Special Report: Washington Post’s editor Ben Bradlee, whose memoir was entitled “A Good Life,” is remembered by many as a tough-talking, street-smart journalist. But that reputation was more image than truth as the real Bradlee was an Establishment insider who…
Category: Secrecy
Petraeus: Poster Child for Double Standards
Official Washington’s influential neocons love former CIA Director (and retired Gen.) David Petraeus so much that his hand-slap punishment for exposing secrets, including agent identities, was applauded by many despite the double standard of harsh penalties for others, as ex-CIA analyst…
US Intel Vets Oppose Brennan’s CIA Plan
The original idea of the CIA was to have independent-minded experts assessing both short- and longer-term threats to U.S. national security. Mixing with operations and politics was always a danger, which is now highlighted by CIA Director Brennan’s reorganization, opposed by a group of U.S. intelligence…
A Dangerous CIA ‘Reform’
From the Archive: Ignoring the CIA’s original purpose to coordinate intelligence and provide unbiased analyses to U.S. presidents to avert another Pearl Harbor CIA Director Brennan is pressing ahead with a plan to merge operations with analysis, a scheme that…
Equal Justice for Petraeus and Snowden?
The Justice Department’s decision to let ex-CIA Director Petraeus off with a hand slap for giving his mistress highly sensitive secrets raises questions about the harsh punishments meted out to lower-level leakers/truth-tellers — and the threat of a long prison…
Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail
Exclusive: While lesser Americans face years in jail for leaking secrets even to inform fellow citizens of government abuses retired Gen. David Petraeus gets a misdemeanor wrist-slap for exposing covert officers and lying about it, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was jailed just for…
Seeing the Stasi Through NSA Eyes
In January when former Western intelligence officials, including from the U.S. National Security Agency, toured the old offices of East Germany’s Stasi, it was a look back into a dystopian past but also a chilling reminder of how far modern surveillance…
Curbs on Surveillance State Urged
In the post 9/11 era, the U.S. government vastly expanded its surveillance of nearly everyone on earth, even U.S. citizens, brushing aside constitutional protections in the name of security. A group of intelligence veterans urges reform of those practices to…
Netanyahu’s False Narrative
As members of the U.S. Congress bobbed up and down with applause, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spun a tale of brave little Israel fretting about its survival, but he left out the fact that Israel has a large arsenal of…
FCC Delivers a Free Speech Victory
The Democratic majority on the Federal Communications Commission sided with millions of Internet users, voting to prevent the Web from being turned into a high-speed super-highway for some and a slower-speed roadway for many, a victory for free speech and…