Behind the Deal: Spies, a Killer, Secret Messages and Unseen Diplomacy
Behind the Deal: Spies, a Killer, Secret Messages and Unseen Diplomacy
https://www.yahoo.com/news/behind-deal-spies-killer-secret-114416710.html
Tag: spies
Be Skeptical of That 60 Minutes Report on Havana Syndrome
“This noise was not produced by some kind of sonic weapon, however. It turned out to be crickets. Literal crickets.
And yet, this did not put Havana syndrome panic to rest, even though subsequent analysis by medical experts and U.S. intelligence suggests that the condition is not real. In 2022, the CIA concluded that the symptoms described by various officials were not caused by “a sustained global campaign by a hostile power.” The FBI’s analysis was that Havana syndrome is a “mass sociogenic illness,” which sounds pretty scary, but actually means that the symptoms are essentially caused by social contagion, under conditions of extreme stress, paranoia, and among members of an insular community. Writer Natalie Shure likened it to the “demonic fits” experienced by girls during the Salem witch trials.
“It means that the perceived diagnosis spreads socially, almost like an infectious pathogen would, with symptoms either triggered, exacerbated or wrongly ascribed to a phony cause,” she wrote in a November 2021 piece for Slow Boring. “People experience various maladies all the time and the cause is not always clear.””
https://reason.com/2024/04/04/be-skeptical-of-that-60-minutes-report-on-havana-syndrome/
A Drone Whistleblower Goes to Prison
“A federal judge in August sentenced Daniel Hale to 45 months in federal prison for informing the American public about secret drone killings by the U.S. military.
Hale is a former Air Force intelligence analyst who shared classified documents with reporter Jeremy Scahill. Those documents, published in 2015 at The Intercept and in a book called The Assassination Complex (Simon & Schuster), revealed that secret drone assassinations in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia had likely killed untold numbers of innocent people, a fact the U.S. government had concealed.”
…
“Hale’s sentence is an example of how the federal government misuses laws meant for spies who reveal classified information to our country’s enemies. Too often, it punishes citizens who reveal the government’s true behavior to their fellow Americans.”
U.S. investigators increasingly confident directed-energy attacks behind Havana Syndrome
“The U.S. government’s investigation into the mysterious illnesses impacting American personnel overseas and at home is turning up new evidence that the symptoms are the result of directed-energy attacks, according to five lawmakers and officials briefed on the matter.
Behind closed doors, lawmakers are also growing increasingly confident that Russia or another hostile foreign government is behind the suspected attacks, based on regular briefings from administration officials — although there is still no smoking gun linking the incidents to Moscow.”