CIA Director acknowledges, defends drone strikes in Pakistan

May 27, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
CIA Director Leon Panetta made an extremely rare public acknowledgement of the CIA unmanned drone strikes in Pakistan, while speaking recently before the Pacific Council on International Policy. Panetta was speaking in reaction to a May 17 article in The New York Times by David Kilcullen, former counterinsurgency adviser to US Army General David Petraeus, and Center for a New American Security fellow Andrew Exum. Kilcullen and Exum joined intelNews in its March 15 condemnation of the illegal and counterproductive CIA airstrikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have killed hundreds of civilians in recent months. Read more of this post

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German security group sees rise in industrial, commercial spying

May 26, 2009 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A major German corporate security group has echoed recent warnings by the German government that foreign industrial and commercial espionage in Germany is on the increase. Last week, the general manager of the German Association for Security in Industry and Commerce (ASW), Dr. Berthold Stoppelkamp, told German newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung that the targeting of German research and commercial enterprises by mainly Chinese and Russian agents is so extensive that it usually costs the German economy over €20 billion per year, and it may be costing as high as €50 billion per year since 2007. Dr. Stoppelkamp said that, although these covert activities are government-managed, they aim to assist individual Chinese or Russian firms competing against German companies for international contracts. Read more of this post

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UK report concludes security services not to blame for 7/7 attacks

May 25, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The second installment of an extensive evaluation of the intelligence background to the July 7, 2005, bombings in London, has been published by Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). The parliamentary committee, whose cabinet-appointed members have access to highly classified material, have concluded that Britain’s foremost counterintelligence agency, MI5, which is also known as the Security Service, as well as the Special Branch, lacked the resources necessary to detect and foil the 7/7 attacks. The report, which is publicly available online in a heavily censored version, reveals that MI5’s resources enabled it to provide “reasonable” intelligence coverage of no more than one in every 20 militant suspects . Read more of this post

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Suspicious silence continues in case of missing Polish signals officer

May 23, 2009 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
When we at intelNews first took note of the mysterious disappearance of Stefan Zielonka, on May 7, we decided to delay posting information about the case until more news came our way. Sadly, it hasn’t. The case of the disappearance of Stefan Zielonka, senior signals officer with Polish military intelligence, remains as mysterious as it was on May 7. Zielonka’s colleagues at Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW, formerly known as Military Information Services or WSI) became suspicious after he failed to return to work following a two-week sick leave. News outlets have since reported that Zielonka “was suffering from depression and had trouble both at home and at the office”. Read more of this post

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Comment: CIA operations in Pakistan will continue despite DoD involvement

May 21, 2009 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last week, when news emerged that the US will be expanding its unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan, I received several reader emails arguing that the CIA air operations inside Pakistan will soon be over. These expectations are unrealistic. Washington has decided to deploy a separate fleet of drones under military command, which will be deployed alongside, not in replacement of, CIA Predator drones. There appear to be at least three reasons –perhaps as many as four– for this development. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Major Colombian wiretap scandal explained

May 20, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last April, Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) suffered one of the most extensive purges in its history, when 22 of its detectives were fired in connection with an investigation into illegal wiretapping against several public figures in Colombian political life. Those targeted by the illegal wiretappers included Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists, as well as the chief of the Colombian National Police, former president Cesar Gaviria, and even the minister of defense Juan Manuel Santos. Investigative reporter Joseph Huff-Hanon has produced what in this writer’s opinion is the best English-language analysis of the political dimension of the Colombian wiretap scandal. Read more of this post

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Unlike AIPAC lobbyists, retired DoD official to face charges

May 19, 2009 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
In a development that one observer described as “the tip of the iceberg with insider threats” at the US Pentagon, a retired official with the US Department of Defense has been charged with conspiracy to communicate classified information to a foreign agent. The US Department of Justice alleges that James Wilbur Fondren, Jr., 62, was part of a spy ring that operated on US soil under the supervision of Chinese government officials, whom Fondren supplied with several classified documents for over three years, beginning in 2004. According to US government prosecutors, six years after retiring from his high-level post at the US Pacific Command’s Washington Liaison Office, Lieutenant Colonel Fondren offered his private consulting services to Tai Shen Kuo, a Taiwanese-American handled by an intelligence agent of the People’s Republic of China. Read more of this post

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CIA silent on rumors of Panetta’s secret visit to Israel

May 18, 2009 Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several news outlets have pointed to The London Times as the source of the revelation that CIA Director Leon Panetta secretly visited Israel earlier this moth. In reality, the source of the report is not The Times, but Israel National Radio, which aired the news early on Thursday morning. The report was promptly picked up by Agence France Presse (AFP) and issued in French and English later on the same day. According to AFP, US President Barack Obama sent Panetta to Jerusalem in search of high-level assurances from the new Israeli government of President Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel “would not launch a surprise strike on Iran”. The same report stated that Panetta received assurances from both President Netanyahu and Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, that “Israel does not intend to surprise the US on Iran”. It is important to note that the Israelis’ assurances pertain solely to their obligation to notify Washington prior to launching a strike on Tehran, and in no way rule out such an attack. Therefore they fall significantly short of US requirements. Read more of this post

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CIA, still bitter about Cheney, rejects application to release memos

May 16, 2009 Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On April 20, former US Vice-President Dick Cheney urged the CIA to declassify several internal documents that “showed the success” of the Agency’s torture program against captured members of al-Qaeda. Several weeks earlier Cheney had actually applied to the US National Archives and Records Administration for the release of two internal documents pertaining to the torture controversy. But on Thursday, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano issued an official letter rejecting Cheney’s application, because “the two memos […] were relevant to pending litigation” against the Agency. The CIA official assured reporters that the decision to reject Cheney’s application was made “[f]or that reason –and that reason only”. But insiders tell intelNews that Cheney’s clout with the CIA has been severely diminished, following his failure to come to the Agency’s rescue after a departing President Bush blamed the CIA for producing “false intelligence” on Iraq. Read more of this post

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US whistleblowing legislation gets little media attention

May 15, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Unlike American news outlets, the US intelligence community is paying a lot of attention right now to HR 1507, known as the 2009 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. The act is currently making the rounds at two US House of Representatives committees, namely the Oversight and Government Reform and the Homeland Security committee. There was an interesting debate yesterday morning at the Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing, where proponents and opponents of HR 1507 focused on the bill’s provisions protecting the rights of whistleblowers in the intelligence and security services. Under current legislation (the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, or ICWPA), there is a large gap separating the rights of intelligence and security whistleblowers from those of other government employees. Read more of this post

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UK activist reveals police attempt to recruit her as a paid informant

May 8, 2009 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The London Sunday Times has aired a brief interview with Matilda “Tilly” Gifford, a British environmental activist who last week accused British police officers of trying to recruit her as a paid informant to spy on protest groups. Gifford, whose activist pursuits have repeatedly brought her to the attention of British police, was approached by two unnamed police officers at a Strathclyde Police station in Glasgow, Scotland, and was asked to perform undercover work on behalf of law enforcement. Unbeknownst to the police, however, Gifford was recording the recruiting conversation using a concealed mobile phone. With the help of fellow activists, Gifford secretly videotaped a subsequent meeting with Strathclyde Police officers, who had been led to believe she was genuinely interested in participating in undercover work. Read more of this post

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Belarus puts on trial members of alleged Polish military spy ring

May 6, 2009 Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Very little information has appeared in Western news outlets of an ongoing trial in Belarus of four army officers accused of spying for Poland. The four, all of whom are Belarusian, are accused by Belarus security officials of collaborating with Polish intelligence agents by providing them with classified data on Belarusian military technologies, as well as with information on Russia’s air defense system, of which Belarus is a partner. A fifth alleged member of the spy ring, who is a Russian military officer, is facing similar charges in Moscow. The four Belarusians were reportedly arrested several months ago by the KGB, Belarus’ intelligence service. The discovery of the alleged spy ring led to a major political scandal in Minsk, prompting the dismissal of KGB’s director, Stepan Sukhorenko, by Belarus’ longtime President, Alexander Lukashenko. If convicted of treason and espionage, the army officers could technically face the death penalty under Belarusian law.

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Psychologists behind CIA torture named

May 5, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Two American psychologists behind the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which the President of the United States has described as torture, have been named by ABC News. They are Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, former military officers and partners in Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, a company based in Spokane, WA. The two psychologists were hired by the CIA to design an elaborate ten-stage interrogation program, which culminated in waterboarding. Interestingly, the Agency hired the two scientists, offering them a lucrative $1000-a-day contract, without checking whether they had any experience in interrogation techniques. Agency officials later discovered that Mitchell and Jessen has significantly less professional experience in the psychology of interrogation than they had led the CIA to believe. The two psychologists were contacted by ABC News, but declined to comment, citing non-disclosure contracts with the CIA.

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Charges dropped against AIPAC lobbyists involved in Franklin spy case

May 4, 2009 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As intelNews reported on April 23, based on a tip by The Washington Post, it has been announced that the two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists involved in the Lawrence Franklin spy case in the US will escape trial. Lawrence Anthony Franklin was a US Defense Department analyst who in 2006 was given a 12-year prison sentence for handing classified US military information to Israeli agent Uzi Arad, Israeli Embassy official Naor Gilon, as well as to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, both former AIPAC lobbyists. But on Friday US Justice Department prosecutors dropped all charges against the two former AIPAC members due to “significant reservations about the case”, even though several Department officials believe that Rosen and Weissman “acted imprudently”, according to The New York Times. As IntelNews has learned, the decision was taken despite significant objections from FBI officials, who desperately pressured the Department to go forward with the trial until the very last minute. Read more of this post

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Analysis: The changing landscape of communications intelligence

April 27, 2009 Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS and IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Joseph Fitsanakis and Ian Allen have authored a new scholarly paper on communications intelligence, focusing specifically on the use of telephony intelligence in the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict. The paper, entitled Cell Wars: The Changing Landscape of Communications Intelligence, is available (.pdf) on the website of the Research Institute on European and American Studies. We argue that the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict featured a series of innovative approaches to communications intelligence, which included utilizing civilian telephone networks to achieve tactical and psychological objectives. The “cell war” between the IDF and Hamas is indicative of an ongoing global struggle between asymmetrical insurgents and state actors to control large-scale telecommunications structures. “Cell wars” have been taking place for quite some time in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, and several other nations, including the United States. Read more of this post

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