Tag: CIA

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…

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…

Planting False Evidence on Iran

Prior to the U.S. intelligence community’s 2007 assessment that Iran was not working on a nuclear weapons program, there was a scramble among U.S. and Israeli officials to show that it was. The CIA’s Operation Merlin also revealed that U.S.…

Ronald Reagan’s Torture

From the Archive: George W. Bush’s torture policies may have been extraordinary in the direct participation of U.S. personnel but they were far from unique, with Ronald Reagan having followed a similar path in his anti-leftist wars in Central America,…

Convicting Sterling to Chill Whistleblowing

In the cause of protecting government secrets, the CIA and Justice Department made an example of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling by convicting him of exposing a dubious covert operation without presenting clear-cut evidence that he did, a chilling message to others, notes Norman…

Convicting the ‘Invisible’ Jeffrey Sterling

Some journalism groups support reporters who use anonymous sources but shun the people accused of acting as those sources, a double standard that left former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling out in the cold almost alone facing government reprisals, as Norman…

Hiding the Political Subtext of Sterling Trial

Whenever lawyers for ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling sought to illuminate the political context for his prosecution as a leaker, prosecutors objected with the support of the federal judge, but politics has always lurked in the case’s background, writes Norman Solomon.

A Leak Case Based on Fear and Guesses

The U.S. government based its leak case against ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on little more than circumstantial evidence that he had spoken to reporter James Risen though it was unclear about what and lots of fear-mongering about Iran and nukes,…