Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts

Thursday, April 20, 2017


By CBS News, April 20, 2017

WASHINGTON -- CBS News has learned that a manhunt is underway for a traitor inside the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA and FBI are conducting a joint investigation into one of the worst security breaches in CIA history, which exposed thousands of top-secret documents that described CIA tools used to penetrate smartphones, smart televisions and computer systems.
Read More: http://www.cbsnews.com

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Thursday, July 30, 2015

Author Kessler: We've Yet to See the 'Real Donald Trump'

By Jason Devaney , July 27, 2015 Daily Caller

The "real Donald Trump" is not the brash, outspoken presidential candidate we're seeing but instead is a sound businessman with smart ideas, says a best-selling author.

During an appearance on Newsmax TV's "Newsmax Prime," Ronald Kessler tells host J.D. Hayworth that if Trump makes it to the general election, he'll know what to do.

"I interviewed his longtime assistant and vice president Norma Foerderer, who went back to when he didn't even have an office," says Kessler, who has written 20 nonfiction books about the Secret Service, CIA, and the FBI."


Read More: http://www.newsmax.com

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Sunday, June 7, 2015

Brennan Admits U.S. Foreign Policy Could Spur Terrorism

By Jon Schwarz, Jun. 6, 2015, FirstLook.org

John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, went on “Face the Nation” last Sunday and did something weird: he acknowledged that U.S. foreign policy might sometimes cause terrorism. Of course, he didn’t word it exactly like that, but close enough:

BRENNAN: I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests.

This is notable because the people who run our foreign policy usually tell us that terrorists are like zombies, driven by some incomprehensible force to kill and kill and kill until we take them out with a head shot/drone strike. Brennan himself did this five years ago while “answering” questions from the late reporter Helen Thomas about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest flight over Detroit:


Read the full story: www.firstlook.org

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Friday, May 22, 2015

Exclusive: The CIA Is Shuttering A Secretive Climate Research Program 

By Tim McDonnell, May 21, 2015, Mother Jones

On Wednesday, when President Barack Obama spoke at the US Coast Guard Academy's commencement ceremony, he called climate change "an immediate risk to our national security." In recent months, the Obama administration has repeatedly highlighted the international threats posed by global warming and has emphasized the need for the country's national security agencies to study and confront the issue.

So some national security experts were surprised to learn that an important component of that effort has been ended. A CIA spokesperson confirmed to Climate Desk that the agency is shuttering its main climate research program. Under the program, known as Medea, the CIA had allowed civilian scientists to access classified data—such as ocean temperature and tidal readings gathered by Navy submarines and topography data collected by spy satellites—in an effort to glean insights about how global warming could create security threats around the world. In theory, the program benefited both sides: Scientists could study environmental data that was much higher-resolution than they would normally have access to, and the CIA received research insights about climate-related threats.

But now, the program has come to a close.


Read the full story:  www.motherjones.com

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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Former FBI Agent Accused Of ‘Violent Threats’ At CIA To Get Psychological Exam 

By WTOP, May 5, 2015

WASHINGTON — A former FBI agent accused of driving to the gate of the CIA in Langley, Virginia, and issuing a number of violent threats, has been ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.

Tunisia Davis — an Alexandria woman who was a FBI agent from 2004 to 2010, according to court records and friends — is accused of traveling from the National Security Agency to the Central Intelligence Agency last week and threatening to kill federal police.

Davis was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon, but did not attend her hearing, reports NBC Washington.

The judge says Davis was acting inappropriately and was uncooperative. The judge added that force would have been needed to get her from U.S. Marshall’s custody in Alexandria into the court room.

After some arguments from attorneys, the judge ordered Davis undergo a psychological evaluation, which will likely happen in the next day or two, NBC Washington reports. She is being charged with assaulting a police officer.


Read the full story:  www.wtop.com

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Monday, April 27, 2015

McCain Renews Push To End CIA Control Of Drone Strikes 

By David Lerman, Apr.27, 2015, Bloomberg News

Sen. John McCain renewed his effort to end the CIA’s control over U.S. drone strikes after an attack on an al-Qaida compound in Pakistan killed two hostages.

Now that drones have become “an integral part” of U.S. military operations, it makes sense for such airstrikes to be managed by the nation’s armed services rather than by spy agencies, the Arizona Republican said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged his bias in seeking to give the Defense Department greater control, adding that the military has “the capabilities and the equipment” that the Central Intelligence Agency lacks to conduct effective drone strikes.

The accidental killing of two hostages, one American and one Italian, in a January drone strike was disclosed last week. It may force Congress to revisit an issue that in the past had become a turf battle among lawmakers, with intelligence committees favoring the CIA and defense committees backing the Pentagon.


Read the full story:  www.hamptonroads.com

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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

CIA Cash Helped Fund Al Qaeda

By Randy Desoto, Mar. 16, 2105, WesternJournalism.com

The Afghan government handed over one million American dollars to Al Qaeda to help pay the ransom for the release of one of its diplomats.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the Afghan government made the ransom payment, totaling $5 million in 2010 for the release of Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who had been kidnapped in 2008. Farahi was serving as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan at the time of his capture by Al Qaeda and had close personal ties to then-President Hamid Karzai.

The Afghan government used $1 million from a secret fund, bankrolled by the CIA with monthly cash deliveries to the presidential palace in Kabul. Other countries, including Pakistan and Iran, provided the remaining $4 million.


Read more at:  www.westernjournalism.com

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Monday, February 9, 2015

ISIS Army '6 Times Bigger Than CIA Thinks'

By Aaron Klein, Feb. 9, 2105, WND.com

TEL AVIV – The Islamic State and its extremist allies currently boast an army estimated by Egypt to consist of about 180,000 Islamist fighters.

An Egyptian intelligence document, the contents of which were obtained by WND, warns that while the U.S. has been attempting to maintain a coalition to fight ISIS, the Islamic terrorist organization has itself been hard at work building a sustainable coalition of jihadist gunmen.

The 180,000 figure is six times greater than a CIA estimate from last September, which placed the number of ISIS fighters at between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters.

According to Egypt, ISIS has created an umbrella army with the Taliban, Al Shabab, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and local jihadist groups from Yemen, Mali, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and the Egyptian Sinai.

Egypt is warning this ISIS-allied army is preparing for a major insurgency in numerous countries by this spring or summer.


Read the full story:  www.wnd.com

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Saturday, January 17, 2015

Al Qaeda Turncoat: 'Sleeper Cells Are Waking Up Now'

The Kelly File, Jan. 16, 2015, Fox News

Storm said that many people think you only become a member of ISIS or al Qaeda by traveling to the Middle East to join the ranks, but that’s not true.

“The problem is that it’s an ideology, it’s a faith, it’s a way of practicing Islam,” he said, explaining that some people who agree with this ideology become lone wolves.

Read more: insider.foxnews.com


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Friday, January 16, 2015

No Penalty For CIA Employees Accused Of Spying On Senate

Wesley Bruer, Jan. 15, 2015, CNN

According to the board, which finished its investigation in mid-December of last year, further stated that "none of the five individuals under review by the board was responsible for this mistake, and two of them -- the most senior -- had expressly counseled that care be taken to avoid accessing [Senate Intelligence Committee] work product."

Read more: www.cnn.com


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Monday, January 12, 2015

David Petraeus: From Military Rock Star To Possible Prosecution

Brad Knickerbocker, Jan. 10, 2015, Christian Science Monitor

Federal investigators have been looking into whether Petraeus improperly shared classified materials with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, the West Point graduate and Army reserve officer with whom he admitted having an affair. FBI agents reportedly found a substantial number of classified documents on Ms. Broadwell's computer and at her home.

Read more: www.csmonitor.com


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Saturday, January 10, 2015

Report: FBI And Justice Department Prosecutors Recommend Felony Charges Against Petraeus

FoxNews.com, January 10, 2015

If true, Attorney General Eric Holder would then have to decide whether to seek an indictment against Petraeus. Holder originally had been expected to decide about charges by the end of 2014.

The Times said the Justice Department investigation stemmed from an affair Petraeus had with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and whether he gave her access to his CIA email account and other classified information. Petraeus, a retired four-star general, has said he never provided her with classified information.

Read more: www.foxnews.com


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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Feinstein Urges Changes To Avoid Repeat Of CIA Torture

Ken Dilanian, Jan. 5, 2015, AP

Feinstein said she will introduce legislation in the upcoming Congress to codify Obama's executive order banning torture and prohibiting the CIA from detaining prisoners.

Her office said she introduced similar legislation in 2009, but then began to focus on the investigation and wanted to wait for its outcome before pressing for changes.

"We didn't know then that the study would not be completed until the end of 2014, so we went down the track of the investigation with the idea that recommendations would follow from what we found," her top intelligence aide, David Grannis, said in an email.

Read more: abcnews.go.com


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Sunday, January 4, 2015

What The Report On Terror Got Right And What It Got Wrong

Rebecca Gordon, Jan. 2, 2015, Contra Costa Times

It doesn't matter whether torture worked. Torture is illegal under U.S. and international law, and it is a moral abomination. The framers of the United Nations Convention Against Torture -- which this country ratified in 1994 -- knew that people (and nations) tend to forget their promises when they are afraid. That's why it includes these words: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

Read more: www.contracostatimes.com


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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

CIA Torture Report: Bush Was Kept In The Dark for Years

Josh Rogin and Eli Lake, Dec. 9, 2014, Bloomberg View

The White House also resisted CIA efforts to brief other cabinet officials in the beginning stages of the program, Senate Democratic aides said. The CIA acting general counsel at the time, John Rizzo, wrote in an internal agency e-mail that the White House had told the CIA not to brief cabinet officials in 2002 because they feared press leaks, but Rizzo said the White House’s clear implication was that if Secretary of State Colin Powell were aware of the details, “he would blow his stack.”

Read more: www.bloombergview.com


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Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Sharyl Attkisson: Hacking Software Was From FBI, CIA, DIA Or NSA

Fox News Insider, Nov. 3, 2014

On "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, Attkisson said that she received inside information from government-connected sources that she had been hacked.

She contacted a computer forensics expert, who concluded that sophisticated intrusions had taken place, and the proprietary software on her computers was a type used by either the FBI, CIA, DIA or NSA, four government agencies.

Other experts and even a consultant hired by CBS later confirmed both the extent and sophistication of the hacking.

Read more: insider.foxnews.com




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Former CBS News Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Claims Existence Of Obama Enemies' List

By Paul Bond, Nov. 3, 2014, Hollywoodreporter.com




"I kind of assume I'm on a list. I don’t think I'm the only one"

Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist who became the story when she quit CBS News after two decades amid allegations that the network refused to run some of her stories that were critical of President Barack Obama. Ahead of the Tuesday release of her book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, she spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her struggles with CBS executives and her assertion that her computers were hacked, possibly by Obama operatives.

THR reached out for a response from CBS News, but the organization declined to comment.


THR: Who did you tell at CBS that your computers were hacked?

The first person I spoke to was Washington bureau chief Chris Isham.


THR: Did he believe you?

He appeared to.


THR: Did CBS care? Did they do anything about it?

God, you know, there’s a lot of people there. He seemed to care. He hired a separate computer forensics firm to look at the computers. They, too, agreed that there had been highly sophisticated remote intrusion of my computers. They decided to dig deeper and embark upon a process that spanned a number of months, during which time the situation with the Associated Press and the government spying on Fox News reporter James Rosen was disclosed, as well as Edward Snowden’s NSA information.



THR: Did they ever find out who hacked your computers and spied on you?

I don’t believe their computer forensics team concluded who spied on me.

Read the full story:  www.hollywoodreporter.com




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Wednesday, October 15, 2014

FLASHBACK: "Bush (Iraq War) Vs. Obama (Ocare): Who 'Lied'?"

By Larry Elder, Nov. 7, 2013

When the weapons hunters failed to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so began one of the greatest slanders on a president in history: "Bush lied, people died."

Never mind that, in building the case for war in Iraq, President George W. Bush relied on the unanimous opinion of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Never mind that the bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission examined the intelligence on which Bush relied, and unanimously found that "the Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure. ... We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."

Never mind that Bush retained the same CIA director, George Tenet, who served under Bill Clinton. Tenet gave Bush the same intelligence assessment: that Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, possessed WMD is a "slam dunk." Indeed, according to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Bush was initially skeptical of the intelligence that reached that conclusion. When, on December 21, 2002, Tenet laid out the intelligence purportedly showing the existence of WMD stockpiles, Bush said, "This is the best we've got?"

Never mind that former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then a New York senator, was particularly adamant about the threat posed by Saddam: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program. ... If left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Finally, never mind about then-President Bill Clinton's Persian Gulf expert on the National Security Council, Kenneth Pollack. While he opposed the war's timing, Pollack said "no one doubted" Saddam's stockpiles of WMD: "The intelligence community convinced me and the rest of the Clinton Administration that Saddam had reconstituted his WMD programs following the withdrawal of the U.N. inspectors, in 1998, and was only a matter of years away from having a nuclear weapon. ... Other nations' intelligence services were similarly aligned with U.S. views. ... Germany ... Israel, Russia, Britain, China and even France held positions similar to that of the United States. ... In sum, no one doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

"Bush lied, people died" -- or some version of it -- was uttered at the highest levels in the opposition party. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called W. a "loser" and a "liar." He later apologized -- for the "loser" part. Liar stands. The so-called Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, bellowed, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

If Bush is a "liar," having relied in good faith on the unanimous opinion of the U.S. intelligence agencies, what do you call President Barack Obama? In building the case for Obamacare, Obama promised: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."

Did Obama "lie"?

Obama's health care team, according to NBC News, knew that more than half of the people who buy their plans on the individual market would lose their plan: "Millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years."

NBC News' sources estimated that 50 to 80 percent of Americans who buy individual insurance will find their policies cancelled, because those existing policies don't meet Obamacare standards. And for many of those -- now forced to buy new policies -- the price tag will give them "sticker shock."

The Affordable Care Act stated that an insurance policy in effect before March 23, 2010, was to be grandfathered in -- provided insurance companies have made no "significant change" to the plan. But if the plan, say, had a change to the deductible, co-pay or benefits, the plan was no longer eligible to be grandfathered, and the policyholder would have to purchase a new plan.

Obamacare's July 2010 regulations included an estimate that "40 to 67 percent" of customers wouldn't be able to keep their policy because of normal annual turnover in the individual insurance market. And, because many policies will have been changed since the March 23, 2010, date, "the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range." Yet Obama continued to tell Americans that no one would lose their plan or doctor, a promise without which Obamacare would never have passed.

For his part, Obama (SET ITAL) now (END ITAL) says: "What we said was, you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed." A lie is an untruth told with intent to deceive.

Bush didn't "lie."



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Friday, September 12, 2014

ISIS Can 'Muster' Between 20,000 and 31,500 Fighters, CIA Says

By Jim, Jaime Crawford and Chelsea Carter, Sept. 12, 2014, Cnn.com



Washington (CNN) -- A CIA assessment puts the number of ISIS fighters at possibly more than three times the previous estimates.

The terror group that calls itself the Islamic State "can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria," a CIA spokesman told CNN on Thursday.

Analysts and U.S. officials initially estimated there were as many as 10,000 fighters, including those who were freed from prisons by ISIS, and Sunni loyalists who have joined the fight as the group advanced across Iraq.

"This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence," the spokesman said.

The news came a day after President Barack Obama laid out his plan to "dismantle and ultimately destroy" ISIS, including authorizing airstrikes.

Mass executions and videotaped beheadings, including those of two American journalists, have led to the push for a broader counterterrorism mission, including possible airstrikes in civil war-torn Syria.

It's unclear how the ISIS ranks swelled, and whether the increased numbers include recruits from within Iraq.

More than 15,000 foreign fighters, including 2,000 Westerners, have gone to Syria, a CIA source told CNN on Thursday. The fighters come from more than 80 countries, the source said.


Read the full story:  www.cnn.com

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Sunday, August 17, 2014

FLASHBACK: CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

By Adam Kredo, Sept. 17, 2013, Freebeacon.com

A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.

“The reports on the NDA are accurate. We’re getting people who call,” Wolf said Monday during an event marking the launch of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, a panel of former military and intelligence officials who are investigating unanswered questions surrounding the Benghazi incident.

Wolf’s office first received the anonymous call earlier in the summer, soon after CNN and Fox News reported on the NDAs and polygraph tests.

The caller told Wolf’s staff that an unnamed CIA employee has been suspended after refusing to sign a Benghazi-related NDA.

“My office received a call from a man saying that he knew a CIA employee who has retained legal counsel because he has refused to sign an additional NDA regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, events in Benghazi,” Wolf said in Sept. 9 remarks at a panel discussion hosted by Judicial Watch.


Read the full story:  www.freebeacon.com

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