The SuperSecret CIA Program - what's your guess?

[Duer 157099]

A post over at TPM has this interesting quote:

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_vet_agency_doesnt_need_secret_program_to_targe.php

[Lithos]

1. That is my thought as well

Spying on US citizens either directly or by fiat (routing domestic calls and internet traffic internationally)

L-

[Duer 157099]

3. but he says it went "beyond" surveillance n/t

[Lithos]

5. The other thought was corporate related

Selling of collected information/databases to corporations or use of the CIA for corporate espionage.

L-

[Lithos]

6. Or the facetious answer

They were outsourcing key CIA job functions to H1B's or to TCS, Wipro, etc.

L-

[Selatius]

17. "Beyond" could mean anything, up to and including targeted assassination and professional hitmen.

If the spying apparatus is that extensive, it wouldn't be out of the question to speculate the apparatus also included a mechanism to deal with "unfavorables" such as whistle blowers.

[lapfog_1]

2. What was that name of the IT guy that scrubbed the emails?

And how about any number of other convenient light plane accidents in the last 8 years. Convenient for the repukes that is.

[MadMaddie]

4. I think that Cheney's hit squads were going to target Americans

sorry but that's how those bastards work. Who knows they may have gotten away with if the Repugs would have stayed in Power.

[grasswire]

7. I think that's the implication, Maddie.

That's what came to my mind the moment I read that. They were targeting Americans for assassinations, IMO.

[Jim Sagle]

10. One of the comments at the OP's link comes right out and says it:

Cheney. Assassinations. Leahy. Daschle. Wellstone.

The primary targets were always domestic.

Pretty damn obvious, I'd say.

[CoffeeCat]

15. Like who?

Are you talking important, high-level politicians, CEOs and other powerbrokers?

[spanone]

8. the alleged crimes MUST be investigated or the premise our country is built on is gone

[ShamelessHussy]

9. I can tell you that it surely wasn't the NONSENSE about KILLING AQ that our fine M$M regurgitated

WTF do they think all those HUGE, off the books, budget supplementals where all about all these long years, not to mention the THOUSANDS of men and women sent over there, again and again?

They most not have ANY respect for the American peoples intelligence whatsoever to throw that lame ass BS out there :crazy:

[Beam Me Up]

11. Well, they've always known far more about 9/11 than they ever have

or likely ever will divulge to us. What is common knowledge is nothing more nor less than what they've wanted to be common knowledge. Everything else, regardless of its merit, gets tossed down the "conspiracy theory" rabbit hole. "A bunch of kooks and nuts, I tell ya." Yeah, that and, "these aren't the droids you're looking for," are examples of the black art's craft.

It's all about perception management. The Bush Cabal lied through their teeth about everything all the time, even at times when it wasn't even necessary. Did the corporate media call them on it?

REALLY?

No. Those fuckers got into office through the manipulation of information, intelligence gathering and the exercise of raw power. Their agenda was spelled out long before -- establish a military footprint in arguably THE most sensitive geopolitical terrain on the planet. If you want a global, post industrial empire, you have to secure the resources to fuel and feed it. And if you have to provoke or stage a provoked attack on the homeland to "win the hearts and minds" of the people to accomplish those ends, then that is what you do. And, if you want to insure that you succeed, you have to implement full spectrum perception dominance. It doesn't matter what people say or write or think so much. It is what they BELIEVE that matters. If someone believes something is true, they will make their behavior decisions based upon that belief -- whether it is true or not. Fore example, if people believe that government is inherently corrupt and also believe they can't do much of anything to change that, then they aren't very likely to try and do anything -- at least anything that might genuinely make a difference. That is, something that might, Toto like, pull back the curtain that shrouds THE GREAT AND POWERFUL AND MIGHTY OZ! It's show biz; acted out on the stage of life, you know?

Who shapes history and the history you believe is true?

Ron Suskind quoting an unnamed White House source (most likely Karl Rove) in a 10.17.04 New York Times Sunday Magazine article:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=



edit typo

[tavalon]

12. pssst

Cheney WAS the President all those years. Bush was just the stupid, incurious figurehead.

[rateyes]

13. Paul Wellstone was killed while this program was in operation.

:tinfoilhat:

[madokie]

14. All of a sudden it hit me that we may be being Dan Rathered

When it finally comes out it just may be something so benign as to make us who are asking for heads to roll to look foolish like what was done with Rather. Totally 100% take the wind right out of our sails. :scared:

[leftstreet]

16. So has this CIA program been suspended?

:shrug:

What's the deal?

[troubledamerican]

18. Anthrax Attacks. It was necessary to ensure the PATRIOT Act and true liberty.

[orleans]

19. google street view?

...
i wish one of those "spooks" would fucking blow the whistle on all this shit. come on--all you guys and gals in the "cheney's dirty little secret" program at cia--spill the beans and be a real patriot!

[Snazzy]

20. I think sneak and peak break ins will be part of it

I've been convinced that will end up in the mix for a long time, especially when I read the Patriot act and FISA statutes. That self imposed reauthorization deadline that had the WH going to Ashcroft in the hospital, well whatever the period was (45 days?) matched sneak and peak in FISA.

That's breaking and entering and not leaving a trace, on US soil.

(Patriot act part 2 changed the deadlines, so you have to compare the original versions of the statutes to get to the spot I got to).

[Snazzy]

21. Hersh's statement, while I've got it handy

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee.?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”

http://www.alternet.org/rights/131153/seymour_hersh:_%22executive_assassination_ring%22_answered_to_cheney,_had_no_congressional_oversight/