinite detention, when it is done in a way that gives the person detained virtually no legal rights or recourse? This clearly violates the sixth amendment to the US Constitution which states, "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial."


Secret U.S. War Widens on Two Continents
2010-08-15, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/15shadowwar.html

In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, ... using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives. The White House has intensified the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids ... in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The administration has worked with European allies ... in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French strike in Algeria. And the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence ... in Pakistan. While the stealth war began in the Bush administration, it has expanded under President Obama, who rose to prominence in part for his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Virtually none of the newly aggressive steps undertaken by the United States government have been publicly acknowledged. In contrast with the troop buildup in Afghanistan, which came after months of robust debate, for example, the American military campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been officially confirmed.

Note: For many revealing reports on the secret operations of the US military and intelligence services in its "global war on terrorism", click here.


Breaking a Promise on Surveillance
2010-07-30, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30fri1.html

It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission. It is far more than a technical change. The administration’s request, reported [on July 29] in The Washington Post, is an unnecessary and disappointing step backward toward more intrusive surveillance from a president who promised something very different during the 2008 campaign. To get this information, the F.B.I. simply has to ask for it in the form of a national security letter, which is an administrative request that does not require a judge’s signature. The F.B.I. used these letters hundreds of thousands of times to demand records of phone calls and other communications, and the Pentagon used them to get records from banks and consumer credit agencies. Internal investigations of both agencies found widespread misuse of the power, and little oversight into how it was wielded. President Obama campaigned for office on an explicit promise to rein in these abuses. But instead of implementing reasonable civil liberties protections, like taking requests for e-mail surveillance before a judge, the administration is proposing changes to the law that would allow huge numbers of new electronic communications to be examined with no judicial oversight.

Note: For key reports on the growing government and corporate threats to privacy, click here.


The F.B.I.’s Anthrax Case
2010-02-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28sun2.html

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a report that is supposed to clinch the case that a lone scientist mailed anthrax-laced letters in 2001, terrorizing a country already traumatized by the 9/11 attacks. The agency cites voluminous circumstantial evidence ... but its report leaves too many loose ends to be taken as a definitive verdict. The scientist — Dr. Bruce Ivins, an Army biodefense expert — killed himself in 2008 as the investigation moved ever closer to an indictment. That means the evidence and the F.B.I.’s conclusion that he was the culprit and acted alone will never be tested in court. Problematic is the investigative work that led the F.B.I. to conclude that only Dr. Ivins, among perhaps 100 scientists who had access to the same flask, could have sent the letters. The case has always been hobbled by a lack of direct evidence tying Dr. Ivins to the letters. No witnesses who saw him prepare the powdered anthrax or mail the letters. No anthrax spores in his house or car. No incriminating fingerprints, fibers or DNA. No confession to a colleague or in a suicide note, just opaque ramblings in e-mail that the F.B.I. interprets as evidence of guilt. The F.B.I. has a troubling history of building a circumstantial case against suspects who are later exonerated. We ... agree with Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who is calling for an independent assessment to validate the findings.

Note: For a recent Wall Street Journal report on the unsolved anthrax attacks, click here.


U.S. data about Guantanamo detainee's treatment is revealed in Britain
2010-02-11, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR20100210019...

The British government [has] disclosed once-secret details of the United States' harsh treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee after losing a lengthy legal battle to suppress the information. According to the information, from a judge's summary of a classified CIA report to British authorities, Binyam Mohamed was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment during interrogations in Pakistan in 2002, including being shackled and deprived of sleep while interrogators played upon "his fears of being removed from United States custody and 'disappearing.' " Mohamed, 31, was born in Ethiopia and lives in Britain. Arrested in Pakistan in 2002, he says he was tortured by American authorities and others under U.S. instruction there and in Morocco. He says he was beaten with a leather strap, subjected to a mock execution and sliced with a scalpel on his chest and penis. Mohamed says Britain knew about his treatment because information used during his questioning could have come only from British intelligence. He spent seven years in detention, four of them at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Reprieve, a legal organization representing Mohamed in a lawsuit against the British government, said in a statement that the disclosures show that "the U.S. documented their efforts to abuse Mr. Mohamed" and that British authorities "knew he was being abused and did nothing about it."

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the illegal actions undertaken by the US and UK in the prosecution of the fraudulent "war on terror," click here.


FBI broke law for years in phone record searches
2010-01-19, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR20100118039...

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions. E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests. FBI officials said they thought that nearly all of the requests involved terrorism investigations. FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni said ... that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.

Note: The FBI, by admitting that "nearly all" of the phone records they obtained were related to "terrorism investigations," make it clear that some were not. But they used claims of "terrorism emergency" to obtain them. These they then assert were merely "technical" violations. For many disturbing reports from major media sources on the increasing threats to civil liberties under the pretext of the "war on terrorism," click here.


Ex-Homeland Security chief head said to abuse public trust by touting body scanners
2010-01-01, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR20091231028...

Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports. What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. An airport passengers' rights group ... criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients. "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to ... privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners. Chertoff's advocacy for the technology dates back to his time in the Bush administration. In 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government's first batch of the scanners. Today, 40 body scanners are in use at 19 U.S. airports. The number is expected to skyrocket at least in part because of the Christmas Day incident. The Transportation Security Administration this week said it will order 300 more machines.

Note: For lots more on the profiteering that underlies "the war on terror," click here.


Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.
2009-10-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The C.I.A.’s practices ... suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban. The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government. Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned.

Note: To read an analysis of these revelations, which argues that there is a much bigger story of "heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security", click here.


C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery
2009-10-17, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html

Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be [alleged] assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role. That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities. The agency’s deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, who has doggedly pursued the files ever since. Mr. Morley, 51, [is] a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a 2008 biography of a former C.I.A. station chief in Mexico. After losing an appeals court decision in Mr. Morley’s lawsuit, the C.I.A. released material last year confirming Mr. Joannides’s deep involvement with the anti-Castro Cubans who confronted Oswald. But the agency is withholding 295 specific documents from the 1960s and ’70s, while refusing to confirm or deny the existence of many others. The deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The C.I.A. hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in C.I.A. support during 1963. In the years since Oswald was named as the assassin, speculation about who might have been behind him has never ended.

Note: For WantToKnow.info team member Peter Dale Scott's analysis of the extraordinary significance of this New York Times article, click here. For two revealing clips suggesting the official explanation of the JFK assassination was manipulated, click here (for a five-minute clip from the History Channel) and here (for a highly revealing documentary from a CBS affiliate).


Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions
2009-08-21, Newsweek magazine
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213188

A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned. The report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one [source]. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death." The report also says ... that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed. The inspector general's report alludes to more than one mock execution. Before leaving office, Bush administration officials confirmed that Nashiri was one of three CIA detainees subjected to waterboarding. They also acknowledged that Nashiri was one of two Al Qaeda detainees whose detentions and interrogations were documented at length in CIA videotapes. But senior officials of the agency's undercover operations branch, the National Clandestine Service, ordered that the tapes be destroyed, an action that has been under investigation for more than a year by a federal prosecutor. The new revelations are contained in a lengthy report on the CIA interrogation program completed by the agency's inspector general in May 2004.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the illegal methods used by the CIA and US military in its wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, click here.


C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help to Kill Jihadists
2009-08-20, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/us/20intel.html

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials. Executives from Blackwater ... helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations. Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. C.I.A. operatives also regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a shooting range used for sniper training.

Note: For many revealing reports from major media sources on the frequent use of assassinations to advance state objectives, click here.


CIA committed fraud in court, judge rules
2009-07-21, San Francisco Chronicle/Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/21/MNPA18S5DU.DTL

A federal judge has ruled that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against an eavesdropping lawsuit and is considering sanctioning as many as six who worked at the agency, including former CIA Director George Tenet. According to court documents unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth referred a CIA attorney, Jeffrey Yeates, for discipline. Lamberth also denied the CIA's renewed efforts under the Obama administration to keep the case secret because of what he calls the agency's "diminished credibility" in the case. The eavesdropping lawsuit was brought by a former agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, Richard Horn, who says his home in Rangoon, Burma, was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him relocated because they disagreed with his work with Burmese officials on the country's drug trade. Horn sued Brown and Huddle in 1994, seeking damages for violations of his civil rights because of the alleged wiretapping. Tenet filed an affidavit in 2000 asking that the case against Brown be dismissed because he was a covert agent whose identity must not be revealed in court. Lamberth granted the CIA's request and threw out the case against Brown in 2004. But Lamberth found out last year that Brown's cover had been lifted in 2002, even though the CIA continued to file legal documents saying his status was covert. The judge found that the CIA intentionally misled the court and reinstated the case against Brown.

Note: This may not seem like big news, but the fact that the CIA is facing court opposition is quite significant. In the past this never would have happened, much less have made it into a newspaper.


Assassinations anyone? CIA claims of cancelled campaign are hogwash
2009-07-19, Toronto Sun
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/07/19/1018410...

CIA director Leon Panetta just told Congress he cancelled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders. The CIA campaign, authorized in 2001, had not yet become operational, claimed Panetta. His claim is humbug. The U.S. has been trying to kill al-Qaida personnel (real and imagined) since the Clinton administration. These efforts continue under President Barack Obama. Claims by Congress it was never informed are hogwash. The CIA and Pentagon have been in the assassination business since the early 1950s, using American hit teams or third parties. Assassination was outlawed in the U.S. in 1976, but that did not stop attempts by its last three administrations to emulate Israel's Mossad in the "targeted killing" of enemies. The George W. Bush administration, and now the Obama White House, sidestepped American law by saying the U.S. was at war, and thus legally killing "enemy combatants." But Congress never declared war. Washington is buzzing about a secret death squad run by Dick Cheney when he was vice-president and his protege, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. This gung-ho general led the Pentagon's super secret Special Operations Command, which has become a major rival to the CIA in the business of "wet affairs" (as the KGB used to call assassinations) and covert raids. America is hardly alone in trying to rub out enemies or those who thwart its designs. Britain's MI-6 and France's SDECE were notorious for sending out assassins. U.S. assassins are still at work. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. drones are killing tribesmen almost daily. Over 90% are civilians. Americans have a curious notion that killing people from the air is not murder or even a crime, but somehow clean.

Note: For more revealing information on this, click here. For more on assassination as a tool of state, click here.


Somali pirates guided by London intelligence team, report says
2009-05-11, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/somali-pirates-london-intelligence

The Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean are directed to their targets by a "consultant" team in London, according to a European military intelligence document obtained by a Spanish radio station. The document, obtained by Cadena SER radio, says the team and the pirates remain in contact by satellite telephone. It says that pirate groups have "well-placed informers" in London who are in regular contact with control centres in Somalia where decisions on which vessels to attack are made. These London-based "consultants" help the pirates select targets, providing information on the ships' cargoes and courses. In at least one case the pirates have remained in contact with their London informants from the hijacked ship, according to one targeted shipping company. "The information that merchant ships sailing through the area volunteer to various international organisations is ending up in the pirates' hands," Cadena SER reported the report as saying. This enables the more organised pirate groups to study their targets in advance, even spending several days training teams for specific hijacks. Senior pirates then join the vessel once it has been sailed close to Somalia. Captains of attacked ships have found that pirates know everything from the layout of the vessel to its ports of call. The national flag of a ship is also taken into account when choosing a target, with British vessels being increasingly avoided, according to the report.

Note: The remarkable capability described here -- knowledge of all the details of cargo, ship layout, nationality, and especially position and course -- is one that only national intelligence agencies are likely to have. The positional information would require real-time satellite or drone aircraft surveillance data. Could MI6, the British C.I.A., be running the Somali pirate operations, which have so suddenly spiked up just as the Pentagon's new AFRICOM gets underway?


Congresswoman Outraged Over Wiretapped Conversations
2009-04-22, CNN
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0904/22/ltm.02.html

An influential Democrat in Congress, California's Jane Harman, is at the center of a national security scandal that's threatening her political career. Harman is fighting mad after reports that her phone conversation was intercepted by a national security agency wiretap ... in 2005 and 2006. Sources say Harman was overheard talking to an investigative target whose conversations were being legally intercepted. Congressional Quarterly and The New York Times report that Harman discussed using her influence to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. In return, the person with whom she was speaking would lobby then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Harman reportedly ended the conversation by saying, "This conversation doesn't exist." [Congressional Quarterly] also reports that after the intercept, the FBI tried to open an investigation of Harman. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales pulled the plug because he wanted Harman's help defending the controversial domestic warrantless wiretapping program. The former attorney general had no comment.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on the clandestine operations of the FBI and other intelligence agencies, click here.


CIA Helped Shoot Down 15 Civilian Planes
2008-12-11, CBS News/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/11/world/main4664791.shtml

With the help of CIA spotters, the Peruvian air force shot down 15 small civilian aircraft suspected of carrying drugs, in many cases without warning and within two to three minutes of being sighted, a U.S. lawmaker said Thursday. It was the first public disclosure of the number of planes shot down between 1995 and 2001 as part of the Airbridge Denial Program, a CIA counternarcotics effort that killed an innocent American missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her infant daughter in 2001. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, told The Associated Press most of the 15 planes shot down with the help of the CIA crashed in the jungle. The wreckage has not been or could not be examined to ascertain whether narcotics were aboard the aircraft. "The Bowers could have gone in the same category if they had crashed in the jungle," Hoekstra said, speaking of the missionary family from Hoekstra's state, Michigan. The Bowers' plane made an emergency river landing after it was hit. Excerpts from a CIA inspector general's report released in November raised questions about whether the missionaries' plane was the only craft mistakenly suspected of drug smuggling. The CIA report said that in most of the shootdowns, pilots fired on aircraft "without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land."

Note: For many key reports from major media sources on government corruption, click here.


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