A federal appeals court has ruled the CIA cannot continue to deny in court that it has no “intelligence interest” in drones strikes carried out by the United States government. The appeals court’s ruling reversed a lower court decision, which found the CIA did not have to acknowledge it had any records on drone strikes. [...]

A Navy contract linguist charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act by unlawfully retaining “national defense information” has been hit with a third charge of violating the law. James F. Hitselberger was working in Bahrain as a translator. A document collector, as Secrecy News’ Steven Aftergood describes, Hitselberger is a “peripatetic collector of rare [...]

The Associated Press earned a Pulitzer Prize last year for reporting on the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) secret surveillance program, which was mapping and monitoring the daily lives of Muslims living in and around New York City. Now, the Muslim-American Civil Liberties Coalition (MCLC), Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) and Asian American [...]

The United States Senate confirmed John Brennan, who served as President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser and was a key architect of the Obama administration’s secret drone policy, to the position of CIA director today. The confirmation came a day after Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) mounted a more-than-twelve-hour filibuster on the Senate floor. Paul held up [...]

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who sent three letters to CIA director nominee John Brennan requesting an answer on “whether the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US citizen on US soil,” finally received an answer from Attorney General Eric Holder. The answer indicates the [...]

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai ordered United States special forces to leave the Maidan Wardak province after reports of units engaging in the torture and disappearing of Afghan civilians.The order came on February 24 and was immediately followed by the US military rejecting the allegations. Leaders in the province issued the order in response to Afghans [...]

Two ex-Blackwater Worldwide executives pled guilty to one count of “failing to make and maintain records related to firearms.” They were sentenced by a federal judge to three years probation, four months house arrest with stipulations and fined five thousand dollars. To understand how gentle this sentence happens to be and how it clearly shows [...]

President Barack Obama’s administration, according to the New York Times, is reportedly in talks with Republicans on providing more information on the attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Administration officials hope this will secure enough votes so John Brennan can be confirmed to the position of CIA chief without the administration having [...]

The German newspaper Spiegel has an interview with a German prosecutor, who ultimately decided not to file indictments in the case of Egyptian Muslim cleric Abu Omar. Omar was kidnapped in a CIA operation in Italy and rendered to Germany and then Egypt, where he was tortured. Last week, according to Reuters, a Milan appeals [...]

The administration of President Barack Obama refuses to acknowledge to a court that the CIA actually has a drone program that exists. This act is repellent in one respect because the administration’s nominee for CIA chief, John Brennan, sat before senators and answered questions about the program during his confirmation hearing. It is also detestable [...]