A "burn notice" is an official statement issued by anintelligence agency to other agencies. It states that anasset or intelligence source is unreliable for one or several reasons, oftenfabrication, and must be officially disavowed.[1] This is essentially a directive for the recipient to disregard or "burn" all information derived from that individual or group.[2]
Curveball—"The CIA has since issued an official 'burn notice' formally retracting more than 100 intelligence reports based on his information."[4][5]
Manucher Ghorbanifar—1984 and 1986. "The CIA considered Ghorbanifar a dangerous con man and had issued a 'burn notice' recommending that no U.S. agency have any dealings with him."[6][7][8]
Ali Abdel Saoud Mohamed, who was recruited by the CIA and immediately revealed himself to be a double agent. "The CIA issued a burn notice to U.S. and allied intelligence services that Mohamed was not to be trusted."[9]
The related termkill notice orkill notification is used bynews andphoto agencies to declare manipulated or faked documents as "not to be used".[10][11] In March 2024, the term attracted considerable press commentary after news agencies issued kill notices on theMother's day photograph of Catherine, Princess of Wales,[12][13] which was found to have been digitally altered.[14][15] Phil Chetwynd,AFP's global news director, said that the kill notices issued on the photograph were more typical for photographs from the state news agencies ofNorth Korea andIran.[10][11][16]
