October | 2010 | intelNews.org

CIA sued for allegedly discriminating against covert officer

October 19, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

CIA HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A former CIA officer, who served the Agency in a covert capacity, has sued his former employer claiming he was discriminated against because he is married to an Asian woman. According to the lawsuit, filed recently at a San Francisco court, covert CIA employee Walter Roule claims the his CIA supervisor favored junior officers with Caucasian wives for overseas postings, thus giving them more opportunities for promotion. Roule also claims that his supervisor threatened the careers of other CIA officers of Asian background, or with Asian partners, if they supported Roule’s discrimination complaint. In his court filing, the former covert CIA officer alleges that the discriminatory behavior started in 2006, when he was covertly posted in “the Northern District of California in a hybrid position”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with California, CIA, covert operations, lawsuits, News, racism, San Francisco, United States, Walter Roule

News you may have missed #439

October 18, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Book critical of Russian FSB published. In a new book entitled The New Nobility, Russian journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan claim that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is less repressive but ultimately more dangerous than its predecessor, the Soviet KGB.
Senior-most North Korean defector dies. Hwang Jang-yop, the theoretician behind North Korea’s Songun and Juche state doctrines, who defected to South Korea in 1997, has died at his home in Seoul, aged 87. Last April, South Korea charged two North Korean government agents with attempting to assassinate Hwang.
‘Low morale’ leads MI6 spies to apply for Australian jobs. More than 50 spies at Britain’s MI6 have allegedly responded to a recruitment drive by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). According to insiders, there has been growing uncertainty among MI6’s 2,600 staff over looming budget cuts and inquiries into alleged complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 'Low morale' leads MI6 spies to apply for Australian jobs, 0 Book critical of Russian FSB published, 0 Senior-most North Korean defector dies, Andrei Soldatov, ASIS, Australia, Australian Secret Intelligence Service, book news and reviews, defectors, FSB, Hwang Jang-yop, Irina Borogan, KGB, MI6, News, news you may have missed, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, UK

Israel may have helped FBI nab American Jewish informant

October 18, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Akamai logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The government of Israel may have tipped off US federal agents about the activities of an American Jew, who was arrested by the FBI earlier this month for sharing confidential information with an undercover FBI agent. Elliot Doxer, a 42-year-old finance department employee of Massachusetts-based Akamai Technologies, is charged with providing inside company information to a Bureau agent posing as an Israeli spy. According to court papers, the FBI counterintelligence operation against Doxer began after he emailed Israel’s consulate in Boston, in 2006, identifying himself as a Jewish American “offering the little [information] I may have […] to help our homeland and our war against our enemies”. A year later, an FBI counterintelligence team posing as Israeli Mossad operatives contacted Doxer and offered to satisfy his request for $3,000 in return for inside information on Akamai, a company whose role in the architecture of Internet’s worldwide infrastructure is instrumental. But how did the FBI know about Doxer’s attempt to contact the Israeli consulate in Boston? Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Akamai Technologies, Boston, counterintelligence, dangling, Elliot Doxer, espionage, FBI Counterintelligence Division, Israel, Israeli consulate in Boston, Massachusetts, News, United States, US Department of Homeland Security

News you may have missed #438 (Stuxnet edition)

October 5, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Stuxnet cyber superweapon moves to China. The Stuxnet computer virus, dubbed the world’s “first cyber superweapon” by experts, and which may have been designed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, has found a new target: China. The computer worm has infecting millions of computers around the country, Chinese state media reported this week.
Stuxnet worm heralds new era of global cyberwar. The Stuxnet worm, which Iran admits has affected 30,000 of its computers, was a sophisticated attack almost certainly orchestrated by a state. It also appears that intelligence operatives were used to deliver the worm to its goal.
Israeli cyber unit allegedly responsible for Iran computer worm. Some experts claim that Unit 8200, an elite Israeli military group responsible for cyberwarfare, has been accused of creating a virus that has crippled Iran’s computer systems and stopped work at its newest nuclear power station.

[Research credit to Arthur Sbygniew]

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Iran announces arrests of alleged nuclear spies

October 4, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Heidar Moslehi

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Iranian government has announced the arrest of an unspecified number of alleged nuclear spies, reportedly in connection with a sophisticated virus that infected computers used in Iran’s nuclear energy program. The arrests were publicized on Sunday by Heidar Moslehi, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, who said those arrested had helped facilitate the spread of the so-called Stuxnet virus last June. The malicious program, which appears to have been designed to sabotage sensitive hardware components found specifically in nuclear centrifuges, has infected at least 100,000 computer systems worldwide, most of which are located in Iran. Speaking to Iranian media, Moslehi accused Israel and the United States of trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear energy program, but noted that Iran’s intelligence services have resumed “complete supervision of cyberspace” and will successfully prevent “any leak or destruction” of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear research and development program by outside forces. But elsewhere in Tehran, Hamid Alipour, an Iranian government Senior Information and Technology official, admitted that technical experts are still working on containing the virus, which appears to be mutating. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with computer hacking, Habib Elghanian, Hamid Alipour, Heidar Moslehi, Heydar Moslehi, Internet, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Israel, News, Queen Esther, Stuxnet, United States

News you may have missed #437

October 1, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Huge demand for spy balloons in Afghan war. The hottest US weapon in Afghanistan lacks a lethal capability, floats thousands of feet in the air and doesn’t carry troops. It’s a spy balloon. Similar contraptions have been making appearances at the Lebanese-Israeli border.
One, two, many WikiLeaks. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a defector from the WikiLeaks website has said he has decided to jump ship and is thinking of creating a competitor site to Julian Assange’s whistleblower platform.
Is publication of classified info a criminal act? When WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of classified US military records concerning the war in Afghanistan last July, did it commit a criminal act under US law? A US Congressional Research Service report argues that it did not.