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Ear to the Ground

The CIA Flashes Its ‘Family Jewels’

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Posted on Jun 26, 2007
cia jewels
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Oh no, they didn’t!!!: National Security Archive officials Malcolm Byrne (left),  John Prados and Thomas Blanton (right) inspect the CIA’s “family jewels” Tuesday.

On Tuesday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden made good on his pledge to declassify nearly 700 pages of documents about some of the agency’s dirtiest laundry from the past—its “family jewels”—including details about assassination plots, wiretapping and other alarming activities.


Washington Post:

Hayden became CIA director last summer in the midst of new allegations that the intelligence community crossed legal lines by torturing terrorism suspects at secret prisons and by conducting warrantless surveillance involving Americans. His decision to release the “family jewels,” responding to a 1992 Freedom of Information Act request, was meant to convince critics that the agency embraces openness when possible.

Some documents resonate with recent intelligence controversies. Several dealt with the agency’s domestic spying on anti-Vietnam War groups during the Johnson and Nixon years. One described an operation, begun under President Richard M. Nixon in late 1972, to track telephone calls between people stateside and overseas, and foreign calls routed through the United States.

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Click here to read the full report at the National Security Archive Web site.

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By RAE, June 27, 2007 at 8:25 pm #

All I have to form an opinion regarding the CIA, or any other government agency for that matter, is hearsay gossip.

And as far as I know, there are damned few others who have any more reliable access to the TRUTH than I do. So, I conclude, that damned few really know what they’re talking about, including me.

But that irritating and trivial fact doesn’t stop us from airing our collective ignorance, does it?

I “heard” on the radio, from someone who ostensibly has reviewed the document, that no less than 140 pages are COMPLETELY WHITED OUT - in other words, BLANK.

That leaves just 560 pages with one or more words on it to be read. I’m willing to bet my entire (and paltry) old age pension, along with my first born (ain’t got one yet but I never give up the fantasy), that there isn’t a word of truth “released” that is of any consequence or importance to the CIA.

Would YOU trust that the CIA is going to tell you the TRUTH? If the opinion of the entire world counts for anything, the CIA is staffed with PROFESSIONAL LIARS right from the top to the janitor. I wouldn’t accept as true ANYTHING they “release” or report.

That said, and since they have no obligation whatsoever to release anything, or to account for any of their activities to the American public who pay their salaries, I have to ask why would they even do it?

The only answer I can come up with… they need a diversion to cover some illegal and immoral activites of likely monumental proportions in which they’re presently engaged.

Like I said, you and I will NEVER KNOW. At least not until it doesn’t matter.

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By QuyTran, June 27, 2007 at 4:39 pm #

How’s about the story of Lucky Luciano’s cooperation with CIA during the WWII ?

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By Mudwollow, June 27, 2007 at 11:58 am #

Must agree with citizen defender. The CIA would only tip its hand to divert attention from the real game:

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By Scott, June 27, 2007 at 11:40 am #

Does anyone really believe the CIA’s disclosure will amount to anything important in the scheme of things?

Oh look! Paris is free! I’ve got to go see, like totally!

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By CitizenDefender, June 27, 2007 at 9:56 am #

Project WESTPOINTER, Operation CHAOS, and CIA giving up the “family jewels” means only one thing; the CIA has moved into a whole new level of covert dirty tricks. John Perkins, a former international banker wrote in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man “that the U.S. cheats poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies. If the country refuses then the jackals of the CIA move in to assassinate their leaders.

Imagine for a moment feeling the power of being employed by the CIA or KGB. Oh the dirty tricks that you can pull on your neighbor, former friends or people you just don’t like. Who is going to challenge you?

Occasionally a rogue agent will leave and admit to these things.

Sadly, I see many of the people of the CIA as a malignant part of our government that should be banned.

Transparency in government protects Democracy not the CIA.

DemocracyNow aired a program on Monday, June 25th, 2007
The CIA’s Torture Teachers: Psychologists Helped the CIA Exploit a Secret Military Program to Develop Brutal Interrogation Tactics.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/25/1421214

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