After Multiple Denials, CIA Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomsky

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/13/after_multiple_denials_cia_admits_to_snooping_on_noam_chomsky

by choult • 13 years ago

247 81 13 years ago

thecable.foreignpolicy.com

raganwald• 13 years ago

After the second hurdle between me and the article, I gave up.

obituary_latte3• 13 years ago

Another benefit of blocking scripts by default.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptsafe/oiigbmn...

http://noscript.net/

Shame that they're necessary, but they work well if you can handle the inconvenience of selectively unblocking scripts.

Ntrails• 13 years ago

It also means that sights with more than 4-5 things I have to unblock go completely unread as I am unwilling to keep going through them to find the non trash sources.

simonebrunozzi• 13 years ago

Did you try: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/script-blocker/edk...

How do you compare them?

raimue• 13 years ago

If they make it that complicated to get to their actual content I simply won't read it. I should not be required to block any scripts in order to make a website usable.

mtgx• 13 years ago

You can usually copy the link and search for it in Google, and then you can see the post. Or you can use Adblock to manually block the firewall (it sees it as some sort of ad, and removes it as such).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

raldi3• 13 years ago

You're not missing much. First it gets mad that the CIA kept a file on Chomsky, then it gets mad that they destroyed this file. And finally, it gets mad that, after the file was destroyed, they couldn't retrieve it anymore.

RyanMcGreal2• 13 years ago

That was a surprisingly petulant and inaccurate summary of the article.

a3n• 13 years ago

After the second hurdle, in Firefox, View/Page Style/No Style, then scroll down and the article's there.

4ad• 13 years ago

Press ESC after the page loads, but before the ad/banner loads, that will stop the ad from loading and you can read the article.

openjck• 13 years ago

Use Readability to easily bypass these popups.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/readability/

pohl• 13 years ago

Thank you for mentioning that. It gave me the idea of trying Safari's Reader button, which also circumvented the modal div.

sp332• 13 years ago

Safari even uses Readability's codebase for that feature. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/safari_reader_based_...

mcescalante• 13 years ago

Even though there are ways to get around the popups on this article it would still be a lot easier to just post a link to another site without an obtrusive modal window.

lifeisstillgood• 13 years ago

"CIA fails to understand a damn thing professor talks about"

jfb• 13 years ago

"CIA wishes he'd just stick to math."

mumbi2• 13 years ago

cache for no signup: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...

ceautery2• 13 years ago

The CIA gave up snooping on him because they couldn't understand a damned thing he said... his works are also the reason Watson learned to cry.

But seriously, it's no surprise that titling books like "Hegemony or Survival" (I recommend the audiobook, great commute-musing material) and talking about the US being on borrowed time if it keeps acting like 18th century England, will get you examined a little closer by the spooks.

Amadou• 13 years ago

It ought to be a surprise. It certainly is contrary to all the rhetoric that I swallowed hook, line and sinker in high school about what kind of country the USA is.

I'm willing to bet that Chomsky was not surprised one bit by these revelations.

npsimons• 13 years ago

Hell, according to line I was sold, Chomsky would have fit right in with the founding fathers. That's also assuming you can believe history.

HarryHirsch• 13 years ago

talking about the US being on borrowed time ... will get you examined a little closer by the spooks.

Well, we all knew that, didn't we?

But these days, if your friend's friend starts talking like that, your own phone calls and email will be paid attention to.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

... or your pizza delivery man's other customer.

coldtea4• 13 years ago

The CIA gave up snooping on him because they couldn't understand a damned thing he said...

Hmm, the joke reflects poorly on your reading comprehension skills, since Chomsky's writing is as dry as they come, and very simplistic and analytic. It's the classic analytic american style, no more complicated than reading the newspaper.

If you have issues with Chomsky what would you say if you tried to read, say, Steven Pinker, Hofstadter, or, god forbid, french theorists...

NegativeK2• 13 years ago

I believe the jibe was more to say that the CIA is dumb rather than Chomsky being unintelligible.

ceautery2• 13 years ago

Jumping to a conclusion based on no evidence is something Pinker would scold you for.

northwest• 13 years ago

For years, FOIA requests to the CIA garnered the same denial: "We did not locate any records responsive to your request."

...because we thought life would be easier for us if we didn't even try.

icebraining• 13 years ago

Jim: What's an official reply?

Bernard: Well it just says the Minister has asked me to thank you for your letter and we say something like, the matter is under consideration, or even if we feel so inclined, under active consideration.

Jim: What's the difference?

Bernard: Well under consideration means we've lost the file, under active consideration means we're trying to find it.

chrismonsanto2• 13 years ago

That has to be the most invasive modal I've ever seen.

Here's the text of the article:

-------------------------------------

For years, the Central Intelligence Agency denied it had a secret file on MIT professor and famed dissident Noam Chomsky. But a new government disclosure obtained by The Cable reveals for the first time that the agency did in fact gather records on the anti-war iconoclast during his heyday in the 1970s.

The disclosure also reveals that Chomsky's entire CIA file was scrubbed from Langley's archives, raising questions as to when the file was destroyed and under what authority.

The breakthrough in the search for Chomsky's CIA file comes in the form of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For years, FOIA requests to the CIA garnered the same denial: "We did not locate any records responsive to your request." The denials were never entirely credible, given Chomsky's brazen anti-war activism in the 60s and 70s -- and the CIA's well-documented track record of domestic espionage in the Vietnam era. But the CIA kept denying, and many took the agency at its word.

Now, a public records request by FOIA attorney Kel McClanahan reveals a memo between the CIA and the FBI that confirms the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky.

Dated June 8, 1970, the memo discusses Chomsky's anti-war activities and asks the FBI for more information about an upcoming trip by anti-war activists to North Vietnam. The memo's author, a CIA official, says the trip has the "ENDORSEMENT OF NOAM CHOMSKY" and requests "ANY INFORMATION" about the people associated with the trip.

After receiving the document, The Cable sent it to Athan Theoharis, a professor emeritus at Marquette University and an expert on FBI-CIA cooperation and information-gathering.

"The June 1970 CIA communication confirms that the CIA created a file on Chomsky," said Theoharis. "That file, at a minimum, contained a copy of their communication to the FBI and the report on Chomsky that the FBI prepared in response to this request."

The evidence also substantiates the fact that Chomsky's file was tampered with, says Theoharis. "The CIA's response to the FOIA requests that it has no file on Chomsky confirms that its Chomsky file was destroyed at an unknown time," he said.

It's worth noting that the destruction of records is a legally treacherous activity. Under the Federal Records Act of 1950, all federal agencies are required to obtain advance approval from the national Archives for any proposed record disposition plans. The Archives is tasked with preserving records with "historical value."

"Clearly, the CIA's file, or files, on Chomsky fall within these provisions," said Theoharis.

It's unclear if the agency complied with protocols in the deletion of Chomsky's file. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

What does Chomsky think? When The Cable presented him with evidence of his CIA file, the famous linguist responded with his trademark cynicism.

"Some day it will be realized that systems of power typically try to extend their power in any way they can think of," he said. When asked if he was more disturbed by intelligence overreach today (given the latest NSA leaks) or intelligence overreach in the 70s, he dismissed the question as an apples-to-oranges comparison.

"What was frightening in the ‘60s into early ‘70s was not so much spying as the domestic terror operations, COINTELPRO," he said, referring to the FBI's program to discredit and infiltrate domestic political organizations. "And also the lack of interest when they were exposed."

Regardless,, the destruction of Chomsky's CIA file raises an even more disturbing question: Who else's file has evaporated from Langley's archives? What other chapters of CIA history will go untold?

"It is important to learn when the CIA decided to destroy the Chomsky file and why they decided that it should be destroyed,'" said Theoharis. "Undeniably, Chomsky's was not the sole CIA file destroyed. How many other files were destroyed?"

choult• 13 years ago

Yeah, sorry for that - first time I loaded it I only needed to "Continue to Foreign Policy" - didn't get the lightbox modal til a second look.

mmatants• 13 years ago

Would it be more ethical to not read the article, warn others of the modal and refuse the site further traffic instead of copy-pasting copyrighted fruit of someone's labour?

chrismonsanto2• 13 years ago

I am not sure if you are asking a question, or if you are rhetorically stating your opinion. Either way, I personally feel like facilitating discussion on this site brings more benefit to the world than warning everyone not to visit the site and perhaps stifling discussion.

norswap2• 13 years ago

I appreciate the contradiction "refuse the site further traffic" "copy-pasting copyrighted fruit of someone's labour"

nakedrobot2• 13 years ago

No.

coldtea4• 13 years ago

Only if freeing information is less ethical than respecting copyright.

Considering this site is called "Hacker News" I doubt how many feel similarly, though it does have a huge business bend too.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

(Shrug) There are economic costs associated with abusing your readers the way that magazine does. This is one of them. The market, such as it is, has responded.

saraid216• 13 years ago

Well damn. I was hoping for bugs being concealed under his desk or something.

misiti3780• 13 years ago

I tried to figure out how to remove it with jQuery but eventually gave up and connected my twitter account.

#wapolabs_wrapperLoginOptions <- wapolabs? hopefully Bezos fixes this stuff :)

luchosrock• 13 years ago

Try with the Inspector Console:

This will remove the overlay: document.getElementById("TB_overlay").remove();

This will remove the annoying window: document.getElementById("TB_window").remove();

eieio• 13 years ago

Bezos bought The Post, but actually didn't acquire wapolabs or a few other assets owned by The Post.

(Not that it's hugely relevant here, but I feel obligated to mention that I'm an AWS employee)

demianturner• 13 years ago

The funny thing is if you hit the Reader button in Safari you get a clean version of the article text with no hacks necessary.

mumbi2• 13 years ago

Chomsky is one of the most important persons in this day in age when it comes to political thought. He's the only one that seems to think.

pejoculant• 13 years ago

Here is a link to the actual CIA document that was released:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/159950486/CIA-FBI-Referred-Doc

marcuspovey• 13 years ago

If you have firebug installed, setting display:none on the modal divs works a treat.

robomartin3• 13 years ago

I think everyone interested in American politics needs to read some of Chomsky's work. I don't agree with everything he says. It is important to hear and consider all sides of every argument. In general terms, yes, I believe we've made a mess out of foreign relations for a long time. Not sure I'd go as far as calling us terrorists. I can absolutely see how big brother would want to keep him and other under watch.

EDII: My problem with such figures is that universities put them up on pedestals and don't necessarily go out of their way to present contrasting viewpoints on the same stage, at the same time and to the same audience. The young and the impressionable swallow this stuff up without much thought and observation because they are led to idolize such figures. This results in intransigence and extreme positions without thought later in life. In other words, they are handing people fish rather than teaching them to fish.

arcosdev• 13 years ago

I agree with you to some extent, however I think that in many arguments/debates one side can be so clueless and uniformed as to be unworthy of reasoned discussion. This has sadly become the almost default state for many right-wing commentators as they strive for "authenticity" and the analytical, intelligent conservative is left by the wayside.

andy_ppp2• 13 years ago

I don't see how America isn't a terrorist state at this point - they are murdering people in cold blood in Pakistan without trial because Obama/NSA/CIA/etc. say it's a good thing. This is the definition of a terrorist in my book - thinking you operate outside the law and taking actions into your own hands like some mad vigilante, as opposed to working with the Pakistani government to resolve issues you have by handing over evidence.

rayiner• 13 years ago

There is no Pakistani government control over those regions. Osama was hiding under their nose for how long?

robomartin3• 13 years ago

I am not going to argue these facts because it is very difficult to do so without all of the relevant data in hand. The fact that someone like Bin Laden was actually being sheltered by Pakistan does not give that country much to stand on.

The key question here might be more about the genesis of these problems rather than what is going on now that we all stepped into this collective cesspool. Who threw the first rock, if you will. Who knows. More on this later.

Here's the reality I think we live in. Note I am saying "I think", because we really don't know:

There are a number of people around the world who would gladly detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of any American city if they could do so. Barring that, they'd gladly detonate a building full of high explosives or anything else that could cause mass casualties and extreme economic damage.

If this is, in fact, true, then we are forced into an extreme offensive position that is unfortunate but necessary at some level. I am not justifying anything here. I am simply going through the scenario to try to make some sense out of it, if that's even possible.

In any escalation there are at least two parties involved. If nobody backs down things devolve until the stronger takes out the weaker and a new opponent shows up (or not). If reason prevails then everybody settles and things calm down.

Affairs in the Middle East show us that feuds can go on for thousands of years. Perhaps this is a failing in the human condition. I don't know. Are we ever going to evolve away from this crap? I hope so.

Going back to the question of the first stone.

I'd like to twist Voltaire's "With great power..." quote and apply it to someone considering acting violently against another with whom they might have a grievance. In this case, the decision by Bin Laden and his group to mount a massive unconventional attack against the US. Regardless of the validity of their grievance it is obvious they did not consider the potential consequences. This is a case of "great power" --meaning the fact that such an unconventional attack would produce devastating results with relatively little effort-- not being tempered with the "great responsibility" part. The move had absolutely no upside. None. I find myself actually thinking highly of President Bush because he had a window of perhaps 30 to 90 days where he could have done just about anything and few would have questioned it. This, of course, included nuking half the arab world out of existence. That was a case of tempering great power with the idea that one must be responsible when exercising it.

So these kinds of things cut both ways. However, if the more powerful force does not regulate its actions the weaker can suffer greatly. In this sense, I tend to think that the US has exercised far more restraints than our enemies would. I am absolutely certain that, if they could, our enemies would flatten US cities en-masse, men, women, children, dogs and cats. Everything. We actually have the ability to do that, today and back in September 11th, but do not and did not.

Did we throw the first stone? Fifty, a hundred or two hundred years ago? Well the US did not exist much beyond that. The entire arab world goes back thousands of years. The British empire had a hand in some of the grievances in that region and the US probably pissed off some people as well. As Chomsky points out this is a NORMAL state. The more powerful actor tends to, historically, behave badly in the eyes of the less powerful. He points out that this goes back to Rome and even before. It's human nature. I am not justifying it, just saying that they'd do it to us if they could because, well, that's the shitty animal we humans seem to be.

I had a micro example of this over the weekend, yesterday as a matter of fact. We went out to the local lake for an afternoon of relaxation and fishing. We took the boat out to a nice secluded cove normally frequented by families. Kids running around, dogs, people hanging out. A good scene. Then three boats showed up full of 20 to 30 year olds and no kids. As soon as they beached the boats they turned on their multi-hundred-watt stereos to physically painful and certainly unhealthy levels for anyone close to the source and the kids running around. Astounding, I thought.

I am one to believe that people are fundamentally good but every so often I run into something like this. I gave them a few minutes to see if they'd realize what they were doing. They started drinking and things were going to get out of hand. I walked over to one of them and, very politely, asked if they would consider lowering their volume --not turning things off-- in order to coexist with the other eight or nine groups at the cove. He pretty much ignored me. I approached another boat owner with the same request. He said "Dude, this is what we do at the lake". Then, he actually turned it up.

What to do? Had I been a violent person with a gun I could see shooting a hole right through the boats and forcefully making them behave or leave. Seriously, these people were inconsiderate scum. They wanted to "own" this cove and their weapon was insanely loud music and not-apt-for-children behavior with half naked young women. This is how wars can start.

What happened? The families left, of course. One by one everyone packed-up and left. We did, too. I was there for my kids, not to pick a fight with assholes. We went somewhere else in the lake and had a wonderful afternoon. I did note their boat registration numbers, took a few pictures and videos and called police this morning. In other words, I am using what power is available to me in order to, if possible, squash them as hard as possible (these offenses are serious misdemeanors in Los Angeles).

I don't fully understand the art of conflict resolution. I know it isn't easy. And you can't always win. When faced with an unreasonable party a conflict can only be resolved through superior force. This is the case for my lake "friends", with the superior force being laws being enforced by authorities, not in-situ physical violence.

The arab world is a difficult place for me to judge. I know quite a bit about the various cultures involved through discussions with friends who emigrated to the US from various countries in the region. I've had very interesting in-depth conversations with people from Israel to Saudi Arabia and nearly every country in between. The fact that I've done business internationally for many years, have travelled extensively and have socialized with people outside the US in their native countries also gives me a different perspective. I won't get into the details at this point because I have to go and this would require a fairly extensive write-up. I'll just say that there's a certain element of the arab world that really needs to think about joining the ranks of civilized society. They are living eight-hundred years behind everyone else. And it shows. And this causes all kinds of problems. And their leaders want them to live in that mental state because it is easier to control them through force and the totalitarian regimes in place there. Regrettably anyone who's tried to bring their people out of the caves invariably seems to meet extreme consequences, and things don't change.

To circle back, I think humans, in general, seem to have the ability and proclivity to become "terrorists" in many ways and in many circumstances, from the bully at the lake to a suicide bomber. Who threw the first rock? I don't know.

tibbit• 13 years ago

I'd be interested in hearing what you disagree with Chomsky .. in my opinion he is one of the most enlightened American academics we have right now, and I personally wish more Americans were exposed to his point of view - it would certainly calm a lot of fires if the average American realized the true, human, cost of their empire.

As far as calling Americans terrorists- how else would you describe the 80+ military actions that America has taken, in the name of its people, since the end of WW2? I mean, policing the world is one thing; bombing certain cultures to absolute oblivion is another thing entirely. What could it be rather than the mass export of terror to the non-militarized world, when American drones act with impunity, American agents operate undeterred in foreign governments, and so on? I think that anyone 'disagreeing' that America engages in terrorism clearly needs to take another renewed look at the situation .. America is most definitely one of the most terrible nations on the planet, in terms of its value of human life. I say this with sincerity, and I do truly believe that America has a lot of positives; however, they are far, far outweighed by the negative impact on humanity that the American people have, and continue to have daily, on the world at large. Every single drone strike is a crime.

robomartin3• 13 years ago

Where do I disagree? He is too extreme. Things are never that black and white. He, nor you or I have all of the information surrounding the events of the last fifty or one-hundred years of international politics and conflict be able to hold such extreme positions.

Have people behaved badly? Absolutely. You can go back a thousand years and still make that claim. You can go back three thousand years and still make that claim. The problem isn't a specific people, the problem is the human proclivity for devolving into behaving badly. I don't quite understand how we are going to fix that.

Chomsky himself says very clearly that none of this is abnormal. Any power has historically behaved this way. If the arab world was as powerful as the US they'd most-certainly behave worst. Look at how they treat half their population, in the form of women. Not justifying any of it. Simply stating that this is about the human condition. Ultimately that is what needs to be addressed.

The US might be irrelevant in another hundred years, maybe even less. The next super power (China?) will, with time, probably behave in an equivalent fashion. Chomsky says that this always happens, and he is right. If China where in our position and they had been attacked 9/11-style there's no doubt in my mind that they would have nuked half the arab world out of existence. At least Bush had enough self-restraint not to do that. Not that I'm a fan.

spankalee3• 13 years ago

After killing that annoying overlay in the web inspector, I got to read a terrible, shallow article.

As a layman reader, the assumptions made by the author and Athan Theoharis seem pretty big, unless they have something else to back it up.

The arguments seem to go like this:

1. CIA denies having a file on Chomsky

2. Someone find a memo that _mentions_ Chomsky

3. Assumption 1: Therefore the CIA had a file on him

4. Assumption 2: Since the CIA had a file at some point, the denial is a lie, but we'll also take it as truth and conclude that they destroyed the file

5. Assumption 3: Destroying CIA files clearly falls under the Federal Records Act.

I mean, at least give me a little more reason to believe those conclusions. Historically or by policy does it really follow that mentioning Chomsky means he has a file? I find it hard to believe that, like Wikipedia, just mentioning someone (in the 70's at least) creates their file. Have CIA files already been determined to have "historical value", is there a case? Otherwise I just have to trust this guys opinion.

coldtea4• 13 years ago

Your breakdown is not what the article says.

They didn't find some random memo that merely mentioned Chomsky.

They found a memo from CIA to the FBI, requesting to provide more information on people and actions related to an event, with the justification that the event was "endorsed by Chomsky" (as if he was someone dangerous whom you should watch carefully the groups and events he endorses).

I'd rather trust the "expert on CIA/FBI" that a random comment that mis-represents the article so badly.

(Well, beside the obvious that of course they had a file on Chomsky, that's what they do, and people like Chomsky is who they target. If not the CIA, the FBI sure did, and CIA had them do work for them and took peeks. Heck, they had huge files on people like John Lennon and MLK).

Tloewald3• 13 years ago

As a lay reader who has worked in Government, this isn't about assumptions, it's about how bureaucracies work.

Theoharis is interviewed because he is a lifelong expert on FBI-CIA cooperation. Presumably this is worth something. His argument is that if a letter goes from CIA to FBI or vice versa regarding "NOAM CHOMSKY" then this means that at minimum there is a file labelled "NOAM CHOMSKY" containing this memo at both the CIA and the FBI. Therefore when the CIA said nothing was found under FOIA requests for a file on Noam Chomsky either (a) this was a lie or (b) the file was illegally destroyed.

Based on my own experience working in government offices, this is a pretty sound argument. If a letter is sent from X to Y about Z, then there has to be a file on Z to put the letter into (both at the sender's and receiver's ends). If the file doesn't exist, it will be created just to hold that letter.

spankalee3• 13 years ago

Even if what you claim is true, it still backs my point that some more explanation is needed on why those conclusions can be drawn.

Regarding the argument itself, was the memo really "regarding" Noam Chomsky? It reads to me like it's about some other people traveling to Vietnam, and the "with the endorsement of Noam Chomsky and Cora Weiss" is the only mention of him. Is it your claim that the mere mentioning of a person by name in a CIA memo means that there's a file on that person? Is there a copy of that memo in the files of all 8 people mentioned by name? If so, this expert should say that because it's relevant and interesting.

zenocon• 13 years ago

set TB_overlay and TB_window to display: none

angrydev• 13 years ago

I highly recommend the readability plugin (http://www.readability.com/addons) for dealing with these terrible overlays.

borplk• 13 years ago

Wow just wow. Why do you even submit an article from a site like that?

They clearly don't want people to read it.

gigonaut• 13 years ago

$('#TB_window, #TB_overlay').hide()

nadaviv• 13 years ago

You can run this to get rid of the annoying overlay:

   $('#TB_window,#TB_overlay').remove()

everettForth• 13 years ago

Just hit "escape" when the page loads. This is "hacker news", right?

jgalt212• 13 years ago

If I were the CIA, I'd snoop on Noam Chomsky. The guy has never had a pleasant word ever to say about the US Govt. And if he were more of a man of action, than man of letters, I'd suspect him of actual subversive acts.

After Multiple Denials, CIA Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomsky

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