Cash register ringing for NSA’s corporate suitors

January 18, 2010 by 1 Comment

NSA Headquarters

NSA HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The decision by the US National Security Agency to build 5.8 million square feet of data-storage and office space by 2029 has drawn mixed reactions by intelligence observers. But for businesses in northern Utah, where the NSA is preparing to build a million-square-foot facility, at Camp Williams, it’s party time, in the middle of a crippling word-wide economic recession. The gigantic government Agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance, as well as communications security, will build the billion-dollar facility within the next two years, and is already consulting with building contractors. But how does one do business with the notoriously secretive NSA? Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0256

January 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Descendant of Richard Sorge’s accomplice receives Soviet-era award. The 81-year-old niece of Yotoku Miyagi, a Japanese accomplice of famous German-born Comintern spy Richard Sorge, has been awarded the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War medal in a ceremony at the Russian embassy in Tokyo, Japan. The medal was originally granted in 1965, but Miyagi was unable to collect it, as he had been executed, along with Sorge, by the Japanese in 1944.
  • Analysis: Alleged US spy’s arrest in Cuba affects bilateral relations. Cuban officials say that a US citizen working for Maryland-based aid group Development Alternatives Inc., who was arrested in Havana last month, was actually recruiting local Cubans to spy on the government. This development means that initial hopes for better US-Cuban relations after Barack Obama’s election success may be fading.
  • CIA, DoD drone attacks in Afghanistan intensify under McChrystal. Under the command of US and NATO forces by US Army general Stanley McChrystal, unmanned drone strikes in Afghanistan have been steadily increasing. A good question to ask is who is in charge of similar strikes in Pakistan, which are also on the increase.

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Analysis: Should US spy agencies learn from France?

January 16, 2010 by 3 Comments

Jean-Louis Bruguiere

J.L. Bruguiere

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
What precisely is wrong with the US intelligence system? I have read several good analyses lately, all sparked by the disastrous Christmas holiday week, which included the Christmas Day bomber fiasco and the killing of seven CIA personnel in Afghanistan. One is written by ex-CIA operations officer Charles Faddis, who argues that the Agency’s central deficiency is that it places emphasis on process, rather than on mission accomplishment. Another, broader, analysis is authored by Ron Capps, the US Pentagon’s former director of human intelligence/counterintelligence operations in Afghanistan, who suggests that the way to break down bureaucratic walls between US intelligence agencies is to publish more unclassified reports. The most interesting commentary, however, is written by Paris-based Jean-Louis Bruguière, a French former Magistrate who led counterterrorism investigations from 1981 to 2007. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0255 (espionage edition)

January 15, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • South Korea jails alleged spy for 10 years. A 37-year-old college professor, identified only as Lee, has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly spying undercover on behalf of North Korea for 17 years. South Korean authorities said Lee, who was charged in November, was recruited by the North in 1992, while studying in New Delhi, India.
  • New details in Nozette spy case. Maryland scientist Stewart Nozette, who is accused of giving classified defense information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, may have impersonated a naval research official in order to acquire classified information, according to new court documents.
  • “I didn’t kill Islamic Jihad members because I was busy spying for Israel“. Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, a retired Lebanese Internal Security Forces official, has already confessed to having “collaborated with Israeli intelligence agents” between 1993 and 2006. But he denies having participated in the 2006 assassinations of two Islamic Jihad leaders in Lebanon, because on the night of the assassinations he was conducting a reconnaissance mission in Lebanon on behalf of Israeli spy agency Mossad.

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Jordanian opposition seeks to end Jordan’s CIA links

January 15, 2010 by Leave a comment

Khalil al-Balawi

Khalil al-Balawi

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Earlier this month we reported on the excellent analysis by Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah about the view from Jordan on the December 30 suicide bombing in Afghanistan. He suggested that the immediate impact of the bombing, which killed at least seven CIA agents and a senior Jordanian intelligence official, was the revelation of Jordan’s covert CIA connection. The latter, “while relatively well-known before, has now been put out in the public sphere for all to see –especially the Arab street”, he wrote. This is precisely what appears to be happening. The Jordanian government is coming under pressure by opposition groups to end its cooperation with American military and intelligence services operating in Arab and Muslim lands. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0254 (activism edition)

January 15, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • US activists file lawsuit over domestic spying. Anti-war activists in Washington State are suing military analyst John Towery and police officials for allegedly infiltrating and spying on two antiwar groups in Olympia. The suit also names the City of Olympia and a US Coast Guard employee.
  • Antiwar activist to stage sit-in at CIA HQ. American political activist Cindy Sheehan says she intends to stage a sit-in in front of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on January 16, to protest the Agency’s unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan. Sheehan, whose son was killed in the Iraq War in 2004, attracted international attention for her extended protest at a makeshift camp outside President George Bush’s Texas ranch.
  • Is there legal basis for CIA drone strikes in Pakistan? We at intelNews have asked this question before. Now the American Civil Liberties Union is asking it also, and has requested to see the US government’s estimates of civilian casualties caused by the strikes.

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News you may have missed #0253

January 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Iran undecided on nukes, says US military spy chief. The US Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, has said what intelNews has been pointing out again and again, namely that the key finding of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran has not yet committed itself to nuclear weapons production, is still valid.
  • Nobel winner demands Germany uncover Romanian ex-spies. Herta Mueller, the Romanian-born German winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, has called on Germany to find and prosecute former agents of Romania’s Securitate secret police, large numbers of whom have resettled in Germany after communism ended in Romania 20 years ago.

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Did Hamas penetrate US Consulate in Jerusalem?

January 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

The US Consulate in Jerusalem

US Consulate

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
I was first alerted to this story by staff at the The Jerusalem Post on January 9, but I thought I would wait for follow-up stories in the US media before reporting it on this website. Strangely, none have appeared. The report reveals that, in 2006, a Palestinian working for the US Consulate in Jerusalem was fired because his late father had strong links with Hamas. But now the former employee, Azam Qiq, is suing the Consulate, claiming he was fired unlawfully without receiving severance pay. From 2003 to 2006, Qiq was an award-winning mechanic, whose job was to oversee the Consulate’s diplomatic car fleet. But in February of 2006, when Qiq’s father, Hassan Qiq, died, US Consulate workers noticed that several Hamas officials were in attendance at his funeral, which was apparently “lined with Hamas flags”. In the funeral service brochure, the deceased was described as a founding member of Hamas. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0252

January 14, 2010 by 1 Comment

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Spanish spies remain active in UK territory of Gibraltar

January 13, 2010 by Leave a comment

Gibraltar

Gibraltar

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The British Crown has ruled Gibraltar since the early 1700s, but Spain has never ceased to claim national rights over the territory. Today, la Cuestión de Gibraltar (the Gibraltar question) is as critical an issue in Spanish-British relations as it has been for over 300 years. A recent article in Gibraltar’s English-language Panorama news site reminds us that, even though the two countries are NATO and European Union allies, Spanish intelligence agents remain active in the territory. It is true that the Rock is frequented by agents of Spain’s Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI), who are mostly concerned with assessing economic and political life in the British possession. The article lacks sources, but its views are probably not far from the truth, considering Gibraltar’s immense geostrategic significance. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0251 (analysis edition)

January 13, 2010 by 1 Comment

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More on Iranian physicist’s assassination

January 13, 2010 by 4 Comments

Blast site

Blast site

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
American intelligence and State Department officials, some anonymous, have denied any connection with the assassination yesterday of Iranian physicist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, in Tehran. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that Ali-Mohammadi was among several Iranian researchers who had regular contacts with Israeli and Arab physicists, through a United Nations-sponsored scientific collaboration project based in Amman, Jordan. The program, known as Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), was focused on non-nuclear physics applications in the medical industry and nanotechnology. To further complicate the issue, the Iranian opposition issued a report late last night saying that photographs taken at the scene of the bombing shortly after the blast, reveal the presence at the site of Abu Nasser Hossein, assistant to Manif Ashmar, who is Hezbollah’s public face in Iran. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0250

January 12, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Pakistanis ask US to quit drone strikes. A Pakistani intelligence official has told the Associated Press that the response to the December 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA agents should not include intensifying unmanned drone strikes inside Pakistan. However, the CIA has reportedly “stepped up drone strikes” since the bombing.
  • Bush, Obama administrations guilty for neglecting info sharing. Thomas E. McNamara, former head of the US federal Information Sharing Environment, says the Bush and Obama administrations are both guilty of either losing interest or not focusing at all on promoting information sharing among often-secluded US government agencies.
  • China ends probe into Rio Tinto espionage case. Chinese prosecutors have now taken over the case of Stern Hu, the jailed boss of Anglo-Australian mining corporation Rio Tinto, after officials ended their investigation. Hu was arrested last July on espionage charges.

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BREAKING NEWS: Bomb blast kills Iranian physicist

January 12, 2010 by Leave a comment

Masoud Ali Mohammadi

Dr. Mohammadi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Iran’s state broadcaster has said a government physicist was “martyred” earlier this morning in a suspicious blast outside his home. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) news agency reports that police forces have sealed off the area around the Tehran residence of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, whom it described as a “dedicated revolutionary professor”. Dr. Ali-Mohammadi was reportedly killed by a remotely controlled explosive device that was planted at the entrance of his residence. Iranian officials hint that the remnants of the device point to the work of “outside intelligence agencies”, and some implicate the Mossad. Read more of this post

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Too much intelligence collection overwhelms US agencies

January 12, 2010 by 3 Comments

Predator drone

USAF drone

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The broad debate about America’s recent intelligence setbacks has centered on the view that US spy agencies do not share enough information with each other. Several days ago, however, Politico’s Laura Rozen noticed an important remark by an anonymous former intelligence official, buried in a longer piece in The Washington Post about the Christmas Day bomber. The official told the Post that “[t]he real story line internally [in the Christmas Day bomber affair] is not information-sharing or connecting dots […]. Information was shared. It was separating noise from chaff. It’s not that information wasn’t passed around, it’s that so much information is being passed. There’s an inherent problem of dealing with all the data that is sloshing around” (emphasis added). This view may in fact be closer to reality than the more dominant ‘turf war’ argument. Read more of this post

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