President Obama couldn’t have been clearer about his take on the so-called war on drugs. In 2004, he called decades of get-tough law enforcement “an utter failure.” So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the new attorney general, Eric Holder, hinted this month that the new administration will take a radically...
Monthly Archives: February 2009
New CIA Chief Hints That Predator Strikes in Pakistan Will Continue
The Obama administration appears to be continuing many of its predecessor’s tactics in the fight against suspected al Qaeda forces in the tribal regions of Pakistan, including a controversial program using unmanned airplanes to strike at key targets. U.S. intelligence officials credit the highly classified program with the killing of key terrorist leaders, but...
Now the CIA Spies on the Economy
The president and his CIA chief seem to be reading Foreign Policy Magazine, which recently suggested that the incoming administration change the nature of the daily intelligence updates to the White House. Today, CIA Director Leon Panetta told reporters that his agency was producing, at the request of the Obama administration, a new “economic...
FBI to Focus on Immigrant Outreach After U.S. Citizen
Domestic radicalization may be the newest front in the ongoing campaign against terrorism, a reality underscored last October when a man from Minnesota traveled to Somalia and blew himself up in a suicide bombing.
Five Top Fears (Other Than al Qaeda) of U.S. Spy Agencies
President Obama’s senior intelligence adviser says that the world financial crisis has surpassed terrorism as the country’s “primary near-term security concern,” pointing to unrest in countries around the world as commerce stumbles. It was an unusual briefing by the new Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who was briefing Congress on the U.S. intelligence...
Spy Agencies Say China Is Expanding Its Military Forces and Ambitions
China is upgrading and expanding its conventional military forces as well as its antisatellite missiles and its nuclear forces, the new Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress. The hearing, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was an annual briefing about the current and future threats to the nation.
Making Intelligence More Diverse, One Spy at a Time
From James Bond to Jason Bourne, the spy business has long been portrayed as a white man’s game. But the realities of the job demand a far more colorful cast. Patricia Taylor’s job, as head of the intelligence community’s Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Office, is to ensure that America’s spies and analysts are...