Secrecy News Stories
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on secrecy from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
Back in December, 60 Minutes broadcast a now-notorious segment of pure access journalism in which they gullibly disseminated one false NSA claim after the next. The program claimed that Snowden is believed to still have access to 1.5 million classified documents he has not leaked. Ever since then, that Snowden stole 1.7 or 1.8 million documents from the NSA has been repeated over and over again by US media outlets as verified fact. The Washington Posts Walter Pincus, citing an anonymous official source, purported to tell readers that among the roughly 1.7 million documents he walked away with the vast majority of which have not been made public are highly sensitive, specific intelligence reports. Reuters frequently includes in its reports the unchallenged assertion that Snowden was believed to have taken 1.7 million computerized documents. In fact, that number is and always has been a pure fabrication, as even Keith Alexander admits. The claimed number has changed more times than one can count: always magically morphing into randomly chosen higher and scarier numbers. The reality, in the words of the General, is that the US Government really [doesn't know] what he actually took with him and they dont have an accurate way of counting. All they know is how many documents he accessed in his entire career at NSA, which is a radically different question from how many documents he took. But that hasnt stopped American media outlets from repeatedly affirming the inflammatory evidence-free claim that Snowden took 1.7 million documents.
Note: For more on the realities of intelligence agency operations, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Contradicting an earlier assertion made under oath by a senior FBI official, an attorney for the Justice Department said [on April 30] that the FBI has identified four more boxes of classified 9/11 documents held by its Tampa field office. The government, however, has yet to comply with a federal judges orders ... that it turn over copies of that massive 9/11 file now said to total 27 boxes for his personal inspection. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch issued those orders in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by BrowardBulldog.org seeking records about the FBIs investigation into apparent pre-9/11 terrorist activity in Sarasota. Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, has said that the FBI did not disclose the existence of the Sarasota investigation to either the Joint Inquiry or the subsequent 9/11 Commission. The documents state that the Sarasota Saudis had many connections to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. One document lists three individuals, with names blacked out, and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained.
Note: For solid evidence that many more were involved in 9/11 than is generally admitted, see the revealing newspaper article at this link. For an excellent documentary focused on the Venice, Florida flight school which all but proves a major cover-up involving US citizens involved in the planning of 9/11, click here. And for a treasure trove of reliable information showing a major cover-up around 9/11, click here.
Each day, hundreds of thousands of people commute into and out of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Thousands more eat at the station's restaurants and sip cocktails at its elegant bars. But Grand Central houses two secret areas few people ever see. Nine stories below the lowest floor sits a bunker known as M-42. It's rumored that during World War II, the bunker had guards with shoot-to-kill orders, for fear of sabotage while the station's trains were being used to ferry troops into and out of New York. Also below the elaborate station is Track 61, which is not on any train map. Track 61 was built for wealthy travelers arriving on private trains and has a freight elevator that rises to the garage level of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The track's most frequent user was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who wore leg braces and used a wheelchair because of his polio. FDR's private train included a car specially outfitted to hold his Pierce-Arrow limousine. When he rode into Manhattan from his hometown of Hyde Park, N.Y., he would be driven in the limo off the train, into the freight elevator and right into the hotel. The clandestine entrance prevented the public from seeing the President's inability to walk.
Note: For more on institutional secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Obama administration has barred officials at 17 agencies from speaking to journalists about unclassified intelligence-related topics without permission, according to a newly disclosed directive. The directive, issued by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, also requires the agencies employees to report any unplanned contact with journalists. Officials who violate the directive may be disciplined or fired, the directive says. The directive prohibits unauthorized contact with the media about intelligence-related information, including intelligence sources, methods, activities and judgments, without regard to whether it is classified. It says that employees who violate the policy may be subject to administrative actions that may include revocation of security clearances or termination of employment. At a minimum, the directive adds, any violation of the policy will be handled in the same manner as a security violation. Mr. Clapper signed the directive on March 20, and it was quietly posted on the offices website last week. The directive limiting contact with reporters was reported Monday by Steve Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist for the Federation of American Scientists. In a blog post, Mr. Aftergood portrayed the directive as seeking to ensure that the only news about intelligence is to be authorized news. He criticized the policy as going too far, arguing that routine interactions between agency employees and reporters about unclassified matters did not pose a threat to national security, but that limiting them would hurt the public.
Note: Yet another major effort to muzzle whistleblowers. For more on government secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The federal governments spy-satellite agency failed to alert authorities after some of its employees and contractors admitted during polygraph tests to crimes including child molestation and lying on security-clearance questionnaires, according to a watchdog. The intelligence communitys inspector general released two reports ... saying the National Reconnaissance Office did not refer some of the cases because of confusion about reporting expectations and requirements. According to one of the reports, an Air Force lieutenant colonel admitted during a 2010 lie-detector test to touching a child in a sexual way and downloading child pornography on his work computer. The NRO only reported that case to the Air Force division that oversees security clearances instead of the Justice Department or the Air Forces special-investigations office, the inspector general said. The NRO is not legally required to report certain state crimes such as child molestation. Thirty individuals who took NRO lie-detector tests from 2009 through 2012 admitted to child abuse or using child pornography, according to the report. The NRO failed to report three of those cases. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who requested the review after a McClatchy news investigation raised concerns about the matter in 2012, said the NRO showed a complete lack of common sense in failing to require reporting of serious state crimes of this sort.
Note: The NRO is the agency that was running a drill on the morning of 9/11 of an airplane crashing into one of its Washington, DC buildings, as reported in this USA Today article. It has also allegedly been involved in the UFO cover-up, as reported in this testimony.
Attorney James Connell has visited his client inside the secret Guantanamo prison complex known as Camp 7 only once, taken in a van with covered windows on a circuitous trek to disguise the route on the scrub brush-and-cactus covered military base. Connell is allowed to say virtually nothing about what he saw in the secret camp where the most notorious terror suspects in U.S. custody are held except that it is unlike any detention facility he's encountered. "It's much more isolating than any other facility that I have known," the lawyer says. "I've done cases from the Virginia death row and Texas death row and these pretrial conditions are much more isolating." The Camp 7 prison unit is so shrouded in secrecy that its location on the U.S. base in Cuba is classified and officials refuse to discuss it. Camp 7 has never been part of the scripted tours of Guantanamo offered to journalists and there are no published photos. It's not even mentioned on a military media handout about the detention center. Military officials, while insisting that they adhere to international human rights standards, refuse to describe Camp 7. A few facts have come out through government reports and court testimony. It apparently holds 15 of the 154 prisoners at Guantanamo. The men are apparently held in solid-walled cells as opposed to the cage-like structures used soon after the U.S. began using Guantanamo as a prison in 2002 that are intended to limit their ability to communicate with each other. The secret camp also is apparently falling apart.
Note: For more on government secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Air Forces secret space plane has been up in orbit for nearly 500 daysa space endurance record. But nearly a year and a half into the mission, the Pentagon still wont say what the X-37B is doing up there, or when it might come back. The U.S. Air Force boosted the robotic X-37B atop the nose of an Atlas-5 rocket in December 2012. Since then its orbited the Earth thousands of times, overflying such interesting places as North Korea and Iran. The U.S. Air Force will not comment on what kind of missions the X-37B does in space. The service, which doesnt mind talking about the space drone as a technological achievement, clams up when discussing actual missions. Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer with the Space Commands Joint Space Operations Center and now at the Secure World Foundation, believes that the X-37B is primarily a test bed for new technologies. I think it is primarily an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) platform for testing new sensor technologies or validating new technologies. Weeden [said]. The current [flight] has basically been in the same orbit since launch, with only the occasional maneuver to maintain that orbit. Thats consistent with a remote sensing/ISR mission. The X-37B is probably testing technologies that might be incorporated into the spy satellites of the future. New cameras, radars, and other sensors could be tested in space and then brought back to Earth for study.
Note: For more on government secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The controversy surrounding Adolf Hitler's skull fragments is a little embarrassing for the Russian secret services. In 2000 they presented a skull fragment and a piece of jawbone that they claimed were the remains of the Nazi leader. It was an attempt to quash outlandish rumors that he had escaped alive at the end of World War II. But in October US researchers presented the results of DNA tests on the skull and said it definitely didn't belong to the dictator because it was from a female. Scientists had already harbored doubts about the authenticity of the piece of bone because it was thinner than a male's usually is. "The bone seemed very thin -- male bone tends to be more robust. It corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," said Nick Bellantoni of the University of Connecticut. The position of the exit wound at the back of the skull also made scientists suspicious because eyewitnesses said Hitler had committed suicide by firing into his right temple. Bellantoni said he was allowed to work on the skull for an hour. When he flew home from Moscow he had two samples in his luggage: a sample from the skull fragment and one sample of blood from the sofa on which Hitler is said to have shot himself. Bellantoni was able to compare the bloodstains on the blood-stained fabric with photos the Soviets took after they seized Hitler's bunker in Berlin. The stains had matched those in the photos. The research showed that the sofa blood DNA did not match the skull DNA. The sofa blood was male and the skull belonged to a woman, claimed Bellantoni.
Note: For more on the mysteries surrounding the end of Hitler's life, click here.
In the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to play down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to Americas aging nuclear plants, according to thousands of internal emails reviewed by NBC News. The emails, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show that the campaign to reassure the public about Americas nuclear industry came as the agencys own experts were questioning U.S. safety standards and scrambling to determine whether new rules were needed to ensure that the meltdown occurring at the Japanese plant could not occur here. At the end of that long first weekend of the crisis three years ago, NRC Public Affairs Director Eliot Brenner thanked his staff for sticking to the talking points that the team had been distributing to senior officials and the public. "While we know more than these say," Brenner wrote, "we're sticking to this story for now." There are numerous examples in the emails of apparent misdirection or concealment in the initial weeks after the Japanese plant was devastated: When asked to help reporters explain what would happen during the worst-case scenario -- a nuclear meltdown -- the agency declined to address the questions. The emails pull back the curtain on the agencys efforts to protect the industry it is supposed to regulate. The NRC officials didn't lie, but they didn't always tell the whole truth either. When someone asked about a topic that might reflect negatively on the industry, they changed the subject.
Note: For more on corruption in the nuclear power industry, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Malaysia's prime minister says the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 appears to be "deliberate." The latest evidence suggests the plane didn't experience a catastrophic incident over the South China Sea as was initially suspected. Prime Minister Najib Razak said the investigation has refocused onto the crew and passengers aboard the missing plane. He added that ... all possibilities are still being investigated. A Malaysian government official who is involved in the investigation said investigators have concluded that one of the pilots or someone else with flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory. "It is conclusive." A Malaysian official, who also declined to be identified because he is not authorized to brief the media, said only a skilled aviator could navigate the plane the way it was flown after its last confirmed location over the South China Sea. The official said it had been established with a "more than 50 percent" degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane after it dropped off civilian radar. Malaysian officials have said radar data suggest it may have turned back and crossed back over the Malaysian peninsula westward, after setting out toward the Chinese capital. The flight altered its course more than once after it lost contact with ground control and that it made significant changes in altitude. Investigators say there's further evidence suggesting the jet did not crash immediately after being lost on radar; a transmitter on the plane tried for another four hours to ping satellites.
Note: Why is the military radar 50% certain? How could a transmitter on the plane ping for four hours, yet no one on the plane made a phone call? Remember that after Flight 93 was hijacked on 9/11, many phone calls were made by passengers on the plane. There is an abundance of high strangeness to this airplane's disappearance. For valuable speculation on the missing flight not well covered in the major media, click here. For some very unusual radar evidence of its disappearance, click here.
It was early December when the Central Intelligence Agency began to suspect it had suffered what it regarded as an embarrassing computer breach. Investigators for the Senate Intelligence Committee, working in the basement of a C.I.A. facility in Northern Virginia, had obtained an internal agency review summarizing thousands of documents related to the agencys detention and interrogation program. Parts of the C.I.A. report cast a particularly harsh light on the program, the same program the agency was in the midst of defending in a prolonged dispute with the intelligence committee. What the C.I.A. did next opened a new and even more rancorous chapter in the struggle over how the history of the interrogation program will be written. Agency officials began scouring the digital logs of the computer network used by the Senate staff members to try to learn how and where they got the report. Their search not only raised constitutional questions about the propriety of an intelligence agency investigating its congressional overseers, but has also resulted in two parallel inquiries by the Justice Department one into the C.I.A. and one into the committee. Each side accuses the other of spying on it, with the Justice Department now playing the uneasy role of arbitrator in the bitter dispute. Its always been a dicey proposition to be investigating Congress, said W. George Jameson, a C.I.A. lawyer for decades. You dont do it lightly.
Note: For more on the out-of-control activities of intelligence agencies, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Here is how a stunning PBS documentary describes itself: In Secrets of the Vatican, FRONTLINE tells the epic, inside story of the collapse of the Benedict papacy and illuminates the extraordinary challenges facing Pope Francis as he tries to reform the powerful Vatican bureaucracy, root out corruption and chart a new course for the troubled Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers. Take everything you have ever heard about the Catholic Church and the global clergy child sexual abuse scandals, the dodgy Vatican bank, add in drug abuse, and multiply it all by ten. A primary insight is that Pope Benedict really did not step down from the papacy so much as flee the job. No one could make up what this documentary reveals. For all of the horror on display, the reality is basic: arrogance, hubris and insularity will bring down any organization, even one ordained to do Gods work on earth. A human organization manifests all human frailties. Allow it to make its own rules and hide, and the worst happens. This is a tragedy that defies description. Abuse of people, power and a benefit of the doubt that goes with the job description. Pope Francis is [presented] as the institutional savior who comes from far enough outside the Roman Curia and the inner sanctum to instigate and sustain change. The only optimism in the documentary are references to a new beginning for a wounded church, and a religious crusade to save the church. Watch Secrets of the Vatican. You might know the story line. You have no clue about the depth of the shame.
Note: To watch this devastating documentary, click the link above or click here. For a more detailed description, click here. For more on institutional secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Should wealthy litigants be able to rent state judges and courthouses to decide cases in private and keep the results secret? The answer should be an easy no, but if the judges of Delawares Chancery Court persuade the United States Supreme Court to take their case and reverse lower federal court rulings outlawing that practice, corporations will, in Delaware, be able to do just that. The state has long been a magnet for corporate litigation because of its welcoming tax structures and the courts business expertise. Yet the State Legislature became concerned that Delaware was losing its pre-eminence in corporate litigation to a growing market in private dispute resolution. To compete, Delaware passed a law in 2009 offering new privileges to well-heeled businesses. If litigants had at least $1 million at stake and were willing to pay $12,000 in filing fees and $6,000 a day thereafter, they could use Delawares chancery judges and courtrooms for what was called an arbitration that produced enforceable legal judgments. Instead of open proceedings, filings would not be docketed, the courtroom would be closed to the public and the outcome would be secret. The Delaware Supreme Court could review judgments, but that court has not indicated whether appeals would also be confidential. A group called the Coalition for Open Government, including news and civic organizations, objected that Delawares legislation was unconstitutional. In 2012, a federal judge agreed that the law violated the publics right of access to civil proceedings under the First Amendment.
Note: For more on government corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Less than two weeks after the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a top Pentagon official ordered all photos of bin Laden's corpse be destroyed or turned over to the CIA. In an e-mail dated May 13, 2011, Adm. William McRaven, the U.S. Special Operations commander, wrote: "One particular item that I want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them to the (redacted)." Shortly after the raid in Pakistan, President Obama said he would not authorize the release of any images of the al-Qaeda leader's body. Days before the order to destroy the photos, watchdog group Judicial Watch and the Associated Press had separately filed a Freedom of Information Act request for photos, videos and documents regarding bin Laden during the raid. Typically, when a Freedom of Information Act request is filed to a government agency under the Federal Records Act, the agency is obliged to preserve the material sought even if the agency later denies the request.
Note: Why would a top military commander order all photos of bin Laden's dead body destroyed? Why would Obama prevent the release of any images of the body? For powerful evidence that the dead body was not, in fact, bin Laden's, click here and here. For other solid evidence that the official story of 9/11 is riddles with holes, see our 9/11 Information Center available here.
In the years after the end of WWII, CIA and US intelligence operatives tested LSD and other interrogation techniques on captured Soviet spiesall with the help of former Nazi doctors. It was 1946. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing for total war with the Soviets. They even set an estimated start date of 1952. U.S. military officers had been capturing and then hiring Hitlers weapons makers in a Top Secret program that would become known as Operation Paperclip. Soon, more than 1,600 of these men and their families would be living the American dream, right here in the United States. In 1948, Operation Paperclips Brigadier General Charles E. Loucks ... was working with Hitlers former chemists when one of the scientists [shared] information about a drug with military potential ... LSD. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that the U.S. developed its post-war enhanced interrogation techniques ... under the CIA code name Operation Bluebird. The CIA teamed up with the Army Chemical Corps at Camp Detrick, in Maryland, to conduct further research and development on the chemistry of mind-altering drugs. One [Detrick agent was] Dr. Frank Olson, a former army officer and bacteriologist turned agency operative whose sudden demiseby covert LSD poisoningin 1953 would nearly bring down the CIA. In one of the rare, surviving official documents from the program, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles sent a secret memo to Richard Helms: In our conversation of 9 February 1951, I outlined to you the possibilities of augmenting the usual interrogation methods by the use of drugs, hypnosis, shock, etc., and emphasized the defensive aspects as well as the offensive opportunities.
Note: To read excerpts from incredibly revealing declassified CIA documents on these programs, click here. For more on secret government mind control programs which have had a powerful hidden influence on global politics, see our Mind Control Information Center available here.
The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people. According to a former drone operator for the militarys Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a targets identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone. The former JSOC drone operator ... states that innocent people have absolutely been killed as a result. Some top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSAs targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers. As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that its operations kill terrorists with the utmost precision. Within the NSA ... a motto quickly caught on at Geo Cell: We Track Em, You Whack Em. In December 2009, utilizing the NSAs metadata collection programs, the Obama administration dramatically escalated U.S. drone and cruise missile strikes in Yemen. The first strike in the country known to be authorized by Obama targeted an alleged Al Qaeda camp in the southern village of al-Majala. The strike, which included the use of cluster bombs, resulted in the deaths of 14 women and 21 children.
Note: For an in-depth interview on this important topic, click here. Would anyone in a developed country tolerate their citizens being killed by the drones of a foreign government? Note also that The Intercept is the new media source being funded by Pierre Omidyar and featuring Glenn Greenwald and other top reporters known for the their independence.
The list of those caught up in the global surveillance net cast by the National Security Agency and its overseas partners, from social media users to foreign heads of state, now includes another entry: US lawyers. A top-secret document, obtained by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that a US law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance of Americans ensnared by the eavesdroppers and is of particular interest because US lawyers with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance. The government of Indonesia had retained the law firm for help in trade talks, according to the February 2013 document. The NSAs Australian counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate, notified the agency that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the US law firm, and offered to share information. The NSA is banned from targeting Americans, including businesses, law firms, and other organizations based in the United States, for surveillance without warrants, and intelligence officials have repeatedly said the NSA does not use spy services of its partners in the so-called Five Eyes alliance Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand to skirt the law. The Australians told officials at an NSA liaison office in Canberra, that information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included in the intelligence gathering. Most attorney-client conversations do not get special protections under US law from NSA eavesdropping.
Note: For more on intense deception perpetrated by the intelligence community, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
More than 200 years after Mayer Amschel Rothschild founded the family dynasty that offered discreet counsel and investment wisdom to kings, queens, emperors and industrial titans, his 35-year-old direct descendant, Nathaniel, has emerged as a kingmaker in his own right and an investor who some say may become the richest Rothschild of them all. In five short years, the man in line to be the fifth Baron Rothschild is close to becoming a billionaire. The ascent of Mr. Rothschild is a vivid illustration of how the still glittering, if somewhat faded, prestige and wealth of Europes most storied banking family has been reinvigorated from bold bets in this eras new-money investment vehicles. Like his forebears, he prefers that his influence remain unseen. Mr. Rothschild is a principal adviser to Oleg Deripaska, one of the richest oligarchs in Russia and the owner of the aluminum giant Rusal, which recently merged with two other companies to create the worlds largest aluminum company. Mr. Rothschild received no public credit despite having played a crucial role in getting the deal done. He ... would not be interviewed for this article, yet he allowed his lushly renovated town house in Greenwich Village to be featured in Mens Vogue magazine. With his mix of Old World politesse, a racy appreciation for fast times and the brute force of his accumulating wealth, Mr. Rothschild has become friend and adviser to many including Russian billionaires, Indian steel magnates and a long list of people who have helped him out during his ascent. There is a lot of power behind him, and like all the Rothschilds they use their power with discretion, said Guy Wyser-Pratte, who has invested with Mr. Rothschild. I expect him to uphold the family tradition.
Note: For more on secret societies and groups in which the Rothschilds are suspected to play a large role, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here. For an index of all articles ever published by the New York Times on the Rothschilds family, click here.
A Vatican monsignor already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy was arrested ... for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money. Financial police in the southern Italian city of Salerno said Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, dubbed "Monsignor 500" for his purported favored banknotes, had transferred millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies through his accounts at the Vatican's Institute for Religious Works. Acting on evidence provided by the Vatican bank, police said they seized 6.5 million euros in real estate and assets in Italian bank accounts Tuesday, including Scarano's luxurious Salerno apartment, filled with gilt-framed oil paintings, ceramic vases and other fancy antiques. Police said in all, 52 people were under investigation. The money involved in both the Swiss smuggling case and the Salerno money-laundering case originated with one of Italy's most important shipping families, the d'Amicos. Financial police said more than 5 million euros had been made available to Scarano by the D'Amicos via offshore companies. Scarano allegedly withdrew 555,248 euros from his Vatican account in cash in 2009 and brought it into Italy. Since he couldn't deposit it in an Italian bank without drawing suspicion, he selected 50 friends to accept 10,000 euros apiece in cash in exchange for a check or wire transfer in that same amount.
Note: For more on financial corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
In early 2003, two senior CIA officers arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw to pick up a pair of large cardboard boxes. Inside were bundles of cash totaling $15 million that had been flown from Germany via diplomatic pouch. The Americans and Poles then sealed an agreement that over the previous weeks had allowed the CIA the use of a secret prison a remote villa in the Polish lake district to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects. The Polish intelligence service received the money, and the CIA had a solid location for its newest covert operation, according to former agency officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the interrogation program, including previously unreported details about the creation of the CIAs black sites, or secret prisons. The CIA prison in Poland was arguably the most important of all the black sites created by the agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was the first of a trio in Europe that housed the initial wave of accused Sept. 11 conspirators, and it was where Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the attacks, was waterboarded 183 times after his capture. In December, the European Court of Human Rights heard arguments that Poland violated international law and participated in torture by accommodating its American ally. In the face of Polish and United States efforts to draw a veil over these abuses, the European Court of Human Rights now has an opportunity to break this conspiracy of silence and uphold the rule of law, said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the Open Society Justice Initiative.
Note: For more on the realities of intelligence agency activities, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
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