“To promote someone so heavily involved in the torture program to the top position at the CIA, the agency responsible for one of the darkest chapters in our history, is a move that I’m very wary of.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — March 23 2018
March 29 2018 — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has sent a letter to the CIA asking for the declassification of Gina Haspel’s records. Continue reading
“The person who’s putting the content on Facebook always owns the information, and that’s why this is such an important thing.”
Mark Zuckerberg — BBC interview 2009
In a 2009 interview with the BBC’s Laura Trevelyan, Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will not share people’s information with other parties. Follow us on twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“By devoting so much attention to the Russia story, journalists are failing in the difficult job of developing sources within what the spy world calls “hard targets”—the CIA, the NSA, and other parts of the intelligence community. No one, it seems, deems it necessary to explore the ways in which the U.S. intelligence establishment has for years brazenly hacked, bugged, and stolen data from the elections of others—even friends and neighbors such as Mexico. America the victim is always a far better story than America the perpetrator.”
James Bamford — Author and NSA Expert
NSA expert James Bamford says the reports of Russian interference in the 2016 US election are overblown. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“Even if torture works, it cannot be tolerated — not in one case or a thousand or a million. If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable. I may have found myself on the wrong side of government on torture. But I’m on the right side of history. There are things we should not do, even in the name of national security. One of them, I now firmly believe, is torture.”
Former CIA Analyst John Kiriakou
March 27 2017 — Doing Time Like A Spy is former CIA analyst John Kiriakou’s memoir of his twenty-three months in prison. Using life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“I supervised Gina Haspel when I worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. I found her to be smart, tough and effective. Foreign liaison services who have worked with her uniformly walked away impressed. Out of all of the chaos coming out of the White House these days, the one bit of promising news is the nomination of Haspel as the new CIA director.”
Former CIA Robert Baer
“If you do not withdraw the nomination of Gina Haspel and she is confirmed, this will cast a moral stain on the vast numbers of patriotic and ethically upright Americans who serve their country in the field of national security. It will also be a continuation of the steady erosion of human rights standards and rule of law post-9/11.”
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) — MEMORANDUM FOR The President (March 25 2018)
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel, and CIA Chief Operating Officer Brian Bulatao
Gina Haspel, the Deputy Director of the CIA, has been nominated to replace Director Pompeo. If confirmed, she will be the CIA’s first-ever female director. But her nomination has reopened old wounds and she will face a tough battle in the Senate.
Critics point out that Haspel was a key part of the CIA torture program and its illegal cover-up. Is it actually true? Because of her entire life spent in the CIA clandestine service — also known as the Directorate of Operations — very little is known about her life.
Here is a short biography of Gina Haspel based on information available in the public domain. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“Over the course of your career with the intelligence community, you have served in positions of responsibility that have intersected with the CIA’s program of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques. These techniques included the practice of waterboarding, forced nudity and humiliation, facial and abdominal slapping, dietary manipulation, stress positions, cramped confinement, striking, and more than 48 hours of sleep deprivation. We now know that these techniques not only failed to deliver actionable intelligence, but actually produced false and misleading information. Most importantly, the use of torture compromised our values, stained our national honor, and threatened our historical reputation.”
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Washington, D.C. March 23 2018 – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President Trump’s nominee to be CIA Director, Gina Haspel, asking her to explain her involvement in the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program during the course of her career with the intelligence community. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“For so long, we had resisted having standards about whether something’s newsworthy because we did not consider ourselves a service that was predominantly for the distribution of news. And that was wrong! We have a responsibility here. I think we recognize that. This has been a learning for us.”
Elliot Schrage — Facebook’s vice president of global communications, marketing, and public policy
March 24 2017 — French President Francois Hollande has accused Russia of trying to interfere in the upcoming Presidential campaign. At the request of several Intelligence Agencies, Facebook and Google are joining forces in France to take a stand against ‘fake news’ propaganda. But some fear that the cure might be worse than the disease. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“Look at what Facebook, Google, Twitter and Tinder know about you, and consider whether you’re worried about the right things. This law is for the safety of the Netherlands and for the Dutch people… I am voting in favour.”
Rob Bertholee — Head of National Intelligence Agency
“Even though it is certain the law will come into effect on May 1, critics were able to enforce a national advisory referendum on the issue this March. With the government under pressure, the achievement of the Dutch intelligence apparatus is a very welcome PR success.”
Max Smeets — Postdoctoral fellow in cybersecurity at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
AIVD Headquarters — Zoetermeer
March 21 2018 — Dutch voters had to decide whether spy agencies should have the power to install bulk taps on Internet traffic. They voted by a majority of 49.5% to 46.5% against the new legislation. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“Let my blood be a seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality.”
Archbishop Oscar Romero
“His ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the most poor and marginalized.”
Pope Francis
“There are clear [evidential] threads on who gave the original order and who paid for the murder that any concerted investigation in El Salvador would absolutely be able to gather enough evidence to prosecute those involved.”
Matt Eisenbrandt — Assassination of a Saint
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was a prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. He spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture. Romero was assassinated while offering Mass in the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence. No one was ever convicted for the crime. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
“In absence of evidence, we definitely need Poirot in Salisbury!”
Russian Embassy in London — March 18 2018
“We actually have evidence within the last 10 years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.”
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
“Before we set off on Cold War II with Russia — leading perhaps to the shooting war we avoided in Cold War I — let’s try to get this one right.”
Pat Buchanan — Former senior advisor to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan
Hercule Poirot — here portrayed by David Suchet — is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson now claims that Russia has been stockpiling the nerve agent used in the attack on an ex-spy and his daughter for a decade. Johnson believes that Russian president Vladimir Putin directly ordered this assassination. Pat Buchanan — a former senior advisor to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan — argues that this allegation is pure nonsense. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading
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