Remember these facts: Bush was briefed on September 18, 2002 by the CIA and was told at that time Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. That briefing directly contradicted the National Intelligence Estimate Congress relied upon during the debate about the Iraq War. Colin Powell also relied upon the National Intelligence Estimate to [...]

There has been almost universal silence among Congressional Democrats on the Obama administration’s recently revealed decision to authorize the assassination of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, has been accused of providing inspiration for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged “underwear bomber,” and Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood [...]

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that individuals captured by the US military in the aftermath of 9/11 and shipped off to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility represented the “worst of the worst.” “If you think of the people down there, these are people, all of whom were captured on a battlefield,” Rumsfeld [...]

Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, told a student audience last week that the spy agency has seen no fall-off in intelligence since waterboarding was banned by the Obama administration. “I don’t think we’ve suffered at all from an intelligence standpoint,” Sulick told students and some faculty members at Fordham University, his [...]

It’s vital to understand how this really works:  it isn’t that people like Mike McConnell move from public office to the private sector and back again.  That implies more separation than really exists.  At this point, it’s more accurate to view the U.S. Government and these huge industry interests as one gigantic, amalgamated, inseparable entity — [...]

A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday denied for the second time the American Civil Liberties Union’s request for access to CIA documents about interrogation techniques, the Associated Press reported. The ACLU has waged a three-year battle for the release of nearly 600 different documents from the CIA that describe the use of enhanced interrogation [...]

There are now three armies in America: the regular volunteer force, the secret volunteer force — the folks at the Joint Special Operations Command — and the paramilitaries and contractors used by the CIA.  Three armies, a welter of conflicting laws, domains and territories. The scariest part of the Ellen Nakashima’s story on Friday on how [...]

The Federal Bureau of Investigations may use fake identities on social networks to investigate criminal activities, according to a redacted FBI document (.pdf) acquired by digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. Specifically, the 33-page confidential presentation says undercover operations are helpful for communicating with suspects and targets of crime, gaining access to private information, and [...]

A leaked U.S. Army intelligence report, classified as secret, says the Wikileaks Web site poses a significant “operational security and information security” threat to military operations. Classified U.S. military information appearing on Wikileaks could “influence operations against the U.S. Army by a variety of domestic and foreign actors,” says the report (.pdf), prepared in 2008 [...]