News that parts of the PATRIOT Act have temporarily lapsed is to be cheered, but the greater danger — the danger of secret government — remains. The CIA embodies that danger.
As Sputnik News reports, according to Paul, the CIA could be an even bigger threat to liberty than McAdams suggests. A covert army that doesn’t answer to Congress, the Supreme Court, or even the president.
“That, to me, was the most frightening experience in Washington, is there were black budgets. We never knew exactly how much money was spent,” Paul says.
Those secret budgets have allowed the CIA to carry out some pretty shady practices over the years. Chiefly, assassinations.
…
“There are certainly a lot of theories about the CIA being involved in even domestic assassinations, and they certainly are now involved in presidential directed assassinations,” Paul says.
“The US has covertly and overtly influenced elections overseas a number of times,” McAdams says. “It’s a very open secret that the CIA infiltrates monitoring organizations like the OSCE with their personnel.”
For some, the USA Freedom Act and similar legislation may be the best way to rein in renegade intelligence agencies. But as Paul notes, many laws already exist to implement limitations. These laws are routinely ignored.
“They are a secret government,” Paul says of the CIA. “Way out of control.”
Nevertheless, Paul ends on an optimistic note, pointing out that young Americans are tired of the status quo and fed up with broad government overreach.
“In a true republic, there is no place for an organization like the CIA,” Dr. Paul says, quoting former FBI agent Dan Smoot. “I think he’s closer to the truth than a lot of what’s going on today.”
The CIA official who led the hunt for Osama Bin Laden is being removed from his post, it has been revealed.
The head of the agency’s Counterterrorism Center, who also directed drone campaigns which killed thousands, has been in the position for nine years and is described as a ‘true hero’.
His move is part of a major restructuring under CIA director John Brennan, and ends a tenure which has seen the center become a paramilitary unit, The Washington Post reported.
The official, who has not been fully named by the paper as he is still undercover, is a convert to Islam and is believed to be in his 50s.
The head of the United States’ CIA John, Brennan is a converted Muslim, what the hell is that all about?
The CIA official who led the hunt for Osama Bin Laden is being removed from his post as part of director John Brennan’s (pictured) restructuring. The agency veteran has been described as a true hero.
Known by his agency identity Roger, he presided over a campaign of espionage and armed drone strikes that have killed both terrorists and civilians.
Many of Al Qaeda’s most influential leaders have been slain under his leadership, but the main threat has since shifted to ISIS.
In a Post profile written in 2012, he was described as chain-smoker and ‘not at all a team player’ by colleagues.
He was also the basis for the character ‘The Wolf’ in the film Zero Dark Thirty and is said to have spent hours on the treadmill reading terrorism reports.
But agency spokesman Dean Boyd paid tribute to the senior official as news of his departure surfaced.
He said: ‘After nearly a decade of outstanding work in this post, including the take down of countless terrorists and many other successes in protecting the country, he will be moving on in connection with the CIA modernization plan announced last month.’
Roger is believed to be staying on at the CIA and will be reassigned. His successor is known as Chris and is said to be an agency veteran who has already been in a number of high profile positions
Earlier this month Brennan ordered a sweeping overhaul of the spy agency, aimed in part at sharpening its focus on cyber operations and incorporating digital innovations into traditional intelligence gathering.
Known by his agency identity Roger, he was the basis for the character ‘The Wolf’ in Zero Dark Thirty (not pictured). Kyle Chandler (left) and Jessica Chastain (right) during one of the scenes
The move was prompted after nine outside experts spent three months analyzing the agency’s management structure.
These included what deputy CIA director David Cohen called ‘pain points’ – or organizational areas where the CIA’s bureaucracy does not work efficiently.
US officials said that Brennan decided the agency had to increase the resources and emphasis it devoted to cyberspace because advanced communications technology is rapidly becoming pervasive.
Historically, electronic eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency have been at the cutting edge of digital innovation within the US government. But the CIA felt that it too had to reorganize to keep up with the technological ‘pace of change,’ as one official put it.
This image provided by the U.S. Army shows a page from a brochure about the Distributed Common Ground System. Military bureaucrats have been trying to force the use of DCGS, an unpopular government-built intelligence system on special operations units deploying to war zones while blocking soldiers from using the commercial alternative they say they need. US ARMY/AP
WASHINGTON — Military bureaucrats have been trying to force an unpopular government-built intelligence system on special operations units deploying to war zones while blocking soldiers from using the commercial alternative they say they need, according to government records and interviews.
Over the last four months, six Army special operations units about to be deployed into Afghanistan, Iraq and other hostile environments have requested software made by Palantir, a Silicon Valley company that has synthesized data for the CIA, the Navy SEALs and the country’s largest banks, among other government and private entities.
But the Army has approved just two of the requests after members of Congress intervened with senior military leaders. Four requests pending with U.S. Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida-based Special Operations Command have not been granted.
Email messages and other military records obtained by The Associated Press show that Army and special operations command bureaucrats have been pressing troops to use an in-house system built and maintained by traditional defense contractors. The Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS, has consistently failed independent tests and earned the ire of soldiers in the field for its poor performance.
Special operations units have used Palantir since 2009 to store and analyze intelligence on information ranging from cultural trends to roadside bomb data, but has always been seen by top Pentagon officials as an interim solution until their in-house system is fielded. Those who have used the system say DCGS has yet to deliver on its promise of seamlessly integrating intelligence.
Pentagon officials say DCGS, despite its flaws, has broader capabilities than Palantir, and that in some cases it complements Palantir.
Intelligence officers say they use Palantir to analyze and map a variety of intelligence from hundreds of databases. Palantir costs millions, compared to the billions the military has been pouring into DCGS.
Special operations officials, in a statement to AP, said Palantir had been “extremely successful” in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are working to expand access to Palantir for units deployed in the fight against the Islamic State group. But records and interviews show a history of internal pressure against making and approving such requests.
One veteran special operations intel analyst, who is on his seventh deployment in 12 years, said his recent request for Palantir for a unit heading to Iraq had met with “pushback” both from his own headquarters and from bureaucrats who favor DCGS’ analytical component at the Pentagon, special operations command headquarters in Tampa, and Army special operations in Fort Bragg. Another special operations officer also used the term “heavy pushback” in an email about his request for Palantir.
Like most active-duty Army personnel interviewed for this story, they declined to be quoted by name because they feared speaking out could put their careers at risk.
In their statement, special operations officials said their questions about Palantir requests should not be interpreted as resistance.
The failings of the Army’s version of DCGS has received significant public attention in recent years. The version tailored to special operations troops has even less capability, special operations command acknowledges in its records. Another version being offered to special operations troops working in remote areas, called DCGS-Lite, has received mediocre reviews from intelligence analysts, Army records show.
Intelligence officers say Palantir is easier to use, more stable and more capable than DCGS, which sometimes doesn’t work at all.
The Pentagon system is difficult to master, the veteran intelligence analyst said, while it takes him about 30 minutes to train a new analyst on Palantir.
The motives behind the expose report on CIA practices of torture misses the critical issue surrounding the “Agency”. Most Democrats and many left wing partisans enjoy pointing the dagger at George W. Bush and his cabal of dedicated conspirators. While the first family of fascist facilitators are certainly an indefensible clan of criminals, the essential element about the Central Intelligence Agency is that gathering and interrupting clandestine tradecraft, produces little effect to enhance an American First foreign policy.
Those treasonous NeoCons, who infiltrated both parties, are dire hard globalists bent on fostering an international interventionist empire. Defending the use of a handbook for torture techniques is a task that only a sociopathic and deranged authoritarian undertakes.
“Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Thursday defended revelations from Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats that the agency used rectal rehydration on detainees.
“These were medical procedures,” Hayden said during a tense interview on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” He added that the method was used because detainees were dehydrated, and that giving them intravenous fluids with needles would be dangerous.”
Prancing out Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney to brag about his record of enhanced interrogation is consistent with the culture of obscene de-humanization that is always rationalized as protecting the “Homeland”.
“The senior operations officer who ran the CIA’s torture and abuse program, Jose Rodriquez, has been permitted to write a book and a long essay in the Washington Post that argue the interrogation techniques were legal and effective. Their charges are completely spurious and their credibility is non-existent.
CIA directors Tenet and Hayden, who signed off on the enhanced interrogation program, were involved in numerous efforts to politicize the work of the CIA. In addition to deceiving the White House on the efficacy of the torture program, Tenet provided misinformation to the White House on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. His role on Iraqi WMD has been comprehensively and authoritatively documented in the reports of the Robb-Silberman Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”
How did the Agency become the refuge of nihilism? Start with looking into the reasons for installing a mole like James Jesus Angleton, as head of the Counterintelligence Staff, which illustrates the danger of entrusting national security to compromised loyalists. Fast forward to today and elevating John O. Brennan: CIA Drone Director to head up the Agency proves that the killing machine is more important than the analysis of intelligence.
The CIA has a damaging pattern of not providing accurate intelligence. The reason is simple, for their mission has changed from the original charter and their purpose is now the elimination of all opposition to the rule of the “REAL” establishment. The CIA’s own site and library says:
“Preempt threats and further US national security objectives by collecting intelligence that matters, producing objective all-source analysis, conducting effective covert action as directed by the President, and safeguarding the secrets that help keep our Nation safe.”
“From the creation of the Agency in 1947 until the establishment of the permanent select committees on intelligence in the mid-1970s, there was relatively little legislation in this area. Only three statutes, in fact, fell into the aforementioned categories, and all were developed largely by the Agency and supported by the administration in power. With the advent of the select committees, however, Congress began to develop and enact more legislation affecting the Agency’s mission, authorities, and organization. Not only did the annual authorization bills for intelligence developed by the select committees offer new opportunities to bring legislation affecting the CIA to the floor, but the committees themselves increasingly took the initiative to propose such legislation.”
On “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace,” former President George W. Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove, defended the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of rectal feeding tubes.
According to Canada’s National Post, two U.S. psychologists were paid about $81-million to consult with the CIA on its brutal interrogation program.
The two psychologists had no prior experience with Al Qaeda, counterterrorism or interrogation techniques, according to the U.S. Senate report on torture.
They were working with the Air Force on its “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape” (SERE) program prior to the 9/11 attacks. That program has been reported to have evolved into the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which included “rectal feeding” and waterboarding.
One of the psychologists, James Mitchell, is now retired to a life of leisure in Florida. He sat down for an interview with Vice News on his role.
“The whole point of the (SERE) program is so that the men and women who in high-risk of capture can serve with honor whether in captivity and then return with their honor intact. The training is really focused on helping them avoid providing actionable intelligence to the bad guys,” James Mitchell told Vice reporter Kaj Larsen.
Jose Rodriguez, former Director of the National Clandestine Service in the CIA, claimed in his 2012 book, Hard Measures, that the SERE program was reverse-engineered for “enhanced interrogation.”
“I don’t recall exactly, but that’s the myth anyway,” Mitchell told Vice of that assertion.
The Senate report states that the two psychologists’ firm outsourced the contract for most of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program from 2005 to 2008.
The firm was paid $81-million of the $181-million consulting contract before it was terminated in 2009.
I am by no means an expert on or will I pretend to know much about torture. This is only a personal view of what I know and how I feel on the subject.
Torture: There could be different degrees of torture much like there are different degrees of murder. Torture is not an act practiced only by the CIA or terrorists organizations. Mistreatment/torture is rampant worldwide. Violent people, abusers, spousal and sexual; just sick individuals hurting and killing others including domestic is torture to their victim.
I have seen video of individuals portrayed by aggressors as terrorists being water-boarded, whipped etc…….. Some of the video and stories of such torture I will admit were quite disturbing and appeared to go too far. As Americans I would hope we can demonstrate good morals and dignity even in our chaotic world. On the other hand, I am human, it disturbs me greatly when I see video of Americans and others beheaded by people who have no morals or dignity that hide behind a false religion.
The CIA, I am sure occasionally uses desperate means during desperate times. Is it right? I guess it depends, if it were my son who was beheaded or killed on 911, I may want vengeance and justice under desperate means as well. I may take a “Do whatever it takes” attitude to find and punish those responsible.
Its difficult, where do we draw and say “do not cross the line”? How effective are the tactics of the CIA?
One other thought, the CIA report that came out yesterday cost the tax payers 40 million dollars. Will that report change anything? Was it worth 40 million? It was “investigated” by Democrats only. It’s a government report, and we know how accurate and honest those have been!!!
(CIA secret prison ruling sees Poland appeal to European Human Rights Court-Screenshot from 2014-12-10 12:33:08)
#AceNewsServices –
WASHINGTON:Dec.10 – The CIA paid at least a million dollars to Poland for it to host secret prisons, where it incarcerated alleged 9/11 terror suspects, according to the recent US torture report which was released on Tuesday and that we reported.
Warsaw had initially tried to halt the transfer of suspects, but after a generous offer, it suddenly became more “flexible.”
Although redacted, the US torture report does not name Poland, calling it just the “Country”. Details such as the names of the detainees transferred to the country and the time they arrived at the CIA“black site” match the European Court of Human Rights ruling on the existence of a CIA“black site” in Poland.
According to the report, the agreement to host a CIA detention facility in the Country“created multiple, ongoing difficulties between [the] Country and the CIA.”
‘ Screenshot from CIA Torture Report ‘
Poland then proposed a “Memorandum of Understanding” covering the relative roles and responsibilities of the CIA, but the agency refused to sign the document.
“Four months after the site began hosting CIA detainees, [the] Country rejected the transfer,” says the document.
Warsaw rejected the transfer of Khalid Shaykh [Sheikh] Muhammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
However Poland’s decision was “reversed” only after the US ambassador “intervened” with Warsaw.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill.(AFP Photo / T.J. Kirkpatrick)
“The following month the CIA provided $ X million to [the]Country’s [officials]” and the “political leadership, indicated that [the] Country was now flexible with regard to the number of CIA detainees at the facility,” says the report. The sum was redacted in the report.
The document states the detention facility was closed, as had been previously agreed, in 2003.
Years later, Polish officials were “extremely upset”at the CIA’s “inability to keep secrets.” Polish authorities were also “deeply disappointed” that they hadn’t been warned before President George W. Bush publicly acknowledged the program’s existence in 2006, says the document.
Warsaw has always denied the existence of such black sites on its territory, while the US acknowledged the presence of facilities outside US jurisdiction, but didn’t identify the exact locations of them.
Reuters tried to reach a Polish government spokeswoman by phone and email, but she didn’t respond.
The document doesn’t name the “US ambassador”to Poland who was mentioned in the report. But at the time Christopher Hill (2000–2004) was in the post. Mr Hill hasn’t yet commented on the report.
A spokesman for Leszek Miller, who was the Polish PM from 2001 to 2004, declined to comment.
The long-awaited publication of the so-called “CIA torture report” is expected to finally occur early next week, but would-be readers, be warned: according to leaks, the executive summary will be absent any and all use of the word “torture.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the chair of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, now says that the public will be able to read the executive summary of her panel’s years-long investigation into the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques next week, with journalist Jason Leopold reporting that the release of the document will come as early as Monday.
After a lengthy back-and-forth between the Senate committee and the CIA, however, the 600 page summary that will soon be made public — less than one-tenth of the actual report — will be ripe with enough redactions and wordplay to still leave much of the agency’s post-9/11 practices a mystery.
“The summary is expected to reignite the debate over whether the CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques in the first years of the war on terror amounted to torture,” Josh Rogin and Eli Lake wrote for Bloomberg View on Wednesday this week. “Although the summary report is said to not use the word ‘torture,’ officials said it would describe practices that any layman would understand as torture.”
In the midst of the months of delays brought on by bickering between the Senate and CIA over what to include in the public version of the report, it was reported in July by theAssociated Press that people who read the report said the practices described within“amounted to torture by a common definition.”
“This report tells a story of which no American is proud,” reads part of a State Department document about the Senate panel’s findings that was sent to the White House over the summer and subsequently received by journalists at AP. Indeed, Reuters reportedthis week that the report concludes that harsh CIA interrogation tactics, including the simulated drowning technique known as “waterboarding,” as well as sleep deprivation and other acts tantamount to torture, provided the US with no intelligence breakthroughs that could have been achieved by other non-coercive means.
The leaked copy of White House talking points obtained by the AP over the summer in anticipation of the eventual release of the report acknowledged that the government will likely be asked, “Isn’t it clear that the CIA engaged in torture as defined in the Torture Convention?” The next day, US President Barack Obama made headlines after offering arguably the most blatant official recognition yet from the executive branch concerning the practices authorized by his predecessor in the wake of September 11 terrorist attacks.
“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did things that were contrary to our values,” Pres. Obama said.
Nevertheless, indications from this week suggest that the Senate agreed to omit use of the t-word; according to Bloomberg, both Feinstein’s panel and the CIA agreed to certain concessions through negotiations brokered by the White House through Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough: Rogin and Lake wrote that staffers in the Senate Intelligence Committed “objected vigorously to hundreds of redactions the CIA had proposed in the executive summary,” but ultimately both sides had to make sacrifices.
“Among the most significant of Feinstein’s victories, the report will retain information on countries that aided the CIA program by hosting black sites or otherwise participating in the secret rendition of suspected terrorists,” reads part of Wednesday’s Bloomberg report. Per the CIA’s request, however, those host nations won’t actually be named, but rather will reportedly by given code names, like “Country A.”
Elsewhere, Bloomberg reported that Feinstein “reluctantly agreed” to another request from the CIA: according to this week’s article, the pseudonymous fake names used by undercover agents have been redacted from the executive summary as well. Previously, theNew York Times reported that the White House supported the CIA’s stance regarding the matter.
“Hopefully they won’t redact too much and hopefully the White House won’t let them get away with redacting too much,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin told The Daily Beast in July. “Until you see what they are going to redact, it’s hard to know what material you have to work with.”
In late August, Sen. Feinstein told “Meet the Press” that her committee was engaged with the Obama administration to ensure that redactions to the executive summary do not “destroy the report.”
“If you redact the evidence — heavily — then we cannot sustain our findings. We will not put out a report that does not enable us to sustain our findings. And I believe that that is understood,” Feinstein said then, adding that she expected the summary to be public by late September. Two months later, though, the New York Times reported that Democrats in charge of the Senate were accusing the White House of “trying to censor significant details” of the report, and that negotiations between the Senate and CIA managed by the White House were responsible for the delays.
On her part, Feinstein acknowledged previously that the report “uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.” Her committee’s $40 million, three-years-in-the-making investigation has been stymied in recent months after a stand-off erupted between the Senate panel and the CIA concerning allegations of spying concerning both parties. In late July, the CIA conceded that its officers had penetrated a Senate computer network used by staffers working on the report.
According to Reuters, the forthcoming executive summary includes 20 findings from the Senate about the results of the CIA program, as well as 200 pages of history on the topic, a rebuttal from the CIA and a dissent from congressional Republicans.
June 3, 2015
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But wait ! we have the assurance and a death certificate that seems to seal the deal.
The head of the United States’ CIA John, Brennan is a converted Muslim, what the hell is that all about?
The Silent Soldier 