North Korea: What’s really happening
My latest, in Salon – A look back at 15 years of U.S.-North Korean toil and trouble.
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
Tim Shorrock
Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist who grew up in Japan and South Korea. He is the author of SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster (see him talking about his book here). Over the past 35 years, his work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Daily Beast, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on intelligence, contracting, foreign policy, East Asia and North and South Korea. He has been interviewed on Democracy Now, NPR’s Fresh Air, HuffPostLive and many other outlets.
NSA Whistleblowers on HuffPostLive
On March 28, I appeared on a segment of Huff Post Live today with NSA whistleblowers Tom Drake and Bill Binney, along with their attorney Jesselyn Radack and Ben Freeman of the Project on Government Oversight. We got deep into Thin Thread…
The Untold Story of the NSA Whistleblowers
My latest, published today in The Nation: In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six…
Why Whistleblowing Matters: A Speech by Tom Drake
If you want to know why it’s important to cherish the First Amendment to the Constitution, please watch this amazing and powerful speech delivered by Thomas Drake recently at the National Press Club in Washington. It’s one of the most…
Coming soon…A Blast from the Past
As soon as I can figure out how to upload the PDF, I will re-publish a short analysis and polemic I wrote in 1980 about the emergence of the Pacific Rim economy. I did this during a time of very…
Time (Again) for Direct Negotiations with North Korea
I was on Democracy Now! this morning talking about the latest North Korean nuclear test and its implications for U.S. policy. As usual, I spoke out for direct U.S. negotiations with the DPRK and called for a halt in the…
Precious Friend – For Pete Seeger
Precious Friend (sing, please!) Just when I thought All was lost You changed my mind. You gave me hope, (not just the old soft soap) You showed that we could learn to share in time. (You and me and Rockefeller)…
Your’s truly on HuffPost Live, Talkin’ Cyber-War, Fear and $$$
Today I made my first appearance on HuffPostLive, talking about the Pentagon’s latest cyber security programs, the NSA, privacy and the role of contractors. It was an interesting discussion and well-moderated. I hate the kind of shouting matches people often…
The NRA Nightmare: Mercs in our Schools
It was probably one of the weirdest and most absurd press conferences in Washington history. Today, a full week after the terrible massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, NRA President Wayne LaPierre called for an “armed security” force in every school in America,…
My Abraxas and TrapWire Saga
A few days ago I started getting requests on Twitter to comment on the WikiLeaks documents about TrapWire, a potentially frightening surveillance program developed by a company called Abraxas that was started by former CIA officers in 2001 and later…
Kicking (Paul Ryan) Ass for the Working Class
This afternoon in Las Vegas, about 300 members of my union, AFGE, with members from several other AFL-CIO unions, turned out in 109 degree heat to give a vociferous welcome to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan. He was meeting…
A slight vindication on intelligence contracting
Last year, I got a surprise call from a staffer on the Senate Homeland Security Committee: would I be willing to provide some input about an upcoming hearing on intelligence contractors? As the author of SPIES FOR HIRE and many…
A little insight into Robert Gates’ views on Libya and Egypt
This is totally random – and quite amusing. The other day, I was doing some research on former NSA Director Michael Hayden and I came across these remarks delivered on Hayden’s retirement from the Air Force in June 2008, just…
Tall Tales About Special Forces in North Korea?
Foreign Policy in Focus just posted my take on the recent brouhaha about U.S. Special Forces “parachuting” into North Korea. Here’s an excerpt: A classified Pentagon document leaked to me in 1984 may shed some light on a U.S. general’s outlandish claim last…
North Korea’s KCNA cites Kwangju docs – inaccurately
I got a surprise today. North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) cited my documents on the 1980 Kwangju Uprising in South Korea. The citation appeared in a story looking back at the event and exploring its significance in recent…
The District of Contracting
TIME Magazine, of all places, has an amazing article about Washington this week. It’s called “Bubble on the Potomac,” and it’s about the “new affluence” that sets this gilded city “apart from the country it governs.” To me, the brilliance…
May 18, 1980 – Presente!
The Kwangju Uprising of 1980, and the U.S. response, was a turning point in South Korean history as well as for the Cold War in Asia. It’s being commemorated in Korea today. To mark the date, please read Hankyoreh‘s moving…
Richard Rabbit Brown – “Sinking of the Titanic”
In all the hoopla surrounding the 100-year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, there’s been little said about the enormous impact of the disaster on African-Americans and the music they gifted the world: the blues. The absence of race…
The Ruling Class of U.S. Intelligence
In reality, the IC is a joint venture, probably the most profitable secret business in the world.
WikiLeaks Spills the Goods on Stratfor
“The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday more than five million emails from a U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a shadow CIA,” Reuters reports. Here’s what WikiLeaks has to say on this massive release:…