The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted to having gathered records on famed American dissident Noam Chomsky when he was an anti-war activist in the 1970s after years of denial.\n<\/p>\n
According to a government disclosure from the FBI obtained by Foreign Policy\u00cb\u0153s \u00c5\u201cThe Cable\u201d blog, the CIA not only snooped on the MIT professor, but also maintained a file and secretly attempted to scrub it from their archives at some point over the past few decades.\n<\/p>\n
The CIA consistently returned the same denial when faced with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. \u00c5\u201cWe did not locate any records responsive to your request,\u201d the CIA said.\n<\/p>\n
The breakthrough in the reporting came from a FOIA request to the FBI, which returned a memo between the CIA and the FBI confirming the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky, The Cable reported.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cDated June 8, 1970, the memo discusses Chomsky’s anti-war activities and asks the FBI for more information about an upcoming trip by anti-war activists to North Vietnam. The memo’s author, a CIA official, says the trip has the “ENDORSEMENT OF NOAM CHOMSKY” and requests “ANY INFORMATION” about the people associated with the trip,\u201d according to the report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“The June 1970 CIA communication confirms that the CIA created a file on Chomsky,” said Athan Theoharis, an expert on FBI-CIA cooperation and information-gathering. <\/p>\n
“That file, at a minimum, contained a copy of their communication to the FBI and the report on Chomsky that the FBI prepared in response to this request,” Theoharis added.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cThe CIA\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s response to the FOIA requests that it has no file on Chomsky confirms that its Chomsky file was destroyed at an unknown time,\u201d said the expert.\n<\/p>\n
When asked about the alleged CIA file, Chomsky told The Cable \u00c5\u201csome day it will be realized that systems of power typically try to extend their power in any way they can think of.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
“What was frightening in the \u00cb\u015360s into early \u00cb\u015370s was not so much spying as the domestic terror operations, COINTELPRO,” Chomsky said, referring to the FBI’s program to discredit and infiltrate domestic political organizations. “And also the lack of interest when they were exposed.”\n<\/p>\n
AGB\/AGB<\/p>\n