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- 2026-09-23T1827 · [[_manifest]]
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- 2026-09-23T2022 · [[_manifest]]
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- 2026-09-23T2022 · [[Jonathan Buma]]
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- 2026-09-23T2022 · [[Charles C. Johnson]]
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- 2026-09-23T2022 · [[Elon Musk]]
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- 2026-09-23T2022 · [[Igor Kurganov]]
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- 2026-09-23T2021 · [[KEY INDIVIDUALS]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[Los Alamos]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[FISA Section 702]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[Terrorgram Collective]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[Office of Technical Service]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[Department of Defense]]
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- 2026-09-23T2020 · [[William J. Donovan]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[CRESS]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Camp Peary]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Army Chemical Corps]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]]
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- 2026-09-23T2019 · [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[ABIN]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[Gestapo]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[SS]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[Aman]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[GRU]]
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- 2026-09-23T2017 · [[DISIP]]
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- 2026-09-23T2013 · [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]]
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- 2026-09-23T2013 · [[CIA Western Hemisphere Division]]
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- 2026-09-23T2012 · [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]]
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- 2026-09-23T2012 · [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]]
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- 2026-09-23T2011 · [[National Reconnaissance Office]]
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- 2026-09-23T2011 · [[Counter Terrorism Policing]]
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- 2026-09-23T2011 · [[Europol]]
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- 2026-09-23T2011 · [[Office of Naval Intelligence]]
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- 2026-09-23T2009 · [[United States Information Agency]]
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- 2026-09-23T2009 · [[Commodity Credit Corporation]]
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- 2026-09-23T2009 · [[Overseas Private Investment Corporation]]
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- 2026-09-23T2009 · [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]]
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- 2026-09-23T2009 · [[National Security Act of 1947]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[Director of National Intelligence]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[Homeland Security Investigations]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[Department of Homeland Security]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[Federal Election Commission]]
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- 2026-09-23T2005 · [[United States Secret Service]]
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- 2026-09-23T2001 · [[_NOTES_G5_foreign_services]]
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- 2026-09-23T2000 · [[_NOTES_G2_oversight_law]]
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- 2026-09-23T1958 · [[_NOTES_G4_intel_agencies]]
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- 2026-09-23T1955 · [[_NOTES_G3_military_research]]
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- 2026-09-23T1952 · [[_NOTES_G1_federal]]
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- 2026-09-23T1837 · [[Fort Lauderdale]]
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- 2026-09-23T1837 · [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]]
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- 2026-09-23T1836 · [[Institute of Noetic Science]]
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- 2026-09-23T1836 · [[Metropolitan Police]]
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- 2026-09-23T1836 · [[Mordecai Vanunu]]
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- 2026-09-23T1836 · [[Mohammed Mossadegh]]
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- 2026-09-23T1836 · [[Muammar Qaddafi]]
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- 2026-09-23T1827 · [[Time]]
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- 2026-09-23T1825 · [[A.Q. Khan]]
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- 2026-09-23T1825 · [[Grand Cayman]]
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@ -43,58 +98,3 @@
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Washington Examiner]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Politico]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Forbes]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Houston Chronicle]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Marc Gunther]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Naina Bajekal]]
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- 2026-09-23T1807 · [[Semafor]]
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- 2026-09-23T1757 · [[_NOTES_W3a_ea_ai]]
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- 2026-09-23T1752 · [[_NOTES_W3b_policy_money]]
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- 2026-09-23T1744 · [[_NOTES_W3c_pakistan_bcci]]
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- 2026-09-23T1744 · [[_NOTES_W3e_media]]
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- 2026-09-23T1741 · [[_NOTES_W3d_philly_institutions]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[METR]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Will Henshall]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Center for AI Policy]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Open Philanthropy]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Good Ventures]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Cari Tuna]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Tarbell Center for AI Journalism]]
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- 2026-09-23T1733 · [[Center for AI Safety]]
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- 2026-09-23T1727 · [[_NOTES_EA3_primaries_checks]]
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- 2026-09-23T1711 · [[_NOTES_Civil_suits]]
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- 2026-09-23T1709 · [[Tasha McCauley]]
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- 2026-09-23T1709 · [[Adam D'Angelo]]
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- 2026-09-23T1709 · [[ICONIQ Capital]]
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- 2026-09-23T1709 · [[Divesh Makan]]
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- 2026-09-23T1709 · [[Lippo Group]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[United Arab Emirates]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Bahrain]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Dubai]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Frankfurt]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Geneva]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Tampa, Florida]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[The Wall Street Journal]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[S. C. Gwynne]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Jonathan Beaty]]
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- 2026-09-23T1708 · [[Norman Lamont]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Mark Grobmyer]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Charles Keating]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Touche Ross]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Bank of America]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Kemal Shoaib]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Paula Hawkins]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[John Heimann]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Lawrence Wechsler]]
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- 2026-09-23T1707 · [[Robert Genzman]]
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- 2026-09-23T1705 · [[Russian Imperial Movement]]
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- 2026-09-23T1705 · [[Nordic Resistance Movement]]
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- 2026-09-23T1705 · [[Southern Poverty Law Center]]
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- 2026-09-23T1704 · [[Attock Oil]]
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- 2026-09-23T1704 · [[United Bank Limited]]
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- 2026-09-23T1704 · [[Karachi]]
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- 2026-09-23T1704 · [[Benazir Bhutto]]
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- 2026-09-23T1704 · [[Zia ul-Haq]]
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- 2026-09-23T1703 · [[Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan]]
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@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ tags:
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- Disclosure
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alias:
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- Johnathan Buma
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summary: "Johnathan Buma is a former FBI special agent who specialized in Russian counterintelligence at the Los Angeles field office, who handled Peter Thiel as a confidential human source from summer 2021, who originated the FBI's first Hunter Biden tax inquiry in January 2019, who worked the Giuliani-Ukraine investigation, who publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias, and who was arrested at JFK on March 17, 2025 and charged with unlawfully disclosing confidential records."
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summary: "Former FBI counterintelligence agent in Los Angeles who handled Peter Thiel as a confidential source from 2021 and was arrested in March 2025 on a charge of disclosing confidential information."
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location: "Los Angeles, California (FBI field office)"
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created: 2026-06-18
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updated: 2026-06-18
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@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ The documented Musk-Putin contact channel is the corroborating datum. The [[Wall
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### The Igor Kurganov Infiltration
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The Guardian piece documented the Kurganov case as the concrete instance of the targeting Buma described. Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained influence over Musk's charitable giving during the pandemic period. Kurganov was sleeping in Musk's Austin home during the pandemic, advising Musk on philanthropic strategy, and became the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries into whether his access constituted a foreign-interference channel. [[Jared Birchall|Jared Birchall]], Musk's wealth manager and the head of Musk's family office, confronted Musk about Kurganov and removed him from the inner circle in May 2022.[^4]
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The Guardian article placed alongside Buma's claims earlier *Wall Street Journal* reporting on Igor Kurganov, a Russian-born former professional poker player who advised Musk on charitable giving during the pandemic: the Journal had reported that Musk's wealth manager, [[Jared Birchall|Jared Birchall]], learned an FBI agent was making preliminary inquiries into Kurganov, and that in May 2022 Birchall asked Musk to remove him from his post at Musk's foundation. The Guardian added that it was "not aware of Kurganov being named as a foreign agent, and he has no known connections to Russia, other than having been born there."[^4]
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Kurganov gained operational access to a sitting technology billionaire's philanthropic decision-making and residential life. The FBI's preliminary inquiry and the subsequent removal by Birchall terminated the access but did not resolve the counterintelligence question of what Kurganov did with it.[^4]
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@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ aliases:
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- William J. Donovan
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- Wild Bill Donovan
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- William Joseph Donovan
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- "William Donovan"
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-05-17
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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@ -14,7 +15,7 @@ tags:
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- WorldWarII
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- BritishSecurityCoordination
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- Intelligence
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summary: "General William 'Wild Bill' Donovan (1883-1959) was the founder and director of the OSS (1942-1945), building it on British Security Coordination templates and establishing the covert operations culture the CIA inherited after Truman dissolved the OSS."
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summary: "General William 'Wild Bill' Donovan (1883-1959), founder and director of the OSS from 1942 to 1945, which he modeled on British Security Coordination and whose covert culture the CIA inherited."
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born: 1883-01-01
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died: 1959-02-08
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location: "Buffalo, New York"
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@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ tags:
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alias:
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- Charles C. Johnson
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- Chuck Johnson
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summary: "Charles C. Johnson is a far-right provocateur and self-described federal informant who claimed cofounder status at Clearview AI alongside Peter Thiel's seed investment, disclosed Thiel's status as an FBI confidential human source in 2023, and was sued in 2024 for falsely presenting himself as an intelligence agent."
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summary: "Far-right provocateur and self-described federal informant who claimed to have cofounded Clearview AI, disclosed Peter Thiel's status as an FBI source in 2023, and was sued in 2024."
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born: 1988-10-22
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location: "Boston, Massachusetts (born)"
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created: 2026-06-18
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@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ The documented pattern combines three roles: the far-right media provocateur (th
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The *[[Business Insider|Business Insider]]* reporting on Thiel's FBI informant status referenced the [[Jonathan Buma|Jonathan Buma]] case. Buma, the Los Angeles FBI counterintelligence agent who handled Thiel as a CHS from summer 2021, was arrested at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|JFK Airport]] on March 17, 2025 while attempting to board an international flight, charged with unlawfully disclosing confidential information. [[CBS News|CBS News]] reported that FBI investigators assessed Buma may have compromised as many as 130 FBI files.[^2]
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Buma publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias and disclosed GRU targeting of [[Elon Musk|Musk]] and Thiel. The [[The Guardian|Guardian]] reported Buma's claim in May 2025 that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense," and that the [[GRU|GRU]] operation exploited vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. The [[Igor Kurganov|Kurganov]] infiltration of Musk's inner circle (documented separately) is the concrete instance of the targeting Buma described.[^2]
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Buma publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias and disclosed GRU targeting of [[Elon Musk|Musk]] and Thiel. The [[The Guardian|Guardian]] reported Buma's claim in May 2025 that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense"; the Kyiv Post, reporting his interview with ZDF, described the [[GRU|GRU]] operation he alleged as exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access.[^2] The Guardian's report also recounted earlier *Wall Street Journal* reporting that an FBI agent had made preliminary inquiries into [[Igor Kurganov]], an adviser on Musk's charitable giving, and noted that it was not aware of Kurganov being named as a foreign agent.[^2]
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The Buma-Thiel-Johnson triangle involves three documented roles: Buma as the FBI handler who managed Thiel as a CHS, Thiel as the billionaire source whose FBI relationship Johnson disclosed, and Johnson as the far-right operative who connected the Thiel commercial network to the federal informant infrastructure and to the Clearview surveillance-technology founding. The full content of Buma's disclosures is part of the ongoing congressional and Inspector General review of the FBI's source program. A House Judiciary Committee document submitted January 22, 2026 references Thiel's CHS role.[^2]
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ tags:
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- Starlink
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alias:
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- Elon Reeve Musk
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summary: "Elon Musk is a South African-born American billionaire who cofounded PayPal, founded SpaceX and Tesla, acquired X (Twitter), is a PayPal Mafia principal and 2026 Dialog retreat registrant, attended the 2015 Epstein dinner, and has been in documented regular contact with Vladimir Putin since late 2022 while running the Starlink satellite network operationally significant to the Russia-Ukraine war."
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summary: "South African-born billionaire who cofounded PayPal and runs SpaceX and Tesla, acquired Twitter, and was reported in 2024 to have been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin since late 2022."
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born: 1971-06-28
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location: "Pretoria, South Africa (born); Austin, Texas (base)"
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created: 2026-06-18
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@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Musk has stated publicly that he attended the dinner because Epstein promised to
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[[The Wall Street Journal]] reported on October 25, 2024 that Musk had been in regular contact with Putin since late 2022, a relationship that began after Starlink became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war. The contact channel ran through the period of Musk's X acquisition (October 2022), his documented shifts in platform-content moderation toward the post-2022 Russian-state position on the war, and the September 2023 Starlink-Crimea refusal.[^3][^4]
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Former FBI agent Jonathan Buma disclosed in May 2025 (per [[The Guardian]]) that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense," and the [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] reporting on Buma's interview characterized the operation as [[GRU|GRU]]-run, Putin-approved, and exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. The [[Igor Kurganov|Igor Kurganov]] infiltration, documented separately, is the concrete instance: a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational access to Musk's philanthropic decision-making and residential life before being removed by wealth manager [[Jared Birchall]] in May 2022.[^4][^9][^10]
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Former FBI agent Jonathan Buma disclosed in May 2025 (per [[The Guardian]]) that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense," and the [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] reporting on Buma's interview characterized the operation as [[GRU|GRU]]-run, Putin-approved, and exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. The Guardian's article also recounted *Wall Street Journal* reporting from 2022 that an FBI agent had made preliminary inquiries into [[Igor Kurganov|Igor Kurganov]], a Russian-born former professional poker player advising Musk on charitable giving, and that wealth manager [[Jared Birchall]] had Musk remove him from his foundation post in May 2022; the Guardian said it was not aware of Kurganov being named as a foreign agent.[^4][^9][^10]
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### The X Acquisition and Platform Policy
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@ -69,4 +69,4 @@ Musk has denied that his activities have been influenced by Russian-state intere
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[^7]: Isaacson, Walter. *Elon Musk.* Simon and Schuster, 2023.
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[^8]: For the 2015 Epstein dinner, see EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564, indexed in the Carstensen aggregator.
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[^9]: "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk." *Kyiv Post,* 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742
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[^10]: For the Kurganov infiltration and the Birchall removal, see The Guardian May 2025 report and the Igor Kurganov page.
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[^10]: "FBI whistleblower claims he tried to get to Musk to warn him he was being targeted by Russia," *The Guardian,* May 22, 2025 (recounting the *Wall Street Journal*'s July 2022 reporting on Kurganov and Birchall). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/fbi-whistleblower-musk-russia
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@ -11,39 +11,35 @@ tags:
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- Counterintelligence
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alias:
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- Igor Kurganov
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summary: "Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational influence over Elon Musk's charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic, slept in Musk's Austin home, and was the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries into foreign interference before being removed from Musk's inner circle by wealth manager Jared Birchall in May 2022."
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location: "Russia (born); Austin, Texas (Musk period)"
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summary: "Russian-born former professional poker player who advised Elon Musk on charitable giving during the pandemic, was the subject of a reported FBI preliminary inquiry, and left Musk's foundation in May 2022."
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location: "Russia (born)"
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created: 2026-06-18
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updated: 2026-06-18
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---
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Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational influence over [[Elon Musk|Elon Musk]]'s charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kurganov was sleeping in Musk's [[Austin, Texas|Austin]] home during the pandemic period, advising Musk on philanthropic strategy, and became the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries into whether his access constituted a foreign-interference channel. [[Jared Birchall|Jared Birchall]], Musk's wealth manager and the head of Musk's family office, confronted Musk and removed Kurganov from the inner circle in May 2022.[^1]
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Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained influence over [[Elon Musk|Elon Musk]]'s charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the *[[Wall Street Journal]]*, he spent time sleeping in Musk's home during the pandemic, and an FBI agent made preliminary inquiries into him as part of the agent's job "to watch for foreign interference in US companies." [[Jared Birchall|Jared Birchall]], Musk's wealth manager and the head of Musk's family office, confronted Musk and removed Kurganov from the inner circle in May 2022.[^1]
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### The Poker Career and the Musk Access
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Kurganov built a public profile as a high-stakes professional poker player, accumulating over 18 million dollars in live tournament winnings across a career that placed him among the top German and Russian tournament players. His poker network overlaps with the high-roller gambling circuit whose principals move across national borders and whose venues (Macau, [[Las Vegas]], Monte Carlo, the online high-stakes sites) are documented intelligence-collection environments.[^1][^2]
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The documented path to Musk ran through Kurganov's effective-altruism and philanthropic-strategy work. Kurganov entered Musk's circle during the pandemic period and gained influence over Musk's charitable giving, which had become a substantial operation as Musk's wealth grew through the [[Tesla|Tesla]] stock run-up and the [[SpaceX|SpaceX]] private valuations. Kurganov's access included sleeping in Musk's Austin home, placing him inside Musk's residential security perimeter rather than at arm's length as a professional advisor.[^1]
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The documented path to Musk ran through Kurganov's effective-altruism and philanthropic-strategy work. Kurganov entered Musk's circle during the pandemic period and gained influence over Musk's charitable giving, which had become a substantial operation as Musk's wealth grew through the [[Tesla|Tesla]] stock run-up and the [[SpaceX|SpaceX]] private valuations. The Journal reported that he spent time sleeping in Musk's home during the pandemic.[^1]
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### The FBI Preliminary Inquiry
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The FBI's Los Angeles field office opened preliminary inquiries into whether Kurganov's access to Musk constituted a foreign-interference channel, per *The Guardian*'s reporting on the disclosures of former FBI agent [[Jonathan Buma]]. The inquiry ran under the counterintelligence portfolio that handles Russian foreign-influence operations targeting U.S. technology principals. Buma described the broader pattern of Russian targeting of Musk as "intense," and the [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] / [[ZDF|ZDF]] reporting on Buma's interview characterized the operation as [[GRU|GRU]]-run and Putin-approved, exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access.[^1][^3]
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The question of what Kurganov did with the access during the period he had it (advising on philanthropic strategy, residential access, proximity to Musk's decision-making on charitable and potentially other matters) is not fully resolved in the public record. The FBI inquiry was preliminary, meaning it was an assessment-stage investigation to determine whether full counterintelligence investigation was warranted.[^1]
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The *Wall Street Journal* reported in July 2022, citing people familiar with the matter, that Musk's wealth manager, Jared Birchall, had learned that an FBI agent had been making preliminary inquiries into Kurganov as part of the agent's job "to watch for foreign interference in US companies." The Journal reported that Kurganov had not been accused of wrongdoing, and he did not comment.[^1] *The Guardian* recounted that reporting in May 2025 and added that it was "not aware of Kurganov being named as a foreign agent, and he has no known connections to Russia, other than having been born there." His wife, the poker player [[Liv Boeree]], said in a statement to the paper that his "only connection to Russia" was his birth there.[^1]
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### The Birchall Removal (May 2022)
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Jared Birchall is the wealth manager who runs Musk's family office and who functions as Musk's gatekeeper on financial and security matters. *The Guardian* reported that Birchall confronted Musk about Kurganov's access and removed Kurganov from the inner circle in May 2022.[^1]
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The Journal reported that Birchall "cornered" Musk to discuss his concerns about Kurganov, whom he reportedly saw as a "newcomer who suddenly had immense influence on what to do with Musk's money," that Kurganov had spent time sleeping in Musk's home during the pandemic, and that Musk had told Birchall he was considering leaving Kurganov in charge of his charitable giving. In May 2022 Birchall asked Musk to remove Kurganov from his post at Musk's private foundation, and Musk agreed.[^1]
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What Kurganov did with his access during the period he had it, what he took with him when he was removed, and whether the access produced intelligence value for any Russian service are not documented in the public record.[^1]
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### Buma's Account
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### The Broader Targeting Pattern
|
||||
The former FBI counterintelligence agent [[Jonathan Buma]], arrested in March 2025 and charged with disclosing the identity of a confidential FBI source, told *The Guardian* in May 2025 that Russian efforts to target Musk were "intense," and said he had tried to convey his concerns through another agent described as an FBI liaison to SpaceX, who he said was not responsive. The Guardian's article placed the earlier Journal reporting on Kurganov alongside Buma's claims. The FBI's national press office did not respond, and its [[Los Angeles]] field office declined to comment. The [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]], reporting Buma's interview with the German broadcaster [[ZDF|ZDF]], described the operation he alleged as [[GRU|GRU]]-run and Putin-approved, exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment and luxury access.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Buma disclosed that the Kurganov case was one of multiple Russian targeting efforts directed at Musk and at [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]]. The [[The Guardian|Guardian]] reported Buma's May 2025 interview in which he characterized the efforts as "intense," and the Kyiv Post reporting on Buma's ZDF interview described the operation as GRU-run, Putin-approved, and exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access.[^1][^4]
|
||||
Buma also told the Guardian that he had briefed [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]], whom Business Insider and the Atlantic had earlier reported was an FBI source from 2021 with Buma as his handler, on "what a targeting looks like," and that Thiel "essentially confirmed and provided helpful information to help us identify the nodes through which these outreaches have occurred." Thiel did not respond to the paper's request for comment.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The Buma handling of Thiel as an FBI CHS from summer 2021 overlaps chronologically with the Kurganov-Musk access period (2020-2022). Buma told the Guardian he briefed Thiel on "what a targeting looks like" and that Thiel provided "helpful information to help us identify the nodes through which these outreaches have occurred." The overlap means the FBI's counterintelligence handling of the Thiel CHS relationship and the FBI's preliminary inquiry into Kurganov's access to Musk ran in the same Los Angeles field office during the same period.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] reported on October 25, 2024 that Musk had been in regular contact with [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] since late 2022, after [[Starlink|Starlink]] became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war. The Putin contact channel, the Buma-documented GRU targeting, the Kurganov infiltration, and the [[NLRB Data Exfiltration|NLRB data exfiltration]] with Russian IP access through [[Department of Government Efficiency|DOGE]] together form the evidentiary set on the Russian-influence question around the PayPal Mafia principals.[^1][^4]
|
||||
The Wall Street Journal reported on October 25, 2024 that Musk had been in regular contact with [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] since late 2022, after [[Starlink|Starlink]] became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ summary: "Iranian Prime Minister overthrown in 1953 with CIA help after national
|
|||
born: 1882
|
||||
died: 1967
|
||||
location: "Tehran, Iran"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Mohammad Mosaddegh"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Mohammed Mossadegh]] was the Prime Minister of [[Iran]]. In late 1950 and early 1951, the Majlis (Parliament) passed an act nationalizing oil, leading to the withdrawal of the British [[Anglo-Iranian Oil Company]]. This resulted in [[Mohammed Mossadegh|Mossadegh]] being in charge of a nation in uproar, with fierce internal conflicts and street riots.[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ summary: "Libyan leader who pressured African nations to cut ties with Israel an
|
|||
born: 1942
|
||||
died: 2011-10-20
|
||||
location: "Qasr Abu Hadi, near Sirte, Libya"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Muammar Gaddafi"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Muammar Qaddafi]] was the leader of [[Libya]]. He played a role in [[Africa|African]] politics, promising money to black [[Africa|African]] nations if they cut ties with [[Israel]]. This led to a deterioration of relations between [[Israel]] and [[Uganda]] under [[Idi Amin]].[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ summary: "Technician at Israel's Dimona reprocessing plant from 1977 to 1985 who
|
|||
born: 1954-10-14
|
||||
location: "Marrakech, Morocco"
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Mordechai Vanunu"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Mordecai Vanunu]] was a former technician at a nuclear facility near [[Dimona]], [[Israel]], who became a whistleblower, exposing details of Israel's nuclear program to the _London Sunday Times_ in 1986.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1478,7 +1478,7 @@ Master index of the people pages, generated from each page's `category` and `sum
|
|||
| [[Amanda Askell]] | Amanda Askell is the philosopher who leads the team shaping the character of Anthropic's Claude and is the principal author of its Constitution, an NYU-trained ethicist from the effective-altruism movement who was formerly married to its co |
|
||||
| [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]] | Eliezer Yudkowsky is an American writer and self-taught artificial-intelligence theorist who founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, wrote the foundational texts of the LessWrong rationalist movement, was funded for a decade by |
|
||||
| [[Holden Karnofsky]] | Holden Karnofsky is the cofounder of the charity evaluator GiveWell and of Open Philanthropy, the largest sustained funder of effective altruism and AI-safety work, an early backer of Anthropic who later moved into AI-safety strategy and jo |
|
||||
| [[Igor Kurganov]] | Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational influence over Elon Musk's charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic, slept in Musk's Austin home, and was the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries |
|
||||
| [[Igor Kurganov]] | Russian-born former professional poker player who advised Elon Musk on charitable giving during the pandemic, was the subject of a reported FBI preliminary inquiry |
|
||||
| [[Max More]] | Max More is a British-born philosopher who coined the term extropy, founded the Extropy Institute and the libertarian-transhumanist movement of the 1990s, and later ran the Alcor cryonics foundation. |
|
||||
| [[Michael Vassar]] | Michael Vassar is an American businessman who served as president of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence from 2009 to 2011 and later led an informal circle, the Vassarites, that recruited from the rationalist movement and |
|
||||
| [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] | Sam Bankman-Fried is the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and the effective-altruism movement's largest benefactor, who directed FTX customer funds into longtermist causes and a 500 million dollar Anthropic investment before FTX c |
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
64
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/ABIN.md
Normal file
64
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/ABIN.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Agência Brasileira de Inteligência
|
||||
- Agencia Brasileira de Inteligencia
|
||||
- Brazilian Intelligence Agency
|
||||
- Abin
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Brazil
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- Surveillance
|
||||
- AbinParalela
|
||||
- JairBolsonaro
|
||||
- TerrorgramCollective
|
||||
summary: "Brazil's central intelligence agency, created by Law 9.883 of December 1999, whose Bolsonaro-era director and sitting leadership were indicted by the Federal Police in 2025 in the Abin paralela espionage inquiry."
|
||||
start: 1999-12-07
|
||||
location: "Brasília, Brazil"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alexandre Ramagem]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director-general"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Luiz Fernando Corrêa]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director-general"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Polícia Federal]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Abin paralela inquiry"
|
||||
end: 2025-06-17
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (ABIN) is the central body of the Brazilian Intelligence System ([[Sistema Brasileiro de Inteligência]], SISBIN). Both were created by Law 9.883 of December 7, 1999, signed by President [[Fernando Henrique Cardoso]] and countersigned by [[Alberto Mendes Cardoso]], and published in the official gazette the following day.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Law 9.883
|
||||
|
||||
The law defines intelligence as "the activity that aims at the obtaining, analysis and dissemination of knowledge within and outside the national territory" on facts and situations bearing on government decision-making and "the safeguarding and security of society and the State," and counterintelligence as "the activity that aims to neutralize adverse intelligence." Article 3 created ABIN as a body directly advising the President of the Republic which, "in the position of central body of the Brazilian Intelligence System, shall be responsible for planning, executing, coordinating, supervising and controlling the intelligence activities of the country"; a 2001 provisional measure, [[Medida Provisória 2.216-37|2.216-37]], redefined it as a body of the Presidency. Its intelligence activities are to be carried out, "as regards the limits of their extent and the use of secret techniques and means," with "unrestricted observance of individual rights and guarantees."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Under Article 4 ABIN is to "plan and execute actions, including secret ones," to obtain and analyze data for the President, to protect sensitive knowledge relating to the security of the state and society, and to "evaluate the threats, internal and external, to the constitutional order." The National Intelligence Policy set by the President is executed by ABIN "under the supervision of the Chamber of Foreign Relations and National Defense of the Council of Government." External control belongs to the legislature, through a body made up of the majority and minority leaders of the [[Chamber of Deputies of Brazil|Chamber of Deputies]] and the [[Federal Senate of Brazil|Federal Senate]] and the chairs of the foreign relations and national defense committees of both houses.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The agency is run by a director-general chosen and appointed by the President after approval by the Senate. Acts of ABIN whose publicity could compromise its secret activities are published only in extract, and a 2001 amendment provided that intelligence documents in its custody may be supplied to authorities only by the chief of the [[Gabinete de Segurança Institucional]] of the Presidency. The law absorbed into ABIN the technical intelligence unit then attached to the [[Casa Militar]] of the Presidency, with its posts, property and budget balances, and required the annual federal budget to carry, under a specific heading, the resources for "actions of a secret character."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Terrorgram Reporting
|
||||
|
||||
In 2023 [[Michele Prado]], founder of the non-governmental organization [[Stop Hate Brasil]], submitted a report to ABIN and the [[Ministry of Justice and Public Security]] identifying [[Telegram]] channels linked to members of the [[Terrorgram Collective]] operating in Brazil, including channels linked to [[Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira]] and to the pseudonym "[[Wolf Boy Winter]]."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Abin Paralela
|
||||
|
||||
On June 17, 2025, the [[Polícia Federal]] concluded its inquiry into an alleged espionage scheme set up inside ABIN during the government of [[Jair Bolsonaro]], known as the "Abin paralela," and sent it to the [[Supreme Federal Tribunal]] with a list of 36 people indicted. They included the city councilman [[Carlos Bolsonaro]] and the federal deputy [[Alexandre Ramagem]], who had been ABIN's director-general at the time, as well as the agency's sitting leadership under its director-general, [[Luiz Fernando Corrêa]]. The principal subject of the investigation was the use of ABIN to monitor public authorities illegally. According to the Federal Police, federal police officers and delegados seconded to ABIN, together with agency employees, took part in a criminal organization to carry out illegal espionage, and investigators found an operation to obtain confidential information on [[Paraguay|Paraguayan]] officials involved in negotiating the energy contract of the [[Itaipu Dam|Itaipu]] hydroelectric plant.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Ramagem did not comment on the indictment and had previously denied the scheme existed; Carlos Bolsonaro said the operation was politically motivated with an eye to the 2026 elections; ABIN declined to comment. Jair Bolsonaro was not indicted in this inquiry, because the Federal Police held that, having already been indicted for criminal organization in the case over the attempted coup, he could not be indicted again.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Brazil. Lei nº 9.883, de 7 de dezembro de 1999. "Institui o Sistema Brasileiro de Inteligência, cria a Agência Brasileira de Inteligência - ABIN, e dá outras providências." Diário Oficial da União, December 8, 1999, as amended by Medida Provisória nº 2.216-37 of 2001. Presidência da República, Casa Civil. https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9883.htm. Quotations translated from the Portuguese.
|
||||
[^2]: GNET (Global Network on Extremism and Technology). "Terrorgram and Youth Radicalisation: Understanding Brazil's Online Extremist Landscape," November 22, 2024. https://gnet-research.org/2024/11/22/terrorgram-and-youth-radicalisation-understanding-brazils-online-extremist-landscape/
|
||||
[^3]: "PF indicia Carlos Bolsonaro e Ramagem no inquérito da 'Abin Paralela'." *Agência Brasil,* June 17, 2025, corrected June 18, 2025. https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/justica/noticia/2025-06/pf-indicia-carlos-bolsonaro-e-ramagem-no-inquerito-da-abin-paralela. Quotations translated from the Portuguese.
|
||||
63
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Aman.md
Normal file
63
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Aman.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Military Intelligence Directorate
|
||||
- Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)
|
||||
- Agaf HaModi'in
|
||||
- AMAN
|
||||
- Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Israel
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- MilitaryIntelligence
|
||||
- IDF
|
||||
- Unit8200
|
||||
- YomKippurWar
|
||||
- AgranatCommission
|
||||
- October7
|
||||
summary: "The Israel Defense Forces' military intelligence directorate, established with the state, comprising Units 8200, 9900 and 504, whose director Aharon Haliva resigned in 2024 over the October 7 attack."
|
||||
start: 1948
|
||||
location: "Tel Aviv, Israel"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Aharon Haliva]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director, resignation announced 2024-04-22"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Agranat Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1974
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Military Intelligence Directorate (Agaf HaModi'in, Aman) of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] is, in the IDF's description, "one of the oldest Directorates in the IDF. It was established as soon as the state of Israel was founded." Its stated mission is "to supply the government and IDF with intelligence warnings and alerts daily and during wartime to protect Israel from threats."[^1] It works alongside [[Mossad]] and [[Shin Bet]] among the intelligence services of [[Israel]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Structure
|
||||
|
||||
The directorate is made up of three main units, Unit 8200, [[Unit 9900]] and [[Unit 504]], "the biggest of which is the 8200 Unit, the Military Intelligence Directorate's main information gathering unit." [[Unit 8200]] develops and operates collection tools and analyzes and distributes what it gathers, and in wartime its soldiers join field headquarters. The IDF lists among the directorate's roles listening, which requires "a very high level of Arabic," selective translation of intercepted material, the interpretation of aerial imagery into maps, and the construction of secure computer terminals. The [[Intelligence Corps]] also includes the commando unit [[Sayeret Matkal]], which "is not part of any regional command; it only responds to orders from the Chief of General Staff." An IDF page dated December 29, 2021, named Major General [[Tamir Hayman]] as head of the directorate.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Agranat Commission
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Agranat Commission]] inquired into the conduct of the [[Yom Kippur War]] of October 1973. Its first, interim report, published on April 1, 1974, contained "some personal recommendations regarding senior IDF officers and the political echelon's responsibility," and institutional recommendations on "the conduct of the Government and the Intelligence Community"; two further reports followed. In the account of the Israeli Ministry of Defense archive, "most of the blame was cast upon the military." The government of [[Golda Meir]] resigned in April 1974 and was succeeded by a government under [[Yitzhak Rabin]], with [[Shimon Peres]] as defense minister; the chief of staff, [[David Elazar]], resigned and was replaced by [[Mordechai Gur]], and several other senior IDF officers were dismissed.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The report runs to seven volumes. In April 1994, after a petition to the [[Supreme Court of Israel|High Court of Justice]], the government allowed it to be read under conditions that included "non-disclosure of alertness and intelligence issues," and it was made public on January 1, 1995. Under Government Decision 3317 of February 27, 2005, a [[Engelard Commission|public commission]] of [[Yitzhak Engelard]], [[Moshe Vardi]] and [[Benyamin Amidror]] reviewed the classified parts; the whole final report was disclosed in 2006, save sections whose release might still harm state security or foreign relations, and the Engelard Commission went on to approve the release of fifty testimonies from the Agranat protocols. The reports have been open on the archive's website since February 2012.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### External Relations Department
|
||||
|
||||
[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] has said that he worked from 1977 to 1987 as a civilian in the directorate's External Relations Department, and has written that the department was created after the Agranat recommendations around an existing unit called Foreign Liaison. The Israeli government said that he had worked for military intelligence as a translator.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### October 7
|
||||
|
||||
On April 22, 2024, the IDF announced that Major General [[Aharon Haliva]], "in coordination with the chief of the general staff, has requested to end his position, following his leadership responsibility as the head of the intelligence directorate for the events of October 7." With the approval of the defense minister, [[Yoav Gallant]], it was decided that he "will end his position and retire" from the army "once his successor is appointed in an orderly and professional process." Haliva, who had served 38 years, was the first senior Israeli official to take responsibility for failing to prevent the [[Hamas]] attack of October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and about 240 taken captive. His resignation letter stated: "The intelligence directorate under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with. I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the horrible pain of the war with me forever." The analyst [[Yossi Mekelberg]] of [[Chatham House]] said the pressure on Haliva also stemmed from the failure to anticipate Iran's missile response to Israel's strike on its consular building in [[Damascus]].[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Israel Defense Forces. "Military Intelligence Directorate." idf.il, page dated December 29, 2021. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20260919155745/https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/directorates/military-intelligence-directorate/military-intelligence-directorate/
|
||||
[^2]: Israel Ministry of Defense, IDF and Defense Establishment Archive. "The 'Agranat Commission' Report." https://archives.mod.gov.il/sites/English/docs/agranat/Pages/AgranatReport.aspx
|
||||
[^3]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992.
|
||||
[^4]: "Espionage: Con Man or Key to a Mystery?" *Time,* 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718038/espionage-con-man-or-key-to-a-mystery/
|
||||
[^5]: "Israeli spy chief quits as pressure over October 7 failures rises." *Al Jazeera,* April 22, 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/22/israels-military-intelligence-chief-resigns-over-october-7-attack
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- UnitedKingdom
|
||||
- LawEnforcement
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
- Police
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- CTP
|
||||
- Counter Terrorism Policing South West
|
||||
- Eastern Region Specialist Operation Unit Counter Terrorism Policing
|
||||
- Counter-Terrorism Policing
|
||||
summary: "National network of British police counter-terrorism units, with eleven regional units under a London headquarters, which investigated the 764, Fascist Forge and Feuerkrieg Division cases."
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Home Office]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
role: "annual police funding settlement, 564 million pounds in 2016 to 1,212 million pounds in 2027"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Jacek Tchorzewski]]"
|
||||
start: 2019-02-20
|
||||
role: "Eastern regional unit, Schedule 7 stop at Luton Airport"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Harry Vaughan]]"
|
||||
start: 2019-06-19
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Feuerkrieg Division]]"
|
||||
start: 2019-07
|
||||
end: 2020-07-13
|
||||
role: "arrest of the Cornwall cell leader; recommendation of proscription"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Ben John]]"
|
||||
end: 2021-08-12
|
||||
role: "East Midlands unit, eleven-month investigation"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Ashley Podsiad-Sharp]]"
|
||||
end: 2023-08-31
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Cameron Finnigan]]"
|
||||
start: 2024-03
|
||||
end: 2025-01-16
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) is the network of police forces in the [[United Kingdom]] that investigates terrorism. It is not a statutory body. The [[National Police Chiefs' Council]] lists a "Section 22a agreement," a collaboration agreement under [[Police Act 1996|section 22A of the Police Act 1996]], among its pages on the network.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Structure
|
||||
|
||||
"Around the UK there are eleven regional counter terrorism units (CTUs) and intelligence units (CTIUs), which collaborate daily to confront the threat from terrorism." At the centre is Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters, which "devises policy and strategy, coordinates national projects and programmes, and provides a single national Counter Terrorism Policing voice," with an operations centre and a National CBRN Centre.[^2] The regional units and their forces are:[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
- CTP Scotland: [[Police Scotland]]
|
||||
- CTP North East: West Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham, Humberside, Northumbria, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire
|
||||
- CTP North West: Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Cumbria, the [[Isle of Man]], Lancashire and Merseyside
|
||||
- CTP Wales: South Wales, Dyfed Powys, Gwent and North Wales
|
||||
- CTP West Midlands: West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia
|
||||
- CTP South West: Avon and Somerset, [[Devon and Cornwall Police|Devon and Cornwall]], Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
|
||||
- CTP East Midlands: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire
|
||||
- CTP Eastern: Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk
|
||||
- CTP South East: Thames Valley, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex
|
||||
- CTP London: the [[Metropolitan Police]] and the [[City of London Police]]
|
||||
- Northern Ireland: the [[Police Service of Northern Ireland]]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Home Office]] funds the network through the annual police funding settlement. Counter-terrorism policing funding rose from 564 million pounds in the year ending March 31, 2016, to 1,160 million pounds in the year ending March 31, 2026, and is set at up to 1,212 million pounds, including counter-terrorism pensions, for the year ending March 31, 2027, an increase of 648 million pounds (114.9 percent) in nominal terms since 2016. The smallest annual increase, one million pounds, came in the year ending March 2018 and the largest, 132 million pounds, in the year ending March 2026.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cases
|
||||
|
||||
On February 20, 2019, officers of the Eastern region stopped [[Jacek Tchorzewski]], 18, at [[Luton Airport]] under Schedule 7 of the [[Terrorism Act 2000]] as he was about to board a flight to [[Poland]]. His telephone held terrorist manuals and bomb-making guides; he pleaded guilty at the [[Old Bailey]] to ten counts under section 58 of the act and was sentenced on September 20, 2019, to four years.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Harry Vaughan]], a student at [[Tiffin School]], was arrested on June 19, 2019, in a CTP investigation into [[Fascist Forge]], an online forum. He pleaded guilty to 14 terrorism offences and two counts of possessing indecent images and was sentenced at the Old Bailey in November 2020 by Mr Justice Sweeney to two years' detention suspended for two years.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In July 2019 Devon and Cornwall Police and CTP South West arrested a boy in [[Cornwall]] who had posted online about building a firearm. He was identified as the head of FKD_GB, the British cell of [[Feuerkrieg Division]], which he had joined at 14, and was sentenced at the Old Bailey in February 2021 to a 24-month youth rehabilitation order. The [[Crown Prosecution Service]] called him Britain's youngest terrorist.[^6] The Home Office, acting on CTP's recommendation, proscribed Feuerkrieg Division on July 13, 2020, with effect from July 17, by SI 2020/743.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Ben John]], a criminology student at [[De Montfort University]], was arrested after an eleven-month investigation by the East Midlands unit, which found a hard drive holding the Anarchy Cookbook, white supremacist and antisemitic literature, and material of the [[Order of Nine Angles]]. He was convicted at Leicester Crown Court on August 12, 2021, under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.[^8] [[Ashley Podsiad-Sharp]], a prison officer at [[HMP Armley]] in Leeds, was investigated by CTP, convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of possessing terrorist material, and sentenced on August 31, 2023, by Judge [[Jeremy Richardson KC]] to eight years' imprisonment and five years' extended licence.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
CTP became aware of [[Cameron Finnigan]], a member of the [[764 Network|764]] network, in March 2024 through intelligence about his online activity. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey on January 16, 2025, by Mr Justice Jay to six years' imprisonment and three years' extended licence.[^10] CTP's statement on the sentencing described 764 as "an immense threat," with a "Satanic extremist" ideology and "militant accelerationist (extreme right wing)" characteristics.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: National Police Chiefs' Council. "Counter Terrorism Policing," with navigation page "Section 22a agreement." Wayback Machine snapshot of January 26, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230126170736/https://www.npcc.police.uk/NationalPolicing/CounterTerrorism/CounterTerrorismPolicing.aspx
|
||||
[^2]: Counter Terrorism Policing. "Our Network." https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/what-we-do/our-network/
|
||||
[^3]: Home Office. "Police funding for England and Wales 2015 to 2027," statistical release, section 2.4.3, "Counter terrorism policing funding." https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-funding-for-england-and-wales-2015-to-2027/police-funding-for-england-and-wales-2015-to-2027
|
||||
[^4]: Campaign Against Antisemitism. "Hitler-loving neo-Nazi who said it was his 'dream' to create a bloodbath arrested at Luton Airport and sentenced to four years." September 2019. https://antisemitism.org/hitler-loving-neo-nazi-who-said-it-was-his-dream-to-create-a-bloodbath-arrested-at-luton-airport-and-sentenced-to-four-years-in-prison
|
||||
[^5]: ITV News London. "Teenage Satanist neo-Nazi avoids jail after admitting 14 terror offences." November 2, 2020. https://www.itv.com/news/london/2020-11-02/teenage-satanist-neo-nazi-harry-vaughan-sentenced-for-terror-offences
|
||||
[^6]: Crown Prosecution Service. "Youngest British terrorist sentenced for neo-Nazi manuals stash." https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/youngest-british-terrorist-sentenced-neo-nazi-manuals-stash; Counter Terror Business. "Cornwall teenager sentenced for terrorism offences." February 2021. https://counterterrorbusiness.com/news/09022021/cornwall-teenager-sentenced-terrorism-offences
|
||||
[^7]: The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020, SI 2020/743. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/743/article/2/made; Counter Terrorism Policing. "Feuerkrieg Division (FKD) proscribed as terrorist group." July 2020. https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/news/fkd-proscribed/
|
||||
[^8]: Greatest Hits Radio (Lincolnshire). "Lincoln 'white supremacist' convicted of terrorism offence." August 2021. https://planetradio.co.uk/lincs-fm/local/news/lincoln-white-supremacist-convicted-of-terrorism-offence/
|
||||
[^9]: R v Ashley Podsiad Sharp, sentencing remarks, Sheffield Crown Court, August 31, 2023, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/R-v-Ashley-Podsiad-Sharp.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: R v Cameron Finnigan, sentencing remarks, Central Criminal Court, January 16, 2025, Mr Justice Jay. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/R-v-Finnigan.pdf; Sussex Police. "Man sentenced for terror offences." January 2025. https://www.sussex.police.uk/news/sussex/news/court-results/man-sentenced-for-terror-offences/
|
||||
[^11]: Counter Terrorism Policing. "Cameron Finnigan Sentencing." LinkedIn, January 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/counter-terrorism-policing_cameron-finnigan-sentencing-activity-7285970499417849858-0K5p; Counter Terror Business. "'Satanist' teenager jailed for terrorism offences." January 17, 2025. https://counterterrorbusiness.com/news/17012025/satanist-teenager-jailed-terrorism-offences
|
||||
88
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/DISIP.md
Normal file
88
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/DISIP.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Dirección de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención
|
||||
- Dirección de Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención
|
||||
- Direccion de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevencion
|
||||
- Disip
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Venezuela
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- SecretPolice
|
||||
- CubanExiles
|
||||
- CubanaFlight455
|
||||
- CORU
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- 1970s
|
||||
summary: "Venezuela's political police and intelligence service from 1969, whose 1976 director was a Cuban exile and whose former demolitions chief, a CIA asset, was named in a warrant for the Cubana Flight 455 bombing."
|
||||
start: 1969-03-19
|
||||
location: "Caracas, Venezuela"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Orlando García Vásquez]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Luis Posada Carriles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "official in charge of demolitions"
|
||||
end: 1974
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Ricardo Morales Navarrete]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "officer"
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Dirección de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención (DISIP) was the political police and intelligence service of [[Venezuela]], created on March 19, 1969, under the government of [[Rafael Caldera]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins
|
||||
|
||||
With the end of the dictatorship of the 1950s, the [[Seguridad Nacional]], the last integrated national police force, was dissolved, and the new police apparatus separated the investigation of crime from the security of the state. Criminal investigation went to the [[Cuerpo Técnico de Policía Judicial]]. State security went to the Dirección General de Policía ([[DIGEPOL]]), created in 1959 to hear "crimes against public order and the security of the nation." Under Caldera's policy of pacification, which brought guerrilla leaders back into legal politics, DIGEPOL, which "for ten years had been the protagonist of grave episodes in the struggle against the guerrillas," was replaced by the new DISIP. The new service was assigned "a preventive function with regard to intelligence and counterintelligence work, and repressive functions with regard to the order and security of the nation."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Luis Posada Carriles
|
||||
|
||||
[[Luis Posada Carriles]], a Cuban exile who had joined the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[Brigade 2506]] in 1961, was recruited by the CIA while in the [[United States]] military between 1963 and 1965 and trained in demolitions. A CIA file search of June 1966 stated that he had "been of operational interest to this Agency since April 1965."[^2] A CIA Personal Record Questionnaire compiled on April 17, 1972, when Posada was a high-level official of DISIP in charge of demolitions, recorded reports that he had taken CIA explosives equipment to Venezuela and had ties to a Miami mafia figure, [[Lefty Rosenthal]], and listed "Bambi Carriles" among his aliases.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
After the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, the CIA told the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] that it "had a relationship with one person whose name has been mentioned in connection with the reported bombing." The uncensored retransmission of that trace report described Posada as "a former agent of CIA," briefly terminated in the summer of 1967, reinstated that autumn, and kept on as an asset while a high-level DISIP official until 1974, with "occasional contact with him" continuing until June 1976.[^2] According to still-classified CIA documents cited in a later file review, the Agency assigned Posada the cryptonym AMCLEVE-15 in 1965, gave him "a new crypt CIFENCE-4" in 1972, and later referred to him as WKSCARLET-3, by then as an informant based in DISIP.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 1976 Leadership
|
||||
|
||||
In 1976 DISIP was directed by [[Orlando García Vásquez]], a Cuban exile. According to the journalists [[John Dinges]] and [[Saul Landau]], his deputy was [[Rafael Rivas Vásquez]] and Posada was chief of operations, and "all had received CIA training."[^5] [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete]], a Cuban exile and FBI informant, worked for DISIP in Caracas; according to [[Taylor Branch]] and [[Eugene Propper]], he headed Section D-54, its counterintelligence section, under the code name Comisario Moises.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cubana Flight 455
|
||||
|
||||
On June 22, 1976, a CIA report titled "Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to Blow Up a Cubana Airliner" circulated advance intelligence of a plot against a Cubana aircraft. A CIA source later reported having heard Posada say, in late September 1976, "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner," and "Orlando has the details"; the [[State Department]]'s [[Bureau of Intelligence and Research]] relayed the remark to Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]] in a memorandum of October 18, 1976. The source was described in the CIA report as "a former Venezuelan government official" who "is usually a reliable reporter." The FBI's attaché in [[Caracas]] had multiple contacts with one of the two Venezuelans who placed the bomb and gave him a visa to the United States five days before the bombing.[^4][^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 6, 1976, [[Cubana Flight 455 bombing|Cubana Flight 455]] exploded after takeoff from [[Barbados]], killing all 73 people aboard. The two Venezuelans arrested in Barbados, [[Freddy Lugo]] and [[Hernán Ricardo Lozano]], who traveled as José Vázquez García, both worked for Posada's private security firm in Caracas. On October 7, an FBI report from Venezuela recorded that a confidential source "all but admitted that Posada and [[Orlando Bosch|Bosch]] had engineered the bombing of the airline"; the passage that appears to describe DISIP arranging for Bosch and Posada to leave Caracas is censored in the released copy.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
On November 2, 1976, the FBI reported the account of a source who had spoken with Morales. Morales described two meetings at which the bombing was planned, one at the [[Hotel Anauco Hilton]] in Caracas and another in his own room at the Hilton, both attended by Posada. He said "some people in the Venezuelan government are involved in this airplane bombing, and that if Posada Carriles talks, then Morales Navarrete and others in the Venezuelan government will 'go down the tube,'" and "if people start talking 'we'll have our own Watergate.'" He also said that after the plane went down, one of the men who had placed the bomb called Bosch and reported, "A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed."[^7] A Venezuelan judge issued arrest warrants for Posada, Bosch, Lugo and Ricardo; the FBI reported them on November 3.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### CORU
|
||||
|
||||
An FBI report of January 24, 1977, on the exile umbrella group [[CORU]], which had been founded at a meeting in [[Santo Domingo]] on June 11, 1976, attributed to García, "then head of the Venezuelan intelligence service, DISIP," orders for attacks meant to divert attention from the prosecution of Bosch and Posada in Caracas. García later lived in [[Miami]].[^12] An FBI overview of CORU dated August 16, 1978, described how Bosch had been met in Caracas on September 8, 1976, by Posada and other exiles, and a deal struck on what activities he could organize on Venezuelan soil.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela in September 1985 and went to [[El Salvador]], where, as "Ramon Medina," he worked under [[Felix Rodriguez]] on the [[Contras|contra]] resupply operation run by Lieutenant Colonel [[Oliver North]] of the [[National Security Council]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Núñez, Gilda. "Orígenes y desarrollo del aparato policial venezolano." *Politeia* 29, no. 37 (July-December 2006): 123-146, at 136-137 and 140-141. Universidad Central de Venezuela, Instituto de Estudios Políticos. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/1700/170018238005.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish.
|
||||
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record." National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, May 10, 2005, documents 2 (FBI, October 16, 1976, retransmission of CIA trace report), 3 (CIA, June 1966, file search on Luis "Pozada"), and 14. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, Personal Record Questionnaire on Luis Posada Carriles, April 17, 1972. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 5. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^4]: National Security Archive. "Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 40 Years Later." October 6, 2016. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2016-10-06/bombing-cuban-jetliner-40-years-later
|
||||
[^5]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row.* McGraw-Hill, 1980, p. 249.
|
||||
[^6]: Branch, Taylor, and Eugene M. Propper. *Labyrinth.* Viking, 1982, pp. 101, 113.
|
||||
[^7]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Intelligence Report, "Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976," November 2, 1976. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 10. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^8]: National Security Archive. "Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record," update of May 18, 2005, posting Central Intelligence Agency, report, "Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to Blow Up a Cubana Airliner," June 22, 1976; Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Unknown Subjects; Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976," October 9, 1976; and Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, memorandum, "Castro's Allegations," October 18, 1976. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^9]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Posada File: Part II." National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 157, June 9, 2005. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB157/index.htm
|
||||
[^10]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Intelligence Report, "Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados," October 7, 1976. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 9. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^11]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, cable, "Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976," November 3, 1976. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 11. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^12]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Report, "Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) Neutrality Matters - Cuba - (Anti-Castro)," January 24, 1977. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 12. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
[^13]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Report, "Coordinacion de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas (CORU), Neutrality Matters - Cuba - (Anti-Castro)," August 16, 1978. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153, document 13. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm
|
||||
76
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Europol.md
Normal file
76
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Europol.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- EuropeanUnion
|
||||
- LawEnforcement
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
- Europol
|
||||
- ECTC
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- European Counter Terrorism Centre
|
||||
- ECTC
|
||||
- European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation
|
||||
summary: "European Union law enforcement agency in The Hague, governed by Regulation 2016/794, whose European Counter Terrorism Centre has supported national cases against the Terrorgram Collective, The Base and the Com network."
|
||||
location: "The Hague, Netherlands"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[European Union]]"
|
||||
start: 2017-05-01
|
||||
role: "agency established by Regulation (EU) 2016/794"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Project Compass]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-01
|
||||
role: "coordinator, through the European Counter Terrorism Centre"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Terrorgram Collective]]"
|
||||
end: 2026-05-01
|
||||
role: "support to Canadian and Danish investigations"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Jeremy Meilhac]]"
|
||||
end: 2026-05-01
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[The Base]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-11-25
|
||||
role: "support to the Spanish National Police"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is the law enforcement agency of the [[European Union]]. Its present form rests on Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the [[European Parliament]] and the [[Council of the European Union|Council]] of May 11, 2016: "A European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) is hereby established with a view to supporting cooperation among law enforcement authorities in the Union." Under the same article, "Europol as established by this Regulation shall replace and succeed Europol as established by Decision 2009/371/JHA." The regulation applied from May 1, 2017, and provides that "Europol shall have its seat in [[The Hague]]."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Governance
|
||||
|
||||
"The Management Board shall be composed of one representative from each Member State and one representative of the Commission," each with a vote, appointed "taking into account their knowledge of law enforcement cooperation" for renewable terms of four years. The board adopts, "by a majority of two-thirds of its members," the agency's multiannual programming, its annual work programme, and "the annual budget of Europol."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
"The Executive Director shall manage Europol. He or she shall be accountable to the Management Board." The regulation provides that the Executive Director "shall be independent in the performance of his or her duties and shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or any other body," and "shall be the legal representative of Europol." The Executive Director is responsible for "the day-to-day administration of Europol," for proposals on its internal structures, and for implementing the board's decisions, and does not vote on the board.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Budget
|
||||
|
||||
Europol's statement of revenue and expenditure for 2024, as amended by amending budget No 3 of October 31, 2024, gave a grand total of 222,835,162 euros, up 390,000 euros from 222,445,162. Subsidies and contributions came to 217,529,505 euros. Staff expenditure under Title 1 totaled 123,122,980 euros.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### European Counter Terrorism Centre
|
||||
|
||||
The European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) was launched inside Europol on January 25, 2016, after the [[November 2015 Paris attacks|Paris attacks of 2015]], without new legislation. "The centre will focus on fighting foreign fighters, sharing intelligence and expertise on terrorism financing, online terrorist propaganda, among other areas."[^3] Europol lists it among its operational centres with the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the European Serious and Organised Crime Centre, the European Financial and Economic Crime Centre, and the European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The centre coordinates [[Project Compass]], an operation against [[The Com]] and its subgroup [[764 Network|764]] launched in January 2025. At its first announcement of results, on February 27, 2026, the operation had produced 30 arrests and the identification of 179 perpetrators and 62 victims, and four victims had been safeguarded, across 28 countries, among them the [[United States]], the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Canada]].[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The ECTC supported the Canadian investigation of [[Matthew Althorpe]] and [[Kristopher Erik Nippak]] and the Danish investigation of [[Jeremy Meilhac]], members of the [[Terrorgram Collective]]. It identified Meilhac's [[Telegram]] profiles as among the most influential in the network and described his role as "central and active." Its press release of May 1, 2026, on his conviction noted that "over two dozen Terrorgram cases around the world" had been identified.[^6] On November 25, 2025, the General Commissariat of Information of the [[Spanish National Police]], supported by the ECTC, arrested three suspected members of [[The Base]] in [[Madrid]] and [[Valencia]] in a three-day operation with five house searches; investigators said they had been in contact with [[Rinaldo Nazzaro]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
A 2022 study by the [[International Centre for Counter-Terrorism]] quoted Europol: "*[[Siege]]* and Accelerationism, both with significant potential for inciting violence, were the most prominent ideologies in 2021, especially attracting young people radicalised online."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and replacing and repealing Council Decisions 2009/371/JHA, 2009/934/JHA, 2009/935/JHA, 2009/936/JHA and 2009/968/JHA, *Official Journal of the European Union,* articles 1, 10, 11, 16 and 63, consolidated text. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0794
|
||||
[^2]: "Statement of revenue and expenditure of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) for the financial year 2024, amending budget No 3," *Official Journal of the European Union,* C/2024/6148, October 31, 2024. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ%3AC_202406148
|
||||
[^3]: European Criminal Law Academic Network. "Europol's European Counter Terrorist Centre (ECTC) has been launched!" January 2016. https://www.eclan.eu/en/news/2016/1/europol-s-european-counter-terrorist-centre-ectc-has-been-launched
|
||||
[^4]: Europol. "European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC)," site navigation. https://www.europol.europa.eu/about-europol/european-counter-terrorism-centre-ectc
|
||||
[^5]: Europol. "Project Compass: First operational results against Com network." February 27, 2026. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/project-compass-first-operational-results-against-com-network; BleepingComputer. "Police crackdown on The Com cybercrime gang leads to 30 arrests." https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/police-crackdown-on-the-com-cybercrime-gang-leads-to-30-arrests/
|
||||
[^6]: Europol, European Counter Terrorism Centre. "'Terrorgram' network dealt another blow as member sentenced in Denmark." May 1, 2026. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/terrorgram-network-dealt-another-blow-member-sentenced-in-denmark
|
||||
[^7]: OCCRP. "Spain, With Europol Support, Disrupts Far-Right Terrorist Group 'The Base.'" November 25, 2025. https://www.occrp.org/en/news/spain-with-europol-support-disrupts-far-right-terrorist-group-the-base
|
||||
[^8]: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. "Siege Culture After Siege: Anatomy of a Neo-Nazi Terrorist Doctrine." 2022. https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2022-12/siege-culture-neo-nazi-terrorist-doctrine.pdf
|
||||
80
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md
Normal file
80
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/GRU.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Main Intelligence Directorate
|
||||
- Main Intelligence Directorate (Russia)
|
||||
- Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye
|
||||
- Russian Military Intelligence
|
||||
- Soviet Military Intelligence
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Russia
|
||||
- SovietUnion
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- MilitaryIntelligence
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
- Cyber
|
||||
- ElectionInterference
|
||||
- Assassination
|
||||
summary: "The military intelligence directorate of the Soviet and Russian General Staff, whose officers the United States indicted for the 2016 election hacks and the WhisperGate attack and Britain charged over the Salisbury poisoning."
|
||||
location: "Moscow, Russia"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: informant_for
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Hanssen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1979
|
||||
end: 1981
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "indictment of twelve officers of Units 26165 and 74455"
|
||||
start: 2018-07-13
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "indictment of five officers of Unit 29155"
|
||||
start: 2024-09-05
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate, is the military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of [[Russia]], and before 1991 of the [[Soviet Union]].[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Robert Hanssen
|
||||
|
||||
In 1979 [[Robert Hanssen]], a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], delivered an anonymous package to a Soviet trade office in [[New York City|New York]] that served as a front for the GRU, revealing the identity of a GRU officer who was serving as an FBI informant. Over about two years he received roughly $21,000 in cash from the GRU.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2016 Election
|
||||
|
||||
On July 13, 2018, a grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment presented by the [[Special Counsel]]'s Office charging twelve GRU officers, [[Viktor Netyksho]], [[Boris Antonov]], [[Dmitriy Badin]], [[Ivan Yermakov]], [[Aleksey Lukashev]], [[Sergey Morgachev]], [[Nikolay Kozachek]], [[Pavel Yershov]], [[Artem Malyshev]], [[Aleksandr Osadchuk]], [[Aleksey Potemkin]] and [[Anatoliy Kovalev]], "officials in [[Unit 26165]] and [[Unit 74455]] of the Russian government's Main Intelligence Directorate." Deputy Attorney General [[Rod Rosenstein]] announced the charges.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
According to the indictment, officers of Unit 26165 began in 2016 to spearphish volunteers and employees of the presidential campaign of [[Hillary Clinton]], including its chairman, and through stolen credentials entered the networks of the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]] and the [[Democratic National Committee]], where they monitored the computers of dozens of employees and implanted hundreds of files of malicious code. Unit 26165 coordinated with Unit 74455 on releasing the stolen material. The officers registered [[DCLeaks|DCLeaks.com]], presented themselves as "American hacktivists," and promoted the site through fictitious [[Facebook]] and [[Twitter]] accounts. After public accusations that the Russian government was behind the intrusions they created the persona [[Guccifer 2.0]]; on the evening of June 15, 2016, between 4:19 and 4:56 PM, they used a Moscow-based server to search for English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post, "falsely claiming to be a lone Romanian hacker." Unit 74455 also conspired to hack the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that supplied election software. The operation was paid for with cryptocurrency, including bitcoin mining, and the same mining operation that paid for the DCLeaks.com registration funded the servers and domains of the spearphishing campaign.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The indictment contained eleven counts, including conspiracy against the [[United States]], aggravated identity theft, and a conspiracy to launder the equivalent of more than $95,000. The [[Department of Justice]] stated that there was no allegation that any American was a knowing participant or that the conduct altered the vote count.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Salisbury
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2018 [[Sergei Skripal]] and his daughter [[Yulia Skripal|Yulia]] were poisoned in [[Salisbury]] with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, known as [[Novichok]]. Two [[Wiltshire Police]] officers who searched their home were also poisoned. In July 2018 two members of the public in [[Amesbury]] were exposed to the same agent, and one of them, [[Dawn Sturgess]], died. On September 5, 2018, the [[Director of Public Prosecutions]] announced charges against two Russian nationals traveling as [[Alexander Petrov]] and [[Ruslan Boshirov]], and the Prime Minister, [[Theresa May]], announced that the government had concluded that the two men "were members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the GRU," and that the operation "was almost certainly approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state." Britain expelled 23 undeclared Russian intelligence officers, and 28 other countries and [[NATO]] joined in an expulsion of more than 150.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 21, 2021, the Home Secretary, [[Priti Patel]], told Parliament that the police could now evidence that Petrov and Boshirov were aliases for [[Alexander Mishkin]] and [[Anatoliy Chepiga]], "both members of the GRU," and that the [[Crown Prosecution Service]] had authorized charges against a third man, known as Sergey Fedotov, who had flown from Moscow to [[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]], stayed at a central London hotel from March 2 to 4, 2018, and met the other two more than once. Fedotov was [[Denis Sergeev]], "also a member of the GRU," and "all 3 individuals previously worked together for the GRU as part of additional operations outside Russia." On the same day the [[European Court of Human Rights]] ruled that Russia was responsible for the assassination of [[Alexander Litvinenko]].[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### [[Unit 29155]] and [[WhisperGate]]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 5, 2024, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment returned in [[Maryland]] against five officers of GRU Unit 29155 and one civilian, [[Amin Sitgal]]. The officers were Colonel [[Yuriy Denisov]], "a commanding officer of Cyber Operations for Unit 29155," and Lieutenants [[Vladislav Borovkov]], [[Denis Denisenko]], [[Dmitriy Goloshubov]] and [[Nikolay Korchagin]]. On January 13, 2022, according to the indictment, they used the services of a United States company to distribute the malware known as WhisperGate, "designed to look like ransomware," to dozens of Ukrainian government systems, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Treasury, the Judiciary Administration and the Ministry of Energy, when "WhisperGate was actually a cyberweapon designed to completely destroy the target computer and related data in advance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine." They exfiltrated data including patient health records, defaced websites to read "Ukrainians! All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst," and offered the stolen data for sale the same day.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The same officers were charged with probing systems in 26 NATO countries from August 2021, with hacking the transportation infrastructure of a Central European country that supported [[Ukraine]] in October 2022, and with probing a federal government agency in Maryland from August 5, 2021, to February 3, 2022. Assistant Attorney General [[Matthew G. Olsen]] called the campaign "emblematic of Russia's abhorrent disregard for innocent civilians." The indictment was part of an international effort, [[Operation Toy Soldier]], accompanied by a joint cybersecurity advisory from the FBI and twelve partners representing nine countries, and the [[State Department]]'s [[Rewards for Justice]] program offered up to $10 million for information on the defendants.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Buma Allegation
|
||||
|
||||
In May 2025 [[Jonathan Buma]], a former FBI counterintelligence special agent of sixteen years, alleged in a documentary broadcast by the German broadcaster [[ZDF]] that the GRU had targeted [[Elon Musk]] for exploitation and offered him direct contact with [[Vladimir Putin]], and that Russian intelligence ran special operations to influence [[Silicon Valley]] executives such as Musk and [[Peter Thiel]], including gathering damaging information that could later be used as blackmail. "Musk's susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, particularly ketamine," Buma said, was "seen by Russian intelligence as an opportunity for an agent to exploit." Buma had been arrested in March 2025 and charged with one count of disclosure of confidential information for sharing material with a publishing company, and was free on $100,000 bail.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. "Grand Jury Indicts 12 Russian Intelligence Officers for Hacking Offenses Related to the 2016 Election." Press release 18-923, July 13, 2018. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20200104195032/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. "Five Russian GRU Officers and One Civilian Charged for Conspiring to Hack Ukrainian Government." Press release, September 5, 2024. Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20250207071434/https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-russian-gru-officers-and-one-civilian-charged-conspiring-hack-ukrainian-government
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice. *United States v. Robert Philip Hanssen: Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint.* United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, February 2001.
|
||||
[^4]: Patel, Priti, Home Secretary. "The new Salisbury charging decision." Oral statement to Parliament, Home Office, September 21, 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-new-salisbury-charging-decision
|
||||
[^5]: Pehlman, Nick. "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk: Former FBI Agent." *Kyiv Post,* May 15, 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742
|
||||
73
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Gestapo.md
Normal file
73
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Gestapo.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Geheime Staatspolizei
|
||||
- Secret State Police
|
||||
- Die Geheime Staatspolizei
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NaziGermany
|
||||
- SecretPolice
|
||||
- RSHA
|
||||
- ConcentrationCamps
|
||||
- Holocaust
|
||||
- NurembergTrials
|
||||
- WorldWarII
|
||||
summary: "Nazi Germany's political police, centralized under Heinrich Himmler by 1936 and made Office IV of the Reich Security Main Office in 1939, which sent prisoners to concentration camps without trial."
|
||||
start: 1933
|
||||
end: 1945
|
||||
location: "Berlin, Germany"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Reinhard Heydrich]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Chief of the Security Police"
|
||||
start: 1936-06-26
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Heinrich Müller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "head of the Gestapo"
|
||||
start: 1939
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Gestapo, an abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), was the political police of [[Nazi Germany]]. Its mission was to "investigate and combat all attempts to threaten the state."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation
|
||||
|
||||
Under the [[Weimar Republic]] most German states, among them [[Prussia]], [[Bavaria]] and [[Saxony]], had their own political police, bound by constitutional protections against arbitrary police action and concerned largely with political violence on the extreme right and left, including the [[Nazi Party]] and the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]]. After [[Adolf Hitler]] was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, the regime used emergency decrees to free the political police from those limits. The most important was the [[Reichstag Fire Decree]] of February 28, 1933, which "suspended individual rights and legal protections, such as the right to privacy," so that "police could now read private mail, secretly listen to telephone calls, and search homes without warrants."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The Gestapo was built from "the various political police forces of the several German Federal states which had been unified under the personal leadership of Himmler, with the assistance of Goering," that is, [[Hermann Göring]].[^2] By the end of 1936 the regime "had created a strong, centralized political police force under SS leader [[Heinrich Himmler]]."[^1] Himmler was appointed Chief of the German Police in the Ministry of the Interior on June 17, 1936, and by his decree of June 26, 1936, placed the Gestapo and the criminal police ([[Kripo]]) together in the [[Security Police]], under the command of [[Reinhard Heydrich]], who already headed the Sicherheitsdienst ([[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]), the intelligence agency of the [[SS]] and, after June 4, 1934, of the whole Nazi Party. The [[Frontier Police]] came under Gestapo control in 1937.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
A decree of September 27, 1939, united the offices under Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police and SD into the [[Reich Security Main Office]] (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), at once a main office of the SS and an office of the Interior Ministry. Of its seven offices, Amt IV was "the head office of the Gestapo," Amt V that of the Criminal Police, and Amts III, VI and VII those of the SD inside Germany, outside Germany, and for ideological research. In November 1939 all officials of the Gestapo and Criminal Police were taken into the SS at equivalent ranks.[^2] [[Heinrich Müller]], a Munich policeman since 1919, became head of the Gestapo in 1939. Other agents came from the SD, "Nazi ideologues with little or no police training."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Powers
|
||||
|
||||
A December 1934 law made criticism of the Nazi Party or regime illegal; a joke about Hitler could be treated as a "malicious attack against the state or the Party" and lead to arrest by the Gestapo, trial before a special court, and a concentration camp. "Most notably, the Gestapo had the power to send people directly to a concentration camp. This was called 'protective custody' (Schutzhaft)." Those so held could not consult a lawyer, appeal, or defend themselves in court, and the Gestapo used protective custody to override court decisions it considered too lenient. "As an institution, the Gestapo was not subject to legal or administrative oversight."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The Gestapo had limited personnel and relied heavily on denunciations from neighbors, colleagues and family members; "there was no widespread surveillance of the German population." Its officers regularly used intimidation and psychological and physical torture in interrogations.[^1] It did not administer the concentration camps, "but, acting through the RSHA, was responsible for the detention of political prisoners in those camps. Gestapo officials were usually responsible for the interrogation of political prisoners at the camps."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Persecution of the Jews
|
||||
|
||||
After the [[Nuremberg Laws]] of 1935, Gestapo offices set up Jewish departments ([[Judenreferate]]) to investigate "race defilement" and to track Jewish emigration, ensuring that emigrants' assets remained behind for the state.[^1] Early on November 10, 1938, Heydrich telegraphed all Gestapo and SD offices with instructions for that night's pogroms, directing them to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold, "especially rich ones"; by November 11, 20,000 Jews had been arrested. A section of the Gestapo office of the RSHA under [[Adolf Eichmann]] handled Jewish matters, local Gestapo offices organized deportations to the East, and a detachment from Gestapo headquarters arranged the deportation of Jews from the Axis satellite states.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### War and Occupation
|
||||
|
||||
In the occupied territories the Gestapo, Kripo and SD formed local units of the Security Police and SD, and in operational areas they were joined into the [[Einsatzgruppen]] and [[Einsatzkommandos]], which "combined brutal measures for the pacification of the civilian population with the wholesale slaughter of Jews." Heydrich ordered incidents fabricated on the Polish-German frontier in 1939 to give Hitler a pretext to attack Poland, with Gestapo and SD personnel involved. The Security Police and SD shot hostages, imprisoned relatives, executed alleged saboteurs without trial, and enforced the "[[Nacht und Nebel]]" decrees. Gestapo offices in Germany supervised slave laborers, ran "work training camps," and late in the war arrested workers to supply the SS camps. Einsatzkommandos under local Gestapo direction screened Soviet prisoners of war and killed those classed as "intolerable," and under the "Bullet" decree of March 4, 1944, recaptured prisoners of war were taken secretly to [[Mauthausen]] and shot.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Judgment
|
||||
|
||||
The International Military Tribunal found that the Gestapo and SD "were used for purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labour programme and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war." It named the defendant [[Ernst Kaltenbrunner]], Heydrich's successor as Chief of the Security Police and SD, as having used the organization for these purposes, and declared criminal all executive and administrative officials of Amt IV and all local Gestapo officials, including the Frontier Police, but not persons employed "for purely clerical, stenographic, janitorial or similar unofficial routine tasks."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Müller File
|
||||
|
||||
Under the [[Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act]] of 1998, the [[National Archives]] opened the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s name files on Hitler, [[Klaus Barbie]], Eichmann, [[Josef Mengele]], Müller and [[Kurt Waldheim]] on April 27, 2001, together with files on other individuals "with Nazi pasts who were used by the [[United States]], [[Soviet Union]], [[United Kingdom]], and other nations as intelligence resources," some of them involved in the [[Gehlen Organization]]. The release stated: "The CIA was unable to determine whether Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller survived the War, but strong evidence suggests he did not," and "The notion that Heinrich Mueller became an intelligence resource for the United States cannot survive careful scrutiny of the CIA's Mueller file."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Gestapo." Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gestapo
|
||||
[^2]: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg. "Judgment: The Accused Organizations." Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judorg.asp
|
||||
[^3]: National Archives and Records Administration. "Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act Prompts Rare Release of CIA 'Name Files'." Press release nr01-61, April 27, 2001. https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2001/nr01-61
|
||||
|
|
@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ category: "Foreign Government"
|
|||
summary: "The Metropolitan Police (Met), also known as Scotland Yard, was the police force for London and the primary investigative body in multiple child abuse and trafficking cases documented across the network."
|
||||
start: 1829
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Metropolitan Police Service"
|
||||
---
|
||||
The Metropolitan Police (Met), also known as Scotland Yard, was the police force for London and the primary investigative body in multiple child abuse and trafficking cases documented across the network. The Metropolitan Police raided the [[Elm Guest House]] in June 1982 after the suburban terrace townhouse was suspected of operating an illegal brothel. After the premises were raided, 23 men were detained among bedroom suites containing whips, chains, and ropes, and communal areas including a lounge bar, spa, sauna facility, and screening room for pornography. According to police sources, three of the guests were parliamentary ministers and a fourth was a member of the Queen's royal staff. Scotland Yard was expected to reopen files on the murder of one boy and the disappearance of another in connection with the investigation, but a Scotland Yard official described it as a routine investigation into a brothel. A source close to the investigation stated that top brass had ordered everything to be played down and that every attempt was being made to ensure the names of VIPs did not leak out.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -6,24 +6,69 @@ tags:
|
|||
- Canada
|
||||
- LawEnforcement
|
||||
- PROMIS
|
||||
summary: "Canada's national police force, twice drawn into the PROMIS affair: by a mistaken 1991 software inventory and by its own 1999-2000 inquiry, Project Abbreviation."
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- RCMP
|
||||
summary: "Canada's national police force, whose Security Service gave way to CSIS in 1984, which ran the Project Abbreviation inquiry into PROMIS and now prosecutes members of 764 and Terrorgram."
|
||||
location: "Ottawa, Canada"
|
||||
created: 2025-08-05
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Patrik Jordan Mathews]]"
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Kristopher Erik Nippak]]"
|
||||
end: 2023-12-08
|
||||
role: "eighteen-month investigation ending in arrest"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Jeffrey Roussel]]"
|
||||
start: 2026-04-22
|
||||
role: "arrest by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police|RCMP]] is [[Canada]]'s national police force. It figures twice in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]].
|
||||
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is [[Canada]]'s national police force. The [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act]] provides: "There shall continue to be a police force for Canada, which shall consist of officers and other members and be known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."[^1] It figures twice in the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]], and since 2023 it has brought terrorism charges against members of the [[Terrorgram Collective]] and the [[764 Network|764]] network.
|
||||
|
||||
### The Commissioner
|
||||
|
||||
"The Governor in Council may appoint an officer, to be known as the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to hold office during pleasure, who, under the direction of the Minister, has the control and management of the Force and all matters connected with the Force." The Commissioner may delegate any power under the act to any member, "except the power to delegate under this subsection, the power to make rules under this Act" and certain powers over complaints. The Governor in Council may also, on the Minister's recommendation, designate an officer as Commanding Officer of each Division of the force "to hold office during pleasure."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Security Service
|
||||
|
||||
Until 1984 the force's Security Service carried out Canada's security intelligence work. The [[McDonald Commission]] (1977 to 1981) documented a pattern of illegal operations by the service against Quebec separatists, including barn-burnings, break-ins, the unauthorized opening of mail, and the theft of [[Parti Quebecois]] membership lists, and recommended that intelligence be separated from policing. The service was disbanded and its functions passed to the [[Canadian Security Intelligence Service]], created on June 21, 1984, with a [[Security Intelligence Review Committee]] to oversee it.[^2] The preamble of the CSIS Act reads: "Whereas the protection of Canada's national security and of the security of Canadians is a fundamental responsibility of the Government of Canada; Whereas it is essential, to discharge that responsibility, for Canada to have a civilian intelligence service."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 1991 Inventory
|
||||
|
||||
In November 1990 and January 1991 officials of the Department of Communications and the Canadian Workplace Automation Research Centre told [[Patricia Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]] that [[PROMIS]] was running at "more than 900 locations" in the federal government, and one said the RCMP was among the users; an RCMP officer in [[Ottawa]] told her on February 1, 1991, that he knew of no PROMIS in the force. The officials later said they had confused INSLAW's product with a project-management package of the same name sold by the Strategic Software Planning Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts. On December 4, 1991, the Canadian ambassador wrote to the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] that "the RCMP and CSIS report they do not use any case management software," a letter the committee called "conclusory." The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s review of 1994 concluded that the Canadian "PROMIS" was "a totally different program developed by a different company."[^1]
|
||||
In November 1990 and January 1991 officials of the Department of Communications and the Canadian Workplace Automation Research Centre told [[Patricia Hamilton]] of [[INSLAW]] that [[PROMIS]] was running at "more than 900 locations" in the federal government, and one said the RCMP was among the users; an RCMP officer in [[Ottawa]] told her on February 1, 1991, that he knew of no PROMIS in the force. The officials later said they had confused INSLAW's product with a project-management package of the same name sold by the Strategic Software Planning Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts. On December 4, 1991, the Canadian ambassador wrote to the [[House Committee on the Judiciary]] that "the RCMP and CSIS report they do not use any case management software," a letter the committee called "conclusory." The [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s review of 1994 concluded that the Canadian "PROMIS" was "a totally different program developed by a different company."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Project Abbreviation
|
||||
|
||||
In 1999 and 2000 the force ran its own national security inquiry, [[Project Abbreviation]], under [[Sean McDade]], an Ottawa-Carleton regional police officer on secondment, into whether software used by Canadian agencies was a version of PROMIS with a hidden access point for American and Israeli intelligence. When the *Toronto Star* disclosed it on August 25, 2000, Sergeant Marc Richer said, "I cannot either confirm or deny what you're looking into"; Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet said the next day that it had been under way "for some time" and had found "absolutely nothing to indicate that national security has been compromised in any way." On September 16, 2000, Gaudet announced its end: "We're saying today that we do not have Promis software."[^2] The account of the inquiry from McDade's side, including a meeting of allied intelligence chiefs at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] in December 1999 and his belief that he had been targeted by [[ECHELON]], comes from [[Cheri Seymour]].[^3]
|
||||
In 1999 and 2000 the force ran its own national security inquiry, [[Project Abbreviation]], under [[Sean McDade]], an Ottawa-Carleton regional police officer on secondment, into whether software used by Canadian agencies was a version of PROMIS with a hidden access point for American and Israeli intelligence. When the *Toronto Star* disclosed it on August 25, 2000, Sergeant Marc Richer said, "I cannot either confirm or deny what you're looking into"; Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet said the next day that it had been under way "for some time" and had found "absolutely nothing to indicate that national security has been compromised in any way." On September 16, 2000, Gaudet announced its end: "We're saying today that we do not have Promis software."[^5] The account of the inquiry from McDade's side, including a meeting of allied intelligence chiefs at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] in December 1999 and his belief that he had been targeted by [[ECHELON]], comes from [[Cheri Seymour]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Extremist Networks
|
||||
|
||||
In the spring of 2019 Canadian border agents stopped the vehicle of [[Patrik Jordan Mathews]], a reservist from [[Manitoba]], found racist material, and notified the RCMP. When he disappeared in mid-August 2019, after the journalist [[Ben Makuch]] had identified him as a member of [[The Base]], the force opened a missing persons investigation and ran its own extremism investigation.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 8, 2023, after an eighteen-month investigation covering alleged offences from April 2018, the force arrested [[Matthew Althorpe]] of Thorold and [[Kristopher Erik Nippak]] of [[East York, Ontario]], and charged Nippak with participation in the activities of a terrorist group for propaganda videos for [[Atomwaffen Division]] and manifestos for the Terrorgram Collective.[^8] In May 2025 and again in October 2025 it arrested an [[Edmonton]]-area youth of 15 for terrorism offences linked to [[The Com]] and 764.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 10, 2025, the Minister of Public Safety, [[Gary Anandasangaree]], added 764, the [[Maniac Murder Cult]], the Terrorgram Collective and the Mozambique branch of the [[Islamic State]] to the list of terrorist entities under the [[Criminal Code of Canada|Criminal Code]], bringing the list to 90. "Canada is the first country to list 764 as a terrorist entity." The minister said: "By listing these groups, we have more powerful and effective tools to take action and thwart their efforts to incite violence and promote hate." Under the listing, "all property owned by these groups in Canada must be frozen and reported to CSIS or the RCMP."[^10] The government's backgrounder described 764 as "a decentralized transnational network of online nihilistic violent extremists" whose members "use various social media and gaming platforms, particularly those with young and marginalized user bases, to lure, groom, and extort youth to commit violent and sexual acts, including self-harm." A review of 18 entities listed earlier kept 17, among them Atomwaffen Division, the [[Proud Boys]], the [[Russian Imperial Movement]] and The Base, and removed [[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham]].[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 22, 2026, the force's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team arrested [[Jeffrey Roussel]] of the [[Quebec City]] area on three terrorism charges for running a [[Telegram]] group that promoted 764. The RCMP's release cited the December 2025 listing as the basis for terrorism charges in place of the child exploitation and cybercrime provisions used in earlier 764 cases.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Canada; Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.); U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, "The Alleged Distribution of Enhanced PROMIS to Canada."
|
||||
[^2]: Lawton, Valerie, and Allan Thompson, "Spy computer 'trap' probed," *Toronto Star,* August 25, 2000; Thompson, Allan, and Valerie Lawton, "RCMP admit they're investigating 'trap'," *Toronto Star,* August 26, 2000; Lawton, Valerie, and Allan Thompson, "Mounties end probe of Promis," *Toronto Star,* September 16, 2000; texts as forwarded to the CTRL mailing list, https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg49408.html, msg49544.html and msg50988.html.
|
||||
[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^1]: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. R-10, sections 3, 5 and 6.1, consolidated to June 21, 2026. Justice Laws Website. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/r-10/fulltext.html
|
||||
[^2]: "Canadian Security Intelligence Service," Government of Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service.html
|
||||
[^3]: Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-23, preamble. Justice Laws Website. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-23/page-1.html
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, section on Canada; Hamilton, Patricia C., affidavit, February 1991, *INSLAW, Inc. v. United States,* Adv. Proc. No. 86-0069 (Bankr. D.D.C.); U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994, "The Alleged Distribution of Enhanced PROMIS to Canada."
|
||||
[^5]: Lawton, Valerie, and Allan Thompson, "Spy computer 'trap' probed," *Toronto Star,* August 25, 2000; Thompson, Allan, and Valerie Lawton, "RCMP admit they're investigating 'trap'," *Toronto Star,* August 26, 2000; Lawton, Valerie, and Allan Thompson, "Mounties end probe of Promis," *Toronto Star,* September 16, 2000; texts as forwarded to the CTRL mailing list, https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg49408.html, msg49544.html and msg50988.html.
|
||||
[^6]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^7]: Global News. "FBI Arrests Patrik Mathews, Missing Ex-Reservist from Manitoba Accused of Neo-Nazi Ties." January 2020. https://globalnews.ca/news/6420266/patrik-mathews-neo-nazi-ties-fbi/; CBC News. "Military Conducted Secret Investigation of Reservist Patrik Mathews as a Possible Terrorist Threat." 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/patrik-mathews-canadian-forces-neo-nazi-terrorist-1.5948202
|
||||
[^8]: CBC News. "Ontario men arrested on terrorism charges linked to neo-Nazi movement." December 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rcmp-terror-charges-1.7053162; Global News. "2 Ontario men accused of belonging to neo-Nazi terrorism group." December 2023. https://globalnews.ca/news/10157791/ontario-terrorism-charges/
|
||||
[^9]: Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "Alberta youth arrested for terrorism and child pornography offences." October 2, 2025. https://rcmp.ca/en/news/2025/10/alberta-youth-arrested-terrorism-and-child-pornography
|
||||
[^10]: Public Safety Canada. "Government of Canada lists four new terrorist entities," news release, December 10, 2025, as distributed by Cision. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-of-canada-lists-four-new-terrorist-entities-856816060.html
|
||||
[^11]: Public Safety Canada. "Government of Canada lists four new terrorist entities," backgrounder, December 10, 2025. Wayback Machine snapshot of September 14, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260914205706/https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2025/12/government-of-canada-lists-four-new-terrorist-entities.html
|
||||
[^12]: Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "RCMP arrests man linked to violent extremist network 764." April 2026. https://rcmp.ca/en/news/2026/04/4352326; CBC News. "Quebec man faces terrorism charges linked to 764 violent extremism group." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-man-terrorism-charges-764-violent-extremism-9.7173346; *Globe and Mail.* "Quebec man arrested in connection with 764 terror group." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-764-terror-group-recruit-arrest/
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
68
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/SS.md
Normal file
68
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/SS.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Schutzstaffel
|
||||
- Schutzstaffeln
|
||||
- Die Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NaziGermany
|
||||
- HeinrichHimmler
|
||||
- WaffenSS
|
||||
- ConcentrationCamps
|
||||
- Holocaust
|
||||
- NurembergTrials
|
||||
- WorldWarII
|
||||
summary: "The Nazi Party's guard formation, founded by Hitler in 1925 and led by Heinrich Himmler from 1929, which administered the concentration camps and was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg."
|
||||
start: 1925
|
||||
end: 1945
|
||||
location: "Germany"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Adolf Hitler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1925
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Heinrich Himmler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Reichsführer SS"
|
||||
start: 1929
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The SS (Schutzstaffel) was the guard formation of the [[Nazi Party]]. The [[International Military Tribunal]] at Nuremberg declared it a criminal organization.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins and Growth
|
||||
|
||||
"The SS was originally established by Hitler in 1925 as an elite section of the SA for political purposes under the pretext of protecting speakers at public meetings of the Nazi Party." After the Nazis took power it kept order at mass demonstrations and was given the duty of "internal security" by a decree of [[Adolf Hitler]]. It took part in the purge of [[Ernst Röhm]] on June 30, 1934, and was made an independent unit of the party shortly afterward.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
When [[Heinrich Himmler]] became Reichsführer SS in 1929, the SS numbered 980 men. It had 52,000 in 1933. Its original formation, the [[Allgemeine SS]], reached 240,000 men by 1939, organized into divisions and regiments, and fell to well under 40,000 during the war. The [[SS-Verfügungstruppe]], men who volunteered for four years of armed service in lieu of army service, was equipped as a motorized division in 1939 and formed the nucleus of the [[Waffen SS]] in 1940, which then had 100,000 men and by the end of the war about 580,000 in 40 divisions, under army tactical command but SS supply and discipline. About a third of those who joined the Waffen SS were conscripts. The [[SS-Totenkopfverbände]] guarded the concentration camps, which came under SS control in 1934.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Police and Security Service
|
||||
|
||||
Beginning in 1933 the police and the SS were gradually amalgamated. In 1936 Himmler became Chief of the German Police, and [[Higher SS and Police Leaders]] in each military district coordinated the [[Order Police]], the [[Security Police]], the SD and the Allgemeine SS on his behalf. In 1939 all officials of the Security and Order Police were taken into the SS at equivalent ranks. The Sicherheitsdienst ([[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]), "originally an intelligence branch of the SS," became part of the Security Police and SD, which the Tribunal judged together with the [[Gestapo]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The SS central organization had twelve main offices, among them the [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA); the [[Economic Administration Main Office]] (WVHA), which administered the concentration camps; and a [[Race and Settlement Office]]. The SS had its own legal system and special courts. Attached to the main offices was the research foundation [[Ahnenerbe]], under the patronage of the Reichsführer SS, to which an institute for military scientific research became attached during the war. It "conducted extensive experiments involving the use of living human beings," and its employee [[Sigmund Rascher|Dr. Rascher]] conducted them "with the full knowledge of the Ahnenerbe."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Camps and Killings
|
||||
|
||||
From 1934 the SS guarded and administered the concentration camps. After 1942, under the WVHA, the camps were used as a source of slave labor, and under an agreement of September 18, 1942, with the Ministry of Justice, "anti-social elements who had finished prison sentences were to be delivered to the SS to be worked to death." The SS conducted experiments on prisoners of war and camp inmates, including "freezing to death, and killing by poison bullets," and obtained government funds for such research "on the grounds that they had access to human material not available to other agencies."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The Tribunal found that the extermination of the Jews "was carried out under the direction of the SS central organisation" and put into effect by SS formations, including the [[Einsatzgruppen]]; that Waffen SS divisions were responsible for massacres at [[Oradour-sur-Glane|Oradour]] and [[Lidice]]; and that SS units were used in the occupation of the [[Sudetenland]], Bohemia and Moravia, and [[Memel]]. In speeches in 1943 Himmler encouraged his men to be "tough and ruthless" and spoke of shooting "thousands of leading Poles."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Judgment
|
||||
|
||||
The Tribunal declared criminal those officially accepted as members of the Allgemeine SS, the Waffen SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and police forces who were members of the SS, if they joined or remained with knowledge of its criminal use or were personally implicated in its crimes. It excluded the SS riding units, persons "drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes," and those who had left before September 1, 1939. The defendant [[Ernst Kaltenbrunner]] was named as a member implicated in these activities.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### After 1945
|
||||
|
||||
According to the journalist [[Annie Jacobsen]], the [[Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency]] altered, before security review, the records of German scientists whose Nazi party membership, SS membership or wartime conduct would have disqualified them, so that they could be employed in the [[United States]] under [[Operation Paperclip]]; among them was the rocket engineer [[Wernher von Braun]], an SS officer.[^2] [[Heinz Felfe]], a former officer of the SD, served in the [[Gehlen Organization]] and its successor, the [[Bundesnachrichtendienst]], while working for Soviet intelligence, the subject of his memoir *Im Dienst des Gegners: 10 Jahre Moskaus Mann im BND*.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg. "Judgment: The Accused Organizations." Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judorg.asp
|
||||
[^2]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America.* Little, Brown and Company, 2014.
|
||||
[^3]: Felfe, Heinz. *Im Dienst des Gegners: 10 Jahre Moskaus Mann im BND.* Rasch und Röhring, 1986. Breitman, Richard, Norman J. W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe. *U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis.* Cambridge University Press, 2005.
|
||||
89
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md
Normal file
89
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/Army Chemical Corps.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USArmy
|
||||
- ChemicalWarfare
|
||||
- BiologicalWarfare
|
||||
- MKULTRA
|
||||
- MKNAOMI
|
||||
- HumanExperimentation
|
||||
- FortDetrick
|
||||
- EdgewoodArsenal
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Chemical Corps
|
||||
- U.S. Army Chemical Corps
|
||||
- United States Army Chemical Corps
|
||||
- Chemical Warfare Service
|
||||
summary: "Army branch, the Chemical Warfare Service until 1946, whose Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick worked with the CIA under MKNAOMI and whose contract drug killed Harold Blauer in 1953."
|
||||
start: 1918-06-02
|
||||
location: "United States"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[William M. Creasy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Chief Chemical Officer"
|
||||
end: 1958
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[New York State Psychiatric Institute]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "testing of mescaline derivatives for chemical warfare"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "about 200,000 dollars a year to the Corps' Special Operations Division through MKNAOMI"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Church Committee]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "CIA retention of Fort Detrick shellfish toxin"
|
||||
start: 1975
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Army Chemical Corps is the branch of the [[U.S. Army]] responsible for chemical, biological and radiological warfare and defense. During [[World War I]] the German use of chemical weapons led General [[John J. Pershing]] to press for a specialized gas unit for the [[American Expeditionary Forces|American Expeditionary Force]]; the War Department created a Gas Service and, according to the Corps' regimental association, renamed it the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) on June 2, 1918. The [[First Gas Regiment]] fought in the Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel campaigns.[^1] The [[National Defense Act of 1920]] made the CWS a permanent branch of the Army.[^1][^2] The regimental association dates its redesignation as the Chemical Corps to 1946.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Biological warfare
|
||||
|
||||
In the Second World War the CWS developed the 4.2-inch mortar's high explosive round, smoke generator battalions and flame weapons for the Pacific. "Although not used in WWII, the CWS was given the lead for the development of biological weapons, and as a result, then-Camp Detrick was created exclusively for biological warfare experimentation."[^1] [[Fort Detrick]] remained the center of the American offensive germ warfare program until 1969.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Special Operations Division]] (SOD) at Fort Detrick was a secret unit of the Chemical Corps that developed biological weapons and delivery systems for the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. [[John D. Marks]] dates its founding to 1950 under [[John Schwab]]; [[Ed Regis]] and [[Stephen Kinzer]] place it in 1949. Under the [[MKNAOMI]] program the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service|Technical Services Staff]] (TSS) paid SOD about 200,000 dollars a year. Entry to the SOD building required a clearance, a "need to know" authorization and a shot card of ten to twenty immunizations, and at one point the general who headed the Chemical Corps decided against inspecting SOD. An SOD veteran told Marks: "That's the way we kept them out. Those [military] types didn't need to know."[^4][^5] Lieutenant Colonel [[Vincent Ruwet]] of the Chemical Corps was chief of SOD and the immediate superior of [[Frank Olson]], who died in November 1953 days after the CIA covertly gave him [[LSD]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Psychochemicals
|
||||
|
||||
Major General [[William M. Creasy]], a 1926 graduate of the [[United States Military Academy]], served as Chief Chemical Officer of the U.S. Army. The [[Ordnance Corps]] Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1978, credits him with "innovations in the field of psychochemical agents and radiological defense" and with establishing "the managerial and organizational elements to develop a deterrent biological warfare capability for the U.S. Army." He retired in 1958 and died on March 22, 1987.[^7] [[Martin A. Lee]] and [[Bruce Shlain]] wrote that Creasy considered psychochemical weapons preferable to fire bombs or nuclear weapons because they could incapacitate without permanent injury, and that the Army tested LSD, designated EA-1729, in war games at [[Fort Bragg]] (command-post maneuvers, tank driving, radar operation and antiaircraft tracking) and at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]], [[Fort Benning]], [[Fort Leavenworth]], [[Dugway Proving Ground]] and [[Edgewood Arsenal]], with nearly 1,500 military personnel tested by the mid-1960s. They also describe an Army interrogation protocol of September 1961 that combined LSD with silent treatment, sustained interrogation, deprivation of food, drink and sleep, isolation, temperature cycling and verbal degradation.[^8] Edgewood Arsenal, "the former chemical center," was merged into Aberdeen Proving Ground on July 1, 1971.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The allergist [[Harold Abramson]], one of the CIA's principal LSD researchers under [[MKULTRA]], held a consulting position with the Chemical Corps.[^10] TSS officers seeking samples of "highly poisonous or physiologically active drugs" from pharmaceutical companies sometimes claimed to be from the Army Chemical Corps.[^10] After [[Eli Lilly]] synthesized LSD, a TSS memorandum to [[Allen Dulles]] noted that the government could now buy the drug in "tonnage quantities"; Marks observed that the Chemical Corps and the Air Force could then obtain it in bulk.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Harold Blauer
|
||||
|
||||
The Chemical Corps held a contract with the [[New York State Psychiatric Institute]] (NYSPI) to test mescaline derivatives on humans for their suitability as chemical warfare agents. On January 8, 1953, [[Harold Blauer]], a tennis professional admitted for depression, died after an intravenous injection of about 450 milligrams of EA-1298, a derivative the Corps had designated as a candidate agent, administered under [[Paul Hoch]] without his knowledge or consent. The death certificate read "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative." Within 48 hours the Chemical Corps contract officer [[Amedeo Marrazzi]] directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement, and at a meeting in July 1954 federal counsel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed anticipated malpractice claims. The Second Circuit found that Hoch "was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes." [[James Cattell]], who gave the injection, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
An initial settlement of 18,000 dollars was paid to Blauer's family, half of it covertly by the federal government. The Army disclosed the circumstances to his daughter, [[Elizabeth Barrett]], in August 1975, and in 1987 a federal judge awarded more than 700,000 dollars to his estate.[^11][^12] Hoch became New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### 1969 and after
|
||||
|
||||
On November 25, 1969, President [[Richard Nixon]] renounced the offensive biological weapons program, and in February 1970 extended the order to toxins. In 1975 the [[Church Committee]] disclosed that the CIA had kept a cache of [[shellfish toxin]] from Fort Detrick in defiance of the destruction order.[^13] In testimony of September 28, 1994, the [[General Accounting Office]] reported that the Defense Department and other national security agencies had conducted "hundreds of experiments in which hundreds of thousands of people were used as test subjects," involving "radiation, blister and nerve agents, biological agents, and LSD," some "done in secret" and others "without their knowledge or consent or their full knowledge of the risks involved."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
After the [[Vietnam War]] the Corps was partially demobilized and much of its function moved from [[Fort McClellan]], [[Alabama]], to Aberdeen. When Fort McClellan closed under base realignment, the Corps moved to [[Fort Leonard Wood]], [[Missouri]], where it forms part of the Maneuver Support Center with the Engineer and Military Police corps.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Chemical Corps Regimental Association, "US Army Chemical Corps History." https://ccrassn.org/history/
|
||||
[^2]: National Defense Act of 1920, Pub. L. 66-242, 41 Stat. 759, June 4, 1920.
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Army, "History :: U.S. Army Fort Detrick." home.army.mil. https://home.army.mil/detrick/about/history
|
||||
[^4]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Ch. 5. https://bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/manchurian/marks5.htm
|
||||
[^5]: Regis, Ed. *The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project*. Henry Holt, 1999. https://archive.org/details/biologyofdoomhis00regi; Stephen Kinzer, *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control*. Henry Holt, 2019.
|
||||
[^6]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Ch. 5. https://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/lsd/marks5.htm
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, "Major General William M. Creasy," Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame, inductee 1978. https://goordnance.army.mil/HallOfFame/1970/1978/creasy.html
|
||||
[^8]: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985. Chapters 1 and 2.
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground, "History," home.army.mil. https://home.army.mil/apg/about/history
|
||||
[^10]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapters 4 and 5.
|
||||
[^11]: *Barrett v. United States*, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); *Barrett v. United States*, 646 F. Supp. 1345 (S.D.N.Y. 1986); John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4.
|
||||
[^12]: *Los Angeles Times*, May 5, 1987; UPI Archives, May 5, 1987.
|
||||
[^13]: Horrock, Nicholas M. "Colby Describes C.I.A. Poison Work," *New York Times,* Sept. 17, 1975. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/colby-describes-cia-poison-work-by
|
||||
[^14]: U.S. General Accounting Office, *Human Experimentation: An Overview on Cold War Era Programs,* testimony, GAO/T-NSIAD-94-266, September 28, 1994, abstract. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266/html/GAOREPORTS-T-NSIAD-94-266.htm
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USArmy
|
||||
- SystemsAnalysis
|
||||
- AberdeenProvingGround
|
||||
- GrillFlame
|
||||
- RemoteViewing
|
||||
- StargateProject
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- AMSAA
|
||||
- USAMSAA
|
||||
- U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity
|
||||
summary: "Army Materiel Command systems-analysis activity at Aberdeen Proving Ground, formed in 1968, which ran its own replication of the SRI remote-viewing protocol under Grill Flame in 1978 and 1979."
|
||||
start: 1968
|
||||
location: "Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[Army Materiel Command]]"
|
||||
role: "separate reporting activity under the Commanding General"
|
||||
start: 1968
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Amato]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director, as of September 2016"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Stargate Project]]"
|
||||
role: "Grill Flame replication of the SRI remote-viewing protocol"
|
||||
start: 1978
|
||||
end: 1980
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Stanford Research Institute]]"
|
||||
role: "230,000 dollars for remote viewing, 1978 to 1980, in SRI's accounting"
|
||||
start: 1978
|
||||
end: 1980
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1979
|
||||
end: 1979
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA) was formed in 1968 from the Weapon Systems Laboratory of the [[Ballistic Research Laboratory|Ballistic Research Laboratories]] at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]], [[Maryland]], "to enhance the decision-making process through broad-based systems analysis of the Army materiel systems." It was created "as a separate reporting activity under the Commanding General (CG), Army Materiel Command (AMC)," and its work combined operations research, mathematical and computer modeling and statistics to "predict performance, analyze effectiveness, identify shortfalls, compare alternatives, and recommend potential courses of action."[^1] In 1978 and 1979 it ran the [[U.S. Army]]'s own test of the remote-viewing protocol of [[Stanford Research Institute]] under the program named Grill Flame.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mission and reorganizations
|
||||
|
||||
The activity's published chronology lists, for 1968, both its formation from the BRL Weapons Systems Lab and a formal charter for the [[Joint Technical Coordinating Group for Munitions Effectiveness]] (JTCG/ME), with AMSAA in the chair. Its narrative history dates the addition of the role of "independent technical evaluator of major Army programs" to 1974; the same page's timeline places the assumption of the "Technical Independent Evaluation mission for DT" in 1975. In 1990 the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics designated AMSAA "the Army's independent logistician." The timeline records the acquisition of the Inventory Research and Logistics Studies Offices in 1981, designation as "Army focal point for systems performance data" in 1988 and as "Army Exec Agent for Reliability Standards" in 1995.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 12, 1996, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army consolidated the Army evaluation mission into the Operational Test and Evaluation Command, renamed the [[Army Test and Evaluation Command]] (ATEC), a decision "based on a reengineering study performed by AMSAA." On October 1, 1996, evaluators of AMSAA, the Test and Evaluation Command and the Survivability and Lethality Analysis Directorate of the [[Army Research Laboratory]] were transferred to ATEC's Army Evaluation Center; AMSAA kept the independent evaluation of chemical demilitarization. The Industrial Engineering Activity and the Management Engineering Activity were consolidated into it. It became part of the [[Research, Development and Engineering Command]] (RDECOM) in 2002 and was realigned in 2012 as a separate reporting activity of the headquarters of [[Army Materiel Command]]. As of September 2016 its director was [[James Amato]], at Aberdeen Proving Ground.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Grill Flame
|
||||
|
||||
At a meeting in [[Jack Vorona]]'s conference room on August 24, 1978, called "to establish a unified DoD effort in the development of remote viewing technology for intelligence purposes," Vorona stated that the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]], the [[Foreign Technology Division]] and AMSAA "have contractual funds at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) for some preliminary investigations into remote viewing feasibility."[^4] SRI's later accounting of its sponsors lists AMSAA for 230,000 dollars over 1978 to 1980;[^5] the funding table in DIA's 1995 history of the service programs gives AMSAA 220,000 dollars for remote viewing in 1978.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
After lectures by [[Hal Puthoff]] on March 21, 1978, AMSAA ran twenty sessions of its own to test "confirmation and/or rejection of the SRI remote viewing protocol," renaming "subject" as "remote viewer" and "experiment" as "session," and reported that "our replication of the protocol did not result in statistical significance."[^3] [[Ingo Swann]] visited AMSAA on October 17, 1978.[^7] [[John Kramar]], chief of AMSAA's Ground Warfare Division, and Colonel [[Albert De Prospero]] of AMSAA were named as discussants, with [[Dale Graff]] of the Foreign Technology Division, in the "Sensory Technology Assessment" of November 14, 1978,[^2] and both attended the first meeting of the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee on November 28, 1978.[^8] On January 12, 1979, Major [[Murray Watt]] and Lieutenant [[Frederick Atwater]] of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] visited AMSAA at Aberdeen, then running its own tests of the SRI protocol.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
On February 15, 1979, the Army general counsel found that Grill Flame involved testing on human subjects and halted the AMSAA work.[^3] AMSAA's Interim Note No. 15 of July 1979, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," listed "Mr. John Kramar," "Dr. [[Evan Harris Walker]]" and General [[Lewis Walt]] among its acknowledged participants and stated that "the identification of the specific roles played by specific individuals in the AMSAA GRILL FLAME program must be protected."[^10] On August 8, 1979, the military assistant to the Under Secretary of the Army wrote to [[Manfred Gale]] that "Dr. LaBerge discussed your proposed change in test design with USAMSAA. They are taking action to implement the proposal at this time."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Gale committee
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]], chaired by Gale, reviewed AMSAA's replication trials along with the SRI research, the psychokinesis contract of the Army Missile Command (MICOM) at [[Redstone Arsenal]] and the INSCOM unit at [[Fort Meade]], and visited AMSAA on November 6, 1979. Its report of December 1979 stated: "Examination of SRI findings by this Committee has not resulted in a finding that SRI has proven anything of military operational value... The SRI effort should be terminated for the convenience of the government. The current AMSAA effort should also be terminated." The AMSAA and MICOM work "should be discontinued and terminated in the most cost-effective manner."[^12] An unsigned paper of findings in the committee's file recommended terminating "efforts at MICOM, AMSAA, and FTD."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Kramar, as AMSAA's Grill Flame project officer, wrote for the record on February 13, 1980, that the report, "transmitted to AMSAA January 1980, was found to be somewhat ambiguous and confusing," and took "exception" to the recommendation to "Terminate all AMSAA GRILL FLAME efforts": "This recommendation, as best as can be determined, is based only on a partial understanding of AMSAA's initial effort, which was terminated before the SEC came into being. There is an apparent mistake by the SEC in considering the AMSAA challenge/validation efforts to be an integral part of the SRI contract." He copied Gale and DARCOM.[^13] DIA's 1995 table lists DARCOM for 700,000 dollars for remote viewing in fiscal 1981.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "History," amsaa.army.mil, page last updated September 13, 2016, archived November 23, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20161123141731/https://www.amsaa.army.mil/History.html
|
||||
[^2]: "Sensory Technology Assessment," November 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^3]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "The US Army's Interest in Psychoenergetics," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100370005-6. US Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. "Human Use Review of Project Grill Flame," memoranda of 1979 to 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100440028-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^4]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the Meeting of the DoD Committee on Remote Viewing Activities," August 24, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140009-7. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^5]: Puthoff, H. E., and L. A. Lavelle, "Project Grill Flame Operational Tasks," SRI International for DIA/DT-5A, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100340001-3. Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76.
|
||||
[^6]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Senate Appropriations Committee Congressionally Directed Action, Star Gate," retrospective review, technical analysis and declassification status, with transmittal memorandum signed Letitia A. Long, Director, DMI Staff, faxed March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010002-3, -003-2 and -004-1, and CIA-RDP96-00791R000100040003-1. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^7]: "Visit of Ingo Swann to AMSAA, 17 October 1978," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240010-3, title only. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^8]: Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140013-2; Watt, Murray B., "Summary of Working Group Meeting, DoD Committee on Special Sensors (C), 28 Nov 78," November 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240006-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^9]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^10]: U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, acknowledgements, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^11]: K. Lytle, Major, Military Assistant, memorandum for Mr. Gale, Advisor for RDA Analysis, ODCSRDA, "Briefing for Dr. Ruth Davis and Mr. Nealsen," August 8, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230013-1; "Findings," "Recommendations," "Estimated Costs," unsigned, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230043-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^12]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^13]: Kramar, John W., AMSAA Grill Flame Project Officer, memorandum for record, "Scientific Evaluation Committee (SEC) GRILL FLAME Report, Dated November 1979," February 13, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230026-7 (copies at R002000250025-7 and R001100080007-6). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- CovertAction
|
||||
- LatinAmerica
|
||||
- Chile
|
||||
- Guatemala
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Western Hemisphere Division
|
||||
- WHD
|
||||
summary: "The CIA's clandestine service division for Latin America, which ran the 1954 Guatemala coup under J.C. King and the 1970 Chile task force under William Broe and David Atlee Phillips."
|
||||
location: "Langley, Virginia"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
|
||||
role: "division of the Directorate for Plans, later the Directorate of Operations"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[J.C. King]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1964-03
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Desmond FitzGerald]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1964
|
||||
role: "chief during the 1964 Chilean election"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[William Broe]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1970
|
||||
role: "chief during the 1970 Chilean election and Track II"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ted Shackley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972-04
|
||||
end: 1973-11
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Atlee Phillips]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1973-06
|
||||
end: 1975
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Wackenhut Corporation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961
|
||||
end: 1967
|
||||
role: "cover for division officers in the Miami area"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Western Hemisphere Division was the division of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s clandestine service responsible for [[Latin America]]. It sat in the Directorate for Plans, later the Directorate of Operations. Its own historical staff wrote a classified history of its first two decades, "Western Hemisphere Division, 1946-1965," in December 1973; the study was released under the [[JFK Records Act|President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### J.C. King
|
||||
|
||||
[[J.C. King]], formerly an executive of [[Johnson and Johnson]] and an officer of [[Nelson Rockefeller]]'s [[CIAA|Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]], headed the division through the 1950s. On November 20, 1953, as chief of the division, he attended a meeting in [[New York City|New York]] on reducing oil supplies to [[Guatemala]] as pressure on President [[Jacobo Arbenz]], and afterward met an oil company executive about cutting fuel to the country.[^2] The overthrow of Arbenz in 1954, [[Operation PBSUCCESS]], was carried out under King's overall authority, with [[Tracy Barnes]] as its coordinator in Washington.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In August 1960, when [[Richard Bissell]] asked the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] for assets for "a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action" against [[Fidel Castro]], King was told of the plan and the [[JMWAVE]] station was not. The office's candidate, [[Robert Maheu]], brought in [[Johnny Roselli]], who brought in [[Sam Giancana]] and [[Santos Trafficante, Jr.|Santos Trafficante]].[^4] During the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]] operation King was bypassed by Bissell; a memorandum of the Green Study Group of April 24, 1961, gives his title as "Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, Directorate for Plans" and records that the task force commander, Jacob Esterline, had taken his complaints to him, and that King passed them upward without effect.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The division oversaw the operations against [[Cheddi Jagan]]'s government in [[British Guiana]], which ended in its fall in 1964. "Western Hemisphere was under long-time chief Joseph C. King," with Virginia Hall Goillot as the branch chief for British Guiana.[^6] In [[Peru]] its officers were unsympathetic to the reform movement of [[Haya de la Torre]] of [[APRA]], and the station did nothing to deter the military coup of July 1962.[^7] King was among the recipients of Ambassador [[Lincoln Gordon]]'s telegram of March 28, 1964, on the military movement against [[Joao Goulart]] in [[Brazil]], with [[Dean Rusk]], [[Thomas Mann]], [[Robert McNamara]], [[Maxwell Taylor]], [[John McCone]], and [[Desmond FitzGerald]]; the document identifies him as chief of the division "until March 1964."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Chile, 1964
|
||||
|
||||
For the Chilean presidential election of 1964 an electoral committee was established in Washington, consisting of the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Thomas Mann; "the Western Hemisphere Division Chief of the CIA, Desmond Fitzgerald"; [[Ralph Dungan]] and [[McGeorge Bundy]] from the [[White House]]; and "the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division Branch Four, the branch that has jurisdiction over Chile." The agency "spent three million dollars in an effort to influence the outcome of the 1964 Chilean presidential elections," which were won by [[Eduardo Frei Montalva|Eduardo Frei]].[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Chile, 1970
|
||||
|
||||
In July 1970, after John McCone, a director of [[ITT Corporation|ITT]], telephoned Director [[Richard Helms]], [[William Broe]], chief of the division, met ITT's chairman, [[Harold Geneen]], at the [[Sheraton-Carlton Hotel]] in Washington on July 16. Geneen "offered to assemble a substantial election fund" for [[Jorge Alessandri]], "controlled and channeled through the C.I.A.," which Broe refused.[^10] On September 9 Broe cabled the [[Santiago]] station chief, [[Henry Hecksher]], that "the only prospect with any chance of success whatsoever is a military golpe either before or immediately after Allende's assumption of power."[^11] On September 29 he met [[Edward Gerrity]] of ITT to "explore the feasibility of possible actions to apply some economic pressure on Chile," and gave him a list of companies that could "participate."[^10] The division chief also sat on an interagency working group, with representatives from State, the [[National Security Council|NSC]], and the Treasury, that coordinated overt economic measures toward Chile.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
After President [[Richard Nixon]] ordered the agency on September 15 to keep [[Salvador Allende]] from office, a task force was formed under the deputy director for plans, [[Thomas Karamessines]]. [[David Atlee Phillips]] ran it from day to day with Broe. The operation was [[Project FUBELT]].[^12] Broe and Phillips told the station on September 28 that "it is our task to create such a climate climaxing with a solid pretext that will force the military and the president to take some action in the desired direction," and ordered Hecksher "not, repeat not," to tell Ambassador [[Edward Korry]] of the "impending coup." General [[Rene Schneider|René Schneider]] was shot on October 22. The two then cabled that "absolute denial will be the order of the day even with Ambassador and other embassy colleagues."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
After Allende took office, Richard Helms told the division that it might "exceed the authorized $700,000 and go up to, and even over, $1,000,000 provided it was warranted to keep" the newspaper [[El Mercurio]] going.[^11] When the Senate's subcommittee on multinational corporations took testimony on ITT and Chile in March 1973, the text of the hearings was sent in a memorandum "for Chief, Western Hemisphere Division."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Shackley and Phillips
|
||||
|
||||
The *[[Foreign Relations of the United States]]* volume on Chile for 1969 to 1973 lists [[Ted Shackley]], previously station chief in [[Saigon]], as chief of the division "from April 1972 until November 1973," and Phillips as chief "from June 1973."[^14] On September 11, 1973, as the coup was under way, Phillips sent [[Henry Kissinger]] a memorandum reporting that an officer of the group planning it had asked "if the U.S. government would come to the aid of the Chilean military if the situation became difficult." On October 3 he cabled Santiago that "Agency operational activities in Chile are now prime target for Congressional investigations" and that the agency "cannot assist Junta."[^11] Phillips retired in 1975 as head of the division.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### DINA
|
||||
|
||||
The agency told [[Manuel Contreras]], head of the Chilean secret police [[DINA]], at the outset that it would not support activities of his service "which might be construed as 'internal political repression.'" According to its report to Congress of 2000, "by April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta, but an interagency committee directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras." A proposal for a paid relationship in May and June 1975 was overruled, but "given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras."[^16] The agency gave him a long lunch with the deputy director of central intelligence, [[Vernon Walters]], and officers of the Western Hemisphere Division.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Miami
|
||||
|
||||
From 1961 to 1967 the agency used the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] of [[Coral Gables, Florida]], to give cover to officers of the division stationed in the Miami area.[^17] On April 24, 1968, the chief of the JMWAVE station sent headquarters a dispatch on Wackenhut's purchase of the Reliable Reporting Service, which went to the chief of the division "as a matter of information."[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, Historical Staff. "Western Hemisphere Division, 1946-1965." DDO HP 324, December 1973. NARA JFK record 104-10301-10001, released 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/19731200-104-10301-10001-2025.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Guatemala,* document 71, memorandum, November 20, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54Guat/d71
|
||||
[^3]: Kinzer, Stephen, and Stephen Schlesinger. *Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.* Harvard University Press, 1983; Central Intelligence Agency, "Guatemala: History of PBSUCCESS," declassified internal history.
|
||||
[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Family Jewels," memorandum of Howard J. Osborn, Director of Security, to the Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee, May 16, 1973, with attachments, pp. 00012-00014. Released June 25, 2007.
|
||||
[^5]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963,* vol. X, *Cuba,* document 174, memorandum for the record, "Second Meeting of the Green Study Group," April 24, 1961. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d174
|
||||
[^6]: National Security Archive, "CIA Covert Operations: The 1964 Overthrow of Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana," April 6, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2020-04-06/cia-covert-operations-overthrow-cheddi-jagan-british-guiana-1964
|
||||
[^7]: Colby, Gerard, and Charlotte Dennett. *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil.* HarperCollins, 1995, chapters 8, 23 and 27-29.
|
||||
[^8]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968,* vol. XXXI, document 187, telegram from Ambassador Gordon to the Department of State, March 28, 1964. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v31/d187
|
||||
[^9]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, staff report, *Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973,* December 1975, sections I.A and "U.S. Government Organization for the 1964 Chilean Election." https://archive.org/details/CovertActionInChile196373
|
||||
[^10]: Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations. *Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy,* part 1, The International Telephone and Telegraph Company and Chile, 1970-71. 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 1973, pp. 250-252. https://archive.org/details/MultinationalCorporationsAndUSForeignPolicyUSSenateHearings
|
||||
[^11]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.* New Press, 2003, pp. 10, 13, 17-22, 29-31, 91-93, 107, 112, 158-167, 206-207.
|
||||
[^12]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
|
||||
[^13]: Central Intelligence Agency, memorandum for Chief, Western Hemisphere Division, "Text of Senate ITT Hearings: 20, 21 and 22 March 1973," March 26, 1973.
|
||||
[^14]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. XXI, *Chile, 1969-1973,* list of persons. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/persons
|
||||
[^15]: Phillips, David Atlee. *The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service.* Atheneum, 1977.
|
||||
[^16]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," report to Congress (the Hinchey Report), September 18, 2000.
|
||||
[^17]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975, JFK record 104-10130-10454; Chief of Station, JMWAVE, telepouch dispatch UFGT-21770, April 24, 1968, JFK record 104-10130-10474.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Government
|
||||
- USA
|
||||
- DepartmentOfAgriculture
|
||||
- CommodityCreditCorporation
|
||||
- GSM102
|
||||
- Iraq
|
||||
- BNLScandal
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "CCC"
|
||||
summary: "Federally chartered corporation within the Department of Agriculture that supports farm prices and guarantees export credit, whose guarantees financed about five billion dollars of Iraqi purchases from 1983 to 1990."
|
||||
start: 1948-06-29
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[United States Department of Agriculture]]"
|
||||
role: "agency and instrumentality within the Department"
|
||||
start: 1948-06-29
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Iraq]]"
|
||||
role: "GSM-102 and GSM-103 export credit guarantees"
|
||||
start: 1983
|
||||
end: 1990-08-02
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Commodity Credit Corporation holds a federal charter under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, Public Law 80-806 (chapter 704, 62 Stat. 1070), "An Act To provide a Federal charter for the Commodity Credit Corporation," approved on June 29, 1948. The Act dissolved an earlier corporation of the same name organized under the laws of [[Delaware]] and transferred its rights, duties, assets and liabilities to the new body, as the [[Government Corporation Control Act]] of 1945 required of wholly owned government corporations.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Charter
|
||||
|
||||
Section 2 of the Act sets out its purpose and form: "For the purpose of stabilizing, supporting, and protecting farm income and prices, of assisting in the maintenance of balanced and adequate supplies of agricultural commodities... and of facilitating the orderly distribution of agricultural commodities, there is hereby created a body corporate to be known as Commodity Credit Corporation... which shall be an agency and instrumentality of the [[United States]], within the Department of Agriculture, subject to the general direction and control of its Board of Directors."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 4(i) limited its borrowing: "the total of all money borrowed by the Corporation, other than trust deposits and advances received on sales, shall not at any time exceed in the aggregate $4,750,000,000."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Export Credit Guarantees and Iraq
|
||||
|
||||
Under its [[GSM-102]] and [[GSM-103]] programs the corporation guarantees repayment to American banks that finance foreign purchases of American farm products. [[Iraq]] became eligible after the administration of [[Ronald Reagan]] removed it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1982. Iraq's share of the guarantees rose from 8 percent in fiscal 1983 to 26 percent in fiscal 1988, when it received more than a billion dollars and was the second largest recipient. Guarantees for Iraq under the [[Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program]] from 1983 to 1990 came to about five billion dollars. The principal lender under them was the [[Atlanta]] branch of [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]]. The trade embargo of August 2, 1990, ended the program with about two billion dollars of Iraqi guarantees outstanding.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Representative [[Henry B. Gonzalez]] told the House on May 18, 1992, that after the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] raided the Atlanta branch in August 1989, "investigators uncovered massive fraud, placing the entire CCC Program for Iraq in jeopardy," and that the [[White House]] and the [[National Security Council]], "armed with [[National Security Directive 26]], sprang into action in order to save the CCC Program for Iraq."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, Pub. L. 80-806, ch. 704, 62 Stat. 1070-1071, June 29, 1948. National Agricultural Law Center. https://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/farmbills/ccc1948.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: General Accounting Office, report on Iraq's participation in the Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102 and GSM-103 export credit guarantee programs, GAO/NSIAD-91-76, November 1990, with chronology at appendix I.
|
||||
[^3]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Continuing Saga of Attempts to Thwart BNL Investigation," *Congressional Record,* House, May 18, 1992, pp. H3370-H3373.
|
||||
|
|
@ -10,9 +10,11 @@ tags:
|
|||
- USA
|
||||
description: The Department of Defense (DoD) is an executive branch department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces.
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
summary: "The Department of Defense (DoD) is an executive branch department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States..."
|
||||
summary: "Executive department of the U.S. federal government that coordinates and supervises all agencies and functions concerned directly with national security and the armed forces."
|
||||
start: 1947
|
||||
location: "Arlington, Virginia"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "United States Department of Defense"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Department of Defense]] (DoD) is an executive branch department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the [[United States]].[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "DHS"
|
||||
- "U.S. Department of Homeland Security"
|
||||
- "United States Department of Homeland Security"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- HomelandSecurity
|
||||
- IntelligenceCommunity
|
||||
- CabinetDepartment
|
||||
summary: "Cabinet department created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which took over the Secret Service from the Treasury in 2003 and houses the statutory Office of Intelligence and Analysis."
|
||||
start: 2003-01-24
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tom Ridge]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2003-01-24
|
||||
end: 2005-02-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Chertoff]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2005-02-15
|
||||
end: 2009-01-21
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Janet Napolitano]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2009-01-20
|
||||
end: 2013-09-06
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jeh Johnson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2013-12-23
|
||||
end: 2017-01-20
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[John F. Kelly]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2017-01-20
|
||||
end: 2017-07-28
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Kirstjen Nielsen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2017-12-06
|
||||
end: 2019-04-10
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alejandro Mayorkas]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2021-02-01
|
||||
end: 2025-01-20
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Kristi Noem]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2025-01-25
|
||||
end: 2026-03-24
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Markwayne Mullin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2026-03-24
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Rinaldo Nazzaro]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "intelligence analysis, confirmed by a DHS spokesperson"
|
||||
start: 2004
|
||||
end: 2006
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Dewey Murdick]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief analytics officer and deputy chief scientist"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[In-Q-Tel]]"
|
||||
role: "limited partner"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Department of Homeland Security is the [[United States]] cabinet department established by the [[Homeland Security Act of 2002]] (Pub. L. 107-296). Its first Secretary, [[Tom Ridge]], took office on January 24, 2003.[^1][^2] Under the Act and the Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan of November 25, 2002, operating agencies were moved into the new department, among them the [[United States Secret Service]], which was transferred from the [[United States Department of the Treasury]] on March 1, 2003.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Secretaries
|
||||
|
||||
The department's official list of Secretaries gives the following dates of service: Tom Ridge, January 24, 2003, to February 1, 2005; [[Michael Chertoff]], February 15, 2005, to January 21, 2009; [[Janet Napolitano]], January 20, 2009, to September 6, 2013; [[Jeh Johnson|Jeh Charles Johnson]], December 23, 2013, to January 20, 2017; [[John F. Kelly]], January 20, 2017, to July 28, 2017; [[Kirstjen Nielsen|Kirstjen M. Nielsen]], December 6, 2017, to April 10, 2019; [[Alejandro Mayorkas]], February 1, 2021, to January 20, 2025; [[Kristi Noem]], January 25, 2025, to March 24, 2026; and [[Markwayne Mullin]], from March 24, 2026. The list names no Secretary for the period between April 10, 2019, and February 1, 2021.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Office of Intelligence and Analysis
|
||||
|
||||
The department's intelligence office is codified at 6 U.S.C. § 121, which now reads: "There shall be in the Department an Office of Intelligence and Analysis," headed by an "Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis." The section originated in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 as the "Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection." Section 531(a)(1) of the [[Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007]] (Pub. L. 110-53) added subsections (a) through (c), which created a separate [[Office of Intelligence and Analysis]] and a separate Office of Infrastructure Protection. In 2018, Pub. L. 115-278 struck "and Infrastructure Protection" from the section heading, leaving the Office of Intelligence and Analysis as the only entity codified there.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The department confirmed, through an unnamed spokesperson, that "[[Rinaldo Nazzaro]] worked at DHS from 2004 to 2006." Nazzaro, later the founder of [[The Base]], posted a letter he attributed to the department that referred to his work in "DHS/Intelligence Analysis." The department would not authenticate the letter, and no job title has been disclosed.[^5] His claimed tenure falls before the 2007 amendment that gave the Office of Intelligence and Analysis its statutory name.[^2] He cited the employment among the credentials of his security firm, [[Omega Solutions International]].[^6] In April 2025 the [[Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center]], a state fusion center affiliated with the department, published an advisory describing Nazzaro as having "for years garnered suspicions of being a Russian intelligence asset."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Technology partnerships and clients
|
||||
|
||||
[[In-Q-Tel]], the venture fund chartered by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], lists the Department of Homeland Security as a limited partner from 2010.[^8] An In-Q-Tel spokeswoman named "DHS (specifically [[U.S. Customs and Border Protection|Customs and Border Protection]])" among the fund's clients in 2021.[^9] [[Dewey Murdick]], formerly the department's chief analytics officer and deputy chief scientist and an [[Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity|IARPA]] program manager, joined the founding team of the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]] at [[Georgetown University]] in 2019.[^10] The department and [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement|ICE]] are among the documented federal clients of the facial recognition company [[Clearview AI]].[^11] The [[Combating Terrorism Center at West Point]] states that it has provided counterterrorism education to the department.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Domestic extremism and enforcement
|
||||
|
||||
On March 17, 2021, the department, the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] and the [[Department of Justice]] jointly released the unclassified summary "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021," which identified white supremacist extremists as the domestic violent extremists with "the most persistent and concerning transnational connections."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 27, 2025, agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained the former Chilean intelligence operative [[Armando Fernandez Larios]] in [[Florida]], and in January 2026 the department put him on a published list of the "worst of the worst." He was released on March 19, 2026.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "Secretaries of Homeland Security." https://www.dhs.gov/secretaries-homeland-security
|
||||
[^2]: 6 U.S.C. § 121, "Office of Intelligence and Analysis," with statutory and amendment notes. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6/121
|
||||
[^3]: 18 U.S.C. § 3056, editorial notes on the 2002 amendments. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3056
|
||||
[^4]: United States Secret Service, "Timeline of Our History." https://www.secretservice.gov/about/history/timeline
|
||||
[^5]: Wilson, Jason. "Department of Homeland Security Confirms Neo-Nazi Leader Used to Work For It." *VICE News*, February 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/department-of-homeland-security-confirms-neo-nazi-leader-used-to-work-for-it/
|
||||
[^6]: Wilson, Jason. "Neo-Nazi Terror Leader Said to Have Worked With U.S. Special Forces." *VICE News*, January 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/neo-nazi-terror-leader-said-to-have-worked-with-us-special-forces/
|
||||
[^7]: Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC), "US Neo-Nazi Group with Russia-Based Leader Calls for Targeted Ukraine Attacks," April 2025. https://mcac.maryland.gov/2025/04/us-neo-nazi-group-with-russia-based-leader-calls-for-targeted-ukraine-attacks/
|
||||
[^8]: In-Q-Tel, "Our Milestones." https://www.iqt.org/about/our-milestones
|
||||
[^9]: Cox, Joseph. "CIA Funding Arm Gave Encrypted App Wickr $1.6 Million," *Vice,* October 12, 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wickr-cia-funding-inqtel/
|
||||
[^10]: Open Philanthropy, "Georgetown University, Center for Security and Emerging Technology," grant of January 2019, archived January 2, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250102035307/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/georgetown-university-center-for-security-and-emerging-technology/
|
||||
[^11]: Consumer Watchdog. "Clearview AI" report, December 2023. https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Clearview-AI-Cover-Letter-and-Report.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "History." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/history/
|
||||
[^13]: ODNI, DOJ and DHS. "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021." Unclassified Summary. March 17, 2021. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/UnclassSummaryofDVEAssessment-17MAR21.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: Kornbluh, Peter, and Sebastian Santana. "'Worst of the Worst': ICE and the Case of Chilean Intelligence Operative Armando Fernandez Larios," National Security Archive, July 10, 2026. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2026-07-10/worst-worst-ice-and-case-chilean-intelligence-operative-armando
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "Office of the Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
- "ODNI"
|
||||
- "DNI"
|
||||
- "Office of the DNI"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- IntelligenceCommunity
|
||||
- ODNI
|
||||
- FISA
|
||||
- UAP
|
||||
summary: "Post and supporting office created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to head the Intelligence Community, replacing the Director of Central Intelligence in that role."
|
||||
start: 2005-04-22
|
||||
location: "Northern Virginia"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[John Negroponte]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "first Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2005
|
||||
end: 2007
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Mike McConnell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
end: 2009
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Dennis Blair]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2009
|
||||
end: 2010
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Clapper]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
end: 2017
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Dan Coats]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2019
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[John Ratcliffe]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2021
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Avril Haines]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2021
|
||||
end: 2025
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tulsi Gabbard]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2025
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jay Clayton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "ninth Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2026-08-03
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Christopher Fonzone]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "general counsel"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Luis Elizondo]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "positions within ODNI, by his own account"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Director of National Intelligence heads the [[United States Intelligence Community]] and directs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Both were created by the [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004]] (Pub. L. 108-458), signed on December 17, 2004. "There is a Director of National Intelligence who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate"; nominees must have "extensive national security expertise," and the Director "shall not be located within the Executive Office of the President."[^1] The first Director and Principal Deputy Director were sworn in on April 21, 2005, and "the ODNI began operations at 7 a.m. on April 22, 2005."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Creation
|
||||
|
||||
Before 2005 the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] managed the intelligence agencies while also leading the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]. The [[9/11 Commission]] "recommended replacing the triple-hatted position of DCI." "With the passage of IRTPA, Congress abolished the position of DCI... The Director of the CIA now reports to the DNI."[^3] The Director is responsible for "the oversight and direction of the 18 elements of the intelligence community."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Statutory authorities
|
||||
|
||||
Under 50 U.S.C. § 3024 the Director directs "the 'allotment or allocation' of congressionally appropriated funds for the NIP to elements of the IC," manages "the tasking, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of national intelligence," must "ensure the elimination of waste and unnecessary duplication within the intelligence community," sets policies for "sound analytic methods and tradecraft, independent of political considerations," protects intelligence sources and methods from "unauthorized disclosure," and is the "exclusive milestone decision authority" for major intelligence system acquisitions funded through the [[National Intelligence Program]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Under [[FISA Section 702|Section 702]] of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]], the Attorney General and the Director jointly certify to the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]] that collection targets non-U.S. persons outside the [[United States]].[^4] Authority to establish [[Special Access Programs]] rests with the Secretary of Defense, the Director and certain other senior officials.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Organization
|
||||
|
||||
The ODNI (50 U.S.C. § 3025) is staffed by permanent federal employees, contractors and personnel detailed from other agencies under a Chief Operating Officer. The Principal Deputy Director is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation and "shall act for, and exercise the powers of" the Director when the post is vacant (50 U.S.C. § 3026(a)). The Director may appoint up to four deputies; in 2025 there were two, a Deputy for Mission Integration, who oversees the [[National Intelligence Council]] and the [[President's Daily Brief]], and a Deputy for Policy and Capabilities, whose portfolio includes the [[Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity]]. The office also contains the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the Office of the General Counsel and the office for Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Christopher Fonzone]], later head of the [[Department of Justice]]'s [[Office of Legal Counsel]], was the office's general counsel under President [[Joe Biden]].[^6] [[Luis Elizondo]] wrote that he held positions within the ODNI, as well as the [[Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive]] and the [[Department of Defense]], and managed Special Access Programs.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors
|
||||
|
||||
The Senate-confirmed Directors have been [[John Negroponte]] (2005 to 2007), [[Mike McConnell|J. Michael McConnell]] (2007 to 2009), [[Dennis Blair]] (2009 to 2010), [[James Clapper]] (2010 to 2017), [[Dan Coats|Daniel Coats]] (2017 to 2019), [[John Ratcliffe|John L. Ratcliffe]] (2020 to 2021), [[Avril Haines|Avril D. Haines]] (2021 to 2025) and [[Tulsi Gabbard]] (from 2025).[^3] Clapper had been director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] in the early 1990s, when the agency ran the remote viewing program later known as the [[Stargate Project]].[^8] "[[Jay Clayton]] was sworn in as the ninth Director of National Intelligence on August 3, 2026."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reorganization under Gabbard
|
||||
|
||||
On May 14, 2025, CNN reported, Gabbard removed the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, [[Mike Collins (intelligence officer)|Mike Collins]], and his deputy, [[Maria Langan-Riekhof]], and moved the council's offices from the CIA to the ODNI. An ODNI spokesperson said: "The director is working alongside President Trump to end the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
"In August 2025, the most recent changes to the ODNI were announced, aimed at streamlining the office and reducing redundancies. They include elimination of three Mission Centers (integrating their core functions with the National Intelligence Council [NIC]), elimination of global health as an ODNI core mission area, closing the [[National Intelligence University]] (NIU), and reducing staff by over 40% by the end of FY2025." The centers eliminated were the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, the [[Foreign Malign Influence Center]] and the [[Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center]]; the [[National Counterterrorism Center]] and the [[National Counterintelligence and Security Center]] remained as the office's only mission centers.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
*[[Politico]]* reported on March 23, 2026, citing six people, that Gabbard was completing a plan to move oversight of [[In-Q-Tel]] from the CIA to her office. Her spokeswoman said "the entire story is false."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Publications
|
||||
|
||||
On March 17, 2021, the ODNI, the Department of Justice and the [[Department of Homeland Security]] jointly released "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021," which identified white supremacist extremists as having "the most persistent and concerning transnational connections."[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
On February 14, 2024, the ODNI published "FISA Section 702 Value Vignettes," which described a 2023 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] investigation in which a query of Section 702 data showed that "a person located inside the U.S. was in regular contact with an unspecified foreign terrorist group, had acquired the means to conduct an attack and had already identified specific targets in the U.S." On June 10, 2024, lawyers for [[Brandon Russell]], charged in the [[2023 Baltimore Power Grid Conspiracy]], moved for notice of Section 702 surveillance, arguing that his was the only open case that matched the vignette.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
According to Luis Elizondo, a provision drafted by the former intelligence official [[Christopher Mellon]] and sponsored by Senator [[Marco Rubio]] directed the Director to produce an unclassified report on unidentified aerial phenomena; it was carried in the committee report accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, and the ODNI issued the "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" in June 2021.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: 50 U.S.C. § 3023, "Director of National Intelligence," with historical notes. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3023
|
||||
[^2]: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, "History." https://www.odni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/history
|
||||
[^3]: DeVine, Michael E. "The Director of National Intelligence (DNI)." Congressional Research Service, In Focus IF10470, updated September 25, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF10470/IF10470.19.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: 50 U.S.C. § 1881a, "Procedures for targeting certain persons outside the United States other than United States persons."
|
||||
[^5]: U.S. House of Representatives. *Hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.* Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, July 26, 2023.
|
||||
[^6]: Anthropic, "Introducing the Anthropic National Security and Public Sector Advisory Council," August 27, 2025. https://www.anthropic.com/news/introducing-the-anthropic-national-security-and-public-sector-advisory-council
|
||||
[^7]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
[^8]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
|
||||
[^9]: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, "Leadership." https://www.odni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/leadership
|
||||
[^10]: CNN, report on the removal of the National Intelligence Council's leadership, May 14, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/politics/gabbard-fires-senior-intelligence-officials
|
||||
[^11]: Sakellariadis, John. "Gabbard plans to shift coveted, CIA-backed high-tech fund to her office," *Politico,* March 23, 2026.
|
||||
[^12]: ODNI, DOJ and DHS. "Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021." Unclassified Summary. March 17, 2021. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/UnclassSummaryofDVEAssessment-17MAR21.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: ODNI, "FISA Section 702 Value Vignettes," February 14, 2024. https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/702-documents/FISA_Section_702_Vignettes-20240214_Final.pdf ; *Baltimore Sun,* "Prosecutors will say in secret whether they used controversial spying tool against neo-Nazi accused in Baltimore power grid plot," June 27, 2024. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/06/27/prosecutors-will-say-in-secret-whether-they-used-controversial-spying-tool-against-neo-nazi-accused-in-baltimore-power-grid-plot/
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "FEC"
|
||||
- "U.S. Federal Election Commission"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- CampaignFinance
|
||||
- Elections
|
||||
- RegulatoryAgency
|
||||
summary: "Six-member independent federal commission created by the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act to administer and enforce federal campaign finance law; it opened in 1975."
|
||||
start: 1975
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[National Congressional Club]]"
|
||||
role: "civil enforcement suit, FEC v. National Congressional Club; consent order and 10,000 dollar penalty"
|
||||
start: 1985-02-07
|
||||
end: 1986-05-15
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Carter Wrenn]]"
|
||||
role: "defendant as treasurer of the National Congressional Club; consent order"
|
||||
start: 1985-02-07
|
||||
end: 1986-05-15
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Jefferson Marketing]]"
|
||||
role: "defendant; consent order"
|
||||
start: 1985-02-07
|
||||
end: 1986-05-15
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Thomas F. Ellis]]"
|
||||
role: "consent order required his resignation as a director of the Educational Support Foundation"
|
||||
start: 1985-02-07
|
||||
end: 1986-05-15
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Federal Election Commission is the independent agency that administers and enforces federal campaign finance law in the [[United States]]. It was established by "section 309 of the [[Federal Election Campaign Act|Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971]], as amended (52 U.S.C. 30106)," through amendments enacted in 1974 after "reports of serious financial abuses in the 1972 presidential campaign." "The FEC opened its doors in 1975."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Composition and voting rules
|
||||
|
||||
52 U.S.C. § 30106 provides: "There is established a commission to be known as the Federal Election Commission." The commission is composed "of the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives or their designees, ex officio," who do not vote, "and 6 members appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." "No more than 3 members of the Commission appointed under this paragraph may be affiliated with the same political party," and "Members of the Commission shall serve for a single term of 6 years." For enforcement actions, rulemaking, advisory opinions and the other enumerated matters, "the affirmative vote of 4 members of the Commission shall be required in order for the Commission to take any action." The commissioners appoint three statutory officers: a staff director, a general counsel and an inspector general.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 30, 2025, CNN reported that the departure of Commissioner [[Allen Dickerson]] at the end of his term left the commission with three of six seats filled, below the four votes required to act, and described it as "the fourth time in the FEC's history" the agency had lost its quorum and "the third loss of a quorum under a Trump presidency." Commissioner [[Sean Cooksey]] had resigned on January 20, 2025, to become counsel to Vice President [[JD Vance]]. Commissioner [[Ellen Weintraub]] stated on February 6, 2025, that President [[Donald Trump]] had sent her a letter on January 31 "purporting to remove me," and disputed its legality.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Enforcement
|
||||
|
||||
On February 7, 1985, the commission sued the [[National Congressional Club]], its treasurer [[Carter Wrenn|R. E. Carter Wrenn]] and [[Jefferson Marketing|Jefferson Marketing, Inc.]] in the United States District Court for the [[Eastern District of North Carolina]]. The commission alleged that "Wrenn, [[Thomas F. Ellis|Ellis]] and other NCC officials exercised control of Jefferson Marketing," with Wrenn exercising "domination and control over the day-to-day operations of Jefferson Marketing," so that the club and the company operated as a single entity for reporting purposes. Under a consent order of May 15, 1986, the club and Wrenn were found to have violated the reporting provisions (section 434) by failing to disclose Jefferson Marketing's financial activity; the claim that the company had underpriced its services to candidates (section 441b) was not contested. The order imposed a "$10,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury," required Ellis and Wrenn to resign as directors of the [[Educational Support Foundation]], Jefferson Marketing's shareholder, and required the club to amend its reports to disclose Jefferson Marketing's financial activity "from December 1978 to the present."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2022 the [[Campaign Legal Center]] filed a complaint alleging that the super PAC [[Protect Ohio Values]] had illegally coordinated with the Senate campaign of JD Vance. The commission dismissed the complaint in 2024.[^5] The *[[Arizona Mirror]]* reported that the commission had raised questions about how the [[Saving Arizona PAC]], which backed [[Blake Masters]], was disclosing its spending.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
In *[[FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate]]*, decided May 16, 2022, "the United States Supreme Court affirmed the District Court's judgment," holding that "Section 304 of the [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]]... is unconstitutional." The suit concerned [[Ted Cruz]]'s 2018 Senate campaign.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Disclosure records
|
||||
|
||||
The commission maintains a public database of committee registrations and of itemized receipts and disbursements. [[Real Justice PAC]] registered on February 7, 2017, as committee C00632554, a hybrid PAC with a non-contribution account.[^8] Its 2019 year-end report records a 750,000 dollar receipt from the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], the only itemized receipt from that fund in the commission's records.[^9] The super PAC [[Leading the Future]] registered on August 15, 2025, as C00916114,[^10] and the political action committee of [[Americans for Responsible Innovation]] registered on December 11, 2024, as C00893883.[^11] The commission's records show that Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign paid [[Cambridge Analytica]] more than 5.8 million dollars during that cycle.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Federal Election Commission, "Mission and History." https://www.fec.gov/about/mission-and-history/
|
||||
[^2]: 52 U.S.C. § 30106, "Federal Election Commission." Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title52-section30106&num=0&edition=prelim
|
||||
[^3]: CNN, report on the Federal Election Commission's loss of quorum, April 30, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/politics/federal-election-commissions-resignations-quorum
|
||||
[^4]: Federal Election Commission, "FEC v. National Congressional Club," court case summary, citing the FEC *Record,* July 1986. https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/fec-v-national-congressional-club
|
||||
[^5]: Campaign Legal Center. FEC complaint against JD Vance for Senate and Protect Ohio Values PAC, June 2022. https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/Vance%2520POV%2520Complaint%2520%2528Final%2529.pdf ; "FEC Lets Peter Thiel-Funded Super PAC Off the Hook." *Business Insider,* May 2024. https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-super-pac-jd-vance-ohio-fec-ruling-2024-5
|
||||
[^6]: "The FEC has questions about how a PAC backing Blake Masters is disclosing its spending." *Arizona Mirror.* https://azmirror.com/briefs/the-fec-has-questions-about-how-a-pac-backing-blake-masters-is-disclosing-its-spending/
|
||||
[^7]: Federal Election Commission, "Ted Cruz for Senate, et al. v. FEC," court case summary. https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/ted-cruz-for-senate-et-al-v-fec
|
||||
[^8]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00632554, "Real Justice PAC," Form 1 statement of organization first filed February 7, 2017, and committee record, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00632554/
|
||||
[^9]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipt from "Open Philanthropy Action Fund," 750,000 dollars, October 29, 2019, reported by Real Justice PAC (C00632554) on its 2019 year-end Form 3X, filed July 7, 2020, image 202007029244274196, retrieved September 23, 2026. http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202007029244274196
|
||||
[^10]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00916114, "Leading the Future," statement of organization and itemized receipts (Schedule A), retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/
|
||||
[^11]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00893883, "Americans for Responsible Innovation Ltd. Political Action Committee," registration and financial totals through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00893883/
|
||||
[^12]: "Before Trump, Cambridge Analytica was on team Cruz." *OpenSecrets,* March 2018. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/03/before-trump-cambridge-analytica-was-on-team-cruz
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Government
|
||||
- Judiciary
|
||||
- FISA
|
||||
- FISACourt
|
||||
- Surveillance
|
||||
- NationalSecurity
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "FISC"
|
||||
- "FISA Court"
|
||||
- "FISA court"
|
||||
summary: "Court of federal district judges designated by the Chief Justice under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to hear government applications for foreign intelligence surveillance orders."
|
||||
start: 1978-10-25
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Royce Lamberth]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "judge; presiding judge"
|
||||
start: 1995
|
||||
end: 2002
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created by section 103 of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] of 1978. The statute directed the [[Chief Justice of the United States]] to "publicly designate seven district court judges from seven of the United States judicial circuits who shall constitute a court which shall have jurisdiction to hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance anywhere within the United States under the procedures set forth in this Act."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Composition
|
||||
|
||||
Each judge was to serve "for a maximum of seven years" and was not "eligible for redesignation." The first terms were staggered so that one of the seven expired each year. A judge who denied an application was to set out a "written statement of each reason for his decision," to be sealed and sent to the court of review, and no other judge of the court could hear an application once denied.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The same section created a court of review: "The Chief Justice shall publicly designate three judges, one of whom shall be publicly designated as the presiding judge, from the United States district courts or courts of appeals who together shall comprise a court of review which shall have jurisdiction to review the denial of any application." A government appeal from the court of review went "under seal to the [[Supreme Court]]." The court's records were to be kept under security measures set by the Chief Justice "in consultation with the Attorney General and the [[Director of Central Intelligence]]."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[USA PATRIOT Act]] (Public Law 107-56) of 2001 substituted "11 district court judges" for "seven district court judges" and added that "no fewer than 3 shall reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia." The [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act]] of 2004 (Public Law 108-458) put the [[Director of National Intelligence]] in place of the Director of Central Intelligence in the record-keeping provision. The [[FISA Amendments Act of 2008]] (Public Law 110-261) restructured subsection (a) and added an en banc procedure; the [[USA FREEDOM Act]] of 2015 (Public Law 114-23) added subsections (i) through (k) on amicus curiae; and the [[Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act]] of 2024 (Public Law 118-49) added a transcription requirement.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Judges
|
||||
|
||||
[[Frederick Lacey|Frederick Bernard Lacey]] served as a judge of the court from 1979 to 1985. [[Royce Lamberth|Royce C. Lamberth]] served from 1995 to 2002 and was presiding judge for the whole of that period.[^3] Lacey, a district judge in [[New Jersey]], was appointed special counsel by Attorney General [[William Barr]] on October 16, 1992, to review the [[BNL Scandal|Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]] affair.[^4][^5] Lamberth was a judge of the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]], appointed by [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1987.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-511, sec. 103, 92 Stat. 1783, 1788, October 25, 1978. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: 50 U.S.C. 1803, with statutory notes on amendments, Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:50%20section:1803%20edition:prelim)
|
||||
[^3]: Federal Judicial Center. "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: Judges." https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court-judges
|
||||
[^4]: Federal Judicial Center, "Lacey, Frederick Bernard," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lacey-frederick-bernard
|
||||
[^5]: Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 103-95, 1993, pp. 514-15. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit
|
||||
[^6]: Federal Judicial Center, "Lamberth, Royce C.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/lamberth-royce-c
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "HSI"
|
||||
- "ICE Homeland Security Investigations"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- LawEnforcement
|
||||
- HomelandSecurity
|
||||
- ChildExploitation
|
||||
- FederalCase
|
||||
summary: "Investigative directorate of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formed in 2010, which works through regional field offices and led the 2025 CVLT child exploitation prosecution."
|
||||
start: 2010-06
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]]"
|
||||
role: "directorate"
|
||||
start: 2010-06
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[CVLT]]"
|
||||
role: "HSI Los Angeles, Cherry Hill and Honolulu"
|
||||
start: 2025
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Collin Walker]]"
|
||||
role: "arrested by HSI Cherry Hill"
|
||||
start: 2025-02
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Clint Borge]]"
|
||||
role: "arrested by HSI Honolulu"
|
||||
start: 2025-02
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[R. Seth Williams]]"
|
||||
role: "with the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Homeland Security Investigations is the investigative directorate of [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]] (ICE), a component of the [[Department of Homeland Security]]. ICE describes it as "the principal investigative component of DHS," responsible for "investigating, disrupting, and dismantling transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and terrorist networks that threaten or seek to exploit the customs and immigration laws of the [[United States]]."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation
|
||||
|
||||
According to ICE, the directorate's lineage runs to 1789, when Congress established the [[U.S. Customs|United States Customs Service]], and its investigative elements descend from "the investigative functions of the former United States Customs Service and the former [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]]," which were merged into ICE when it began operations on March 1, 2003, under the [[Homeland Security Act of 2002]]. ICE states that in June 2010 it "underwent a structural realignment," set out in a memorandum of June 9, 2010, from [[John Morton]], then the Assistant Secretary in charge of ICE, which combined its Offices of Investigations, Intelligence and International Affairs into a directorate "known as Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI." The reorganization was internal and not made by statute.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
ICE gives the directorate's size as "more than 8,700 employees, including special agents, criminal analysts, mission support personnel and contract staff," assigned to more than 237 offices in the United States and more than 93 abroad.[^1] In testimony in September 2024, HSI's [[Katrina W. Berger]] gave its fiscal 2023 output as "approximately 29,500 criminal investigations producing more than 33,000 criminal arrests, 16,500 indictments, and 11,250 convictions."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### CVLT prosecution
|
||||
|
||||
HSI [[Los Angeles]], HSI Cherry Hill in [[New Jersey]] and HSI Honolulu conducted the federal investigation of [[CVLT]], an online network charged with operating a child exploitation enterprise, with the [[Los Angeles Police Department]], the [[San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office]], the [[Henry County Sheriff's Office]] in Virginia, the [[Iowa State University Police Department]] and the French [[Police Nationale]].[^3] A federal grand jury in the [[Central District of California]] returned the indictment in [[United States v. Rane et al. (2-25-cr-00040)|United States v. Rane et al.]] on January 17, 2025. When it was unsealed in early February 2025, HSI Cherry Hill arrested [[Collin Walker]] in New Jersey, and HSI Honolulu arrested [[Clint Borge]] in [[Pahoa, Hawaii|Pahoa]]; a federal magistrate in Los Angeles denied Borge bail on February 6, 2025.[^3][^4] HSI had identified three of the four core leaders before Borge's identity was established through the inquiry of Iowa State University police officer [[Kami Feld]].[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Other investigations and data systems
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2017 HSI, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s Philadelphia Division and [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] Criminal Investigation were the investigating agencies in the bribery and extortion indictment of Philadelphia District Attorney [[R. Seth Williams|Rufus Seth Williams]], brought by the [[United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey|United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
ICE's [[FALCON]] analytical platform, built by [[Palantir Technologies]] and in use from 2013, integrates data from federal and state sources, including HSI and state motor vehicle records. In 2014 ICE awarded Palantir the [[Investigative Case Management]] contract, worth more than 41 million dollars, which the [[Electronic Privacy Information Center]] documented through [[Freedom of Information Act|FOIA]] litigation.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "Who We Are," Homeland Security Investigations, and "History." https://www.ice.gov/hsi/who-we-are ; https://www.ice.gov/history
|
||||
[^2]: Statement of Katrina W. Berger, Homeland Security Investigations, September 18, 2024. https://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/library/speeches/240918berger.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: HSI. "HSI Los Angeles, Cherry Hill, and Honolulu special agents arrest members of online neo-Nazi group on child exploitation enterprise charges." ICE.gov, February 2025. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hsi-los-angeles-cherry-hill-and-honolulu-special-agents-arrest-members-online-neo ; U.S. Department of Justice, OPA. "Four Members of Online Neo-Nazi Group that Exploited Minors Charged with Producing Child Sexual Abuse Material." February 2025. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-members-online-neo-nazi-group-exploited-minors-charged-producing-child-sexual-abuse
|
||||
[^4]: Hawaii Tribune-Herald. "Judge: No bail for alleged CVLT member from Pahoa." February 6, 2025. https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2025/02/06/hawaii-news/judge-no-bail-for-alleged-cvlt-member-from-pahoa/
|
||||
[^5]: Iowa State Daily. "How ISUPD uncovered a Neo-Nazi sexual predator ring." 2025. https://iowastatedaily.com/335620/news/how-the-isupd-uncovered-a-neo-nazi-sexual-predator-ring/ ; Iowa State University News Service. "A call for help leads ISU Police to sexual predator, international investigation." February 12, 2025. https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2025/02/12/isu-police-exploitation
|
||||
[^6]: United States Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, "Philadelphia District Attorney Rufus Seth Williams Indicted On Bribery And Extortion Charges," press release, March 21, 2017, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20260524023339/https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/philadelphia-district-attorney-rufus-seth-williams-indicted-bribery-and-extortion-charges
|
||||
[^7]: EPIC v. ICE FOIA litigation, https://epic.org/documents/epic-v-ice-palantir-databases/ ; ICE contract HSCETC-15-C-00001, https://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/contracts/palantirTechHSCETC15C00001.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,124 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- IntelligenceCommunity
|
||||
- ODNI
|
||||
- IARPA
|
||||
- Forecasting
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- QuantumComputing
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- IARPA
|
||||
summary: "Research agency of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, launched October 1, 2007, from NSA, NGA and CIA technology offices, whose ACE forecasting tournament produced the Good Judgment superforecasters."
|
||||
start: 2007-10-01
|
||||
location: "Office of the Director of National Intelligence"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[Director of National Intelligence]]"
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Steven Nixon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "first acting director"
|
||||
start: 2007-06-01
|
||||
end: 2007-10-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tim Murphy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "second acting director"
|
||||
start: 2007-10-01
|
||||
end: 2008-02-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lisa Porter]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "first director"
|
||||
start: 2008-02-01
|
||||
end: 2012-07-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Highnam]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "second director"
|
||||
start: 2012-08-30
|
||||
end: 2015-07-15
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stacey Dixon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "fourth director"
|
||||
start: 2018-09-05
|
||||
end: 2019-06-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Catherine Cotell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "third acting director"
|
||||
start: 2019-07-01
|
||||
end: 2019-11-19
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Catherine Marsh]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "fifth director"
|
||||
start: 2019-11-19
|
||||
end: 2024-05
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Rick Muller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "sixth director"
|
||||
start: 2024-04-17
|
||||
end: 2025-07
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Russell Miller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "seventh director"
|
||||
start: 2025-12
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Adam Russell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "program manager"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Dewey Murdick]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "program manager"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is the research agency of the [[Director of National Intelligence|Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] (ODNI). The Director of National Intelligence authorized it in 2006, modeled on [[DARPA]] "but focused on national intelligence rather than military needs," as a consolidation of the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]'s [[Disruptive Technology Office]], the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]]'s [[National Technology Alliance]] and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s [[Intelligence Technology Innovation Center]]. "In 2007, IARPA was stood-up in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as part of the 100-day plan establishing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)," and it was officially launched on October 1, 2007. It does not deploy technology to the field; it transitions the results of its research programs "to our IC customers for operational implementation."[^1] Within ODNI it falls under the Deputy Director for Policy and Capabilities.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors
|
||||
|
||||
[[Steven Nixon]] was appointed first acting director on June 1, 2007, and served until the launch on October 1, 2007, when [[Tim Murphy]] became second acting director. [[Lisa Porter]], later deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering and co-founder of the consulting firm LogiQ, was the first director, from February 1, 2008, to July 1, 2012. [[Peter Highnam]], formerly director of research at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, followed from August 30, 2012, to July 15, 2015. [[Jason Matheny]], "a former PM," was director from August 3, 2015, to September 5, 2018, and later President [[Joe Biden]]'s senior advisor on technology and national security and president of the [[RAND Corporation]]. [[Stacey Dixon]], previously deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, served from September 5, 2018, to June 1, 2019, and was confirmed in 2021 as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. The deputy director for research, [[Catherine Cotell]], was third acting director from July 1 to November 19, 2019, and [[Catherine Marsh]], a power-sources specialist, was director from November 19, 2019, to May 2024. [[Rick Muller]] of [[Sandia National Laboratories]] was appointed on April 17, 2024, and served until July 2025; [[Russell Miller]] was appointed seventh director in December 2025.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Program managers
|
||||
|
||||
"Since all IARPA PMs serve on a term-limited appointment, we have a constant influx of new PMs," the agency states, with more than 100 program managers and about 90 research programs since its founding. Former staff it names include [[Jill Crisman]], later principal director for AI in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; [[Jinendra Ranka]], who became director of DARPA's Defense Sciences Office in February 2022; and [[Chris Reed]], later chief innovation officer at [[Raytheon]] Applied Signal Technology.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jeff Alstott]] was an IARPA program manager with a portfolio covering artificial intelligence, analytic methods, biosecurity, and science and technology forecasting, before posts at the [[National Science Foundation]], the [[National Security Council]] and the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] and at RAND.[^3] [[Adam Russell]], a program manager at DARPA and IARPA who helped establish [[ARPA-H]], was named chief vision officer of the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]] on April 16, 2024.[^4] [[Dewey Murdick]], an IARPA program manager and chief analytics officer and deputy chief scientist of the [[Department of Homeland Security]], was on the founding team of the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]] (CSET) at [[Georgetown University]], which [[Open Philanthropy]] launched in January 2019 with a 55 million dollar grant recommendation; the grant page described its leader, Matheny, as "former director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Forecasting
|
||||
|
||||
The Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE) program, solicited under broad agency announcement IARPA-BAA-10-05, sought "to dramatically enhance the accuracy, precision, and timeliness of intelligence forecasts for a broad range of event types, through the development of advanced techniques that elicit, weight, and combine the judgments of many intelligence analysts." Its prime performers were [[Applied Research Associates]], the [[Charles Stark Draper Laboratory]], [[George Mason University]], Jacobs Strategic Solutions Group and the [[University of California, Berkeley]].[^6] Run from April 23, 2011, to December 31, 2017, ACE "initiated a massive competition to identify cutting-edge methods to forecast geopolitical events," with millions of forecasts over four years. "The clear winner from this effort was Team Good Judgment, which went on to build the forecasting business, Good Judgment," the [[Good Judgment Project]], and its principal investigator, [[Philip Tetlock]], wrote *Superforecasting* on the basis of it. IARPA credits ACE with contributing "to the launch of an entire Superforecasting industry" and with the spin-off programs Open Source Indicators (OSI), CREATE and HFC; "the IC prediction market preceded ACE." A team in OSI, introduced in 2011, was the first to notify U.S. public health officials of the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Other programs
|
||||
|
||||
IARPA's first program, Coherent Superconducting Qubits, ran from September 2009 to October 2014; *[[Science]]* named research of its Multi-Qubit Coherent Operations program the "Breakthrough of the Year" for 2010, and later quantum programs include Entangled Logical Qubits and LogiQ. Babel (2011 to about 2017) built speech recognition for underserved languages such as Pashto, Tamil and Igbo and produced the open-source Kaldi toolkit. High Frequency Geolocation (HFGeo), begun in 2011, improved the geolocation of high-frequency emitters, and its "classified sister program," Signal Location in Complex Environments (SLICE), launched the same year. IARPA joined the [[White House]] [[BRAIN Initiative]] announced in April 2013, was named in July 2015 to lead foundational research for the National Strategic Computing Initiative, and contributed its Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program, which sought to reverse-engineer "the brain's algorithms," to the Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenge for Future Computing of October 2015. Its artificial intelligence programs include Trojans in Artificial Intelligence (TrojAI) and Microelectronics for AI (MicroE4AI). On August 1, 2026, it launched a Solutions Marketplace.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, "History," iarpa.gov, archived September 20, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260920105040/https://www.iarpa.gov/who-we-are/history
|
||||
[^2]: DeVine, Michael E. "The Director of National Intelligence (DNI)." Congressional Research Service, In Focus IF10470, updated September 25, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF10470/IF10470.19.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: RAND Corporation, "Jeff Alstott," staff profile and publications list, archived September 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260917062102/https://www.rand.org/about/people/a/alstott_jeffrey.html
|
||||
[^4]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
|
||||
[^5]: Open Philanthropy, "Georgetown University, Center for Security and Emerging Technology," grant of January 2019, archived January 2, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250102035307/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/georgetown-university-center-for-security-and-emerging-technology/
|
||||
[^6]: Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, "Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE)," program page, iarpa.gov, archived September 20, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260920105028/https://www.iarpa.gov/research-programs/ace
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- NRO
|
||||
- Satellites
|
||||
- Reconnaissance
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- NRO
|
||||
summary: "Joint Defense Department and CIA agency for reconnaissance satellites, founded by memorandum in September 1961, whose existence stayed classified until 1992 and whose director resigned over 3.7 billion dollars in unspent funds."
|
||||
start: 1961-09-06
|
||||
location: "Chantilly, Virginia"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Defense]]"
|
||||
start: 1963-03-13
|
||||
role: "separate operating agency"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
|
||||
start: 1961-09-06
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Bissell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961-09
|
||||
end: 1962-04
|
||||
role: "co-director with Joseph V. Charyk"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Hans M. Mark]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1977-08
|
||||
end: 1979-10
|
||||
role: "Director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[David Grusch]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "NRO representative on the UAP Task Force"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[In-Q-Tel]]"
|
||||
start: 2009
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the [[United States]]. It was created without a statute: "acting CIA Director, Gen Charles Cabell established the National Reconnaissance Office by concurring with Deputy Secretary of Defense, Roswell Gilpatric's 6 September 1961 memorandum." [[Richard Bissell]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and [[Joseph V. Charyk]] of the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] were its first co-directors.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Agreements Between the Pentagon and the CIA
|
||||
|
||||
The office's authority was set by a sequence of agreements between the [[Department of Defense]] and the CIA. The second, of May 2, 1962, gave it a single director appointed by the Secretary of Defense with the concurrence of the [[Director of Central Intelligence]]. The third, of March 13, 1963, made it "a separate operating agency with the Defense Department," with a deputy director appointed by the DCI. A fourth, of August 11, 1965, signed by DCI [[William Raborn]] and Deputy Secretary of Defense [[Cyrus Vance]], removed the requirement for the DCI's concurrence in the choice of director.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On July 23, 1962, Charyk organized the satellite and aircraft work into lettered programs: Program A for Air Force satellites, Program B for CIA satellites, Program C for [[United States Navy|Navy]] satellites, and Program D for Air Force and CIA reconnaissance aircraft. Its programs included [[Corona (satellite)|Corona]], whose first imagery, of a Soviet bomber base at Mys Shmidta in Siberia, was taken on August 18, 1960; Grab, the first signals intelligence satellite, launched on June 22, 1960; and the [[U-2 Spy Plane|U-2]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 22, 1978, [[William Kampiles]], a former CIA employee, was sentenced to 40 years for stealing a manual for the [[KH-11]] satellite and selling it to Soviet officials in [[Athens]] for 3,000 dollars.[^1] The office's support to arms control verification under [[START I|START-1]] and to domestic disaster relief, including after [[Hurricane Katrina]] in 2005, ran through the [[Civil Applications Committee]], chartered by President [[Gerald Ford]] in October 1975.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors
|
||||
|
||||
The office's own history lists its directors as follows:[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
- Richard M. Bissell Jr. and Joseph V. Charyk, co-directors, September 1961 to April 1962
|
||||
- Joseph V. Charyk, April 1962 to March 1963
|
||||
- [[Brockway McMillan]], March 1963 to October 1965
|
||||
- [[Alexander H. Flax]], October 1965 to March 1969
|
||||
- [[John L. McLucas]], March 1969 to December 1973
|
||||
- [[James W. Plummer]], December 1973 to June 1976
|
||||
- [[Charles W. Cook]] (acting), June 1976 to August 1976
|
||||
- [[Thomas C. Reed]], August 1976 to April 1977
|
||||
- Charles W. Cook (acting), April 1977 to August 1977
|
||||
- [[Hans M. Mark]], August 1977 to October 1979
|
||||
- [[Robert J. Hermann]], October 1979 to August 1981
|
||||
- [[Edward C. Aldridge Jr.]], August 1981 to December 1988
|
||||
- [[Jimmie D. Hill]] (acting), December 1988 to September 1989
|
||||
- [[Martin C. Faga]], September 1989 to March 1993
|
||||
- Jimmie D. Hill (acting), March 1993 to May 1994
|
||||
- [[Jeffrey K. Harris]], May 1994 to February 1996
|
||||
- [[Keith R. Hall]], February 1996 to December 2001
|
||||
- [[Peter B. Teets]], December 2001 to March 2005
|
||||
- [[Dennis Fitzgerald]] (acting), March 2005 to July 2005
|
||||
- [[Donald M. Kerr]], July 2005 to October 2007
|
||||
- [[Scott F. Large]], October 2007 to April 2009
|
||||
- [[Bruce A. Carlson]], from April 2009
|
||||
|
||||
Hans Mark, son of the chemist [[Herman F. Mark]], was also Secretary of the Air Force in the administration of [[Jimmy Carter]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Declassification and Reorganization
|
||||
|
||||
A commission chaired by Robert Fuhrman, formerly chief executive of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]], led to the replacement of the lettered programs with three functional directorates, for signals intelligence systems, imagery systems, and communications, under [[National Security Directive 67]], signed by President [[George H.W. Bush]] on March 30, 1992, and effective December 31, 1992. A fourth directorate, Advanced Systems and Technology, was added in March 1997. The [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] then "informed the Intelligence Community that it wanted to declassify the existence of the NRO unless the President could certify that it would cause 'serious damage' to the nation." The existence of the office was declassified on September 18, 1992.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Westfields Headquarters
|
||||
|
||||
On August 8, 1994, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate committee, [[Dennis DeConcini]] and [[John Warner]], released a letter saying they were "shocked and dismayed to learn that the cost of the new NRO headquarters at Westfields may reach $350 million by completion, nearly double the amount most recently briefed to the committee." Warner said: "I was absolutely astonished at the magnitude and proportions of this structure." The chairman of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|House intelligence committee]], [[Larry Combest]], answered that "charges of CIA or NRO deception are absolutely erroneous." A joint Defense Department and CIA review "found no intent by NRO officials to mislead Congress," and found that "the NRO failed to follow Intelligence Community budgeting guidelines" by carrying the building's funds in its base operating budget.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Forward Funding
|
||||
|
||||
In September 1995 Senator [[Arlen Specter]], then chairman of the Senate committee, said the office had failed to eliminate excessive forward funding. "An initial survey that summer estimated that carryover funds across the entire NRO totaled $1.7 billion. After further review, this estimate rose to $3.7 billion." Senator [[Richard Bryan]] called it "rampant mismanagement." DCI [[John Deutch]] said he had not known of the surplus, as did the [[White House]] chief of staff, [[Leon Panetta]]. "Secretary of Defense [[William Perry]] and Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch directed Director Harris and Deputy Director Hill to resign." Congress recovered the money and applied it to operations in the Balkans, the [[B-2 Spirit|B-2 bomber]], and other defense projects.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Future Imagery Architecture
|
||||
|
||||
[[Boeing]] won the Future Imagery Architecture satellite contract over [[Lockheed Martin]] on September 3, 1999. The program ran into "technical problems, leading to a major spacecraft redesign, resulting in delays and overruns." In May 2003 a joint task force of the [[Defense Science Board]] and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board found it "significantly underfunded and technically flawed," and in 2005 the [[Director of National Intelligence]], [[John Negroponte]], ended it as originally constituted. The National Commission for the Review of the NRO, chaired by Senator [[Bob Kerrey]] and Representative [[Porter Goss]], had reported in November 2000 that the office was "supporting a growing number of users and missions with a budget that had not grown proportionately," and recommended that it "strike a more nuanced balance between openness and secrecy." Under the [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act]], signed on December 17, 2004, the director reports to the Director of National Intelligence as well as to the Secretary of Defense.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later Associations
|
||||
|
||||
[[In-Q-Tel]], the CIA's venture fund, lists the office as a partner from 2009.[^5] [[David Grusch]], an intelligence officer of the NRO and of the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]], served as the NRO's representative on the [[UAP Task Force]].[^6] He testified to a subcommittee of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Accountability|House Oversight Committee]] on July 26, 2023, that officials had told him of waived [[Special Access Programs|special access programs]] for the retrieval and reverse engineering of UAP that had not been disclosed to Congress.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Berkowitz, Bruce. *The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years: A Brief History.* Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, Virginia, September 2011, preface, pp. 20-21, 23-25, 28-29, Appendix A (pp. 36-41) and Appendix B (p. 43). Retrieved via the Wayback Machine snapshot of January 16, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260116035324/https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/history/csnr/programs/NRO_Brief_History.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991, chapter 2.
|
||||
[^3]: Berkowitz, *The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years,* pp. 20-21, citing Thomas, P., "Spy Unit's Spending Stuns Hill," *Washington Post,* August 9, 1994; Weiner, T., "Senators Angered Over Cost of Spy Agency's New Offices," *New York Times,* August 9, 1994; and Pincus, W., "CIA Told Hill of Project, Woolsey Says," *Washington Post,* August 11, 1994.
|
||||
[^4]: Berkowitz, *The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years,* pp. 22-23, citing Weiner, T., "A Spy Agency Admits Accumulating $4 Billion in Secret Money," *New York Times,* May 16, 1996, and Morgan, D., and W. Pincus, "$1.6 Billion in NRO Kitty Helped Appropriators Fund Pet Projects," *Washington Post,* October 5, 1995.
|
||||
[^5]: In-Q-Tel, "Our Milestones." https://www.iqt.org/about/our-milestones
|
||||
[^6]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent.* William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. *Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency,* hearing, July 26, 2023.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "OFAC"
|
||||
- "Division of Foreign Assets Control"
|
||||
- "Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- Treasury
|
||||
- Sanctions
|
||||
- TerroristDesignation
|
||||
- SDGTDesignation
|
||||
summary: "Treasury office, founded as the Division of Foreign Assets Control in 1950, that administers United States economic sanctions and maintains the Specially Designated Nationals list, including terrorism designations under Executive Order 13224."
|
||||
start: 1950-12-17
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[United States Department of the Treasury]]"
|
||||
start: 1950-12-17
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Russian Imperial Movement]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "supporters designated SDGTs on June 15, 2022"
|
||||
start: 2022-06-15
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is the office of the [[United States Department of the Treasury]] that administers economic sanctions programs and publishes the [[Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List]], on which designated persons and entities are entered and their property under American jurisdiction blocked.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins
|
||||
|
||||
The National Archives' guide to the office's records traces it to Foreign Funds Control, "established as a unit of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to Executive Order 8389, April 10, 1940, under authority of the [[Trading with the Enemy Act]] (40 Stat. 411), October 6, 1917, as amended." Foreign Funds Control was given "separate bureau status on September 11, 1942," administered the wartime blacklist of blocked nationals, and was "abolished by Treasury Department Order No. 86 on July 10, 1947." "The Division of Foreign Assets Control was established in the Office of International Finance by Treasury Department order on December 17, 1950." According to the office, the division was created after Chinese intervention in the [[Korean War]], when President [[Harry S. Truman|Harry Truman]] declared a national emergency and Chinese and North Korean assets were blocked, and it was renamed the Office of Foreign Assets Control in 1962.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Government Accountability Office]] reported that since 2004 the office has operated within Treasury's [[Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence]], alongside the [[Financial Crimes Enforcement Network]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Executive Order 13224
|
||||
|
||||
President [[George W. Bush]] signed [[Executive Order 13224]], "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism," on September 23, 2001; it was published in the Federal Register on September 25, 2001. The order relies on the [[International Emergency Economic Powers Act]], the [[National Emergencies Act]] and section 5 of the [[United Nations]] Participation Act of 1945.[^4] According to the [[State Department|Department of State]], "Designations are made by the Department of State or by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control," and designees are entered on the office's list.[^5] A person so designated is a [[Specially Designated Global Terrorist]].
|
||||
|
||||
[[Executive Order 13886]] of 2019 amended the order. The State Department described the amendment as "the most significant expansion of federal terrorist sanctions designation authorities since 9/11," which "empowers the State Department to designate groups and individuals that have participated in training to commit acts of terrorism, as well as persons determined to be leaders of such groups."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Russian Imperial Movement
|
||||
|
||||
In April 2020 the State Department designated the [[Russian Imperial Movement]] and its leaders [[Stanislav Vorobyev|Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev]], [[Denis Gariyev|Denis Valiullovich Gariyev]] and [[Nikolay Trushchalov|Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov]] as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, "the first time in history the Department has designated a white supremacist terrorist group." The release stated that the movement had "two training facilities in St. Petersburg" and that Gariyev headed "RIM's paramilitary arm, the Imperial Legion."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The Office of Foreign Assets Control made its own designations on June 15, 2022, under "section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224, as amended by Executive Order 13886," naming [[Stanislav Shevchuk]] and [[Alexander Zhuchkovsky]], both linked to the movement, and the Swedish national [[Anton Thulin]].[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Terrorgram Collective
|
||||
|
||||
On January 13, 2025, "the Department of State is designating The [[Terrorgram Collective]] (Terrorgram) and three of its leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended." The three were [[Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira]], "a Terrorgram channel administrator" residing in [[Brazil]]; [[Noah Licul]], "a senior member of Terrorgram" residing in [[Croatia]]; and [[Hendrik-Wahl Muller]], a channel administrator residing in [[South Africa]].[^9] The designations were published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2025, and entered on the office's list; Ferreira was assigned SDN entry 52486.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The office has made no listing for [[The Base]], the American accelerationist group, or its founder [[Rinaldo Nazzaro]].[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: National Archives and Records Administration, "Records of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Record Group 265)," Guide to Federal Records. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/265.html ; Office of Foreign Assets Control, Frequently Asked Questions, no. 2. https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/2
|
||||
[^2]: Federal Register, document 01-24205, Executive Order 13224, signed September 23, 2001, published September 25, 2001. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2001/09/25/01-24205/blocking-property-and-prohibiting-transactions-with-persons-who-commit-threaten-to-commit-or-support
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-09-794. https://www.gao.gov/assets/a295926.html
|
||||
[^4]: Office of Foreign Assets Control, Executive Order 13224, text. https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/20296/download?inline=
|
||||
[^5]: U.S. Department of State, "Executive Order 13224." https://www.state.gov/executive-order-13224/
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Department of State, "United States Designates Russian Imperial Movement and Leaders as Global Terrorists," April 2020, via the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20211115221559id_/https://2017-2021.state.gov/united-states-designates-russian-imperial-movement-and-leaders-as-global-terrorists/index.html
|
||||
[^7]: Office of Foreign Assets Control, "Recent Actions," June 15, 2022. https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20220615
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "U.S. Sanctions Members of Russian Violent Extremist Group," press release jy0817, June 15, 2022. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0817
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of State, "Terrorist Designations of The Terrorgram Collective and Three Leaders," January 13, 2025, via the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20260101055556id_/https://2021-2025.state.gov/office-of-the-spokesperson/releases/2025/01/terrorist-designations-of-the-terrorgram-collective-and-three-leaders/
|
||||
[^10]: Federal Register, Vol. 90, No. 10, Document 2025-00756, "Specially Designated Global Terrorist Designations of The Terrorgram Collective, Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira, Noah Licul, and Hendrik-Wahl Muller," January 15, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/15/2025-00756/specially-designated-global-terrorist-designations-of-the-terrorgram-collective-ciro-daniel-amorim ; OFAC SDN Entry 52486, sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=52486
|
||||
[^11]: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, "Combat white supremacist violence using sanctions," May 30, 2022. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2022/05/30/combat-white-supremacist-violence-sanctions/
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- NavalIntelligence
|
||||
- USNavy
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Naval Intelligence
|
||||
- ONI
|
||||
summary: "United States Navy intelligence office created by a general order of March 23, 1882, without an act of Congress, which later housed the UAP Task Force."
|
||||
start: 1882-03-23
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Theodorus B. M. Mason]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1882-06-15
|
||||
end: 1885-04-02
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Karl Baarslag]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "wartime officer"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Morse Allen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "wartime service in naval intelligence"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Letitia Long]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1988
|
||||
end: 1994
|
||||
role: "staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence, research and development programs"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Letitia Long]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2000
|
||||
end: 2003
|
||||
role: "Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
role: "unpaid consultant"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the intelligence office of the [[United States Navy]]. It was created on March 23, 1882, by General Order No. 292 of the [[Department of the Navy|Navy Department]], signed by Secretary of the Navy [[William H. Hunt]]: "An 'Office of Naval Intelligence' is hereby established in the Bureau of Navigation for the purpose of collecting and recording such naval information as may be useful to the department in the time of war, as well as in peace." The order combined the department library with the new office under the chief of the [[Bureau of Navigation]] and directed "commanding and all other officers" to "avail themselves of all opportunities which may arise to collect and forward to the 'Office of Intelligence' professional matter likely to serve the object in view."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The office's own 1920 history groups it with the [[Naval War College]] and the naval apprentice system as institutions created "by general order of the Navy Department, with no legislative action by Congress and no appropriation to make them effective."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors, 1882 to 1898
|
||||
|
||||
Lieutenant [[Theodorus B. M. Mason]] "reported for duty June 15, 1882, and until his death, on October 15, 1899, was its leading spirit." The 1920 history lists the Directors of Naval Intelligence as follows:[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
- Theodorus B. M. Mason, June 15, 1882, to April 2, 1885
|
||||
- [[Raymond P. Rodgers]], April 2, 1885, to July 22, 1889
|
||||
- [[Charles H. Davis]], September 16, 1889, to August 31, 1892
|
||||
- [[French E. Chadwick]], September 2, 1892, to June 20, 1893
|
||||
- [[Frederic Singer]], June 30, 1893, to April 4, 1896
|
||||
- [[Richard Wainwright]], April 4, 1896, to November 15, 1897
|
||||
- [[Richardson Clover]], November 15, 1897, to May 1, 1898
|
||||
- [[John R. Bartlett]], from May 1898
|
||||
|
||||
### Organization and the First World War
|
||||
|
||||
In 1920 Rear Admiral [[Albert P. Niblack]], then Director of Naval Intelligence, described the office as "simplicity itself in that it consists of four sections: Section A, administrative; Section B, intelligence (or manufacturing department); Section C, compiling (or manufacturing department); Section D, historical section (or by-products)." At the beginning of the [[World War I|First World War]] it had 18 civil service clerks and messengers. "When the armistice came there were 306 reservists in the Office of Naval Intelligence additional to the 18 civil service clerks and messengers serving at the beginning of the war, or a total of 324. This force will be reduced on July 1, 1920, to 18 of the statutory roll and 24 former reservists, or a total of 42."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Second World War and After
|
||||
|
||||
During [[World War II]] the office employed [[Karl Baarslag]], who afterward "worked as a professional anti-communist researcher for Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], the [[American Legion]], and the [[Church League of America]]" and transferred many of his research files to the [[Wackenhut Corporation]].[^2] [[Morse Allen]], who had set up the [[Civil Service Commission]]'s first security files on communists in the late 1930s, served in wartime naval intelligence "pursuing leftists in New York" before landing with the Marines on [[Okinawa]]; he later joined the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] and in late 1950 was made head of [[Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke|BLUEBIRD]].[^3] In the summer of 1952 "a Naval Intelligence man" traveled to [[Frankfurt]] with [[Samuel Thompson]] and [[G. Richard Wendt|Wendt]] to join the ARTICHOKE team led by Allen and his superior [[Paul Gaynor]].[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Hal Puthoff]] wrote that the two CIA officers who visited him at [[Stanford Research Institute]] in 1972 "knew of my previous background as a Naval Intelligence Officer and then civilian employee at the [[National Security Agency]]."[^5] When the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] sought to fund a unified Defense Department remote viewing effort in 1978, the commander of the Naval Intelligence Command replied on September 14 that it was "unable at this time to pledge a specific level of funding support." Rear Admiral S. Shapiro, commander of the Naval Intelligence Command, sat on the Grill Flame oversight committee formed on November 28, 1978.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Letitia Long]] joined the staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence in 1988 to manage its research and development programs. From 1994 to 1996 she was "on rotational assignment from ONI to the Defense Intelligence Agency" as director of the Military Intelligence Staff, and in that capacity signed, in March 1995, the DIA transmittal of its [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] review to the CIA. She was Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence from 2000 to 2003 and later director of the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]].[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Peter Zokosky]] claimed to have served in ONI in submarines during the Second World War; the claim is recorded by [[Cheri Seymour]] alone.[^9] [[Marion Pettie]] told the *[[Washington City Paper]]* in 1996 that he had studied intelligence agencies since the 1930s, following the line from ONI through the [[Office of Strategic Services]] to the CIA.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
|
||||
|
||||
In early 2017, while an unpaid consultant to ONI, [[Christopher Mellon]] was introduced by [[Jim Semivan]] to [[Luis Elizondo]], who was then running the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]]. The [[UAP Task Force]], established in 2020 as the successor to that program under [[Jay Stratton]], was a program within ONI.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Niblack, A. P., Rear Admiral, USN, Director of Naval Intelligence. *The Office of Naval Intelligence: Its History and Aims.* Division of Operations, Navy Department. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920, pp. 1-2 and table of directors. Naval History and Heritage Command Online Reading Room, retrieved via the Wayback Machine snapshot of December 8, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251208161849/https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/h/history-and-aims-of-the-office-of-naval-intelligence.html
|
||||
[^2]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, finding aid to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag, TAM 148. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_148/
|
||||
[^3]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.* Times Books, 1979, chapter 2.
|
||||
[^4]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.* Times Books, 1979, chapter 3.
|
||||
[^5]: Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76.
|
||||
[^6]: Commander, Naval Intelligence Command, to Defense Intelligence Agency, September 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410025-8; US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3.
|
||||
[^7]: "Letitia A. Long," National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. https://www.nga.mil/about/Letitia_Long.html
|
||||
[^8]: Defense Intelligence Agency, transmittal memorandum signed Letitia A. Long, Director, DMI Staff, faxed March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010002-3.
|
||||
[^9]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^10]: Dean, Eddie. "Finders' Keeper." *Washington City Paper,* May 24, 1996. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/287890/finders-keeper/
|
||||
[^11]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent.* William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
|
|
@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ aliases:
|
|||
- Technical Services Staff
|
||||
- Technical Services Division
|
||||
- TSD
|
||||
- "CIA Office of Technical Service"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- organization
|
||||
- intelligence
|
||||
|
|
@ -14,7 +15,7 @@ tags:
|
|||
- technology
|
||||
description: The Office of Technical Service (OTS) was a division within the CIA responsible for technical assistance to spying and covert-action operations, often referred to as the "Q Branch" of the CIA.
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
summary: "The Office of Technical Service (OTS) was a CIA division responsible for technical support to covert-action operations, previously known as the Technical Services Division (TSD), often described as the agency's 'Q Branch' for developing spy tradecraft and surveillance tools."
|
||||
summary: "CIA division, formerly the Technical Services Division, that provided technical support to covert operations and developed tradecraft and surveillance tools."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Office of Technical Service]] (OTS) was a division within the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] responsible for technical assistance to spying and covert-action operations. It was previously known as the Technical Services Division (TSD). OTS was often referred to as the "Q Branch" of the CIA, akin to the gadget-strewn division in the James Bond films.[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Government
|
||||
- USA
|
||||
- ForeignAid
|
||||
- PoliticalRiskInsurance
|
||||
- ITT
|
||||
- Chile
|
||||
- BCCI
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "OPIC"
|
||||
summary: "Federal corporation created by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1969 to insure and finance American private investment in less developed countries, which paid ITT for its expropriated Chilean telephone company."
|
||||
start: 1969-12-30
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Maurice Sarfati]]"
|
||||
role: "two million dollar loan for an Antigua melon farm"
|
||||
start: 1983
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation was established by the [[Foreign Assistance Act of 1969]] (Public Law 91-175), signed by President [[Richard Nixon]] on December 30, 1969, as an amendment to the [[Foreign Assistance Act of 1961]] and codified at 22 U.S.C. 2191. The statute made it an agency of the [[United States]] "under the policy guidance of the Secretary of State," charged "to mobilize and facilitate the participation of United States private capital and skills in the economic and social development of less developed countries." Its first authorization ran to June 30, 1974. It began operating after "the President transferred rights and responsibilities... to OPIC" by Executive Order 11579 of January 19, 1971, taking over investment guaranty and promotion work previously done by the [[Agency for International Development]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Structure
|
||||
|
||||
The President and Executive Vice President of the corporation and the presidentially appointed members of its board of directors required Senate confirmation. The statute directed it to operate "on a self-sustaining basis" from its own fees and interest, while [[Congress]] set an annual cap on its administrative spending (62.8 million dollars for fiscal 2016). Its accounts followed the [[Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### ITT and Chile
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Salvador Allende|Allende]] government of [[Chile]] took over the Chilean telephone company of the [[ITT Corporation]] on September 29, 1971. ITT filed an investment insurance claim with the corporation for 92.5 million dollars. On March 16, 1973, the [[State Department]]'s Executive Secretary, [[Theodore Eliot]], informed [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] that "OPIC's management" intended to recommend rejection of the claim on the ground that ITT's conduct, as disclosed in the papers published by [[Jack Anderson]] in March 1972, had been a "breach [of] its contract and prejudiced OPIC's rights." ITT was expected to answer that it had "done nothing improper in Chile" or had acted "at the request of the USG." The board, due to decide on March 19, 1973, deferred the decision.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In the settlement of 1975 ITT received "$34,706,917 in cash and $59,384,697 in OPIC-guaranteed Chilean Government obligations."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Antigua
|
||||
|
||||
In 1983 the corporation lent two million dollars to finance a melon farm established in [[Antigua and Barbuda|Antigua]] by [[Maurice Sarfati]], an Israeli businessman operating from [[Miami]] and [[Paris]]. The application was submitted by Roydan (Antigua) Limited. Before lending, the corporation asked for financial references, and Sarfati supplied them from his principal bank, the Miami office of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]], which wrote on June 14, 1983, that Sarfati, "who is one of our valued customers," held a number of major accounts there. The corporation lost its entire investment, concluded that it "had been defrauded by Sarfati," sued him, and sold its remaining interest in the farm, at a loss of 50 cents on the dollar, to [[Bruce Rappaport]] and his [[Swiss American Bank]]. The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]'s report described Rappaport as "a confidante of former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] director [[William Casey]]" who was in frequent contact in the same period with [[Bert Lance]], and noted that [[Alfred Hartmann]], a principal BCCI director and chairman of its Swiss affiliate [[Banque de Commerce et de Placements|BCP]], sat on the board of another Rappaport bank.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In April 1989 a network of Israeli arms traffickers operating from Miami shipped 500 Israeli machine guns through Antigua, whose foreign minister had ordered them, for the use of members of the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellin cartel]]. One was later used in the assassination of the Colombian presidential candidate [[Luis Carlos Galan]], and several others were found in the possession of [[Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha]] after his death. The principals were [[Yair Klein]], [[Pinchas Shahar]] and Sarfati. An inquiry for the government of Antigua was conducted by the Washington attorney [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]]. The Senate report found that "the Antigua project had been outgrowth of the establishment of a 'melon farm' by Sarfati in Antigua in 1983." When the subcommittee sought BCCI's records on Sarfati in 1990, the bank's lawyers said the accounts were "missing." Most of the accounts of a partner in the venture, [[Haim Polani]], were later located; those of Sarfati and his businesses were not.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Congressional Research Service. *The Overseas Private Investment Corporation: Background and Legislative Issues.* Report 98-567, updated December 22, 2016. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-567.html
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXI, Chile, 1969-1973,* Document 322, memorandum from Executive Secretary Theodore L. Eliot Jr. to Henry Kissinger, March 16, 1973, with editorial footnotes. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21/d322
|
||||
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, Chapter 4, "BCCI's Criminality," notes 71-72. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Government
|
||||
- WhiteHouse
|
||||
- IntelligenceOversight
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- CovertAction
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "PFIAB"
|
||||
- "President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities"
|
||||
- "President's Intelligence Advisory Board"
|
||||
summary: "White House board of private citizens created by Eisenhower in 1956 to review foreign intelligence and the CIA, renamed by Kennedy in 1961, abolished by Carter in 1977 and later re-established."
|
||||
start: 1956-01-13
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1956-02-06
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Killian]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman"
|
||||
start: 1956-01-13
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Doolittle]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1956-01-13
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph P. Kennedy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1956-01-13
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Lovett]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1956-01-13
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Maxwell Taylor]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961-05-04
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Clark Clifford]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961-05-15
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gordon Gray]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1961-05-15
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Helms]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "briefing on covert action operations"
|
||||
start: 1963-09-10
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Maxwell Taylor]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman"
|
||||
end: 1970-04-30
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Nelson Rockefeller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1969
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Edwin Land]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1969
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[George W. Anderson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman"
|
||||
start: 1970-05-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Brent Scowcroft]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman"
|
||||
start: 2001-10-05
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ray Hunt]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2001-10-05
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Friedman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2001-10-05
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] created the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities by Executive Order 10656, issued on February 6, 1956, printed in the *[[Federal Register]]* on February 8 (21 Fed. Reg. 859) and effective from January 13, 1956. Its members were drawn from persons "outside government" chosen for their "ability, experience, and knowledge" in matters of national defense and security, and served without pay beyond travel and per diem. The order directed the board to review the foreign intelligence work of the government and the performance of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and to report to the President "twice yearly (or more often if needed)."[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Board of Consultants
|
||||
|
||||
A White House release of January 13, 1956, named the first members: [[James Killian|James R. Killian, Jr.]], president of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], as chairman; Admiral [[Richard L. Conolly]] (retired); Lieutenant General [[James Doolittle|James H. Doolittle]]; [[Benjamin Fairless|Benjamin F. Fairless]] of [[U.S. Steel|United States Steel]]; General [[John E. Hull]] (retired); [[Joseph P. Kennedy]], former ambassador to [[United Kingdom|Great Britain]]; [[Robert Lovett|Robert A. Lovett]], former [[Secretary of Defense]]; and [[Edward L. Ryerson]] of [[Inland Steel]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Kennedy and Johnson
|
||||
|
||||
President [[John F. Kennedy]] issued Executive Order 10938 on May 4, 1961, "Establishing the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board," with the function "to advise the President with respect to the objectives and conduct of the foreign intelligence and related activities." The board was to "conduct a continuing review and assessment of all functions of the Central Intelligence Agency" and report twice a year. Section 4 revoked Executive Order 10656.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The White House announcement of May 4 listed Killian as chairman, with [[William O. Baker]] of [[Bell Labs]], Doolittle, [[William L. Langer]] of [[Harvard University]], [[Robert D. Murphy]], former Under Secretary of State, and General [[Maxwell Taylor|Maxwell D. Taylor]] (retired). J. Patrick Coyne continued as executive secretary. On May 15 two more members were added: [[Gordon Gray]], former [[Secretary of the Army]] and Eisenhower's assistant for national security affairs, and [[Clark Clifford]], special counsel to [[Harry S. Truman]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 10, 1963, [[Richard Helms]], the CIA's Deputy Director for Plans, briefed a panel of the board in a session recorded as "Board Panel on Covert Action Operations," classified Top Secret. The briefing covered operations in [[British Guiana]], [[Haiti]], [[Italy]], [[Bolivia]], [[Brazil]], [[Cuba]] and [[Vietnam]]. Operations against Cuba were described as shifting "from external raids to internal sabotage operations," at about ten such operations a month, and the record states that in British Guiana the agency had secretly financed, through the [[AFL-CIO]], a 79-day general strike against the government of [[Cheddi Jagan]].[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
At a press conference on January 19, 1968, President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] said of Clifford's chairmanship of the board: "when I became President... I continued him in that capacity as I did most of the men serving with President Kennedy."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Nixon
|
||||
|
||||
President [[Richard Nixon]] reconstituted the board by Executive Order 11460 of March 20, 1969. Its members included Taylor, Admiral [[George W. Anderson]] (retired), Baker, Gray, [[Edwin Land|Edwin H. Land]], [[Franklin B. Lincoln Jr.]], [[Franklin D. Murphy]], Robert D. Murphy, [[Frank Pace|Frank Pace Jr.]] and [[Nelson Rockefeller|Nelson A. Rockefeller]]. Taylor resigned as chairman effective April 30, 1970. Anderson, [[Chief of Naval Operations]] from 1961 to 1963 and ambassador to [[Portugal]] from 1963 to 1966, succeeded him as chairman effective May 1, 1970.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Abolition and Re-establishment
|
||||
|
||||
President [[Jimmy Carter]] abolished the board on May 4, 1977, by Executive Order 11984, whose operative text reads in full: "Executive Order No. 11460 of March 20, 1969, is hereby revoked."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Executive Order 12863, issued by President [[Bill Clinton]], provided: "There is hereby established within the White House Office, Executive Office of the President, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). The PFIAB shall consist of not more than 16 members, who shall serve at the pleasure of the President." One third of the members at any time were, "to the extent practicable," to serve terms of no more than two years, and the President was to designate a chairman and vice chairman from among them.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### 2001 Appointments
|
||||
|
||||
On October 5, 2001, the [[White House]] announced that President [[George W. Bush]] intended to appoint members "for a term of two years": Lieutenant General [[Brent Scowcroft]] as chairman, with [[Cresencio Arcos|Cresencio S. Arcos]], [[Jim Barksdale]], Robert Addison Day, [[Stephen Friedman]], [[Alfred Lerner]], [[Ray Hunt|Ray Lee Hunt]], [[Rita Hauser|Rita E. Hauser]], [[David E. Jeremiah]], [[Arnold Kanter|Arnold Lee Kanter]], James Calhoun Langdon, Jr., Marie Elizabeth Pate-Cornell, John Harrison Streicker and Peter Barton Wilson.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Executive Order 10656, "Establishing the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities," February 6, 1956. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-10656-establishing-the-presidents-board-consultants-foreign-intelligence
|
||||
[^2]: Congressional Research Service. *The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: An Historical and Contemporary Analysis (1955-1975).* November 13, 1975, pp. CRS-9 to CRS-14. CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP02T06251R000900290008-0, declassified June 4, 2012. https://archive.org/download/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp02t06251r000900290008-0/cia-rdp02t06251r000900290008-0.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Kennedy, John F. Executive Order 10938, "Establishing the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board," May 4, 1961. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-10938-establishing-the-presidents-foreign-intelligence-advisory-board
|
||||
[^4]: White House, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, "Board Panel on Covert Action Operations," Top Secret, September 10, 1963. National Security Archive, Document 6. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32956-document-6-white-house-pfiab-board-panel-covert-action-operations-top-secret
|
||||
[^5]: Carter, Jimmy. Executive Order 11984, "President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board," May 4, 1977. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11984-presidents-foreign-intelligence-advisory-board
|
||||
[^6]: Clinton, William J. Executive Order 12863, "President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board." The White House, archived. https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/textonly/WH/EOP/pfiab/eo12863.html
|
||||
[^7]: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. "Personnel Announcement," October 5, 2001. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/10/text/20011005-8.html
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,155 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Government
|
||||
- USA
|
||||
- Propaganda
|
||||
- PublicDiplomacy
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
- VoiceOfAmerica
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "USIA"
|
||||
- "U.S. Information Agency"
|
||||
- "United States Information Service"
|
||||
- "U.S. Information Service"
|
||||
- "USIS"
|
||||
- "International Communication Agency"
|
||||
summary: "Federal agency created by Reorganization Plan No. 8 of 1953 to run the government's overseas information and cultural programs, including the Voice of America, known abroad as the U.S. Information Service."
|
||||
start: 1953-08-01
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Theodore C. Streibert]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1953-08-04
|
||||
end: 1956-11-15
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Arthur Larson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1956-11-14
|
||||
end: 1957-10-27
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[George V. Allen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1957-11-15
|
||||
end: 1960-12-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Edward R. Murrow]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1961-03-15
|
||||
end: 1964-01-20
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Carl Rowan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1964-02-27
|
||||
end: 1965-07-10
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Leonard Marks]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1965-09-01
|
||||
end: 1968-12-06
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Frank Shakespeare]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1969-02-07
|
||||
end: 1973-02-07
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Keogh]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1973-02-08
|
||||
end: 1976-11-30
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[John E. Reinhardt]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1977-03-23
|
||||
end: 1980-08-29
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Charles Z. Wick]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1981-06-09
|
||||
end: 1989-01-20
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Bruce Gelb]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1989-04-14
|
||||
end: 1991-03-20
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Henry Catto]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1991-05-09
|
||||
end: 1993-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Duffey]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1993-06-03
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The United States Information Agency was created by Reorganization Plan No. 8 of 1953, which President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] sent to [[Congress]] on June 1, 1953, and which took effect on August 1, 1953. Section 1(a) reads: "There is hereby established a new agency which shall be known as the United States Information Agency, hereinafter referred to as the Agency." The Director was to be "appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" at 17,500 dollars a year, and "The Secretary of State shall advise with the President concerning the appointment and tenure of the Director." Section 1(c) created a Deputy Director at 16,000 dollars.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Functions
|
||||
|
||||
Section 2 of the plan transferred to the Director "the functions vested in the Secretary of State by Title V of the [[Smith-Mundt Act|United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948]], as amended," with related functions on the interchange of books and periodicals, aid to libraries, and the information programs in [[Germany]] and [[Austria]] previously run by the [[Mutual Security Agency]]. Section 2(c)(1) kept content with the [[State Department]]: "The Secretary of State shall direct the policy and control the content of a program, for use abroad, on official United States positions."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The agency was "known overseas as the U.S. Information Service" and was "responsible for the U.S. Government's overseas information and cultural programs, including the [[Voice of America]]."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
[[National Security Action Memorandum 124]] of January 18, 1962, established the [[NSC Special Group|Special Group (Counterinsurgency)]], on which representatives of the agency sat with officials of the [[Agency for International Development]] and [[Robert Kennedy]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Names
|
||||
|
||||
Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1977 (91 Stat. 1636) abolished the agency and established in its place the International Communication Agency, effective April 1, 1978. Public Law 97-241 of August 24, 1982 (96 Stat. 291), restored the earlier name.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors
|
||||
|
||||
Directors and their dates of service were:[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
- [[Theodore C. Streibert]], August 4, 1953, to November 15, 1956
|
||||
- [[Arthur Larson]], November 14, 1956, to October 27, 1957
|
||||
- [[George V. Allen]], November 15, 1957, to December 1, 1960
|
||||
- [[Edward R. Murrow]], March 15, 1961, to January 20, 1964
|
||||
- [[Carl Rowan|Carl T. Rowan]], February 27, 1964, to July 10, 1965
|
||||
- [[Leonard Marks|Leonard H. Marks]], appointed July 22, 1965, entered on duty September 1, 1965, to December 6, 1968
|
||||
- [[Frank Shakespeare|Frank J. Shakespeare Jr.]], February 7, 1969, to February 7, 1973
|
||||
- [[James Keogh]], February 8, 1973, to November 30, 1976
|
||||
- [[John E. Reinhardt]], from March 23, 1977; retitled Director of the International Communication Agency on March 27, 1978; to August 29, 1980
|
||||
- [[Charles Z. Wick]], June 9, 1981, to January 20, 1989
|
||||
- [[Bruce Gelb|Bruce S. Gelb]], April 14, 1989, to March 20, 1991
|
||||
- [[Henry Catto|Henry E. Catto]], May 9, 1991, to January 1993
|
||||
- [[Joseph Duffey|Joseph D. Duffey]], appointed May 25, 1993, entered on duty June 3, 1993
|
||||
|
||||
[[Mark W. Everson]] began his service in the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration at the agency in 1982, during Wick's directorship.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Reorganization Plan No. 8 of 1953, 67 Stat. 642-643, effective August 1, 1953. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-67/pdf/STATUTE-67-Pg642.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. "Director of the U.S. Information Agency." Archived February 11, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260211080812/https://1997-2001.state.gov/about_state/history/officers/usia.html
|
||||
[^3]: NSAM No. 124, January 18, 1962. Department of Defense Mandatory Declassification Review release 12-M-3087, "The Special Group (Counterinsurgency) from January 18, 1962, to November 21, 1963." https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/MDR_Releases/FY12/12-M-3087
|
||||
[^4]: National Archives and Records Administration. Catalog Record ID 3936205. catalog.archives.gov.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "U.S. Government"
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- "Secret Service"
|
||||
- "U.S. Secret Service"
|
||||
- "USSS"
|
||||
- "Secret Service Division"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- USGovernment
|
||||
- LawEnforcement
|
||||
- Counterfeiting
|
||||
- ExecutiveProtection
|
||||
- Treasury
|
||||
- HomelandSecurity
|
||||
summary: "Federal law enforcement agency founded in 1865 inside the Treasury to suppress counterfeiting, given full-time presidential protection in 1902, and transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003."
|
||||
start: 1865-07-05
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[United States Department of the Treasury]]"
|
||||
start: 1865-07-05
|
||||
end: 2003-03-01
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: reported_to
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Homeland Security]]"
|
||||
role: "director reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security"
|
||||
start: 2003-03-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[William P. Wood]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "first chief"
|
||||
start: 1865-07-05
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Rowley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
start: 1961-09
|
||||
end: 1973
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Julia Pierson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "23rd director"
|
||||
start: 2013-03-27
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Clancy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "24th director"
|
||||
start: 2015-02-18
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Randolph Alles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "25th director"
|
||||
start: 2017-04-25
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[James M. Murray]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "26th director"
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Kimberly Cheatle]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "27th director"
|
||||
start: 2022
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Sean Curran]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "28th director"
|
||||
start: 2025
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Mastrovito]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "agent"
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[United States]] Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency with two statutory functions: the protection of the President, the Vice President, their families, former Presidents, visiting heads of state and major candidates, and the investigation of offenses against the currency and of a list of financial fraud statutes. It was a unit of the [[United States Department of the Treasury]] from 1865 to 2003 and has since been a component of the [[Department of Homeland Security]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding
|
||||
|
||||
"The Secret Service Division was formed on July 5, 1865 as part of the Department of the Treasury." Its first chief, [[William P. Wood]], was sworn in by Treasury Secretary [[Hugh McCulloch]]. The division was organized to suppress counterfeiting at the end of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], when "nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
After the assassination of President [[William McKinley]] in 1901, "Congress requested Secret Service protection of U.S. presidents." In 1902 "the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protection of the President," with two agents assigned to the [[White House]] Detail.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Statutory basis
|
||||
|
||||
The agency's powers are codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3056, "Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service," first enacted on June 25, 1948 (ch. 645, 62 Stat. 818) and amended repeatedly through 2022. Subsection (a) lists the protectees: "The President, the Vice President (or other officer next in the order of succession to the Office of President)," their immediate families, "Former Presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes," "Visiting heads of foreign states or foreign governments," and "Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates," among others; protection under paragraphs 2 through 8 "may be declined." Subsection (b) grants arrest and investigative authority over "any of the laws of the United States relating to coins, obligations, and securities of the United States and of foreign governments" and over enumerated financial fraud offenses. Subsection (d) makes it a federal offense to "knowingly and willfully obstruct, resist, or interfere with" the agency's protective functions.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Under the [[Homeland Security Act of 2002]] and the Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan of November 25, 2002, the statute was amended to substitute "of Homeland Security" for "of the Treasury" wherever it appeared. "On March 1, 2003, the Secret Service was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the new Department of Homeland Security."[^1][^2] The statute now provides that "No personnel and operational elements of the United States Secret Service shall report to an individual other than the Director of the United States Secret Service, who shall report directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security without being required to report through any other official of the Department."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors
|
||||
|
||||
[[James Rowley|James J. Rowley]] "joined the Secret Service in New York in 1938, transferred to Washington the next year, and was named chief of its presidential protective division in 1947." He was sworn in as director in September 1961 by Treasury Secretary [[Douglas Dillon]], while President [[John F. Kennedy]] "dropped in to greet Mr. Rowley's family," and he served until 1973. As director he "became head of not just the presidential security detail but also a force that investigated crimes." The Executive Protective Service, later the agency's Uniformed Division, was established during his tenure with responsibility for "physical security of the White House and American security at foreign diplomatic missions," and he was "instrumental in establishing the Consolidated [[Federal Law Enforcement Training Center]]." He died on November 1, 1992, at his home in Leisure World, [[Maryland]].[^3] Rowley later sat on the board of the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] alongside the former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] director [[Stansfield Turner]], the former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] director [[Clarence Kelley]] and the former DIA director [[Joseph Carroll]].[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The agency's own list of recent directors records [[Julia Pierson|Julia A. Pierson]], 23rd director, sworn in on March 27, 2013, the first woman to hold the post; [[Joseph Clancy|Joseph P. Clancy]], 24th, appointed February 18, 2015; [[Randolph Alles|Randolph D. "Tex" Alles]], 25th, appointed April 25, 2017; [[James M. Murray]], 26th, appointed in 2019; [[Kimberly Cheatle|Kimberly A. Cheatle]], 27th, appointed in 2022; and [[Sean Curran|Sean M. Curran]], 28th, appointed in 2025.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Counterfeiting investigations
|
||||
|
||||
The counterfeiting jurisdiction in § 3056(b) was the basis for the arrests in [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Bucks County]] in December 1974. On December 10, 1974, [[Hatboro, Pennsylvania|Hatboro]] police detained Raymond Hoersch, later known as [[R.C. Horsch]], after a card shop reported a suspicious ten-dollar bill. Secret Service agents with a search warrant found 630 dollars in counterfeit notes in his car, seized printing equipment in a building on Taylor Street in [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown]], and arrested [[Charles Griffith]] there. "U.S. Secret Service Agent [[James D'Amelio]] identified the suspects," the Associated Press reported. Accounts of the face value of the notes seized ranged from 180,000 dollars to more than one million dollars.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Watergate and the Kennedy records
|
||||
|
||||
On June 17, 1972, the day of the arrests at the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]], CIA cables recorded that [[Michael Mastrovito]] of the Secret Service "agreed to downplay McCord's Agency employment," referring to the arrested former CIA security officer [[James McCord]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
In January 1995, after the [[President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992|JFK Records Act]] had taken effect, the Secret Service destroyed protection survey reports for some of Kennedy's trips in the fall of 1963. The [[Assassination Records Review Board]] learned of the destruction about a week later.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cartagena inquiry (2012)
|
||||
|
||||
In April 2012, CNN reported, "United States Secret Service employees were in Cartagena, Colombia, preparing for a Presidential visit to the Summit of the Americas," and "several USSS employees were suspected of soliciting prostitutes."[^9] The [[Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General|DHS Office of Inspector General]] reviewed the agency's internal investigation in report OIG-13-24, "Adequacy of USSS' Internal Investigation of Alleged Misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia," released January 24, 2013.[^10] CBS News, summarizing the report, stated that thirteen employees had been suspected, that "three returned to duty, six resigned or retired," and that four "had their clearances revoked and were removed," and that the inspector general made "14 recommendations to improve the Secret Service's processes for identifying, mitigating, and addressing instances of misconduct."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Protective details
|
||||
|
||||
Reporting on the flight logs of [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s Boeing 727 in 2016 noted that former President [[Bill Clinton]] traveled on at least some legs without his Secret Service detail. A 2019 statement from Clinton's spokesman said his Secret Service detail had traveled on every leg.[^12][^13] The writer S. Dovey described a May 1978 photograph of [[John Wayne Gacy]] with First Lady [[Rosalynn Carter]] in which Gacy wore a Secret Service clearance button.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: United States Secret Service, "Timeline of Our History." https://www.secretservice.gov/about/history/timeline
|
||||
[^2]: 18 U.S.C. § 3056, "Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service," with historical and editorial notes. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3056
|
||||
[^3]: "Former Secret Service Chief James Rowley, 84, Dies," *The Washington Post,* November 2, 1992, via the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/2015id_/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/11/02/former-secret-service-chief-james-rowley-84-dies/35e571de-8e2f-4fc9-9534-c2f7c1286fa2/
|
||||
[^4]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^5]: "Phony Bill Suspects Held," Associated Press, *Gloucester County Times* (Woodbury, N.J.), December 11, 1974, p. 2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1105967385/
|
||||
[^6]: [Counterfeiting arrests], *The Morning Call* (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, minority staff, "CIA Investigation," memorandum of Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., 1974, later printed in *Final Report,* S. Rept. 93-981, pp. 1115-1165. CIA Reading Room copy, document 01481990.
|
||||
[^8]: Assassination Records Review Board. *Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board,* September 1998. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/report/arrb-final-report.txt
|
||||
[^9]: "Investigation revisits Secret Service prostitution scandal," CNN, October 19, 2012. https://www.cnn.com/2012/10/19/us/secret-service-prostitution-scandal/index.html
|
||||
[^10]: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, "Adequacy of USSS' Internal Investigation of Alleged Misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia," OIG-13-24, January 24, 2013. https://www.oig.dhs.gov/reports/2013-01/adequacy-usss-internal-investigation-alleged-misconduct-cartagena-colombia/oig13
|
||||
[^11]: CBS News, report on the inspector general's review of the Cartagena investigation, January 2013. https://cbsnews.com/news/ig-no-evidence-of-widespread-secret-service-misconduct
|
||||
[^12]: "Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender's jet much more than previously known," *Fox News,* 2016. https://www.foxnews.com/us/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known
|
||||
[^13]: "Timeline: Bill Clinton's interactions with Jeffrey Epstein," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/US/timeline-bill-clintons-interactions-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=130567229
|
||||
[^14]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
|
||||
|
|
@ -8,28 +8,84 @@ tags:
|
|||
- USArmy
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
- ProjectCamelot
|
||||
alias: SORO, Special Operations Research Office, Center for Research in Social Systems
|
||||
summary: "An Army-funded social science research organization at American University that ran from 1956 through the 1960s under the name SORO before being reorganized as CRESS following the Project Camelot scandal, maintaining two analytical divisions focused on counterinsurgency intelligence and area handbooks."
|
||||
- AmericanUniversity
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- SORO
|
||||
- Special Operations Research Office
|
||||
- Center for Research in Social Systems
|
||||
summary: "Army-funded counterinsurgency and psychological-warfare research center at American University, founded in 1956 as the Special Operations Research Office (SORO), which ran Project Camelot and was renamed CRESS in 1966."
|
||||
start: 1956
|
||||
location: Washington, D.C.
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Army]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1956
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[American University]]"
|
||||
role: "host institution"
|
||||
start: 1956
|
||||
end: 1969
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Theodore Vallance]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director during Project Camelot"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Charles Windle]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Rex Hopper]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director of Project Camelot"
|
||||
start: 1964
|
||||
end: 1965
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Project Camelot]]"
|
||||
start: 1964
|
||||
end: 1965
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
created: 2026-06-04
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-04
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
CRESS, the Center for Research in Social Systems, was the successor organization to SORO (the Special Operations Research Office), an [[U.S. Army]]-funded social science research center established in 1956 at [[American University]] in Washington, D.C. The organization operated as a federal contract research center, providing the Army with social scientific analysis in support of counterinsurgency, psychological warfare, and civic action programs. Its transformation from SORO to CRESS followed the [[Project Camelot]] scandal of 1965, which forced a reorganization and separation from the university.[^1]
|
||||
CRESS, the Center for Research in Social Systems, was the successor organization to SORO (the Special Operations Research Office), an [[U.S. Army]]-funded social science research center established in 1956 at [[American University]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] The organization operated as a federal contract research center, providing the Army with social scientific analysis in support of counterinsurgency, psychological warfare, and civic action programs. Its transformation from SORO to CRESS followed the [[Project Camelot]] scandal of 1965, which forced a reorganization and separation from the university.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding as SORO
|
||||
|
||||
SORO was established in 1956 at American University with primary sponsorship from the Army. Its early research focused on Soviet bloc propaganda analysis and psychological vulnerability assessments of Eastern Bloc populations. By the early 1960s the emphasis shifted toward [[Third World]] counterinsurgency, driven by the Kennedy administration's doctrine of counterinsurgency as a central Cold War strategy.[^1]
|
||||
SORO was established in 1956 at American University with primary sponsorship from the Army. Its early research focused on Soviet bloc propaganda analysis and psychological vulnerability assessments of Eastern Bloc populations. By the early 1960s the emphasis shifted toward [[Third World]] counterinsurgency, driven by the Kennedy administration's doctrine of counterinsurgency as a central [[Cold War]] strategy.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Theodore Vallance]] and [[Charles Windle]] transferred from [[HumRRO]] (the Human Resources Research Office) to SORO, bringing expertise in psychological research methodology and cross-cultural behavioral analysis. The organization maintained classified contracts and produced work directly used by Army Special Forces and related counterinsurgency units.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Sponsorship and lineage
|
||||
|
||||
SORO belonged to a lineage of Army-funded social research that began with the [[Operations Research Office]] (ORO), operated under Army contract by [[Johns Hopkins University]] from 1948. ORO studied psychological warfare and unconventional conflict; the Army ended the Hopkins relationship in 1961 and reconstituted the work as the [[Research Analysis Corporation]].[^2] ORO's [[Korean War]] studies of defection and disaffection, with those of HumRRO, formed part of the research base on which SORO drew in the early 1960s.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Kennedy's [[Special Group (Counter-Insurgency)]], established by NSAM 124 on January 18, 1962, under General [[Maxwell Taylor]], with Attorney General [[Robert Kennedy]], the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] and [[McGeorge Bundy]], was the patron of SORO's largest project. NSAM 182 of August 24, 1962, approved the "U.S. Overseas Internal Defense Policy" and required each agency to formulate its own counterinsurgency doctrine for the counterinsurgency group's review; under that mandate the Army's Office of the Chief of Research and Development (OCRD) commissioned SORO's modeling program. SORO worked under the Army's contract ARO-7. Above the SORO contracting level, oversight ran through the [[Defense Science Board]], the Army Research and Development Office and the Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Project Camelot
|
||||
|
||||
The most consequential episode in SORO's history was Project Camelot, an Army-funded initiative begun in 1964 that aimed to develop a predictive social science model for identifying conditions that lead to revolution in developing countries, with [[Chile]] as the initial study area. When the project became public in 1965, the resulting political controversy, both in Chile and in the US academic community, was severe. The Chilean government protested officially; US academic social scientists attacked the project as a violation of research ethics and an instrument of political control. The Army cancelled the project. Congressional investigations followed.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Camelot correspondence
|
||||
|
||||
Project Camelot was launched in July 1964 with a budget that Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] described to President [[Lyndon Johnson]] as "more than $4,000,000" over three to four years; the full projected authorization was about 6 million dollars over five years. The project director was [[Rex Hopper]], chairman of the sociology department at [[Brooklyn College]], and SORO's director, Theodore Vallance, sent formal invitations to academic researchers on December 4, 1964. Army memoranda of December 5, 1964, listed target countries in [[Latin America]], the [[Middle East]] and the Far East, as well as France, Greece and Nigeria.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 8, 1965, Hopper sent invitations to academics abroad, among them the Norwegian sociologist [[Johan Galtung]], then at [[FLACSO]] in Santiago, who declined on April 22, called the project's features "imperialist," and passed the SORO letter to Chilean colleagues. [[Hugo Nutini]] of the [[University of Pittsburgh]], authorized by Hopper to approach Chilean scholars, told them the project was funded by the [[National Science Foundation]]. Ambassador [[Ralph Dungan]] reported the resulting controversy from Santiago on June 14, 1965, and the project was cancelled on July 8, 1965.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Concurrent projects
|
||||
|
||||
SORO ran related projects that continued after Camelot's cancellation. [[Project Simpatico]] conducted fieldwork in [[Colombia]] in July and August 1965 over ambassadors' objections, asking rural residents: "If a leader of the people should arise, should he be tall, short, white, black, armed, married, over 40 years of age, or under?" [[Project Agile]], run through [[ARPA]], produced counterinsurgency studies in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Honduras and Peru, and Operation Task conducted parallel work in Peru.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reorganization as CRESS
|
||||
|
||||
The Camelot scandal, combined with student demonstrations against war research at American University, forced the reorganization of SORO into CRESS. The organization separated from the university, became an independent federal contract research center, and formed a research connection with the [[American Institutes for Research]] (AIR). The name change was primarily cosmetic; the research function and much of the personnel were continuous.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
SORO was formally renamed the Center for Research in Social Systems in approximately May to July 1966. American University severed its relationship with CRESS entirely in 1969, ending a twelve-year association. The university's archives hold a five-box collection on SORO's organization and functions, its transition to CRESS in 1965 and 1966, and "newspaper clippings, publications, and correspondence documenting the Project Camelot Affair scandal."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Operational Divisions
|
||||
|
||||
CRESS maintained two internal analytical divisions. CINFAC (the [[Cultural Information Analysis Center]], also designated the Counter-Insurgency Information Analysis Center) was a rapid-response data retrieval system designed to answer operational queries from counterinsurgency commands on a short turnaround. CINFAC produced reports on demand; one documented example is a report by [[James Price]] and [[Paul Jureidini]] titled "Witchcraft, sorcery, magic and other psychological phenomena and their implications on military and paramilitary operations in the Congo," dated August 1964.[^1]
|
||||
|
|
@ -45,3 +101,6 @@ A 1957 document by [[A.R. Ashkenasy]] titled "Analysis and synthesis of informat
|
|||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Peter Watson, *War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology*. Basic Books, 1978. pp. 388-416, 462-468 (Ch. 21, Ch. 22, App. II).
|
||||
[^2]: Lyons, Gene M. *The Uneasy Partnership: Social Science and the Federal Government in the Twentieth Century*. Russell Sage Foundation, 1969; Rohde, Joy. *Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research during the Cold War*. Cornell University Press, 2013.
|
||||
[^3]: Irving Louis Horowitz, ed., *The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship Between Social Science and Practical Politics*. MIT Press, 1967. FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Document 279 (Ambassador Ralph Dungan, Telegram 1920, Santiago to State Dept., Confidential/Priority, June 14, 1965, 1540Z; RG 59, Central Files 1964-66, DEF 11 US); Document 280 (Dean Rusk memorandum to President Johnson, Confidential, June 30, 1965; RG 59, Central Files 1964-66, DEF 11 US). US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements, "Behavioral Sciences and the National Security," 89th Cong., 1st Sess., July-August 1965.
|
||||
[^4]: NSAM 124, "Establishment of the Special Group (Counter-Insurgency)," January 18, 1962 (JFK Library); NSAM 182, "Counter-Insurgency Doctrine," August 24, 1962 (FRUS 1961-63, Vol. VIII, Doc. 105); FRUS 1964-68, Vol. XXXI, Doc. 280; NACLA and Galtung-Institut sources on the $6 million projected authorization.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ category: "Private Organization"
|
|||
summary: "The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is an American nonprofit parapsychological research institute founded in 1973 by former Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell following a spontaneous consciousness experience during his return from the Moon."
|
||||
start: 1973
|
||||
location: "Petaluma, California, USA"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Institute of Noetic Sciences"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Institute of Noetic Science]] (IONS) is an American nonprofit parapsychological research institute. It was founded by former Apollo 14 astronaut [[Edgar Mitchell]], a known psi enthusiast. In the context of the *Remote Viewers* narrative, the Institute provided a grant that funded [[Andrija Puharich]]'s efforts to bring [[Uri Geller]] to America in 1972 for scientific testing at [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]].[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -12,11 +12,13 @@ tags:
|
|||
- TerroristDesignation
|
||||
- AWD
|
||||
- FashFront
|
||||
summary: "Terrorgram Collective was an international accelerationist neo-Nazi Telegram network linked to attacks in multiple countries, generating prosecutions across the US, Canada, Slovakia, Denmark, and Australia with sentences totaling over 75 years of imprisonment across named defendants as of May 2026."
|
||||
summary: "International accelerationist neo-Nazi Telegram network linked to attacks in several countries, whose members were prosecuted in the US, Canada, Slovakia, Denmark and Australia."
|
||||
created: 2026-05-21
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-22
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
location: "Telegram (online)"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Terrorgram"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Terrorgram Collective]] was an international accelerationist neo-Nazi network that coalesced on [[Telegram]] during the summer of 2019, co-founded by [[Pavol Beňadik]] of [[Slovakia]] and [[Matthew Althorpe]] of [[Canada]], in the immediate aftermath of [[Brenton Tarrant]]'s Christchurch mosque attacks. At its peak, the network operated through approximately 400 channels and 200 group chats, produced three major zine-format propaganda publications and a documentary-style video series, developed and distributed the "Saints Culture" framework glorifying mass shooters as martyrs, and was linked by a joint [[ProPublica]] and [[PBS FRONTLINE]] investigation to 35 attacks and plots internationally. The [[United Kingdom]] became the first country in the world to proscribe it as a terrorist organization on April 26, 2024; the [[United States]], [[Australia]], and [[Canada]] followed with formal designations in 2025.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -4,33 +4,86 @@ tags:
|
|||
- UAP
|
||||
- Pentagon
|
||||
- DIA
|
||||
- AAWSAP
|
||||
- SkinwalkerRanch
|
||||
- HarryReid
|
||||
category: "Intelligence Operation"
|
||||
summary: "The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was a clandestine Pentagon program that investigated Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)."
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- AATIP
|
||||
- AAWSAP
|
||||
- Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program
|
||||
- Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program
|
||||
summary: "Defense Intelligence Agency program, formally AAWSAP, funded from fiscal 2008 with 22 million dollars at Harry Reid's direction and contracted to Robert Bigelow's BAASS, whose UFO and paranormal work AARO later reviewed."
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
end: 2012
|
||||
location: "Defense Intelligence Agency"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Defense Intelligence Agency]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "established AAWSAP in coordination with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence"
|
||||
start: 2009
|
||||
end: 2012
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "primary contractor"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Harry Reid]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "22 million dollars appropriated at his direction, fiscal years 2008 and 2010"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Lacatski]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "program head, in Elizondo's account"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
The [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP) was a clandestine [[Pentagon]] program that investigated [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP). The program, which ran from 2007 to 2012, was the successor to the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AAWSAP).[^1]
|
||||
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) is the name under which the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) program formally called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP) became public in December 2017. The [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) found in 2024 that "the names AAWSAP and AATIP have been used interchangeably for the name of this program, including on official documentation," but that "unlike AAWSAP, AATIP was never an official DoD program." [[Luis Elizondo]], who has described himself as the program's later head, presents AATIP as a clandestine [[Pentagon]] program that investigated [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP) from 2007 to 2012.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins and Leadership
|
||||
### Appropriation and contract
|
||||
|
||||
AATIP was established at the behest of a bipartisan group of senators, including [[Harry Reid]], [[Ted Stevens]], and [[Daniel Inouye]], who secured $22 million in funding for the program. The program was run out of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) and was led by [[James Lacatski]], a rocket scientist. The primary contractor for the program was [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS), owned by [[Robert Bigelow]], and its chief scientist was [[Hal Puthoff]].[^1]
|
||||
AARO's account: "At the direction of Senate Majority Leader [[Harry Reid]] (D-NV), the Defense Appropriations Acts of Fiscal Years 2008 and 2010 appropriated $22 million for the DIA to assess long-term and over-the-horizon foreign advanced aerospace threats to the [[United States]]. In coordination with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, DIA established AAWSAP in 2009, which was also known AATIP. The contract for this DIA-managed program was awarded to a private sector organization." Its stated purpose was "to investigate potential next generation aerospace technologies in 12 specific areas," among them advanced lift, propulsion, unconventional materials and controls, and signature reduction.[^2] The solicitation and statement of work for the contract, HHM402-08-R-0211, are dated August 22, 2008, and the original order September 1, 2008.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Luis Elizondo]] was recruited into the program in early 2009 to handle counterintelligence and security. He would later take over leadership of the program after Dr. Lacatski was forced to step down due to internal pressure.[^1]
|
||||
Elizondo wrote that the program was established at the behest of Reid, [[Ted Stevens]] and [[Daniel Inouye]], who secured the 22 million dollars; that it was run out of DIA under [[James Lacatski]], a rocket scientist; and that its primary contractor was [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS), owned by [[Robert Bigelow]], whose chief scientist was [[Hal Puthoff]]. He wrote that he was recruited in early 2009 to handle counterintelligence and security and later took over leadership after Lacatski was forced to step down under internal pressure.[^1] [[Steven Aftergood]] of the [[Federation of American Scientists]] wrote in 2019 that "from 2007 to 2012, the DIA spent $22 million on the activity," which "was apparently initiated at the behest of then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with most of the funding directed to a Nevada constituent of his."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Key Investigations and Findings
|
||||
On June 24, 2009, Reid wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense [[William Lynn]] asking that AAWSAP/AATIP be made a Defense Department [[Special Access Programs|Special Access Program]]. Lynn declined on the recommendation of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, [[James Clapper|James R. Clapper, Jr.]], that such a designation was not justified.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
AATIP investigated a wide range of UAP-related phenomena, establishing a framework of five key performance characteristics known as the 'Five Observables': hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, transmedium travel, and antigravity. A sixth observable, biological effects, was also studied. The program conducted a thorough investigation of the 2004 [[Tic Tac|Tic Tac Incident]] involving the [[USS Nimitz]] Carrier Strike Group, which became a cornerstone of its research. It also investigated a series of UAP encounters with the [[USS Roosevelt]] Carrier Strike Group in 2014-2015, which included a near-mid-air collision with a UAP described as a 'sphere encasing a cube.' The program studied the 1977 [[Colares Incidents]] in Brazil, where multiple witnesses reported being attacked by UAP, resulting in physical injuries and even deaths. A portion of the program's efforts was dedicated to investigating the strange and often terrifying phenomena reported at [[Skinwalker Ranch]] in Utah, including the 'hitchhiker effect.' AATIP also investigated the medical consequences of UAP encounters on humans, including radiation-like burns, neurological damage, and the presence of alleged alien implants. Finally, the program commissioned 38 Defense Intelligence Research Documents (DIRDs) from [[Hal Puthoff]] on advanced aerospace concepts, including warp drives, traversable wormholes, and invisibility cloaking.[^1]
|
||||
### Research
|
||||
|
||||
### Internal Opposition and Demise
|
||||
"Although investigating UFO/UAP was not specifically outlined in the contract's statement of work, the selected private sector organization conducted UFO research with the support of the DIA program manager," AARO found: reviews of new cases and of older [[Project Blue Book]] cases, debriefing and investigatory teams, and proposals for laboratories to examine recovered UFO materials. The program also investigated "an alleged hotspot of UAP and paranormal activity at a property in Utah," then owned by the head of the contractor, examining reports of "shadow figures" and "creatures" and exploring "remote viewing" and "human consciousness anomalies," and the contractor planned to hire psychics to study "inter-dimensional phenomena" there. "DIA did not seek, nor specifically authorize, this work though a DIA employee set up and managed the contract with the private sector organization."[^2] The Utah property is [[Skinwalker Ranch]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
AATIP faced significant internal opposition from within the Pentagon. [[Luis Elizondo]] describes a group he calls the "Collins Elite," a circle of religious fundamentalists who believed the UAP phenomenon was demonic and actively worked to kill the program. The program also faced resistance from the "Legacy Program," a deeply hidden effort within the military-industrial complex that allegedly controlled recovered UAP materials.[^1]
|
||||
Elizondo's account of the program's work is broader. He wrote that it established five performance characteristics, the [[The Five Observables|Five Observables]] (hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, transmedium travel and antigravity), with biological effects as a sixth; that it investigated the 2004 [[Tic Tac|Tic Tac Incident]] involving the [[USS Nimitz]] Carrier Strike Group, the [[USS Roosevelt]] Carrier Strike Group encounters of 2014 and 2015 (including a near collision with an object described as a "sphere encasing a cube"), and the 1977 [[Colares Incidents]] in Brazil; that it studied the "hitchhiker effect" at Skinwalker Ranch and the medical consequences of encounters, including radiation-like burns, neurological damage and alleged implants.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
This internal pressure, combined with a manufactured controversy over the program's investigation of civilian UAP reports, led to the loss of its official support and funding. [[Luis Elizondo]] absorbed the remnants of AATIP into his own portfolio of national programs to ensure its survival, but the program was effectively defunct by 2012.[^1]
|
||||
The contract produced 38 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs). DIA provided the list of titles, marked For Official Use Only, to Congress in January 2018 and released it under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] on January 16, 2019. Aftergood described many of the titles as "highly conjectural" and beyond the boundaries of current science, engineering or military intelligence; one, "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy," was prepared by [[Eric Davis]].[^4] Elizondo attributes the commissioning of the DIRDs to Puthoff.[^1] AARO found that the contract "produced exploratory papers addressing the 12 scientific areas tasked in the contract's statement of work. These scientific papers were never thoroughly peer reviewed," and that it "has yet to uncover any other substantive UAP case work conducted by AAWSAP/AATIP."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Public Disclosure
|
||||
### Termination
|
||||
|
||||
The existence of AATIP was revealed to the public in a groundbreaking New York Times article in December 2017, following the resignation of [[Luis Elizondo]]. The article, which included the release of three declassified UAP videos, marked a turning point in the public discourse on UAP and set the stage for the current era of disclosure.[^1]
|
||||
"Just prior to DoD's cancellation of the program," AARO wrote, the contractor proposed a series of "intellectual debates" at academic institutes "to influence the public debate, which included hiring supportive reporters and celebrity moderators"; the campaign was to assume that "E.T. visitations are true" and to steer debate away from "dead-end discussions" and the "morass" about discussing "evidence." AARO found that the program "was terminated in 2012 upon the completion of its deliverables due to DIA and DoD concerns about the project."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Elizondo gives a different account. He wrote that the program faced opposition from a group he calls the [[Collins Elite]], religious fundamentalists within the Pentagon who believed the phenomenon was demonic, and from the [[Legacy Program]], an effort within the military-industrial complex that he says controlled recovered UAP materials; that a controversy he describes as manufactured, over the investigation of civilian reports cost it official support and funding; and that he absorbed its remnants into his own portfolio of programs.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
AARO's note on program names states: "after AAWSAP was cancelled, the AATIP moniker was used by some individuals associated with an informal, unofficial UAP community of interest within DoD that researched UAP sightings from military observers as part of their ancillary job duties. This effort was not a recognized, official program, and had no dedicated personnel or budget."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### KONA BLUE
|
||||
|
||||
After the cancellation, the program's supporters proposed to the [[Department of Homeland Security]] a new version under a Special Access Program, codenamed [[KONA BLUE]], which would restart UAP investigations and paranormal research, including "human consciousness anomalies," and reverse-engineer any recovered off-world craft. A Prospective Special Access Program was officially requested; according to AARO, the proposal package and its originator stated that Senators [[Joseph Lieberman]] and Reid had asked for it "with the promise of additional funding." DHS leadership rejected it "for lacking merit," and "no data or material was transferred to DHS." AARO wrote that more modern claims of hidden recovered spacecraft "largely stem from a consistent group of individuals who have been involved in various UAP-related endeavors since at least 2009," many of them "involved in or supportive of a cancelled DIA program" and of KONA BLUE.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Public disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
The program's existence was reported by [[Helene Cooper]], [[Ralph Blumenthal]] and [[Leslie Kean]] in "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program," published by the *[[New York Times]]* on December 16, 2017, after Elizondo's resignation; the article accompanied the release of three UAP videos.[^1][^4] AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume I, dated February 2024 and cleared for publication on March 6, 2024, dates the modern era of UAP investigation from "the standup of" AAWSAP and AATIP in 2009, after a gap of about forty years since the end of Project Blue Book in 1969.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
[^2]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, *Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I,* February 2024, cleared for open publication March 6, 2024, pp. 9-10, 22-24, 34-35. https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF (read via http://web.archive.org/web/20260903033355id_/https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF)
|
||||
[^3]: The Black Vault, "The Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) Documentation," document index listing the bid solicitation notice and statement of work of August 22, 2008, the original order of September 1, 2008, and the amendment of September 2, 2009, contract HHM402-08-R-0211. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-advanced-aerospace-weapon-system-applications-program-aawsap-documentation/
|
||||
[^4]: Aftergood, Steven. "More Light on Black Program to Track UFOs," Federation of American Scientists, January 17, 2019. https://fas.org/publication/aatip-list/
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -13,7 +13,9 @@ tags:
|
|||
- BackdoorSearch
|
||||
created: 2026-05-22
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-22
|
||||
summary: "Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes warrantless collection of foreigners' communications from U.S. service providers, with documented application to Americans' communications through 'backdoor searches' that courts have found to require Fourth Amendment scrutiny, including in at least one domestic extremism prosecution."
|
||||
summary: "FISA provision authorizing warrantless collection of foreigners' communications from U.S. providers, whose 'backdoor searches' of Americans' communications courts have held require Fourth Amendment scrutiny."
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Section 702"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Section 702 of the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] (FISA) is the statutory authority, codified at [[50 U.S.C. § 1881a]], under which the [[National Security Agency]] (NSA), [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA), and [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] may compel U.S. electronic communication service providers to assist in the warrantless collection of communications of foreign nationals reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. Enacted as Title VII of the [[FISA Amendments Act of 2008]] and most recently reauthorized by the [[Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act]] (RISAA) on April 20, 2024, Section 702 does not require the government to obtain an individual warrant before collection. Its application to Americans' communications through "backdoor searches" of the resulting databases has produced a decade of constitutional litigation, documented compliance failures, and at least one challenge in a domestic extremism prosecution arising from the [[2023 Baltimore Power Grid Conspiracy]].
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence Concept"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Concept
|
||||
- Legislation
|
||||
- FederalLaw
|
||||
- FISA
|
||||
- Surveillance
|
||||
- NationalSecurity
|
||||
- FourthAmendment
|
||||
- PresidentsSurveillanceProgram
|
||||
- CarterAdministration
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "FISA"
|
||||
- "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978"
|
||||
- "Public Law 95-511"
|
||||
summary: "Statute of October 25, 1978, requiring court orders from a specially designated panel of federal judges for electronic surveillance inside the United States to obtain foreign intelligence information."
|
||||
start: 1978-10-25
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]]"
|
||||
start: 1978-10-25
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783) is "An Act To authorize electronic surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information." It was introduced as S. 1566 and signed on October 25, 1978, during the presidency of [[Jimmy Carter]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Structure
|
||||
|
||||
Title I, "Electronic Surveillance Within the United States for Foreign Intelligence Purposes," contained eleven sections: definitions (101); authorization by the President through the [[U.S. Attorney General|Attorney General]] without a court order in a limited class of cases (102); designation of judges (103); applications (104); issuance of orders (105); use of information (106); reports of electronic surveillance (107); congressional oversight (108); penalties (109); civil liability (110); and authorization during time of war (111). Title II made conforming amendments to chapter 119 of title 18 of the [[United States Code]], and Title III set the effective date.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Court
|
||||
|
||||
Section 103(a) directed the [[Chief Justice of the United States]] to "publicly designate seven district court judges from seven of the United States judicial circuits who shall constitute a court which shall have jurisdiction to hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance anywhere within the United States." A judge who denied an application was to give a "written statement of each reason for his decision," and no other judge of the court could hear the same application. Section 103(b) created a court of review of three judges, one of them presiding, with jurisdiction over denials; the government's appeal from that court lay "under seal to the Supreme Court." Under section 103(d) each judge served "for a maximum of seven years and shall not be eligible for redesignation," with initial terms staggered so that one of the seven expired each year. The body so created is the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Orders
|
||||
|
||||
Under section 105(a) a judge entered an ex parte order approving surveillance on findings that "the President has authorized the Attorney General to approve applications" and that there was "probable cause to believe" that "the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power." A proviso barred treating any United States person as a foreign power or agent "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Sections 105(e) and (f) allowed the Attorney General to authorize emergency surveillance without an order when he "reasonably determines" that an emergency exists, provided that a judge was informed at the time and an application made "as soon as practicable, but not more than twenty-four hours" later. Without an order in that time the surveillance had to end, and nothing obtained from it could be used in any proceeding.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 106(c), codified at [[50 U.S.C. 1806|50 U.S.C. 1806(c)]], requires notice: "Whenever the Government intends to enter into evidence or otherwise use or disclose in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding" against an aggrieved person "any information obtained or derived from an electronic surveillance of that aggrieved person," it must first "notify the aggrieved person and the court or other authority in which the information is to be disclosed or used."[^1] Notice under the provision figured in [[United States v. Hasbajrami]] and in the prosecution arising from the [[2023 Baltimore Power Grid Conspiracy]].
|
||||
|
||||
### The President's Surveillance Program
|
||||
|
||||
President [[George W. Bush]] formally authorized in October 2001 the warrantless surveillance program that the inspectors general later reviewed as the [[President's Surveillance Program]] (PSP). Attorney General [[John Ashcroft]] "approved the first Presidential Authorization for the PSP as to 'form and legality' on the same day that he was read into the program." The first legal opinion of the [[Office of Legal Counsel]] supporting the program followed on November 2, 2001, written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General [[John Yoo]], the only Office of Legal Counsel official read into the program from its start until his departure in May 2003.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Yoo's memorandum acknowledged that FISA "purports to be the exclusive statutory means for conducting electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence," but argued that "such a reading of FISA would be an unconstitutional infringement on the President's Article II authorities." He described the statute as a "safe harbor for electronic surveillance" that "cannot restrict the President's ability to engage in warrantless searches that protect the national security."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Title III of the [[FISA Amendments Act of 2008]] required a joint review of the program by the inspectors general of the [[Department of Justice]], the [[Department of Defense]], the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the [[NSA|National Security Agency]] and the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]]. Their unclassified report, number 2009-0013-AS, was dated July 10, 2009, and signed by [[Glenn Fine|Glenn A. Fine]] of Justice, Gordon S. Heddell (acting) of Defense, Patricia A. Lewis (acting) of the CIA, George Ellard of the NSA and Roslyn A. Mazer of the Director of National Intelligence's office.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Amendments
|
||||
|
||||
The [[USA PATRIOT Act]] (Public Law 107-56) enlarged the court from seven to eleven district judges, "of whom no fewer than 3 shall reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia." The [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act]] of 2004 (Public Law 108-458) replaced the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] with the [[Director of National Intelligence]] in the court's record-keeping provision; the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-261) restructured the court's provisions and added an en banc procedure, and its Title VII added the collection authority codified at 50 U.S.C. 1881a, known as [[FISA Section 702]];[^3] the [[USA FREEDOM Act]] of 2015 (Public Law 114-23) added provisions for amicus curiae; and the [[Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act]] of 2024 (Public Law 118-49) added a transcription requirement.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783-1798, October 25, 1978, secs. 103, 105, 106. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Offices of the Inspectors General of the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. *(U) Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program.* Report No. 2009-0013-AS, July 10, 2009, pp. i-ii, 10-11. https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/E2006010.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: 50 U.S.C. 1881a (FISA Amendments Act of 2008, Title VII, as amended). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1881a
|
||||
[^4]: 50 U.S.C. 1803, with statutory notes on amendments, Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:50%20section:1803%20edition:prelim)
|
||||
95
50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/National Security Act of 1947.md
Normal file
95
50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/National Security Act of 1947.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence Concept"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Concept
|
||||
- Legislation
|
||||
- FederalLaw
|
||||
- NationalSecurity
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- NationalSecurityCouncil
|
||||
- ColdWar
|
||||
- TrumanAdministration
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Public Law 80-253"
|
||||
- "National Security Act"
|
||||
summary: "Statute of July 26, 1947, that created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Military Establishment, barring the new agency from police, subpoena, law-enforcement or internal-security functions."
|
||||
start: 1947-07-26
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[National Security Council]]"
|
||||
start: 1947-07-26
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
|
||||
start: 1947-07-26
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Clark Clifford]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "White House Special Counsel, drafting"
|
||||
start: 1946-12
|
||||
end: 1947-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Hoyt Vandenberg]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Director of Central Intelligence, sent draft enabling legislation"
|
||||
start: 1946-12-02
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Charles Murphy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "drafting committee"
|
||||
start: 1947-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Forrest Sherman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "drafting committee"
|
||||
start: 1947-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Lauris Norstad]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "drafting committee"
|
||||
start: 1947-01
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The National Security Act of 1947 (Public Law 80-253, chapter 343) was passed by the Eightieth [[Congress]] as S. 758 and approved by President [[Harry S. Truman]] on July 26, 1947. The enrolled bill carries the signatures of [[Joseph W. Martin Jr.]], Speaker of the House of Representatives, and [[Arthur Vandenberg|A.H. Vandenberg]], President of the Senate pro tempore. Its long title describes "An Act To promote the national security by providing for a Secretary of Defense; for a National Military Establishment; for a Department of the Army, a Department of the Navy, and a Department of the Air Force; and for the coordination of the activities of the National Military Establishment with other departments and agencies of the Government concerned with the national security."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drafting
|
||||
|
||||
On December 2, 1946, [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Hoyt Vandenberg]] sent the President's Special Counsel, [[Clark Clifford]], a "proposed draft of enabling legislation for the Central Intelligence Agency." The Deputy Director, R.H. Wright, wrote to Clifford again on January 28, 1947, on the fourth draft. The editorial note accompanying these papers in the [[State Department]]'s documentary history records a drafting committee of Clifford, [[Charles Murphy]] of the [[White House]] staff, Vice Admiral [[Forrest Sherman|Forrest P. Sherman]], Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, and Major General [[Lauris Norstad]] of the [[War Department]]'s Plans and Operations division, which presented a "final version" to Clifford on the afternoon of January 29, 1947.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Council and the Agency
|
||||
|
||||
Section 101 established the [[National Security Council]], composed of the President, the [[Secretary of State]], the [[Secretary of Defense]], the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and the Chairman of the [[National Security Resources Board]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 102(a) established "under the National Security Council a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] with a Director of Central Intelligence, who shall be the head thereof." The Director was to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate "from among the commissioned officers of the armed services or from among individuals in civilian life," at 14,000 dollars a year.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 102(d) listed five duties: to advise the Council on the intelligence activities of the departments, to recommend their coordination, to "correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security, and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within the Government," to perform services of common concern, and to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." The text contains no other grant of operational authority. The first proviso reads: "Provided, That the Agency shall have no police, subpena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions." A second proviso left the departments collecting their own departmental intelligence, and a third made the Director "responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 102(f) provided that when the first Director took office, "the [[National Intelligence Authority]] (11 Fed. Reg. 1337, 1339, February 5, 1946) shall cease to exist," and that the personnel, property and records of the [[Central Intelligence Group]] would pass to the new agency, the Group itself ceasing to exist.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 16, 1973, the agency's Director of Security, [[Howard Osborn]], sent the CIA management committee "summaries of activities conducted either by or under the sponsorship of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] in the past which in my opinion conflict with the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947." His memorandum became the opening pages of the [[CIA Family Jewels|Family Jewels]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Military Establishment
|
||||
|
||||
Title II created the [[National Military Establishment]] under a Secretary of Defense. Its table of contents lists, among others, section 208, "[[U.S. Air Force|United States Air Force]]," and section 211, "Joint Chiefs of Staff," the latter giving the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] a statutory footing.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Section 310 set the effective date of most of the Act, Title I included, as "whichever of the following days is the earlier: The day after the day upon which the Secretary of Defense first appointed takes office, or the sixtieth day after the date of the enactment of this Act."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### As Amended
|
||||
|
||||
The official compilation of the Act as amended through Public Law 119-60 of December 18, 2025, gives its original citation as 61 Stat. 496. In that text section 102 no longer concerns the CIA. It establishes a [[Director of National Intelligence]], whose responsibilities and authorities follow in section 102A; the Central Intelligence Agency is now established by section 104, with its Director and Deputy Director in sections 104A and 104B. A Title V, "Accountability for Intelligence Activities," absent from the 1947 text, contains section 501 on general congressional oversight, section 502 on the reporting of intelligence activities other than covert action, section 503 on presidential approval and reporting of covert actions, and section 504 on funding.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: National Security Act of 1947, Pub. L. 80-253, ch. 343, enrolled bill S. 758, approved July 26, 1947, pp. 1-5, 20. National Security Archive, "Document 9: National Security Act of 1947, 26 July 1947." https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rfmsu6-xdjtw/09.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment,* Chapter 6, documents 201 and 207 and editorial note. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/ch6
|
||||
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Family Jewels," memorandum of Howard J. Osborn, Director of Security, to the Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee, May 16, 1973, with attachments, pp. 00002-00006.
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. Government Publishing Office. *National Security Act of 1947 [Chapter 343; 61 Stat. 496; approved July 26, 1947], As Amended Through P.L. 119-60, Enacted December 18, 2025.* Compilation COMPS-1493, pp. 1-3. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1493/pdf/COMPS-1493.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
---
|
||||
category: "City"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- geography
|
||||
- contra-war
|
||||
summary: Baton Rouge, Louisiana was the base of CIA-DEA contract agent Barry Seal, whose farm served as a cocaine drop site connected to both the Medellín cartel and Contra supply operations.
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Baton Rouge"
|
||||
---
|
||||
[[Baton Rouge]], Louisiana was the base of [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-[[DEA]] contract agent [[Barry Seal]], whose farm served as a [[Cocaine]] drop site connected to both the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]] and Contra supply operations. Seal moved from Baton Rouge to Mena, [[Arkansas]], in 1982, but his Louisiana connections remained central to the drug trafficking network.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
---
|
||||
category: "City"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- geography
|
||||
- contra-war
|
||||
summary: Fort Lauderdale, Florida was where George Morales had his offices and where Contra representatives approached him to contribute to the war effort.
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Fort Lauderdale, Florida"
|
||||
---
|
||||
Fort Lauderdale, [[Florida]] was where [[George Morales]] had his offices and where Contra representatives approached him to contribute to the war effort. [[Marcos Aguado]] and [[Felipe Vidal]] met with Morales at his Fort Lauderdale offices and asked him to contribute to [[Eden Pastora|Pastora]]'s army.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Military Installation"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Place
|
||||
- USArmy
|
||||
- Maryland
|
||||
- EdgewoodArsenal
|
||||
- ChemicalWarfare
|
||||
- GrillFlame
|
||||
- ENIAC
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- APG
|
||||
summary: "The Army's oldest proving ground, on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland since 1917, which absorbed Edgewood Arsenal in 1971 and housed the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity's Grill Flame trials."
|
||||
start: 1917-10-20
|
||||
location: "Maryland"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Army]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1917-10-20
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is the [[U.S. Army]]'s oldest proving ground, on the western shore of the [[Chesapeake Bay]] near the city of [[Aberdeen, Maryland|Aberdeen]], [[Maryland]]. After the [[United States]] entered [[World War I]] in April 1917 the Army needed a larger and less populated testing site than [[Sandy Hook Proving Ground]] at Fort Hancock, [[New Jersey]]. "It took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations, providing financial compensation for the 35,000 acres of upland and 34,000 acres of swamp and tidal lands, to persuade the farmers to leave their property." The government took formal possession on October 20, 1917, and from January 1918 the post proof-tested field artillery, ammunition, trench mortars, air defense guns and railway artillery.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ballistics and the laboratories
|
||||
|
||||
After the war the post's mission shifted to research and development of munitions: powders, projectiles, bombs, and interior and exterior ballistics. [[Phillips Army Air Field]], named for the post's second commander, served aircraft that supported the preparation of bombing tables. Building 328 was completed in 1941 for the new [[Ballistic Research Laboratory]] (BRL). Seven thousand acres were added in 1942 and 1,800 more with the acquisition of Spesutie Island in 1945. Wartime strength peaked at 27,185 military personnel and 5,479 civilians. The post credits its wartime work with the [[ENIAC]] (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), the [[Bazooka]] and "the first system-wide practical applications of Statistical Quality Control." The [[Human Engineering Laboratory]] was established there in 1952, and in the 1950s and early 1960s the BRL took up electronic computers, space study and satellite tracking. The [[Test and Evaluation Command]] (TECOM), created at APG in 1962, managed ten test installations and activities across the country.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity]] (AMSAA) was formed at APG in 1968 from the BRL's Weapon Systems Laboratory as a separate reporting activity of the [[Army Materiel Command]].[^2] In the late 1960s the post was home to the Decision Information Distribution System of the Army's Office of Civil Defense, designed to warn the public of a nuclear attack, and in the early 1970s it tested [[NASA]]'s Lunar Roving Vehicle.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Edgewood Arsenal
|
||||
|
||||
"A significant change was made on July 1, 1971, when [[Edgewood Arsenal]], the former chemical center and current chemical research and engineering center for the U.S. Army, was merged into APG. From this point on, APG was the common identifier for both areas."[^1] [[Martin A. Lee]] and [[Bruce Shlain]] wrote that the [[Army Chemical Corps]] tests of [[LSD]], code-designated EA-1729, took place at Aberdeen Proving Ground, [[Fort Benning]], [[Fort Leavenworth]], [[Dugway Proving Ground]] and Edgewood Arsenal as well as in war games at [[Fort Bragg]], with nearly 1,500 military personnel tested by the mid-1960s.[^3] The Army's chemical demilitarization program was activated at APG in 1986, and in 1994 the storage of chemical agent and munitions at APG passed from TECOM to the Chemical Biological Defense Command.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Grill Flame
|
||||
|
||||
In 1978 and 1979 AMSAA ran twenty sessions of its own at APG to test "confirmation and/or rejection of the SRI remote viewing protocol" of [[Stanford Research Institute]], reporting that "our replication of the protocol did not result in statistical significance."[^4] [[John Kramar]], who had moved with his parents to Edgewood at fourteen, was chief of AMSAA's Ground Warfare Division and its Grill Flame project officer.[^5] Major [[Murray Watt]] and Lieutenant [[Frederick Atwater]] of [[United States Army Intelligence and Security Command|INSCOM]] visited AMSAA at Aberdeen on January 12, 1979.[^6] The [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] recommended in December 1979 that "the current AMSAA effort should also be terminated."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later reorganizations
|
||||
|
||||
In 1992 the Laboratory Command at [[Adelphi, Maryland]], was redesignated the [[Army Research Laboratory]], and the BRL and the Human Engineering Laboratory were renamed and transferred to it. The Combat Systems Test Activity became the Aberdeen Test Center in 1995. The [[Research, Development and Engineering Command]] (RDECOM), created in 2004, took in the Army Research Laboratory, AMSAA, the [[Edgewood Chemical Biological Center]] and the RDECOM Acquisition Center. Under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure law, [[Fort Monmouth]] closed and its command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and reconnaissance organizations moved to APG with others from [[Fort Belvoir]], [[Redstone Arsenal]] and [[Fort Huachuca]]; the [[Army Test and Evaluation Command]], the [[Defense Threat Reduction Agency]], the [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]] and the [[Army Research Institute]] also moved there, while the Ordnance Center and Schools went to [[Fort Lee]]. The realignment was completed by September 2011. The post describes itself as the Defense Department's center of excellence for C4ISR, chemical and biological defense, research and development, test and evaluation, public health and personnel security investigation, with more than 18,000 civilians and soldiers.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground, "History," home.army.mil, page last modified October 10, 2018. https://home.army.mil/apg/about/history
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "History," amsaa.army.mil, archived November 23, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20161123141731/https://www.amsaa.army.mil/History.html
|
||||
[^3]: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985. Chapters 1 and 2.
|
||||
[^4]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "The US Army's Interest in Psychoenergetics," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100370005-6; US Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^5]: "John Winston Kramar," obituary, McComas Family Funeral Homes, January 20, 2026. https://www.mccomasfuneralhome.com/obituaries/john-kramar; Kramar, John W., AMSAA Grill Flame Project Officer, memorandum for record, "Scientific Evaluation Committee (SEC) GRILL FLAME Report, Dated November 1979," February 13, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230026-7. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^6]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^7]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
64
60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Camp Peary.md
Normal file
64
60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Camp Peary.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Military Installation"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Place
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- Virginia
|
||||
- Seabees
|
||||
- YuriNosenko
|
||||
- Counterintelligence
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity
|
||||
- AFETA
|
||||
summary: "Navy Seabee training camp on the York River near Williamsburg, Virginia, established in 1942, reopened in 1952 as the Defense Department's Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity and known locally as a CIA training camp."
|
||||
start: 1942-11-04
|
||||
location: "York County, Virginia"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Navy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Seabee training center"
|
||||
start: 1942-11-04
|
||||
end: 1944-06-10
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Defense]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity"
|
||||
start: 1952-01-22
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Philip R. Houston]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "security chief and spokesman"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-09-24
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-24
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Camp Peary is a closed government installation on the [[York River]] in [[York County, Virginia]], near [[Williamsburg, Virginia|Williamsburg]]. It was built in the Second World War as a training center for the [[Seabees]], the Navy's construction battalions, and has been since 1952 the Defense Department's Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity, a facility that local residents have long taken to be one of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s main training camps.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Seabee training center
|
||||
|
||||
By August 1942 the Navy judged its Seabee camps Allen, Bradford and Endicott too small for the expanding force, and it decided "to build a new camp on the York River, near Williamsburg, Va., to house 50,000 men. This vast training activity was officially established on November 4, 1942, and was called Camp Peary in honor of Rear Admiral [[Robert E. Peary]], CEC officer of polar-expedition fame." The camp covered about 11,000 acres, with an administrative area, four regimental areas of ten battalions each and an officers' training area. Through 1943 and the first half of 1944 Seabee recruits received their primary training there before technical training at Camp Endicott; officer training moved to Camp Peary when the Naval Construction Training Center at [[Norfolk, Virginia|Norfolk]] was disestablished.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Special stevedoring battalions, recruited from the country's steamship and stevedore companies, trained at a stevedore school at the camp on a mock Liberty ship built on dry ground; the mock-up was later moved to Davisville. A demolition unit practiced landing operations at the camp, and many of the construction detachments sent to relieve or reinforce battalions in the field were formed there. "Due to decreases in recruiting, Camp Peary was abandoned as a Seabee training center on June 10, 1944," and all Seabee training passed to Camp Endicott.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity
|
||||
|
||||
Camp Peary reopened in 1952. Press inquiries were for years referred among Defense Department offices until a spokesman read a statement, "or something similar": "The unit there is the Armed Forces Experimental Training Facility. It was established 22 January 1952. Its mission is to provide DoD-designated classified and closed training facilities to develop prototype training programs for military and civilian elements of the federal government." An environmental impact report dated April 1993 gave its area as about 9,275 acres, 8,000 of them unimproved or partly improved, and described its principal function as "a training and exercise facility to the combined Armed Forces," requiring "an austere environment for all Administration and Training Facilities." A new 9 million dollar training school was finished in February 1991, and a 5.2 million dollar, 105-room dormitory was planned at Powell Lake near the river. Construction and major maintenance over five years came to more than 15.7 million dollars, including 943,000 dollars to repave its restricted-access airport, with the work overseen by the Atlantic Division of the [[Naval Facilities Engineering Command]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The Associated Press reported in 1994 that Camp Peary, "referred to on area maps as a Navy or a Defense Department installation," "for years has been accepted by locals as one of the CIA's main training camps." Its security chief and spokesman, [[Philip R. Houston]], answered a written request for comment: "We appreciate your interest in Camp Peary, but hope you understand that due to the classified nature of our role in national defense, we cannot be more forthcoming with details of our mission."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Yuri Nosenko
|
||||
|
||||
[[John D. Marks]] placed the confinement of the Soviet defector [[Yuri Nosenko]], from April 1964 to October 1967, in a specially constructed cell at Camp Peary, on the judgment of [[James Jesus Angleton]] and the defector [[Anatoliy Golitsyn]] that Nosenko was a false defector sent to mislead the [[Warren Commission]].[^3] [[John Clement Hart]], a CIA officer who had retired in 1972 and studied the Nosenko case from mid-June to late December 1976, testified to the [[HSCA|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] on September 15, 1978, as the Agency's official representative, on guidance from [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Stansfield Turner]], that Nosenko "remained in solitary confinement, under constant visual observation, until, if my memory serves me correctly, August 1967. There was a change of the location, but that bore no particular significance because he was treated approximately the same way in both locations."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Hart testified that the conditions were modeled on the confinement of the American professor [[Frederick Barghoorn]] in Moscow in 1963: the original plan for the cell provided no heat, a boarded window and "one 60-watt bulb burning all night," with rising at six and bed at ten, and a diet of weak tea, porridge, watery soup and macaroni. Nosenko "was incarcerated for 1,277 days, on only 292 days was he in part questioned"; for 77 percent of the time "he was left entirely unoccupied." On August 23, 1966, Director [[Richard Helms]] "set a limit of 60 days" to resolve the case; in September 1966 he refused a proposal to interrogate Nosenko under sodium amytal, and a second polygraph series followed from October 19 to 28, 1966. Hart read to the committee a document, mostly in the handwriting of the deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division, on the aims of the 1966 polygraphs: "To gain more insight into points of detail which we could use in fabricating an ostensible Nosenko confession, insofar as we could make one consistent and believable even to the Soviets, a confession would be useful in any eventual disposal of Nosenko." Helms then took the case from the Soviet Bloc Division and the Counterintelligence Staff and gave it to his deputy, Admiral [[Rufus Taylor]], who brought in the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]].[^4] Its officer [[Bruce Solie]] re-examined the case and concluded that the defection was genuine.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: United States Bureau of Yards and Docks, *Building the Navy's Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946,* vol. 1, ch. 6. Government Printing Office, 1947. HyperWar Foundation transcription. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Building_Bases/bases-6.html
|
||||
[^2]: Associated Press, "Expansion Plans Permit Small Peek into Secretive Camp Peary," *The Virginian-Pilot,* September 5, 1994, p. B5. https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp940905/09050031.htm
|
||||
[^3]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 8 and 11.
|
||||
[^4]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, *Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Hearings,* vol. II, testimony of John Clement Hart, September 15, 1978, pp. 487-504. https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol2/pdf/HSCA_Vol2_0915_3_Hart.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
---
|
||||
category: "Military Installation"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- MilitaryInstallation
|
||||
|
|
@ -6,10 +6,12 @@ tags:
|
|||
- CIA
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- Espionage
|
||||
summary: "Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is the birthplace of the atomic bomb (Manhattan Project) and remains one of the primary U.S. nuclear weapons design facilities; it appears in this vault through nuclear intelligence subjects, espionage cases, and figures who worked at the lab and appear in Cold War intelligence contexts."
|
||||
summary: "Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the Manhattan Project built the first atomic bomb, and one of the primary U.S. nuclear weapons design facilities."
|
||||
created: 2026-05-14
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-14
|
||||
location: "Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States"
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- "Los Alamos National Laboratory"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located on a mesa in the Jemez Mountains of northern [[New Mexico]], approximately 35 miles northwest of [[Santa Fe]]. Established as the Manhattan Project's weapons design laboratory (Project Y) in 1943 under scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos designed and built the first nuclear weapons, including "Little Boy" (uranium gun-type) and "Fat Man" (plutonium implosion) that were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The laboratory continues to design and certify nuclear weapons for the U.S. stockpile.[^1]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
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