Page 8 - Intelligence Activity News Today

You dont stop terrorists in europe by listening in on angela merkels cell phone. the rewards of spying on friendly heads of government are probably outweighed by the risks. and most troubling, its not clear that many of these specific activities were clearly thought through and directed by the white house. nor do they appear to have been vetted by congress. in the wake of 9/11, america got scared and dropped any sense of constraints on its intelligence activities. it is not an accident that the ...

Responding to all of this? >> well, miguelle, theres some degree of remorse coming from the administration and i want to play for you a comment from jen sa , the spokeswoman for the state department. heres what she had to say. >> its no secret over the last few months a series -- these unauthorized disclosures of classified information have, of course, led to criticisms of our intelligence activity by many of our friends and partners. its created significant challenges in our relationships with ...

So you get all of the pain and none of the gain, in effect. >> interesting cost/benefit analysis there. this is in 2006, this document, as you point out. during the previous administration, george w. bush. do we have any indication of whether or not this continued under president obama? >> well, as you know and you mentioned germany being one of these countries, clearly it was on this list, and this -- set up this very awkward phone call between president obama and angela merkel yesterday, where...

Did not specify that they had never done this in the past, and the white house has been pressed on this a number of times and as far as jay carney has been willing to go is to say we are not going to comment publicly on every specified alleged intelligence activity. of course, more difficult when you have so many of them. >> its causing enormous diplomatic headaches for the united states. >> no question. today, you already have the german chancellor, the american ambassador summoned. you had the...

General petraeus had coming into this. where he knew as this whole thing was going to unfold, two things he was very concerned about, one was his family and the impact on them, and also wh what then would be the impact on the agency and the impact on the country. i think he did, and general petraeus i think is a hero for so many young troopers. i think he did the right and honorable thing. but the key question come still comes down to, if an investigation was done and there were no criminal acti...

New warnings about japanese aggression in the days before pearl harbor. the surprise attack killed 2400 americans, leaving more than a dozen ships damaged or sunk, 180 u.s. war planes destroyed. and of course, it plunged america head long into world wariminity: author craig shirley is highlighting a memo from naval intelligence sent to president roosevelt days before the attack. one part says in anticipation of possible open conflict with this country, with the u.s., japan is vigorously utilizin...

I can interrupt, they looked at what you are saying, they investigated and said in order to collect, analyze, and share publicly available information about distinguished visitors is a lawful order. this would not be considered intelligence activity. >> thats two days later after captain scotts opinion that came to me and the order was, quote-unquote, clarified. and we took out the parts to actually report back on the impact and report, and to assess and analyze what to do forward. and we did ca...

>> yeah and also very dangerous. the ied is the most common killer and the state department has to move around. they have the worlds largest embassy and cant hide. its a violent posting and there will be robust intelligence activity. the problem is the nice awaking groups we set up to keep the sunis from shooting at us are wooed by al qaeda. they pay more. >> shepard: robert young pelton, youre the man. thank you. >> independent scientists contradict the statement that the oil has disappeared. t...

Believe that. they say they believe now based on intelligence activity, on all of their work, that a group of hitmen over there known as the aztecas who work for the jaurez drug cartel went out looking for drug rivals from the another cartel. they picked out -- two teams picked out targets based on the color of their car, shape of their car and got the wrong targets. so instead of killing the traffickers they were looking for, they killed in one case an american couple and in another case a mexi...

Thats what im going to press for this week. reporter: the justice department is pushing back. they stated after careful evaluation and following consultation with the director of national intelligence, the federal bureau of investigation and the white house,ed the justice department determined it is not in a position to provide information responsive to your request regarding a specific individual. city woulding interfere with intelligence activity. the letter goes on to say the doj is willing t...