CIA

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CIA Unlocks Real 'X-Files'
 CIA Unlocks Real 'X-Files' 

CIA Unlocks Real 'X-Files'

Military personnel laugh off UFO rumors

(Newser) - For decades, the government barely acknowledged the existence of Area 51, the mysterious military base in Nevada where it allegedly stores frozen extraterrestrials and alien spacecraft. But now, with the CIA declassifying the site’s top-secret programs, insiders are coming forward to dispel the myths, ABC News reports. If anything,...

Spooks Use Wiki to Share Intel
 Spooks Use Wiki to Share Intel 

Spooks Use Wiki to Share Intel

Site enables rapid sharing of information, advocates say

(Newser) - The CIA has grown wise to the power of open-source collaboration, and Intellipedia—a classified version of Wikipedia—is humming with activity 3 years after its debut, Time reports. The site boasts 900,000 pages of content written by 100,000 identified intelligence professionals. Advocates cite the rapid treatment of...

Report Slams Spy Agencies
 Report Slams Spy Agencies 

Report Slams Spy Agencies

Internal probe finds intelligence agencies have failed to streamline under DNI

(Newser) - America's 16 spy agencies have failed to stop infighting and fix weaknesses identified after 9/11, according to an internal report released yesterday. The report sharply criticizes the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for failing to streamline intelligence analysis and spur cooperation and information-sharing among agencies, as it was...

Speak Another Language? CIA's Got a Job for You

Agency running ads to recruit minorities, foreign-language speakers

(Newser) - The CIA has no trouble finding recruits. But that doesn’t mean it gets the recruits it wants, so the CIA is running a radio ad campaign targeting potential spooks fluent in a second language, Time reports, and nonwhite. “I’d like to get to a point where every...

Gates: 'Bin Laden Hunt Like Finding Unabomber'

Defense secretary says finding fugitives a lot harder than it looks

(Newser) - Finding the bad guys isn't as easy as it looks in the movies, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday. Gates compared the hunt for Osama bin Laden with federal agents' 17-year search for the Unabomber, and suggested the same time frame may be similar in the quest to locate al-Qaeda...

CIA Tortured Prisoners: Red Cross

2007 report is first to use 'torture' in legal context

(Newser) - The Red Cross concluded in 2007 that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda detainees "constituted torture," the Washington Post reports. Fourteen prisoners transferred from multiple CIA "black site" prisons overseas to Guantanamo all described similar patterns of beatings, sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and...

Brits Condoned Torture, Aided Extraordinary Renditions: UN

UK a full partner in US terror effort, report says

(Newser) - Binyam Mohamed, a recently released Gitmo detainee, alleges that he was tortured in Morocco while asked questions on behalf of Britian’s MI5. His story so far has amounted to his word against MI5’s, but a new report supports the former detainee’s claim, the Economist reports. A UN...

Pakistan Not Cooperating in Search for Militants: US

Officials worry that terrorists can get too-easy access to US

(Newser) - US intelligence officials are frustrated by what they see as Islamabad’s roadblocks in efforts to investigate terrorist cells with ties to Pakistan, the Los Angeles Times reports. Pakistanis living in European countries, who can enter the US without much scrutiny, remain a worry for the CIA and FBI, whose...

Pakistan Bombings Kill 15
 Pakistan Bombings Kill 15 

Pakistan Bombings Kill 15

(Newser) - Three separate bombings killed 15 people in northwestern Pakistan today, while authorities investigated reports that a pilotless US drone crashed in the region bordering Afghanistan. The bombings, coming days after gunmen attacked Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team, were a fresh reminder of the militant threat in Pakistan, where Western leaders...

CIA Destroyed More Tapes Than Admitted: Feds

(Newser) - The CIA destroyed 92 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged, according to new documents. The revelation came in a letter filed today by government lawyers in New York, where the ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.

'Death-Squad' Serb Was CIA Spook

Agency submits classified document to international court in Stanisic's defense

(Newser) - A Serbian leader facing trial for organizing "ethic cleansing" death squads was a key CIA aide, reports the Los Angeles Times. Jovica Stanisic, head of intelligence for brutal Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, secretly fed information to CIA agents desperate for dirt on factions in the former Yugoslavia. While Stanisic...

Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA
 Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA 

Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA

Inquiry to focus on controversial interrogation and detention program

(Newser) - The Senate Intelligence Committee plans a sweeping investigation into the CIA's actions under President Bush, the Los Angeles Times reports. Officials say the probe is a fact-finding mission rather than an investigation into whether laws were broken, but the inquiry is certain to put the spotlight back on the agency's...

Ex-CIA Exec Gets 37 Months for Peddling Contracts

(Newser) - A former CIA official who steered contracts toward a friend in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, was sentenced today to 37 months in prison, the Washington Post reports. Kyle Foggo was, at the time, the CIA’s executive director, the agency’s third-highest position. In exchange for lavish dinners...

US Secretly Training Pakistani Commandos

Forces help troops to fight Taliban, al-Qaeda

(Newser) - Dozens of American military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to train armed forces to battle the Taliban and al-Qaeda, reports the New York Times. The Special Forces soldiers are providing intelligence and advising the Pakistani military on combat tactics, although they are not conducting combat operations....

Suspected US Strike Kills 30 in Pakistan

(Newser) - An airstrike in Pakistan’s troubled South Waziristan region, likely orchestrated by the US, has killed about 30 people, the Los Angeles Times reports. The dead are thought to be al-Qaeda or Taliban militants; the attack destroyed the compound of an associate of the Taliban leader suspected in the assassination...

Senate Confirms Panetta as CIA Chief

(Newser) - The Senate confirmed Leon Panetta as director of the CIA tonight, placing the nation's top spy agency in the hands of a government veteran valued for his skills as a lawmaker and policy manager rather than an expert at intelligence-gathering and analysis. The Senate approved President Obama's choice on a...

CIA to Obama: British Terrorists Pose Top Threat

(Newser) - The CIA thinks the next attempt to launch a 9/11-level attack is likely to come out of Britain and has informed President Obama of a huge new spy operation within the UK, intelligence sources tell the Daily Telegraph. Agents say the most likely theoretical culprit is British-born Pakistani extremist entering...

CIA Hopeful Panetta Retracts Torture Remarks

Backs off accusations that US deliberately sent suspects abroad

(Newser) - Leon Panetta today backed off on comments he made accusing the Bush administration of deliberately sending terror suspects abroad to be tortured, CQ Politics reports. "It's news to me," Sen Christopher Bond told the nominee to run the CIA. Panetta responded that he was referring to widely publicized...

$700K in Fees Could Bring Panetta Scrutiny

CIA nom got speaking, consulting money from troubled banks

(Newser) - President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA could be the next to come under scrutiny after the Wall Street Journal reported today that Leon Panetta has made more than $700,000 in the past year in speaking and consulting fees—with some coming from troubled banks and an investment...

Saddam to Commanders: Wait, Do We Have WMDs?

(Newser) - Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction, but America made such a strong case that even the Iraqi leader himself had doubts, the Washington Post reports. Saddam, apparently in awe of US intelligence, asked his top commanders if the nation had stashes even he didn't know about. So says...

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