[TheDude]

Reuters.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency is declassifying hundreds of pages of documents on secret operations from over three decades ago, CIA Director Michael Hayden said.

The so-called "Family Jewels" document overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, according to a summary posted on the Web site of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

[dukey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he CIA chief said the documents provide a glimpse of "a very different time and a very difference agency."

[TheDude]

Hey, more breaking news: Cheney asserts he's part of the legislative branch.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ASHINGTON -- Dick Cheney, who has wielded extraordinary executive power as he transformed the image of the vice presidency, is asserting that his office is not actually part of the executive branch.

In a simmering dispute with the National Archives that heated up yesterday, Cheney has long maintained that he does not have to comply with an executive order on safeguarding classified information because his office is part of the Legislature.

Cheney, whose single constitutional duty is to serve as president of the Senate, holds that the vice president's office is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore not subject to annual reporting or periodic on-site inspections under the 1995 executive order, which President Bush updated four years ago.

The vice president has been refusing to cooperate with the National Archives office assigned to oversee the handling of classified data since 2003.

[dukey]

everything is run by criminals
the sooner we realise the quicker we can fix things

[PenultimateManStanding]

Old secrets, don't expect anything on the current secrets, whatever they are. And this story gives credibility to the E. Howard Hunt deathbed confession stating that there was CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination. Not that it matters since nothing has come of it but a few night's discussion on late night talk radio.

[Carlhole]

I'm watching Chris Matthews on "Hardball" right now. He says he's "fascinated" by tonight's release of the CIA's "Family Jewels".

They're talking about how shocking it is that the CIA might have actually had a hand in many assassination attempts on Castro.
BiG F**king Deal! Isn't this common knowledge?

They talking about 'fessing up to toppling Iran's Mossadegh in '53. BFD! Isn't this common knowledge?

They're talking about the CIA's toppling of Allende in Chile via Kissinger. BFD! Isn't this common knowledge?

You can get a pretty good picture of what the US and the CIA has been up to since WWII by reading William Blum's Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Amazon', 'E')ssential Reference, Some Warts, February 17, 2007
By Robert D. Steele, [Former CIA Officer] (Oakton, VA United States)

Over-all, this is a very precious book, and an essential reference on the history of US intervention, both military and clandestine or covert.

As a former Marine Corps infantry office and former clandestine services case officer, and as an avid reader of non-fiction, I will gladly state on the record that this author has it largely right.

I took off one star because the book has NOT been properly updated. The list of U.S. military interventions still ends in 1945, only the the CIA assassination plot list has been updated.

There are other books that complement this one--everything by Noam Chomspky, Derek Leebaert's "The Fifty-Year Wound," Chalmers Johnson on "Sorrows of Empire," Robert McNamara et al, "Wilson's Ghost," the DVD "Why We Fight," Ambassador Palmer's "The Real Axis of Evil" (on the 45 dictators we SUPPORT), and--with respect to the ignorance of America about reality, the two books, "Fog Facts," and "Lost History." See also Marine General Smedley Butler's short but hard-hitting work, "War is a Racket."

While I take the author with a grain of salt and do not appreciate his collaboration with Phil Agee, who betrayed his oaths to the US, whatever his reasons, on balance this book is an essential reference for anyone who wishes to understand why the rest of the world is beginning to conclude that we are the worst of all evils in our foreign policy behavior and misbehavior.

[eastbay]

Old secrets, don't expect anything on the current secrets, whatever they are. And this story gives credibility to the E. Howard Hunt deathbed confession stating that there was CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination. Not that it matters since nothing has come of it but a few night's discussion on late night talk radio.

PMS, don't expect a release of any past 'secrets' either, and particularly don't expect them to release the 'good stuff'. This news is all a bunch of propaganda. Anything released will mostly be info that's already available.