Torture (or "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," in misleading bureaucrat-speak) did not make America safer. A Senate Intelligence Committee report says as much, as do the people who actually interrogated high value targets and obtained actionable intelligence by not torturing them. But because of the crushing guilt one must experience knowing they defiled the soul of America, the people who promoted the acts continue to defend them, and in the case of the man at the CIA who was in charge of the program, Jose Rodriguez, make money off them. Rodriguez sat down with 60 Minutes last night to promote his book, "Hard Measures." Here are the comments that should be read at his war crimes trial and not heard in a forum for self-promotion in front of millions of viewers. more ›

Since August of 2011, the Associated Press has published a series of reports revealing the New York Police Department's involvement in the monitoring of Muslim communities across the Northeast. The investigation revealed that the department was monitoring a huge swath of presumably innocent people from New Jersey to Connecticut, sometimes without the knowledge of local law enforcement. We spoke with the AP's Senior Managing Editor for U.S. News Mike Oreskes about how the story developed, where the information comes from and about the raging debate on maintaining civil liberties in the War on Terror. more ›

Another day, another damning revelation of the role that religion played in the NYPD's extensive surveillance of the Muslim community. The AP reports that in addition to monitoring college students at schools in the New York City area, the department monitored Muslim students at Yale and University of Pennsylvania, and even sent an undercover officer on a whitewater rafting trip where he took detailed notes on the students and their activities. more ›

The website for the Central Intelligence Agency is down at this hour, and a shadowy network of hackers have claimed credit. Anonymous (a group that Gothamist.com has no beef with!) Tweeted "CIA Tango down." ("Tango down," the AP notes, is an expression used by the US Special Forces when they have eliminated an enemy.) A later Tweet explains that Anonymous does it for "the LULZ." more ›

Out of Facebook's 1 billion daily logins, 600,000 are hacked and compromised. Facebook used the British security firm Sophos for an analysis of their security breaches. Naturally, Facebook released a statement telling everyone how much they care about other people not finding out how much we love Nickelback, or that video of the guy doing the Dougie getting hit with an ice cream truck: "At Facebook, we take the privacy and safety of the people who use our site very seriously." They're also working 24/7 to ensure everyone’s information is safe and secure.” more ›

In late August, the Associated Press published an exposé about the NYPD's partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on Muslims in NYC. Unsurprisingly, the NYCLU is challenging the partnership in court, and yesterday filed a motion to determine whether the spying operation violates an existing court order—the Handschu Guidelines, which are named after a 1971 plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NYPD accusing them of violating the constitution while investigating political groups. more ›

While President Obama draws down troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, make no mistake: the War on Terror is still being waged, from heightened airport security measures to the fact that the CIA has turned into a killing machine. But with the death of Osama bin Laden, the (arguably) diminishing influence of Al Qaeda, and the risk of turning the War on Terror into the War on Drugs, should we call it quits? more ›

A day after the Associated Press published a lengthy article detailing how the NYPD is running a secretive police intelligence team to investigate Muslim communities as part of counter-terrorism efforts—with possibly civil liberties-infringing tactics, like sending informants to mosques where there's no evidence of wrong-doing—Mayor Bloomberg admitted that the NYPD is working with the CIA. But he defended its practices, “If there are threats or leads to follow, then the NYPD’s job is to do it. The law is pretty clear about what’s the requirement and I think they follow the law. We don’t stop to think about the religion. We stop to think about the threats and focus our efforts there." more ›

It must be frustrating working at the CIA sometimes, what with all those stifling rules keeping you from spying on suspicious Americans. Thankfully, there's a solution for spooks with an itch to snoop domestically: Just shuffle on over to the NYPD, which has been working closely with the CIA since 2002, when veteran CIA division head David Cohen came out of retirement to run a secretive police intelligence team. In a thorough 5,000 word article, the AP reports that the division's counterterrorism tactics have gone further than what the FBI allows, and they're probably illegal. more ›

In case it's not obvious: secret agencies don't recruit in suburban shopping malls, but psychos do. A Connecticut man is accused of recruiting black and Hispanic men for a fake secret agency, and then torturing them with needles, rope, strapping tape and vegetable oil. more ›

A CIA Predator Drone strike in Yemen on Thursday failed to hit its intended target, American citizen Anwar al-Awalaki, but may have killed other members of Al Qaeda, the Times reports. Al-Awalaki, a Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico and recruits English-speaking extremists through internet sermons, is believed to be a member of Al Qaeda's branch in the Arabian Peninsula. more ›

Recently, Long Island Rep. Peter King accused the Muslim community of being uncooperative with police and the FBI, and has planned Congressional hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America. It turns out the FBI agrees that many Muslims are unhelpful, but says Muslims aren't the only ones who don't give them tips; the Mafia and MS-13 keep their lips sealed, too. One FBI source told the Daily News, "Criminals are criminals. It gets dicier because Muslim extremists wrap their work in religion, but the smokescreens, the silence and intimidation are similar." But some patriots say the FBI is just spreading a message of complacency, because "Muslim extremists" have already taken over the FBI! more ›

It appears that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak may step down in a matter of hours. The Egyptian army has announced that is has begun "necessary measures to protect the nation and support the legitimate demands of the people,” which many are taking to be a signal it will be taking a lead role in the coming changes. Meanwhile the CIA (which has issues with these kinds of things) thinks there is a “strong likelihood” Mubarak could step down as soon as today, to be replaced by his new VP Omar Suleiman. more ›

If a 58-year-old pianist, whose family founded a huge oilfield services company, is worried about his laptop being infected with a computer virus, why not grift him for $6 million by telling him that not only was the laptop infected, but that he needed physical protection from the worm's creators based in Honduras and that " Polish priests affiliated with Opus Dei were attempting to possibly harm" him? That's what computer repairman Vickram Bedi and Helga Invarsdottir are accused of doing to victim Roger Davidson. more ›

CIA Director Leon Panetta gave a sobering interview with ABC's "This Week" yesterday, in which he said the US has had no solid intelligence on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts for years. While being interviewed on the program, Panetta summarized the difficulties with the war in Afghanistan, and with the hunt for bin Laden, saying that the last "precise information" US officials had on the terrorist leader was in "the early 2000s": "Since then, it's been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location. He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding ... He's in an area of the tribal areas of Pakistan." But in that case, maybe the CIA should be outsourcing their intelligence to the Osama Hunter. more ›

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden who was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to NYC last year, says he will boycott his trial if prison officials continue to strip search him. Ghailani, who is accused of being involved in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, said this morning in court, "Yes, I understand my right to be here...Can I waive my right of strip searching?" more ›

The author of a new book about the CIA’s hallucinogenic drug tests during the Cold War says there’s evidence the agency used NYC commuters as their experimental subjects. He found documentation of the subway tests—which allegedly occurred in 1950—while researching his nonfiction account. "The experiment was pretty shocking — shocking that the CIA and the Army would release LSD like that, among innocent unwitting folks," H.P. Albarelli told The Post. more ›

In a court case that might turn out closely foreshadowing the much-hyped trials of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 plotters, terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has asked a Manhattan judge to dismiss his indictment because authorities denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial. more ›

With the Justice Department's release of a report on the CIA's abuses in overseas prisons and Attorney General Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor to decide whether a full criminal investigation is needed, former Vice President Dick Cheney released a statement. Cheney says having a special prosecutor look into the matter "doubts about this administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security...The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions." The AP's assessment of the released documents: "Interrogators took the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding beyond what was authorized. Mock executions were held." Specifically, "In one instance, suspect Abd al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole ship bombing, was hooded and handcuffed and threatened with an unloaded gun and a power drill. The unidentified interrogator also threatened Nashiri's mother and family, implying that they would be sexually abused in front of him, according to the report." Cheney also said, "This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of Al Qaeda members and associates since 2002," but Newsweek wonders if the information gained was useful. more ›

Conservative columnist and former TV pundit Robert Novak died early this morning in his Washington home after a battle with brain cancer. The Joilet, Illinois native became a major journalistic player with the syndicated "Inside Report" column, which he started in 1963 with the late Rowland Evans Jr. He subsequently became a familiar television personality, appearing often on CNN. A registered Democrat despite his conservative views, Novak was heavily criticized by some Republicans for opposing America's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Neoconservative writer David Frum labeled him an "Unpatriotic Conservative," along with Pat Buchanan. Novak was also at the center of the great CIA leak scandal that dragged on for years after he identified Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative" in his column in 2003. Some referred to Novak as a "journalistic Prince of Darkness," but to his wife Geraldine he "was someone who loved being a journalist, loved journalism and loved his country and loved his family." Timothy Carney at Human Events has filed a remembrance of his collaboration with Novak. more ›

With the release of CIA documents showing that terror suspects were waterboarded—FireDogLake found that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month—President Obama visited the CIA yesterday to reassure the agency that his administration wouldn't prosecute officials "for following legal advice," the NY Times reports (though some lawyers could be prosecuted for crafting the advice). Obama also addressed criticism that he was naive for releasing the memos, "What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard.” (The Daily Show took on the torture memos last night, saving Peggy Noonan's despair about the memos' release for last). The ACLU has called for the Department of Justice "to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate torture crimes under the Bush administration as well as a Select Committee in Congress to investigate torture and pass legislation to prevent a reoccurrence of past violations of the law." more ›

The Washington Post offers a story about how win over Afghan "notoriously fickle warlords and chieftains" by offering them "variety of personal services." This includes "pocketknives and tools, medicine or surgeries for ailing family members, toys and school equipment, tooth extractions, travel visas, and, occasionally, pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos." A CIA operative tells the WaPo, "Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people -- whether it's building a school or handing out Viagra." In one example, an older tribal leader with four younger wives was so pleased with the Viagra he "offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills." CNBC's Mike Huckman spoke to Pfizer, whose spokesperson said the pharmaceutical company was "certainly not" aware about the drug's use in the war against terror. But, seriously, what will the government think of next—tabs of LSD?! more ›