Articles by Spencer Ackerman
We found 17 results.
CIA Photographed Detainees Naked Before Sending Them to Be Tortured
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
4 Apr 2016
28 Mar 2016 – The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture, the Guardian can reveal. A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as “very gruesome”. The CIA declined to comment for this story.
→ read full articleCollapse of a Peace Presidency: Obama’s Speech Highlights Foreign Policy Failures
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
25 Jan 2016
The expectations for Obama were so high he received a Nobel Peace Prize within months. Never a pacifist, he accepted the award with a speech defending the use of military force. He will leave office as Bush did: passing on two wars – one the longest in American history, the other a reboot of the conflict he promised to end.
→ read full articleAnti-Torture Reforms Opposed within Psychology Group after Damning Report
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
3 Aug 2015
Before the American Psychological Association meets in Toronto next Thursday [6 Aug], former military voices within the profession are urging the organization not to participate in what they describe as a witch hunt. Tempers rise as association found complicit in brutal military and CIA interrogation.
→ read full articleCIA Torture Appears to Have Broken Spy Agency Rule on Human Experimentation
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
22 Jun 2015
A previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday [15 Jun], empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The director has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor.
→ read full article41 Men Targeted but 1,147 People Killed: US Drone Strikes – The Facts on the Ground
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
1 Dec 2014
New analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve raises questions about accuracy of intelligence guiding ‘precise’ strikes. ‘They are only as precise as the intelligence that feeds them.’
→ read full articleForeign Jihadists Flocking to Iraq and Syria on ‘Unprecedented Scale’ – UN
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
3 Nov 2014
30 Oct 2014 – A report by the UN Security Council finds that 15,000 people have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State (Isis) and similar extremist groups. They come from more than 80 countries, “including a tail of countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida”.
→ read full articleUS Tech Giants Knew of NSA Data Collection, Agency’s Top Lawyer Insists
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
24 Mar 2014
NSA general counsel Rajesh De contradicts months of angry denials from big companies like Yahoo and Google.
→ read full articleUK – Optic Nerve: Millions of Yahoo Webcam Images Intercepted by GCHQ
Spencer Ackerman and James Ball – The Guardian,
3 Mar 2014
• 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone
• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk
• Yahoo: ‘A whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy’
• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images
Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Yahoo Release US Surveillance Requests
Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe – The Guardian,
10 Feb 2014
Tens of thousands of accounts associated with customers of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo have their data turned over to US government authorities every six months as the result of secret court orders, the tech giants disclosed for the first time on Monday [3 Feb 2014].
→ read full articleUS Government Privacy Board Says NSA Bulk Collection of Phone Data Is Illegal
Spencer Ackerman and Dan Roberts – The Guardian,
27 Jan 2014
23 Jan 2014 – The US government’s privacy board has sharply rebuked President Barack Obama over the NSA’s mass collection of phone data, saying the program defended by Obama last week was illegal and ought to be shut down.
→ read full articleUS Psychology Body Declines to Rebuke Member in Guantánamo Torture Case
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
27 Jan 2014
America’s professional association of psychologists has quietly declined to rebuke one of its members, a retired US army reserve officer, for his role in one of the most brutal interrogations known to have to taken place at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian has learned.
→ read full articleReports That NSA Taps into Google and Yahoo Data Hubs Infuriate Tech Giants
Dominic Rushe, Spencer Ackerman and James Ball – The Guardian,
4 Nov 2013
Google and Yahoo, two of the world’s biggest tech companies, reacted angrily to a report on Wednesday [30 Oct 2013] that the National Security Agency has secretly intercepted the main communication links that carry their users’ data around the world.
→ read full articleObama’s Syria Plans in Disarray after Britain Rejects Use of Force
Paul Lewis and Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
2 Sep 2013
Barack Obama’s plans for air strikes against Syria were thrown into disarray on Thursday [29 Aug 2013] night after the British parliament unexpectedly rejected a motion designed to pave the way to authorising the UK’s participation in military action.
→ read full articleNSA Warned to Rein in Surveillance as Agency Reveals Even Greater Scope
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
22 Jul 2013
NSA officials testify to angry House panel that agency can perform ‘three-hop queries’ through Americans’ data and records.
→ read full articleHow Microsoft Handed the NSA Access to Encrypted Messages
Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe – The Guardian,
15 Jul 2013
• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply
Yemeni Tells Senators about ‘Fear and Terror’ Caused by U.S. Drones
Spencer Ackerman, Wired – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Apr 2013
For the first time, the Senate heard from someone who lives in a village where U.S. drone strikes are believed to have killed civilians. A “psychological fear and terror” has now taken ahold of his old neighbors, al-Muslimi said. “The drone strikes are the face of America to many.”
→ read full articleUS Air Force’s Mega-Bunker-Buster Bomb Is Finally Ready
Spencer Ackerman - Wired,
30 Jul 2012
Just as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready. That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It’s an absolutely ginormous bomb.
→ read full article