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    Sept. 11 Plea Deal Includes Lifetime Gag Order on C.I.A. Torture Secrets

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    The clause is included in a disputed plea agreement between a Pentagon official and the man accused of planning the attacks that killed 3,000 people.Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the prisoner at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, has agreed to never disclose secret aspects of his torture by the C.I.A. if he is allowed to plead guilty rather than face a death-penalty trial.The clause was included in the latest portions of his deal to be unsealed at a federal appeals court in Washington. A three-judge panel is considering whether former Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III lawfully withdrew from a plea agreement with Mr. Mohammed in the capital case against five men who are accused of conspiring in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000.The C.I.A. has never taken a public position on whether it supports the deal, and the agency declined to comment on Friday. But the latest disclosure makes clear that Mr. Mohammed would not be allowed to publicly identify people, places and other details from his time in the agency’s secret prisons overseas from 2003 to 2006.It has been publicly known for years that Mr. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times by the C.I.A. It has also been revealed that waterboarding was done by a three-person interrogation team led by Bruce Jessen and James E. Mitchell, two former contract psychologists for the agency. Details of Mr. Mohammed’s violent treatment, including rectal abuse, have emerged in court filings and leaks.But the agency has protected the names of other people who worked in the “black site” prisons, notably medical staff, guards and other intelligence agency employees. That includes the people who questioned Mr. Mohammed hundreds of times as he was shuttled between prisons in Afghanistan, Poland and other locations, which the C.I.A. has not acknowledged as former black sites.Now, a recently unredacted paragraph in Mr. Mohammed’s 20-page settlement says he agreed not to disclose “any form, in any manner, or by any means” information about his “capture, detention, confinement of himself or others” while in U.S. custody.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board

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      As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congress who had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.Some members of the advisory board also serve on a presidential Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created in the 1970s after a congressional investigation into abuses by national security agencies and which tries to ferret out illegal spying activities. That group typically includes the larger board’s chair, so it is likely that Mr. Nunes will participate in it as well.The work products of the two boards are usually kept secret. A rare exception came in 2023, when the Biden administration publicly released a report in which the two panels urged Congress to extend an expiring law that authorizes a warrantless surveillance program, but also called for new limits on the F.B.I.’s ability to use information gathered under the program.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Considers Kennedy’s Daughter-in-Law for C.I.A. Deputy Director

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      Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former C.I.A. officer who is married to the son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., raised alarms for publishing a book about her work at the agency without going through a review process.President-elect Donald J. Trump is considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law to serve as the deputy director at the C.I.A., according to four people briefed on the matter.Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, 44, a former C.I.A. officer who is married to Mr. Kennedy’s son, met with Mr. Trump last week to discuss the job, the people said. The position does not require Senate confirmation, unlike the director job.Mr. Kennedy, who is the president-elect’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is among those encouraging Mr. Trump to hire her, according to two people close to the Trump transition team. Like others interviewed for this article, they spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.In an interview in 2023, Mr. Kennedy said it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the C.I.A. was involved in the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963.Ms. Fox Kennedy, who served as her father-in-law’s campaign manager, has raised alarms within the agency and among some lawmakers, in part because she published a book about her time in the C.I.A. in 2019 — while Mr. Trump was president — without going through the lengthy government review process required to check that classified information is not made public.Some former officials questioned details in the book about Ms. Fox Kennedy’s meetings in Pakistan with Islamic extremists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.

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      Applicants for government posts, including inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, say they have been asked about their thoughts on Jan. 6 and who they believe won the 2020 election.At the Trump transition offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., prospective occupants of high posts inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies typically run through a gamut of three to four interviews, conducted in recent weeks by a mix of Silicon Valley investors and innovators and a team of the MAGA faithful.The applicants report that they have been asked about how to overhaul the Pentagon, or what technologies could make the intelligence agencies more effective, or how they feel about the use of the military to enforce immigration policy. But before they leave, some of them have been asked a final set of questions that seemed designed to assess their loyalty to President-elect Donald J. Trump.The questions went further than just affirming allegiance to the incoming administration. The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question.This account is based on interviews with nine people who either interviewed for jobs in the administration or were directly involved in the process. Among those were applicants who said they gave what they intuited to be the wrong answer — either decrying the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 or saying that President Biden won in 2020. Their answers were met with silence and the taking of notes. They didn’t get the jobs.Three of the people interviewed are close to the transition team and confirmed that loyalty questions were part of some interviews across multiple agencies, and that the Trump team researched what candidates had said about Mr. Trump on the day of the Capitol riot and in the days following. Candidates are also rated on a scale of one to four in more than a half-dozen categories, including competence.Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to address specific questions about the topics being raised in job interviews. Instead, she said: “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to make America great again.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Emerging Details of Chinese Hack Leave U.S. Officials Increasingly Concerned

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      Leaders of the big telecommunications companies were summoned to the White House to discuss strategies for overhauling the security of the nation’s telecommunications networks amid growing alarm at the scope of a Chinese hack. Leaders of the top telecommunications companies were summoned to the White House on Friday to discuss a security problem that has been roiling the government: how to expel Chinese hackers from the deepest corners of the nation’s communications networks.The meeting in the Situation Room came after weeks in which officials grew increasingly alarmed by what they had uncovered about the hack.They now believe the hackers from a group called “Salt Typhoon,” closely linked to China’s Ministry of State Security, were lurking undetected inside the networks of the biggest American telecommunications firms for more than a year.They have learned that the Chinese hackers got a nearly complete list of phone numbers the Justice Department monitors in its “lawful intercept” system, which places wiretaps on people suspected of committing crimes or spying, usually after a warrant is issued.While officials do not believe the Chinese listened to those calls, the hackers were likely able to combine the phone numbers with geolocation data to create a detailed intelligence picture of who was being surveilled.As a result, officials said, the penetration almost certainly gave China a road map to discover which of China’s spies the United States has identified and which they have missed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Guard at U.S. Embassy in Norway Accused of Spying for Russia and Iran

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      The Norwegian man was arrested this week in Oslo and ordered jailed pending further investigation in what the authorities called a ‘very serious case.’Authorities in Norway have arrested a Norwegian man who worked as a security guard at the U.S. embassy in Oslo, accusing him of passing sensitive information to Russia and Iran.Under interrogation, the man, identified as Mohamed Orahhou, 27, admitted to collecting and sharing information with an officer from Russia’s domestic intelligence service, the S.V.R., as well as with unspecified Iranian officials, according to Norwegian authorities and Mr. Orahhou’s lawyer.The authorities have not released details about the type of information involved, but on Thursday a court in Oslo, citing the seriousness of the accusations, ordered Mr. Orahhou to be jailed for four weeks pending further investigation. After that, another hearing will be held.“This is a very serious case,” Thomas Blom, an official from Norway’s Police Security Service said in a text message to The New York Times. “We are at the very beginning of a rather extensive investigation.”The arrest comes amid heightened concern over Russian espionage activities in Europe following a spate of arson attacks, vandalism and assaults against individuals, all of which have been linked to Russian operatives. This month, details emerged about an apparent Russian plot to place incendiary devices aboard cargo planes in Europe, and on Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials issued a warning to American defense companies to be vigilant in the face of potential Russian sabotage operations.Last month, Ken McCallum, the chief of Britain’s domestic spy service, MI5, warned that Russian intelligence operatives were on a mission “to generate mayhem on British and European streets.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Already a Leader in Satellites, Gets Into the Spy Game

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      The Pentagon needs what the company offers to compete with China even as it frets over its potential for dominance and the billionaire’s global interests.The breakthrough came last month, about 600 miles above Earth.For the first time, the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency used lasers transmitting data at light speed to communicate between military satellites on a secure network, making it easier to track enemy missiles and if necessary shoot them down.It was a milestone not only for the Pentagon. This was a defining moment for a certain up-and-coming military contractor that had built key parts of this new system: Elon Musk’s SpaceX.SpaceX over the last year started to move in a big way into the business of building military and spy satellites, an industry that has long been dominated by major contractors like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman as well as smaller players like York Space Systems.This shift comes as the Pentagon and U.S. spy agencies are preparing to spend billions of dollars to build a series of new constellations of low-earth-orbit satellites, much of it in response to recent moves by China to build its own space-based military systems.SpaceX is poised to capitalize on that, generating a new wave of questions inside the federal government about the company’s growing dominance as a military space contractor and Mr. Musk’s extensive business operations in China and his relations with foreign government leaders, possibly including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Musk is also unpredictable in a sector in which security is often perceived to be synonymous with predictability. He chafes at many of the processes and rules of government, saying they hold back progress, and wants to make his own calls.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Leaked U.S. Intelligence Suggests Israel Is Preparing to Strike Iran

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      American officials are trying to determine the source of the leak, which describes military drills and weapons placement, and how damaging it might be.The leak of a pair of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents describing recent satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran offers a window into the intense American concerns about Israel’s plans. It also has U.S. officials working to understand the size of the improper disclosure.The two documents were prepared in recent days by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites. They began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app and were being discussed by largely pro-Iran accounts.The documents, which offer interpretations of satellite imagery, provide insight into a potential strike by Israel on Iran in the coming days. Such a strike has been anticipated in retaliation for an Iranian assault earlier this month, which was itself a response to an Israeli attack.One of the documents is titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran,” and describes recent exercises that appeared to rehearse elements of such a strike. The second document details how Israel is shifting the placement of its missiles and weapons in case Iran responded with strikes of its own.Officials were divided over the seriousness of the leak, which did not appear to reveal any new American capabilities. The documents describe but do not show the satellite images. If no further documents come to light the damage would be limited, some of the officials say — besides revealing, once again, the degree to which the United States spies on one of its closest allies. Other officials say that any exposure of an ally’s war plans is a serious problem.Officials privately acknowledged that the documents were authentic, although the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sinwar’s Final Moments: On the Run, Hurt, Alone, but Still Defiant

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      Israeli forces had been steadily closing in on Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, for weeks before he was cornered and killed in a ruined house in the Gaza Strip.At the end, the fearsome militant leader who had helped unleash a vicious war seemed barely a threat.In video captured by an Israeli drone, a man sat alone, badly wounded and caked in dust amid the ruins of a building in the Gaza Strip, wrapped in a kaffiyeh and staring directly into the camera. The man, Israeli officials say, was Yahya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas.The stare-down lasted some 20 seconds, then the man limply but defiantly hurled a broken piece of wood toward the drone. Not long afterward, officials say, an Israeli soldier shot him in the head, and a tank shell flattened part of the building.So ended the long hunt for one of the world’s most wanted men. It began hours after the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that Mr. Sinwar helped orchestrate, and concluded amid the destruction of a Rafah neighborhood resembling so many parts of Gaza, leveled by the Israeli military in the year since.The manhunt involved Israeli commandos and spies, as well as a special unit established inside the headquarters of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, and at the Central Intelligence Agency. It used a sophisticated electronic surveillance dragnet and ground-penetrating radar provided by the United States.New details about Mr. Sinwar’s movements over the past year have emerged since his death, including the fact that Israeli intelligence officers had seen mounting evidence since August that Mr. Sinwar, or possibly other top Hamas leaders, might be in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More