Covert Action

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Media Criticism

Another Response to the New York Times Flap

Benjamin Wittes Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 7:03 PM

An intelligence community reader writes in with the following response to my post this morning on Dean Baquet's interview with Jack:

The issue is not [only] whether the true name and affiliation [of the covert officer] are known to the editors and reporters of the New York Times, and to the persons in their professional and social circles. It is [also] whether that true name and affiliation are known to vast number

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Secrecy & Leaks

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times Weighs In

Benjamin Wittes Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 2:34 PM

The estimable Mark Mazzetti---the New York Times national security reporter who wrote the story over the weekend that prompted the outing-CIA-officers flap---writes in with the following note in response to

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Covert Action

A Thought on Dean Baquet's Comments to Jack

Benjamin Wittes Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 11:47 AM

This morning, Jack published an interview he conducted yesterday with New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet about the paper's decision the other day to publish the names of three covert CIA officers.

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Covert Action

Interview With Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of New York Times, on Publication Decisions About Intelligence Secrets, and More

Jack Goldsmith Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 9:10 AM

On April 25, two days after President Obama announced that a U.S. drone strike accidentally killed two innocent hostages, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo published a story in the New York Times about congressional and White House support for the CIA’s “targeted killing program.” A major point in the story was that some of the CIA officers who built the CIA’s drone program also led the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

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Targeted Killing

The Latest Erosion Of Norms Against Publishing Classified Information

Jack Goldsmith Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 9:00 AM

Director of National Intelligence General Counsel Bob Litt says the NYT “disgraced itself” by “publishing an article in which it purported to name three covert CIA officers.” The article in question identified the “chief of operations during the birth of the agency’s detention and interrogation program [who] then, as head of the C.I.A.

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Covert Action

Waiving the "Imminent Threat" Test for CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan?

Robert Chesney Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 12:49 AM

[Update: Ryan Goodman has an excellent post here noting that a January 2013 WaPo article anticipated that CIA would get a waiver for Pakistan ops, albeit not necessarily a waiver specific only to the imminent-threat-to-US-persons rule.]

Adam Entous has an important story in the Wall Street Journal tonight, one that I suspect will get a lot of attention Monday morning.

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Covert Action

The Perils of Partial Official Acknowledgment

Jack Goldsmith Fri, Apr 24, 2015, 9:20 AM

Yesterday the President acknowledged that the United States inadvertently killed an American citizen and an Italian citizen held hostage by al-Qaida. The killings, he said, took place during “a U.S.