CIA authors ‘secret key’ unlocks CIA redaction

By Doug Hagmann
CFP.com 

“I was in the belly of the beast. I began to see the lengths to which the CIA will go to conceal unconstitutional operations, hide information from Congress and silence anyone inside who challenges it.” 

Those are the words of Kevin M. Shipp, a former category 1, highly decorated CIA agent who held positions as an agent on the protective detail of the director and deputy director of the CIA, a manager of ongoing operations, an internal Security Officer, a counterintelligence investigator tasked to ferret moles out of the CIA, a Counter Terrorism Center (CTC) officer, a protective operations team leader and a polygraph examiner.

While working to identify moles inside the agency in the wake of the 1994 Aldrich Ames spy scandal, Mr. Shipp uncovered a significant global vulnerability that if left uncorrected, allowed the personal identities of CIA agents working undercover to be disclosed to our enemies. Every day, every hour that this vulnerability was allowed to remain, the lives of countless undercover agents were in real jeopardy. “The more I looked into this, the worse it became.”

Upon concluding his lengthy investigation, he submitted an extremely detailed report of his findings to the top channels of the CIA. In fact, he submitted his explosive findings three times, only to learn that each time the report was “lost” or destroyed, with no record of it existing anywhere within the internal system. It was then he realized that something was terribly wrong. The third time he submitted his findings, he hand carried the report to the highest levels of the CIA. Yet, the hole remained unplugged and the lives of his fellow agents working undercover remained at risk.

At this point, the Inspector General for the Department of State was provided with a copy of his investigative findings. Their investigation concluded that the situation was even worse than initially believed. After an immediate investigation, the findings of Kevin Shipp were verified and the CIA was publicly rebuked for putting lives of its agents at risk. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story, but merely the beginning.

Kevin M. Shipp, the highly decorated veteran of the CIA who was loyal to the oath he took to the U.S. Constitution to serve and protect his country from enemies, foreign and domestic, and for his efforts to protect the lives of his fellow agents, never anticipated the events that would follow. As a result of his actions to protect the lives of his fellow agents working undercover throughout the world, he began to receive threatening phone calls from his superiors within the CIA. He was harassed, followed, and his communications were tapped. His professional life was turning into a private hell, and the situation was about to get much worse. It was about to get very personal, and very ugly.

Kevin Shipp and his family were relocated to another location within the U.S., and was provided a house for he and his family to reside with this reassignment. After living at this new residence for a few months, his wife and three young children began to become very ill. His son began to bleed from his nose and mouth. Strange bruises and rashes appeared and lingered on his body, symptoms that affected each member of his family. The physical health of his wife and children gradually declined, leaving his wife nearly with severe short term memory loss, bedridden and his children debilitated.

Mr. Shipp reported the problem to his superiors, asking… pleading that something be done to identify whatever was causing this sudden sickness. Mr. Shipp asserted that something in the house was making them sick, and asked for an investigation. The CIA refused.

As any loving husband and father would do, Kevin Shipp took his family to several doctors and immunologists for their diagnosis and treatment at his own expense to avoid discovery by the CIA. Once, he flew his son to a specialist, and was shaken by what he was told. He learned that his son and his entire family was exposed to some significant toxin that was damaging their immune systems. Continued exposure would certainly be fatal.

It was at this point that he contacted the FBI, an agency where he had made contacts and friendships. Their investigation, in tandem with biohazard teams inspecting Mr. Shipp’s family home, discovered that the house contained toxic substances that would slowly kill them. In fact, the situation was so bad that a HAZMAT team in full gear emptied their home of all of its furnishings, including every personal item once owed by their family. The contamination was so severe that all of the items, from their memorabilia to the children’s toys had to be removed, contained and destroyed as they watched from a safe distance. They lost everything, including their health.

During this investigation independent of the CIA, the family home remained vacant and closed up, pending further tests and analysis. However, Mr. Shipp was notified by an individual in close proximity to the residence of unusual activity at the house - of a break-in. Using his skills as an agent, Mr. Shipp took measures to record activities inside the residence while the house remained vacant. From those measures, he learned that unidentified individuals gained access to the house again, this time painting a chemical substance on the ceiling of one of the rooms over an area identified as one of the toxic ‘hot spots.’ Somebody, it seemed, wanted Mr. Shipp and his family to die a slow and painful death.

After being professionally marginalized, personally harassed and having his wife andchildren exposed to lethal levels of toxic substances, Mr. Shipp had enough. He resigned his position within the CIA and decided to fight this from the outside. Upon meeting menacing supervisory agents in Washington, DC when he resigned, he looked them in the eyes and offered this prophetic warning: “The same courage that made me a good CIA agent is the same courage I’m going to use to bring you to justice for what you’ve done to me and my family.”

Mr. Shipp retained “a courageous attorney from Texas” who filed suit against the agency to expose the truth of what was taking place. The harassment, however, did not stop. Mr. Shipp was initially denied his retirement funds, only to have them released after making it known that their actions constituted a felony. The interest rates on hiscar loans were raised and the payments skyrocketed, making it all but impossible to keep financially viable. The CIA set out to destroy Mr. Shipp’s reputation, finances and family.

Like David facing Goliath, however, Mr. Shipp fought back. He wrote a book about what happened to his family, only to have the entire book redacted by the CIA prepublications review board to ridiculous levels. Then, he wrote another book, this time about his experiences within the CIA. Titled From the Company of Shadows, the manuscript went back and forth between the author, publisher and the CIA until it was finally approved, with redactions, of course, after a two-year battle. The most heavily redacted portion of the book is chapter 26, titled ‘Tyranny, The Story of an American Family.’ It was the personal story of everything that he and his family had been forced to endure at the hands of the CIA.

The manuscript was approved by the CIA, although they must have forgotten just how well they trained Mr. Shipp. Although the book was first published in October 2012, it was not until Wednesday, August 21, 2013 that Mr. Shipp publicly disclosed for the first time anywhere on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report that he embedded a code within the book - a code that exposes the redacted information in chapter 26.

“The CIA examined every word in every sentence. After a two year battle, they approved [it] for release. Unknown to them I built a code into book - exposing the black outs in Chapter 26. The CIA missed it,” stated Mr. Shipp.

“The code exposes the CIA’s use of the State Secrets Privilege to conceal the illness of my wife and children. There have been other cases in the CIA and cases in the US military where people have been injured or killed because of government negligence, and it has been covered up using secrecy.”

“Originally I built the code into the book as a legacy to my wife and children. I was going to leave the key to them after I was gone, so someday they would have justice for what was done to them. But, they have been pleading with me for help. So, I have decided to release it now. I am taking a significant personal risk to do this. But they did this to my children. You don’t mess with a man’s children.”

This author was provided the key to the embedded code - one of a handful of individuals to possess it. Indeed, what is revealed is exactly what has been stated by Mr. Shipp, from what happened to him and his family to every American citizen. The current intelligence apparatus that was implemented under President George Bush and expanded exponentially under Obama is monitoring virtually all of our activities.

We live in a surveillance state where we now have 1,271 sites located inside the U.S. with a domestic mission, contrary to the charter of the CIA and the United States Constitution. CIA operatives have been inserted into all of the fusion centers to collect information about U.S. citizens. And now, they are exploiting the use using of the States Secrets Privilege operate in the shadows, outside of any oversight, and to silence any inquiry, any lawsuit, anyone in Congress, or any citizen from learning just how expansive their operations are.

“The NSA is using the State Secrets Privilege right now to block lawsuits and Congressional inquiry into the NSA spying scandal. The CIA secrecy agreement and the State Secrets Privilege are being used to silence Benghazi witnesses,” stated Mr. Shipp.

We are living in a “post-Constitutional” government.