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Intelligence

What We Must Ask About Surveillance State Failures

September 25, 2023 Chip Gibbons, The Dissenter. , , , ,
Americans have repeatedly been told to keep the United States safe they must surrender their core civil liberties to a vast national security apparatus. Yet when this apparatus fails at this supposed objective, the response is to further expand its surveillance powers. Rarely is the exercise of these powers seriously explored. Instead, the national discussion centers on a baseless notion that a shortage of surveillance powers is the root cause of intelligence failures. Last week, in a post for The Dissenter’s paid subscribers, I discussed FBI counterterrorism files I obtained from a still ongoing lawsuit against the FBI.

Opera Buffa In Ukraine

July 30, 2023 Seymour Hersh, Scheer Post. , , , , ,
Let’s take a look at recent events in the Ukraine war from the point of view of those in the American intelligence community who don’t feel they have the ear of President Joe Biden but should. On July 17 Ukraine attacked for a second time one of Russian President Vladimir’s proudest achievements: the 11.25-mile Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia. The 3.7 billion dollar bridge, with separate spans for auto and train traffic, was opened for auto traffic in May of 2018 and for trucks five months later, with Putin himself driving the first one to make the crossing. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made it clear before the Russian invasion early last year that he considered the bridge a legitimate military target.

To Counter AI Risk, We Must Develop An Integrated Intelligence

June 28, 2023 Jeremy Lent, Resilience. , , ,
The recent explosion in the stunning power of artificial intelligence is likely to transform virtually every domain of human life in the near future, with effects that no-one can yet predict. The breakneck rate at which AI is developing is such that its potential impact is almost impossible to grasp. As Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, demonstrate in their landmark presentation, The AI Dilemma, AI accomplishments are beginning to read like science fiction. After just three seconds of hearing a human voice, for example, an AI system can autocomplete the sentence being spoken with a voice so perfectly matched that no-one can distinguish it from the real thing.

Russia’s FSB Spooked CIA On Prigozhin ‘Coup’

June 26, 2023 M. K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
CNN, followed by the New York Times, broke the story on Sunday that the US and Western intelligence were indeed aware of the failed coup attempt on Friday night by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group of Russian military contractors, “for quite some time and making preparations for such a move, including by massing weapons and ammunition.” What we do not know is at what point Russian intelligence got wind of it. The Kremlin acted forcefully, decisively and with foresight in real time to scotch the coup attempt within hours. By Saturday evening, the foreign intelligence chief Sergey Narishkin announced that the coup attempt had failed. The Russian authorities were waiting for Prigozhin to make his move.

The January 2017 ‘Assessment’ On Russiagate

January 8, 2023 Ray McGovern, Consortium News. , , ,
The banner headline atop page one of The New York Times print edition [now six] years ago today, on Jan. 7, 2017, set the tone for two years of Dick Cheney-like chicanery: “Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says.” Under a media drumbeat of anti-Russian hysteria, credulous Americans were led to believe that Donald Trump owed his election victory to the president of Russia, whose “influence campaign” according to the Times quoting the intelligence report*,* helped *“*President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.” Hard evidence supporting the media and political rhetoric has been as elusive as proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002-2003.

Ana Belén Montes, An Exemplary Hero, Will Be Freed

January 4, 2023 Stansfield Smith, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On January 8, 2023 the US has to release one of its many political prisoners, most being fighters against its repression of Third World peoples. Ana Belén Montes, heroic defender of Cuba’s sovereignty, will be freed after over 21 years in a federal military prison. She was a top official on Latin America in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who, solely out of moral conviction, gave Cuba information on top secret US military plans and operations. Unrepentant in her trial, she defended herself saying, “I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. … I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”  She is one of the many exemplary people who have taken an honorable and moral stance, opposing the reprehensible actions of government, and have been accused of being traitors or spies.

Russia-Ukraine Is An Information War

February 23, 2022 Patrick Cockburn, Counter Punch. , , ,
The threat of war is difficult to beat when it comes to mending or enhancing a damaged reputation. President Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, both derided as ineffective in domestic policy only a few weeks ago, are now reborn as statesmen capable of guiding their countries through the minefield of Eastern European politics. The American and British intelligence services seldom got things right during the Iraq, Libyan and Syrian conflicts, but they are now being cited as reliable guarantors of the credibility of stories about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine. This narrative is sold to the public as the fruit of “open intelligence”, supposedly more democratic than the more secretive approach of the past.

The CIA Has Been Taking Over For Decades

April 28, 2021 Lee Camp, Scheer Post. , , ,
December 22, 1963 — exactly one month after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, former President Harry S. Truman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that most people, especially our perfumed ruling elite, wanted to ignore.  Truman, who signed the CIA into existence just after World War II, wrote, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—the CIA. […] For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.

Intelligence Report Equates Anarchists With Right-Wing Militias

April 10, 2021 Kristian Williams, Truthout. , , ,
Mainstream Democrats are in a hawkish mood when it comes to “domestic terrorism.” That is bad news for the left. Immediately upon taking office, President Biden “tasked the director of national intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, with compiling a comprehensive threat assessment on violent domestic extremism,“ according to The Washington Post. This request was prompted by the right-wing attack on the Capitol on January 6. The resulting report, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” was submitted on March 1, and its executive summary was released publicly a few days later. 

The Dark Past Of Biden’s Nominee For National Intelligence Director

December 31, 2020 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , ,
Former acting CIA Director Mike Morell, who has disingenuously argued for years that he had nothing to do with the agency’s torture program, but who continued to defend it, has taken himself out of the running to be President-elect Joe Biden’s new CIA director. The decision is a victory for the peace group Code Pink, which spearheaded the Stop Morell movement, and it’s a great thing for all Americans.  Now, though, we have to turn our attention to Biden’s nominee to be director of national intelligence (DNI), Avril Haines. Haines is certainly qualified on paper to lead the Intelligence Community. 

A Pandemic Of ‘Russian Hacking’

December 20, 2020 Ray McGovern and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The hyperbolic, evidence-free media reports on the “fresh outbreak” of the Russian-hacking disease seems an obvious attempt by intelligence to handcuff President-elect Joe Biden into a strong anti-Russian posture as he prepares to enter the White House. Biden might well need to be inoculated against the Russophobe fever. There are obvious Biden intentions worrying the intelligence agencies, such as renewing the Iran nuclear deal and restarting talks on strategic arms limitation with Russia. Both carry the inherent “risk” of thawing the new Cold War. Instead, New Cold Warriors are bent on preventing any such rapprochement with strong support from the intelligence community’s mouthpiece media. U.S. hardliners are clearly still on the rise.

Huge Intelligence Agency Scandal Rocks Denmark

September 2, 2020 Ron Ridenour, Covert Action Magazine. , , ,
Four leading Defense Intelligence Service personnel were suspended on Monday, August 24, pending an independent investigation into serious charges of illegalities—amounting to what Danish daily Politiken is calling the greatest “life scandal in its history.” Lars Findsen, the current director of Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), the Danish Defense Intelligence agency, and his predecessor, Thomas Ahrenkiel, plus two other current intelligence officers, are temporarily suspended. Ahrenkiel, former FE chief from 2010 to 2015, is awaiting his new post as Denmark’s new ambassador to Germany.

Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda

August 23, 2020 Ray McGovern, Consortium News. , , ,
The fresh orgy of anti-Russian invective in the lickspittle media (LSM) has the feel of fin de siècle. The last four reality-impaired years do seem as though they add up to a century. And no definitive fin is in sight, as long as most people don’t know what’s going on. The LSM should be confronted: “At long last have you left no sense of decency?” But who would hear the question — much less any answer? The corporate media have a lock on what Americans are permitted or not permitted to hear. Checking the truth, once routine in journalism, is a thing of the past.

Mutiny On The Bounties

July 15, 2020 Ray McGovern, Consortium News. , , ,
Corporate media are binging on leaked Kool Aid not unlike the WMD concoction they offered 18 years ago to “justify” the U.S.-UK war of aggression on Iraq. Now Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia under President Obama, has been enlisted by The Washington Post’s editorial page honcho, Fred Hiatt, to draw on his expertise (read, incurable Russophobia) to help stick President Donald Trump back into “Putin’s pocket.” (This has become increasingly urgent as the canard of “Russiagate” — including the linchpin claim that Russia hacked the DNC — lies gasping for air.) In an oped on Thursday McFaul presented a long list of Vladimir Putin’s alleged crimes, offering a more ostensibly sophisticated version of amateur Russian specialist, Rep. Jason Crow’s (D-CO) claim that: “Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night trying to figure out how to destroy American democracy.”

How The Pentagon Failed To Sell Afghan Government’s Bunk ‘Bountygate’ Story

July 13, 2020 Gareth Porter, The Grayzone. , , ,
The New York Times dropped another Russiagate bombshell on June 26 with a sensational front-page story headlined, “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says.”  A predictable media and political frenzy followed, reviving the anti-Russian hysteria that has excited the Beltway establishment for the past four years.  But a closer look at the reporting by the Times and other mainstream outlets vying to confirm its coverage reveals another scandal, not unlike Russiagate itself: the core elements of the story appear to have been fabricated by Afghan government intelligence to derail a potential US troop withdrawal from the country. And they were leaked to the Times and other outlets by US national security state officials who shared an agenda with their Afghan allies. 
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