New information on the 2014 activities of European police cooperation groups and networks has been published by the German government (pdf), in response to questions from Die Linke parliamentary deputies. The answers include information on the work of Europe’s secretive undercover policing coordination networks. However, the government claims – as it has done in the […]

You’d hope that construction work would be one area of life where tabloid stories about “health ‘n’ safety going mad” were actually true, in order to stop people getting in the way of machines designed to smash concrete, or falling off some 20th floor scaffolding. In fact, for years, the opposite has been the case, […]

Theresa May says new extremism analysis unit is compiling list of legal but unacceptable individuals and groups to prevent another Trojan horse scandal The Home Office is drawing up a blacklist of extremist individuals and organisations with whom the government and public sector should not engage, Theresa May has revealed. The list of legal but […]

Demo outside parliament, TUC Day of Action on Blacklisting in 2012 Demo outside parliament, TUC Day of Action on Blacklisting in 2012 REVIEW: The communications revolution of the past 40 years has transformed our capacity to hold and use information about large numbers of people. As databases grow from hundreds to thousands and then tens […]

Ex-minister Peter Hain says whistleblower’s disclosure of spying operations during 1990s raises questions about parliamentary sovereignty Police conducted spying operations on a string of Labour politicians during the 1990s, covertly monitoring them even after they had been elected to the House of Commons, a whistleblower has revealed. Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer, said […]

New investigation reveals agency’s actions amounted to ‘substantial non-compliance’ with its own rules The FBI violated its internal rules while spying on Tar Sands Blockade activists in Texas protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, a new report shows. (Photo: Tar Sands Blockade/flickr/cc) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) broke its own internal rules when it spied […]

A new report confirms for the first time that the FBI spied on activists in Texas who tried to stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Documents from the FBI reveal it failed to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened its investigation, which was run from its Houston field office. The files […]

More than 18 months after federal investigation violated internal rules, activists say they were still watchlisted at the airport, visited at home by a terrorism task force and detained for hours because they ‘seemed like protesters’ An activist was placed on a US government watchlist for domestic flights after being swept up in an FBI […]

Houston investigation amounted to ‘substantial non-compliance’ of rules Internal memo labels pipeline opponents as ‘environmental extremists’ FBI failed to get approval before it opened files on protesters in Texas The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and […]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation violated its own guidelines in 2013 when it investigated environmental advocates who opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, the F.B.I. acknowledged on Tuesday. The bureau had received information about plots to damage part of the existing Keystone pipeline, which moves oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, according […]

Google had warned that the rule change represents a “monumental” constitutional concern. March 16, 2015 A judicial advisory panel Monday quietly approved a rule change that will broaden the FBI’s hacking authority despite fears raised by Google that the amended language represents a “monumental” constitutional concern. The Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules voted […]

Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet— INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google […]

Dick Schoof, coördinator van de NCTV, oogt al geruime tijd paranoia. In zijn DTN’s zoekt hij onder iedere steen naar het jihadistische gevaar. De coördinator terrorismebestrijding stelt in het tweede dreigingsbeeld [DTN-2, september 2005] dat ‘het tegengaan van zelfmoordaanslagen moeilijk, zo niet onmogelijk is.’ Deze conclusie, die wordt getrokken naar aanleiding van de aanslagen in […]

In de internationale analyse gaat het vooral over de directe link tussen internationale gebeurtenissen en het mogelijke gevaar in Nederland. Nu blijft dat natuurlijk koffiedik kijken. Hypothetisch kan iedereen die gaat deelnemen aan de gewapende strijd in bijvoorbeeld Syrië een tegenstander worden en bij terugkeer, hier willen toeslaan. Die gedachtegang vloeit voort uit de realiteit […]

One day after the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the assault had been planned 10 days earlier by an al-Qaeda affiliate, according to documents released Monday by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. “The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was planned and […]

Seventeen months before President Obama dismissed the Islamic State as a “JV team,” a Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted the rise of the terror group and likely establishment of a caliphate if its momentum was not reversed. While the report was circulated to the CIA, State Department and senior military leaders, among others, it’s not […]

Canadian military intelligence officers predicted in 2011 that Libya could descend into a lengthy civil war if foreign countries provided assistance to rebels opposing the country’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen. The warning, made just days before several countries, including Canada, began their March 2011 bombing campaign against Gaddafi’s […]

‘Jihadi John’ was able to join IS for one simple reason: from Quilliam to al-Muhajiroun, Britain’s loudest extremists have been groomed by the security services Every time there’s a terrorist attack that makes national headlines, the same talking heads seem to pop up like an obscene game of “whack-a-mole”. Often they appear one after the […]

Intelligence assessment concludes abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi allowed dissident group to be taken over by exponents of al-Qaida Abdel Hakim Belhaj A secret UK-Libyan rendition programme in which two Libyan opposition leaders were kidnapped and flown to Tripoli along with their families had the effect of strengthening al-Qaida, according to an […]

Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time friend of the Clintons, claimed David Cameron backed a French plot to create a break away zone eastern Libya Britain acted deceitfully in Libya and David Cameron authorised an MI6 plan to “break up” the country, a close confidante of Hillary Clinton claimed in a series of secret reports sent to […]

Links between MI5 and Gaddafi’s intelligence during Tony Blair’s government more extensive than previously thought, according to documents Blair visit to Africa Britain’s intelligence agencies engaged in a series of previously unknown joint operations with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government and used the information extracted from rendition victims as evidence during partially secret court proceedings in […]

BRITAIN’S security service MI5 asked Muammar Gaddafi’s secret services for regular updates on what terrorist suspects were revealing under interrogation in Libyan prisons, where torture was routine. MI5 also agreed to trade information with Libyan spymasters on 50 British-based Libyans judged to be a threat to Gaddafi’s regime. The disclosures come from secret intelligence documents […]

The commander of anti-government forces in Tripoli has told the BBC he wants an apology from Britain and America for the way he was transferred to a prison in Libya in 2004. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was then a terror suspect, says he was tortured after being arrested in Bangkok and taken to the Libyan […]

US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi’s former spy chief. The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli. The UK’s MI6 also apparently gave […]

Embattled Libyan leader says protesters being manipulated as pro- and anti-government forces clash across the country. Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s leader, has said that al-Qaeda is responsible for the uprising against him, amid attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces against anti-government protesters in several cities. On Friday, tens of thousands gathered at cities in the country’s east controlled […]

TRIPOLI, Libya — Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for […]

Associated Press= TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies worked closely with the ousted regime of Moammar Gadhafi, sharing tips and cooperating in handing over terror suspects for interrogation to a regime known to use torture, according to a trove of security documents discovered after the fall of Tripoli. The revelations […]

The true story of how CIA infiltrated the National Student Association is even worse than we thought. Here’s why At this point in our history, most Americans are quite familiar with the Central Intelligence Agency’s habit of being creative with (or, depending on your ideological leanings, outright contemptuous of) the rule of law. But although […]

The CIA’s manipulation of the National Student Association foreshadowed other forms of Cold War blowback that compromised democracy at home. This book review appears in the Winter 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism […]

Consider the following strategic dilemma. You are a superpower that hopes to convert other nations to principles you hold vital—these might be individual liberty, private property, and free markets. There is another superpower out there that is hoping to do the same thing, to persuade other nations to embrace its principles—for example, social equality, state […]

Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against CommunismPatriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism by Karen M Paget When I was growing up in the 1960’s my parents used to tell me […]

It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, […]

When Seymour Hersh releases each of his blockbuster reports, what supposedly makes his claims authoritative is, more than anything else, the mere fact that they come from Seymour Hersh. The reader is meant to trust the word of retired intelligence officials, consultants, and other unnamed experts, because Hersh trusts them. And we are meant to […]

On May 20, 2015, the ODNI released a sizeable tranche of documents recovered during the raid on the compound used to hide Usama bin Ladin. The release, which followed a rigorous interagency review, aligns with the President’s call for increased transparency–consistent with national security prerogatives–and the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the ODNI to […]

Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden (not to deny the effectiveness of waterboarding, but it’s just not applicable in this case.) Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to […]

Adnan Khan explains why Hersh’s controversial story about the al Qaeda leader’s killing could be true—and demands our attention This week, Seymour Hersh, America’s most famous and controversial investigative journalist, caused an uproar with his allegations that the U.S. government account of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was a lie. According […]

Osama bin Laden was protected by elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus in return for millions of dollars of Saudi cash, according to a controversial new account of the operation to kill the world’s most wanted man. Raelynn Hillhouse, an American security analyst, claims his whereabouts were finally revealed when a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward […]

The real story of how the US found bin Laden raises some key questions, namely: Why did the Saudis pay the Pakistanis to keep bin Laden? Why did the Pakistani’s cooperate? Did the ISI run the safe house itself or did it use a third party? How permeable was the safe house? A key to […]

OSAMA bin Laden was protected by elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus in return for millions of dollars of Saudi cash, according to an account of the operation to kill the world’s most wanted man. Raelynn Hillhouse, an American security analyst, claimed that bin Laden’s whereabouts were revealed when a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to […]

Mitten in der BND­Affäre verbreitet sich diese Nachricht: Der Bundesnachrichtendienst soll den Amerikanern einen entscheidenden Hinweis gegeben haben, der zur Ergreifung von Osama Bin Laden führte. Ist das plausibel? Hat der deutsche Geheimdienst BND den Amerikanern bei der Ergreifung von Osama Bin Laden entscheidend geholfen? Das berichtet die “Bild am Sonntag” (BamS) unter Berufung auf […]