Notes

U.S. intelligence—what they don’t tell you. Recently, a U.S. court unsealed new FBI documents supporting longstanding allegations that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001. According to these documents, Omar al-Bayoumi, who helped two al-Qaeda hijackers settle in America, was an agent of Saudi intelligence. Nothing’s been proved definitively, but the circumstantial case against the Saudis has only been getting stronger.

The final report of the 9/11 Commission, published in 2004, concluded that there was no compelling evidence of official Saudi complicity in the attacks—but the commission never had the newly released material, and according to the commission’s chair, the Bureau never even told it about the material it was withholding in the first place. Why is all this only coming out now?

As Matthew Connelly explains, the FBI hiding key evidence from the 9/11 Commission may be notable, but it’s not unusual; it’s a window into how U.S. intelligence normally operates—keeping the American people, and even the American government itself, in the dark. The U.S. system of secrecy is so sprawling, Connelly says, that no one, not even the president, knows its full extent. Digital technology isn’t improving the situation, either: Electronic communications have created a constant torrent of classified material, making the system more inscrutable—and public accountability for it more elusive—than ever.

—Gustav Jönsson