“For years, the Central Intelligence Agency denied it had a secret file on MIT professor and famed dissident Noam Chomsky. But a new government disclosure obtained by The Cable reveals for the first time that the agency did in fact gather records on the anti-war iconoclast during his heyday in the 1970s.”
“The disclosure also reveals that Chomsky’s entire CIA file was scrubbed from Langley’s archives, raising questions as to when the file was destroyed and under what authority.”
“The breakthrough in the search for Chomsky’s CIA file comes in the form of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For years, FOIA requests to the CIA garnered the same denial: “We did not locate any records responsive to your request.” The denials were never entirely credible, given Chomsky’s brazen anti-war activism in the 60s and 70s — and the CIA’s well-documented track record of domestic espionage in the Vietnam era.”
“It’s worth noting that the destruction of records is a legally treacherous activity. Under the Federal Records Act of 1950, all federal agencies are required to obtain advance approval from the national Archives for any proposed record disposition plans. The Archives is tasked with preserving records with “historical value.””
“”Clearly, the CIA’s file, or files, on Chomsky fall within these provisions,” said […] Athan Theoharis, a professor emeritus at Marquette University and an expert on FBI-CIA cooperation and information-gathering.”
“”It is important to learn when the CIA decided to destroy the Chomsky file and why they decided that it should be destroyed,’” said Theoharis. “Undeniably, Chomsky’s was not the sole CIA file destroyed. How many other files were destroyed?””
Read more: Exclusive: After Multiple Denials, CIA Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomsky (archived)
2021-week31
