Over the past year, we've learned plenty about what U.S. intelligence agencies do. But how much do we know about what these super-secretive bureaus actually look like? Photographer Trevor Paglen decided to find out.

What is "the case for supporting Assad," the brutal Syrian dictator whose government is indiscriminately targeting civilians in a violent, gruesome civil war? For some Syrian civilians, surely, there is a political and tribal case for supporting Assad; for his foreign allies, there is an economic and hegemonic case. And for maniac Islamophobe Daniel Pipes there is the sociopathic case:

Conservative columnist Mona Charen would like to offer a "mild dissent" about Todd Akin, the Missouri senate candidate who claimed that in cases of "legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Sure, she acknowledges, there isn't any scientific evidence, at all, to bolster that claim. But doesn't it just feel right?