Blank Spots on the Map

by Trevor Paglen

  150: “Next, the Air Force” Robert Granader, “Privilege an Obstacle in Groom Lake Suit: Government Refuses Even to Name Secret Air Base in Litigation Over Pollution,” American Bar Association Journal 28, September 1995, 81.

  150: “The court holds that federal” Frost v. Perry, no. CV-S-94-714-PMP (RLH), 919 F. Supp. 1459, D. Nev. March 6, 1996.

  151: “In November 1998” Keith Rogers, “High Court Keeps Groom Lake Secret,” Las Vegas Review Journal, November 3, 1998, http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home /1998/Nov-03-Tue-1998/news /8525455.html (accessed 8/16/2005).

  Chapter 10

  152: “It began outside Waycross, Georgia” Barry Siegel, Claim of Privilege (New York: Harper, 2008), 45-48.

  153: “There was Secret Project MX-397” For the XP-59a, see Curtis Peebles, Dark Eagles: A History of Top Secret U.S. Aircraft Programs (Novato: Presidio, 1995); for Project X-Ray, see Jack Couffer, Bat Bomb (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992).

  153: “Robert Palya had written an engineer” This account, and much of the following account in general, is based on a series from the Los Angeles Times; see Barry Siegel, “The Secret of the B-29: How the Death of Judy’s Father Made America More Secretive; A plane crashes at the dawn of the Cold War, and the government seeks a special legal privilege. Its claim sows the seeds of the Patriot Act,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2004, sec. A. 155: “U.S. District Court judge” Quoted in Siegel, “Secret of the B- 29.”

  157: “The Vinson court was composed” See Henry Abraham, Justices, Presidents, and Senators. (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 160.

  157: “the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer” For an account of the Sawyer case, see Maeva Marcus, Truman and the Steel Seizure Case: The Limits of Presedential Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).

  157: “ ‘One is the ballot box’ ” Quoted in Louis Fisher, In the Name of National Security. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006), 3.

  157: “Pine flat-out rejected” Ibid., 93-94.

  157: “The Supreme Court concurred” Ibid., 94.

  158: “ ‘The court itself must determine’ ” Quoted in ibid., 111.

  158: “He went on to state” Quoted in ibid., 112.

  158: “The executive would henceforth” Ibid., 113.

  159: “In his analysis” Ibid., 119.

  159: “Judy Palya Loether grew up” Author interview with Judith Palya Loether, 07/19/2007.

  160: “One day in February” Ibid.

  160: “As Loether spent night” Accident report quoted in appendix to Biddle filing, 66a; Barry Siegel, “The Secret of the B-29: A Daughter Discovers What Really Happened,” Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2004, sec. A; Michael Freedman, “Daughters of the Cold War,” Legal Affairs (online edition), January/February 2004, available at http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2004/story_freedman_janfeb04.mspaccessed07/17/2007; Biddle appendix, 22a.

  160: “Loether went from” Author interview with Loether.

  161: “After more time on the Internet” Ibid.

  161: “ ‘I am interested in’ ” Qutoed in Siegel, “Secret of the B-29.”

  162: “In the early 1980s, Alger Hiss” Megan Rosenfeld, “Alger Hiss: Pleading His Cause—Still,” Washington Post, November 9, 1980, sec. L; David Remnick, “Alger Hiss Goes Ungently into That Good Night; Tired, Nearly Blind and 81, the Demon of Modern Conservatism Still Seeks Vindication,” Washington Post Magazine, October 12, 1986, sec. W; for Korematsu, see Annie Nakao, “Overturning a Wartime Act Decades Later,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 12, 2004, sec. D.

  163: “ ‘United States v. Reynolds stands exposed’ ” Petition for a Writ of Error Coram Nobis to Remedy Fraud Upon This Court. In Re Patricia J. Herring et al. in United States v. Reynolds.

  163: “After receiving Brown’s petition” For Olson, see Joe Conason, “Ted Olson? You’ve Got to Be Kidding,” Salon.com, February 6, 2001, available at http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/06/olson/index. html (accessed 07/18/2007).

  163: “In 2001, his wife was killed” Neil Lewis, “Barbara Olson, 45, Advocate and Conservative Commentator,” New York Times, September 13, 2001, sec. A.

  163: “Back in 1950, Olson wrote” Quoted in Siegel, “Secret of the B- 29.”

  164: “Finally, argued Olson” Quoted in ibid.

  164: “In other words, Olson’s argument” Fisher, National Security, 94.

  164: “A few months later, Olson went on” See Linda Greenhouse, “Justices to Hear Case of Detainees at Guantanamo,” New York Times, November 11, 2003, sec. A.

  00: “ ‘The motion for leave’ ” Quoted in Siegel, “Secret of the B-29.”

  165: “To avoid the consequences” U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, El-Masri v. Tenet, Civil Action No. 1:05-cv-01417-TSE-TRJ, March 13, 2006.

  165: “In every case where” See “Reply of United States of America to Plaintiff’s Opposition to United States’ Invocation of State Secrets Privilege,” Maher Arar v. Ashcroft et al., Case No. 04-CV-0249-DGT-VVP, April 4, 2005.

  165: “Government whistleblower” See Barry Siegel, “State Secret Overreach,” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2007, available at http:// www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-siegel16sep16,0,4846280.story (accessed 09/19/2007).

  166: “The court itself must determine” Quoted in Fisher, National Security, 112.

  Chapter 11

  169: “Author David Ovason writes” David Ovason, The Secret Architecture of our Nation’s Capital: The Masons and the Building of Washington, D.C. (New York: Harper, 2002), 334-49.

  171: “The NRO built the complex” Pierre Thomas, “Spy Unit’s Spending Stuns Hill; $310 Million Facility Secretly Sprouts Up Near Dulles Airport,” Washington Post, August 9, 1994, sec. A.

  172: “I located the P.O. box” Names and flight records come from “Direccion General de la Guardia Civil 1701a Comandancia Illes Balears Compania Puerto—Aeropuerto Palma,” Diligencias Numero: 065/06, March 23, 2005, 72. The document is the file from the police investigation.

  172: “Both of these men now have” John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach, and Holger Stark, “CIA Arrest Warrants Strain US-German Ties,” Der Spiegel, June 25, 2007, available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,490514,00.html (accessed 01/30/2008).

  174: “Inside the NCTC” Lawrence Wright, “The Spymaster,” New Yorker, January 21, 2008.

  175: “At a February 2008” Federal News Service, “Hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Subject: Worldwide Threats,” February 7, 2008.

  176: “Three quarters of the people working” For the privatization of the intelligence community, see Tim Shorrock, Spies for Hire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008).

  176: “The scale of privatization” Ibid., 16.

  176: “At the Pentagon” Ibid., 15.

  176: “Private intelligence recruiters” Greg Miller, “Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs; Contractors, many of them former employees, are doing sensitive work, such as handling agents. A review of the practice has been ordered,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2006, sec. A.

  176: “This didn’t start on September 12, 2001” Remarks by Vice President Al Gore, opening session for International REGO Conference, January 14, 1999, available at http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/speeches/interego.html; for privatization of the intelligence community during the 1990s, see Shorrock, Spies for Hire.

  177: “It happens at every level” Tim Shorrock, “The spy who came in from the boardroom: Why John Michael McConnell, a top executive at a private defense contractor, should not be allowed to run our nation’s intelligence agencies,” Salon.com, available at http://www.salon.com/newsfeature/2007/01/08/mcconnell/.

  177: “Booz Allen’s offices” Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, “Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow,” Vanity Fair, March 2007, available at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703; http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-new
sArticle&ID=894561&highlight= (Saic press release); Scott Shane, “US: Uncle Sam Keeps SAIC on Call for Top Tasks,” Baltimore Sun, October 26, 2003.

  178: “If CIA front companies” http://www.abraxascorp.com/; accessed 12/18/2007; http://www.spectal.com/; accessed 12/18/2007; Defense Group Incorporated Web site: http://www.defensegroupinc.com/cira/organization.htm, (accessed 12/18/2007).

  178: “Even unclassified intelligence-related” See “Secrecy News,” FAS Project on Government Secrecy, vol. 2007, no. 124, December 18, 2007.

  179: “Here are some random line items” Defense Department Budget Request, Fiscal Year 2007, OMA-V1, 187; AFD -070209-062, 117; AFD- 070209-061,138; OPA-34, 150.

  182: “Steven Kosiak, an analyst” See Steven Kosiak, “Classified Funding in the FY 2009 Defense Budget Request,” June 17, 2008, available from http://www.csbaonline.org.

  182: “ ‘The black budget is like’ ” Author interview with Steven Kosiak, November 11, 2005.

  183: “The language is deliberately unambiguous” For the constitution and the black budget, see William Banks and Peter Raven-Hansen, “The Statement and Account Clause as a Constitutional Limit on Black Budgets,” in National Security Law and the Power of the Purse (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 100-5.

  183: “ ‘The people,’ argued George Mason” Quoted in Tim Weiner, Blank Check (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1990), 215.

  184: “Nonetheless, there are precedents” Act of 1 July 1790, 1 Stat. 129 (1790).

  184: “Niels Bohr’s ‘huge factory’ ” Alice L. Buck, “A History of the Atomic Energy Commission,” U.S. Department of Energy, DOE/ES-0003, July 1983.

  Chapter 12

  186: “It was 1947 and the House Chambers” For a historical overview of the Capitol’s architecture, see William Allen, History of the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C. GPO, 2001). The description here of the 1949 architecture comes from 412-15.

  187: “Truman’s secretary of state” Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969), 214; Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 40; Tim Weiner, Blank Check (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1990), 115, 116.

  188: “Section 102 of the National Security Act” Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 29.

  188: “The OPC was, in short” Quotes from Weiner, Blank Check, 117.

  188: “But NSC-10/2 contained” Ibid.

  189: “Curiously, the agency” Jeffreys-Jones, CIA, 42.

  189: “In the meantime,” Weiner, Blank Check, 116.

  189: “Finally, and most importantly “ Jeffreys-Jones, CIA, 59-60.

  189: “Congressman Vito Marcantonio” Quotes from these proceedings are taken from Congressional Record 95, part 2, 81st Congress, 1st session, February 21, 1949-March 18, 1949, 1943-1947.

  190: “The Central Intelligence Agency Act” Ibid., 60.

  191: “The Hollywood blacklist” Joseph Losey interview at http://www.moviecrazed.com/outpast/losey.html.

  191: “Revelations that the CIA” For the heroin trade, see Alfred Mc-Coy, The Politics of Heroin, 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 288.

  192: “On the Senate floor” Quoted in Weiner, Blank Check, 128.

  192: “On June 17, 1972, police arrested” Ibid., 131.

  194: “Helms suspected that Schlesinger’s” Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, 314.

  194: “Before leaving office, Helms” Ibid.

  194: “Schlesinger’s tenure at the CIA” Ibid., 322-23.

  194: “On April 15, 1973, John Dean” Ibid., 329-30; Weiner, Blank Check, 131-32.

  195: “When Schlesinger found out about” Weiner, Blank Check, 132.

  196: “HUGE CIA OPERATION REPORTED” Seymour Hersh, “Huge CIA Operation Reported Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, December 22, 1974, sec. A.

  196: “On January 27, the Senate voted” John Prados, President’s Secret Wars (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 333-34; also Jeffreys-Jones, CIA, 199.

  196: “William Colby is one of the more” See John Prados, Lost Crusader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 38-39.

  197: “On one hand, there was William Colby” For the Phoenix program, see Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program (New York: William Morrow, 1990).

  197: “During Colby’s confirmation hearings” Prados, President’s, 325.

  197: “On the other hand, water-cooler gossip” Prados, Lost Crusader, 2.

  197: “According to his memoirs” William Colby, Honorable Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), 399.

  198: “Before the Rockefeller Commission” Colby, Honorable Men, 400.

  198: “Drawing from his experience” Ibid., 407.

  199: “Richard Helms, Colby’s old boss” Richard Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder (Novato: Presidio Press, 2004) 429.

  200: “In June of 1975, the Rockefeller Commission” Quoted in Weiner, Blank Check, 137.

  200: “During the hearings, DCI Colby” Church Report Book I, 369, 370, 371.

  200: “ ‘It is clear,’ concluded the Committee” Ibid., 373.

  201: “Colby and Helms advanced” Ibid., 51, 52, 55, 82.

  201: “George Bush concurred” Bush’s comments weren’t made in person but were entered into the record in a written form.

  201: “No one from the intelligence community” Ibid., 383.

  202: ““The real fear on both sides” Quoted in ibid.

  202: “In conclusion, the Church Committee” Ibid.

  202: “In 1998, the Federation of American Scientists” CIA press release no. 03-98, March 20, 1998; Scott Shane, “Official Reveals Budget for U.S. Intelligence,” New York Times, November 8, 2005.

  203: “When the 9/11 Commission took up” National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 9-/1 Commission Report (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2005), 410.

  203: “ ‘Secrecy, while necessary’ ” Ibid., 103.

  203: “To combat the secrecy and complexity” Ibid., 416.

  203: “The executive branch stuck” “Secrecy News,” 10/30/2007; 10/22/2007.

  204 : “Nonetheless, the bill passed” Walter Pincus, “Intelligence Budget Disclosure is Hailed,” Washington Post, October 31, 2007, sec. A.

  204: “Although Congress compelled” For the other parts of the intelligence community whose budgets are not disclosed, see U.S. Intelligence Community, “The Intelligence Budget Process,” http://www.intelligence. gov/2-business_nfip.shtml.

  204: “Reluctant disclosures from the” See Laura Heaton, “Intel. Budget may be buried in PowerPoint,” United Press International, June 6, 2007. See also Raelynn Hillhouse, “Office of Nation’s Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget,” The Spy Who Billed Me blog, June 4, 2007, available at http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/06/exclusive_offic.html (accessed 05/0½008).

  205: “In a different PowerPoint presentation” Hillhouse, http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/WindowsLiveWriter/DIA-contractor-v-emp.gif (accessed 05/01/2008).

  206: “In other words, the DIA was warning” Walter Pincus, “Defense Agency Proposes Outsourcing More Spying,” Washington Post, August 19, 2007, sec. A.

  206: “Even executives at private intelligence” Quoted in Sebastian Abbot, “The Outsourcing of U.S. Intelligence Analysis,” http://newsinitiative.org/story/2006/07/28/the_outsourcing_of_u_s_intelligence (accessed 12/18/2007).

  Chapter 13

  209: “One day in 2004, Joe was sitting” Conversations with Bryan; see also Joseph Bryan, “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now,” unpublished manuscript, 2007.

  212: “If Your Solutions’s intent” Michael Dobbs, “Negroponte’s Time in Honduras at Issue; Focus Renewed on Intelligence Pick’s Knowledge of Death Squads in 1980s,” Washington Post, March 21, 2005, sec. A; “Nomination of John Negroponte,” Congressional Record,
September 14, 2001 (Senate), S9431-S9433.

  213: “Battalion 316 was the brainchild” Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, “When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small US ally . . . ,” Baltimore Sun, June 11, 1995.

  213: “As Alvarez rose to power in Honduras” See William Leogrande, Our Own Backyard (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 30-31.

  214: “On Honduras’s northern border” Cohn and Thompson, “When a wave of torture.”

  214: “Beginning in the early 1970s” “Nunca Mas (Never Again),” CON-ADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) report, 1984, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20031004074316/nuncamas. org/english/library/nevagain/nevagain_001.htm (accessed 05/02/2008); Alejandro Teitelbaum, “Represión en argentina y memoria larga,” Argenpress, April 10, 2006, available at http://www.argenpress.info/notaold. asp?num= 029406 (accessed 05/02/2008).

  214: “Alvarez stressed theme” Quoted in Cohn and Thompson, “When a wave of torture.”

  215: “Binns feared the Argentines” Jack Binns, The United States in Honduras (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 2000), 13; On Operation Charly, see María Seoane, “Los secretos de la guerra sucia continental de la dictadura,” El Clarin, March 24, 2006, available at http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/especiales/2006/03/24/l-01164353.htm (accessed 07/09/ 2007); also Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: US Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1994), and Cohn and Thompson, “When a wave of Torture.”

  217: “Learning of the disappearances” Binns, United States, 200.

  217: “Washington had already warned” Ibid., 163.

  218: “In the white world” William Smith, “Things are Moving,” Time, August 15, 1983, available at http://www.time.com/time/printout /0,8816,949720,00.html (accessed 07/06/2007); see also Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 316-17.

  218: “The BIG PINE exercises” Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 318; “GIs Dig in for Honduras Maneuvers,” New York Times, August 21, 1983, sec. 1; Michael Getler, “Hondurans Uneasy Over U.S. Military; Some Interests Diverge in 2-Front Effort,” Washington Post, April 7, 1985, sec. A.