CIA

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Snowden Reveals Spy Agencies' $53B 'Black Budget'

We spend vast sums, still have critical intelligence gaps

(Newser) - The US has budgeted $52.6 billion on its intelligence operations this year, according to classified documents Edward Snowden leaked to the Washington Post . Yet those operations are, by their own assessment, doing a less-than-spectacular job on a host of critical intelligence questions. Here are some highlights of the Post...

US Helped Saddam Gas Iran
 US Helped Saddam Gas Iran 
Aug 26, 2013 7:05 AM CDT

US Helped Saddam Gas Iran

CIA files reveal that 4 chemical weapon attacks relied on US intel

(Newser) - The US may be outraged by Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons, but its hands aren't exactly clean of gas or blood. Newly declassified CIA documents prove that the US gave intelligence to Saddam Hussein, including satellite imagery, Iranian troop locations, and more, that was used to plan...

Hastings Thought His Car Was Being Tampered With

Journalist was 'agitated' the last days of his life

(Newser) - At 12:30am on the morning he died, an agitated Michael Hastings went to his neighbor and friend Jordanna Thigpen and asked to borrow her car. He said he was afraid to drive his own car, because he believed that someone had been tampering with it. "He was scared,...

CIA Admits Role in Iran's Coup—60 Years Later

Releases documents acknowledging it was behind overthrow of Mossadeq in '53

(Newser) - It's only taken 60 years, but the CIA has finally acknowledged its role in the 1953 coup of democratically elected Iranian PM Mohammad Mossadeq. In documents released to the independent National Security Archive website, an internal report says: "[T]he military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front...

Researchers Demand Access to Sealed JFK Files

50 years on, what is so secret that we can't still can't see today?

(Newser) - It's been 50 years since JFK was shot, but thousands of documents from the probe into his death are still off-limits to the public. Now an increasing number of serious researchers are seeking their release, reports the AP . "This is not about conspiracy, this is about transparency,"...

At Last, CIA Admits Area 51 Is Real

But the back story doesn't include aliens

(Newser) - It's a milestone of sorts for conspiracy theorists: The CIA has for the first time declassified documents that detail the existence of Area 51 in Nevada, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal . The documents, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by a national security institute at George Washington...

Denials Aside, the CIA Spied on Noam Chomsky

FOIA request reveals secret memo on the MIT professor

(Newser) - The CIA would never keep a file on political dissident Noam Chomsky—right? For years, the agency denied keeping a Chomsky file, but a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI has punctured a hole in that story, Foreign Policy reports. Turns out that a CIA memo to the...

So What Exactly Was the CIA Doing in Benghazi?

CNN reports that dozens of agents were on ground before attack in secretive mission

(Newser) - A new CNN report might resurrect the controversy of last year's attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed ambassador Chris Stevens. The report asserts that not only did the CIA have "dozens" of operatives on the ground at the consulate before the attack, it is now...

CIA Studying How to Control the World's Climate

Backs $630K geoengineering study

(Newser) - Get those tin foil hats out: The CIA is backing half of a $630,000 study into whether scientists can fight climate change via geoengineering. The 21-month project by the National Academy of Sciences will be a "technical evaluation of a limited number of proposed geoengineering techniques," says...

Panama Arrests Ex-US Spy Over CIA Tactics

Authorities nab Robert Seldon Lady at Italy's behest

(Newser) - A former American spy has been arrested in Panama at Italy's behest over his role in the CIA's controversial Bush-era extraordinary rendition tactic . An Italian court convicted Robert Seldon Lady , the CIA's Milan bureau chief, and more than 20 other agents of kidnapping in 2009, but by...

9/11 Mastermind's Jail Pastime: Building Vacuum Cleaner?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed read Harry Potter , did "homework"

(Newser) - Storytime, tea and biscuits, Harry Potter: Sounds more like a day in the life of a British schoolkid than a typical day for the mastermind of 9/11. The AP offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's time in a CIA prison, as officials tried to...

How US Kept bin Laden Raid Records Secret

They were shifted from Pentagon to CIA

(Newser) - US officials ensured that files from the Osama bin Laden raid would stay secret by slipping them into the hands of the CIA—which is allowed to keep its records quiet. Adm. William McRaven, the leading special ops director, had the files removed from Pentagon databases and handed over to...

4 CIA Agents Were in NYPD for Years After 9/11: Report

One was involved in domestic surveillance

(Newser) - Questions over the CIA's involvement with the NYPD, bound up with domestic surveillance concerns, have been a hot topic for years . A new report from the CIA inspector general is adding more fuel to that fire, saying four CIA officers were embedded in the police department for years following...

CIA Training Syria Rebels: Report

LA Times says secret work started last year

(Newser) - The White House may be moving too slowly in the eyes of some critics when it comes to helping the Syrian opposition, but the CIA and special ops forces have been at it since late last year, reports the Los Angeles Times . It says the Americans have been secretly training...

In a First, CIA's No. 2 Will Be a Woman

Avril Haines taking over deputy director job

(Newser) - CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell has announced his retirement, making way for the first woman to take the job. Avril Haines, 43, is a White House lawyer who has worked in the State Department and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She hasn't worked in an intelligence post before, Bloomberg notes,...

CIA Classified 25% of Drone Victims as 'Other'

Agency often didn't know who it was targeting in Pakistan: report

(Newser) - As it pursued suspected terrorists in Pakistan, the CIA wasn't always certain of the identity of those it was killing: Some 25% of those taken out by drones over a span of 14 months beginning in September 2010 were categorized as "other militants," NBC News finds after...

Panetta Leaked bin Laden Raid Details: Report

Zero Dark Thirty writer heard classified info at event

(Newser) - If the Justice Department is worried about leaks, it might want to place a call to a certain former CIA director/secretary of defense. Leon Panetta revealed a variety of classified info about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—including the names of the ground commanders involved—at an event...

Threatening Letters Contained Identical Lines

"What's in this letter is nothing compared to what I've got planned"

(Newser) - Officials are questioning a Texas Army veteran over ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama , Michael Bloomberg , and Bloomberg's gun-control organization, law enforcement sources tell NBC New York . The man, who works as a Pentagon contractor, isn't a suspect in the case at this point, they say. He does,...

Real Culprit of Benghazi Talking Points: Petraeus, CIA

'Washington Post' says they were mostly intended to make the CIA look good

(Newser) - So far, most of the public anger about the Benghazi scandal has focused on the State Department. But the Washington Post has an in-depth piece today suggesting that the real blame for the infamous talking points may lie with everyone's favorite philandering ex-spy chief, David Petraeus. "It was...

Accused US Spy Leaves Russia

Russian TV shows diplomat Ryan Fogle at airport

(Newser) - The US embassy employee accused of spying for the CIA in Moscow has left Russia, the BBC reports. Five days after the country accused him of "provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War" after it allegedly caught him trying to recruit spies, diplomat Ryan Fogle has been...

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