The cia and the media

Carl Bernstein

"After Colby left the Agency on January 28th, 1976, and was succeeded by George Bush, the CIA announced a new policy: “Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full‑time or part‑time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station” At the time of the announcement, the Agency acknowledged that the policy would result in termination of less than half of the relationships with the 50 U.S. journalists it said were still affiliated with the Agency. The text of the announcement noted that the CIA would continue to “welcome” the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists. Thus, many relationships were permitted to remain intact.The Agency’s unwillingness to end its use of journalists and its continued relationships with some news executives is largely the product of two basic facts of the intelligence game: journalistic cover is ideal because of the inquisitive nature of a reporter’s job; and many other sources of institutional cover have been denied the CIA in recent years by businesses, foundations and educational institutions that once cooperated with the Agency."

Does the CIA still do this?
Could politicians who control this information use it for leverage?
Could this control/influence elections?
Does the CIA infiltrate debate blogs?
Is the CIA trustworthy?

yes
yes
no
yes
yes

Please read the entire article before answering. Keep in mind that all gov't agencies keep growing and expanding and accumulating. How does that relate to current politics/news and Judith Millers and many,many others. The article is 25,000 words, so it takes a few minutes and gives a working background on extrapolating future events. Note the networks involved, like CBS, AP, NYTimes, etc. etc. etc. "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Worth the read!!!

DaveFagan said:

Please read the entire article before answering. Keep in mind that all gov't agencies keep growing and expanding and accumulating.....

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I'm sorry, how many new Federal employees have been hired since 2008?

Didn't President Obama just ask Congress for the power to consolidate agencies?

Thunder said:

I'm sorry, how many new Federal employees have been hired since 2008?

Didn't President Obama just ask Congress for the power to consolidate agencies?

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The article only discussed agents to 1978. That leaves how many years of agency growth. 33? Think about it.

DaveFagan said:

The article only discussed agents to 1978. That leaves how many years of agency growth. 33? Think about it.

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u mean, they grew due to inflattionary spending increases?

I would be less concerned about individual journalists and more about the news conglomerates which basically own the major press right now. It's a simple matter of you scratch my back I scratch yours for the business execs and the CIA to work together on some topics.

I agree with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange when he says that there is a massive global effort underway to control information flows and it's a billion dollar industry that involves cooperation between government and intelligence branches, news conglomerates, and the financial sector. The press is just one part of the picture. They have the whole internet in their sights.

Thunder said:

u mean, they grew due to inflattionary spending increases?

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They grew because of the importance and successes at learning to manipulate the Major Media. Also budget increases. These are organizations that deviously gain control, both within our borders and without. I wonder who's side they are on. The original CIA charter was to"assist American corporations overseas." CORPORATIONS. Times change, eh?

Thunder said:

u mean, they grew due to inflattionary spending increases?

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Intelligence gathering /manipulation is done by infiltration. Once you've infiltrated, you support and develop that network. In this case Major Media was/is the target and had been developed over a period of over 35-40 years. I think that infiltration was probably illegal because the CIA, until recently, never had authority to conduct domestic spying. Now they are ubiquitous, even controlling contractors, drones, missions. I see this as a threat to our democracy, what little democracy we have. Not to worry, since their job is to protect American Corporations, the 1% has their army, eh?

I am perplexed why there is so little activity on this poll. Did anyone actually read the OP link? It is way too long, but it is the only way to explain the post and its implications. Intelligence builds upon the past and first you have to understand the past. This is the story behind the "Mighty Wurlitzer" and you need to know what that means in today's world. Objective reporting in the media? "Saddam has WMDs." "Yellowcake from Niger." :Saddam has mobile chemical warfare labs." "Saddam purchased centrifuge tubes." These were choreographed headlines. Who's the choreographer? Read and you will know.