The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.
For decades, the men at Area 51 thought they'd take their secrets to the grave. At the height of the Cold War, they cultivated anonymity while pursuing some of the country's most covert projects. Conspiracy theories were left to popular imagination.
Under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act, US intelligence agencies cannot engage in covert actions abroad without a presidential finding that these operations are important to US national security.
Exposing the activities of a foreign intelligence service renders them ineffective, since it removes plausible deniability, which is the hallmark of covert intelligence operations.
I am still profoundly troubled by the war in Nicaragua. The United States launched a covert war against another nation in violation of international law, a war that was wrong and immoral.
Jim Crow laws stripped blacks of basic rights. Despite landmark civil rights laws, many public schools were still segregated, blacks still faced barriers to voting, and violence by white racists continued. Such open racism is mostly gone in America, but covert racism is alive and well.
When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.
In reality the workings of your governing system are opaque and covert, while hiding in the chattering spotlight of an ostensible transparency, even though the ultimate objective is clear.
Men are much more up-front with their friends. There isn't as much maneuvering, back-stabbing and covert campaigning. It is what it is at face value.
We operate under the law. Covert action authorities are communicated in a memorandum of notification.
