 2500 years after Sun Tzu CIA: The use of journalists |
 So called independent journalists How to become a spy (and why not) 2500 years after Sun Tzu | ||
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 Sun Tzu (500 BC): The Use Of Spies So called independent journalists
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December 07, 2001 Is CIA Using Journalistic Cover In Afghanistan?Agency Won't Discuss Taliban Defector's Claim By Todd Shields WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency says its policy is not to use journalistic cover for its operations abroad, but it also says tough cases might force it to do so. Afghanistan may offer one current example. A high-ranking defector from Afghanistan's Taliban movement told The Washington Post late last month that he was visited "two or three times" by U.S. intelligence agents posing as journalists. Mohammed Khaksar made the claim in an interview in Kabul, Afghanistan. The CIA declined to discuss the matter. The media have long objected to intelligence agencies using the cover of journalism, saying such a practice could expose reporters in the field to potentially lethal suspicion. "That adds an unnecessary risk," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, based in Arlington, Va. A CIA watchdog offered a different perspective. "In their point of view, there may be higher values than the protection of journalists -- and I'm not sure they're wrong," said Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "It may save many lives." Todd Shields is Washington editor for E&P. |
Making Intelligence SmarterThe Future of U.S. Intelligence  "What, then, are the higher priorities likely to be for intelligence collection-but not necessarily for national security policy-in the foreseeable future? We would list the status of nuclear weapons and materials throughout the former Soviet Union; political and military developments in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea; potential terrorism against U.S. targets in the continental United States and overseas; unconventional weapons proliferation; and political-military developments in China. A second category of important but somewhat lower priority intelligence targets would include political developments in Russia and relations between Russia and the former Soviet republics; Mexican stability; the stability of Egypt and Saudi Arabia; Indo-Pakistani relations; developments affecting Middle East peace negotiations; and the activities of international criminal organizations. Political and military developments in Bosnia and the Balkans would necessarily be a high priority if the U.S. military were involved significantly.We would not include on this list such subjects as environmental protection, population growth, or general political and economic developments where open sources are normally sufficient."
"The correct response to such cases is not to expect the intelligence community to be prepared for everything, everywhere. This would waste resources, leave high-priority targets with inadequate coverage, and still not be enough given the unlimited potential for the unexpected. Instead, the president and the DCI should consider creating a formal intelligence reserve corps for dealing with so-called "pop-up" issues. Such a corps could consist of former intelligence professionals, academics, and others with particular geographic and functional expertise. Working with a point of contact in the intelligence community, they would be asked to collect data, provide reports, and be available to work full time if a crisis suddenly developed in their area and if their expertise were required." "
Clandestine operations for whatever purpose currently are circumscribed by a number of legal and policy constraints. These deserve review to avoid diminishing the potential contribution of this instrument.At a minimum, the Task Force recommended that a fresh look be taken at limits on the use of nonofficial "covers" for hiding and protecting those involved in clandestine activities. In addition, rules that can prohibit preemptive attacks on terrorists or support for individuals hoping to bring about a regime change in a hostile country need to be assessed periodically. " News media protest CIA spy policy
 WASHINGTON (AP) - Disclosure that the CIA retains authority to recruit U.S. journalists for covert operations is drawing protests from the news media and demands that the practice be banned. "It puts our people in jeopardy," says Tom Johnson, president of CNN. CIA Director John Deutch acknowledged last week that he has the right to waive 1977 rules that forbid assigning spies disguised as reporters, or enlisting reporters to serve as spies. Deutch commented after The Washington Post quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying the CIA occasionally has waived the rules, which also apply to religious and Peace Corps workers. Deutch would not confirm the newspaper report, but he was likely to be asked about the practice today while appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Intelligence Committee DCI Q&A Session 2/22/96Question and Answer Session following the Worldwide Threat Assessment brief to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Affairs by the DCI, John M. Deutch. 
SENATOR Specter: "Director Deutch, I begin with the issue of the use by the intelligence community, alleged use by the intelligence community, of newspaper reporters, representatives of the media. There had been a generalized view that the intelligence community was not
using newsmen, newswomen for intelligence-gathering operations. Recently an issue was raised in the media about an exception to that general rule where there were some extraordinary circumstances.""The concern has been articulated that if the newspapers and media generally are to retain their unique status with the protection of the First Amendment freedom of speech, freedom of press, that those kinds of activities ought not to be engaged in." "A counter-argument has appeared publicly, the weight of it I do not know, that some circumstances are so extraordinary as to warrant an exception to that generalized rule." "We would be interested to know, first of all, whether there has been a rule that the intelligence community would not use newspaper and media personnel generally for intelligence operations. If that rule has been in existence, are there exceptions? If so, what are they? And your view as Director as to the philosophy behind it and whether any circumstance might be so extraordinary as to warrant an exception to that rule." ... 
DR. DEUTCH: "Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me begin by saying that my sympathy on this matter is very, very much with the journalistic community. I absolutely appreciate and understand the reasons that lead them to urge no interference or no cooperation with espionage services. I understand the relationship to the special character of the newspapers and other media according to the First Amendment.
And frankly, as a former provost, I understand the similar kinds of concerns that academics have about potential use by the intelligence community of academics in intelligence matters.""But I hope, Mr. Chairman, that you and the citizens of this country can appreciate that Directors of Central Intelligence have to also concern themselves with perhaps very unique and special threats to national security where American lives are at risk; where very important unique access can be given to protect American interests abroad; where it would be necessary to consider the use of an American journalist in an intelligence operation..." SENATOR SPECTER: "So you're saying there are some extraordinary circumstances where the U.S. intelligence community would call upon journalists?" DR. DEUTCH: "That's correct, Mr. Chairman." . . . |
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Involving government in journalism a bad idea
The Society of Professional Journalists. Response of SPJ President Steve Geimann to remarks of FCC Chairman Reed Hundt: The credibility and reporting techniques of journalists are pressing concerns that must be addressed, but they are better addressed by the journalism industry than the U.S. government, said Society of Professional Journalists President Steve Geimann. (The text of Hundt's speech can be found at the FCC web site at www.fcc.gov. For more information, contact Steve Geimann at Communications Daily at (202) 872-9202 ext. 248.) The SPJ Opposes CFR Recommendation
The Society of Professional Journalists urged U.S. officials to reject a recommendation that they restore the practice of allowing intelligence agents to pose as journalists or members of the clergy. SPJ's Executive Committee, meeting during a weekend writers workshop here, adopted a resolution critical of the recommendation by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). (February 6, 1996). SPJ Executive Committee Notes
SPJ Weekly Update: Feb. 7, 1996, By Greg Christopher, Executive Director. Executive Committee Notes. The committee adopted a resolution opposing the Council on Foreign Relations' recommendation to consider restoring the practice of allowing intelligence agents to pose as journalists or members of the clergy. "This would undermine people's faith in their emblems of religion and the integrity of the press," said SPJ President G. Kelly Hawes. "And it could clearly undermine the safety of reporters working overseas." No Press Cards for Spies
New York Times article of March 18, 1996 Those constraints chiefly concern the use of spies posing as reporters and the employment of bona fide reporters for intelligence missions. Foreign correspondents and C.I.A. station chiefs sometimes swapped information In 1976, a Senate committee headed by Frank Church learned that this practice had gotten out of hand. A matter of trust
Editorial Board, Iowa State Daily Troy McCullough, Tim Davis, Jennifer Holland, Kathleen Carlson and Jenny Hykes. Thursday, March 21, 1996 - "It is the trust factor in this issue that is undoubtedly abused when CIA officials pose as journalists or send in other media professionals to spy for our country. Hurting the credibility of journalists to gain governmental powers is a problem that affects the welfare of the people the government is responsible to--the citizens of the United States. The secrecy of the CIA leaves us to wonder who its watchdog is. If journalists are on the inside, who will we trust to watch, to be skeptical and question from the outside?" Journalists Cannot be Used as Spies
Chicago Tribune article of March 11, 1996 - Although The Use of Journalists, clergy and Peace Corps workers as spies is banned by federal law, Deutch said `unique and special threats to national security' might make it necessary to `consider the use of a journalist in an intelligence operation.' Deutch is wrong and should immediately announce a blanket ban on using journalists as spies. American journalists can and should serve but one master: the American public. Any blurring of that line by intelligence services jeopardizes the lives of real journalists and their ability to inform their readers and viewers. Every reporter stopped by armed thugs at a military checkpoint knows the inherent personal danger posed by Deutch's announcement; citing Deutch's own statements, mad militiamen will feel freer to interrogate, incarcerate--and even execute--bona fide reporters with the verve and nerve to cover combat. Don't Recruit Journalists as Spies
From the Tampa Tribune, Apr. 28, 1996 CIA Director John Deutch has done it again. In February he was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee about whether he would recruit journalists as spies, and he refused to say flatly that his agency would not. He has repeated that position again in a letter to news executives in response to widespread complaints by the press and electronic media, who fear that his stance puts their foreign correspondents in danger. Deutch wrote that he had no intention of using journalists or news credentials as a cover, but then qualified his position by saying he reserved the right to do so and would consider it under `genuinely extraordinary' circumstances. Unfortunately, nothing short of a blanket prohibition is likely to work in the dangerous circumstances encountered by reporters traveling and working abroad. The CIA has an unshakable prohibition against using the Peace Corps as a cloak for its undercover missions. That is done for the obvious reason that Peace Corps volunteers would be in grave danger if their host nations or partisans in some foreign conflict suspected them of being spies. According to Quill magazine, a presidential order issued in 1977 prohibited The Use of Journalists and members of the clergy as spies, but apparently there are loopholes in that restriction. SPJ president Kelly Hawes expresses discontent over CIA policy The Society of Professional Journalists. February 23, 1996. New Media and the Future of Journalism
The Society of Professional Journalists. Remarks of Jay T. Harris at 1997 SPJ Biregional Conference CIA Wants To Keep Right To Ask Journalists To SpyMinnesota Daily Online, Feb. 23, 1996 "An absolute ban on The Use of Journalists as covers for spying should be in place," Tom Johnson, president of CNN, said in a statement from his office in Atlanta. "There should be no exception."  Spies ( Who Act) Like UsFrom the Indianapolis News, Apr. 23, 1996 The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency continues to cling to a policy that both contradicts its own regulations and clearly puts the lives of American journalists in danger. Last week, reports from the Associated Press revealed that CIA Director John Deutch made the agency's intentions clear in a letter to Louis D. Boccardi, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press, and W. Thomas Johnson, president of Cable News Network. Deutch wrote. `We do not use American journalists as agents or American news organizations for cover, nor do I have any intention of doing so. `As you know, past DCI's (directors of central intelligence ) have reserved the right to make exceptions to this policy. The circumstances under which I--or, I believe, any DCI--would make an exception to this policy would have to be genuinely extraordinary.'
In other words, if the CIA wants to use the mediaas cover for its secret agents or recruit journalists to be spies, it will. |
| And now - something completely different ... |
Ethics in Journalism The Society of Professional JournalistsCode of Ethics (Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists is the nation's largest and most broad-based journalism organization. SPJ is a not-for-profit organization made up of 14,000 members dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism; stimulating high standards of et hical behavior; and perpetuating a free press.)  Croatian Journalist's AssociationCode of Ethics (In Croatian language) Kodeks časti hrvatskih novinara opći je nacrt etičkog djelovanja hrvatskog novinara. Donosi opća određenja o pravima i dužnostima hrvatskog novinara. Kodeks je usvojen 27. veljače 1993. godine. Peter Galbraith, U.S. Ambassador in Zagreb (Croatia) and Jagoda Vukusic, president of the Croatian Journalists' Association ( HND - Hrvatsko novinarsko drustvo) having fun at the closed party for the HND Central Board and several other hand-picked Croatian journalists as a tribute to their productive cooperation with the U.S. Embassy. 
During Ambassador Galbraith's mandate in Zagreb, Croatia, American Embassy and the U. S. government agencies achieved the strongest influence on the Croatian Journalists' Association as well as on several independent newspapers
and radio stations in order to help them to avoid the influence of the Croatian government on Croatian media... |
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Subverting Journalism: Reporters and the CIA by Kate Houghton, The Society of Professional Journalists (Special Report: United States) Senate Bill 1718, the Senate's version of the intelligence authorization act, contained no language on the issue of the CIA's use of journalists as spies. The conference committee, however, rolled in the House amendment virtually verbatim, but with one critical change: Not just the president, but the CIA director as well, could waive the ban on The Use of Journalists in covert operations by writing to the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees. This is the version of the bill that became law on Oct. 11, 1996, with President Clinton's signing of the 1997 Intelligence Authorization Act. In her letter to the Senate, Kati Marton warned that "The disturbing acknowledgment that the CIA has waived restrictions on the use of journalistic credentials in intelligence-gathering operations in the past and wishes to retain the right to do so again, may have already led some foreign leaders to believe that the CIA and leading U.S. policy-makers are actively urging an end to official constraints on The Use of Journalists for espionage." The repercussions of this recent change in U.S. policy have already begun to inform the intelligence practices of other nations. The Russian daily Izvestiya published an article on Dec. 7, 1996, reporting that Russia's Federal Security Service planned to create a new department of intelligence operations to manipulate the news coverage of security issues, resulting from its failure to control public opinion during the Chechen war. On Dec. 20, The Moscow Times ran an article illustrating the dangers for Russian journalists already engendered by this policy. An unnamed source was quoted saying that "the FSB (Federal Security Service) is putting correspondents in danger especially in Chechnya. [They] are already convinced that we are all spies, without the FSB advertising that they use journalists as sources for their operations." "There is no essential difference between the work of a spy and a journalist; both collect information in the same way-just the end consumers are different," said Maj. Gen. Yury Kobaldze of Russia's SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service. "Journalists make the best spies; they have more freedom of access than diplomats. The Americans' moral stand on not using journalists is artificial, and not a little duplicitous." |
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NAE Resolution Condemns Cia Collaboration A Resolution Adopted by the 54th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals  
March 03, 1996NAE convention delegates adopted an official resolution condemning any collaboration between missionaries and employees with intelligence agencies. The action was prompted by recent testimony of CIA Director John Deutsch before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee about an apparent loophole in CIA rules that allows the U.S. spy agency to solicit clergy and missionaries for covert work overseas. "We want it clearly understood that for intelligence agencies to seek any relationship whatsoever with our religious workers must be unequivocally prohibited," said Argue. "Even the possibility of a so-called `loophole' in CIA rules is unacceptable," he emphasized. The resolution, entitled "Governmental Use of Missionary and Aid Workers," states, "We insist that the CIA close any loophole that allows for intelligence gathering collaboration with clergy, missionaries, and aid workers. We insist that the CIA clarify and publish its policy for the protection of United States citizens serving in ministry abroad. "We request the Executive Branch of the United States government and the Select Committees on Intelligence of the Congress to cooperate in continuing to prohibit such inappropriate collaboration. We request that, if necessary, Executive Orders of the President be issued and legislation be introduced in Congress to correct this intolerable situation. Copyright © National Association of Evangelicals, PO Box 1325 Azusa, CA 91702, USA website: www.nae.net e-mail: media@nae.net |
 Richardson Amendmentto H.R. 3259 Intelligence Authorization Act Murtha AmendmentTo the Richardson Amendment Intelligence Authorization Act Sacred Cow and use of journalists
Excerpts from the vote and debate on the Intelligence Authorization bill on the House floor from the Congressional Record (pages H5389-H5424). May 22, 1996, Democrats rip spy proposal
July 18, 1996, WASHINGTON (AP) - A bill passed by the House that would prohibit CIA use of American journalists as spies is encountering opposition from senior Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. At a hearing Wednesday, journalists appealed for a ban on the practice, but CIA Director John Deutch said he wants to retain the authority to waive the ban in exceptional circumstances. Deutch said that in his tenure as the nation's chief intelligence officer he never has encountered an occasion where he felt it was proper to turn to a journalist for help. |
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Spooky News A Report on CIA Infiltration and Manipulation of the Mass Media Should CIA agents be allowed to pose as journalists to furtherthe aims of their clandestine activities? 
IntroductionHistory of the CIA-Media Connection Church Committee Prominent CIA-Press Relationships Back in the Spotlight Spies R Not Us The CIA, the Media & the New World Order Sources CIA & the US News Media
( "Oh, sure, all the time" - William Colby) 11 Avril 1997 Spies In The Media"The Journalist Who Came in from the Cold?"
Copyright (C) 1994 - 1997 by Virtual Press/Global Internet Solutions. Internet Daily News and its respective columns are trademarks of Virtual Press /Global Internet Solutions. "Operation Mocking Bird" Daniel Sheehan: CIA Agents Infest U.S. Mass Media
From: jad@Turing.ORG (John DiNardo) GARY NULL:
Daniel, earlier on, one of our guests was talking about -- and I'd like for you to follow through on this theme -- that what we're told in the media (and what we're told officially from Government sources) and what is the truth are frequently at varying degrees against each other. Give us one specific ...Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:42:08 GMT (transcript from a tape recording of a broadcast by Pacifica Radio Network station WBAI-FM (99.5) 505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl. New York, NY 10018 (212) 279-0707) DANIEL SHEEHAN: That's absolutely true. There has been a major campaign on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, to place Central Intelligence Agency agents, trained agents, IN various news media posts. We've found the documents on this. It was called "Operation Mocking Bird". And they placed Central Intelligence Agency operatives in places like TIME Magazine and LIFE Magazine, the New York Times, inside CBS and ABC News. Originally, the intent of "Operation Mocking Bird" was to make certain that these major media outlets reflected an adequately anti-communist perspective. And then, of course, as they became entrenched and in-place, any time the Central Intelligence Agency wanted a story killed or distorted they would just contact their agents inside. Now they have bragged openly in private memos back and forth inside the Agency about how proud they are of having really important "assets" inside virtually every major news media in the United States. And I've encountered this repeatedly. For example, the Chief National Security Correspondent for TIME Magazine, Bruce Van Voorst[sp], is a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer. It turns out that Ben Bradlee from the Washington Post was a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer prior to coming to his post at the Washington Post. Bob Woodward at the Washington Post was the Point-Briefer for U.S. Naval Intelligence of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff before he went over to the Washington Post. Politics/Essays/Conspiracy/DiNardo CIA and the MediaHere's just a snippet from Carl Bernstein's famous 1977 article entitled "The CIA & The Media" from Rolling Stone, 10/20/77. "Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past 25 years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services -- from simple intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America's leading news organizations." (22Jun97) CIA and the Press: The Mighty WurlitzerFrom NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997: Journalists at Work: Who's Watching the Watchdogs?
Sidebar from NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997 |
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Nonassociation with the CIA CPJ Dangerous Assignments Quarterly Summer 1996 Internet Edition No. 51 Using journalists as spies for the CIA The Senate Intelligence Committee convened a hearing on July 17 to address the issue of the CIA’s use of journalists in intelligence operations. Following are excerpts.. The Senate Intelligence Committee convened a hearing on July 17 to address the issue of the CIA's use of journalists in intelligence operations. Following are excerpts from the testimony of Mort Zuckerman, editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report; Ted Koppel, anchor of ABC's "Nightline"; and CPJ board member Terry Anderson, formerly of the Associated Press (AP), who was falsely accused of working for the CIA by the Islamic fundamentalist group Hezbollah, which held him hostage for seven years in Lebanon. 05Sep96 Dangerous DeceptionsFrom the St. Petersburg Times, Mar. 25, 1996 Terry Anderson, the Associated Press correspondent who was held hostage in Lebanon for almost seven years, says his captors never believed that he was simply a journalist. Anderson says the Muslim terrorists who imprisoned him `believe all Americans are spies, particularly those who go around asking questions.' That common belief in much of the rest of the world creates obvious dangers for journalists and other Americans traveling abroad. It certainly made life even more unpleasant for Anderson during his harsh confinement. Unfortunately, the CIA's own rules unnecessarily feed such suspicions about the integrity and credibility of American journalists working in foreign countries. Spy Vs. Spy, With Journalists in the MiddleBy Anna Husaska From the Sacramento Bee, Mar. 8, 1996 My nonassociation with the CIA started 12 years ago. It was in the war-emptied ghost town of Tenancingo, El Salvador, that I was accused of being a CIA spy by local guerrillas who I visited as administrator of a French humanitarian mission. My first journalistic nonassociation with the CIA dates from Christmas week of 1991, which I spent in detention in Cuba, mostly in a squalid interrogation room where I was repeatedly asked by a major from the interior ministry why I wouldn't simply confess to spying for the CIA. I told him that he must be crazy, that the agency's own regulations had forbidden employing or posing as journalists since 1977, following a scandal involving CIA use of reporters. I repeated the same arguments in 1993, after I was stopped at gunpoint with several other hacks in Pale, the so-called Bosnian Serb capital. We were all accused of being on a spy mission. Earlier that year, the Haitian supporters of then-exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide accused me of being on the CIA payroll; I told them that the opinion article that so infuriated them was my own idea. In 1994, I was accused of being a CIA spy because, with two other journalists, both Russian, I crossed the Abkhazia/Georgia border when there was some fighting going on. What would I be doing there if not spying for the CIA? My two fellow travelers had a bottle of vodka and--there is no limit to Russian resourcefulness--an open can of sardines in tomato sauce for an appetizer. In pouring rain, we carried these goodies into the checkpoint and suspicion disappeared with the sardines. Then, in October 1995, while I was taking photographs of paramilitary formations in Serbia at the invitation of the Serb commanders, the press secretary of a local warlord accused me of gathering material for the CIA. Police_Abuse: Op: Ban Clergy/Journalists From Spying
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/96/Mar/13/opinion/SPY13.htm [The Philadelphia Inquirer] Opinion - Wednesday, March 13, 1996 Sunder covers Keep journalists and clergy out of spy games. Should cellular phones ever get small enough to fit inside the heel of a shoe, it's a safe bet that no American foreign correspondent would ever use one. Just looking the part of a spy -- even one as goofy as TV's Maxwell Smart -- isn't good for the health of a journalist working abroad. Terry Anderson's Beirut captors were convinced he was working for U.S. intelligence, rather than the Associated Press. Freelance writer Frank Smyth, imprisoned near Baghdad in 1991 after the Gulf war, tells how the Iraqis grilled him for the identity of his ``real job,'' that of supposed spook. Paul McMasters: Spy-journalists, journalist-spies:CIA loophole is a bad business (Paul McMasters is First Amendment Ombudsman for The Freedom Forum). Indeed, several news executives who have employees in dangerous places around the globe have had meetings with Deutsch, asking him to publicly renounce the policy. They're not talking in the abstract. Over the years, many journalists have been put at risk because terrorists and hostile governments claimed these journalists were in the employ of the CIA: Former Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson spent seven long years chained to radiators in damp, dark cells in Lebanon, while his captors demanded to know about his CIA contacts. In 1986, Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, was imprisoned in the former Soviet Union for a month as a "spy." Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal was arrested by authorities in Iran in 1987 and accused of being a spy. Many others suffered similarly. That was then. This is now: On March 7, an editorial appearing in the Iranian press pointed out that the U.S. government had admitted that "American journalists pursue covert operations for the CIA," and said that the "CIA pawn" Christiana Amanpour of CNN should be expelled from the country or "put on trial for her false claims." CNN president Tom Johnson also revealed that the cable news network's Iraqi driver in Baghdad had been tortured recently over a period of several weeks by the secret police who wanted him to identify CIA agents posing as journalists. It's Fiesta; so there's no time for CIA gamesBy David Anthony Richelieu, Apr 18, 1996 © 1996, San Antonio Express-News And if someone is chasing another guy down the street and shouting, ``What's the frequency, Kenneth?'' - it simply means Fiesta is upon us, not that the Central Intelligence Agency has moved in. Although we can't be certain about the reporter asking about the confetti-filled UFO attack. That's because on Thursday, news stories disclosed the contents of letters CIA Director John Deutch sent to Louis D. Boccardi, president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press, and to W. Thomas Johnson, president of Cable News Network. Deutch wrote, ``We do not use American journalists as agents or American news organizations for cover nor do I have any intention of doing so.'' But Deutch said that in ``extraordinary circumstances,'' CIA directors reserve the right to make exceptions to the 19-year ban on such activities. |
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Intelligence on the Internet FBIS Will Survive Scientific Set Celebrates Survival of CIA Service By Ben Barber, The Washington Times, Friday, February 7, 1997 A group of scientists, including 40 Nobel laureates, yesterday applauded a CIA decision to preserve the U.S. government's monitoring and translation service covering 3,000 foreign newspapers and broadcasts around the world. "We note with satisfaction the new Central Intelligence Agency statement that the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) will continue to provide 'virtually 100 percent of the coverage we provide today'," Jeremy Stone, the president of the Federation of American Scientists, said in a statement. The CIA said Tuesday that it would hold the line and maintain the FBIS, which reaches not just government and military analysts, but academics, businessmen and journalists. Facing Reality: CIA at the CrossroadsThis inter-agency analysis team can also serve as the field element for the Community Open Source Program Office, and dramatically increase the exploitation of cheaply available open sources pertinent to increased support for our national export and trade strategy, and our national competitiveness in general. The analysis teams, serving as the field elements of the new National Intelligence.
Open Source Information (OSIF)The opening up of the former Soviet Union, combined with the information revolution, has provided a wealth of unclassified data that was hitherto unavailable. The explosion in open-source information creates yet another set of conceptual challenges for intelligence analysis. Some experts estimate that more than 80 percent of the data used by the intelligence community comes from open sources, and CIA and NSA are probably the only U.S. government agencies that have the technical capability to handle the vast quantities of information available. Such volume puts enormous strains on the systems designed to filter the intake and on the analysts who must process what is left. Another effect of greatly increased open-source information is the decreasing dependence on the intelligence community in some segments of the national security community. CNN is available in most operations centers and other government offices, as is increasingly the Internet, to satisfy multiple information needs. Some intelligence consumers prefer to probe their own sources and private contacts--either academics or foreign counterparts or colleagues whom they trust. One reason is that such information does not necessarily come with the cumbersome restrictions on use that accompany the output of the intelligence community. As a result, the intelligence community will in the future have to compete for customers as it never did when much information about the Soviet Union could be acquired only through sensitive sources, and such competition will require that the community add intelligence value to information it obtains from open sources. These facts have led some to question the need for maintaining an elaborate and expensive intelligence establishment at all. But aside from the issue of information not available from public sources, major distinctions still exist between information and intelligence. Journalists--the primary purveyors of information--generally describe what they have observed or have been told, often without the time, experience, and expertise to analyze or evaluate the implications of this information. Intelligence, however, constitutes information from a variety of sources that has been analyzed by specialists and tailored to the specific needs of the user. Thus, it will remain true that some key questions of policymakers and military commanders will be answerable only by the intelligence community. And those who take advantage of the community's capabilities will find that no media organization, think tank, or academic research can match the intelligence community for timeliness, responsiveness, and access to otherwise unavailable information--particularly when analysts understand their customers requirements. AFCEA/NAVY ASW CONFERENCE, 3-4 DEC 96 U.S.A. Strategic Assessment 1996 Chapter Six: Intelligence, Open-Source Information Washington Post Conspiracy-Phobia |
Never mind foreign journalists
Reporters Sans Frontieres: The Americas - United-States
On 22 May 1996, the House of Representatives voted an amendment to the CIA budget banning the foreign intelligence agency from using journalists as spies. But another text adopted by Congress provides for waivers to this rule if the president gives exceptional authorisation and the congressional intelligence committees are informed. CIA director John Deutch said in February that the agency could have recruited American journalists on "very, very rare occasions", despite a 1977 instruction forbidding the practice. The Washington Post had revealed that the CIA had in the past used American journalists and media as a cover for its activities. The 1977 instruction does not apply to foreign journalists, some of whom are still recruited by the CIA, according to the Post. The new amendments do not prevent CIA agents passing themselves off as journalists. The World Is A Dangerous Place For Journalists
BY MARC BOSSART, The Coastal Post - June, 1996 Group seeks action on killings of 173 journalists
By GLENN GARVIN, Herald Staff Writer GUATEMALA CITY -- Editors and publishers from throughout the Americas are meeting here this week to prod the hemisphere's authorities to take action in the slaying of 173 journalists in the past decade. ``Practically none of those 173 murders have been solved,'' said Danilo Arbilla, editor of the Paraguayan news weekly Busqueda and head of the press freedom committee of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA). ``We want the governments of the region to become conscious of these murders and take responsibility for solving them.'' Founded in 1943, the nonprofit IAPA has 1,400 member newspapers from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. &We are honest men; we are not spies& The Law applies to everyone else
CIA: OUT OF CONTROL Russ W. Baker/Village Voice In the Post-Soviet Era, Congress Slumbers and the Intelligence Community Creates New Bogeymen to Vanquish Both Beilensonand Specter became irritated when asked about specific types of covert operations. Specter, questioned about bribery of foreign officials, responded: "That's a ridiculous question.... We don't engage in bribery--that's against the law." On the other hand, he said, "Paying for information is not bribery." Ex-CIA officer MacMichaellaments: "This splitting of hairs ... How would it be regarded in the United States if an official of the United States, for payment, offered information to a foreign government? Would that be legal in the U.S.? [Specter's] statement is the most extraordinary distinction I've ever heard." When asked specifically about the dangers of practices like paying foreign journalists to write knowingly false storiesthat often work their way back into American living rooms, Specter replied: "I have not seen that come before the Intelligence Committee." When asked again how committee members could possibly be unaware of such well-documented practices, Specter - answered haltingly: "I have not voted for any funds which involve bribery." IF COMMITTEE MEMBERS are so ill-informed, it's partly because the CIA won't provide correct answers unless the questions are posed in precisely the right way. Former CIA officials say they take advantage of unartful questioning in order to withhold information. "We'd go down and lie to them consistently," says ex-CIA officer Ralph McGehee. "In my 25 years, I have never seen the agency tell the truth to a congressional committee." Making Intelligence SmarterThe Future of U.S. Intelligence " The collection of intelligence can be accomplished in a variety of ways, the most important being the interception of communications and other signals (SIGINT), satellite photography or imagery (IMINT), and reports from human sources (HUMINT).There is also measurement and signature intelligence, or MASINT, which enhances understanding of physical attributes of intelligence targets. Intelligence analysis reflects conclusions or judgments reached by individuals with access to information from many sources, of which secret information made available by intelligence community collection systems is only part." " A second task for the clandestine services is covert action, that is, the carrying out of operations to influence events in another country in which it is deemed important to hide the hand of the U.S. government. Historically, covert action has included such activities as channeling funds to selected individuals, movements or political parties, media placements, broadcasting, and paramilitary support.Such operations can be designed to bolster the capabilities of friendly governments in dealing with challenges to them and their societies. Covert measures can also have the opposite purpose, to weaken a hostile government. " "The Secret Team, The CIA and Its Alliesin Control of the United States and the World" Covert Action and Democracy
Operations should under no circumstances be conducted without the knowledge of the President, and other members of the national security policy-making apparatus. As the national security bureaucracy, in this case particularly the intelligence agencies, should not be determining U.S. vital interests, so any covert action supposedly in support of a vital interest must be ordered by those actually empowered to determine vital interests. At the very least, the President is responsible for determining vital interests, and thus must be the source of covert action.
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