Tag Archives: Central Intelligence Agency

June 10, 2013 · 6:54 PM

Four Things to Know About Surveillance Leaker Edward Snowden

U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, an analyst with a U.S. defense contractor, in a still image taken from a video during an interview with the Guardian in his hotel room in Hong Kong, on June 6, 2013.

Time – Swampland

Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who leaked classified documents on U.S. government surveillance programs, revealed himself Sunday afternoon in interviews with the Guardian and the Washington Post.

Snowden, an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton for the past three months, moved to a Hong Kong hotel on May 20, after accessing a trove of classified information from a government office in Hawaii with the intent to reveal information on the controversial classified programs, the Guardian reported.

Last week the British paper revealed details on two classified programs — one pertaining to the seizure of all telephone metadata in the U.S. and another dealing with an effort to monitor Internet activities overseas using the resources of American technology firms. The Post revealed information about the second program, called PRISM. Both papers confirmed that Snowden passed them the information.

(MORE: Obama Administration Declassifies Details on PRISM, Blasts ‘Reckless’ Media and Leakers)

1. Snowden was previously a technical officer for the CIA and worked at the National Security Agency (NSA) as an employee of Dell, a private contractor, before being hired by Booz Allen as an infrastructure analyst for the NSA in Hawaii.
According to the Guardian, Snowden told supervisors he was seeking treatment for epilepsy and told his girlfriend he would be away for a few weeks before traveling to Hong Kong along with the government secrets he hoped to release. Snowden told the paper that he decided to come forward with the documents because “I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

2. Snowden voted for a third party in 2008, he told the Guardian, but believed in Obama to put an end to some of the surveillance practices.
Instead, after a review Obama continued the program, according to administration officials, adding in additional layers of review to prevent abuse. Snowden told the Guardian that he “got hardened” after he “watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in.”

3. Snowden claimed vast powers to both initiate surveillance and shut down the U.S. programs.
“I had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world,” he told the Guardian. In a video posted on the website, Snowden claimed that “any analyst at any time can target anyone … I, sitting at my desk, certainly have the authorities to wiretap anyone — from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President.”

(MORE: PRISM by the Numbers: A Guide to the Government’s Secret Internet Data-Mining Program)

Additionally he claimed he said he could shut down the entire system in an afternoon if he wanted to. The revelation that Snowden was a contractor with that wide-ranging access to some of the most closely guarded U.S. government programs is sure to provoke a re-examination of the explosion of contractors filling traditional government jobs in defense and intelligence agencies.

4. Snowden told the Post “I’m not going to hide,” but his future is uncertain.
Hong Kong and the U.S. maintain a bilateral extradition treaty, but it includes exceptions for political crimes. It is unclear how the Chinese government, which maintains significant influence in the Special Administrative Region, will react to Snowden’s presence or how it will treat him. He told the Post that he is seeking “asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Sunday that the investigation has been referred to the Department of Justice. Among the possible outcomes: U.S. officials could choose to interrogate him for details on the classified information he acquired, Hong Kong could turn him over to the U.S., or he could be granted him asylum.

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June 9, 2013 · 8:24 PM

How Did Edward Snowden, a Contractor, Get Access to Classified Data?

One has to wonder if the recent revelations by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden is just the tip of the iceberg…

The Daily Beast

Edward Snowden, a Booz Allen Hamilton employee, says he leaked top-secret NSA intel. But how did a person who wasn’t directly employed by the government get such info? Laura Colarusso explains.

News that the National Security Agency was working with leading tech companies like Verizon, Google, Apple, and Facebook to collect sweeping amounts of telephone and Internet usage data rankled the halls of power in Washington, D.C. Unhappy its secret program became public knowledge, government officials vowed to find the person who leaked the information and asked criminal prosecutors to investigate.

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Inside the National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland. (Brooks Kraft/Corbis)

But Edward Snowden beat them to it. The 29-year-old, who once worked as a technical assistant at the Central Intelligence Agency and more recently as an analyst at the NSA, came forward Sunday to acknowledge that he was behind the leak. (The companies implicated in the surveillance dragnet have mostly denied any involvement.) Snowden wasn’t employed directly by the government but instead worked for private companies such as Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, which supply personnel to federal intelligence agencies. So how did a contractor have access to top-secret documents in the first place?

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has quietly expanded its intelligence force through budget maneuvers that allowed the CIA and other agencies to circumvent traditional hiring practices. The idea was to cut costs and bureaucratic red tape by hiring contractors. In practice, the government was throwing money at people who were leaving its own ranks to join private companies that could charge Uncle Sam more.

As The Washington Post detailed in its groundbreaking “Top Secret America”investigation, contractors have been used to kill enemy fighters, spy on foreign governments, put together war plans, and almost everything in between. The scope of the work being carried out by private industry is massive.

“Close to 30 percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies is contractors,” reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin wrote in 2010. The two estimated that about 2,000 companies have employees who perform top-secret tasks for the government, and more than a quarter of those businesses were established after 2001.

Getting a handle on the number of contractors with secret clearances who work for government agencies was a difficult task until 2010, when Congress stepped in and required the president to submit a report on the data. As of October 2012, nearly 5 million people held some sort of U.S. government clearance, according to the director of national intelligence. Roughly 1.4 million people had top-secret authorization, but only half of those were direct government employees. More than 480,000 contractors held top-secret credentials, while another 135,000 were categorized as “other.”

It’s not just the NSA and CIA that depend on contractors. The Department of Homeland Security, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Pentagon all rely on outside help to keep their intelligence-gathering activities going. At DHS, for example, more than half of the work force came from private firms, according to Priest and Arkin’s 2010 report. At one point the NSA had close to 500 companies routing personnel its way. The NRO is also highly dependent on contractors to maintain its fleet of surveillance satellites.

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May 15, 2013 · 6:17 AM

Meet The Diplomat And Daily Show Fan Accused Of Being A CIA Spy In Russia

A photo released by the FSB showing a man claimed to be Ryan Fogle in FSB custody on Tuesday, May 14.

TPMDC

Ryan Christopher Fogle, the “third secretary” at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow who was detained by Russia’s domestic intelligence agency and being accused of being a CIA spy Monday night, is a former frat boy and Daily Show fan from Missouri.

According to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, Fogle was found in possession of a letter attempting to recruit an officer from one of Russia’s special services to work with the CIA, two wigs, three pairs of sunglasses, cash, and a knife, among other things. After he was detained, Fogle was turned over to the U.S. Embassy and expelled from Russia Tuesday.

Records link Fogle’s family to two different inner-ring suburbs of St. Louis, Mo, Clayton and Richmond Heights. He reportedly graduated from Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School, a high school in the wealthy St/ Louis suburb of Ladue, in 2002. Four years later, Fogle graduated from Colgate University.

While at Colgate, Fogle was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He also was a member of the Konosioni Senior Honor Society, a group of 26 student leaders chosen by their peers each year to “preserve and promote a greater appreciation and understanding of Colgate’s honored heritage and celebrated traditions.” Fogle participated in student government and, at the end of his sophomore year, was elected to serve as an election commissioner. As a freshman, Fogle was a member of a committee that organized lectures on campus. In 2003, he discussed a lecture he helped plan featuring former Daily Show contributor Mo Rocca with the school newspaper. Fogle was clearly a big fan of the show.

“Not only is Mo Rocca a comedian, but he is extremely talented and well known. Almost everyone here watches the Daily Show with some consistency,” Fogle said. “When he’s on the show he’s absolutely hilarious.”

After college, Fogle stayed in touch with his classmates. A 2008 issue of a Colgate magazine said Fogle attended the Colgate-Georgetown football game in November 2007 with other members of the class of 2006. The winter 2010-2011 issue of his fraternity’s newsletter included contact information for Fogle in Virginia and indicated he wanted to correspond with fraternity members. In late 2011, the email address Fogle listed in the fraternity newsletter was among those identified as belonging to subscribers to briefings published by the global intelligence company Stratfor in a release from the hacking group Anonymous.

Fogle also maintained a presence on Facebook, though most of his page was not visible to the general public. The only pictures that can be seen on his profile are nine photos of landmarks that seem to be from international travels including shots of Masada, the Kremlin, and the Great Sphinx of Giza. Fogle’s profile picture is a photo of waves hitting a beach.

Though Fogle left behind a digital trail, those who knew him offline provided no information about him to TPM. Multiple former classmates of Fogle’s declined to discuss him. A woman who answered the phone at his family home in Missouri who identified herself as “Ms. Fogle” also did not wish to speak with us.

“I don’t really have anything to say. Thank you though,” she said before hanging up.

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November 25, 2012 · 6:03 PM

Would You Like Some Crow With That Rice, Senator McCain?

The Daily Dish – Andrew Sullivan

The irascible douche now acknowledges there is no evidence that Susan Rice was responsible for editing CIA talking points after the Benghazi attack, and that the DNI gave her what she subsequently went on TV with. End of scandal. No formal retractionor apology of course:

Today’s news comes just a week after McCain went on national television and claimed that Rice’s “talking points came from the White House, not from the DNI. He added on Fox that “I think it’s patently obvious that the talking points that Ambassador Rice had didn’t come from the CIA. It came from the White House.” For weeks, McCain has lambasted the administration forengaging in “either a cover-up or the worst kind of incompetence” on the Benghazi attack.

Of course, McCain believed it was perfectly obvious that Saddam had WMDs in Iraq. And so did I. I’ve learned to wait for the facts a little bit longer before jumping to conclusions of conspiracy or mendacity.

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November 9, 2012 · 3:54 PM

CIA director resigns over extra-marital affair

MSNBC

Video

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned Friday afternoon, citing his “extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.”

Petraeus, a four-star general who led American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has served his post in the CIA since he retired from the military and was sworn in September 2011. He was a widely respected figure in the military and the intelligence community.

“Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Petraeus first alerted President Obama of his affair on Thursday, and offered his resignation to which the president later accepted.

“Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time,” Obama said in a statement

Petraeus’ resignation comes just three days after results of the presidential campaign first started rolling in. He is likely to be succeeded by Deputy CIA Director, Michael Morell.

Petraeus was slated to speak before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week over the handling of the consulate attacks in Benghazi, Libya. His resignation is not said to be linked to the controversy over the September attacks, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reports.

“This is by any account a shocking announcement,” she said.

The general’s wife, Holly Petraeus, worked in the Consumer Advocacy Agency for the Obama administration and had been one of the deputies under Elizabeth Warren.

Read Petraeus’ resignation in full:

HEADQUARTERS
Central Intelligence Agency

9 November 2012

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.

As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our Nation’s Silent Service, a work force that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that.

Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life’s greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end.

Thank you for your extraordinary service to our country, and best wishes for continued success in the important endeavors that lie ahead for our country and our Agency.

With admiration and appreciation,

David H. Petraeus

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October 20, 2012 · 5:15 PM

CIA documents back up Rice’s description of Benghazi attack

When folks on Fox News and elsewhere make accusations about President Obama and his administration and are subsequently proven wrong, I wonder if they have ever apologized to their audience for giving them misinformation. I doubt it…

America Blog

Uh oh.  Seems the Romney campaign’s ongoing  campaign to take advantage of the murder of American officials abroad is backfiring on them, again.

From David Ignatius at the Washington Post:

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

A memo prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center on Sept. 14 illustrates the fragmentary nature of the evidence: “As time progresses, we are learning more, but we still don’t have a complete picture of what happened,” noted the analysts. “At this point, we are not aware of any actionable intelligence that this attack was planned or imminent. . . . We are very cautious about drawing any firm conclusions at this point with regard to identification and motivation of the attackers.”

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September 9, 2011 · 12:21 PM

Bush Credits ‘The Work That Was Done’ During ‘My Presidency’ For Osama Bin Laden’s Death

Oh my goodness! President George W. Bush frequently said that he didn’t know where Bin laden was and that frankly, he didn’t care where he was. Now he tries to take the credit for it?

Think Progress

President Bush sat down with USA Today to discuss the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and his role in shaping U.S. policy in their aftermath. During the interview, Bush thought he’d take the opportunity topat himself on the back for Osama bin Laden’s death:

Bush said the events that led to the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May began during his administration.

“The work that was done by intelligence communities during my presidency was part of putting together the puzzle that enabled us to see the full picture of how bin Laden was communicating and eventually where he was hiding,” he said. “It began the day after 9/11.”

The reality, of course, is that Bush’s attempts to capture or kill bin Laden were huge failures. While it’s been well documented that the Bush administration missed an opportunity to get bin Laden in Tora Bora in 2001, Bush himself subsequently stated publicly that he wasn’t spending much time thinking about getting him. “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq,” Bush said in 2002, “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.” Bush told reporters in 2006 that hunting the al Qaeda leader was “not a top priority use of American resources.”

And in 2005, Bush shut down the CIA’s unit dedicated to finding bin Laden in order to shift resources to Iraq. “The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants,” the New York Times reported in 2006, adding that resources “had been redirected from the hunt for Mr. bin Laden to the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed last month in Iraq.” When the right wing rushed to give Bush credit after bin Laden’s death in May, ThinkProgress produced this short video highlighting Bush’s failures:

Soon after he took office, President Obama steered the U.S. on a course to end the war in Iraq and put resources back into finding bin Laden. “Shortly after I got into office,” Obama said in aninterview after bin Laden’s death, “I brought [then-CIA director] Leon Panetta privately into the Oval Office and I said to him, ‘We need to redouble our efforts in hunting bin Laden down. And I want us to start putting more resources, more focus, and more urgency into that mission.’”

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September 8, 2011 · 9:02 PM

U.S. Citizen Linked To Terror Plot on 9/11 Anniversary

The is the flag of the Central Intelligence Ag...

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ABC News

U.S. authorities are scrambling to sort through information that the CIA developed in the past 24 hours indicating that at least three individuals entered the U.S. in August by air with the intent to launch a vehicle-borne attack against Washington, D.C. or New York around the anniversary of 9/11, according to intelligence officials.

One of the intelligence and law enforcement officials that ABC News spoke to said that one of the individuals may be a U.S. citizen and a second official said that possibly two of the individuals may have had U.S. documentation — whether green cards or passports was unclear.

As news of the information became public, authorities began weighing whether to raise the national threat level.

The suspected terrorists are believed to have embarked on their journey to the U.S. from Afghanistan or Pakistan, according to two senior officials. One official said the route may have taken them through at least one other country, possibly Iran. Another news organization reported that they embarked from “the Pakistan area.”

The information on the plot was “very specific ” said one official, adding ” It seems like the information has been worked for a while.” A second and third official confirmed the specifics of the possible plot added that a declassified bulletin is expected to be issued shortly.

Multiple sources say that federal authorities will send a bulletin to law enforcement tonight. The threat, one official told ABC News, is credible. Now authorities are making every effort to confirm it and to hunt down any plotters.

Initially, one of those officials added that at least two rental trucks — one from Penske and one from Budget — were being sought nationwide. Those trucks have since been recovered and appear to have had no connection to the plotters.

The threat information was obtained recently and originated from overseas sources — Pakistan, according to one official.

According to a White House official, “The President was briefed on this specific threat information this morning and has been updated on it throughout the day. The United States government has already significantly enhanced its security posture in advance of the 9/11 anniversary to protect the country against possible terrorist threats. Nevertheless, the President directed the counterterrorism community to redouble its efforts in response to this credible but unconfirmed information.”

Earlier this evening, top Congressional leaders were briefed on the terror threat by White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan.

Continue reading here…

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August 30, 2011 · 4:32 AM

Valerie Plame & Joe Wilson Respond To Dick Cheney

The Last Word

In a Last Word exclusive, former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joe Wilson join the show to discuss Cheney’s controversial new book, which addresses the now infamous CIA leak case.

Part 1

Part 2

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June 22, 2011 · 11:22 AM

Michelle Obama Hands A Crying Baby To President Obama. Baby Stops Crying

Mediaite is not one of my  favorite sites anymore, but I ran across this video and couldn’t resist posting it.  Apparently this incident occured before Mrs. Obama’s trip to South Africa…

Mediaite

Regardless of one’s political disposition, this is a pretty cool video clip, though the details of which are still somewhat unclear. What we do know, however, is that during a recent meet and greet with the people outside the White House, President Obamaand wife Michelle encountered an upset and crying baby. When asked for a photo with the commander-in-chief, the First Lady proceeds to hand the crying child to the president, only to watch the baby nearly instantly stop crying. Fonzie!

Conspiracy theorists will likely call the baby a plant, and yes, we cannot confirm that the alleged crying baby isn’t a high-tech animatronic robot designed by the CIA for the White House to melt the hearts of a divided nation. Parents of crying babies will recognize that Obama’s comforting of the crying baby seems almost as genuine as the gloating look that he shoots his wife once he quells the baby storm:

Watch – courtesy of Mediaite:

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