position:spy agency

  • Underneath electoral hype, Israel’s ethnic divide | Middle East Eye
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/underneath-electoral-hype-israel-s-ethnic-divide-604876824

    The reason Israelis are still talking about the rally days later is not because of a passionate speech delivered by the former chief of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Meir Dagan, but rather because of a highly embarrassing - and potentially, electorally damaging - speech by an artist and frequent Haaretz contributor, Yair Garboz.

    Garboz opened the rally by describing how he viewed Israel with Netanyahu at the helm, indulging in a popular habit of attributing the most extreme aberrations and abuses of powers to a tiny, unrepresentative minority.

    “They told us that the man who killed the [former] prime minister [Rabin] was part of a delusional, tiny handful of individuals,” he said. “They told us he was under the influence of rabbis detached from reality, part of the crazy margins. They said those of yellow shirts with black badges, who shout “death to Arabs”, are a tiny handful. They told us the thieves and the bribe takers are only a handful. That the corrupt are no more than a handful…. the talismans-kissers, the idol-worshippers and those bowing and prostrating themselves on the tombs of saints - only a handful… then how is that this handful rules over us? How did this handful quietly become a majority?”

    In the heated discussion that ensued, Garboz insisted he wasn’t referring to anyone of any particular ethnic origin. But to most Israelis, the phrase about “talisman-kissers” and “tomb worshippers” was as much dogwhistle politics as American lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s remarks a few weeks earlier about Obama “not being brought up like we were” was to black Americans. Some Ashkenazi Jews do all of the above too, usually in connection to the tomb of the 19th century Rabbi Nachman of Breslaw in Uman, Ukraine. But talismans and pilgrimages are a well-known staple in the lives of Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries – also known as Mizrachim.

    #israel #ethnies

  • Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers - The InterceptThe Intercept
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/05/watch-commander

    Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

    • Spy Agency Stole Scoop From Media Outlet And Handed It To The AP
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/05/terror-watch-list_n_5651757.html

      After the AP story ran, The Intercept requested a conference call with the National Counterterrorism Center. A source with knowledge of the call said that the government agency admitted having fed the story to the AP, but didn’t think the reporter would publish before The Intercept did. “That was our bad,” the official said.

      Asked by The Intercept editor John Cook if it was the government’s policy to feed one outlet’s scoop to a friendlier outlet, a silence ensued, followed by the explanation: “We had invested some quality time with Eileen," referring to AP reporter Eileen Sullivan, who the official added had been out to visit the NCTC.

      “After seeing you had the docs, and the fact we had been working with Eileen, we did feel compelled to give her a heads up,” the official said, according to the source. “We thought she would publish after you.”

      According to the source, Cook told the official that in the future the agency would have only 30 minutes to respond to questions before publication.

  • Los Angeles Review of Books - The CIA Goes To Hollywood: How America’s Spy Agency Infiltrated The Big Screen (and Our Minds)
    http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1438

    Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are only the latest film productions the CIA has influenced in the 15 years since the Agency opened its official liaison office to Hollywood. Tricia Jenkins examines the history of this version of “Hollywood confidential” in The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television. Short and dry, her book raises serious ethical and legal questions about the relationship between the CIA and Hollywood, and the extent to which we consume propaganda from one through the other.

  • Obama names head of drone assassination program to lead CIA - World Socialist Web Site

    le “head of drone asassination program” prend du grade "
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/08/bren-j08.html

    Obama names head of drone assassination program to lead CIA
    By Barry Grey
    8 January 2013

    President Barack Obama on Monday named his counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, to head the Central Intelligence Agency in his second term. In choosing Brennan to lead the spy agency, Obama gave a clear signal that he intends to expand the illegal program of drone assassinations that has already killed thousands of innocent civilians—men, women and children—and mutilated thousands more in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

    #drone #états-unis #cIA

    Among those murdered on the say-so of the president, without any charges or judicial process, are at least three US citizens, including the New Mexico-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year old son, obliterated by drone-fired missiles in Yemen.

  • Obama names head of drone assassination program to lead CIA - World Socialist Web Site

    le “head of drone asassination program” prend du grade "
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/08/bren-j08.html

    Obama names head of drone assassination program to lead CIA
    By Barry Grey
    8 January 2013

    President Barack Obama on Monday named his counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, to head the Central Intelligence Agency in his second term. In choosing Brennan to lead the spy agency, Obama gave a clear signal that he intends to expand the illegal program of drone assassinations that has already killed thousands of innocent civilians—men, women and children—and mutilated thousands more in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

    #drone #états-unis #cIA

    Among those murdered on the say-so of the president, without any charges or judicial process, are at least three US citizens, including the New Mexico-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year old son, obliterated by drone-fired missiles in Yemen.

  • Egypt says Israeli spy arrested - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
    http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/06/201161216150180337.html

    Egypt’s official MENA news agency says authorities have arrested an Israeli national on charges of working for the Israeli spy agency, Mossad.

    Judge Hesham Badawi of the supreme state security prosecution ordered the man’s detention for 15 days pending investigations into alleged “spying on Egypt with the aim of damaging its economic and political interests”, MENA said on Sunday.

    Egyptian state television said the “Mossad officer” had arrived in Egypt shortly after the start of the January 25 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, the country’s long-time president, seeking to “incite chaos and sectarian strife”.

    Ça n’est pas forcément vrai (mais il n’y a non plus de raison pour que ce soit faux), mais ce qui est déjà très intéressant, c’est que le nouveau régime égyptien arrête un israélien, le qualifie d’espion, et le dénonce comme voulant promouvoir l’« agitation confessionnelle ».

    Si les égyptiens eux-mêmes se mettent à dire ce genre de choses...