In his TK News Substack newsletter, Matt Taibbi compares the relationship between U.S. news organizations and the intelligence community in 2014 and today. Fast forward seven years. Julian Assange is behind bars, and may die there. Snowden is in exile in Russia. Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have been rehabilitated and are all paid contributors...
Category: Blog
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Spy Talk: 5 Ways to Read an Intelligence Report
From the reliable SpyTalk, retired CIA official Ronald Marks has some commonsense advice for those trying to understand the intelligence process. First of all, do remember it is analysis, not crystal ball gazing. Never in my long history with the CIA has there been one perfect piece of information that tells the whole story. The...
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Accused Trump Contributor Worked for CIA For Many Years
They call it “graymail:” where a criminal defendant threatens to disclose intelligence connections in open court to discourage or deflect legal prosecution. Imaad Zuberi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, is facing 12 years in prison and an $18 million fine on charges related to illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. campaign coffers, both Democrats...
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Will U.S. See a Rural Insurgency?
In a smart piece for Just Security, Vasabjit Banerjee looks at how rural insurgencies have emerged in countries around the world. The United States could be next, he says, especially if Donald Trump is turned out of office. The militias are dispersed, and lack regional organizations but they have a strong socio-cultural base in rural...
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RIP Fred Hampton, Black Panther Assassinated by the FBI
[This piece was first published in Counterpunch, Dec. 4, 2019. I’m republishing it for Black History Month 2021] Fifty one years ago, a squad of Chicago police officers killed Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in a pre-dawn raid on the apartment where they were sleeping. In the decades since, a revealing body...