Summary: The release of some of the JFK Assassination files has been postponed for 180 days. 

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in broad daylight in Dallas. Years later, Congress passed a law stating that in 25 years the investigation’s files would be released to the public.

Flash forward to today, which is the deadline for the file’s release, and so far, it appears that there is a delay. U.S. Intelligence officials told NBC News that President Donald Trump was supposed to sign off on what records would be released and redacted, but he has yet to be given a memo.

“There’s a mad scramble going on in the executive branch to get this done,” an official said to NBC News.

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act mandated that all JFK-assassination records must be housed in one place and is to be released to the public in 2017. There are approximately 35,000 documents in the collection, and The National Archives needs Trump’s approval before it can release the material. Agencies such as the CIA were supposed to submit the notes on what should be redacted and released. According to CNN, the CIA has submitted its recommendation but other agencies are late.

On Thursday, the White House said they will release 2,800 documents, and the other records will be released in 180 days, according to CBS News. The delay was made after agencies who had yet to submit their recommendations asked for more time.

The release of the JFK files is highly anticipated for those who don’t believe the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president. The assassination has sparked five decades of conspiracy theories, and it inspired the Oliver Stone movie JFK, which led people to believe that the president was actually killed by multiple members of the government.

The National Archives said that what they are releasing is mostly already available to the public, thus seemingly squashing any new revelations.

Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who had used his body to shield JFK and his wife Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy after the shots were first fired, told MSNBC that he hoped the release of the records would help people piece together a motive.

“I’m hoping that within that material — and there’s lots of it — there will be some indication as to the motive, the reason why he did what he did,” Hill said.

The documents that were originally scheduled to be released on Thursday were approved by the Assassination Records Review Board, an organization that was formed two years ago and has already released the bulk of the paperwork.

• Look What Happens When You Forget History
• Opinion: I Am Happy To Announce My Retirement…Oh, I Also Killed JFK

What do you think of conspiracy theorists’ ideas about the assassination of JFK? Let us know in the comments below.

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Summary: Wikileaks has released a report that the CIA is now hacking into our personal devices to spy on us.

It’s not just a concept seen in spy movies. The U.S. government can actually use our every day devices such as our televisions and smart phones to watch us. According to Wikileaks, the CIA has been exploiting this technology to bypass the recent wave of heightened encryption.

On Tuesday, Wikileaks released documents that said the CIA has been hacking into our personal technology, including our internet-connected cars, to spy on us. These unverified papers say that the CIA is capable of recording sound, images, our text messages, and can bypass encrypted apps.

An even scarier revelation, however, is that the CIA could actually kill us by using the internet capabilities of our cars to control the vehicle system and conduct “nearly undetectable assassinations.”

The revelations released on Tuesday have slight differences from what former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden released in 2013. According to The Washington Post, Snowden’s documents described CIA surveillance of internet-based communication systems, not individual devices. By targeting devices, the Central Intelligence Agency can gain access to apps such as WhatsApp without having to hack the apps’ encryption. In essence, the CIA is bypassing encryption, not defeating it.

The government’s common defense of their breach of privacy is national security. The government has already complained that heightened encryption undermines their investigation into dangerous crimes such as child pornography and terrorism.

Privacy advocates have said that these new Wikileaks claims should increase the pressure on companies to make their devices safer.

• Related: Lawsuit Filed Against FBI for iPhone Hack Details 
• Related: Third Party Might Hack San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone
• Related: Orlando Claims Social Media Companies Profit from ISIS

Source: The Washington Post

What do you think about these allegations? Let us know in the comments below.

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Summary: A lawyer for the doctor associated with Bin Laden’s death has been killed by a militant group.

Mere association counts as complicity in the minds of certain Pakistani militant groups. After all, they’ve just killed the former lawyer for a doctor who helped the CIA look for bin Laden in northwest Pakistan.

Dr. Shakeel Afridi was used by the CIA to set up a fake vaccination campaign to get DNA samples from Bin Laden’s children to determine if he was present in a compound in Abbattabad.

Alas, the children never came out to give DNA samples, but Bin Laden was finally killed in a U.S. raid on the compound in May 2011.

Shakeel Afridi was not informed that his efforts were part of the hunt for Bin Laden. Nevertheless, he has become unpopular in Pakistan for just that reason, and further has received a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 of treason.

His lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, who is not related to the doctor, was shot in his car near the city of Peshawar on Tuesday. The gunman was not identified, but two groups are claiming responsibility for the attack.

The militant group Jundallah spoke through Fahad Marwat to CNN to claim they had a hit out for the man. Jundallah is a “kind of splinter group,” to Pakistani’s Taliban, and they’ve “been around a long time,” as CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen explained. “They’re extremely violent. They’ve been killing all sorts of religious minorities in Pakistan.”

Another group, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, is also claiming the kill, saying Samiullah Afridi defended the doctor who was “a friend” of bin Laden’s killers.

Clearly the national sentiment was one of respect and devotion to one of the world’s most notorious terrorists.

Bergen further explained that the doctor was “a very unpopular figure in Pakistan,” for his supposed aid in killing Bin Laden, “and his lawyer, by extension, would also be seen as an unpopular person because of that perception.”

A further “extension” by this logic, has been attacking and murdering polio vaccinators. Last Wednesday an unidentified attacker killed such a vaccination worker in northwestern Pakistan. Often since this happened vaccine workers haven been viewed with suspicion, undercutting their ability to deliver the aid and help they would normally be welcomed to bring. The association of the trick with the national hero has laid suspicion on their work. Subtle connections count as deep bonds here.

News Source: CNN

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Summary:

According to Bloomberg, New York Times reporter James Risen has prevailed against the federal government in a three-year battle over Risen’s potential testimony at a trial.

The U.S. government has tried to force Risen to testify during an upcoming trial about a confidential informant in a CIA leak prosecution case. The request was the final attempt the government made to discover Risen’s sources. Finally, Risen was struck from the witness list. The trial was scheduled to begin this week, The New York Times added.

Risen was to be called as a witness in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who is accused of leaking confidential information about Iran for his book, “State of War,” which was released in 2006.

The fight has even reached the Supreme Court, with focus on the Obama administration’s hunt for leaks. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released guidelines last year that would restrict the subpoena power and search warrants against journalists.

On January 5, Risen stated to a judge that he refused to answer questions that may reveal sources on his report on the failed CIA program. The ultimate goal of the program was to provide false nuclear weapon information to Iran.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had also previously denied rehearing Risen’s case.

When prosecutors agreed to release Risen from testifying, they explained that calling him as a witness “would simply frustrate the truth-seeking function of the trial.”

In addition, the prosecution moved to have the court prevent the defense from using Risen’s failure to appear as evidence that the prosecution did not meet the requisite burden of proof. The defense had argued that Risen’s statements were sufficient justification for throwing the case out.

During Obama’s terms as president, there have been at least seven Americans charged with disclosing national defense material to reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917. Sterling is included in that group.

In June, the Supreme Court upheld a U.S. appeals court ruling against Risen. The court refused to hear his argument that a reporter’s privilege should protect journalists from giving up their confidential sources.

Read about the Supreme Court decision here.

Earlier this month, Risen testified that he was “not willing to provide information in any way that will prove or disprove a mosaic the government is trying to make.” Risen would not answer questions that he felt would enable prosecutors to identify his sources, even in an indirect manner.

The New York Times reported in 2008 that Risen had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in the leak investigation. The investigation was led by the Justice Department under former president George W. Bush.

Previously, the Fourth Circuit had ruled that journalists must identify their sources.

Later, Sterling was charged with 10 various charges in an indictment, including unauthorized conveyance of government property, obstruction of justice, unauthorized retention and communication of national defense information, and mail fraud.

In the middle of 2011, the Obama administration requested that Risen be forced to testify in Sterling’s trial.

The case is U.S. v. Sterling, 10-cr-00485, U.S. District Court, District of Eastern Virginia (Alexandria).

Source: Bloomberg

Photo credit: slate.com

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Summary: The torture report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday could lead to international legal action. 

It is possible that new legal cases will be brought against American officials who took part in the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program following the release of a report on Tuesday, according to ThinkProgress.

The report, more than 500 pages long, was released by the Senate Intelligence Committee and it details the interrogations of 39 detainees. The report has led to calls for prosecution from human rights’ organizations, the United Nations and civil liberties organizations.

To read more about the CIA, click here.

In a statement, C.I.A. director John Brennan said the following:

“We made mistakes. Detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which the Department of Justice determined at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush Administration.”

When President Barack Obama took office in January of 2009, the techniques were banned via executive order.

In an interview with NPR, former CIA head John McLaughlin, said, “We went to the Department of Justice at least four times to make sure that what we were doing was not torture in a legal sense and that it was consistent with the U.S. Constitution.”

“And, on top of that John Durham, one of the toughest professional prosecutors in the Department of Justice, was asked by the Obama Administration to look at this program in detail, which he did,” McLaughlin said. “And he came back and said, ‘No prosecutable offenses.’”

In a statement from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, said the following:

“The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.”

To read more about the United Nations, click here.

Emmerson also said that the United States is legally obligated to prosecute acts of torture as a signatory to the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

In an email sent to the New York Times, Laura Pitter of Human Rights Watch, said, “We know absolutely that key witnesses [who were subjected to torture] that went beyond what was authorized in C.I.A custody, were not interviewed.”

Also from Human Rights Watch, Andrea Prasow said, “Other countries have all the information they need should they wish to exercise universal jurisdiction and prosecute these officials should they appear in their borders.”

The ACLU said that there are multiple U.S. laws that could be used to hold the people accused of torture responsible for their actions. One of those laws is that of the federal torture statute.

To read more about the ACLU, click here.

The ACLU said, “There is no statute of limitations under the torture statute when the abuse risked or resulted in serious physical injury or death.”

Will the participants in the torture incidents face legal action? Use our poll to share your thoughts.

Image credit: Associated Press

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John Brennan, the Director of the CIA, apologized to Senate Intelligence Committee leaders following an internal inquiry discovered that employees of the CIA performed unauthorized searches of computers in the Senate, according to USA Today.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the CIA, said the following in a statement:

“The director is committed to correcting any shortcomings related to this matter.”

Boyd also said that Brennan will also commission an accountability board to review the inspector general’s findings.

Earlier in July, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said, “The department carefully reviewed the matters referred to us and did not find sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal investigation.”

Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, said, “Director Brennan apologized for these actions and submitted the IG report to an accountability board. These are positive first steps. The IG report corrects the record.”

Mark Udall, a senator from Ohio, said, “I have lost faith in John Brennan. Brennan needs to account for these statements.”

The senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, Christopher Anders, said, “It is hard to imagine a greater threat to the Constitution’s system of checks and balances than have the CIA spy on the computers used by the very Senate staff carrying out the Senate’s constitutional duty of oversight over the executive branch.”

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According to McClatchy news service, a classified U.S. Senate report found that the CIA’s legal justification for the use of harsh interrogation techniques, which critics say amount to torture- was based on faulty legal reasoning.

The CIA issued false claims about how many people were subjected to techniques such as simulated drowning or “water boarding” according to the news service, citing conclusions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report obtained by McClatchy.

The CIA used interrogation methods that were not approved by the U.S. Justice Department, or by their headquarters, disrupted White House oversight and actively evaded oversight both by it’s own Inspector General and Congress, also the CIA gave false information to the U.S. Justice Department, which used the information to conclude that the methods would not break the law because those applying them did not specifically intend to inflict severe pain or suffering, a report concluded.

“The reports findings appear to show that the CIA systematically misled Congress, the White House, and the Department of Justice about its brutal and unlawful interrogation program,” said Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First in Washington.

“How does it make sense for the president to allow the CIA to take charge of declassifying a report that shows unlawful and embarrassing conduct on its part?” she asked in a statement responding McClatchy report.

A spokesman from the CIA, Dean Boyd told Reuters, said he could not comment because the report is still classified. “As we have stated previously, the CIA, in consultation with other agencies, will carry out an expeditious classification review of those portions of the final SSCI report submitted to the Executive Branch for review, our responses to the 2012 version of the SSCI report found several areas in which CIA and SSCI agreed, and several other areas in which we disagreed,” he said.

A rendition of the report was completed in 2012, but it was adjusted before the Senate Committee voted in favor of declassifying parts of it, including its findings and conclusions, on April 3.

The committee’s democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein said, she hoped President Barack Obama’s administration would declassify the report within 30 days. She declined to comment on McClatchy’s story, but said: If someone distributed any part of this classified report, they broke the law and should be prosecuted.”

Feinstein blamed the agency of spying on Democratic committee staff who collected it and the CIA accused staff members of illegally securing CIA documents.

When the declassification process by the White House and CIA are done, the report will give everyone the it’s first official look at the procedure if interrogation and detentions in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

image credit: www. the gatewaypundit

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After Jill Kelley contacted authorities regarding intimidating emails from an anonymous source, who turned out to be Paula Broadwell, the biographer and also secret lover of CIA director David Petraeus, she herself became part of the media carnival that attended the dishonor and trial of the CIA leader. The FBI leaked her name, and suggested she had engaged in e-mail conversations with Gen. John Allen, which the anonymous officials insinuated were inappropriate. Therefore, Jill Kelley and Dr. Scott Kelley filed suit in June against the FBI and the Pentagon. The Justice Department, in turn, has sought dismissal of the lawsuit this Tuesday, claiming that though she was exposed to ridicule, the suit failed to show facts that the FBI and Defense Department in fact violated her rights.

Alan Raul, who is an attorney for the Kelleys, says that he is insisting on the case, “so that justice can be done, and that other citizens may feel safe in coming forward to the government with evidence of crimes,” as CNN reported. He said the government did not deny the claims that the government leaked Kelley’s name and that her and her husband’s names were subsequently and unfairly dragged through the mud. The Kelleys are also denying that the e-mails between her and Allen were inappropriate, despite what the media ran with.

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Area 51 exists. And if that’s not news, then the CIA is for the first time willing to talk of area 51’s existence. As with anything kept secret, the military zone has become a projection screen for all sorts of conspiracy theories, especially regarding UFOs. The mysterious location in central Nevada has in fact brought forth secret tools and weapons, and of course inspired the imagination of Hollywood and crazies, and Hollywood crazies, for decades.

George Washington University’s National Security Archive has been the first to get official mention of the area, as the CIA has sent their history of the U-2 spy plane a second time for their archive: the first time Area 51 was redacted out of the documents, but upon receiving a second request for the same information in 2005, they responded with a version restoring mention of Area 51, and this was received by the University last Thursday.

Area 51 does indeed exist –that much the CIA has made clear — but what they’re up to at that facility is no more transparent than before. Instead, we have a little history on how this facility was chosen.

The released information “is clearly a conscious decision to acknowledge the name, the location, rather than play pretend about the secrecy,” said Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The place was originally an old airstrip used in World War II. CIA project director Richard Bissell and Air Force officer Col. Osmund Ritlandt discovered the old airstrip from the air and debated landing on it, but elected to land on a nearby lake instead. As the document explains:

They spotted what appeared to be an airstrip by a salt flat known as Groom Lake, near the northeast corner of the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) Nevada Proving Ground.

After debating about landing on the old airstrip, LeVier set the plane down on the lakebed, and all four walked over to examine the strip. The facility had been used during World War II as an aerial gunnery range for Army Air Corps pilots. From the air the strip appeared to be paved, but on closer inspection it turned out to have originally been fashioned from compacted earth that had turned into ankle-deep dust after more than a decade of disuse.

If LeVier had attempted to land on the airstrip, the plane would probably have nosed over when the wheels sank into the loose soil, killing or injuring all of the key figures in the U-2 project.

They decided to make a site for testing the U-2 and training its pilots, and that’s how the area, which on its map designation was called “area 51” became a testing site. The secrecy has to do in part with its remoteness, a feature of the facility that lead Kelly Johnson to refer to it as “the Paradise Ranch” to make it sound more appealing, which was later reduced simple to “the Ranch.” That it was secretive lent it to the sorts of rumors and conspiracy theories that all secrets and secretive behavior inspires.

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After speaking to a group of reporters on a wide range of issues on Monday, Meredith Tortbaum, an official spokesperson for the CIA, broke down and revealed to reporters that her public addresses are a complete sham filled with lies and misdirections and that her position is ultimately pointless.

“I can’t take this anymore…guys I am completely lying through my teeth on all of these issues,” noted Tortbaum as she shook her head in frustration.

“The whole point of the CIA is to operate in secrecy. Do you really think I would stand up here and give you any useful information?”

Media professionals were reportedly shocked to hear such a daring confession from Tortbaum, who seized the opportunity to continue on a cathartic rant about the irony of having to explain clandestine proceedings to the masses.

“Just two seconds ago, when one of you asked me about whether we knew if Edward Snowden was heading toward Venezuela, and I said ‘we cannot confirm that at this time’…did you honestly believe that? Like, honestly? I’m kind of curious if you’re all incredibly stupid or just playing along in this circus of lies,” she lamented as she raised her hands in an exasperated gesture.

“Why do you even ask these questions? Do you enjoy seeing me squirm up here as I come up with some ridiculous misdirection or outright lie? Why the hell do we even hold these press conferences in the first place? Has everyone but me gone completely insane?”

At the conclusion of her rant, members of the media reportedly looked around nervously at each other as they wondered if they should reexamine the information they had collected at this press meeting and previous ones. Following a prolonged period of anxious silence, one journalist raised his hand and offered a question to Tortbaum:

“So, when you say you have been lying to us about everything, does that include this statement about lying?”

Following this, Tortbaum allegedly sighed and offered a final statement to conclude the press conference.

“I…I cannot confirm that at this time.”

Note: This article is satirical in nature and is not based on factual reporting.

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