Exclusive: For many years, the East German Stasi was viewed as the most totalitarian of intelligence services, relentlessly spying on its citizens during the Cold War. But the Stasi’s capabilities pale in comparison to what the NSA can now do, notes former U.S. intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
The idyllic island of Jeju off the southern tip of South Korea is the unlikely front line in a possible future military confrontation with China — as a major new naval base is constructed there despite determined opposition from peace activists who were joined by former U.S. intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.
From the Archive: As Israel’s Operation Protective Edge winds down with more than 1,700 Gazans – mostly civilians – dead, Israeli leaders may feel they’ve finished a recurring chore, “mowing the grass” to eliminate troublesome Palestinians, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray observed in 2012.
Some of our special stories from April looked behind the Ukraine crisis, challenged the conventional wisdom on the Syria-Sarin dispute, exposed U.S. hypocrisy on Iran, explained the hard truth about Israeli “apartheid,” and explored Oklahoma’s rush to a ghoulish execution.
Exclusive: U.S. intelligence, best known for collecting information about people including Americans, did have one agency that gave the public access to its translations of foreign news articles – until this year when the sharing was shut down, as ex-intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray explains.
Some of our special stories in December 2013 focused on the Saudi role in terrorism, the importance of national security “leakers,” the collapsing case pinning an infamous Sarin attack on Syria, and the renewed war over “the war on Christmas.”
In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.
The year 2013 saw the United States bogged down in ideological conflicts and veering close to new wars in the Middle East, but reporting at Consortiumnews.com contributed to a fuller understanding of the facts domestically and internationally as the fever of partisanship and warfare showed signs of breaking.
Last March – before Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s sweeping collection of phone and other data – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said no such operation existed. Now, a group of ex-national security officials urge President Obama to fire Clapper.
Exclusive: The U.S. intelligence community vacuums up vast amounts of data, but it has one agency, World News Connection, that gives back information to the public – except that the service is getting shut down at year’s end, notes ex-intelligence analyst Elizabeth Murray.