Noam Chomsky | Always Question Authority

For years, the Central Intelligence Agency denied it had a secret file on MIT professor and famed dissident Noam Chomsky. But a new government disclosure obtained by The Cable reveals for the first time that the agency did in fact gather records on the anti-war iconoclast during his heyday in the 1970s.

The disclosure also reveals that Chomsky’s entire CIA file was scrubbed from Langley’s archives, raising questions as to when the file was destroyed and under what authority.

The breakthrough in the search for Chomsky’s CIA file comes in the form of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For years, FOIA requests to the CIA garnered the same denial: “We did not locate any records responsive to your request.” The denials were never entirely credible, given Chomsky’s brazen anti-war activism in the 60s and 70s — and the CIA’s well-documented track record of domestic espionage in the Vietnam era. But the CIA kept denying, and many took the agency at its word.

Now, a public records request by FOIA attorney Kel McClanahan reveals a memo between the CIA and the FBI that confirms the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky.

Continue reading . . .

CIA Finally Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomsky (mediaite.com)
CIA Targeted Noam Chomsky, Documents Reveal (alternet.org)

http://blip.tv/grittv/noam-chomsky-on-secrecy-terrorism-and-google-6604821

If ever you accused Barack Obama of fearing to offend or suffering from lack of spine, you have to hand it to him now: President Obama is acting more and more like a leader every day, one specific leader in fact: George W. Bush.

Take the recent disclosures about the National Security Agency’s massive spying on the world. The data dragnet mimics the worst of the Bush administration.

It’s hypocritical in the extreme to gather data in the name of preventing terrorism while the administration’s own policies are creating terrorism around the world, says MIT professor emeritus, Noam Chomsky in this GRITtv exclusive interview.