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

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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!!! ...

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

[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

[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

[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 :-|

Who shot the deputy

[coren2000]

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

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"

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

[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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

[Xenna]

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

X.

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?

[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.

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

Fnord

[Dan Ost]

Fnord.

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

Re:Fnord

[Sunburnt]

So's the person replying. Fnord.

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.

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.

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: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: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?