A military judge says defense lawyers for an alleged Sept. 11 plotter held at Guantánamo don't need to inspect secret CIA overseas prisons to determine whether the accused al Qaeda terrorist is competent to stand trial.
Judge Stephen Henley, an Army colonel, ruled Monday that the so-called black sites have likely changed enough since 2006 that an inspection would be of no use to Ramzi Bin al Shibh's Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers.
CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation
tactics against a terror detainee in late 2007, keeping him awake for
six straight days with permission from government lawyers. [M.D.'s helping?]
It's not that this is big news. It's just that these "change agent" CIA people keep popping up all over the place.
As the session begins, the detainee stands naked, except for a hood
covering his head. Guards shackle his arms and legs, then slip a small
collar around his neck to be used later as a handle for slamming
the detainee's head against a wall.
With the formation of this team, the administration indicated that it would more closely monitor, but not abandon, the controversial practice of sending some high-level terror detainees to other countries for questioning.
[because you can't] Enforcing the law is an important function of government. But the government has broader responsibilities. 6 reasons prosecutions [of CIA lawbreakers] are not in the nation's best interests:
The US Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reopening
nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing CIA employees
and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terrorism suspects.
Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just 7 months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders say senior White House staff members are discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.
"You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year," a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.
"Of all the outside-the mainstream notions I've posited on this blog, the one that annoys the most people is my suggestion that the CIA recruited young Barack Obama during his days at Occidental College."
The tactics -- which one official described as a threatened
execution -- were used on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the
CIA's inspector general's report on the agency's interrogation program.
Nashiri, who was captured in November 2002 and held for four years in
one of the CIA's "black site" prisons, ultimately became one of three
al-Qaeda chieftains subjected to a form of simulated drowning known as
waterboarding.
Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders. Carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft.
The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys
at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including
covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with
organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Lawyers were apparently
attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the
agency's interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the
United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.
Ray McGovern: My Take
CIA operative Gary Schroen said Cofer Black sent him to Afghanistan with orders to "Capture bin Laden, kill him, and bring his head back in a box on dry ice." As for other al Qaeda leaders, Black reportedly said, "I want their heads up on pikes."
Schroen had been stunned that, for the first time in 30 years of service, he had received orders to kill targets rather than to capture them. Black would not confirm the exact words of the order to Schroen, but did not dispute Schroen’s account.
Scotland released the only person ever convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, because he is dying of cancer. In 2006-07 credible reports emerged alleging the case against him was faked, and he was framed.
A secret CIA program to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with assassination
teams was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security
contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny,
according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events.
In March 2003, two C.I.A. officials surprised Kyle D. Foggo,
then the chief of the agency’s main European supply base, with an
unusual request. They wanted his help building secret prisons to hold
some of the world’s most threatening terrorists.
Former agency translator called to testify in Ohio election case this Saturday on Turkish infiltration of U.S. government...
Unless the Dept. of Justice re-invokes their twice-invoked "state secrets privilege" claim in order to once again gag former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, her attorneys have notified the department by hand-delivered, sworn letter of declaration [PDF] this week, that she intends to give a deposition, open to the media [Updated: see bottom of article for details], in response to a subpoena this Saturday in Washington D.C..
Edmonds has confirmed her intentions to answer any questions asked of her during the sworn proceedings, fully and publicly, during conversations with The BRAD BLOG this week. She notes that her agreement with her former employer, the FBI --- who fired her illegally after she filed whistleblower allegations about corruption and foreign infiltration in the linguistics department --- include
Seven North Carolina men have been charged with plotting to wage
"violent jihad" by "murdering, kidnapping or maiming persons" overseas.
According to a federal indictment unsealed today, the alleged
ringleader, Daniel Patrick Boyd, and six co-defendants were accused of
conspiring to provide financial and material assistance to terrorists
abroad. The indictment does not allege the men planned to attack
targets within the U.S.
A federal district judge ruled the CIA repeatedly misled him in asserting that state secrets were involved in a 15-year-old lawsuit involving allegedly illegal wiretapping. Lamberth questioned the credibility of current CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying that Panetta's testimony in the case contained significant discrepancies, and rejected an Obama administration request that the case continue to be kept secret. He released hundreds of previously secret filings.
An airstrike that Afghan officials allege killed at least 4 civilians is the first test of a new U.S. directive that American troops let Taliban fighters flee if civilian lives are at risk.
U.S. officials said it wasn't at all clear that the civilians had been killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan, saying the casualties appear to have been victims of small arms fires.
CBS claims to have Documents that shed light on the mindset and criminal past of the lead suspect in the grisly murder of a Florida couple who made full use of the Foster and Adoptive parent incentives.
[For the CIA info] Here is Congressman Larry McDonald [shortly before his murder], close colleague of Ron Paul, on CNN’s Crossfire
with conservative Pat Buchanan and liberal Tom Braden discussing the
John Birch Society in 1983. McDonald was chairman of the organization,
succeeding Robert Welch, who is heatedly discussed at the beginning of
the video. This program was aired 4months before
McDonald was killed by the Soviets’ murderous attack on the South
Korean airliner KAL007.
A CIA supervisor involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program
bragged to other CIA employees about using fire ants while during
questioning of a top terror suspect, according to several sources
formerly with the Agency. The official claimed to other Agency
employees, the sources say, to have put the stinging ants on a
detainee's head to help break him.
Ray McGovern: My Take
So far
the summer has been mild in the Washington, D.C., area. But for former Vice
President Dick Cheney the temperature is well over 100 degrees. He is sweating
profusely, and it is becoming increasingly clear why.
Cheney has broken
openly with former President George W. Bush on one issue of transcendent
importance — to Cheney. For whatever reason, Bush decided not to hand out
blanket pardons before they both rode off into the sunset.
Should allies be informed and might they block the access of the C.I.A.
teams to their targets? What if American officers or their foreign
surrogates were caught in the midst of an operation? Would such
activities violate international law or American restrictions on
assassinations overseas?
The House intelligence committee’s pursuit of a full-scale investigation into whether the CIA misled Congress raises the stakes dramatically for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
If the inquiry shows the CIA concealed information about a covert antiterrorist program, Pelosi may be vindicated for
The exact nature of the program remains a mystery. This official hinted
that the secret program involved assassinations overseas but declined
to provide further details.
A secret CIA initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authoriation to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.
Six Democrats on the U.S. House
Intelligence Committee said the head of the CIA admitted
the agency misled Congress since 2001 about “significant
actions.”
Seems Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta haven't been seeing eye to eye of late on a number of minor matters -- such as who's in charge of the intelligence community.
The latest nasty dispute,
