Efforts to restore US-German intelligence cooperation collapse

May 9, 2014 Leave a comment

Angela Merkel and Barack ObamaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Negotiations aimed at restoring the intelligence relationship between America and Germany, following revelations last year that Washington spied on the communications of German leaders, collapsed before German Chancellor Angela Merkel met US President Barack Obama last week. The two leaders had planned to make a public statement during Mrs. Merkel’s official visit to Washington last Friday, announcing a new intelligence agreement between their respective countries. But the announcement was never made, as Ukraine dominated the political agenda. IntelNews readers will recall the dramatic way in which Germany and the United States fell out in October of last year, after American intelligence defector Edward Snowden revealed an invasive intelligence-gathering operation by the US National Security Agency (NSA). The program targeted the private communications of senior German officials, including those of Mrs. Merkel, for nearly a decade. The New York Times said last week that the collapse of the bilateral intelligence negotiations between Washington and Berlin prompted “bitter recriminations on both sides” about who was responsible for their failure. It appears that German officials insisted on drafting a “no-spy” agreement between the two countries, which would prevent them from conducting espionage operations on each other’s territory. American officials, however, rejected the proposal, arguing it would create a precedent that every other European and Asian American ally, including France, Britain, Japan, South Korea, and others, would wish to replicate. Earlier this year, President Obama assured the German side that the NSA would never again target the communications of Chancellor Merkel. But German officials noted that the President said nothing about targeting other senior German officials, nor did he mention anything about the NSA’s other operations on German soil. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Israel reacts angrily to claims it spies on the United States

May 7, 2014 Leave a comment

Embassy of Israel in Washington, DCBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The government of Israel has reacted angrily to claims in the press that its spies are aggressively trying to steal American secrets. Tel Aviv instructed its embassy in Washington, DC, to “strongly protest” allegations, made by American newsmagazine Newsweek on Tuesday, that Israel’s spies “have gone too far” in targeting American interests. In an article published in Newsweek Tuesday, veteran intelligence correspondent Jeff Stein quoted Congressional staffers as saying that America’s Jewish allies had “crossed red lines” in their efforts to steal secrets from the United States. That was reportedly relayed to US lawmakers in classified briefings on Capitol Hill by officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, as well as the National Counterintelligence Directorate. At the closed-door briefings, members of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees were told that Israel’s espionage operations against US interests were both “unrivaled and unseemly” and had reached levels far higher than similar activities by other allied countries, such as Britain or Japan. One Congressional staffer told Stein that “no other country continues to cross the line on espionage like the Israelis do”. Another staffer, who was present during one of the classified briefings, described the information given to lawmakers as “very sobering […], alarming, even terrifying”. The Newsweek article reported that Tel Aviv’s main intelligence goal in America is to acquire inside information on US technical projects and industrial secrets. It added that this is done through Israel’s trade missions or through Israeli companies that work in collaboration with American firms. In other cases, Israeli intelligence operatives work directly out of the Israeli embassy in Washington. However, Aaron Sagui, a spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington, reacted angrily to Newsweek’s revelations, condemning what he called “outrageous, false allegations [that] are being directed against Israel”. He added that “Israel doesn’t conduct espionage operations in the United States, period”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Is Texas Army base home to secret CIA weapons facility?

May 5, 2014 2 Comments

Camp StanleyBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Observers of the Central Intelligence Agency know that the Agency maintains two widely acknowledged facilities inside the United States —both in the state of Virginia. One is its headquarters in Langley. The other is inside the Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity, known more commonly as Camp Peary, located near Williamsburg, where officers of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service are allegedly trained. However, for many decades researchers have speculated that the Agency maintains a third facility, which it uses to stockpile and distribute weapons around the world. The facility has been referred to in declassified documents as the “Midwest Depot”. It is said that billions of dollars of untraceable weapons have been dispatched from the “Midwest Depot” to CIA-supported groups such as Brigade 2506, which conducted the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Other paramilitary groups said to have received weapons from the CIA’s “Midwest Depot” include the Honduras-based Contras, who fought the Sandinistas government in 1980s’ Nicaragua, Angola’s UNITA anti-communist group, as well as the Sunni mujahedeen who fought the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan. Now the location of this mysterious depot may have been unearthed thanks to Allen Thomson, a retired CIA analyst. In a 73-page research paper, Thomson concludes that the location of the “Midwest Depot” is actually in Texas. The paper has been published (.pdf) on the website of the Federation of American Scientists’ Intelligence Resource Program, which maintains an extensive archive on topics of current interest to intelligence researchers. Based on what The New York Times calls “a mosaic of documentation”, Thomson claims that the CIA’s “Midwest Depot” is located inside Camp Stanley, located north of San Antonio, Texas. The latter is officially indexed as a US Army weapons depot. But Thomson says the depot is in fact commanded by the CIA. His paper highlights an explicit reference made to Texas in a memo drafted in 1986 by Colonel Oliver North, who was eventually convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal. In it, North states that the CIA would transport missiles headed for Iran from a military facility to its “Midwest Depot, Texas”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Ukraine expels Russian diplomat for ‘spying activities’

May 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Embassy of Russia in KievBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The Ukrainian government has issued an expulsion order for an unidentified Russian diplomat, who was detained on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in “spying activities”. On Thursday, Ukrainian government officials announced that a Russian naval attaché stationed in Ukrainian capital Kiev had been declared persona non grata (an unwelcome individual) for “engaging in acts incompatible with his diplomatic status”. The phrase is used in the international legal vernacular to describe an accredited diplomat engaging in intelligence operations abroad without the consent of his or her host nation. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters that the attaché had been found to “engage in spying activities”. Initially, ministry officials did not specify the nature of the Russian diplomat’s alleged spying activities. Later, however, in response to a question by a journalist, Ukrainian government representatives said that the diplomat was collecting intelligence on military and political cooperation between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. At a separate public briefing, Maryna Ostapenko, spokeswoman for the SBU, Ukraine’s counterintelligence agency, said the Russian diplomat was in fact an accredited intelligence officer, who was detained “while committing spying activities” on April 30. She told reporters that the diplomat was “caught red-handed receiving classified material from his source”. Ostapenko later described the source as an unidentified colonel in the armed forces of Ukraine. A press release by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the diplomat had been ordered to “leave the territory of the country [of Ukraine] as soon as possible”. There has been no immediate response from the Kremlin. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Former director of Venezuelan spy agency shot dead in Caracas

April 30, 2014 Leave a comment

Eliézer OtaizaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The former director of Venezuela’s primary intelligence agency has been found shot dead. Venezuelan officials said Eliézer Otaiza was shot dead sometime in the early hours of Saturday morning in Baruta, a suburb in the outskirts of capital Caracas. His bullet-ridden vehicle was later found abandoned in another part of the same barrio. Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, told reporters on Tuesday that Otaiza’s body was discovered on Saturday, but that it took nearly two days for him to be identified due to the absence of identification documents on the body. At the time of his assassination, Otaiza headed the Libertador Bolivarian Municipality in Caracas which numbers over two million residents. Earlier in his career, however, Otaiza led an elite unit of the personal guard corps of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The latter also appointed him director of the National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP), later renamed Bolivarian Intelligence Service, which is today Venezuela’s foremost intelligence organization. Otaiza was known as a stalwart supporter of Venezuela’s populist president, even in the early 1990s, when Chavez was still in opposition. In February of 1992, when Chavez led a failed military coup aimed at ousting President Carlos Andres Perez, Otaiza had been unable to participate on account of his absence from Venezuela. But he played a leading role in another pro-Chavez military mutiny in November of that year, when he led a small military force attempting to storm the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. He was shot several times in the chest but survived thanks to a bulletproof vest he was wearing. Venezuelan government media said Otaiza played “an important part in the events leading to the Bolivarian revolution”, and remained a strong supporter of Chavez throughout the president’s life. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

US ‘quietly expanding’ intelligence presence in war-torn Iraq

April 29, 2014 Leave a comment

ISIL militants in IraqBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The United States is “quietly expanding” its intelligence operations in Iraq in response to the worsening security situation in the country, according to American government sources. The Reuters news agency reports that US officials have been holding a series of “urgent meetings” in Washington and Iraqi capital Baghdad. The meetings center on finding ways to contain the growing destabilization in the Middle Easter country, which the US occupied from 2003 to 2011. The news agency cited one former and two current US government officials in claiming that a “high-level Pentagon team” is already in Iraq holding successive consultations with Iraqi military and intelligence figures. Many of the conversations in these meetings are believed to center on the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Sunni militant group that has been ideologically aligned with al-Qaeda for most of its existence. Founded in response to the US invasion of Iraq, ISIL became informally known as “al-Qaeda in Iraq” until 2014, when al-Qaeda officially severed all ties to the group, following a bitter power struggle. According to Reuters’ sources, the pressure for the US to respond to the worsening situation in Iraq comes mostly from the Pentagon. But it is unclear whether the White House will continue to intensify American involvement in the country, said the source, adding that Washington’s intelligence presence in Iraq is now “more than before, but not really a lot”. The news agency cited another US government source, who said that a second group of “senior US policy officials”, known as the “Deputies Committee”, has been meeting in Washington to discuss possible responses to the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , ,

MI5 releases documents on Dutch double spy Mata Hari

April 25, 2014 1 Comment

Mata HariBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The British government has released a set of documents relating to the capture and eventual execution of Mata Hari, modern history’s most legendary female spy. Mata Hari was born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in northern Holland in 1876. In 1895 she married Rudolf MacLeod, a Dutch Army Captain of Scottish descent serving the Dutch colonial administration of what is now Indonesia. She eventually divorced the alcoholic and abusive MacLeod, who was 20 years her senior, and joined the circus in Paris. Eventually she became wildly popular as an exotic dancer, a position that placed her in close contact with several influential men in France, including the millionaire industrialist Émile Étienne Guimet, who became her longtime lover. Several of her male devotees came from military backgrounds from various European countries. Most historians agree that by 1916 Zelle was working for French intelligence, gathering information from a host of German lovers. However, in February of the following year she was arrested by French counterintelligence officers in Paris and accused of spying on behalf of the German Empire. French prosecutors accused Zelle of having provided Berlin with tactical intelligence that cost the Triple Entente the lives of over 50,000 soldiers. A set of documents released this month by Britain’s Security Service, commonly known as MI5, reveal that allied intelligence operatives trailed the exotic dancer across several European countries before she was apprehended in Paris. They also allege that, while under French custody, the Dutch spy admitted that she had conducted espionage on behalf of the German Secret Service and that her codename was H21. She is also alleged to have admitted that she received payments of approximately 20,000 French francs for her servicse. The papers also suggest that Zelle admitted that several vials of invisible ink fond in her hotel suite had been given to her by her German handlers. However, the MI5 reports claim that the accused spy “never made a full confession” and “never gave away anyone” as her accomplice, leading the British author of the report to conclude that she must have been “working alone”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , ,

Russian espionage in Germany rising sharply, says Berlin

April 24, 2014 Leave a comment

Embassy of Russia in BerlinBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Russian espionage activity in Germany has reached levels not seen since the days of the Cold War, according to senior counterintelligence officials in Berlin. An article published in weekly newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag on Sunday said Russian intelligence-gathering activities in the German capital center on infiltrating German political institutions and corporations. The Berlin-based publication said Russian spies typically seek to gain “intimate knowledge” of German energy policy as well as corporate practices. Another area of interest for Russian intelligence concerns Germany’s activities in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Citing Hans-Georg Maassen, Director of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV —Germany’s primary counterintelligence agency), Die Welt said that no foreign intelligence service is more active on German soil than Russia’s SVR —one of the KGB’s successor agencies. Most Russian intelligence officers “pose as embassy workers”, said the paper, adding that the BfV believes up to a third of all Russian diplomats stationed at the German capital have a “background in intelligence gathering”. According to Burkhard Even, who directs the BfV’s counterintelligence operations, the primary task of Russian intelligence operatives in Germany is to “closely analyze individuals who could be of interest” to Moscow. Those targeted —usually key staffers at the Bundestag (Germany’s federal parliament) or major German companies— are then systematically accosted by Russian ‘diplomats’. The latter often ask to take them out to lunch or dinner, said Maaßen, and will often pick up the bill. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Pilot program gives Syrian rebels advanced Western weaponry

April 21, 2014 1 Comment

Syrian rebelsBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A pilot program operated by American and Saudi intelligence services has allegedly supplied Syrian rebel groups with sophisticated Western weaponry for the first time. Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal cited “people briefed on the effort” as stating that “a small number” of advanced American antitank missiles have been offered to Syrian rebel groups. The move is reportedly part of a new clandestine program, which, if successful, could open the door to “larger flows” of sophisticated Western-made weaponry in the hands of Syrian rebels. The paper said that Washington made the decision to give the weapons to the rebels following the collapse of the Western-backed peace talks early this year, coupled by the apparent military victories of Syrian government forces on the ground in the embattled Middle Eastern country. The effort is apparently part of a “small, tailored program”, which The Journal says is coordinated by American and Saudi intelligence services, aimed at “testing the waters” in Syria. Specifically, Washington and Riyadh are trying to discern whether these advanced weapons will fall into the hands of some of Islamist-inspired rebel groups on the ground, some of which have strong links with al-Qaeda. According to the paper, American and Saudi intelligence operatives have funneled “about a dozen” BCM-71 TOW armor piercing antitank systems to at least one rebel group on the ground. The group, Harakat Hazm, emerged earlier this year through the union of several small secular rebel groups in northern Syria. One weapons expert told The Journal that the antitank systems are equipped with a “complex, fingerprint-keyed security device” that should hopefully help limit the number of individuals that can fire the weapons. The article adds that US and Saudi intelligence services have entered a period of closer collaboration aimed at increasing material support for the Syrian rebels. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Saudi Arabia replaces spy chief who failed to deliver on Syria

April 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Prince Bandar bin SultanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Saudi Arabia has replaced its intelligence chief, who is widely seen as the architect of the kingdom’s interventionist policy on the Syrian civil war. The government-owned Saudi Press Agency announced on Tuesday that prince Bandar bin Sultan had been “relieved of his post at his own request”. Bandar was born in 1946 to a concubine of crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, 12th son of Saudi monarch King Abdulaziz. In 1983, Bandar was appointed ambassador to the United States, a post he held until 2005. He developed numerous connections in Washington and rose to become a leading operator in Middle East affairs, enjoying to this day very close personal ties with Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. In 2012 he was appointed director of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, the country’s primary intelligence organization. Since that time, he has been the primary planner of Riyadh’s hawkish policy on the Syrian civil war, which has been to openly support the rebel groups fighting to oust the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia began supplying weapons, cash and intelligence to the Syrian rebels as soon as Bandar took control of the country’s intelligence apparatus. But his once close relations with Washington went sour last year, when he described US President Barack Obama’s refusal to launch military strikes on Syria as a “major shift” in American Middle East policy. He also angered the US by criticizing it’s rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is Riyadh’s major regional adversary. Perhaps most important of all, Bandar appears to have underestimated the strength of the al-Assad administration and over-confidently advising King Abdullah in 2012 that the Syrian government’s days were numbered. The stalemate in the Syrian civil war seems to have frustrated the Saudi government, which began to gradually distancing itself from Bandar’s musings since January. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , ,

White House confirms CIA Director visited Ukraine

April 15, 2014 Leave a comment

John BrennanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
White House officials has confirmed that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency visited Ukraine over the weekend, following reports in the Russian media. On Sunday, Moscow urged Washington to respond to allegations in the Russian press that CIA Director John Brennan had made an incognito visit to Ukrainian capital Kiev. The reports alleged that Brennan, who assumed the directorship of the CIA a year ago, traveled to Ukraine on official business under a false identity in order to avoid attention. Russian media further alleged that the CIA head met with a host of Ukrainian intelligence and security officials and advised them on how to respond to the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine. Initially, Washington denied comment on the allegations. But early on Monday White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Brennan had indeed traveled to Ukraine over the weekend. He said that the White House normally declines comment on the whereabouts of the CIA Director. However, “given the extraordinary circumstances” in the case of Ukraine, he said he was willing to confirm that Brennan was in Kiev over the weekend “as part of a trip to Europe”. He went on to state that he hoped the official confirmation of Brennan’s trip by the White House would suffice to discredit the “false claims being leveled by the Russians at the CIA”. Carney added that there was nothing inherently suspicious about a CIA Director’s trip to a foreign country. He argued that “senior-level visits of intelligence officials [abroad] are a standard means of fostering mutually beneficial security cooperation” and that such visits —some of which have been to Russia— go back “to the beginnings of the post-Cold War era”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

United States allegedly not sharing Russia intelligence with Ukraine

April 10, 2014 1 Comment

Russian troops in UkraineBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The United States is not sharing with the Ukrainian government detailed intelligence or Russia’s military buildup, according to American lawmakers. Moscow is reportedly deploying large numbers of troops along Russia’s border with Ukraine, while US intelligence agencies have allegedly detected the presence of Russian military supply lines that would be required for a land invasion of Ukraine. The US administration of President Barack Obama has publicly expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian government and has warned the Kremlin that any military incursions into eastern Ukraine would constitute a grave “historical error” that would bear serious consequences for the Russian leadership. But according to American news reporting website The Daily Beast, Washington has instructed the American military and intelligence community to refrain from sharing detailed intelligence on Russia’s military buildup with Ukrainian authorities. Details being kept from Ukrainian eyes include “imagery, intercepts and analysis” that pinpoint the exact location of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border. They also include intelligence predictions of how Russian units would deploy during a possible invasion of Ukraine. The Daily Beast, which is owned by Newsweek, cited “US officials and members of Congress” who were briefed by intelligence personnel earlier this week on the situation in Ukraine. They told the news website that senior American military officials have been instructed “to refrain from briefing their Ukrainian counterparts in detail” about information on Russian troop movements held by American intelligence agencies. The Daily Beast quotes Republican Representative Michael Turner, chair of a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee that oversees America’s tactical air and land force strength. Turner told the website that he is “not confident” that Washington is “sharing any of that kind of [detailed military] information” with Kiev. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

CEO of private bank shot dead in Liechtenstein

April 9, 2014 Leave a comment

Bank FrickBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The chief executive officer of a private bank in the alpine principality of Liechtenstein has been shot dead at the bank’s headquarters, according to reports. Liechtenstein police said Monday that a 48-year-old bank executive had been shot dead inside the underground car park of the bank’s headquarters. The report said the fatal shooting took place in the village of Balzers, located near Liechtenstein’s border with Switzerland. The police statement did not name the bank or the executive. Later on Monday, however, Swiss news outlet Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (The Voice of Switzerland) identified the shooting victim as Jürgen Frick, CEO of Bank Frick. Headquartered in Balzers, the family-run bank was founded in 1998 as a private financial establishment. In addition to its Liechtenstein office, Bank Frick also maintains a branch in London’s Mayfair district, in the United Kingdom. Liechtenstein police said on Monday it was looking for a suspected gunman, identified as Jürgen Hermann, a former fund manager, who was spotted in the bank’s surveillance cameras around the time of the shooting. Hermann, who lives in Liechtenstein’s Mauren municipality, was also seen fleeing the scene of the crime in Smart car. Swiss media later reported that Hermann describes himself on his personal website as “the Robin Hood of Liechtenstein” and as the tax-haven’s “public enemy No. 1”. German media said Hermann has been involved in longstanding feuds with the government of Liechtenstein over “financial issues”. In his website, the suspected shooter has uploaded statements demanding that the government of Liechtenstein returns to him “investments worth millions”, which were allegedly “destroyed by the financial mafia of Liechtenstein”. The principality’s police say they found Hermann’s driver license and passport thrown by the side of a road near the river Rhine, and suspect that Hermann might have killed himself. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Analysis: Time for Western spy agencies to refocus on Russia?

April 8, 2014 2 Comments

Pro-Russian celebrations in CrimeaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
During the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies relied on legions of Soviet specialists to make sense of the Kremlin’s policy maneuvers. The American Intelligence Community in particular was almost exclusively engaged in collecting information on the USSR. To the extent that American intelligence collectors were active in countries other than the USSR, it was primarily in order to monitor Soviet activity. The implosion of the Soviet Union brought about a relaxation of Western intelligence collection efforts against Russian targets, a process that was further fueled by the 9/11 attacks. The latter turned the attention of Western intelligence collectors on Islamist-inspired militancy in the Middle East and other predominantly Muslim regions. The legions of Western Sovietologists and Russia specialists saw their careers stagnate, as counterterrorism became the predominant buzzword in intelligence circles. But the recent invasion and annexation of Crimea by Russia is prompting a reexamination of intelligence collection priorities among Western spy agencies. A recent analysis piece by the Reuters news agency suggests that some Western intelligence planners view the events in Crimea as “demonstrating a dramatic need for renewed focus” on Russia. There is concern among intelligence specialists, says Reuters, that no signals chatter was detected in Russia in the weeks prior to the invasion of Crimea to indicate an imminent Russian takeover of Ukrainian territory. This alleged weakness is coupled by concerns among some foreign-policy planners that the West is potentially entering “a new era of […] confrontation with Moscow”, argues Reuters. If this is true, then Western intelligence agencies will need to replenish their level of expertise on Russia, which, according to some intelligence insiders, “has diminished drastically” in the last decade. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , ,

US created fake social network firm to foster dissent in Cuba

April 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Cell phone user in CubaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A United States government agency secretly created a bogus social networking platform in order to foment political unrest in Cuba, according to a report by the Associated Press. Over 40,000 subscribers regularly used the ZunZuneo social networking service that began operating in the communist Caribbean island in 2009. The service, dubbed “Cuba’s Twitter” was based on SMS messages sent via mobile telephone subscribers. Its rapid success was attributed to the strict controls over Internet usage that are in place in Cuba, as well as the population’s relative lack of access to networked computers. But The Associated Press revealed on Thursday that ZunZuneo was in fact a secret program devised by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is a federal body operating under the Department of State. The news agency reported that the US government was able to conceal its role in building and sustaining the network by operating through a complex system of front companies set up in the Cayman Islands and in Spain. The latter were used to register ZunZuneo’s parent company and to pay the company’s bills, as well as to route millions of subscribers’ text messages without the involvement of servers based on US soil. The report stated that ZunZuneo’s corporate website even carried “bogus advertisements” strategically placed to give the site a realistic corporate look. It is worth noting that the social networking service suddenly stopped working in 2012, without providing a warning or an explanation to its tens of thousands of subscribers. But the Associated Press said the reason the service was terminated was that the US taxpayer’s money used to sustain the program simply run out. The news agency argued in its report that the program was covert in nature and should have been subjected to Presidential authorization and Congressional scrutiny. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →