Secret CIA Program Was "Intelligence-Collection Activity"

The Washington Post has more details on the secret program that CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed this week had been hidden from Congress since 2001.

Current and former administration officials familiar with the program said it was not directly related to previously disclosed high-priority programs such as detainee interrogations or the warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists on U.S. soil. It was a intelligence-collection activity run by the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, officials said. It was not a covert action, which by law would have required a presidential finding and a report to Congress.

"This characterization of something that began in 2001 and continued uninterrupted for eight years is just wrong. Honest men would question that characterization. It was more off and on," said a former top Bush administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the issue.

A Bush administration official told the paper he was certain that, if the nature of the program could be revealed, it would be seen as "no big deal."

However, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) told the Huffington Post that when she and other members of the House Intelligence Committee found out what was kept secret "the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans." And Newsweek reported that while an official said, "'You could argue that it never really took shape' ... The implication is that whatever the details of the program, it carried risks that some officials at the agency strongly felt might not be worth taking."

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Comments

[Derelict outlaw]

He thought he was floating in WISDOM but it was just crap.

[Derelict outlaw]

The myth of a "liberal media" in the United States of America.

[Chaimirija]

Yes, like corporations are in any way liberal

[lornejl]

The bogus MSM is complicit. They inform no one.

[Derelict outlaw]

Take a look at the Bill Keller interview over in media.

The apologist says that the MSM was just floating along wiht the conventional WISDOM is supporting the administrations lies in the run-up to the war and after.

It's horrific.

[lornejl]

Pravda.

[kindGSL]

Worse than inform no one, they actively cover it up.

[Telemachus]

Caylee Anthony! Octo-mom! MICHAEL JACKSON!!!

[3dtrix]

It appears we are at a crossroads - forums such as this, and the revelations discussed herein, by the site or among the posters, would never even EXIST in a truly totalitarian environment - a China, or Pinochet's Chile, for example. And yet here we are, discussing information which appears to confirm a long-suspected, previously documented intentional degradation of our democracy - that is to say, sabotage and treason - acts, if perpetrated overtly, would be considered acts of war against our nation. Are we allowed to discuss them because it's already too late, and no amount of barking will slow the caravan, and the APPEARANCE of self-rule is a good PR move - or is there still the will and power among the populace to reclaim it? Considering the shocking percentage of willing enablers of this degradation in the body politic - God knows scores of them trumpet their enthusiastic complicity here daily - I no longer believe the outcome I am committed to, and would man the barricades (as I have in the past) to effect is assured...

[Derelict outlaw]

Rest assured they are taking note of your log in,,,and will know where to find you when the pogroms begin again in earnest.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

[Chaimirija]

Carnivore...

[kindGSL]

They didn't exist in ours either until fairly recently. This is a sea change.

You have no idea how hard it has been to get us to this point. It is a war, a 'culture war'.

I decided to fight back.

[karela]

If it's such a tiny, little thing, then why did Panetta come to the meeting with "his hair on fire"?

If it's such an on again, off again nothing, then why did Panetta have to cancel the program? One does not have to stop programs that are not going.

If as the anonymous Republican former administration official said, if the program could be unclassified, then we'd all say that it was "no big deal," then why did the Director of the CIA think that it was to such an extent that he immediately cancelled the program and went to the hill with his hair on fire? . The only thing that changed was that Dick Cheney wasn't calling the shots and anything that Dick Cheney ordered not to apprise Congress of is something that most of us would probably find to be a very big deal.

If, as Diane Feinstein says, "Instructions were given, (to the CIA), not to brief Congress," then one can assume quite easily that the administration thought that it would be a very big deal if Congress knew about it.

Congress is right. Steps need to be taken to investigate an insure this stuff doesn't happen anymore. And I was right to believe Nancy Pelosi when she said that the CIA misled her.

[kindGSL]

I think we can safely assume the CIA misleads everyone.

[faith]

I agree with the blogger above - Holder needs to do his job or step away and let someone do it with the courage to follow through.

Importantly, I think Obama should privately suggest to Pannetta that Publicly Apologize to Speaker Pelosi for his earlier comments concerning what she did or did not know.

[kindGSL]

I think Obama has already headed towards the dark side and it is too late for him.

[Coinyer101]

DO YER EFFIN' JOB, HOLDER! OR STEP DOWN!

[lornejl]

We should disband the AG, they are worthless.

Save us a few bucks at least.

[kindGSL]

Save the government by breaking the government? Is that your plan?

[Telemachus]

Zero out the "black ops" budget and hire 10,000 criminal investigators and DAs instead. THAT would enhance national security.

[Derelict outlaw]

Why are the American people buying into the idea that President Obama has been permitted by the past administration and the defense department and the intelligence community to actually assume power and control of our government?

Isn't the Joint Chiefs the same? Isn't Gates still in control?

Isn't NSA exactly the same?

What power has been ceded to this NEW administration exactly?

[kasinca]

There was this thing in the constitution and it was performed in January. Were you under your rock? Did they teach you any civics in home school?

[Derelict outlaw]

I saw a new face put on the same old fascism.

I'm still waiting for him to be permitted authority of the office.

[kindGSL]

He still has the bully pulpit.

[labman57]

A member of the Bush Administration says that "lying to Congress" is no big deal....why am I not surprised?

[kindGSL]

Was it under oath?

[Liberal2]

Most commentors fail to grasp one critical point: the legalized bribery system we call campaign contributions has allowed corporations and the wealthy to control our goverment by creating a farm team of local politicans who can be bribed. These people then run for higher office.

The underlying fact is corporate interests do not want the government to work for the good of the nation as a whole. In the 1930s, conservatives thought Hitler knew how to run a nation, and wanted a non-agression pact with Germany.

We sent troops around the world, not to fight dictators and evil governments, but to fight socialists, regardless whether they meant us any harm.

This is not a paean to socialism but rather a comment on allowing corporate interests to control the path of our government.

[witsendster]

In an earlier thread the comment was made about the politicization of our CIA. Well, the justice department was also politicized and there was even pressure during the Bush years on lobby firms to fire Progressive Lobbyists and replace them with Republicans. How many people are there burrowed into various departments that will work against the new administration? How long will it take to rectify the politicization of these governmental departments such as justice and the CIA? How many other areas have Cheney and Bush poisoned? The Dept of Defense? The Pentagon? It really was an insidious effort to take away what has made our govt. work over the years -diversity of opinion.

[peacebro]

Hopefully, and I like to believe, the majority of the Bush damage was done by instiling 'Bushies' in top positions of various organizations and the vast majority of staff in the CIA and elsewhere are true to their work and solid non-partisan principals.

Companies can go down fast from one bad leader and does not have to reflest on the employees.

[Salome]

If it was "no big deal" then why lie to Congress about it in the first place?

My guess: the program monitored the whereabouts of bin Laden and let him slip through the cracks into Pakistan in December 2001. I was intrigued by a passage in Dexter Filkins' book "The Forever War" regarding the last sightings of bin Laden in Khan-i-Merajuddin, Afghanistan (November 30, 2001). A witness told Filkins that a few days after the final Tora Bora bombings, an American flew a chopper into the abandoned al Quaeda camp, took some photos and then left.

[kindGSL]

I'm guessing the 'program' was spying on me.

[retromega]

How obvious does it have to get before our [sic] government officials are able to admit that the CIA is an entity totally without any control over its operations. No one in government has the courage to admit - as if speaking the truth was a hard thing - that the CIA is run by and for itself. What it professes to do i.e. serve the clandestine interests of the U.S., has only a remote connection to what goes on. Who tells the CIA what it is to do?, what its limits are if any?, Who tells them what the threats are to the country?

Why the CIA, of course! They are somewhere over the rainbow protecting our democracy from foreign threats right! Unfortunately, they were able to kill off any shred of a government for,by,or of the people long ago.

Now the only real enemy the CIA has is the American People! They are the only one who pose a threat to the CIA's power.

[Derelict outlaw]

Harry Truman WaPO December 1963 just after the Kennedy assassination:

"For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.

But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere."

[lornejl]

“But the intelligence investigations brought these secret powers into the open; they forced American to acknowledge that their country had tried to kill foreign leaders, had spied on civil rights leaders, and had tested drugs on innocent people.

“Because this knowledge was very painful, many Americans, including members of Congress, refused to accept it. Secrecy, as journalist Taylor Branch has said, ‘protects the American people from grisly facts at variance with their self-image.’”

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/071009a.html

[Derelict outlaw]

right on

[peacebro]

Many fear "sunshine".

The less you feel the need to hide inside, the less you project upon and fear about people and things around you.

[kindGSL]

Hey that is the same logic people use when covering up child abuse. The attitude is it is better to ignore it and let it continue than to get involved.

I have no respect for people who think like that.

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

Stories like this makes me wonder, who's really in charge and whats their true agenda? Is this the real reason hammers cost $600? How are we being represented by the people that are supposed in charge of them that are supposed to be answering to us? Does this mean we're lying to ourselves for our own protection? Makes your head hurt huh?

I don't believe "We The People" have any true representation anymore. How do we know that the people that dabble in secrets agendas, are in our best interest? Have the alphabets taken over and we're just pawns in their games of cloak'n'dagger and one-upmanship? If we get caught up in their de@dly games and become collateral damage is this okay with politicians elected by us to protect us?

Is voting them out of office, enough? When politicians break the law and the people want justice but other politicians, for worry that the same will happen to them, ignore us, how is this still a govt "for the people by the people"? Was Bush right, the constitution just a piece of paper, an illusion of power?

Well this can go on in circles but maybe we should start here with the CIA lying to us? Maybe its time to make cloak and dagger stuff, a thing of the 80's! You'd think that we'd be the most protected people of any country in the world but are we? If we were... would have... Ah, there's that headache again...

[Tyler-Durden]

unfortunately you're not wrong on any of these assumptions. we the people are a line item expense to the elite. they see us as another commodity: labor. that's it. we are expendable.

until we the people push every elitist out of office and take govt control back, it will not change.

we must elect trustworthy leaders into congress and the white house, and start dishing out the consequences due for the last 8 yrs of corruption.

a progessive party must form now.

[kindGSL]

I agree.

How about we more thoroughly check up on these people BEFORE we elect them to high office?

[MakeAWish]

Good comments. I'm glad there is going to be an investigation and hope those who lied to congress, will be punished. This type of shadow government undermines the basis of our constitution and democracy.

How was this funded and who authorized it's formation?

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

I think this is one of my biggest disappointments, Obama's unwillingness to prosecute those that committed treas0n against the American people. The fact that the Patri0t Act is still in existance is a travestiy. I volunteered many hours during the campaign and I regret all my efforts. Not that the alternative was acceptable but I feel lied to. Our hope/change has been traded in for status quo/quid pro quo.

After WW2, the Japaneese lamented their mistake in attacking us and "waking the sleeping giant". Since then we became very complacent, allowed that which we feared to weave its way through our own govt, very Manchurian Candidate. We can no longer tell the good guys from bad but thanks to Bush, the sleeping giant has been woken once more. He went to far and severly misjudged our apathy. The biggest mistake the greedy made, was to begrudge us our simple pleasures. Its hard to spout angry rhetoric when you're fat and content. Hunger is highly motivational, kinda hard to put the jeanie back in the bottle when its been foreclosed!

Someone has to pay. Obamas reasons as to why he doesn't intend to prosecute anyone for crimes against WE THE PEOPLE are weak! I agree, we vote them out election after election until they finally get it, we don't want to take away all their fun. They want their black ops stuff that's fine just point it away from us/US!