Spy Blogs and Online Files: An Annotated Directory

SPY BLOGS AND ONLINE FILES: AN ANNOTATED DIRECTORY

By Wesley Britton
spywise@verizon.net

I'm a frequent online searcher looking to uncover the latest news in the world of espionage . Often, I've found that, beyond established websites, nuggets of information are most often buried in avalanches of hits to blogs and forums that are essentially personal in purpose, opinionated without necessarily being informed, or often just nuts.

Over time, I collected a list of the most reliable places that are worth bookmarking as well as those of casual interest. In the main, the best reading comes from blogs, forums, and websites posting declassified documents, news stories, feeds from news services, and bulletins from organizations focused on a number of special interests. Blogs and forums that go beyond repeating what they find in international journals and periodicals also often contain perspectives and updates overlooked in mainstream media. Below is a directory of the best I've found to date along with notes on blogs more mysterious in their origins and purposes.

Note: Blogs and websites devoted to spy fiction and film tend to be very topic specific, that is they share material on one actor, author, TV series, and are easy to find with no need for listing here. I admit, I know of only one website that attempts to be interesting to readers, viewers, and news-hounds alike--and this is the place. If 007 is your thing, then a separate file

JAMES BOND ON THE WEB: AN ANNOTATED DIRECTORY

Is posted at this site. In addition, if your interest is Israeli intelligence, then check out--

THE MOSSAD: AN ANNOTATED DIRECTORY OF ONLINE SOURCES AND PRINT ARTICLES

I welcome notes and suggestions about sites that should be added to any of these files.

This directory is in alphabetical order. For most listings, I include descriptions taken from the source itself followed by my opinion of it. Additions will appear as addenda.

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AboveTopSecret.livejournal.com

"Our areas of interest include the intelligence community (foreign and U.S.), espionage (including tradecraft, practices, and political ramifications), secrecy policy, the Freedom of Information Act, terrorism and counterterrorism, and conspiracy theory."

Postings tend to be of very high-quality and the site's archives and links include a long list of useful resources.

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The Black Vault
www.bvalphaserver.com/content-21.html - 67k -

About The Black Vault Government Document Archive:

"For over 7 years, The Black Vault has striven to be the best source for U.S. Government documents online! Even the U.S. Government's databases, in some cases, are so hard to use -- many can not find use out of them. This is where The Black Vault is trying to help. With index categories and sub-categories, The Black Vault has put organization to an unorganized world -- Government Secrecy. Throughout The Black Vault's archive -- you will have access to well over 100,000 pages of material."

Essentially, this site is one of many collections of documents on CIA mind control experiments.

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Center for the Study of Intelligence
https://www.cia.gov/redirects/ciaredirect.html - 6k -

The CIA page includes public information about the agency--including how to get hired. Among the many useful publications are the renowned "World Factbook," articles on the history of intelligence, and declassified issues of Studies in Intelligence.

cloaknet.blogspot.com

Eric Jackson says his blog provides "intelligence news for all of us. Disclaimers: We are not a government entity nor do we attempt to represent one. We do not
perform actual intelligence work, and have not acquired this information via spying. Info presented in this blog is for information and education, not
crime or action. If you choose to engage in spywork, be prepared for the consequences (detainment, incarceration, etc.). You are responsible for your own
actions."

Eric's most recent posts are reviews and discussions of spy equipment,methods,and books on these topics.

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Congressional Research Service - Intelligence & Related Reports Archived by FAS
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html - 5k -

Invaluable resource for reports, articles, links, and databases often correctly marked "Required Reading."

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counterterrorismblog.org

" The first multi-expert blog dedicated solely to counterterrorism issues, serving as a gateway to the community for policymakers and serious researchers. Designed to provide realtime information about terrorism cases and policy developments."

With articles and postings by a group of distinguished contributing experts, the site also includes the CT Library, information about the Counterterrorism Foundation, lists of Websites & Centers, Syndicate, and Archives.

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CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/
and http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/

marc parent's blog has comments, responses, criticism, and both lively and angry discussions of policy and intelligence reports in the media. Various posters have varying levels of credibility, but this is a place representing what the Blogisphere is all about.

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cryptome.org

In depth collection of articles on intelligence with a technological bent. One announcement:

"Donate $25 for a DVD of the Cryptome 10+-years archives of 39,000 files from June 1996 to December 2006 (~4.1 GB). Click Paypal or mail check/MO made
out to John Young, 251 West 89th Street, New York, NY 10024. Archives include all files of cryptome.org, cryptome2.org, jya.com, cartome.org, eyeball-series.org
and iraq-kill-maim.org. Cryptome offers with the Cryptome DVD an INSCOM DVD of about 18,000 pages of counter-intelligence dossiers declassified by the
US Army Information and Security Command, dating from 1945 to 1985. No additional contribution required -- $25 for both. The DVDs will be sent anywhere
worldwide without extra cost."

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Early Warning - William Arkin's Blog
Posted at WashingtonPost.com
blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/

"Starting Sept. 14 [2005], Early Warning will report daily on the comings and goings of the national security community -- military, special ops, intelligence, homeland security -- part blog, part investigative journalism (a jog!). Here I can post documents, go into great detail, stick with a story when others have moved on, and introduce one that has escaped the mainstream media.

"My basic philosophy is that government is more incompetent than diabolical, that the military gets way too much of a free ride . . . and that official secrecy is the greatest threat citizens actually face today."

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www.globalsecurity.org

An outstanding archive of articles on: Military, WMD, Intelligence, and Homeland Security. Under "Intelligence," categories include: Systems, Operations, Countries, Hot Documents, News, Reports, Policy, Budget, Congress, Imagery and Links.

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Global Incident Map Displaying Terrorist Acts, Suspicious Activity, and General Terrorism News
www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php - 266k -

This group post terrorism Events and Other Suspicious Activity and automatically reloads every 240 seconds.

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I am SPY
Espionage and theory of conspiracy news
http://www.spy.im

More conspiracy theory than espionage, this blogger posts news articles touching on a range of topics. Erratic.

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Intelligence Community Enterprise Services - Operations Center
http://ra.intelink.gov/

Note: Access to this database is restricted. For those eligible--

DNI-U is the network infrastructure portion of the system formerly known as the Open Source Information System (OSIS). In mid 2006, the name OSIS which
referred to both the network and the content was retired. The network and content portions were decoupled. The network piece is now named DNI-U while the
content piece is named Intelink-U.

The DNI-U network is maintained by the DNI-CIO Intelligence Community Enterprise Services office (ICES). FOR ASSISTANCE PLEASE CONTACT:

Office of the Director of National Intelligence - CIO
Intelligence Community Enterprise Services - Operations Center
Phone: 1-301-688-1800
Email: accounts AT intelink.gov

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Intelligence History - Dalhousie University Libraries
www.library.dal.ca/subjects/Intelligence.htm - 16k -

"This web page is designed to be useful for research in Intelligence history by students at Dalhousie University, specifically to `enhance student's understanding of national intelligence communities in Britain, Canada, Russia and the United States.'"

While not updated since 2003, the holdings in this collection partially include:

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
"ForeignRelations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy . . . particularly those involved with intelligence activity and covert actions." Volumes from recent years are available online including 1945-1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment.

intel/index
"This latter volume is the result of a massive retrospective attempt to gather the archival record of the intelligence institutions and their relationships to the Department of State."

Intelligence Forum
"a forum dedicated to the scholarly study of intelligence, history, theory and practice. The
News & Notes section offers numerous links to diverse news media around the world."

The Literature of Intelligence: a Bibliography of materials, with Essays, Reviews, and Comments Compiled by a former CIA officer, useful for its geographic breakdown, including links to Canada, United Kingdom,and Russia.

The U.S. Intelligence Community
(from Columbia University)"an excellent academic website devoted to library resources available for research on U.S. agencies involved in intelligence activities. It includes links to actual documents as well as agency web sites."

Gulflink
"a searchable collection of declassified military and intelligence documents concerning Gulf War Illnesses; includes a useful Guide to Intelligence outlining the intelligence process from raw information sources to finished intelligence products."



Liquidmatrix Security Digest
http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog

Specializes in internet security, but also post news related to internet and online spying.

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Loyola Homepage on Strategic Intelligence
www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel.html - 78k -

Includes many documents and articles on military and economic espionage collected from print magazines, government agencies, institutes, and scholarly reports.

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The Memory Hole
www.thememoryhole.org/ - 17k -

According to Russ Kick, "The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known . . . The emphasis is on material that exposes things that we're not supposed to know (or that we're supposed to forget)."

Recent notes indicate that Kick's postings may slow down as he's involved in other projects, but this remains a source to watch. Can subscribe to e-mail notifications of postings.

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Metro Spirit national security blog: Don't Look Here!
http://augustans.blogspot.com/2007/02/dont-look-here.html

Apparently, the principal poster here is Corey Pein whose blog mixes news reports with lively commentary. Subjects include security at the NSA and political rants.

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NARDIC Publications
www.hqda.army.mil/library/publications.htm - 72k -

The Pentagon Library has catalogues, bibliographies, online sources, databases,even an "Ask a Librarian" link. Also has news about events and speakersat the library.

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The National Security Archive
Gelman Library, The George Washington University
nsarchiv@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
http//www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive. html

"The National Security Archive is a non-governmental research institute and library that collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, a public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and publisher of the documents in books, microfische, and electronic formats.

"The National Security Archive was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars who had obtained documentation under the FOIA and sought a centralized
repository for these materials. Over the past twelve years, the Archive has become the world's largest non-governmental library of declassified documents."

In the main, this is one of many collections with CIA declassified documents about mind-control experiments.

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Secrecy News Blog
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Items from the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy are typically de-classified or cleared by military sources for public distribution. Also accessible through a link at Above Top Secret.livejournal.com.

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Spy Blog - Watching Them, Watching Us
http://SpyBlog.org.uk

While I was unable to find out who's behind this one, browsing through the postings was quite interesting. Obviously, the focus is on British intelligence, and the blog is a mix of news items and reader responses.

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terrorizethis.org

I was unable to find who established this or any clear mission for the blog. The postings are more political statements on a myriad of topics, some related to terrorism, many not.

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thespyreport.livejournal.com

This blog is my own extension for this site (SpyWise.net), sharing news and views on all aspects of espionage from books to the media to news items gleaned from a variety of sources. Thespyreport has no political, ideological, or any such agenda but I do offer reviews of spy projects on which I do have an opinion. Naturally, I recommend it strongly!

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Tom Heneghan Intelligence Briefing - MySpace Blog
www.myspace.com/tom_heneghan_intel

One endorsement at the blog claims:

"If you are not yet aware, be apprised that International Intelligence Expert, Tom Heneghan, has hundreds of highly credible sources inside American and
European Intelligence Agencies and INTERPOL, sources who are putting their very lives on the line, 24/7, for you and I and our loved ones to SAVE America
and the World from Traitors-Treason-Tyranny." --Mary Schneider, Court adjudicated Federal Whistleblower

Posts claim, among other things, that both Bush and Hillary Clinton use Mossad hit squads in the U.S. and that Heneghan himself has been a target. Apparently, among others, so was Sonny Bono. Ah ha.

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www.whatreallyhappened.com

The purpose of this site is to "expose lies" and is thus a mix of information with short, speculative essays on topics in the categories of: 9/11, The "War on Terror," US Bankruptcy and Vote Fraud, Israel, Conspiracies, Cover-Ups, and Deceptions, and Assassinations.


For related articles on espionage, see

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