30 July 2011. The cat-fight between FoxNews and Gawker appears to be yet another screech in the Obama-CIA's continuing campaign to loudmouth its Bin Laden kill operation of which the orchestrated outing of CIA John is a part. That FoxNews invited Michael Scheuer, the disgraced-and-fired ex-head of the Alec Station-OBL hunting team, to discuss the outing a member of that very same team, indicates that every CIA sly promotional venture is a gloss on the sordid practice of prolonging very drawn-out operations to keep funding flowing generously, Scheuer now a  paid shill to do just that.

The same practice was at work in the recently completed Aspen Security Conference where the rewards of keeping terrorism media-hot was speechified at length by the prime beneficiaries of the depthless money pit -- national security threat mongerers and the media avidly promoting one another by appearing to differ, the New York Times a funder of the Aspen genteel differences of opinion amongst club members. FoxNews and Gawker gutter-trash-for-ads differs from the CIA and NYT global affairs pretense only in transparency of camouflage.

13 July 2011:

Two photos below from The New York Observer, Issue dated July 18, 2011, p. 20. These photos are not published in the online article. School of the uniform invited: cryptome[at]earthlink.net

12 July 2011. CIA John further disclosed:

http://www.observer.com/2011/07/exclusive-bin-laden-hunter-cia-john-identified/?show=all

The Man in the Yellow Tie, with Clinton and Panetta, and in a college yearbook photo.

12 July 2011. In response to an inquiry:

Washington Post today publishes another CIA chapter in the valorization of CIA John, supposedly in response to the Cryptome sniffing, but most likely a sign of appreciation for our taking the bait to promote a designated hero.

It glosses the previous AP report by slathering on more motherhood-and-apple-pie "risk to undercover officer," and suggests that ranks of reputable publishers will obediently play the access hand they are given or be banned for revealing the officer's identity. Even threatened with prosecution in the jounralism-hiding-behind-Wikileaks gambit.

Nothing about the female star which may mean that will be a separate series of disclosures as the re-election campaign unfolds.

A call to the CIA press office might get you a quotable sip from the spigot, and get you placed on a watch list for possible enlistment as a favored outlet.

If unusually creatively done you will be invited to interview CIA John and, best of all, the Diana huntress who is pissed that the guy is getting the credit for her deftly brilliant tracking.

https://www.cia.gov/contact-cia/index.html

If unusually creative at stroking you will be invited to interview CIA John and, best of all, the Diana huntress who is pissed that the stud is getting the credit for her deftly brilliant tracking. If the press PR office plays hard to get see the link to the Entertainment Industry Liasion.

And if CIA-celebrity outreach is slow to respond report as threats White House photographer Pete Souza; AP's Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo and the unknown photographer of Panetta's visit to Congress; Gawker's John Cook and the Multiple Does who have spread the outing of Galahad online:

https://www.cia.gov/contact-cia/report-threats.html

10 July 2011. In response to an inquiry:

Cryptome prepared the CIA-John file about 4:00PM on July 5, 2011, uploaded it and the first download took place at 4:11PM.

Our copy of the AP story states it was updated at 1:45AM, July 5, 2011. We don't recall exactly when we saw the AP story, but it would have been after 7AM on the 5th when we started reading online news about bin Laden (a topic we are following to track the PR spin). Then it took a couple of hours to look for photos of the days cited in the AP story and package a file (note we package, do not write).

We first thought it was some other person with Panetta at the Senate hearing, an older gent just behind Panetta. Unsure about the identification we went back to the photos to look for the older gent. Then we spotted the tie and noticed the unusual height of the person wearing it. Then again went back to the photos and saw John the Tall wearing the tie in one of them as well as lurking behind in the Senate photo. (There are two versions of the latter photo, almost identical.)

Artful cropping by the White House to include John's arm and tie -- and height -- provided perfect clues for dummies to go with the AP dummy-baiting.

Fortunately, White House Flickr photos are high-resolution or it would have been difficult to see the tie clearly, and more importantly, to see John in the background in the low-resolution photos customarily appearing in the media.

The public may not know that AP and others distribute high-resolution photos to paying customers, and the low-res versions are reduced to hold down costs of publishing. AP offers the Senate photos of Panetta and John at high-resolution at a cost of $200 for a single day's internet use. We did not buy one. Others are free from the White House. Nada from the CIA black hole except to very high-paying customers and syncophants.

We assume that by now John and the bin Laden hunt team have been awarded medals. That is likely to have taken place when Obama went to CIA on May 20, 2011, to thank the covert operators in private and the CIA employees in public, the last heavily documented by the press.

The next CIA person to be outed on the OBL-hunt team is the woman who worked with John, who made the actual call of a targeted lead to OBL, and, best, AP slyly reports, a journalism graduate! What better story could there be for a spying industry as badly in need of favorable PR for valiant and dogged investigators as official spies.

We bet there are a slew of journalists working that clue, and being fed more tidbits and perhaps exclusive briefings by the woman under guidance of CIA PR wizards. If she looks like Valerie Plame we will have most winning couple.

Who will get his and her names first, TMZ or you?

To sanitize the source send names to Cryptome for washing.

9 July 2011. See also the Situation Room's live kill feed: http://cryptome.org/0004/kill-sitroom/kill-sitroom.htm

8 July 2011. A relevant Associated Press biographical detail about CIA John's identifying height: "In college, he walked on to a Division I basketball team and hustled his way into a rotation full of scholarship players."

And, a CIA official on Alec Station:

http://cryptome.org/0004/cia-alec-station.pdf (1.2MB)

Cryptome: There is little risk to CIA John in suggesting his identity. Spies do not appear in photos unless intentionally, albeit in usually discreet form (every spy spinner rises from the shadows deliberately, maintaining the allure of darkness). The White House photo where CIA John is in the background appears staged to locate him directly behind Panetta and showing the back of Obama's head. The White House photographer seldom shows Obama in this manner, camera held above Obama (Pete Souza is several inches shorter) to aim at Panetta and his prime briefer of the day. Most likely is that Obama, or his media advisors and the CIA, directed the photo shoot and its publication on Flickr as part of a campaign to vaunt the CIA operation and prepare its media-perfect, tall, handsome, athletic, stolid, dogged, quiet-man dragon-slayer for coming out of the cold for a future public role.

Moreover, Obama has emphasized publicity for the CIA and DoD for the OBL assassination, with heavily-media covered visits to the CIA where dozens of CIA employees were photographed and videotaped. The White House offers a video of a visit on May 20, 2011 to thank CIA employees for the OBL operation. Cryptome offers photographs of that visit and another on April 20, 2009.

The two AP reporters who wrote the article about CIA John work the CIA beat, and will no doubt continue their OBL series in cooperation with the CIA -- the agency carefully cultivates such beat reporters with significant disclosures once it is shown the reports will be favorable. It is no secret that there are a bevy of such reporters, writers, media producers, lecturers, consultants and spy-industry friends who capitalize on their privileged access (most pretending to be distant from their bedfellows).

6 July 2011. Cryptome responds to Shepherd Johnson's pointing to the CIA's Alec Station operation to find Bin Laden (housed in the Gloucester building, Tysons Corner):

CIA John was at Alec Station for many years, maybe for all its existence. Then after Alec Station was allegedly dissolved in 2006, he probably moved to the CTC and on to the NCTC, chasing OBL with a bevy of cohorts. There may still be a hidden remnant of Alex Station at Gloucester (or the nearby Stafford building) -- the CIA never fully joins with the other natsec players, just pretends to do so, keeping its hardcore CTC going in contempt of PR-driven NCTC.

John is going to get a career boost, maybe come out of undercover. That seems to be what Panetta was doing by promoting him to Obama and then the showboating at Congress knowing the photos would be taken and eventually leaked -- as with the AP story filled with easy to follow clues (AP was told or knew what was in the photos of John in the background).

A series of privileged media disclosures is how OBL's killing is going to be promoted by the CIA for many years, with John and Alec Station cohorts moving up the chain of perks and eventually hitting the lecture and literature circuit, first for CIA's never-ending PR and budgetary outreach, then after retirement for hard cash and pension supplements like the crowd of CT natsec gangsters at the Aspen Security Forum.

5 July 2011

CIA John Who Hunted Osama bin Laden Photos

The man who hunted Osama bin Laden

ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press, MATT APUZZO, Associated Press

Updated 01:15 a.m., Tuesday, July 5, 2011 [Excerpts]

WASHINGTON (AP) — After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the White House released a photo of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet inside the Situation Room, watching the daring raid unfold.

Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaida leader.

[Note the tie pattern of the unusually tall man behind Gates off the photo at right. This photo is taken in a secure conference room in the Situation Room complex. (As an aside, the brigadier general running the show from a laptop, rather than a low-ranked technician from remote console, is highly unusual, and probably indicates the high-level security measures protecting the bin Laden operation. This is also suggested by holding the show in a small conference room rather than the commodious large confedrence room frequently shown in public photographs.)] President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) [Note the unusually tall man at rear with tie pattern which matches the photo above. This photo is taken in the large conference room of the Situation Room complex.] President Barack Obama talks with members of the national security team at the conclusion of one in a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden, in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen on the screen. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

[Continuing the AP story] The Associated Press has agreed to the CIA's request not to publish his full name and withhold certain biographical details so that he would not become a target for retribution. Call him John, his middle name. ...

Two days after bin Laden's death, John accompanied Panetta to Capitol Hill. The Senate Intelligence Committee wanted a full briefing on the successful mission. At one point in the private session, Panetta turned to the man whose counterterrorism resume spanned four CIA directors.

[Note unusually tall man at upper left with a tie not unlike the previous.] In this May 3, 2011 file photo, CIA Director Leon Panetta, right, leaves after briefing members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. Alex Brandon, AP

Associated Press photo offerings. Screen shots downloaded 13 July 2011. The headline and caption for the top image have been updated from the original at bottom. Source

Associated Press photo offering of Panetta and John Source