SpyTalk: May 16, 2010 - May 22, 2010

Former DIA analysts rip Clapper's leadership

Two former top Defense Intelligence Agency officials say retired Air Force Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., a leading candidate to be the next Director of National Intelligence, nearly wrecked the agency’s analysis wing when he ran the organization in the...

By Jeff Stein  | May 21, 2010; 9:00 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (8)
Categories:  Intelligence, Military  
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Book cites danger of U.S. anti-Muslim prejudice

A leading Muslim scholar who holds distinguished academic chairs at the U.S. Naval Academy and American University says prejudice against darker-skinned people in the United States is driving Pakistani youths here into the arms of terrorists. Akbar Ahmed, who also...

By Jeff Stein  | May 21, 2010; 6:03 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (6)
Categories:  Backchannel chatter, Intelligence, Justice/FBI  
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Backchannel Chatter: Leiter makes light of ski-gate

You can say this about Michael Leiter, head of the National Counterterrorism Center: He knows how to roll with the punches. This week his NCTC was pummeled by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for its poor performance in the...

By Jeff Stein  | May 21, 2010; 5:10 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Backchannel chatter  
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Blair walks the plank for everybody's mistakes

In the end, it’s the manager who gets fired, not the star player. And so it was that Michael Leiter held onto his job as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, which was scorched by the Senate Select Committee on...

By Jeff Stein  | May 20, 2010; 6:33 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (13)
Categories:  Intelligence  
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Backchannel Chatter: More on the ‘White Talib’

From our friends at Long War Journal comes more authoritative commentary on the so-called ‘white teen’ spotted in the Taliban video, which surfaced over the weekend and stirred up considerable commentary in intelligence circles. Long War managing editor Bill Roggio,...

By Jeff Stein  | May 20, 2010; 11:40 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Backchannel chatter  
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CIA domestic ops go far beyond Shahzad probe

People upset about the CIA’s involvement in domestic interrogations might be surprised to learn that the spy agency’s most explosive growth in recent years has been right here in the USA -- not in the back alleys of Karachi or...

By Jeff Stein  | May 19, 2010; 7:31 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (13)
Categories:  Intelligence, Justice/FBI  
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After intelligence report, Leiter should go

Another day, another wake-up call for U.S. Intelligence. How many of those have we heard since the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center? It’s uncanny how similar the 9/11 Commission’s report is to Tuesday’s verdict by the Senate Intelligence...

By Jeff Stein  | May 18, 2010; 8:44 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (4)
Categories:  Intelligence  
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'White' teen spotted in Taliban video

What appears to be a young European or North American male was spotted in a Taliban video Sunday. The video contains very brief glimpses of a clean-shaven young man in his late teens or early 20s, dressed in Western-style clothing,...

By Jeff Stein  | May 17, 2010; 9:53 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
 
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Ex-agent questions Mueller's silence on Miranda

Joe Navarro, a retired FBI agent who has interrogated scores of spies and terrorists, says Miranda rights don't inhibit the questioning of suspects, and he wants FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to stand up and say so. Longtime pressure...

By Jeff Stein  | May 17, 2010; 10:55 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (6)
Categories:  Intelligence, Justice/FBI  
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