Written by Over the last two months the U.S. government has set up two new “counterintelligence” divisions, proposed changes in rules for both the FBI and cop agencies to expand their spy operations, expanded the powers of the Director of National Security, and passed a law allowing phone-tapping without a warrant.
The measures are “breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity,” the Washington Post said August 16. It was referring to restrictions imposed after the exposure of covert programs by the FBI, the CIA, and other cop agencies in the 1960s and ’70s.
The Defense Intelligence Agency announced August 5 the formation of the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center. The purpose of the office is to carry out “strategic offensive counterintelligence operations,” against non-U.S. citizens, Mike Pick, director of the office, told the Post.
The agency admits that its goal is not to arrest and bring criminal charges against alleged spies or terrorists. The operations are “tightly controlled,” said the Pentagon’s chief spook Toby Sullivan, and that their main tasks are “to gather information, to make something happen … to thwart what the opposition is trying to do to us.”
