Remember the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)? Here’s how I described it back in 2007. CIFA is, along with the National Security Letters Congress is now cracking down on, probably the biggest abuse of civil rights and privacy BushCo has hatched up. It was designed to gather intelligence on threats to defense installments in the United [...]

Donald Rumsfeld, channeling Julian Assange, has now made the database of documents accompanying his book available. As Spencer notes, making these documents available is largely self-serving; a way for Rummy to point to early moments of reflection that were followed by later moments of rash stupidity or lies. To put it uncharitably: when you’ve got [...]

I’ve long suspected that the GOP has used the Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) as a way to spy on domestic enemies even while making their friends rich. CIFA is the organization that collected information on both Jesus’ General and Quakers, then stuck it into a database without requisite privacy protections. And then, when Congress and the Carol Lam started focusing on CIFA, its database on private citizens got quickly disappeared.