intelNews

Analysis: Speculation rife about NSA’s STELLAR WIND project

December 17, 2008 3 Comments

Tamm on the cover of Newsweek

The recent voluntary coming forth of Thomas M. Tamm as the whistleblower behind NSA’s warrantless wiretapping scheme has considerably revived speculation about the Agency’s STELLAR WIND project, which appears to have both oral communications and data surveillance components. A superb analysis published in Ars Technica yesterday reasons that the data surveillance component of project STELLAR WIND, which was first revealed in 2006, is in fact far broader and potentially far more controversial than its wireless wiretapping aspect. The article reminds that, in the past, STELLAR WIND has been referred to in public as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, though “that seems to have been invented after the fact to allow officials to testify before Congress on the aspects of STELLAR WIND that had been exposed without admitting to any of the activities that hadn’t yet come to light”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, NSA, operation STELLAR WIND, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Texas Cryptology Center, Thomas M. Tamm, United States, whistleblowing

Indians arrest alleged Pakistani military intelligence agent

December 17, 2008 Leave a comment

The Uttar Pradesh police force announced earlier today that its Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested an alleged Pakistani Military Intelligence operative in Lucknow. The ATS has released the alias (Sikandar) of the alleged operative, whose name is Abdul Jabbar, which prompts observers to speculate that Jabbar’s arrest was part of an elaborate counterintelligence sting, possibly involving Indian moles inside Pakistani Military Intelligence. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdul Jabbar, Anti-Terrorist Squad (India), counterintelligence, India, ISI, News, Pakistan, Pakistani Military Intelligence

Scotland Yard urged to drop advisor with terrorist ties

December 16, 2008 Leave a comment

Harrath

For four years, the Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Service, has employed Mohamed Ali Harrath as an “anti-terrorism advisor” while funding his London-based Muslim television station with tens of thousands of pounds. Last week The London Times discovered that Harrath is wanted by the Tunisian authorities and by Interpol “because of his links to an alleged terror organization”. The organization, known as the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT), is said to advocate “an Islamic state by means of armed revolutionary violence”. The Tunisian government is not known for its democratic credentials, but British intelligence organizations seem to agree with its assessment of FIT. In 2003 an MI5 witness implicated “FIT [in] terrorism activities in France” before Britain’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with informants, Interpol, Islamist extremism, Lady Neville-Jones, Mohamed Ali Harrath, News, Tunisia, Tunisian Islamic Front, UK

Israel pressuring Russia on sale of S-300 missiles to Iran

December 16, 2008 Leave a comment

Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports that Israel’s government is preparing to send Major General Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, to Moscow, to pressure the Russians not to sell an advanced antiaircraft system to Iran. Gilad’s visit, which will include meetings with Russian senior defense and intelligence officials, is aimed at preventing the planned sale of Russia’s advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Tehran. Military experts have warned Israel that, by purchasing and installing the S-300 system, Iran will effectively “rule out an Israeli war against Iran” by eliminating the possibility of a surprise Israeli air attack. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Greece, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Israel, News, Russia, S-300

Tallinn government surveillance cameras reveal black bag operation

December 16, 2008 1 Comment

A surveillance camera monitoring the City Government building in Estonian capital Tallinn has recorded nighttime images of what appears to be a black bag operation by either Kaitsepolitseiamet (KPol), the country’s Security Police, or by Russian intelligence. Black bag operations refer to covert, surreptitious entries into structures in the course of human intelligence missions. Responding to allegations by Tallinn mayor, Edgar Savisaar, the country’s public prosecutor disclosed that KPol officers had surreptitiously entered the building to “remove secret microphones” from the office of Ivo Parbus, an adviser to the city’s deputy mayor, who has been arrested in connection with a bribing scandal. However, Tallinn’s mayor says that he does not believe the break-in to have been authorized by KPol, and that “he has information that one [of the] person[s seen] entering the building is a former spy of the Russian army”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with black bag operations, BND, double agents, Estonia, Herman Simm, KPol, News, SVR (Russia)

Analysis: Who is giving Obama advice on national security?

December 16, 2008 Leave a comment

On Monday, US President-Elect Barack Obama chaired the first official meeting of the national security team he assembled earlier this month. But according to an article published today in The International Herald Tribune, an extended list of national security advisers to the President-Elect includes several conservatives, such as Brent Scowcroft, George Shultz and even Richard Armitage (!), whom he has contacted seeking counsel. Why does Barack Obama continue to court such Reaganite and neoconservative figures? Is he simply contacting them as a standard procedural duty, wishing perhaps to ensure some kind of managerial continuum between the current and incoming administrations? But if this is the case, then why do his senior advisers insist on releasing these names to the press in connection with the very first official meeting of Obama’s national security team? Read Article →

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Barack Obama, Brent Scowcroft, General James Jones, George Shultz, Joseph Fitsanakis, national security, Richard Armitage, United States

Russian government amends treason and spying definitions

December 16, 2008 Leave a comment

Last week Russia’s State Duma passed a law abolishing the use of juries in terrorism trials, and replacing them with three-judge panels. This week the government has submitted yet another bill significantly revising legal definitions of spying and treason. Current Russian law defines spying and treason as “hostile” actions threatening “the foreign security of the Russian Federation”. The new bill, if enacted, will revise the definition to “[actions] against the security of the Russian Federation, including its constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial and state integrity”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with counterintelligence, intelligence legislation, News, Russia

US federal appeals court upholds National Security Letters

December 16, 2008 Leave a comment

National Security Letters (NSLs) are types of warrantless subpoenas issued by US government agencies. They are typically used to force organizations or companies to surrender information pertaining to individuals or groups. In the late 1970s, NSLs were used in rare instances by the FBI during investigations. The 2001 USA PATRIOT Act marked an unparalleled expansion of the power of NSLs, allowing their use against American citizens even in cases when they are not targets of criminal investigations. The USA PATRIOT Act also ratified a gag order provision preventing NSL recipients from disclosing the letter’s existence. The CIA, FBI and the US Department of Defense are all known to have issued several NSLs in recent years. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with ACLU, CIA, domestic intelligence, FBI, Michael Mukasey, National Security Letters, News, telecommunication service providers, US DoD, USA PATRIOT Act

Estonian sleeper agent may have been double spy, say Germans

December 15, 2008 Leave a comment

Herman Simm

Last month, Estonian counterintelligence agents arrested Herman Simm, a high-level official at the Estonian defense ministry, on charges that he spied on behalf of Russian intelligence for nearly 30 years. At the time, Western counterintelligence officials said Simm, who was in charge of handling all of Estonia’s “classified and top secret material on NATO”, was at the center of “the most serious case of espionage against NATO since the end of the Cold War”. But the complexity of this espionage affair has now increased, with German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reporting that Simm was also a paid informant of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with BND, cryptology, double agents, Elcrodat, espionage, Estonia, Germany, Herman Simm, NATO, News, Russia, US Missile Defense Shield

Analysis: Former CIA clandestine officer paints bleak picture of Agency

December 15, 2008 Leave a comment

In a brutally honest exposé, a 25-year veteran of the CIA has publicly described the Agency as an organization mired in failure, mediocrity and incompetence. Art Brown, who headed the Asia division of the CIA’s Clandestine Service from 2003 to 2005, has called the Agency’s seven-year, multi-billion operation to find Osama bin Laden a “failure” that “no amount of ‘rendition’ of bin Laden lieutenants can mask”. Writing in The New York Times, the CIA veteran has revealed that Syria’s alleged construction of a nuclear reactor in the country’s eastern desert came “as a surprise” to the Agency. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Analysis, Art Brown, Barack Obama, CIA, Osama bin Laden, Syria, United States

Whistleblower who disclosed NSA domestic spying program comes forth

December 15, 2008 Leave a comment

Exactly three years ago, New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed NSA’s domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. Nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders helped the two journalists unravel the NSA scheme. But the initial tip came from what Lichtblau describes in his book, Bush’s Law, as a “walk-in” source with intimate knowledge of the US intelligence community’s practices. That “walk-in” source has now come forth. His name is Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official who held a Sensitive Compartmented Security clearance (“a level above Top Secret”) issued by the US government. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, data mining, domestic intelligence, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, James Risen, News, NSA, OIPR, operation STELLAR WIND, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing

Police spying revelation rocks New Zealand

December 15, 2008 Leave a comment

IntelNews has paid particular attention to domestic intelligence operations conducted against law-abiding protest activity in the so-called “war on terrorism”. The US is hardly the only Western country where intensification of government spying on protest activity has been noted in recent years. During the past few days, political life in New Zealand has been stirred by revelations that the country’s police force has for years used “paid informants to infiltrate protest groups”, including “groups such as Greenpeace, animal rights and climate change campaigners and Iraq war protesters”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with domestic intelligence, informants, New Zealand, News, NZSIS (New Zealand)

Analysis: Obama urged to get to bottom of NSA warrantless wiretap scheme

December 15, 2008 Leave a comment

Patrick Keefe, Century Foundation fellow and author of Chatter: Uncovering the Echelon Surveillance Network and the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, has published an editorial in The New York Times urging US Congress and President-Elect Barack Obama to engage in a “thorough course correction on domestic surveillance”. Keefe describes the post-9/11 enhancement of the domestic wiretapping powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) as a direct violation of “one of the signature prohibitions of the post-Watergate era”, which allowed the US government to turn “its formidable eavesdropping apparatus on its own citizens”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Barack Obama, domestic intelligence, Jack Goldsmith, John Ashcroft, NSA, Patrick Keefe, United States, warrantless communications interception

Moldovan politicians to undergo intelligence clearing before elections

December 15, 2008 1 Comment

A new bill requiring all Moldovan politicians to be cleared by the country’s intelligence services before running for office, has been approved in a first round of voting by the country’s communist-dominated parliament. The bill was proposed earlier this year by the governing Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Eastern Europe, Moldova, News, Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, SIS (Moldova), Vladimir Voronin

Two US spies killed in Mumbai attack, Indian government sources claim

December 13, 2008 Leave a comment

Yesterday, intelNews discussed the apparent zeal with which the US State Department is monitoring the Indian and Pakistani responses to the recent militant attack on Mumbai. Visiting New Delhi on Friday, US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, made sure to remind the Indian government that “there were United States casualties as well. So we are also victims of these attacks”. Today The Express adds another possible explanation for the State Department’s “unprecedented” interest in the attacks. The Indian newspaper cites “reliable sources in [the Indian] government” in asserting that “two senior espionage officials from the US were among the eight Americans killed in the […] attacks”. The newspaper alleges that the news of the two officials’ deaths, who were reportedly shot at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel on the night of November 27, “rankled the White House”. It is not clear from the report whether the two agents were staying at the hotel, were attending a meeting there, or rushed there from elsewhere in Mumbai in response to the attacks. [JF]