CIA

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US: CIA Foils al-Qaeda Underwear Bomb Plot

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri suspected

(Newser) - The CIA has stopped al-Qaeda from bombing a US-bound airliner with a new kind of underwear bomb intended to slip past metal detectors, the AP reports. US officials say that agents grabbed the bomb in Yemen from a would-be terrorist who hadn't picked a flight yet, but planned to...

White House Gives CIA OK to Bomb Yemen at Will

No need for agency to know targets' names before launching drone strike

(Newser) - The White House has loosened restrictions on the use of US drones against suspected militants in Yemen, following a CIA request . Now, the CIA and military can target militants seen as dangerous to the US without knowing their names, as is the case in Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal reports....

Pentagon Gets Its Own Global Spy Agency

Defense Clandestine Service will snoop beyond battlefields

(Newser) - The Pentagon has created a new spy agency that will expand its intelligence gathering operations outside of current war zones. The new Defense Clandestine Service will work closely with the CIA, investigating targets unrelated to its current battles in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials tell the Washington Post ; the paper speculates...

CIA Wants Green Light to Bomb Yemen at Will

Asks for OK to launch strikes even if it's not sure who will be killed

(Newser) - CIA Director David Petraeus has requested permission to launch drone strikes in Yemen even when the agency is not sure who the strikes might kill. Instead, the CIA would launch attacks based on patterns of suspicious activity, much the way it does in Pakistan, a tactic known as "signature...

Ex-CIA Trainee Goes Public on Twitter

Lynnae Williams thinks the agency is corrupt because of how it fired her

(Newser) - It's not every day that you see a former CIA employee reaming out the agency on social media, but that's exactly what Lynnae Williams does. Williams, 35, had a four-month stint as a CIA trainee in 2009 before she was sent to the agency's mental hospital—or,...

FBI, CIA Infighting Killed Chance to Gain 9/11 Intel
FBI, CIA Infighting Killed Chance to Gain 9/11 Intel
reveals UK court
Mar 28, 2012 7:49 AM CDT

FBI, CIA Infighting Killed Chance to Gain 9/11 Intel

Bureau could have accessed calls in Afghanistan pre-2001: UK court

(Newser) - The FBI missed a big chance to gain intel—compliments of a tapped phone network in Afghanistan—before 9/11 because it was busy fighting with the CIA, according to testimony heard yesterday in Britain's House of Commons. Stay with us on this one: As the Guardian reports, the revelation...

Iran Lifts Death Sentence for American 'Spy'

Amir Mirzai Hekmati's case wasn't 'complete': high court

(Newser) - Iran's Supreme Court judges have overturned an American's death sentence for alleged spying , saying that his case was "not complete." The high court has handed Amir Mirzai Hekmati's case to an affiliate court, the BBC reports. Hekmati was convicted of "co-operating with a hostile...

Man Arrested Outside Bank: I'm Half Orangutan

Also claims he's Elvis Presley's brother

(Newser) - A Florida man suspected of assault told sheriff's deputies he was half-orangutan and had to telephone the "Fusion Center" about his monkey blood, the Naples Daily News reports. He also claimed to be Elvis Presley's brother, a friend of President Bush, and director of the CIA. The...

American Carrying Bullets Detained at Pakistan Airport

US officials investigating

(Newser) - An American is being held for questioning in Pakistan after airport security there found bullets in his luggage, according to authorities. The man, on his way from Peshawar to the capital of Islamabad, "has been detained and is under interrogation," a police superintendent tells Reuters. "We are...

Anonymous Hits CIA, Alabama Websites

Hackers seek revenge for state's crackdown on immigrants

(Newser) - It's been another busy Friday for the hackers of Anonymous: They're claiming credit for taking down the CIA website (again) and for hacking into police and government websites in Alabama, reports CNN . The hackers say they stole the personal information of 46,000 people, with the city of...

CIA Fills Void in Iraq, Afghanistan

Agency expects to maintain large stations there for years

(Newser) - US troops may be leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, but the CIA isn't. The agency's stations in the two countries may see staffing levels fall off a bit, but they'll remain its biggest overseas locations for years, officials tell the Washington Post . The Obama administration is counting on...

Panetta: I Think Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

Defense chief also calls for release of doctor who helped catch him

(Newser) - Defense chief Leon Panetta talks about the capture of Osama bin Laden with CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview airing tomorrow, and two main points are generating headlines:
  • Pakistan knew? He suspects government authorities knew bin Laden was in Abbottabad, notes the Hill . "I personally have always felt that
...

CIA Paused Drone Attacks in Pakistan 6 Weeks Ago

Part of an attempt to improve relations with Islamabad

(Newser) - In an effort to make nice with Islamabad, the CIA paused drone missile strikes against low-level militants in Pakistan nearly six weeks ago, current and former officials tell the Los Angeles Times . The suspension affects so-called signature strikes: attacks on those who were observed, via drone or another form of...

Obama, CIA Refuse to Justify Drone War

Secrecy reigns over deadly program

(Newser) - The CIA has ramped up its drone strikes under President Obama, killing somewhere between 1,350 and 2,250 people in Pakistan alone over the past three years. Yet the US has identified virtually none of those victims, nor provided any legal rationale for their killings, the Washington Post observes,...

Pakistan Boots CIA From Drone-Launch Base

US officials say counter-terrorism strikes to continue from other sites

(Newser) - Furious over the recent NATO airstrike that killed at least 25 Pakistani soldiers , Pakistan has booted the CIA from an important base it had been using to launch drone attacks along the Afghan border, reports the New York Times . Pakistani officials said that, as of yesterday, all US personnel had...

CIA Kept Secret Prison in Bucharest Neighborhood

AP investigation uncovers details of black site in Romania

(Newser) - The CIA's secret "black site" prison in Romania wasn't in some remote region of the country, but smack dab in the middle of a busy residential neighborhood near the center of Bucharest, the AP has discovered in a joint investigation with German public television. Sources say the...

Mystery Blasts: Part of Covert Iran War?

CIA, Mossad may be orchestrating attacks

(Newser) - Explosions have crippled Iranian gas pipelines and military facilities . Car bombs and gunshots have killed Iranian nuclear physicists . A computer virus stopped centrifuges from enriching uranium. All part of a Western/Israeli shadow war against Iran? Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack denies it , but some analysts say the CIA, Mossad, European...

CIA Spies Captured in Middle East

Officials fear they will be executed

(Newser) - More than a dozen CIA spies have been caught in Lebanon and Iran over the last six months, and the US worries they’ll be executed—or already have been. "If they were genuine spies, spying against Hezbollah, I don't think we'll ever see them again,"...

CIA 'Vengeful Librarians' Watch Twitter, Facebook

They aim to gather 'open source' intelligence

(Newser) - Somewhere in Virginia, hundreds of CIA analysts are hunched over computers right now, reading Twitter and Facebook posts. This team—affectionately dubbed the “vengeful librarians”—monitors some 5 million social media posts a day, looking for signs of unrest and a general read on the zeitgeist overseas, the...

5 Classic Films Funded in Nutty Ways

The Quaker Oats Co. funded 'Willy Wonka'

(Newser) - Producers have long writhed in agony seeking ways to fund feature films. Cracked lists five of their weirdest schemes:
  • El Mariachi. Robert Rodriguez, the future director of Machete and Sin City, paid for this low-budge action flick by submitting himself to medical experiments that included removing chunks of flesh from
...

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