How did the National Aeronautics and Space Administration handle one of the first major hacktivist incidents? Newly released records sheds light on what happened during NASA’s investigation of the 1989 WANK worm infection.

This month marks the one-year anniversary since the citizens of Nicaragua began a fierce civic uprising against President Daniel Ortega’s administration. A former leader in the Sandinistas, Ortega has faced international criticism over his elimination of term limits, and the revival of broad censorship and repression of the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

Last month, the U.S. recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the “interim president” of Venezuela. Since then, Canada, the European Union, and a slew of other countries have followed America’s lead. The move is another sign of the return to Cold War-era U.S. policy in Latin America under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Today, using records from the Central Intelligence Agency archives, we’ll take a brief look back at the last half-century of U.S. involvement in the region.

In the eerie depths of the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives, a document came rapping, rapping at our browser window. “POEDGR,” the Agency’s computer-themed “The Raven” parody which might be the first poem to have its rhyme scheme thrown off by a FOIA exemption.

For years, the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in funding and organizing anti-communist movements in Honduras, with deadly results. Files uncovered in the CIA archives illustrate how modern political unrest in the country - including the so-called “migrant caravan” - has its ties directly back to U.S. foreign policy.

In early 1984, then-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Casey kicked off the “Pursuit of Excellence” campaign, which encouraged Agency employees to be the best at what they do. But before they could do that, they first had to figure out what, exactly, the CIA should be doing - prompting a frank discussion about the Agency’s goals and an even franker admission that eliminating FOIA should be on the agenda.

For as long as it’s existed, the Central Intelligence Agency has used Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in its hunt for information that could serve as fuel for its analysis. This often meant simply reading major foreign newspapers, and monitoring for trends. When it came to understanding foreign cultural movements, CIA took it a step further - they studied the political cartoons of foreign countries. Cartoons that were essentially memes.

A heavily redacted file Federal Bureau of Investigation file documents the Bureau’s lingering suspicion, if not outright hostility, towards the African National Congress, including concerns of communist ties and terrorism.

Back in the dot printer Eighties, the Central Intelligence Agency was constantly negotiating decisions around computer purchases and evolving equipment, an experience with which many Americans are now familiar. Take a dive into their weekly complaints about copy costs, tech upgrades, and of course, their budget.