Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup for the CIA this century outside of the actual killing of Osama bin Laden. But the extent to which the CIA shaped the film has remained unclear. Now, a memo obtained by Gawker shows that the CIA actively, and apparently successfully, pressured Mark Boal to remove scenes that made them look bad from the Zero Dark Thirty script.

Speaking for the first time in Afghanistan since it was revealed that he had been taking massive payoffs from the CIA, Afghan president Hamid Karzai reiterated his confidence that the payoffs would continue and that the flow of cash for bribes and appeasing local warlords was absolutely necessary for continuing stability in Afghanistan.

In order to gain access to Afghan president Hamid Karzai's inner circle, the CIA secretly sent tens of millions of dollars to Karzai's office for over a decade. The money, all straight cash, of course, was delivered approximately every month and was packed in suitcases, backpacks, and plastic bags.

Graham Fuller, a retired CIA officer whose daughter was briefly married to Ruslan Tsarnaev (Uncle Ruslan), has come out and flatly denied any CIA connection to the Tsarnaev's, calling the allegations “absurd.”

A new book reveals that the CIA made a deal with Pakistan that allowed the United States to begin its drone assassination program in exchange for the murder of an enemy of Pakistan. In an excerpt in tomorrow's New York Times, journalist Mark Mazzetti outlines how Pakistan, which was resistant to allowing the CIA to begin killing targets within its borders, asked the CIA in 2004 to kill Taliban-ally Nek Muhammad, in exchange for allowing the CIA to begin its drone strike assassination program in the country. Pakistan would take responsibility for the death of Muhammad, and the CIA would never be mentioned in official accounts of his death.

The man who introduced the CIA's Chief Technology Officer, Ira "Gus" Hunt, at yesterday's GigaOM Structure:Data conference in New York City thought it would be funny to quip, "If you don't give a big round of applause for our next speaker, he's gonna find out and it's gonna go on your permanent record." It was supposed to be a little joke, but then Hunt took the stage for his speech on "Big Data," told everyone that the CIA is now attempting to "collect everything and hang on to it forever," and suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore.

Vice President Joe Biden privately swore in CIA Director John Brennan today in the Roosevelt Room. The White House notes that Brennan took the oath of office on the Constitution's original draft, a 1787 document that still bears George Washington's penmanship.

After Osama bin Laden was assassinated in 2011, there was perhaps no more hotly sought after document on the planet than a hypothetical photograph of bin Laden's dead body, which had of course arrived at that sorry state as a result of the most tightly controlled and choreographed military operation in recent history. After some public hemming and hawing in response to an overwhelming cry for visual proof of the venture's success, the Obama White House acknowledged the existence of such photos but refused to release them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from various parties. So one would imagine that, given the intense interest in the images and the high-profile litigation surrounding them, the CIA would conduct a rigorous accounting of each such image, its provenance, and current location, right? No, of course not. In fact, they just found some under the couch.

If you're looking for a takeaway from White House Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, all you need is a line from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who wanted to assure Brennan that he would keep questions short.

The CIA's secret Saudia Arabia drone base was finally revealed this week (again, after having been revealed in 2011 a couple times) to much controversy. Now Wired's Danger Room blog appears to have located this base, which was used in the 2011 killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical Muslim cleric in Yemen.

For the past decade, Sabrina De Sousa has been enmeshed in a Kafkaesque fight to clear her name in connection to an illegal CIA operation that has never officially been acknowledged to exist. Today we're hosting a Q & A with the alleged CIA agent, starting at 2pm.

It's no secret that the CIA and FBI can read your emails for any old reason they choose without having to clear it with anyone first (because you're a terrorist). That was on track to change with an amendment attached to an upcoming bill... before said amendment was quietly dropped from said bill.

The Petraeus scandal has taken a terrifying turn. The ever-widening circle of dark and shifty characters involved in the CIA sexcapade now includes figures associated with the Lincoln Group, the secretive Iraq and Afghanistan propaganda contractor famous for paying Iraqi newspapers to run fake pro-American news stories. Which means that it also extends to a furtive, enigmatic, foreign-born media titan whose closely held firm is busily extending its tendrils into the national consciousness: Gawker Media founder Nicholas Guido Denton. Let me explain.

Well, it looks like David Petraeus got himself wrapped up with some real fine folks when he befriended the Khawam family. Jill Kelley (nee Khawam) is the financially troubled Tampa socialite who went to the feds complaining of harassing emails from an anonymous tormentor who turned out to by Paula Broadwell. Her twin sister, Natalie Khawam, is the bankrupt lawyer that a D.C judge has called "unstable," who has been repeatedly accused of lying to state and federal courts, and who, with her sister, regularly took Petraeus' wife on shopping trips. Just a couple regular gals!

Among the many odd, swirling facts surrounding the unfolding David Petraeus scandal: Jill Kelley, the longtime friend of the former CIA director who reportedly went to the FBI complaining of harassing emails from Petraeus' mistress Paula Broadwell, has reacted to the mess by bringing out the scandal equivalent of heavy artillery. She's hired DC superlawyer Abbe Lowell and crisis PR specialist Judy Smith—despite the fact that the FBI has concluded its investigation and there are no criminal allegations on the table.

If you're General David Petraeus, you're probably not having a very relaxing Sunday morning. And if General Petraeus was tuning into Fox News this morning, he's probably having a bit less of anything resembling a good morning.

What, you thinking leading the intelligence agency of the most powerful country in the world, and having a boyish grin and a crop of sandy brown hair is only good enough to get you one mistress? The Washington Post fills in some more details on what led to Petraeus's Spyfall, and it looks like it's getting a little Fatal Attraction-y up in here.

David Petraeus, the national-security golden-boy who rose from commander of CENTCOM to head of the CIA (and was often mentioned as a potential future GOP presidential candidate), has reportedly resigned, citing an extramarital affair.

New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti e-mailed an advance, unpublished copy of a Maureen Dowd column dealing with the CIA to an Agency spokeswoman last year, according to newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. Depending on whom at the Times you ask, that was either "much ado about nothing" or a "mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards."

Barack Obama's critics on the left and right are beginning to coalesce around the idea that the White House should be punished for selectively leaking flattering details about covert operations while at the same time zealously prosecuting whistleblowers who reveal less flattering secrets. This is stupid. Every leak is a good leak.