Nation Topics - Covert Ops | The Nation

When The New York Times first revealed the NSA was wiretapping Americans without a warrant in 2005, it was a scandal. But the government continues to spy with impunity—and what was once illegal has become the law.

How thrillers inform spycraft, and the fictions that belie them both.

How the US intelligence community came out of the shadows. 

A combination of diplomacy, legal challenges and activism could end the program of US drone strikes.

If the director of the CIA and a Reserve intelligence officer can’t even conduct a decent affair, what does that say about the institution that groomed them?

How in 1960s Berkeley the state waged a two-front war to stamp out opponents, real and imagined, to its rule.

Institutionalized torture says not look what we can do, but look what we disown, what only the bad apples among us require.

Obama's plan for global war uses a variety of extra-legal methods including drones, civilian and proxy fighters, and cyber warfare. 

Revelations about Obama's drone assassinations led to official outrage—against the leakers. It's the policy that warrants investigation.

Behind nearly every “foiled terror plot” lurks a government informant sent to entrap hapless young Muslim men.