By Allan Lengel For AOL News WASHINGTON — A Justice Department document asks the simple question: Why Go Undercover on Facebook, MySpace, etc.? Then it goes on to explain: “Communicate with suspects/targets” … “gain access to non-public info” … “map social relationships/networks.” The document, part of a Justice Department PowerPoint presentation, shows how some federal…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has picked one of the nation’s most tenacious federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, to investigate “whether defense lawyers at Guantánamo Bay compromised the identities of covert CIA officers,” Newsweek’s DeClassified column reported. “The probe was triggered by the discovery last year…
By Jeff Stein Spy Talk WASHINGTON — Which is it now — imminent terrorist threat, or no threat? Certain or uncertain? Only last month U.S. intelligence officials were saying the Nigerian underwear bomber slipped through their nets because they didn’t think al Qaeda could or would mount another attack here. Yesterday, they warned that a…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — There’s no shortage of B.S. in this town. Enter John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative. Reporter Jeff Stein has penned an article in Foreign Policy magazine saying that Kiriakou’s claim that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists was simply misleading. Stein writes that “Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — James McTighe, the son of a CIA case officer, will take charge of the FBI’s Salt Lake City Division, replacing Timothy J. Fuhrman, who was recently named special agent in charge of the Mobile, Ala. office. McTighe had last served as special assistant for deputy director John Pistole at…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Ex-DEA agent Richard Horn may have lost his privacy, but he’s a lot richer as a result. The U.S. government has agreed to pay him $3 million to settle a lawsuit in Washington in which Horn alleged that the CIA and a U.S. diplomat spied on him and illegally wiretapped his…
This will continue to be a political hot potato. But it seems that the Justice Dept. should look into cases in which CIA employees went beyond the guidelines of interrogation. By Carrie Johnson, Jerry Markon and Julie Tate Washington Post Staff Writers WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s review of detainee abuse by the CIA will…
Here’s what Alberto Gonzales originally said: “We obviously worked very hard during the Bush administration to establish ground rules to establish parameters about how to deal with terrorists, because we’re a nation of laws, and if people go beyond that, I think it is legitimate to question and examine that conduct to ensure people are…
