The New York Times reports that a wide variety of sources are sharing information about top secret National Security Agency intercepts of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The story is less interesting for what it tells us about MBS’s complicity in the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October. MBS’s role is well-established. What this...
Category: Activities
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Barr and Bolton Undermined Congressional Oversight of CIA
The past is prologue to the Trump administration. Thirty years ago, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Attorney General Nominee William Barr were fighting congressional oversight of the CIA. As legal advisers to President Reagan, they insisted that the president did not need to disclose all covert operations to Congress, that Congress’s power of the...
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Iran Regime Change 101: Build Exile Front Groups
With the Trump administration pursuing “regime change” operations in Venezuela and Iran, understanding the nature and history of such operations is essential. One common denominator, from Cuba in the early 1960s to Iraq in 2002, is creating front groups of exiles to create the appearance of legitimacy. In the excellent LobeLog, Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at...
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Targeting Russia’s IRA, Twitter Closes More Accounts
U.S. intelligence agencies are not the only ones who say Russian influence operations against the United States continue. On January 31, Twitter extended its purge of “potential information operations” by announcing the deletion of 418 Russian accounts 2,617 Iranian accounts 1,196 Venezuelan accounts Twitter’s actions are a snapshot of the information warfare battlefield. From Russia,...
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‘The Report’: Dianne Feinstein’s War With the CIA
This movie premiered recently at the Sundance film festival, which means it might be headed to a theater near you. That depends on whether a studio thinks that a movie that is critical of both the CIA and President Obama has commercial prospects. I hope so. The story of how the CIA–with the help of...