C.I.A. to Let "Skeletons" Out of its Closet

sgt_doom writes "The C.I.A. announced it was going to reveal "skeletons" by declassifying hundreds of pages of documents detailing illegal abuses over the years. As a preamble, the National Security Archive at George Washington University released a separate set of documents covering internal government deliberations of the abuses from January 1975. Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"

Comments

dream on

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who thinks government knows best probably can't/won't read anyway.

Re:dream on

[tinrobot]

...but, government funded schools TAUGHT me to read.

Re:dream on

[bigtomrodney]

No they didn't. Schools were funded by the taxes you paid. Just remember that as much as it doesn't seem like it, the government work for you. They don't fund you, you fund them.

Re:dream on

[AJWM]

It boggles the mind that anyone thinks that a body made up of the equivalent of pointy-haired bosses would know best.

How does it go? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, enter politics." Something like that...

(And while there might, in some cases, be some bright people in gov't service who advise those politicians, when was the last time you knew a PHB to follow advice, especially advice he didn't understand?)

Re:dream on

[fyngyrz]

It boggles the mind that anyone thinks that a body made up of the equivalent of pointy-haired bosses would know best.

Even that is a misconception. "Pointy haired bosses" have accountability; in the end, they must make a profit as a consequence of their choices or the company will fold, because in a commercial enterprise, funds result from sales of a product and/or service, and said sale is at the option of the consumer.

The government suffers no loss of income, regardless of how poorly they perform. In fact, they often increase their income if they determine that performance is lacking. In the US, that income is taken by coercion (the threat of force, not to mention the occasional use of force) from the populace as income taxes, except of course for those who think that paying income taxes for services not in the general population's best interests is a good thing.

For instance, paying for an adequate national defense is easily argued to be in the populace's best interests; paying for an expeditionary force that attacks oil-rich countries is not. Paying the salaries of congress-people who make constitutional laws is easily argued to be in the populace's best interests; paying for ex-post facto law, law that abolishes habeas corpus, law that attempts to limit personal, consensual choices and liberties... these are the fruits of a coercive government out of control — argument for them is nonsensical.

The model for coercive tax-based government is defective with regard to ensuring performance at any level other than the elected personages. Even there, the political parties have created an assembly line of essentially similar candidates. These preserve the status quo of service to big money interests, with the people's interests placed dead last.

So while you may be entirely justified with regard to your derisive characterization of commercial command structure, just remember that such people do respond to a built-in and ultimately terminal feedback mechanism that the people have control of. This is not the case for government, or at least, the US government, which is the one I am most familiar with.

How does it go? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, enter politics."

Disclosure: I am both a teacher and a "pointy headed boss" of a series of successful commercial enterprises.

Re:dream on

[Anonymous Coward]

The government suffers no loss of income, regardless of how poorly they perform.

Government (at least the people in it) do carry accountability, if they don't perform well, they can be voted out of office (at least in a working democracy, yes, you can argue that is a fiction but so is a free market with customers who have perfect information).

On the other hand, with a private enterprise it's one dollar, one vote and sometimes not even that: A company (unless it's a public one) doesn't have to make a profit. For example, if I'm rich and want to influence public opinion at all cost, I can run a private enterprise at a loss, possibly to support a profitable one (for example by distorting the market through misinformation).

Does government have problems? Yes. Is it sometimes the wrong approach to solve something? Yes. Does private enterprise have problems too? Most definitely yes.

Re:dream on

[CptPicard]

... and taught me that a civilized government won't have these sorts of weird arms that are not open to oversight by citizens.

Americans just suck at government. ;-)

Re:dream on

[Anonymous Coward]

the government work for you. They don't fund you, you fund them.

Maybe... maybe, I'm not really sure to be honest.

But I do know that in Soviet Russia, you work for government. Government fu#! you.

Re:dream on

[BakaHoushi]

While I agree with your point that businesses are fucked up beyond belief (to use my own words), I'd like to point out "they can be voted out of office."

Now, take a look at incumbency rates. Last I checked, they were around 98%. Now, I'm quite certain 98% of our politicians are not doing an adequate job. In fact, I think 98% is far too low a percentage of politicians that need to get the fuck out of office.

I've, at this point, given up pretty much any hope of there ever being any change in government for the better. Businesses, too, for that matter. At this point, I can only hope that when Big Brother establishes rule, I die on the battlefield against him rather than live in some Orwellian distopia. ...Maybe I'm being a tad melodramatic, but still, I'm not too pleased with the way we're headed.

Re:dream on

[AJWM]

The points you raise are certainly good ones.

I would also note that not all bosses, by any means, are of the "pointy haired" sort. However, it is generally (not exclusively) true that bosses by their own actions do not contribute directly to the company's bottom line, but rather indirectly through facilitating (one would hope) the actions of the employees that are actually producing the products or services that customers are willing to pay for. A bad manager with a good team (probably one he's inherited rather than built, although in a boom industry even a bad manager can build a team "good enough") can show a profit for a while, although that may be far below the potential profit that a good manager could show. And a bad manager with a good story can survive for quite a while even while showing a loss, especially if the company overall is big enough to absorb the losses.

That's why good senior level managers pay attention to more than just the bottom line profit/loss figures of a department, but compare them against industry averages and also pay attention to things like employee turnover within a department. A bad boss may show good numbers for a year or two by slave-driving his workers, until they all disappear.

Re:dream on

[tbannist]

Seriously, this is because the American system of government is almost the worst democratic system in the world. What's worse? Dictators who claim to be democratically elected where the opposition is legally barred under threat of execution for treason.

There are so many games American officials play to undermine the electorate that it's not funny. Gerrymandering, fake voter registration organizations, fake notification letters tell people to go to the wrong place to vote, playing games with the number of voting terminals based on district voting histories.

It should all be illegal, pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison illegal. The American government seems to have largely forgotten that they serve the electorate, they seem to think they control it now. When some cheating politician gets lynched in the streets, that's when they'll wake up from their daydream.

I forgot

[tomstdenis]

Which country is it without sin?

Just saying...

Re:I forgot

[McGiraf]

Vatican? oh wait.....

Re:I forgot

[Dionysus]

Which country is it without sin? <sarcasme>Why that makes it all OK then<sarcasme> Especially a country who thinks of itself as the greatest in the world.
USA! USA! Greatest democracy in the world (when compared to Cuba and Saudi Arabia), greatest living standards (when compared to Bangladesh), greatest freedom (when compared to China), largest (when compared to the Vatican)

Re:I forgot

[blindd0t]

Which country is it without sin?

Does it matter? I'm already gathering up as many stones as I can, and I suggest you do the same!

Kidding aside, how are we supposed to believe some information is selectively omitted? Also, how much is blatant disinformation? Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... we all know how it goes. No government, person, or group of people in any position of power will ever have my trust, and I'll never simply believe their word.

Re:I forgot

[DrEldarion]

we all know how it goes. Except George Bush. http://youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A

Re:I forgot

[enrevanche]

And you point is?

Are you an apologizer for atrocity?

"Just saying"? State what it is your implying. Is it that because other countries do bad things that it doesn't matter what yours does?

The only way things change is by pointing these things out and by being outraged when your country or your country's allies do these things.

Re:I forgot

[anmijagy]

Calm down, Disinformed.

Your post reeks of anti-American propaganda.

Not all Americans think they're the best in the world, just as America actually (still) is one of the better countries in the world.
Just as America is the most powerful. And, some would say, the most economically developed.

The US doesn't have any social nets to catch/elevate falling/underprivileged citizens and it has had governments who wage war entirely too easily.
Grave, perhaps, but the US has many great qualities, too.

There's no need to barf your own frustration over the first best thing the medias tell you to hate.

Re:I forgot

[dominion]

I'm always surprised by the juvenile insistance on using the foul play of others to justify our own unethical activities.

If Columbia has death squads, does that mean the U.S. could have death squads? Because, hey, first stone and all that.

Re:I forgot

[CdBee]

Obviously, none of them. It's just that a lot of us were greatly saddened when the nation whose armies liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, invented Guantanamo & Abu Ghraib. Perhaps there's a perception that some spring-cleaning was needed.

Re:I forgot

[superphreak]

If it's better somewhere else, feel free to move there. And I'm not automatically assuming that you are an American.

Re:I forgot

[PorkNutz]

Fool me once,..... Shame on,............ Shame on you. .....Fool me,can't get fooled again.

-----
George Bush - Peace with Fish T-Shirt
Funny Shirts @ ProStoner.com

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

That's not the point. The point is leave cleaning America to Americans. When your country is perfect you can start pointing your finger at others.

That others have sinned doesn't justify it, but don't come off as morally superior or something.

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

How the fuck did that get insightful? People live fairly well in the states. Yes, there poor, but so what? most people have roofs over their heads and food in their bellies. They're just not mansions and 7 course meals...While the states isn't perfect, I'd much rather live in the states than Cuba, Saudi Arabia, or China.

And I'm Canadian ;-)

From my experience, americans think highly of their country, but most fall short at saying "best place in the world." When I worked for AMD I routinely had to visit the states and had occasion to chat it up with my co-workers from California. They often remarked about the good times they had in Europe, Canada, etc. If you asked them if they liked living in the USA they would say yes, and speak positive about it. But don't confuse thinking positive with zealotry. Most educated folk in the USA have been all over the planet and aren't as dillusioned as /. trolls would have you think.

Tom

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

Because absolutely no other leader on Earth has made an ass of themselves. What of Chretien? Or Layton? Blair? The fist fights in Asian parliaments, etc.

Re:I forgot

[good soldier svejk]

Obviously, none of them. It's just that a lot of us were greatly saddened when the nation whose armies liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, invented Guantanamo & Abu Ghraib. Perhaps there's a perception that some spring-cleaning was needed.

An ironic aspect of the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau is that the Army continues to deny that some of the liberators were black GIs from the 761st Tank and 183rd Combat Engineer battalions. There is overwhelming eyewitness evidence to their actions, much of it from inmates who had never seen a black man before and were hardly likely to imagine such an event.

Re:I forgot

[PorkNutz]

Nowhere in my post did I imply that no other leader has made an ass of themselves. Bush is just an easy target because he does it so consistently and obviously.

-----
Jon Stewart for President T-Shirt
Funny Shirts @ ProStoner.com

Re:I forgot

[turing_m]

Or if you want to find out what the US is actually like, just book a flight to Mexico and jump the border. Very likely you'll soon get amnesty from President Jorge Bush.

Re:I forgot

[timeOday]

Which country is it without sin?

Regardless, it's good to know the history. That way when your President says, "I need unchecked authority and anybody with nothing to hide has nothing to fear," you will know how to answer.

Re:I forgot

[mqduck]

Yes, there poor, but so what?

Wow. I don't even know what to say to that.

Re:I forgot

[TheSloth2001ca]

Certainly there are smart educated globally aware people in the US, I have even met some of these elusive creatures.

But most of my American experiences have been more along the lines of "US IS THE BEST AT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME!"

Hopefully I have just had bad luck in my experiences with Americans, and what you describe is the norm.

Re:I forgot

[styrotech]

When your country is perfect you can start pointing your finger at others.

That's stupid. If we require perfection before being able to point out bad stuff - nobody would be able to speak out at all. Or is that what you want?

Re:I forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's some grade A bullshit right there.

America is the country most likely to stick their nose into other countries' business, and you're insisting that the rest of the world not criticise them?

You, sir, are a dumbass.

Re:I forgot

[vandan]

As the self-proclaimed leaders of the free world, this isn't much of a defense. In fact it's quite a shitty defense. You can point your finger at other countries who have military dictatorships that are backed by the US, and say that they sin, but this misses my previous point that they are backed by the US.

The simple fact is that you can't parade around the world in your tanks, with your banned chemical and nuclear weapons, and have your CIA kidnap and 'render' political opponents to countries who will torture them to death ... or of course carry out the torture yourself, and then claim that you are spreading freedom and democracy.

This CIA goat was claiming that we're seeing a shadow of a 'very different' CIA, operating in the past. But if anything, what we're seeing from these documents is a far more defensible organisation than you have today under the war criminals, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice, etc. But they won't release these files until after every current neo-con has been wasted ... er ... died of natural causes.

Re:I forgot

[zCyl]

Vatican? oh wait.....

What are you talking about? They've got the original. :)

Re:I forgot

[MaxQuordlepleen]

The point is leave cleaning America to Americans.

You mean like you guys left cleaning Iraq to the Iraqis? Oh wait...

Re:I forgot

[Kelbear]

"Hopefully I have just had bad luck in my experiences with Americans, and what you describe is the norm."

You have, in a sense. You've met the people around you.

I'm sure everyone here is aware that any sufficiently large group of people loses homogeneity. When you applying it to the entirety of the American population you're going to end up touching on pretty much the entire spectrum of possible characters. Even united with what may seem like a common idealogy, Christianity ranges from frothing-at-the-mouth hatemongers, to socially liberal love-for-everything folks. The group is still a composition of individuals, each with their own schema for value judgement. In any country you have criminals. They are not representative of the larger whole. You also have exceptionally generous, quality people, who are also by definition not representative of the larger whole.

It's the reason stereotypes are frowned upon. While some may be correct in identifying a larger trend, individual variation makes stereotypes inaccurate until it's functionally useless.

Re:I forgot

[TheSloth2001ca]

I do not want to imply that all Americans are as I described them.

There are many Americans who are great people, that are generous and a pleasure to be around, unfortunately this has been the exception

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

Well first off, not everyone can be rich or even "well to do". It's a sad fact of economics. You want to only pay $5 for that bag of oranges. Well until robotic farming really takes off [and who pays for that?] it's going to be picked by people who don't earn a proper wage.

What? You think oranges in France are picked by well-to-do folk? Well first off, oranges don't grow in France, but if they did, they would be picked by the same style of immigrant low-paid labour as in the states.

I'm not saying it's right. Exploiting people to live comfortably isn't right. But it's the way the ENTIRE WORLD works. It's hardly a US problem. And to compare the USA (GDP per capita of $44K) to Bangladesh (GDP per capita $2.2K) hardly makes any sense. People are simply more wealthy in the USA. so living conditions ought to be better (and they most certainly are, for example, pop density is 31 per km^2 in USA, and 1045 per km^2 in the latter).

Tom

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

No, it's just annoying to hear about this moral superiority coming from everywhere. OMG the states are evil. Leave aside the fact that they give out billions in aid, that they spend billions on medicines that get ripped off in foreign markets, etc. No, americans are evil and pointing it out is just.

Get real.

The point of my post was for people to reflect on how THEY live. If you really can sit there and say "I live a perfectly moral life, so do all my countrymates." Then maybe you can start pointing fingers. Until then, maybe people should be less quick on the trigger.

Tom

Re:I forgot

[flyingfsck]

The poorly educated will always be with us...

Re:I forgot

[cnystrom]

Why that makes it all OK then Especially a country who thinks of itself as the greatest in the world. USA! USA! Greatest democracy in the world (when compared to Cuba and Saudi Arabia), greatest living standards (when compared to Bangladesh), greatest freedom (when compared to China), largest (when compared to the Vatican)

--

Je ne parle pas francais.

I find this last part hard to believe.

Re:I forgot

[Cosmic AC]

You forgot to close your sarcasm tags. Here's wishing that was intentional.

Re:I forgot

[ultranova]

Vatican? oh wait.....

This risks flames, perhaps literally, but considering Catholic Church's past and current activities - I'm referring to its anti-condom campaign which is killing millions in Africa, as well as the sadly famous pedophilic priest cover-ups, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch trials, the crusades, etc. - I'd say that Vatican is amongst the worst currently existing nations in this regard.

Re:I forgot

[stjobe]

Succinctly put. Well done, sir!

Re:I forgot

[coma_bug]

O RLY?

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

OH SHUT UP. There are rude, selfish, mean people EVERYWHERE. It's hardly an American trait. You think if I went to Germany and spouted off at the top of my lungs "All Germans are nazis, this country is crap, you all suck, etc..." that I would get an angry mob forming? You think if I went to some random remote location in France that all of the citizens would be people who have traveled the world and know how other cultures are? ...

I think what you're basing your opinions on is the media, and the fact that there simply is a lot of it in the states. I've been to the states enough to know that for the most part they're decent folk just like anywhere else. They say excuse me when they try to pass in front, sorry when they bump into you, I've even seen them hold doors open for folk. Amazin!!! ...

Re:I forgot

[McGiraf]

Well as a matter of fact they are not worse then any other country (or religion) , it's just that at one point in history the ended up with to much power, and we all know what happens then. Has an exemple: Imagine for a moment that the USSR would collapse, leaving just one super-power, what do you think would happen?

Re:I forgot

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Too true.

In Latin America, most of the CIA approved dictatorships had the active support of the Catholic Church. In Venezuela, even the archbishop of Caracas had the gal to sign the dissolution of the constitutional government in the failed coup d'etat of April 2002.

Re:I forgot

[socz]

I am pretty ignorant in other countries sports, but from my understanding, we're the only one's who chant their country name during a sport... that is based on teams/individuals, not countries. One example is the last PrideFC event hosted in Las Vegas. They had mostly US Citizens fighting others from around the world. "USA USA USA" was not uncommon that evening. I asked the great guys from canada who were next to me, "do you guys ever chant "canada" during hockey games Vs. the US? Or have you even ever hear of canadian chanting? (during a sports match)" They looked embarrassed and said "no." So I apologized.

Re:I forgot

[TheSloth2001ca]

I am basing my opinions on my personal experiences when dealing with Americans. I have spent a fair bit of time in the US, both visiting family and working. There is a noticeable difference in attitude (again with exceptions) when you cross the boarder; people tend to be ruder and more arrogant in the US when compared to Canada.

Re:I forgot

[tomstdenis]

Depends where you are. I've seen a lot of rude people in Ottawa and Toronto, but more pleasant in the burbs. I think your views are rosy coloured with the idealism of "it doesn't smell here." I live in Kanata [west end of Ottawa] and see on a daily basis how "nice" people are, especially on the road.

Maybe they're rude to you because you go around and stir shit up? I've done tons of trips to upper state new york and got along just fine with the locals on each trip. Sure there is the set of rude drivers, occasional loud mouth at the restaurant, etc... But for the most part they're just fine and dandy.

Rude exists everywhere. Try going to Paris, without speaking French and see how "wonderful" the locals are there. Especially when you're not currently handing them a euro. The way you're talking is ironic since it's the same shit most accuse the states of, an internal blindness to your own faults. Dude, Canada is not perfect. We're probably more laid back than the Americans by not by a hell of a lot, and we're definitely not more generous/polite/well adjusted.

Anecdote time... When my brother and I were visiting a friend in downtown Ottawa, during the winter when the roads were icy. He took a spill while trying to get to a bus before it took off. Hurt himself fairly badly [pulled muscles, needed rehab, etc]. People were WALKING OVER HIM to get on
with their way. Now I wouldn't call that typical Canadian behaviour. I'd think in most other circumstances if you took a spill others would investigate to make sure you're ok. The point though, is that extremely callous and immoral behaviour does happen in Canada.

Pull your head out of your ass.

Re:I forgot

[TheSloth2001ca]

I never claimed that the US is alone in being rude (it is not), and I never claimed that Canada was perfect (it is not). Don't put words into my mouth. I am not talking about Paris (I have heard they they are very rude), I never even said that the US was the rudest place in the world (I imagine it is not).

Obviously it depends on where you are, I have tried to make it abundantly clear that there are exceptions to the rude American I am referring to, but you don;t seem to want to acknowledge that.

The rudest Places in the US I have been to are LA, San Diego and rural Virginia, the nicest place (peoplewise) is Point Roberts.

Re:I forgot

[good soldier svejk]

Yes really. Thanks for illustrating my point.

Re:I forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

You're citing a fringe lunatic group? Get real.

Re:I forgot

[rtb61]

That is the whole point, us individuals on the receiving end, we should always be gathering and sharing as many stones (non-violent criticisms) about any and all governments in the world. How to get them to listen, how to expose slack and useless government officials, how to get improvements in the system, how to get rid of corporate controlled governmemt corruption.

The big point about pointing out differences between countries is how to get improvements in your country where you view facets of other countries superior to your own countries qualities in that area, and the basis of how those improvements were achieved. It is all about sharing ideas to achieve mutual improvement. I am a geek with out boundaries when it comes to achieving socio economic improvement for everyone.

Now to generically pick on all government officials who are most likely particpating in exaxctly the same thing. Are they being released now just because they are outside the statute of limitations and the criminals involved can no longer be prosecuted, are they just being released because the victims can no longer sue for the harm that was caused to them, and if any laws were broken why weren't the criminals that broke the laws prosecuted at the time the broke those laws. Now if there are any other skeletons in the closet I would hope that the criminals involved, be they government officials or politicians get prosecuted before the statute of limitations also gives them a free ride.

Re:I forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily a bad thing, if otherwise people will concentrate on fixing themselves, instead of the others.

And it's not like that people will live in a self-constrained environment. People can share, their own deficiencies, and ask for others' opinions how to improve.

Re:I forgot

[beatbox32]

But most of my American experiences have been more along the lines of "US IS THE BEST AT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME!"

I take it that your experiences of Americans outside of Halo 2 deathmatch are fairly limited then?

Re:I forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

Well first off, not everyone can be rich or even "well to do". It's a sad fact of economics. You want to only pay $5 for that bag of oranges. Well until robotic farming really takes off [and who pays for that?] it's going to be picked by people who don't earn a proper wage.

What? You think oranges in France are picked by well-to-do folk? Well first off, oranges don't grow in France, but if they did, they would be picked by the same style of immigrant low-paid labour as in the states.

I'm not saying it's right. Exploiting people to live comfortably isn't right. But it's the way the ENTIRE WORLD works. It's hardly a US problem. And to compare the USA (GDP per capita of $44K) to Bangladesh (GDP per capita $2.2K) hardly makes any sense. People are simply more wealthy in the USA. so living conditions ought to be better (and they most certainly are, for example, pop density is 31 per km^2 in USA, and 1045 per km^2 in the latter).

Tom

Tom, I'm just taking an opportunity to respond to your comment, since I used to feel the same as you do, and I'm sure many others feel the same way as you do. I'm also working out my own ideas

It may be how the entire world currently works, but why do you want to be stuck with the status quo? It seems that many people tend to quote Darwin's "survival of the fittest", and entirely ignoring the rest of Darwin's Theory. "Darwin said it's the 'survival of the fittest' so those poor people are not the fittest. We're rich because we're fit. That's just how the world works." They just heard that one important phrase and regurgitate it as if that's the only thing about Darwin's Theory. We are human beings, a species. We have changed the face of the planet as a species. We can change the status quo.

No other current species has the capacity to alter the landscape and manage other species on such grand scales as we have. We can build, alter and destroy and we use our intelligence to do so. We are now managing fish. What do you think fishing season and licenses are for. If we didn't put up regulations to limit fishing, we'd probably have no fish left today. That would be the "survival of the fittest" that the uneducated would preach. Instead, we monitor them, allow the fish population to flourish, and fish them in a more sustainable manner. We manage farmland. If we allowed the farmer to use up the farmland the way they did during the Great Depression, we'd still have a dustbowl of thousands of square miles of unusable land. We manage cattle. We set aside wild forests and create parks. All of these regulations we put on ourselves are really Darwin's theory at work too. Our intelligence and ability to reason out consequences and do something about it is what makes our species "the fittest."

We can manage poverty, we have done so in the past to some effect. If you don't manage poverty, you'll end up with disenfranchised people who would be willing to take up ideas such as communism. It's happend before. It's all because the rich people robbed from the poor. The USA created Social Security because of it. Unions grew at the turn of the century because of the robber barons. Left on their own, corporations would fleece the middle class until they are all poor again. After all it's the job of the public corporation to make money, not take care of employees. All the current deregulations have created some modern robber barons. While they're not quite the same, because we have laws in place that prevent those abuses of the past, they are robber barons none the less. These individuals have similar traits, as the earlier robber barons.

These robber barons were stopped when individuals who voted, got fed up, rose up and elected a government that eventually put a stop to the horrible working conditions. The farm labor could have benefited also, but migrant workers with no fixed addresses couldn't vote, so they had no voice in government. The farm unions were destroyed

Re:I forgot

[chaoticzen]

The point is leave cleaning America to Americans.

You mean like you guys left cleaning Iraq to the Iraqis? Oh wait... Look, all the other countries in the world have had hundreds, even thousands of years to perfect screw ups, atrocities, hatred, slavery, cruelty to people and populace, unlawful invasions and conquests, corruptions and abuses of civil and human rights. We in the USA have only been at this for 230 years! Sheesh! Give us break, one day we will catch up to the horrible historical records that all the other countries of the world have commited, we just haven't had the luxury of time and history. So remember that when you point at us in America and say "there goes the bad guy" your people were there before us and did a much more brutal job at it than we will ever dream of accomplishing. We have learned from your history which means we can only do better than you, and our faults will be far less impactful on history than the ones perpetrated by your people and your countries.

Re:I forgot

[Anonymous Coward]

WNET, the largest PBS station in the country is a fringe lunatic group?

Ba dum dum cha!

[skoaldipper]

What do disgruntled CIA skeletons eat at restaurants?

Spare ribs!

I wonder if JFK is in there

[Heir Of The Mess]

So we can find out the truth about who killed JFK with their magic bullets.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[kzdfbhikndzvfkjndff]

Probably not. Because that would mean that George Bush Sr. would goto prison,

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Scrameustache]

So we can find out the truth about who killed JFK with their magic bullets. The JFK files are due to be released 70 years (the life expectancy) after the facts.
That way no one who was old enough to remember what happened will be around to contradict the official version of events (nor to suffer the consequences of their actions).
Sleep tight, your government is watching you sleep at night.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[sohare]

Why is the parent modded insightful? All conspiracy theories regarding JFK are grand, i.e., they collapse under their own weight. People act as if there is the Official Government version and then the Independent Conspiracy versions. Really what you have is a very well studied case, and a few woo-woos out there that anomaly hunt and deal in pseudoscience/intellectual dishonesty. There is really no reason to believe that anything surprising will be revealed about the JFK case. But then, to the true believer, anyone who disagrees with them is in on the conspiracy or a dupe. At least the honest skeptic hears evidence, is usually pretty impartial, and applies the scientific method.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[4D6963]

The JFK files are due to be released 70 years (the life expectancy) after the facts.

I think it has more to do with protecting people involved. Let's say a 22-year old person was involved, 70 years later he'll be 92, which means most likely dead.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[4D6963]

So we can find out the truth about who killed JFK with their magic bullets.

Let me bet a few bucks on Cubans. Castro survived hundreds of american assassination attempts which for a lot of them have been ordered directly by JFK and RFK. Makes sense that the guys who didn't manage to prevent the guy they miserably failed at killing and who succesfully killed the guy they were supposed to protect tried to hide that to avoid sounding incompetent. IIRC, Johnson agrees with me (or maybe it's the other way around..).

Kudos to the cuban guy in charge of Castro's security tho!

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how comedy is so true.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[harry666t]

That reminds me of Bill Hicks' quote:

I have this feeling man, 'cause you know, it's just a handful of people who run everything, you know that's true, it's provable. It's not I'm not a fucking conspiracy nut, it's provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail blah, blah, blah when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down and a big guy with a cigar goes, "Roll the film." And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before that looks suspiciously like it's from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, "Any questions?" "Er, just what my agenda is." "First we bomb Baghdad." "You got it "

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[VagaStorm]

If there is something dodgy about the JFK assassination, which is not that unlikely when looking at the amount of smoke, releasing it would most surely get every one of GWB for at lest a short amount of time.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Scrameustache]

The JFK files are due to be released 70 years (the life expectancy) after the facts.

I think it has more to do with protecting people involved. Let's say a 22-year old person was involved, 70 years later he'll be 92, which means most likely dead.

That... was... exactly my point :-|

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[turing_m]

The way you phrased it made it sound as if they'd be releasing a bunch of fictitious information 70 years on, because no one is around to contradict them, and that was the main point, with the side effect being that it would protect any conspirators. Your main point doesn't really make sense as a reason, since most of the info put out after the fact with any sort of thing like this can be contradicted by people immediately after, and is often self-contradictory.

"That way no one who was old enough to remember what happened will be around to contradict the official version of events (nor to suffer the consequences of their actions)."

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Plunky]

I think it has more to do with protecting people involved. Let's say a 22-year old person was involved, 70 years later he'll be 92, which means most likely dead.

But say that 22 yr old had a child, who turned out to be a pretty important guy who could be embarrassed about his fathers misdeeds.

I'm finding it kind of interesting that the cut off date is 32 years and not 30 which is the number I've seen quoted as the usual interval that records are reviewed for release.. these CIA records are being released are dated up to 1975 right? When did Bush Sr. become the CIA director again, 1975 wasn't it?

Hmm..

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Verity_Crux]

That way no one who was old enough to remember what happened will be around to contradict the official version of events.

That's a bunch of crap in my book -- yet I fear that is too often the government's strategy. The government has a right to keep things secret to protect people's lives. If public knowledge of something doesn't endanger anyone's life, it should be public knowledge because the public (aka, me) paid for it, dang it.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[Scrameustache]

The government has a right to keep things secret to protect people's lives. If public knowledge of something doesn't endanger anyone's life, it should be public knowledge What if it kills thousands to protect but a few?

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[4D6963]

you == fucking retard

If so, then so was President Johnson.

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[4D6963]

But say that 22 yr old had a child, who turned out to be a pretty important guy who could be embarrassed about his fathers misdeeds.

Right, just like George H.W. Bush got embarrassed with this thing about his father Prescott with what he did with the nazis in WWII, or like the Mussolinis have been embarrassed about what their father/grand-father Benitto did (one of his grand-daughters is now a neo-fascist politician in the Parliment IIRC plus a model). And then, if you start to care about the children, then why not about grand-children, and so on, to the point you'd make these 70 years 250?

Re:I wonder if JFK is in there

[4D6963]

Ditto.

First secret post

[Timesprout]

It's rumoured the daffodils grow sideways in Odessa at this time of year.

Re:First secret post

[iluvcapra]

GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE 01123 10021 57204 12810 92292 84613 01281 71920 88172 77182 77128 72182 81100 82127 72168 89121 DIT DIT DAH

Like this is a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here. Carry on.

This is routine.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

The government routinely declassifies documents after 30 years and releases them to the public. I believe the idea is "well, in 30 years, everyone who dealt with this will be dead, so that's a good time frame." Stop trying to stir shit up and act like this is some big to-do.

Re:This is routine.

[Lars T.]

Actually, under this administration several thousand files were re-classified.

If the CIA isn't doing it any longer...

[pooh666]

then some other agency is, this is just a bait and switch, hey we are all clean now, look at this hand not that one..

Re:If the CIA isn't doing it any longer...

[Angus McNitt]

FBI, DOJ, DIA, DHS.... but at least we can trust the CIA! They are the good guys now.

it does not have operation gladius.

[Truekaiser]

i am not surprised they left some things out like the cia run terrorist group in italy(and other European nations as well) killing people and blaming it on leftist groups during the cold war.

Re:it does not have operation gladius.

[Ranger007]

Actualy, its called Operation Gladio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

Who shot the deputy

[coren2000]

I wonder if we learn who shot Sheriff John Brown's Deputy.

Re:Who shot the deputy

[dgatwood]

My money's on Bob Marley, though he vehemently denies it. In any case, in my mind, the real question is who framed Roger Rabbit.

Re:Who shot the deputy

[elrous0]

What about Bob?

uh...

[cosmocain]

this idea is an output of a crisis-meeting:

mr x: "hey, anoybody got a clue of how we can get those folks to forget our current abuses of law, like, err ...those search warrants and stuff.. ah, you all know. no need to heat it up." mr y: "we could just release old files. that will keep'em busy for some time. and we always can state: what's done, is done. we can't undo, but actually we are full of shame and guilt. forgive us, pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase"

Re:uh...

[xystren]

Again, proof that it is easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission....

Re:uh...

[russ1337]

You raise a good point. In 30 years time here will be some extreme issue in the white house and they'll release all the data from the current administrations 'doings' as a distraction.

At least then we'll get to see if the majority of Slashdotters were right....

This is politically motivated

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the US government is required to review ALL classified material after SOME period of time to determine when it can be released. However, the US gov. (CIA in this case) does NOT routinely announce in advance that it's going to release some exceptional material. Generally the stuff gets declassified as a result of a "Freedom of Information Act Request" on the part of some media organization or activist group.

I suspect that some of the stuff that's about to come out will be quite embarrasing to Jimmy Carter.

Re:This is politically motivated

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I suspect that some of the stuff that's about to come out will be quite embarrasing to Jimmy Carter. Exactly - He's been riding the talk show circuit and talking a lot of shit lately in order to sell his books. I'm sure he's pissed off enough people with enough power to do something about it.

Re:This is politically motivated

[jfengel]

Well, given that Mr. Carter didn't become President until 1977, I don't think the contents of a 1975 report are going to have much on him except under-reporting peanut crops. The Governor of Georgia doesn't get to call out the CIA.

The other documents cover the "fifties to the seventies", and while that does include the Carter era, that's just the tail end of it. From the description it's largely about the targeting of leftists, and while that may have continued under Carter it sure wasn't his doing.

Re:This is politically motivated

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that some of the stuff that's about to come out will be quite embarrasing to Jimmy Carter. Probably correct. "State secrets" are much more likely to be facts that are embarrassing to the current administration than facts that, if generally known, would put us or our legitimate agents at risk.

This is historically true and currently true. Though the current administration does seem to be covering up like its predecessors did, only more.

The cost/benefit of declassifying EVERYTHING would be interesting indeed. No doubt, legitimate American interests would be damaged if we declassified everything. But one has to wonder, would the sunlight that it would shine on the dark corners of our government more than make up for the damage it did?

Re:This is politically motivated

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to imagine any revelation that could discredit Carter any more than some of the nutty talk he's been spewing lately... especially how the US should partner with Hamas against Fatah because Hamas is 'better organized'.

Re:This is politically motivated

[Planesdragon]

"State secrets" are much more likely to be facts that are embarrassing to the current administration than facts that, if generally known, would put us or our legitimate agents at risk.

Care to cough up twenty or so examples? Because I can name four (F-117, Valerie Plame's identity, Invasion of Normandy, Manhattan Project) right off the top of my head that "put our legitimate agents at risk."

Yes, some state secrets are just embarrasing. But most are actual secrets that have a just reason to be secret.

Re:This is politically motivated

[Shihar]

Carter has nothing to do with this because all of the stuff being released comes from the time right before Carter took office. Besides, embarrassing to Jimmy Carter is like dynamiting fish in a barrel. He was a terrible president and while he might have had some diplomatic successes in the past, he is a very bad diplomat now. He has done some very good things in this world in terms of his philanthropic causes, but outside of that work the guy does nothing but hug dictators and piss people off. It isn't even that I disagree with all of his positions; I don't. The problem is that even when I agree with his position I wish he would shut up and try and not help.

The reason why this is a big deal is that the CIA did some mighty sketchy ass stuff right up until 1970's. This stuff needs to come out, and the CIA recognizes this. The reason why they are making a big deal about this is because they want to take full credit for coming clean and not try and look like they were trying slip this stuff by. By calling full attention to it, admitting it is bad, and 'preparing' people for what is coming, it will to some extent lessen the shock and revelation.

Re:This is politically motivated

[Silverlock]

I'm not sure how this is going to embarrass Jimmy Carter. As I understand it, nothing will be released post-1975. That won't affect Carter who was elected in 1976 and took office in 1977. I suspect that the end-date for declassification was specifically chosen to avoid embarrassing anyone who isn't already dead.

Re:This is politically motivated

[fluffy99]

WRONG. Under the Executive Order, the govt is required to review documents after 30 years. The classification of the documents are either then automatically downgraded (could go from Secret to Confidential), they are destroyed, or they fall under one of many exceptions (for example we have ships older than 30-years). The intent of the Executive Order was not about giving the public access but rather to force the agencies to shrink their classified inventories. The reality is that nothing truly important gets revealed to the public. Nothing classified is ever released via the Freedom of Information Act.

Re:This is politically motivated

[symbolic]

This is why elections suck. Every two years, we hear endless diatribe about how those running for office will change America for the better - always focusing on the same issues. And yet, we're rotting from the inside out - all the things that REALLY matter - like why executive orders like this are allowed to stand - are completely ignored. I'd rather forget about education and healthcare for an election cycle or two, and hear what candidates will do to restore the intent and integrity of our system of government.

Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to get a jump on what SHOULD be included in the documents to be released, check out this document on CIA run Mind Control programs:

http://mirror.nw0.info/eBooks%20and%20Audio%20Book s/Monarch_undetectable.mind.control.pdf

Re:Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[Dogtanian]

If you want to get a jump on what SHOULD be included in the documents to be released, check out this document on CIA run Mind Control programs: No doubt the CIA have been involved in mind control programs, successful or otherwise. Still, the document you linked to is Illuminati/New World Order conspiracy religious crap of the highest order. If there's any truth in there at all, it's so mixed up with paranoid borderline-schizo garbage that it's not worth going through for that reason. Though I might suggest reading it if you want an insight into the mindset of conspiracy psychos.

Of course, I might suggest that the CIA wrote this to discredit by association any reports of their activities :-/

Re:Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[mythar]

If you want to get a jump on what SHOULD be included in the documents to be released, check out this document on CIA run Mind Control programs: make me!

Re:Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[Anonymous Coward]

make me! sudo checkout document

Re:Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, then check out this list of links to the actual Congressional Investigation documents form the 1970's if you don't believe it...

http://intellit.muskingum.edu/cia_folder/cia70s_fo lder/cia70sinvu-z.html

Re:Read about Project MONARCH MK-ULTRA

[Dogtanian]

I didn't say that I didn't believe any of it, I said that there was so much blatantly and stereotypically nutcase conspiracy bollocks mixed in with it that I didn't care to spend hours reading the damned thing just to guess what was what and what was chaff.

CIA Just a Servant

[ChePibe]

I realize that picking on the CIA for what they do is all good fun for many, but the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president, especially before the Church committee which resulted in much more congressional oversight. Not to say the CIA hasn't exceeded its own orders from time to time - it most certainly has, and once is too many times - but instead of saying, "ooh, look what the dirty CIA did!", it may be useful to look at why they did it and where the order came from. Presidents have often used it for their dirty work, particularly prior to 1975 or so when signed directives were not required, which allowed presidents to order the CIA to do their bidding without a paper trail and have plausible deniability otherwise.

An interesting read on this and other espionage/covert action matters is James Olson's Fair Play. After giving a brief overview of what espionage is like, he puts forward 50 or so "hypothetical" situations and collects ethical and other opinions from a wide variety of people. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to look at common ethical questions the intelligence community faces and common pro and con arguments against them, as well as practical looks at how the intelligence gathering is done.

Re:CIA Just a Servant

[Kidbro]

I realize that picking on the CIA for what they do is all good fun for many, but the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president

Yes. "I was only following orders" has been known to be a valid excuse for criminal and immoral acts.

Does your chief of state actually have the authority to order people to break the law?

Re:CIA Just a Servant

[fm6]

Nonsense. The CIA has never been a just a "tool." They've had a remarkable ability to control events. During the cold war, the CIA was where the anti-commie zealots went to work. And these guys never were content to let their superiors set the agenda.

No government agency consists of people who "just follow orders". If nothing else, they need to come up with ways to justify their paychecks and grow their power base. And of course, civil servants often seriously believe in what they're doing -- sometimes much more so than the political appointees who supposedly call the shots.

Re:CIA Just a Servant

[pipingguy]

One objective of a "spy agency" in a cold war environment is to destabilize the enemy. This usually includes funding groups that slowly eat away at the bad guys. Is it tinfoil-hattish to suggest that the KGB was doing something similar to the western word? Why do we never hear about recently de-classified Soviet espionage techniques other than the headline-makers?

We're Much Better Now

[MrSteveSD]

I think the idea is to say, "Oh we were bad back then up until 1975, but since then we've been really nice.". Sadly that isn't true at all. Maybe in 30 years they will be explaining how they were bad up until 2007 with involvement with the murderous contras in the 80s and secret prisons and torture in the "War on Terror" in the 2000s etc.

Re:We're Much Better Now

[dbIII]

How about the involvement in Algeria today? You really don't have to look far to see how low they can go to help out an ally. When these guys come home what sort of things are they going to do on US soil?

Re:We're Much Better Now

[sgt_doom]

Outstanding point. Sometime in the last year, the publisher of the Washington Monthly (CIA-funded publication) was described in the news as dying from a boating accident.

His body was found weighed down in the ocean by an anchor with a shotgun blast to his head --- some "boating accident."

Motivation?

[spiritraveller]

Are they changing their tune or are they just trying to show us what they are capable of so that we won't get out of line?

Hmmmmmmmm.

Re:Motivation?

[Elsapotk421]

I'd say that it's mainly just because the information no longer proves useful for enemies of the government. Most classified documents are not like this completely crucial and ultimately secret documents. What's special about them is the way they place information together. Which is ultimately where the intelligence part comes in. It's not what you got, it's how you use it. But like someone said earlier....it's not that it never happens, it's just not usually announced.

The actual reason...

[gfilion]

The actual reason for letting these old skeletons out of the closet is that they need to make place for the new ones!

Ba da bing! Thanks a lot! I'll be here all week! Try the fish!

Destined to Repeat It

[rueger]

Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"

Unfortunately many of those individuals are steadfast in their conviction that no Fact should be allowed to interfere with their Beliefs.

Especially during our War With Terror(TM).

Re:Destined to Repeat It

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean like the ones who think this same government should decide who gets health care?

Re:Destined to Repeat It

[Elsapotk421]

War on Terror In America WE control the prepositions.

Re:Destined to Repeat It

[damian cosmas]

"Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"

I'm not gonna say the "government knows best", since they have a remarkable tendency to fuck up pretty much everything they get involved in, both foreign and domestic. I am, however, all for "illegal" covert action by the CIA if it's in our National Interest (e.g. secret prisons in East Europe), and have been since well before the "war on terror" started. I'm a child of the Cold War.

The Geneva Conventions were designed for the times when armies, led by nation-states and wearing uniforms, met on battlefields. The "bad guys" are beheading journalists and civilians on video and dragging mutilated bodies through the streets and you're worried about the US?

Re:Destined to Repeat It

[Admiral Ag]

I'm all for terrorists blowing up American women and children in shopping malls, butt fucking US POWs and torturing innocent civilians... if that's in my nation's interests... ...see how that rationale works ...power worshiping pig.

why would you believe what the CIA tells?

[rawdirt]

n/t

Re:This is politically motivated.

[said213]

Are you sure you want to allege some deep conspiracy to discredit the liver pill guy? You know, "That guy's got more _____ than Carter's got liver pills." The political world marginalized this man as a joke before he was out of office... How will they ever stop that spin-meister peanut farmer! lol

Why does so much people hate the USA?

[ThiagoHP]

Take a look at this article in Wikipedia about the School of the Americas, an USA army institue that for decades taught torture, fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members to Latin America dictatorships in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

An excerpt:

The school has a controversial history of teaching the techniques of torture, and according to UN commissions, many of its graduates have been linked to the most egregious human rights crimes perpetrated in the western hemisphere, who were trained at the school at U.S. taxpayer expense.

It's not hard to figure out why some many people in Latin America hate the USA and its hipocrisy of allegedly spreading democracy while supporting dictatorships.

Re:Why does so much people hate the USA?

[Xenna]

That's not the real reason, mate. The real reason people hate the US is that they're rich ansd powerful. Hypocrital and criminal regimes are a dime a dozen (mostly much more hypocritical and criminal) but you can't get more powerful than the US, and that hurts.

X. (not American)

Re:Why does so much people hate the USA?

[sohare]

America's power is about as illusory as China's economy. I've been living in a trashcan in Georgia for 23 years and so have all my friends!

Re:Why does so much people hate the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the real reason, mate. The real reason people hate the US is that they're rich ansd powerful. Hypocrital and criminal regimes are a dime a dozen (mostly much more hypocritical and criminal) but you can't get more powerful than the US, and that hurts.

No, the reason is that they're rich and powerful and hypocritical and criminal.

Re:Why does so much people hate the USA?

[Xenna]

Even your trashcans are so big they leave the rest of us in awe!

X.

Up to what year?

[lawpoop]

Up to what year are they going to release documents? Surely they aren't current to release information about recent or ongoing 'skeletons'.

Why do they hate US?

[Seiruu]

http://www.doublestandards.org/enemies.htm

Most US citizens have no idea why anyone could hate them. This is not surprising considering their ignorance of US foreign policy. Citizens of many countries have been the victims of US subversion, US support for corrupt dictators, and US state terrorism. I'm definitely curious as to what level of conformity we're able conclude with the things listed on this page.

Re:Why do they hate US?

[ducomputergeek]

Yeah, and during the Cold War there was the big two players. And it was "You US, you give me support and arms, etc.. or I go ask the Soviets." So while the US may not have liked what was going on, at least that country was under our sphere and not the Soviets. This even goes back to Cuba. Castro came to the US first for aid/support and Kennedy told him to kiss off. (The fact that he had taken over a lot of businesses owned by big american companies and the mob didn't help either). So Castro went to the Soviets for aid, said he was a communist, and the Soviet gave him missiles, guns, aid, money, etc.

So yeah, we pulled a lot of stunts during the Cold War that wasn't living up to our ideals, but part of looking at history is trying to understand the lens in which the people of the time viewed the situation, not with the 20/20 glasses of history.

History Challenged?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!

As compared to whom? The history challenged individuals who think corporations know best?

Like Shell Oil?

Or Texaco?

Or Enron?

Or These 14 rapacious monsters (Caterpillar, Chevron, CocaCola, Dow, Dyncorp, Ford, KBR-Halliburton, Lockheed, Monsanto, Nestle, Phillip Morris, Pfizer, SLDE, Walmart all of whom have disgusting track records of either exploitation, environmental destruction, corruption, or some combination thereof?

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product. It is the only safeguard the environment has: if governments do not constrain industry, then industry will always look at the quarterly report and continue to crap all over the planet. And given how collusive government is with industry, it is NOT a pretty or welcoming picture - as government has, for the past several thousand years, proven itself to be little more than the means of protecting and projecting the interests of the ruling classes. The struggle is real, not imagined. And it is only through a re-imagined and re-energised public sector will our species have any hope of surviving the coming crises in Energy, Environment, and Population reduction.

It is the poster who is historically challenged and politically ignorant.

RS

Re:History Challenged?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is about releasing the secret mis-deeds of the CIA.

In general, do you think the mis-deeds of the CIA will involved illegal spying on bad corporations to protect the US Public, or will they involve illegal spying to protect the big corporations ?

Stop and think, buddy.

Re:History Challenged?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing government should do is to keep people from harming each other. That means enforcing contracts, preventing corporations from polluting the environment, etc. Once government crosses the line into nationalizing industry, you're just asking for corruption. If the government is doing its job then an abusive corporation will be punished, and in either event you can take their abuses as an indication not to give them any money. What is the recourse from an abusive or inept government? Revolution? It clearly isn't "voting them out", we just tried that and I don't see the Democrats paying down the debt or curbing the executive's abuses much at all better than the Republicans. At least if the government does less, it can screw up less. And if a corporation screws it up, you can get a new corporation. Good luck getting a new government.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. -P. J. O'Rourke

Re:History Challenged?

[hab136]

Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!
As compared to whom? The history challenged individuals who think corporations know best?

Why do people reduce everything to A versus B? ("false dichotomy") It's not "govt or corps, choose one" - how about they both have good and bad qualities, and we need to reign in BOTH of them so that we can enjoy their good qualities while not suffering their ill effects?

Corporations allow for pooling of capital to achieve great efficiencies and new products. Abusive corporations can squeeze out competitors, raise prices, and prevent new products from challenging their dominance.

Government allows for a fair system of law and order. Abuse of governmental authority allow for repression and deprivation of life and liberty.

Thinking the either govt or business (or even the people) always know best is silly. All three are both right and wrong quite often.

Re:History Challenged?

[Scrameustache]

Corporations allow for pooling of capital to achieve great efficiencies and new products. Abusive corporations can squeeze out competitors, raise prices, and prevent new products from challenging their dominance. And kill hundreds of thousands of people in one go.
Read GP's link, the DOW section provides a perfect example of how much worse corps are than you think.

Aside from that, your point about false dichotomies is spot on. Keep enlightening people.

Re:History Challenged?

[d34thm0nk3y]

As compared to whom? The history challenged individuals who think corporations know best?

That is a false dichotomy. Government and industry should both have oversight.

Re:History Challenged?

[MACC]

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product. You are in error. ( at least in respect to the US )
The Government is the sales / public relations department of these entities.

G!
MACC

Re:History Challenged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, hoss -- no one said that corporations are a nice bunch, either.

Centralization of power is frightening no matter where it occurs. That includes private industry.

Re:History Challenged?

[jagapen]

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product.

I disagree. You see, the Corporation is the off-spring of the State. The State creates a Corporation by grant of a charter, and by its laws, shapes the character of the Corporation. The laws we have in America directly create the amoral monster corporations because the laws shield the people that make up a corporation from individual liability for its actions (and the courts only occasionally "pierce the corporate veil"), limit the ability of the American state to reign in corporations (Dartmouth College v. Woodward), and even grant them the same rights as a natural person (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad).

Of course, a Corporation in practice is a super-person because its potency far exceeds that of any natural person (e.g. it's effectively immortal), and the State does not impose analogous sanctions on it (e.g. prison or the death penalty).

If we as a society had the will to remove the legal framework that under-girds the Corporation, they would vanish.

Re:History Challenged?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a fucking moron. Rachel dearest was killed protecting tunnels though which weapons were smuggled. She was a left wing anarchist MOFO that frankly died a little too easily.

Re:History Challenged?

[Darth Cider]

The dichotomy guy is basically right, you know, except that the world isn't elegantly Freudian that way, with a neat synthetic ego bent on balance to give an intelligible narrative. It's a machine capable of lying, and much worse, able to outrun any contretemps except craziness more irrational than itself. Both of them are built on a syntax like latin or german, with regular irregularity, but diverging in opposite directions at that particular juncture, neither of them particularly sane. The thing to remember about neat and tidy explanations is that they don't model the inexplicable by design. So, anyhow, whatever constitutes Power is suspect. Maybe it's academic cred. Maybe else. Maybe the drunken boat is an alphabet of colors nobody can see. It still matters who tells the truth, with the why of it a secondary consideration. But I am indulging the digressive impulse here, because /. is blind to all but wan vanes atilting.

Re:History Challenged?

[istewart]

There are solid arguments that such massive corporations rely on the state for their legal legitimacy. It is not nearly so sharp a dichotomy as you would have it be... especially since outfits like Lockheed and Halliburton rely on government contracts to survive, and Monsanto and Pfizer are driven by state-granted patent privileges (and it's barely worth mentioning that Coca-Cola has always relied on the perpetuity of "trade secret" status). I would not be surprised if state-granted advantages above and beyond corporate personhood could be found for each company you listed.

Re:History Challenged?

[hab136]

And kill hundreds of thousands of people in one go.
Read GP's link, the DOW section provides a perfect example of how much worse corps are than you think.

I've read about Bhopal before. BBC link, Wikipedia, and Union Carbide's account, Bhopal Medical Appeal's account. It's a terrible tragedy, but I think "kill hundreds of thousands of people" would be an exaggeration that detracts from the story, unless you're counting future deaths that may or may not be traceable to the accident.

What I got out of it: in 1984 was an accident at the plant, most likely due to skimping on safety controls in order to save money. 500k were exposed, anywhere from 4k to 20k have died, and up to 120k have problems. The people sued and won. In 1989 they won $470 million in compensation, which the government has been slow to distribute (years and years).

The ongoing complaint seems to be:
1. $470 million wasn't enough. In particular, it covered (some) medical claims but not the full environmental cleanup. Considering that the case was already decided in the Indian Supreme Court and that Dow has said repeatedly that Bhopal was settled when they bought Union Carbide, nothing further is likely to happen.
2. While some executives have faced trial, others (particularly Warren Anderson, who was Union Carbide CEO) have avoided it. Warren lives in the US and has not been extradited. Also not likely to happen.

Re:History Challenged?

[corbettw]

And it is only through a re-imagined and re-energised public sector will our species have any hope of surviving the coming crises in Energy, Environment, and Population reduction.

Wtf? It sounds like you want a government policy to start killing people off. Please tell me I'm mistaken.

Check this out...

[ChePibe]

It's a great recipe for Chicken Pasta BLT salad.

I mean, while we're making non sequitur comments that have nothing to do with the parent post we may as well do something tasty, right?

(Oh, and don't use the Chili sauce - the bbq sauce is much better)

Re:Check this out...

[ThiagoHP]

I mean, while we're making non sequitur comments that have nothing to do with the parent post we may as well do something tasty, right?

Parent post title: CIA Just a Servant [of the government of the USA]. The government of the USA -> the ones that were elected to represent all the USA people. The government of the USA has taken actions that make people from Latin America countries really pissed off. QED. Nice use of nice sequitur, tough. :)

Re:Check this out...

[saforrest]

While I do think the grandparent was obviously contriving an excuse to mention the School of the Americas, it's not so crazy a link as you seem to think. A lot of South American dictators went to the School of the Americas, graduated to become their country's local American stooges, and seized/held power with the help of the CIA. Noriega is a good example.

Well thats a good thing

[unity100]

trying to come clean is commendable.

Re:Well thats a good thing

[Emetophobe]

Or it could just be another limited hangout

A "limited hangout" is a form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or "mea culpa" type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be "coming clean" and acting with integrity; but in actuality by withholding key facts is protecting a deeper crime and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out.

Hundreds? Maybe one paragraph...

[flyingfsck]

Anybody who ever read an official document will know that a typical official 200 page document may have one paragraph of tangential information. The rest is sign-off pages, configuration management, tables of contents, referenced documents and indexes...

Re:Hundreds? Maybe one paragraph...

[green453]

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

Re:Hundreds? Maybe one paragraph...

[green453]

Reading your post again and thinking about it, maybe it *does* make sense, but it is so sad that it does.

You can't tell.

[twitter]

When there's no transparency, there's no accounting or truth. This could be ongoing damage control from the break in to end all break ins or that could have been fake too. One thing is sure, the truth is actually worse. You can not tell what's true when people are lying to you and you will never know how screwed you are.

The thing to do is to quantify and reduce the secret budget, which is hard to justify since the fall of the Soviet Union anyway. The less money spooks have, the less harm they can do. This is easiest to do when there's a new release that causes outrage and a sense of betrayal.

Re:You can't tell.

[Anonymous Coward]

The less money spooks have, the less harm they can do.

Unfortunately that won't change anything,t he CIA will just continue to sell drugs to finance their operations.

Meet the new boss...

[Scrameustache]

the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president Remind again, what did Bush the First do around 1976, 1977... before he became their 'master', as you put it?

[OT] Re:Destined to Repeat It

[kasparov]

If by "decide who gets health care", you mean "decides that everyone should get health care", then yes.

the Complex, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

[Scrameustache]

These 14 rapacious monsters (Caterpillar, Chevron, CocaCola, Dow, Dyncorp, Ford, KBR-Halliburton, Lockheed, Monsanto, Nestle, Phillip Morris, Pfizer, SLDE, Walmart all of whom have disgusting track records of either exploitation, environmental destruction, corruption, or some combination thereof?
Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product. Yeah... because no one involved in the highest decision making layers of these corporations ever got elected?

And perhaps you could point out...

[ChePibe]

What on earth that has to do with the comment above?

Re:And perhaps you could point out...

[Scrameustache]

What on earth that has to do with the comment above? If the CIA's master is the president, and heads of the CIA become presidents... There is no line between the master and the servant.

Who decided to invade Iraq in 2003? The Bush administration, or the intelligence community? Bush says he was only acting on the intelligence supplied to him, his critics say he put pressure on intelligence agencies to serve him the selective data he wanted.
What makes you think they didn't shake hands on it, and agreed to give each other what they both wanted?

What it bought

[toddhisattva]

These CIA actions helped win the Cold War.

The "abuses" did have a purpose, a lofty one at that.

Yes, yes, I understand, the losers of the Cold War are still upset.

Seems they were born that way.

Re:What it bought

[Paisley Phrog]

The Soviet Union did an excellent job of defeating themselves through mismanagement of food resources and relying upon a volatile oil industry for their country's income and expansion.

Re:What it bought

[Anonymous Coward]

These CIA actions helped win the Cold War.

I lived in the Soviet Union for 34 years, and moved to the USA in 1995. I would say, in the USA, the top 60% have it better off than the average Soviet citizen did in the 1970s (in terms of work needed for a comfortable existence), but the bottom 40% have to struggle at least as much simply to afford what the Soviet system provided.

Freedom of speech is a glorious thing, but many people are fooled into confusing this with the right to be heard; when people beat the drum about what these CIA documents reveal, or any other government trespass on its citizens' rights, the government can sleep safe in the knowledge that most of its citizens do not care. Soviet or American, most people just want good food, good holidays and a sense of identity; even the youthful flame of activism soon flickers - where are all the student protestors of the 1970s now? (yes, we even had people who spoke out in Russia, but not nearly as loudly..)

Re:What it bought

[sgt_doom]

You might do considerably more reading of history, chum! In all likelihood, if those rogue elements of the CIA had not whacked JFK, he and Kruschev might very well have put a major slowdown, or possibly even a complete halt, to the Cold War - please remember, JFK was about to have a drawdown of the advisors in Vietnam (total when he was in office: 16,000 - originally put there by Eisenhower before him), while after his assassination, 500,000 troops were eventually taking part in Vietnam. Many other items could be cited as well.....

Limited Skeletal Hangouts?

[handy_vandal]

Perhaps it's a limited hangout -- reveal some skeletons, bury other skeletons deeper.

-kgj

What about the things being done right now?

[Fantastic Lad]

Geez. Everybody knows the CIA has been up to no good. I don't know what a bunch of mild reading is good for. Do they get into their mind control experiments? Or their involvement in the JFK and MLK assassinations? Or any of the really dark stuff? No? Whatever. I don't know what's up with this, but stuff that happened 30 years ago isn't. Plus, they're just the CIA. What about the heads of state? Here's a snippet from an article detailing what's going on right now in full public view. . .

Sure, you've heard of the Patriot Act, and you know about the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. Many Americans are cynical about the human rights record of the Bush administration. But, what do you know about these directives and acts Bush signed into law in the past few months -- The John Warner Defense Appropriation Act, The Military Commissions Act, The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives? These acts and directives give dictatorial powers to the President of the United States, and leave open the question -- are these guys planning to leave office?

[. . .]

Good-bye Habeas

The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, (Senate Bill 3930[1]) signed on October 17, 2006, set out to "facilitate bringing to justice terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through full and fair trials by military commissions." The Act creates the category of "unlawful enemy combatants," who lack the right of habeas corpus, and traditional protections from torture under the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, the Act avoids any clear language ensuring that U.S. citizens will not be classified as unlawful enemy combatants. This Act side-steps the traditional protections associated with the judiciary branch. The determination of the status of an individual as an "unlawful enemy combatant" is made by tribunals established under the authority of the President.

Good-bye Posse Comitatus

The John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR), signed on the same day, allows the President to "...employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to... 1. restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when... the President determines that,...domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; 2. suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy..."

Good-bye Separation of Powers

The National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD 51), and the Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-20), signed on May 9, 2007, give special powers to the President in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency," which means "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." In such situations, "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

During the Bush presidency these totalitarian laws have arisen. At the same time there has emerged a rising cynicism among the people. There is a hope for a silver lining during oppressive presidencies that at least the people get to see how bad unchecked power abuses are. I once read that when Hitler came to power, the German communists were relieved that at least the people would get the opportunity to see how bad the Nazis were, and would therefore be more likely to vote communist in the next election. But there was no next election. [. . .]

Article

It's easy to slip into a little nap and forget what's just around the corner. War with Iran, and either 'terrorist' attacks on U.S. soil, or a U.S. ecconomic collapse, (or both), which pr

Re:What about the things being done right now?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least one court is looking at the legality of parts of the Military Commissions Act. The part about declaring a citizen an enemy combatant and then not giving them due process.

http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/200 7/06/president_denie.html

This is a step. Definitely not enough to overturn everything, but a good step in the right direction.

From the link:

"The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention," the Court said.

We will have to see how this plays out.

Re:What about the things being done right now?

[Emetophobe]

Do they get into their mind control experiments?

Actually....yes (althought very briefly). From the last paragraph on page 3 of http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/fami ly_jewels_wilderotter.pdf (I'm manually copying the paragraph here so please forgive any spelling mistakes).

"Between 1963 and 1973, the CIA funded research in some institutions, apparently including academic institutions, on the general subject of behavioral modification. According to Colby, these activities included the participation -- on a "unwitting basis" -- of some U. S. citizens, who were not told of the true nature of the testing. The examples given by Colby was that of a pole put in the middle of a sidewalk, with peoples' observations recorded as to which side of the pole they would walk. Apparently, some of the other testing also included reactions to certain drugs, although it is not known whether any "unwitting" individuals were used with respect to that type of experiment. In response to a question from LHS, Colby and Warner indicated they would provide more information on these activities, but that their own knowledge of them was very limited at this point."

Re:What about the things being done right now?

[falconwolf]

I wonder if it will come before Bush leaves office, or if some other shmuck will pick up where he left off. (Giuliani? Schwarzenegger? )

I don't know who will replace Bush but it won't be the Govenator, Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Without a Constitutional Amendment he can't be president of the USA. Personally, of those I've seen running I'm hoping to see Ron Paul win.

Falcon

Re:What about the things being done right now?

[Anonymous Coward]

> it won't be the Govenator

We like to call him "The Gubenator". Not only does it sound funnier in an Austrian accent, it's the actual real word that "Governer" comes from.

Fnord

[Dan Ost]

Fnord.

(Sorry. I'm reading the book right now and it couldn't resist)

Re:Fnord

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry. I'm reading the book right now and it couldn't resist)

What book? Also you have the most creepy name ever. I just got this knot in my stomach from just looking at it.

Re:Fnord

[martinussen]

He's referring to the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Re:Fnord

[Sunburnt]

So's the person replying. Fnord.

Re:Fnord

[Anonymous Coward]

Who told you that? I'm out of here.

Which country is it without sin?

[falconwolf]

Tibet? Formosa?

Falcon

Slow Learners

[vtcodger]

The CIA et al (There are about two dozen intelligence agencies) really are involved in two quite different jobs. The jobs overlap, but they are different.

The first job is to try to determine what is going on in foreign countries. Where is Osama bin Laden? (Who the hell knows) Is Iran trying to build a nuclear bomb? (probably) How many ICBMs does China have (not a lot), etc. This is where most of the money goes because it involves a lot of expensive technology.-- satellite photos, communications intercepts, etc. It's hard to object to this except for the issue of at what point the sum cost of getting data exceeds the value of the data. And keep in mind that the value of the data includes the costs of acting on bad data or data that should probably have been available -- about $400 billion so far for the Iraq fiasco alone.

There is also a covert action component -- the James Bond stuff. This seems to be overwhelmingly attractive to certain overgrown adolescents. The problem is that covert action frequently misfires. On good days, the misfire is harmless. Castro doen't smoke the booby trapped cigar. Sometimes it comes back to haunt us. We overthrow a democratic government in Iran in the 1950s and -- suprise -- our chosen stooge, the Shaw gets pitched out in the 1970s and we find ourselves faced with a theocracy that doesn't much like us.

These papers seem to deal with the covert stuff and to chronicle what went wrong and (I assume) what went right as well.

Probably nothing recent.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many of these people are still alive?

Let me guess.....

Zero!

Re:Probably nothing recent.

[Anonymous Coward]

how many ? i would say quite a few of them, in fact most of them seem to be running your government today

Partial Accounting? Does Best Remains Classified?

[littlewink]

The recently-unclassified actions are minor in scope. They reveal only incidents that make the CIA appear sometimes clumsy, sometimes well-intentioned but misled. The point appears to be to make the CIA appear harmless and ineffectual.

Really juicy incidents, where obvious malfeasance and physical harm occurred and civil rights were grossly denied, likely won't be declassified in our lifetimes if ever. In many cases there are probably no records remaining whatsoever and the only remaining record is in the memories of those involved.

There's probably a job description in the CIA for "Permanent Eraser", a person whose task is to quietly ensure the quiet offing of those knowledgeable of highly clandestine operations. And a second job description for "Permanent Eraser Eraser", just to make sure.

BAD presupposition, BAD!

[dlcarrol]

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product. It is the only safeguard the environment has: if governments do not constrain industry, then industry will always look at the quarterly report and continue to crap all over the planet.

Look, people are evil. If you don't believe it, you're naive. Governments and companies alike (can) share this malady. However, companies aren't able to pull off that crap without government permission. Putting the government in charge of restraining these abuses is the ol' "fox in charge of the hen-house" problem. You think Haliburton could be in Iraq now-- under any pretense, had not the US government taken the steps that they did? Could they "exploit" (I'll even grant you the usage of the word as I didn't read your linkage) a small, resource-rich nation without the complicity of the local/regional government? One might object that the corporations "put 'em up to it," but that is kind like complaining about sunlight and menstrual cycles: it's gonna happen. The avoidable problem is when you give government the power to do these silly things. The right thing is to give government the ability to punish evil and stop there. I'll leave the rest of the thread below for people that still think government is a good nanny to "tear me up."

Maybe the OP didn't also rip corrupt companies, but he didn't posit a myopic view of human government, either. Lightweight.

DC

corporate misdeeds

[falconwolf]

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product.

Ah but it's govrnemtn that lets these corporations get away with all this. Especially under Bush who installed industry insiders as the head of government watch agencies. His admin is even trying to gut or remove from the law books the Alien Tort Claims Act. This law, from 1789, is a method by which foreign nationals can hold US corporations responsible for actions they take or actions they support in other nations.

Falcon

Da Truth!

[Brandybuck]

Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!

Also mandatory reading for those conspiracists among you. While you do not believe that goverment knows best, you do believe that government has super-human powers of secrecy, competency and planning. Did the CIA assassinate Kennedy? Did they shoot Reagan to keep him in line? Was the moonshot faked? Was 9/11 and inside job?

There will be lots of eyebrow-raising information in this collection, but none of it will help the conspiracists. They'll just claim more of the same coverup when they don't find their smoking gun.

Re:Da Truth!

[db32]

Yes and no. The government is quite capable of small conspiracy, even more so when its been a small select group of people running the show for almost 30 years. Vast conspiracy like moon landing fakes, aliens, and that kind of thing are all but impossible. The government just isn't that competent to pull it off. It amuses me that people will trot out all the thousands of reasons our government is totally incompetent (as they frequently are) and then go on about these vast conspiracies. However, Cheney has fingerprints all over events in the last 30 years, exercises on top of real world events to generate confusion. We just happen to be having an exercise of "what if Iraq invades Kuwait" when Iraq invaded Kuwait...how terribly convenient to have all our forces in place just at that perfect moment...kinda like we just happened to be having an exercise about people flying planes into buildings the day some planes flew into buildings...while Cheney was sitting at the control center and Bush was reading My Pet Goat. (Let us not forget the similarity of Bush Sr, VP to an actor with Cheney as one of his partners, and Cheney as VP with Dubya out front being a misunderestimated distracting force). There is alot of repeating patterns here in the way this crew operates our country, and they have been at the helm for a long while.

Re:Da Truth!

[Brandybuck]

So when these CIA papers don't show any solid evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, will you claim that as solid evidence that they're still covering it up? A scientific theory is one that has falsifiability. A conspiracy theory is one that rejects all falsifiability, picks and chooses the "facts" it will use, and rejects all other evidence.

I'm supposed to believe that this government is competent enough to pull off history's most convoluted conspiracy to get us into Iraq, yet so bloody inept they can't even manage to plant some WMDs? Give me a break!

Re:Da Truth!

[db32]

I don't claim it was an inside job. If anything I claim it was likely known about and played into for maximum political effect, and it has dirty fingerprints all over it. I say you should NEVER trust what these guys say regardless of how "open" they claim to be. Lets look at the logic of these CIA papers. This is a group responsible for some of the dirtiest tricks ever done, from assassinations, to regime support, to government sabotage, to economic sabotage. Do you believe the serial killer that says "wait wait wait...that body in the river wasn't mine!".

9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. Except that it became terribly apparent that the American people with their lack of cultural understanding, racist fear of the towel head, and horrible understanding of geography, would be ready and willing to go along with anything our heroic leader said needed to be done. The whole war on terror thing is just a damned fine excuse to make a gigantic power grab for the executive branch. Cheney claims to be executive when it is to protect him, and then claims to not really be executive, when it would require him to do something. It is no neatly woven conspiracy, people in power will do whatever they can get away with to expand that power and keep that power, that is a universal truth to human civilization. You just have to be willing to accept that while YOU wouldn't do something so horrible and alien to your moral code, it does not mean that others wouldn't. The holocaust was only the brainchild of a few sick few, it was only made possible by a large group of people saying "nothing THAT bad would ever happen".

Re:Da Truth!

[lawpoop]

while you do not believe that goverment knows best, you do believe that government has super-human powers of secrecy, competency and planning I agree that the government is made of regular human beings that are as bad at planning and secrecy as the rest of us are. But, like the museum curators say, it's easier to destroy than to create, and it's easier to create than to maintain.

In a society, we build institutions, whether they are physical buildings, or groups such as governments and schools, or cultural practices such as visiting the doctor and learning to read. Those instituitions must be built -- but it's easier *not* to build them in the first place. Once they are created, it's easy to let them decay and disappear by failing to maintain them. So you don't have to have any successful plan to destroy institutions; they will automatically destroy themselves so long as you do nothing to maintain them.

So what if the technique for gaining and maintaining power is simply to create chaos, and in the institutional vacuum left behind, advance *your* solutions and institutions? In other words, it's hard to pull off an organized, secret plot. But it's much easier to destroy things, either though negligence and non-maintenance, or out-and-out attacks and removal of funding.

So if you think the wealthy elite of the world is trying to stamp the middle class down into peasants/slaves/serfs again, they really don't have to execute any perfectly co-ordinated secret plan. All they have to do is make sure that the institutions that protest the middle class fail, and when those institutions do fail, the only ones left standing are those that serve the interests of the wealthy elite. In other words, Ordo Ab Chao.

How's that for a conspiracy theory? ;)

Re:Da Truth!

[Alomex]

Did the CIA assassinate Kennedy?

Depends what you mean by this. It is uncontested that a part time anti-Castro CIA operative (Oswald) assassinated Kennedy. The question is: was he acting on his own or under orders from above? Personally I believe he was either on his own or working with a small set of disgruntled CIA officers. The entire coverup (for which seems to be ample evidence) IMHO had the sole purpose of hiding the embarrasing revelation that the CIA had under its employment thugs capable of assassinating the president in their free time.

Re:Da Truth!

[sgt_doom]

Ron Paul???? Oh..yeah, he's that other draft-dodger from Texas.

Re:Da Truth!

[Brandybuck]

You've hit upon an ironic truth. A favorite government pastime is ass covering. Something bad happens and everyone inside the beltway scrambles cover their butts.

The government didn't cover up their complicity of 9/11, they covered up their inept response to it.

Re:Da Truth!

[Brandybuck]

Never dodged any draft, but served as a flight surgeon for the air force.

Re:Da Truth!

[sgt_doom]

A thousand apologies to you and Rep. Paul - you can't blame me for getting him confused with ALL those other Republican draft-dodgers from Texas, though.

Now John Boehner's supposed US Navy service, somehow I don't think making it half-way through Navy boot camp before getting kicked out for chronic bedwetting constitutes actual military service......

These CIA actions helped win the Cold War.

[falconwolf]

The "abuses" did have a purpose, a lofty one at that.

So the means justify the means? Like the massacre of 200,000 East Timorese, one third of the population of East Timor? While the US didn't invade East Timor the US government under Pres Ford and Henry Kissinger encouraged and supported Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. They even supplied arms to Indonesia despite a congressional ban.

Falcon

JFK Murder Solved

[hallucinated]

The JFK murder mystery is basically solved according to entrepreneur/millionaire Wim Dankbaar of www.jfkmurdersolved. He has researched the topic since 1988 and hired ex-FBI agents for a lot of it. According to his research the trail runs deep, including a combination of CIA, Mafia, Texan oil-millionaires, anti Castro Cubans and high officials in the military and government (including George HW Bush). Considering this with the recent E. Howard Hunt (ex-CIA mastermind behind Watergate) confession to the assassination and the strong, if not exact overlap of both their stories, it's quite astounding that nobody has taken notice! Now before you start casting me off as another conspiracy nut, read the following: http://jfkmurdersolved.com/interview.htm Also, considering the Robert Kennedy assassination is a proven cover-up assassination, I don't see how the JFK one couldn't have been as well.

maybe people will assess themselves

[flushingmemos]

Let's get something clear - even the Cato's support the existence of the national security apparatus which has illegally and consistently pushed this country to the right, as these documents will show. So let's cut the glibbertarian BS: giving people health care isn't going to increase the power of Homeland Security, and destroying the Department of Education isn't going to get the CIA to stop fucking up lefties. But that you want to deny people health care and destroy public education in this country, THAT is a poduct of government intervention. You ask, but doesn't that show how evil government intervention is and so we should oppose those social programs? Go back to the top of the comment, genius.

Re:maybe people will assess themselves

[sgt_doom]

..even the Cato's support the existence of the national security apparatus which has illegally and consistently pushed this country to the right..

Let's get something clear: The Cato Institute has been primarily (since its inception) funded by the largest privately-owned energy company in North America, Koch Industries, which also funds the Manhattan Institute and other neocon (under the guise of libertariansim) phoney "think tanks."

Re:Why do so many people hate the USA?

[Xenna]

Thank you, that's exactly what I wrote.
Try reading it again, it's only two sentences.

X.

(corrected the subject FWIW)

I love how...

[Sj0]

I love how the guy who posted this story disappeared into the back of a black suburban with tinted windows.

OH SHI--

Lots more in that closet...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would really like to reach those people who are sure "in their heart of hearts" that the CIA could not possibly have been involved in "that". After having spent years defeating one self-deception after another, I can really appreciate how anyone would now view what I have to say as completely insane. Until you see how secrecy and power can work together to invoke mass-deception, it is difficult to see how certain things become possible. Here I'm referring to Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which I think is required reading for even discussing what actually goes on in the world. The average person, regardless of intelligence, will likely not perceive the mass deception until they either actively look for it, or actually know much more about a topic that is being misrepresented. A study of William Randolph Hearst (in regards to the Spanish-American War and the outlawing of marijuana) will give the reader some idea of what a determined propagandist can accomplish.

The simple truth about the CIA is that they are a relatively new organization (created by the National Security Act of 1947 and made up of remnants of the OSS) that was tasked with opposing communism. What this really meant was that they were to aid American capitalism. American capitalism is not the little entrepreneur, but the big boys on Wall Street. In a capitalist system, power is aligned with wealth, so it is only natural that those that rise to the top in this environment get to run things. The theory is that there are numerous checks to this power, which enables society to reap the benefits while restraining the excesses. In practice, the foxes are guarding the henhouse. Secrecy allows far more abuses to occur, with leadership almost always choosing to sweep the difficulties under the rug so as to not upset things. When this is done, the public fails to grasp the extent of the problems, which continue to fester.

Just a few examples of our system running amuck include: The Vietnam War, The War on Drugs, The Iran-Contra Scandal, The BCCI Scandal, The Savings and Loan Scandal, The War on Terror.

Today Al Gore is running around the country trying to "wake people up" one auditorium at a time with his is global warming slideshow. If you've been to his presentation or seen An Inconvenient Truth, you have some understanding of what kind of challenge we're now facing. I see our present predicament as a direct consequence of how we as a society deceive ourselves to keep our growth-based capitalist system chugging along.

I'm not trying to pretend to have all of the solutions, but in order to start looking at a future where it is possible for us to survive, we have to start looking beyond the systems that have gotten us into so much trouble. Capitalism, for all of its benefits has cost us dearly, and we all need to start looking at it for what it is, not as some holy savior, but as a collection of assumptions and relationships. It may turn out that something in Capitalism is worth saving. I'm just saying that we need to seriously look at what we've all taken for granted for so long.

The Main enemy

[Danathar]

The best book I ever read about the CIA is called "The Main enemy" which outlines the final years of spying between the Soviet Union and the CIA. One thing people don't know is that the CIA declassifies a LOT of stuff but does not tell you WHAT is was declassified. Thus you can't request for that which you don't know about.

This book was written by a reporter and a former CIA employee who knew WHAT to request. Of course it was vetted but the things in it are VERY fascinating. From how much the Russians were running circles around our human intelligence operatives to double and triple agents, to what the Russians called the "Miracle Device", which was a device they found on a train car of the Siberian express designed to go back and forth across the country looking for nuclear weapons based on radiation signatures.

http://www.amazon.com/Main-Enemy-Inside-Story-Show down/dp/0345472500

It's one of those rare finds that usually don't make the best sellers and is quite a gem.

Re:Why do so many people hate the USA?

[saforrest]

I read it, and also interpreted as your saying that the complaints were because the U.S. is rich and powerful, i.e. being hypocritical and criminal didn't necessarily come into it.

You joke...but this is...

[crazyvas]

...a /grave/ decision. (Get it, get it?)

MOD PARENT DOWN

[TheRaven64]

It's making me hungry.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

It's making me hungry.

But it has a preparation time of 0:00, so you ought to be able to whip one up pretty quick.

Re:Why do so many people hate the USA?

[Xenna]

My point was that being hypocritical and criminal is nothing special and by itself does not explain the hatred.

X.

Re:Why do so many people hate the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

My point was that being hypocritical and criminal is nothing special and by itself does not explain the hatred.

And my point, which you intentionally refused to comprehend, is that being both rich and powerful and hypocritical and criminal explains the hatred perfectly well.

Freedom of Information act 25 or 30 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

These will change the world and mess everyone's lives up but its still a good idea and also the law? kthanksbye (hides in cave)

anyway, I read in a major newspaper recently that the time limit on secrets in the US was 25 years. When I know it was 30. Did it change? Or is this a sick joke?

Conspiracies are most certainly real.

[Fantastic Lad]

The Manhattan Project was a pretty giant secret. It cost a couple billion 1940's dollars, employed tens of thousands, and required the building of three small cities in different parts of the U.S. They even test-detonated the world's first atomic bomb without anybody in the public catching wise. People didn't know what their government was doing until it was officially announced that mushroom clouds were sprouting over Japan.

Now. . , consider: What if they never used those atomic bombs on Japan and never announced officially that the U.S. had invented nuclear weapons? Would anybody know?

Well, some of us would, because yeah, it's true; There are always leaks, people really can't keep secrets. The problem is that those who listen to those leaks and talk about such projects are labeled 'nutty conspiracy theorists' by smug people who only believe what television tells them.

The thing most people forget when it comes to secrecy, is that the leaks are very small, and for the most part secrecy can to a large degree be enforced. It is done on an individual by individual basis. Everybody in the military who is in a sensitive position has to sign a binding document and swear not to tell others what they are working on, and failing to uphold this vow, face charges of treason. And that's just the official branch. If you are part of a government arm which operates outside the law, the penalties are probably much more frightening. --Not to mention, that what people involved in secrecy are working on is often compartmentalized, so that even they don't know what's really going on.

Conspiracies most certainly exist. If they didn't, judges wouldn't be able to convict people on charges of 'conspiracy'. It's human nature to plan in secret.

If people don't like to believe in government conspiracies, I find it is useful to change the word to one which has not been the subject of such strong negative marketing; I ask, "Okay then, do you believe in government Corruption?"

Fake moon landings? I don't know about that. That was promoted by Television and then shot down by Television, which suggests to me that it was designed simply to further scandalize the idea of conspiracy theory among people who watch and schedule their lives according to Television, (which is almost everybody). However, there are a lot of other shady things I certainly wouldn't put past the military industrial complex!

-FL

Re:Conspiracies are most certainly real.

[Brandybuck]

So you're saying that proof of 9/11 Conpsiracy is that the Manhattan Project was kept secret? The current 9/11 conspiracy theory posits and extremely convoluted and elaborate

I've worked at two national labs. Hanford was not kept secret. It was impossible to keep it a secret. A whole town was evacuated, and everyone in half the state of Washington knew the military was doing something there. To a lesser extent, the same applied to Los Alamos. Again, people in Santa Fe knew something was going on up there.

In 1944 we were at war. People kept military secrets because we were at war (my how times have changed). What is today's excuse for thousands of firefighters, police officers, air traffic controllers, NIST investigators, Manhattan witnesses not just to clam up, but to outright lie? 9/11 Truth is an phantasm of a mistaken worldview.

Re:Conspiracies are most certainly real.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Fake moon landings? I don't know about that. That was promoted by Television and then shot down by Television

Actually, the moon landing itself was promoted by television, and continues to be promoted by television. Watch TV sometime, let's see if you can go 1 hour without hearing about it.

Now follow your own logic to determine whether the moon landings were real. Or, do the research. If you can look at a website like Clavius.org without laughing (or crying), then you need remedial science.

reason for open government

[mikesum]

This is why we need open and transparent, not to mention less, government. Abuses get buried all the time unless some whistle-blower has a conscience.

Don't be so sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm presently working on a project that will not be reviewed for declassification for FORTY years. IMHO it will never be declassified because it's just too damned sensitive.

Somewhere out there.....

[sits69]

....a Smoking Man is sitting, thinking, "Yeah, wait till you learn the REALLY juicy stuff!"

Well..

[JustNiz]

I'm all for individual rights but even I feel these so-called crimes are pretty mild and reasonable given the CIA's mission to protect the state and its citizens.
In fact these are so mild that it makes me wonder if this isn't all an exercise in disinformation as a way to make people believe that the CIA never does anything nastier.

Old English tradion...

[flyingfsck]

Actually, Concentration camps are an old English tradition. They invented them somewhere between 1898 and 1901. Since the patent expired long ago, other countries were free to implement their own versions...

Finally

[flyingfsck]

we'll know why the chicken crossed the road!

incredible naivety...

[roesti]

Government is the only remaining bullwark between the thugs who run industry and the people they use up as labour resource and then destroy as a product. [...] And given how collusive government is with industry, it is NOT a pretty or welcoming picture - as government has, for the past several thousand years, proven itself to be little more than the means of protecting and projecting the interests of the ruling classes. [...] And it is only through a re-imagined and re-energised public sector will our species have any hope of surviving the coming crises in Energy, Environment, and Population reduction.

I appreciate your sentiment, but I couldn't help noticing your naivety.

If the government is "collusive with industry", and has been "for the past several thousand years", what makes you think it's any different today? It's easier nowadays for private companies to buy and sell government officials than it ever was.

You mention "the coming crises in Energy, Environment, and Population Reduction", if only to give me a good example of something you don't seem to understand. People care about these things. Companies do not care about these things. A representative government would side with the people - that is, the voters - and try to fix the problems. However, they would do this at the expense of the companies that contribute far more to both the economy and the political process than ordinary citizens do. It's very clear why things don't work this way: while governments and corporations make excuses blame each other for not solving the problems, they all feed from the same trough by stealing from you.

By rights, yes, governments should be able to impose checks and balances on industry. In reality, the world is not ruled by governments but by money. Until you realise this, you should be careful who you accuse of being "politically ignorant".

Re:Why do so many people hate the USA?

[Xenna]

Which of the words 'by itself', do you fail to comprehend?

X.

Oranges don't grow in France???

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever else you have to say, I don't know. I stopped reading after you said that oranges don't grow in France...
I sort of figured that since English got the word Orange from the French in the first place that maybe oranges do grow in France. But now you've enlightened me.

Re:Oranges don't grow in France???

[tomstdenis]

Last I checked they imported things like orange juice. I'm sure in the south of France Oranges will grow, but last I checked they're not in a huge orange market. According to wikipedia they're not even in the top 10 of producers (Brasil is #1, USA is #2, ...).

Yeah, I guess I'm very ignorant. I wonder if you know that orange is the name of the colour in French as well?

Tom

Who can forget our unilateral invasion of Bosnia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without UN approval, no less. I mean, you'd think Bosnia had ignored something like 19 UN resolutions to comply with the terms of a cease-fire that had ended hostilities the Bosnians themselves had started 13 years earlier with an unprovoked invasion of a neighboring country. You'd think, therefore, that Bosnia was actually legally still in a state of war, now wouldn't you? :-P

Hey, and what about the unilateral, non-UN-approved invasion of Haiti?

Smokescreens

[Anonymous Coward]

The current international climate is as hot as it's gotten since the Cold War, possibly hotter. There are just more things in the way of the public seeing what's really going on. Also, we're not as prone to propaganda as we were back then (thankfully) largely due to modern communications. So, this "Cold War" is being fought right under our noses and right out in the open. The government isn't trying to hide anything, in fact, they are creating so much smoke that no one can hardly work out what's going on.

The "meat" of these declassifications is the Kennedy assassination(s) and what ever can be uncovered about them. But what's interesting is that the assassination is filled with smoke, blacked out with so much confirmed and unconfirmed tripe that a person could (and some have) spend their lifetime sorting out all that yarn without ever getting all the knots out. It's the same thing here. Israel reportedly sending spies into America? Terrorist organizations blending into normal society? Britain and the U.S. hand in hand, trying to stamp out terrorism? Ex-KGB agents all of a sudden getting offed and it making HUGE waves in international press? N. Korea trying to throw its weight around? Iran with nuclear capabilities? There are things stirring up the international waters of intelligence and some (most) of it is merely idle threat. But where there is a shadow of doubt there is also a shade of the truth, and one of these truths is that the U.S. obviously doesn't care about eroding the rights of its citizens. What it does care about is, however, is that has found itself in a rather precarious position and must do anything it can in order to bail itself out, even if it means eating its own self.

What if the terrorist attacks on 9/11 was bait? An elaborate scheme that changed the game of terrorism, clouded up the atmosphere and cast the U.S. into the role of the villain. Even a fool would guess that the U.S. would take the bait. But now, six years later, Who can the U.S. really trust? No one. So they are scrambling in this information-motivated age to keep up with the rest of the world when they can't trust anyone. And the declassifying of these ancient documents is another bit of the smokescreen. Perfectly timed, for a critic who wants to expose corruption. Also a good piece of bait to throw out and keep the public occupied while the real wars are being fought right here and now, across the net and through the various other forms of mis-information and communications available today. And a LOT of those guy from the old days are still alive. They also still work and so do all the old Cold War era tricks they used to employ. It's all the same things all over again, only bigger. Much bigger. So big, in fact that it's probably right in front of our eyes and we can't even figure out what it is we've been staring at.

Re:Smokescreens

[AVee]

But now, six years later, Who can the U.S. really trust?

The answer to that one is remarkably close to the answer of "Who can really trust the U.S?"

Maybe rethink this please.

[Fantastic Lad]

So you're saying that proof of 9/11 Conpsiracy is that the Manhattan Project was kept secret?

Proof that conspiracies exist does not mean that all theories are without flaw. It does, however, mean that you cannot condemn the very notion of conspiracy in over-generalized terms as you appear to be doing.

I've worked at two national labs. Hanford was not kept secret. It was impossible to keep it a secret. A whole town was evacuated, and everyone in half the state of Washington knew the military was doing something there. To a lesser extent, the same applied to Los Alamos. Again, people in Santa Fe knew something was going on up there.

Who said anything about Hanford being kept secret? You're leaping to conclusions. I imagine, if you work in a lab, that you have been trained how to not leap to conclusions, so you must be aware that attacking 'conspiracists' the way you have been taints your arguments with hypocrisy when you jump to respond to things nobody actually said or intended. Such irrational thinking is what you are opposing, is it not?

Hanford did not itself need to be a secret in order for it to be the site of secret activities where very few of the workers knew what they were laboring towards. It is just one example of a very large group of people being deftly controlled by a much small number of planners working in secrecy. Given the types of personalities who are attracted to political power and who are competetive enough to win it through morally defunct means, (sociopathic), it is entirely logical to assume that such small groups are fully willing to conspire to achieve goals which are selfish in nature.

What is today's excuse for thousands of firefighters, police officers, air traffic controllers, NIST investigators, Manhattan witnesses not just to clam up, but to outright lie? 9/11 Truth is an phantasm of a mistaken worldview.

Small people do not need to know anything important in order to participate in a large plan. With common sense, one can deduce which elements of a plan are more or less likely to be false simply by determining the route which requires the smallest number of liars. People who feel repelled by the idea of conspiracy tend to look only at the most outlandish set of theories when using such arguments as, "Firefighters, police officers and air traffic controllers, etc., had to tell lies in order for these theories to work."

Instead, we can ask, "How could the theory work in such a way as would require the smallest number of knowing paricipants, and participants over whom pressure to stay silent cannot be exerted?" --Having known a couple of people who live in the high-level political and military realms, it is clear to me that there are more than enough people willing to lie and who can exert pressure to keep secrets to pull off the kind of jobs we have seen. How many firefighters and Manhattan witnesses and air traffic controllers, etc., are needed to lie in order for a conspiracy using a plane load of brainwashed political dupes?

Numerous people in the pro-conspiracy world, including radio show personalities like Jeff Rense, have been demonstrated to have connections to clandestine organizations. There is a great advantage to having such people in place; spewing faulty theories into the world and then having those stories shot down, serves to cloud and confuse the issue. It effectively allows people such as yourself to be much more likely to write off the entire idea that there are people with secret agendas acting in the world. It's a fairly straight forward psychological ploy, but it works quite effectively. --Much like the fake moon landing material.

The trick is to assume malice when it comes to people like Bush and the supporting structures which put him in place. There is more than enough evidence in plain sight that the Military Industrial Complex, corporate, political and elements of the military, are working in a manner which is entirely detrimental to the general population. So when

Re:Maybe rethink this please.

[Anonymous Coward]

>it is wise to consider all avenues of possible corruption rather than to take the official story at face value.

You mean like the story that a bunch of Arabs left their Korans and flight manuals in the parking lot, and their passports and ID cards fluttered harmlessly to the street in Manhattan, while the plane itself completely vaporized?

Most CT'ers don't fully understand the topic because they're waiting for other CT'ers to tell them what happened.

Or, do the research.