Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
265 Articles
East Africa Embassy Bombing Defendant Contests Miranda Waiver
In the last scheduled pre-trial hearing for alleged al-Qaeda operative known as Anas al-Libi, the defendant took the witness stand on Wednesday to contest the United States government’s…
CIA Report: Giving Rebels Weapons Without Direct Support Rarely Helps
This morning, the New York Times ran a story about an internal CIA study commissioned in the last two years that found the agency’s historic efforts to arm rebels have had a…
A Briefing on European Developments in Accounting for and Advancing Counterterrorism Actions
Fallout from European action during the “War on Terror” is ongoing in national and regional courts. The European Court of Human Rights has taken up a number of cases…
United States Stops Spying on Western Europe—for Now
The CIA has paused its espionage activities against “friendly governments in Western Europe,” according to a report by the Associated Press and ABC News that broke on Sept.…
Ongoing “Covert” Training of Syrian Rebels: But is it still covert . . . and, if so, why?
[Cross-posted at Lawfare] Last week Congress approved, and the President signed, legislation that authorizes the Secretary of Defense (see section 149) to “provide assistance,…
The Erosion of a Secret
Drone Timeline (Click to Enlarge) In connection with an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the CIA has…
Disappearing People and Disappearing the Evidence: The Deeper Significance of the SSCI Report
When the executive summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s (SSCI) report on the CIA’s torture program is finally released, it is likely to discredit a story…
Spying Among Friends: The Troubled Waters of the CIA and BND
The rapid erosion of US-German relations continues to prompt much attention and consternation on both sides of the Atlantic. The new era urged by presidential candidate Barack…
“Techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture”: Redacted CIA report summary now in the hands of the SSCI–What next? [UPDATED]
[UPDATED August 2] The President announced yesterday that the Executive branch has now provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a partially declassified version…
The Accountability Matrix Widens: Torture, Black Sites and the European Convention
Long awaited decisions by the European Court of Human Rights emerged last week (initially reported here) that substantially address torture and the complicity of European states…
European Court of Human Rights rules against Poland in CIA “black site” case
The European Court of Human Rights has handed down its much-awaited judgments in the cases of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri v. Poland and Abu Zubaydah v. Poland. The cases were brought…
Beyond the US-German Case: Understanding the Espionage “Rules of the Game”
As a former Chief of Europe Division in the CIA, I have no comment to offer concerning the Germany espionage flap, of which I know nothing, save for what I have read in the press.…