Slashdot Mirror
CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"
An anonymous reader informs us that the CIA has recently declassified for your reading pleasure some records relating to illegal spying, assassination attempts, and other goodies. These are available from the CIA's FOIA portal. From the BBC article: " Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were 'unflattering but part of CIA history.' The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping... Among the documents is a request in 1972 for someone 'who was accomplished at picking locks' who might be retiring or resigning from the agency."
For example, readers from India might want to check out the CIA's files about the India-China war of 1962, especially since India's Freedom of Information laws (IIRC) don't cover matters of national security.
Where are the top secret documents about the assassination of Kennedy? I wanna read them!
to make us think they stopped doing &#!####{ççççç NO CARRIER
Baically, nothing that wasn't already known except maybe a little finger pointing and agreeing to take the blame. Anything actually "new" in this? Anything that never made the news back then? Any fresh skeletons? If we find the answer is "no" then one must assume this is just more misdirection. Of course stuff like this just goes to prove that the CIA and its similar organizations should have been abolished years ago. The really big question: is this pile of bones but the tip of the iceberg?
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones".
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)
Those documents are about 60 years old. In other words, around 2070 we'll finally get to see what is done now.
You think it's in any way different today? If anything, it gets worse.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What exactly is your point? That we should stop giving the CIA the finger because Mossad and KGB and all the others were/are doing the same thing?
I think it's an interesting step to release all this information, though. Would be great if more agencies would follow.
What I find very funny about your post, though: Do you really think the agencies are there to protect the security and wealth of a nation? The nation basically consists of the people and the government. So this is at least partially wrong. The agencies are there to protect the government and its agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether that is in the best interest of the public is a matter of opinion and coincidence.
The message this sends current CIA operatives: go ahead, do whatever illegal stuff you want because you're going to get away with it - in 50 years time we'll tell everyone and have a good laugh about it.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Yeah, but when will they declassify the files 'bout the sharks with lasers on their heads? Of course they deny it, but /. knows better, right? Right....?
This sig left intentionally blank.
Just a wild guess but I'd say that relates to Watergate.
I'm starting to wonder whether being a "powerful" country is such a good thing. The US (and to a lesser extent, the UK) is in all kinds of trouble trying to maintain and exercise it's power all over the world. If you compare this to countries that just mind their own business, like those in Scandinavia, I wonder what the point is. Denmark, Norway and Sweden routinely come out top in quality of life and happiness surveys.
A particular example of this: the proposal to renew the Trident missile system in the UK. It will cost a vast amount of money. A lot of it will be housed in Scotland, and nobody in Scotland wants it. It raises foreign policy hypocrisy questions, because we have nukes and we say other people shouldn't have nukes. So why are we doing it? I think it's because post-imperial Britain wants to believe it can still sit at the big table.
I say let's stop trying to do that.
Peter
I also got interested by that comment, so I searched for 1972 in Wikipedia and here is what I found: # May 28 - Watergate first break-in. # May 30 - The Angry Brigade goes on trial in the United Kingdom. From the Wikipedia article on the Watergate burglaries, it appears (without me having completely read trough them) that those who broke in was from the CIA.
It is somewhat surprising but in general the government takes the whole FOIA and declassification thing rather seriously. It can take a long time (things can't be declassified until they don't hurt national security) and there can be parts redacted, but they really do provide a rather surprising amount of transparency on older things. As far as I can tell this latest round of declassification is nothing special. It's been done before, and hopefully will continue to be done.
Weaker countries ride on the coat-tails of the stronger ones. Best example I can think of is Canada - for decades we've been able to neglect all our national defence responsibilities because we live next door to a guy with some really big guns. Ofcourse, this doesn't mean that being small is better, only that it's nice to be small and have big friends.
Yes, but is this the modern threat? These days, the biggest threat is not from invasion and occupation, but from global guerilla warfare, also known as terrorism. The weapons we spend all our money on - submarines, fighter jets and all that high tech robotic crap - is almost useless against all that. There might be an argument for removing a huge proportion of the money we spend on all that phallic hardware and sticking it into other activities, like intelligence and hearts-and-minds work to stop the terrorists from hating us so much.
It's a bit like the Royal Navy in WW2. They thought battleships still ruled the waves, because that's what Nelson used. Then they sent a few to the Pacific theatre, which were promptly sunk by Japanese air power, leading to the fall of Singapore. Now nobody has battleships anymore.
Also, the cost of one bunker buster is probably enough to buy a school in Palestine. That school might prevent a good few people from becoming suicide bombers. That sounds quite cost effective to me.
I know, I know part 1: it doesn't really work like that in the real world, but we're not really trying these other options are we?
I know, I know part 2: I'm a commie pinko leftist bastard who needs to be beaten senseless by a large red-neck.
Peter
The U.S. tried policies of isolation in the early 20th century, but they didnt' work. The outcome of WWII placed a lot of responsibility on the U.S. Blame Europe.
I no this is no excuse for abusing power. The U.S. is far from perfect. But in general, the U.S. is not evil and hasn't changed in the last 10 years. We'll have a new election.
Why should we be concerned?
Not because so much of what they did was underhanded. We should be concerned that so much of what they did was pointlessly stupid.
That's the problem with secrecy. It is necessary to protect reasonable covert action, but undispensible at covering up incompetence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How many decades will pass before we learn about the truth about 9-11?
In your case, I'm guessing all of them.
>After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him.
Nonsense. "The CIA" wasn't desperate to eliminate Castro, the U.S. government was, starting at the top. The CIA doesn't decide to assassinate foreign leaders without direct orders from the President of the United States.
It makes no sense for Canada to have a military that is focused on anything other than UN peacekeeping. Now that the cold war is over, Canada has no enemies. What on earth do you need a huge military for if you have no enemies? Other than the United States (which could probably buy Canada if it really wanted to), who is in a position to invade Canada?
Who has reason to strike Canada when Canadians will pretty much give you anything if you ask nicely and say you like hockey.
The answer is no-one. Canada has no need for a cold war level military.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
If we were all peers, you'd have to worry about countries following that good-returns-for-marginally-despicable-behavior gradient, which snowballs as the low-hanging fruit is plucked and as nations progressively set bad examples for each other, in addition to the bad blood garnered over time. The existence of superpowers and nuclear deterrents has ended the brutal, organic relationships between countries. It may not last forever, and we should use this era of relative peace to consolidate power (a la the EU) and put institutions in place that will serve us better in a changing geopolitical climate and help us avoid old follies.
The "Family Jewels" are also available from National Security Archive website. Also included is a short history and some additional documents.
The National Security Archive (a private organization based at George Washington University) has lots of other dirt from the CIA and other organizations all obtained by the Freedom of Information Act. The site is definitely worth a visit.
I agree, military action is ineffective against terrorism. But having a nuclear deterrent is still important as a last resort, in case the world moves into more turbulent times again. The costs for replacing your nuclear forces are estimated to be ~£20 billion with running costs of roughly £1.5 billion per year. In comparison, the military budget was ~£39 billion in 2002.
You could probably cut military spending by £10 billion, put £2b on new nuclear weapons, £3b on new schools in Palestine and other goodwill efforts, pocket the £5b savings, and still have improved security. But if you completely dismantle the nuclear deterrent, then your conventional military would have to make up for the shortfall, which might even require increases in military spending. Even though nuclear weapons are pointless right now, it will be too late to start building them again if the situation suddenly changes.
This is assuming that we're talking about strategic nuclear weapons. Bunker busters and other tactical nuclear weapons are not so good. They have no use as a deterrent, and are only meant as force multipliers for the conventional army.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Ahhh, but Canada is a major exporter of oil (the world's 8th largest). And it is well known on /. that the US routinely invades countries to take their oil ... so if I were Canada I would be pretty worried.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
They don't have to be worried - "they're not even a real country anyway".
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
This is just an administration's response to the insinuation that they are somehow the first to do unpleasant things "in the service of" their country. This says, "even you Democrats did bad things; not only that, your great Champion Kennedy did some of the worst. We could easily declassify plenty of damaging goods on Clinton the Popular, but we don't want to set that precedent, now, do we?"
This has nothing to do with the past, except insofar as it might distract from the present.
Fighting terrorism directly is pouring water on burning oil. The victim of terrorism is - generally speaking - intended to be politically and/or emotionally linked to what the terrorist sees as the source of their troubles. That's the cause, the 'message' of terrorism.
I sincerely doubt any terrorist wants to "kill everyone", leave that for depressed teenagers. Terrorists usually want more power, a return to prior power, the end of an occupation or freedom of movement in a 'free market' (an end to trade embargos). In the case of anti-US terrorism, they probably feel they are fighting a gigantic geo-strategic and economic machine that has historically exerted power over them, so reducing their options in many areas. The U.S is the target of so much terrorism because it plays nastily and such with a hard-hand abroad. So, terrorists play very unfairly back, resorting to all sorts of horrific and unquestionably sickening measures in turn.
To think that terrorists are just some rabid suicidal maniacs that fantasise about putting holes in the buildings and people to "exert terror" for the fun or fear of it is a grave misunderstanding I think. Blame your current Government for designing that misunderstanding.Terrorists seem to believe they are messengers, speaking for desperate people in extremely harsh situations elsewhere. Only a terrible mess, bleak maldistributions of power, will produce these animal responses. No, I don't think terrorism is a valid 'reponse' in any case at all. History tells that many do however.
A sorry fact, for much of the world America is perhaps the scariest, least trusted country on Earth. Many countries are shit-scared and/or angry with America and they don't like that feeling. Few Americans have the slightest idea what their Government gets upto abroad. Until America learns to back-off and stop being so economically and geo-strategically aggressive, it will sadly continue to experience hard times on the home front.
Americans can change that with their vote - if it still counts.
Actually, that's a damn decent reason. Look, we're human, so we're annoying. Some other advanced civilization is going to whack us once they watch some of our television for a while just to shut us up.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Behold! Uh, what was I going to say?
It's a global economy - enemies don't have to invade to cause you harm. Let's take your syllogism (no one can invade Canada, therefore Canada has no enemies) and apply it to the United States. Clearly no one is in a position to invade the U.S. either... therefore the U.S. has no enemies? But... there are a few countries who certainly claim we're they're enemy.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Hey, great idea! And it's about time Britain learned lessons from history. After 1914 and 1938, you finally learned that staying out of foreign conflicts is a good way to prevent war.
Er.... wait....
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Canada has been able to ignore our defence responsibilities because we don't need to defend ourselves militarily. Really, I mean who would we ever have to defend ourselves against? The the only really credible threat to Canadian defence is the US itself (maybe the old USSR), and no matter how much we invest in the military we'd never be able to counter them anyway. Any use of the Canadian military over the past 50 years has been over-seas and not directly related to Canadian defence. We don't need a strong military because the US is protecting us. We don't need it because we're geograpically isolated from anyone who might be threat.
Yes, some interesting information, but the underlying purpose of releasing it is TOTALLY dishonest. My understanding is that the CIA is releasing information as a public relations gesture. My understanding is that the agency is releasing only information that no longer matters to it, with any modifications it wants to make.
Almost the CIA's ONLY purpose is to help rich people get richer by providing information and violence paid for by U.S. citizens. The organization did not just suddenly become honest. (Read the linked article.)
Bush and Cheney have consistently claimed they are above the law. This fits the definition of a dictatorship: "A form of government in which the ruler is not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition".
The CIA invented a term for the destructive consequences of its actions: Blowback. Blowback doesn't matter to the agency, however, since it still gets what it wants. Also, for CIA employees, more trouble in the world means more money and promotions.
Remember, the terms NSA and CIA are just names that you are allowed to know, to try to get you to think you know what the U.S. government is doing. There are many agencies with names and purposes you are not allowed to know. If you are a U.S. citizen, you are, however, expected to pay. If you are not a U.S. citizen (and sometimes if you are), you may be expected to pay with your life.
The most beautiful thing about this kind of acknowledgement is that no one pays for the illegal activity. The connections between the CIA and the mob which likely protected the mob can be revealed without jailing the case officers involved. Presidents who authorized this kind of thing are beyond just out of office. As criminal activities go, these things are an incredible success even when they didn't accomplished their criminal objectives. To me, this is most unabashed insult to the American people that I can think of.
These are quoted from this mornings NYT article. I think they tell us a lot:
"Some anecdotes reveal just how far outside the law some C.I.A. agents strayed. One technician was arrested in 1960 after trying to bug a Las Vegas hotel room. The operation had been requested by Sam Giancana, the Chicago mobster, who was then helping the C.I.A. in a plot to assassinate Mr. Castro.
Mr. Giancana had been concerned that his girlfriend, the singer Phyllis McGuire, was having an affair with the comedian Dan Rowan, and surveillance was ordered to "determine the extent of his intimacy" with her.
Some of the activities detailed, while lawful, would have been embarrassing had they emerged at the time. One document revealed that John McCone, director of central intelligence during Kennedy's presidency, authorized an Air Force plane to fly the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis and the soprano Maria Callas from Rome to Athens, a favor that led to media inquiries."
There's a big difference between now and 1933. European states had been intermittently at war with each other ever since they were formed. Plenty of people knew that the Versailles conference hadn't solved anything, and that the same thing was bound to happen again. But war between European states is today unthinkable, and this is one of the major diplomatic achievements in history. War between Britain and Germany is about as likely as war between England and Scotland.
The only countries that could conceivably pose a threat to Britain are Russia and China. No one else can currently threaten Britain, and the idea that mickey mouse states like Iran could ever do so is ridiculous. Russian interests would not be served by war with the EU, and in any case the EU is rich enough and they are poor enough to be bought off with trade agreements and possible membership. The Chinese simply aren't interested in starting a war. They are probably the most restrained country when it comes to nuclear weapons, holding just enough for a deterrent, and they have more than enough problems trying to drag their own country into the modern age to worry about war with Britain, which is far away and cannot threaten China at all. Whatever you think of Israel's nuclear arsenal, at least they have an obvious reason to have one.
As someone else said, threats these days are from non-state actors, who will not be deterred by Trident. Trident is a monument to the British inability to accept that Britain is now a small country with diminishing clout, and one whose citizens are not served by pathetic attempts to maintain "credibility". That money would be better spent on solving British social problems, or by giving it back to the taxpayers.
The problem with the precautionary principle is that it leads to absurd outcomes. There are any number of terrible things that have a minute chance of happening, and which it would be very expensive to protect against. If you take the PP seriously, then you're like that guy who's worried about crime who can only afford Kraft Dinner because his house is surrounded by razor wire, floodlights, attack dogs and a private milita. Everyone can see how ridiculous that is, yet the defence policies of many nations are similarly irrational.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
I spoke with a professor who taught my course on U.S. Intelligence and National Security a while back. He had been a staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee for over a decade and had read the entire classified version of the Warren Commission report. His opinion on it was basically this - there simply isn't any sufficient proof to tie the killing to anyone but Oswald, nor proof that Oswald had acted on anyone's behalf, although he did suspect some sort of Cuban involvement somewhere in the killing. But, he qualified, that his suspicions could not be proven and amounted to more of a gut feeling rather than something based strictly on evidence - Castro by then must have known of the numerous attempts Kennedy had ordered on his life.
Actually, I would expect Canada's military requirements to rise somewhat due to pressures from global warming. The legendary northwest passage is opening up, which will make Canada a major trade route and open up disputes over borders and natural resources (oil, fishing, etc.). There are already heated debates over whether these areas are international waters, or sovereign Canadian territory. Of course, most of those conflicts are relatively benign ones with the US at the moment, but I wouldn't put it past the Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans to try something shady. Maybe you won't need a huge army, but you will need a substantial navy/coast guard. Also, not to sound xenophobic, but there is the potential that Canada's relatively large immigrant population may increase its vulnerability to terrorism and other forms of extremism.
Saddam is likely comparatively worse (and I say likely because the US is very good at hiding things that would be embarrassing) but the issue is not relative morality. The horrible things that we do we decide to lump into a different category than that of our adversaries. We contextualize our atrocities to justify or say "shame, shame, shame" for those we can't contextualize (Abu Ghraib). When presenting the atrocities of our foes we completely remove all context and offer the implication that they did this horrible thing because they were evil. If we're going to justify our action by contextualizing them it's only fair to apply the same metric to the atrocities of others.
In August 1957, Diefenbaker signed the NORAD (North American Air Defence) agreement with the United States, which required the subordination of the RCAF Air Defence Command to American command and control. The USAF was in the process of completely automating their air defence system with the SAGE project, and insisted that the RCAF had to use it as well. One aspect of the SAGE system was the BOMARC nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile, which when intercepting bombers over Ontario and Quebec would be exploding over major Canadian cities.
And lets not forget Gerald Bull, who's funding was cut due to pressure from the US.
His plan was to give Canada autonomy in satellite lauches, but the Canadian officials, being the easily bought and paid for lackeys of their southern overlords that they are, decided that reliance on NASA was a far superior approach.
You can't take the sky from me...
That statement applies to a large percentage of bible-thumping, bible-belt, good ol' boys in the United States.
Hell... the queen of the right, Ann Coulter, said we should go to the middle-east and "kill or convert" them all.
"From the Middle East to the Middle West, it's 'pray and pass the ammunition'"
---From Rush's new song "Way the Wind Blows"
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
If there were something going on that a group didn't want you to think about, they'd generate what seemed to be a more important story with much the same characteristics. This story is about dirty secrets in high government. Yet it's not a news story as the major facts have already been known. What else is going on that's similar, that the government doesn't want thought about too hard? Within 24 hours we're given notice that the White House, and specifically Dick Cheney's office, were subpeonaed for information on the recent (already determined illegal be federal courts) wiretapping increase. It's probably not just this we're being defelected from, but from the almost inevitable refusal to comply, something far more illegal than the wiretapping as it flies in the face of the Constitution, as does much of the present administration's actions.
Shiny hat material? Read "Psychological Warfare" by Paul (E.E. "Doc" Smith to S.F. fans) Linebarger. It's 60 years old, but is still a required text at the War College. You can be sure the primary movers of the present administration have read it and taken it to heart. The barely concealed course of the present administration, based on machinery put in place by previous administrations, is an obvious application of the techniques described and prescribed by Linebarger. But as I said, read it. Don't just believe me. That's the point of it.
You'll have trouble finding it. Although still in print for the limited distribution noted, it's barely available to the public. Last I looked I could only find German translations, going for over US$300. I only got to keep mine due to a clerical error that made it appear that I'd returned mine already, as required. Generating clerical errors like this are now called "social engineering". It's not a new idea.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Also, you would find one of the founding members of Delta Force (US Army Special Forces Detachment Delta), Eric Haney, strongly disagreeing with you....