CNN: CIA report: No issue with spy agency's partnership with N.Y. police

According to a CIA investigation, the CIA is doing no wrong by collaborating with the NY Police Department in "covert surveillance" of Muslims in NYC.  "The CIA inspector general has completed a review of the CIA's relationship with the NYPD and has found no violation of law or executive order on the part of CIA," said agency spokesman Preston Golson. "The IG also found no evidence that any part of the agency's support to the NYPD constituted 'domestic spying.'"

Um.. so, we can trust the CIA to police itself?  Really?

Maybe something got lost along the way between Sept 11, 2011 and the Homeland Security Department and other things. 

The CIA is supposed to only be for use outside the U.S. and its use inside the U.S. is supposed to be illegal.  The phrase above, 'domestic spying', is key as that's what would be illegal. 

There is a slippery slope situation that's akin to the old rules for financial institutions that kept various financial services in separate companies.  One part of the financial collapse was the repeal of those old rules, and the subsequent merger of financial institutions allowing services that should have been kept in separate companies to be done by single companies.  While that probably contributed to some kind of efficiency in the financial institutions, it gave financial institutions opportunities to screw with the system and commit questionable practices that eventually messed things up.  I'm sorry, I didn't say that very well.

In any case the thing here is to draw a sharp distinction between the agencies that fight off threats from foreign countries, and the agencies that maintain internal stability within the country.  There are distinct policy and strategical differences between being focused on external enemies, or focused on your own people.  It's inappropriate to use the forces who are trained to fight enemies on your own people, because your own people are not enemies.

Well, except, that is, there's been an effort to label Muslims who live in the U.S. as potential enemies.  That's a sad side result of the Sept 11 attacks.


CIA report: No issue with spy agency's partnership with N.Y. police

Doing a little searching turned up: NYPD And CIA Had Secret “Mosque Crawlers” Operation

The NYPD has developed a massive domestic spying operation and is operating well outside the boundaries of NYC.  NYPD police officers are getting training from the CIA on spying techniques.  The CIA is working with NYPD. 

The targets are minority communities, especially Muslims.

The article describes it as "trolling", namely just scanning everything in the minority neighborhoods.  The NYPD is quoted with a denial of this, and says they're "simply following leads".

A key person in this is David Cohen, a retired 35-year veteran of the CIA, who became the NYC police department’s first civilian intelligence chief.  He had been a high ranking CIA officer.  Cohen’s tenure as head of CIA operations, the nation’s top spy, was so contentious that in 1997, The New York Times editorial page took the unusual step of calling for his ouster.

After Cohen came on board, the CIA Director George Tenet assigned Larry Sanchez to serve as a CIA officer, on CIA payroll, but operating inside the NYPD.  He had full access to CIA resources, as an operative working inside the NYPD.

There had never been an arrangement like it, and some senior CIA officials soon began questioning whether Tenet was allowing Sanchez to operate on both sides of the wall that’s supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business.

Cohen created a secret squad that would soon infiltrate Muslim neighborhoods, according to several current and former officials directly involved in the program.  This involved assigning NYPD police officers from specific ethnic backgrounds to infiltrate neighborhoods with matching ethnic backgrounds.  These officers were called "rakers" and were charged with hanging out, observing, looking everywhere for "hot spots".

Cohen said he wanted the squad to “rake the coals, looking for hot spots,” former officials recalled. The undercover officers soon became known inside the department as rakers.

CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July

This is one of the significant bits of news which point to possible Bush Administration complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks. This Guardian (of London) article from November 2001 states that "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.... Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.... The CIA chief was seen in the lift, on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards."

In general the article undermines the claim that Osama bin Laden has been cut off from the Saudi leading families. Supposedly when Osama bin Laden became a radical extremist he was cut off from his family and the Saudi officialdom shunned him, banning him from returning to Saudi Arabia. Supposedly. However this article as well as many others show that there are continuous contacts between Osama bin Laden, his family, and prominent Saudi people.

The particular consternating question is if CIA agents had contact with Osama bin Laden in July 2001, then why didn't we do something about him? At that time he was sought over responsibility over several previous attacks against the U.S., such as the bombing's in Kenya and of the U.S.S. Cole.

Article Reference: 

CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July

extvideo: 

Re: The government is reading your mail

The government is reading your mail concerns a signing statement perpetrated by Pres Bush along with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. I haven't read the act but it's apparently a general, across the board, enactment of changes that cover a broad range of issues. At issue is one section of the President's Statement on H.R. 6407, the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act". A section which deals with the opening of first class mail.

Back in May 2005 the administration attempted to Expand the "PATRIOT" act and beef up the governments powers to snoop on first class mail. First class mail is the regular stamped envelope mail that we used to use to send letters to one another (before E-Mail).

There is a long-standing power the government has to record "mail covers". The mail cover is the outside of the envelope, things like names and addresses, etc. The government has long had the power to record this information, effectively to take a picture of every piece of mail going through the post office. And if you ponder it for a moment, clearly that much information can be of use to investigators to establish links between individuals.

The signing statement includes this paragraph:

The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.

So.. the President is now asserting a new power, a power to open mail. The justifications are for hazardous materials inspection or to protect human life, noble causes no doubt, but also include "foreign intelligence collection". This is the administration who is already illegally wiretapping U.S. citizens and who knows what other illegal spying they're doing.

18 Secret Armies Of The CIA

18 Secret Armies Of The CIA is an interesting rundown of 18 different CIA-backed armies.

CIA "sitting on" damning 9/11 report

Bush suppresses damning CIA report on 9/11
Intelligence official says a report that is "very embarrassing for the administration" is being withheld from Congress until after the election. By Robert Scheer

http://www.salon.com/opinion/scheer/.../ciareport/

Robert Scheer's article cites an intelligence official (unnamed) saying a very damning 9/11 report, that "names names", has been ready for release since June 2004. But it is being witheld despite the fact that Congress specifically requested this report two years ago.

It's easy to see this in the worst light possible, as Scheer does. He implies the report must be so damaging, that the dissent-shy Bush administration would obviously suppress the report. The source is claiming they're waiting until after the election ... for obvious reasons.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

The stated topic of the report is most interesting, and we all would like to see this:

"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

According to Scheer's source, the only valid reason to withhold a report like this is "national security". But this escape hole hasn't even been invoked. They're simply witholding it.

In the absence of evidence the mind wants to fill the void with ...what? In this case we all have the worst suspicions possible, don't we? I, for example, have already called for the impeachment of President Bush on the skimpy evidence available to me. I certainly don't have the whole story, and look where the void of hard evidence has led me?

To be sure, the evidence we do have in the public is already very damning. I did not call for President Bush's impeachment lightly, but it was only after assuring myself it was highly likely he and his administration have been lying through their teeth for years. After all, if lying about sexual escapades warrants impeachment, then so does lying to create a war.

In any case, that's all the meaning this gives us. A lack of truth, and wishing for the truth to be revealed. As the golden rule says, thems that gots the gold makes the rules. Heavy sigh.