But if we told you, it wouldn’t be a secret
Published by Sabotabby June 26th, 2007 in Imperialism for Dummies, Politics, Rights? What rights?, Historical WankeryHow exciting! The CIA has released 700 pages of “responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency’s charter.” Thanks to the FOIA Electronic Reading Room, you can view the declassified documents from the comfort of your home or office.
Unfortunately, this only documents the CIA’s illegal and immoral activities up to 1973—good luck finding out what they’re up to now. And the online archive is a pinnacle of bad design: The documents themselves are scanned in, and there’s no way to search them for something specific. If you want to find the bit about Castro and the Exploding Conch Shell of Death, you have to scroll through pages and pages about Russian spies and wiretapping hippies. (Auguste has one nice excerpt here. Who knew ice-making machines could be used for such nasty purposes?)
And, oh yeah. Even if you are patient, and you’re not on dial-up, and you’re really determined to know the truth, you’ll still probably be disappointed.
They blanked out all the good bits.
Spoilsports.
FOIA could use some sharper teeth.
when you read shit like this, it always amazes me how even those making the slightest hints at government conspiracies (large and small) are immediately written off as lunatics. seems to me it’s pretty fucking common place, and almost the way business has been run throughout the CIA’s history. what would make any rational person think that it’s not much much worse today?