All posts tagged ‘CIA’

CIA Refuses to Confirm or Deny Drone Attacks Obama Brags About

Armed MQ-9 Reaper drones like this one are used by both the US military and the CIA. Photo: USAF

The Central Intelligence Agency continues to refuse to confirm or deny the covert military use of drones to kill suspected terrorists overseas, despite President Barack Obama’s and even a former CIA director’s admission of the agency’s targeted killing program.

Despite numerous public comments on the CIA’s drone attacks in far-flung locales such as Yemen from various government officials, including former CIA Director Leon Panetta and President Obama, the CIA is taking the position in court that it would have to eliminate you with one of its drones if it acknowledged the program.

So on Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal appeals court to expedite a hearing (.pdf) on its Freedom of Information Act request seeking details of the drone program. Hours later, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set a September 20 oral argument. (.pdf)

The development comes as 26 members of Congress asked Obama, in a letter, to consider the consequences of drone killing and to explain the necessity of the program. The use of drones to shoot missiles from afar at vehicles and buildings that the nation’s intelligence agencies believe are being used by suspected terrorists began under the Bush administration and was widened by Obama to allow the targeting of American citizens. Drone strikes by the Pentagon and the CIA have sparked backlashes from foreign governments and populations, as the strikes often kill civilians, including women and children.
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Judge Refuses to Sanction CIA for Destroying Torture Tapes

A federal judge won’t hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of detainee interrogations that included the use of a torture technique known as waterboarding, ruling instead Wednesday that the spy agency merely committed “transgressions” for its failure to abide by his court order.

Punishing the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of New York ruled, “would serve no beneficial purpose.” (.pdf)

Hellerstein wrote that CIA officials responsible for producing the tapes in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit might “not have been aware of the videotapes’ existence before they were destroyed.” The judge also said officials who ordered the tapes’ destruction in 2005 might not have been “aware of court orders requiring identification or production of the videotapes.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the long-running FOIA case and asked for a contempt finding, had requested that Judge Hellerstein order depositions and discovery to ascertain if CIA officials destroyed the 92 videotapes of post-9/11 interrogations of terrorism suspects after they had notice of court orders to produce them.

The judge declined.

“I will not allow additional discovery,” the judge said. He added that the CIA has admitted that some of the videos showed the CIA using waterboarding torture techniques. Footage on one tape, he said, had shown an interrogator who “continuously applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose.” The Obama administration has declined to prosecute CIA officials for torture, citing legal memos that authorized the techniques.

Hellerstein said because of the tapes’ destruction, the CIA “improved protocols for the retention of records potentially relevant to an investigation or a judicial, congressional, or administrative proceeding.”

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CIA Says Global-Warming Intelligence Is ‘Classified’

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Two years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency announced it was creating a center to analyze the geopolitical ramifications of “phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources.”

But whatever work the Center on Climate Change and National Security has done remains secret.

In response to National Security Archive scholar Jeffrey Richelson‘s Freedom of Information Act request, the CIA said all of its work is “classified.”

“We completed a thorough search for records responsive to your request and located material that we determined is currently and properly classified and must be denied in its entirety,” (.pdf) Susan Viscuso, the agency’s information and privacy coordinator, wrote Richelson.

Richelson, in a Thursday telephone interview from Los Angeles, said the CIA has not released anything about its climate change research, other than its initial press release announcing the center’s founding.

“As far as I know, they have not released any of their products or anything else,” Richelson said. “There was a statement announcing its creation and that has been pretty much it.”

Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, blasted the CIA’s response to Richelson.

The CIA’s position, he said, means all “the center’s work is classified and there is not even a single study, or a single passage in a single study, that could be released without damage to national security. That’s a familiar song, and it became tiresome long ago.”

When the center was announced, the CIA said it would become “a powerful asset recognized throughout our government, and beyond, for its knowledge and insight.”

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Tools of Tradecraft: More Spy Gear From the CIA, Others

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Kiss of Death
  • Kiss of Death
  • Button Cam
  • Spy Umbrella
  • Seriously Savage Rectal Houdini Kit
  • Cyanide Specs
  • Cyanide Gas Gun
  • Shoe Bug
  • Turd Transmitter
  • Pipe Pistol
  • Steineck Watchcam
  • Tree Stump Bug
  • Fountain Pen Camera
  • Coin Cache
  • Coal Bomb and Camouflage Kit
  • Glove Pistol
  • Canteen Bomb
  • Pigeon Spy Cam
  • Cufflink Cache
  • Smoking Kills
  • Fly Button Compass

Every good spy story needs a sequel.

Last month, we published a gallery of CIA spy tools that was so popular, we decided to publish a follow-up with more gear.

We've expanded the rogue's gallery of ingenious spy gadgets with a raft of devious tricks from the former Soviet bloc and other countries, including a lipstick gun, shoe bug and a seriously savage rectal Houdini kit (you'll understand it when you see the pic). We hope you like these as much as you liked the others. All images are courtesy of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

Above:

Kiss of Death

For the spy-op gone bad, or simply for any Natscha who found herself out to dinner with the date from hell, this Cold War-era KGB lipstick gun delivered the kiss of death with a single 4.5mm shot.

Photo: Courtesy International Spy Museum

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Tools of Tradecraft: The CIA’s Historic Spy Kit

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  • Letter Remover
  • Letter Remover
  • Stereoscope and Case
  • Dragonfly Insectothopter
  • CIA Semi-Submersible
  • Microdot Camera
  • Single-Use Encoder Pads
  • “Dead” Drop Spike
  • M-209 Cipher Box
  • Pigeon Camera
  • Surveillance Fashion
  • Code in a Compact
  • Escape Map
  • A-12 Spurs
  • Silver Dollar Concealer
  • Silver Dollar Concealer Interior
  • CIA ID Card for Allen W. Dulles
  • Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife
  • Minox Camera
  • Seismic Intruder Detection Device
  • Tire Spike
  • Tobacco Pouch Camera

Whenever James Bond needed a nifty device to snap a surreptitious surveillance picture or escape the gilded clutches of Auric Goldfinger, he could count on the ingenious minds in the Secret Service's Q Division to devise a solution. Real-world Bonds working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and its precursor the Office of Strategic Services, could turn to the Office of Research and Development for similar tradecraft tools.

From mosquito drones to couture cameras, the CIA had its agents' needs covered. Some of these devices are now displayed in the CIA's museum, located at the agency's Langley, Virginia, headquarters.

Although the museum is not open to the public, recently the CIA launched a Flickr stream with images of some of its declassified historic spy tools. Here's a few of the best from the collection, even if our own Danger Room was a bit disappointed by the CIA's choices.

Above:

"Belly Buster" Hand-Crank Audio Drill

The CIA used the “Belly Buster” drill during the late 1950s and early 1960s to drill holes into masonry in order to implant listening devices. After assembly, the base of the drill was held firmly against the stomach, while the handle was cranked manually. The kit came with several drill bits and accessories.


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