Operation PLIERS. An internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a plan to destabilize Venezuela during the upcoming constitutional referendum. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. The full text of the memo will be released soon for verification purposes. Many previously.
posted by scalefree on Nov 28, 2007 - 42 comments

Why outing Plame mattered. If you wonder what's really at stake behind all the media buzz around the Fitzgerald indictments, read this lengthy and cogent analysis by Stratfor's no-nonsense George Friedman. "Rove and Libby had top security clearances and were senior White House officials. It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a 'bodyguard of lies' -- in Churchill's phrase -- around the truth concerning U.S. intelligence capabilities... The minimal story -- that they talked about Plame with a reporter -- is the end of the matter."
posted by digaman on Oct 18, 2005 - 89 comments

The Pond is the history of a secret, independent US intelligence-gathering group which preceded (and outlasted) the OSS. Shuffled from Cabinet to Cabinet to the CIA, it eventually ran aground against the infighting of McCarthy's Red Scare hearings and was no more by 1955.
posted by trondant on Feb 2, 2005 - 8 comments

An official Q&A with the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, alludes to some extremely scary/interesting tidbits-- the Office of Strategic Influence is still alive, John Poindexter can do anything he pleases with DARPA, we just might renew nuclear weapons testing. Don't worry, though. Rummy sez: "Anyone who is concerned ought not be. Anyone with any concern ought to be able to sleep well tonight. Nothing terrible is going to happen."
posted by LimePi on Nov 23, 2002 - 7 comments

Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans And this is justified because of National Security. We will lose much that is personal, private, but in turn we will be protefted against the bad guys. Or will we? When NASA and CIA claim they need to spy domestically, and computers gather all data on Americans, what is left that is not what Orwell had suggested might our future be like?Or, as Morth Sahl once labelled a comic record: TheFuture Lies Ahead."
posted by Postroad on Nov 9, 2002 - 97 comments

Revelations regarding Venezualen Coup Greg Palast, who's been at the front of this story ever since predicting it, gives enlightening details behind the events of Apil. It barely had anything to do with the protests and riots - Chavez was tipped off by an OPEC minister days before the coup was launched. He hid loyal soldiers in the Presidential palace and once Carmona was installed he became as much a hostage as Chavez. Chavez also says he has photos, videos and the names of American officers who entered the coup plotters' headquarters.
posted by raaka on May 13, 2002 - 30 comments

The CONET Project. A 4-CD documentary of Shortwave Number Stations, which consist of nothing but an unidentified human voice reciting a long list of seemingly random numbers. Some speculate that these signals are used for espionage by the likes of MOSSAD, the CIA and the former KGB.
There's also a great NPR feature on Number Stations (html page w/links to real audio broadcast)
posted by skwm on Dec 19, 2001 - 18 comments

An Archived New Yorker Article about the capabilities and limitations of the American intelligence apparatus. This seems very prescient, since it was published in 1999.
posted by Danf on Sep 19, 2001 - 1 comment

Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola
"Throughout the late 1950’s and early 60’s the CIA began expanding its operations. In order to effectively fight the Cold War on a global scale, it needed to establish bases in every major country. This meant that agents would need a plausible cover in order to penetrate the borders of international frontiers. They couldn’t just show up with CIA stamped on their passport ... As a solution to the problem the CIA was able to convince Coca-Cola, one of the first truly globalized companies with product distribution operations in virtually every corner of the world, to be used as a cover for the U.S. intelligence agency."
posted by bytecode on Jun 21, 2001 - 27 comments