If the Department of Government Efficiency proved one thing so far this month, it’s that clandestine operations can sometimes happen in the most boring-seeming places.
If it proved another, it’s that clandestine operations in boring-seeming places can be, well, boring.
If you were paying attention to the federal government real estate market these past few weeks — and I know that’s not everybody, but I’m sure in the market for a former Health and Human Services fixer-upper — you may have noticed that over 100 buildings disappeared from a General Services Administration list of properties it was potentially looking to sell.
The list was on its website, according to a March 5 Bloomberg report, and is part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to find underutilized properties it can sell off.
However, as Bloomberg noted, that list “quickly shrank from 443 to 320 in the span of hours” on March 4.
Their report was fairly prosaic about the matter: “Buildings housing the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor and Veterans Affairs were all taken off the list. The headquarters for the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Office of Personnel Management were also removed.
“Also withdrawn was a group of buildings in northern Virginia that doesn’t officially appear on the federal property rolls but has long been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Cue the ominous music.
Wired, a more overtly partisan tech publication, noted in a March 6 publication that it had learned “[a] now-deleted list containing hundreds of U.S. government properties that the General Services Administration (GSA) plans to sell includes most of a sprawling, highly sensitive federal complex in Springfield, Virginia, that also houses a secretive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility.
“The GSA’s effort to sell hundreds of U.S. government properties is part of a blunt reshaping of the federal government and its workforce led by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Staffed in part by young engineers with no prior experience in government, DOGE’s efforts have resulted in mass reductions in force, the effective shuttering of entirely independent agencies, and a flurry of lawsuits that seek to mitigate DOGE’s razing of the government over the past six weeks.”
Tell us how you really feel, Wired. It’s worth noting that, in the subheadline of the report, Wired called the complex “the area’s worst-kept secret,” which is odd for what its writers — no less than four bylines appear on the report — deem to be a “highly sensitive federal complex” just a few paragraphs later.
But I digress, because this game of telephone got even more bizarre as the news hit social media, with wire service aggregator NewsWire calling it a CIA “black site in Northern Virginia.”
DOGE effort to sell off federal properties inadvertently exposes CIA black site in Northern Virginia — Bloomberg TV
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) March 6, 2025
Bill Kristol, founder of the conservative/NeverTrumper outlet The Weekly Standard and currently an editor-at-large with another anti-Trump, semi-conservative outlet, The Bulwark, reposted this, asking (rhetorically for him, I assume), “They’re not ACTUALLY working for Putin, right?”
They’re not ACTUALLY working for Putin, right? https://t.co/nrD8fUddXs
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 6, 2025
So, time for a fact check: Did DOGE uncover a “CIA black site in Northern Virginia?”
Well, first things first: Definitionally, they couldn’t have. A “black site” or “dark site” are the names given to overseas detention facilities where suspects in the War on Terror were taken through a process known as extraordinary rendition.
The location of these prisons, according to a 2017 report by The Washington Post, “spanned eight countries” — none of which were Northern Virginia.
These sites, the Post said, “were used by the CIA to interrogate suspects, often using waterboarding to obtain intelligence.”
Again, we return to Wired’s description of the complex as “the area’s worst-kept secret” and a “warehouse site” — hardly the kind of place where suspected mujahideen were being subjected to waterboarding.
The General Services Administration didn’t respond to what the Associated Press called “repeated questions about the changes or why the properties that had been listed had been removed.” However, it also noted these properties had been deemed “not core to government operations,” which — were there some sort of torture site being operated on U.S. soil — would certainly have been considered “core” to keeping quiet, as well.
However, Michael Shurkin — director of global programs at think-tank 14 North Strategies — put things into perspective with a post on X, which noted that a “black site” might be used in a more colloquial sense.
Why doesn’t CIA want everyone to know that every CIA building is CIA? Precisely because people’s imaginations run wild. Or sit outside and photograph people going in and out. And sometimes commit terrorist attacks: https://t.co/ULowhfQxZ7
— Michael Shurkin (@MichaelShurkin) March 6, 2025
“I presume they are referring to things like office buildings that CIA doesn’t want people to know are CIA,” he said in response to someone saying this was an inference to the CIA operating a “black site” on American soil. “Generally full of people doing office work. They exist. Let’s not get excited.”
“Why doesn’t CIA want everyone to know that every CIA building is CIA? Precisely because people’s imaginations run wild. Or sit outside and photograph people going in and out. And sometimes commit terrorist attacks.”
Shurkin was presumably referring to a 1993 attack outside the Langley, Virginia headquarters of the CIA, where a Pakistani national named Mir Aimal Kasi killed two employees of the agency.
“I was real angry with the policy of the U.S. government in the Middle East, particularly toward the Palestinian people,” Kasi said in a prison interview before his 2002 execution.
“Obviously, someone did no research about the long and well-documented history of this property,” said Jeff McKay, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, per Wired. “Normally a site like this wouldn’t be outed, so to speak, but everyone knows it’s here except, apparently, the people who put this list together.”
Naturally, at a time of heightened tensions like these — particularly in the Middle East — discretion is the better part of valor, which is likely why the building was removed from the list. That being said, it’s also worth noting that McKay has advocated redeveloping the complex, as well, particularly given that it’s near a stop on the D.C. Metro.
“The entire challenge with redevelopment has been this entity,” he said.
“This idea that you can sell everything around it and it will be OK runs counter to all the intelligence information we’ve been given over the past couple of decades. Without divulging the specific details of the activities, the government has been very clear about the sensitivity of the property.”
As for what goes on there? A 2011 book called “Fallout: The True Story of the CIA’s Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking” contains what Wired calls “[t]he most specific description of its purpose”: “There were two pick-and-lock specialists from the agency’s secret facility in Springfield, Virginia. In a warehouse-like building there, the CIA trains a cadre of technical officers to bug offices, break into houses, and penetrate computer systems,” wrote authors Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz.
It’s unclear, however, whether or not it’s still being used for those purposes. Given that 14 years have passed since the publication of that book — and 13 since the Washington Business Journal “perhaps the worst-kept secret in Springfield,” I suspect the CIA has moved on … or maybe that’s just what they want you to think!
Also, it’s probably again worth noting that, contra Shurkin, “black site” — in the modern parlance of the Central Intelligence Agency — is generally taken to mean an internationally located detention facility, not just a building where slightly secret stuff happens. That kind of linguistic inexactitude is precisely why there’s a round of hyperventilation over the possibility of DOGE putting a massively sensitive intelligence asset on the commercial real estate market.
However, in the absence of any contravening evidence, he’s also not wrong. This is the “worst-kept secret” in Springfield, Virginia precisely because it’s probably office people doing office stuff that could be (and likely will be, if DOGE and/or the GSA gets its way) doing it at another location. Same thing with lock-picking, room-bugging, computer-system penetration, if they haven’t moved on already.
But as for extraordinary rendition just off the D.C. Metro? Not exactly.
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