Panama tries to block extradition of Colombia’s former spy chief

June 26, 2014 by Leave a comment

Ana BelfonBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Senior government officials in Panama continue to shelter one of Colombia’s notorious former spy chiefs, who is wanted in Colombia for spying on opposition figures. María del Pilar Hurtado directed the highly disreputable Administrative Department for Security (DAS) from 2007 to 2009. But on October 31, 2010, she left Colombia, apparently unobstructed, despite being a chief subject in a high-level investigation into political spying by DAS. Hours later, she surfaced in Panama, where she formally requested political asylum. The latter was granted to her on November 19, 2010, causing the amazement of public prosecutors in Bogota, who have accused the Panamanian government of subverting Colombian justice. Hurtado is among 18 senior officials in the administration of Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe. Critics of DAS accuse him of authorizing a massive program of political surveillance, which targeted the former Presidents, Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists, union leaders, human rights campaigners, and even European politicians. Finally, after years of diplomatic pressure by Uribe’s successor, Panama’s supreme court ruled last week that Hurtado’s asylum had been granted to her in violation of the Panamanian constitution. It consequently ordered that her residence permit, which was granted to her under the personal authorization of Panama’s heavy-handed President, Ricardo Martinelli, would become invalid after three working days. The three working-day deadline was set to expire at 5:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday. However, shortly before the cut-off time, Panama’s Attorney General, Ana Belfon (pictured), stepped in and effectively extended Hurtado’s residence permit deadline. In a dramatic move, Belfon filed an appeal on behalf of the government, asking the Supreme Court to clarify the conditions of the former spy chief’s deportation back to Colombia. In accordance with Panamanian legal procedure, the Supreme Court’s decision to cancel Hurtado’s residence permit is now suspended and the Colombian former spymaster will continue to enjoy the Panamanian government’s protection until the Supreme Court responds to the Attorney General’s appeal. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Did Russian spy services secretly bug Polish officials?

June 25, 2014 by 3 Comments

Radosław SikorskiBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS* | intelNews.org
Poland’s relations with the United States were strained this week after Poland’s foreign minister allegedly described Warsaw’s alliance with Washington as “worthless” and “complete bullshit” in a private conversation. Radosław Sikorski has not denied the authenticity of a bugged conversation, in which he appears to argue that Poland is wrong to anger Germany and Russia by always siding with America on foreign policy issues. Using highly undiplomatic language, Sikorski denounced Poland’s foreign policy planners as “complete losers” and accused them of having a “slave mentality” in their dealings with American diplomats. He also described British Prime Minister David Cameron as an “incompetent” politician who “believes in his stupid propaganda” about the European Union. Transcripts of the conversation, which allegedly took place between Sikorski and Poland’s former Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, were published last week in several increments by Polish newsmagazine Wprost.

How did the bugging occur? It appears that Sikorski was among a number of Polish politicians surreptitiously recorded for over a year while dining with colleagues at elite restaurants in Polish capital Warsaw. Polish authorities reportedly believe that managers and waiters at the restaurants placed concealed recording devices near the guests’ tables. Some believe the culprits’ goal was to blackmail the politicians in return for cash payments; others believe that powerful business interests or opposition politicians were behind the recordings. A few observers have even suggested that Rostowski, who is heard talking with Sikorski in the bugged conversation, may have been the source of the leak to Wprost. The magazine’s editors said they received an encrypted email from a business executive, going by the name “Patriot”, with links to four recorded conversations between senior Polish government officials. But it insisted that it was not aware of the identity of the leaker. Read more of this post

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CIA ‘stripped of spies’ in embattled Iraq, say sources

June 23, 2014 by Leave a comment

US embassy compound, IraqBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The Sunni uprising in Iraq, in combination with the Shiite domination of the government in Baghdad, has drastically limited the ability of the United States Central Intelligence Agency to collect dependable intelligence, according to sources. Newsweek’s veteran intelligence correspondent, Jeff Stein, said on Friday that the Agency had been “stripped of its spies” in the embattled country and was struggling to rebuild its network of assets. Stein cited “knowledgeable intelligence sources” as saying that the CIA had lost many of its sources inside the government in Baghdad, which is now firmly in Shiite hands. Since assuming power in 2006, Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, gradually purged most Sunnis from senior government positions, thus shutting down the CIA’s eyes and ears in Baghdad. The intelligence-collection problem for the Agency has worsened since the breakout of the Sunni uprising in the west of the country, which has prompted mass defections of senior tribal leaders to al-Qaeda-inspired rebel groups. Many of these leaders were previously valuable sources of information for the CIA, which has traditionally had far more contacts with Iraqi Sunnis than Shiites. To make things worse, says Stein, CIA operatives in Iraq are unable to travel outside of Baghdad due to the worsening security situation in the country. Instead, they remain “holed up” in the American embassy compound and rely almost exclusively on “technical means” of intelligence collection (and, one presumes, a variety of open sources). Inevitably, the Agency is now much more reliant than usual on information provided by regional intelligence services, such as Turkey’s and Jordan’s, who still have agents on the ground in Iraq. Read more of this post

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White man allegedly led Kenya Islamist attack that killed 60

June 20, 2014 by Leave a comment

Mpeketoni, KenyaBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Survivors of a militant Islamist attack on a Kenyan coastal town said they witnessed a white man speaking in English and Arabic coordinating the operation that left 60 people dead. The bloody attack took place on Sunday in Mpeketoni, a small town located near the Kenya’s Lamu archipelago on the Indian Ocean. Witnesses said a group of 40 heavily armed men stormed the town in small teams and took it over last Sunday morning. Once they had established control, they visited almost every house asking residents if they were Muslim. If they failed to pass a simple test, they were executed on the spot. The attack is believed to have been carried out by al-Shabaab, a Somali-based Islamist group that has links to al-Qaeda. But survivors of the horrific raid have told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph that the leader of the attackers was “pale-skinned” and “spoke English and Arabic”. The paper quoted Mpeketoni schoolteacher Mary Gachoki, who said she saw “a white man who was speaking in fluent British English commanding the rest of the attackers”. The Telegraph report cited the accounts of several more witnesses, including a woman who saw “a white man” among the attackers, who “was commanding them and was shooting now and then”. She added that “at one point he spoke in Arabic but most of the time in English”, with a British accent. One witness said the pale skinned man “was either white or an Arab”. These accounts are believed to strengthen the view that the attack was indeed carried over by al-Shabaab. The group has strong links with foreign Arab or European-born Islamists who routinely travel to Somalia to join the group’s ranks. But the claims also bring to mind similar allegations made following last September’s attack at the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Kenyan capital Nairobi, which killed nearly 70 people. Read more of this post

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Hidden spy software found in Chinese-made smartphones

June 18, 2014 by 1 Comment

Star N9500By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A popular brand of Chinese-made smartphones, which are sold internationally by several major retailers, has been found to contain pre-installed monitoring software, according to a German security firm. The revelation was made on Tuesday by G Data Software, which is based in Bochum, Germany, and has a subsidiary in the United States. The firm, which was founded in 1985, said it discovered the spy software hidden deep inside the proprietary software found on the Chinese-made Star N9500. The product in question is a cheap smartphone based on the popular Samsung Galaxy S4, and can be purchased from numerous Internet retailers, including online outlets such as Amazon.com. A G Data spokesperson, Thorsten Urbanski, told reporters in Germany that his company purchased several Star N9500 telephones from an online retailer after receiving multiple messages from users of the telephone in Germany, who said the device’s operating system appeared to contain malicious software. The security firm said the Star N9500’s operating system contains hidden software applications that could allow a third party to access and steal the telephone user’s personal information. There are also secret applications that could permit a hacker to place calls from the telephone, or utilize the device’s microphone and camera without the consent of its owner. What is more, the stolen data was sent to a server based in China. G Data investigators added that their team of experts sought for “over a week” to track down the manufacturer of the Star N9500 but were unable to do so. German media reported that journalists from The Associated Press also tried to locate the manufacturer of the smartphone, by contacting several companies located in China’s southern province of Shenzhen, known as the center of the country’s telecommunications industry. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #879

June 17, 2014 by Leave a comment

Mossad sealBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
►►Israeli spy budget close to $2 billion. According to reports in the Israeli media, the 2014 budget for Israel’s secret services is 6.88 billion shekels, which amounts to US$1.97 billion). This figure represents an approximate increase of 4 percent compared to last year. The funds cover the operations of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, and the Mossad, which is the country’s external covert-action agency.
►►Australia and France sign intelligence accord. Australia has struck a second intelligence-sharing agreement in less than a week, this time with France, as fears rise about the Syrian civil war becoming a hub for home-grown terrorism. The two countries have agreed, among other things, to share intelligence on their respective citizens who have gone to Syria to fight in that country’s civil war. A week earlier, Canberra had signed a similar intelligence-sharing agreement with the government of Indonesia.
►►Nazi spy could have changed course of D-Day. Days before the Normandy landings, the Lisbon-based Nazi spy Paul Fidrmuc got wind of the final details of Operation Overlord and sent an urgent message to Berlin. The Allies were not planning to land in Calais, as the Nazis thought and where they had massed 200,000 soldiers. Instead, he wrote, “the preferred plan is around La Manche”. But his dispatch was ignored by his Berlin handlers.

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CIA resumes drone strikes in Pakistan after six-month hiatus

June 16, 2014 by Leave a comment

Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal AreasBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
The United States Central Intelligence Agency appears to have resumed its targeted assassinations using unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan, following a nearly six-moth hiatus. The Agency launched its lethal drone program in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2004, and intensified it in 2008 under the supervision of US President George Bush, who then passed it on to his successor, Barack Obama. Nearly 400 strikes on Pakistani soil have been attributed to the CIA in the past decade, which have killed in excess of 3,000 militants and civilians by some estimates. But, in an unprecedented move, Washington completely seized carrying out airstrikes on Pakistani soil after December 25 of last year. That changed on Wednesday, June 11, when several powerful missiles landed outside a house located a few miles outside of Miramshah, in Pakistan’s North Wazieristan Province. The area is an operational stronghold of Pakistan’s most powerful armed militant group, the Pakistani Talban, and its close affiliate, the Haqqani Network. The air strikes took out a number of vehicles that were allegedly filled with explosives and killed at least 16 people, including alleged Taliban and Haqqani commanders, as well as, reportedly, members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Washington said that those targeted were on their way to conduct cross-border raids in Afghanistan when they were killed. As it always does in these instances, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the strikes as violations of the country’s sovereignty. But reports in the Pakistani media claimed that Washington had sought and received Islamabad’s approval prior to launching last week’s attacks. What prompted the change in policy? According to one local observer, the CIA had agreed to stop its aerial attacks after it was asked to do so by the government of Pakistan, which has been engaged in peace talks with the Taliban for several months. But these talks collapsed following the June 6 suicide attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport by the Taliban and the IMU, which killed 36 people, including all 10 attackers. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #878 (ISIS edition)

June 13, 2014 by Leave a comment

ISIS parade in SyriaBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
►►Backgrounder on Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria. The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), a predominantly Sunni jihadist group, seeks to sow civil unrest in Iraq and the Levant with the aim of establishing a caliphate —a single, transnational Islamic state based on sharia. The group emerged in the ashes of the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein as al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the insurgency that followed provided it with fertile ground to wage a guerrilla war against coalition forces and their domestic allies.
►►ISIS stole $425m and became world’s richest terrorist group. The most stunning revelation to emerge out of the wreckage of Mosul this week is that ISIS just got extremely rich. Several ISIS insurgents stopped at Mosul’s central bank, where an incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars —approximately US$425 million.
►►The Battle for Iraq Is a Saudi War on Iran. Currently on vacation in Morocco, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has so far been silent on the developments in Iraq. But the situation there could well prompt him to cut short his stay and return home. This is because the ISIS advance represents a setback for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has been the dream of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah for years. He has regarded Maliki as little more than an Iranian stooge, refusing to send an ambassador to Baghdad and instead encouraging his fellow rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council to take a similar standoff-ish approach.
►►Iran deploys Revolutionary Guard forces to fight Iraq militants. The threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. With ISIS, an offshoot of al Qaeda, rapidly gaining territory, Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials.
►►Jihadist gains in Iraq blindside American spies. United States intelligence agencies were caught by surprise when fighters from ISIS seized two major Iraqi cities this week and sent Iraqi defense forces fleeing, current and former US officials said Thursday. With US troops long gone from the country, Washington didn’t have the spies on the ground or the surveillance gear in the skies necessary to predict when and where the jihadist group would strike.

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Analysis: Should government spies target foreign firms?

June 12, 2014 by 3 Comments

CyberespionageBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Last month, the government of the United States indicted five officers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, economic espionage, and theft of trade secrets, among other charges. In indicting the five PLA officers, the US Department of Justice went to great pains to ensure that it did not accuse the suspects of engaging in cyberespionage in defense of China’s national security. What sparked the indictments was that the accused hackers allegedly employed intelligence resources belonging to the Chinese state in order to give a competitive advantage to Chinese companies vying for international contracts against American firms. In the words of US Attorney General Eric Holder, the operational difference between American and Chinese cyberespionage, as revealed in the case against the five PLA officers, is that “we do not collect intelligence to provide a competitive advantage to US companies, or US commercial sectors”, whereas China engages in the practice “for no reason other than to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China”. I recently authored a working paper that was published by the Cyberdefense and Cybersecurity Chair of France’s Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, in which I argued that the American distinction between public and private spheres of economic activity is not shared by PLA. The Chinese see both state and corporate cyberespionage targets as fair game and as an essential means of competing globally with the United States and other adversaries. In the paper, I argue that Beijing sees the demarcation between state and private economic activity as a conceptual model deliberately devised by the US to disadvantage China’s intelligence-collection ability. Read more of this post

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Iran serious about nuclear deal, says senior Israeli intelligence official

June 11, 2014 by Leave a comment

Israel and IranBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
A senior Israeli intelligence official said on Monday that Iran appears to be genuinely interested in entering an agreement with world powers that would lead to the termination of its nuclear program. In November of 2013, Iran signed a Joint Plan of Action with six world powers in Geneva, Switzerland. Known as the Geneva interim agreement, the pact eases economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic in exchange for a short-term suspension of core aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. The Israeli government’s negative response to the agreement was headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister called the pact a “historic mistake”, which enabled “the most dangerous regime in the world” to get closer to “attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world”. Since that time, Tel Aviv has continued to criticize the governments of the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, known as P5+1, for signing the interim agreement with Tehran. On Monday, however, Israel’s senior intelligence analyst, Brigadier-General Itai Brun, told a conference near Tel Aviv that Iran has so far abided by the interim agreement and added that he was cautiously optimistic about the future of the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. Brun was speaking at the Herzliya Conference, an annual gathering of senior Israeli political leaders, which typically serves as a public platform for articulation of Israel’s national policy on critical issues. Senior figures in Israel, including the President and Prime Minister, typically use their keynote addresses at the conference to set the tone for the future policies of their administration. Brig. Gen. Brun, 51, has led the research division of the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Israeli Defense Forces. His position is generally viewed as the second most senior within Israel’s military intelligence establishment. Brun’s address at the conference appeared to be deliberately designed to challenge Netanyahu’s skepticism of the Geneva interim agreement. He told conference participants that it was “very possible” that Iran and the P5+1 were “moving toward the signing of a permanent nuclear deal”. Read more of this post

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UK military scrambling to rehire retired Russian-language analysts

June 10, 2014 by 1 Comment

Russian troops in UkraineBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The crisis in Ukraine is causing the British military to reach out to hundreds of retired Russian-language analysts who left the service at the end of the Cold War, according to media reports. British newspaper The Daily Telegraph said on Saturday that Russia’s actions in the Ukraine had exposed significant shortages of Russian-language analysts in the British Armed Forces. The paper said it had seen internal government documents that detailed efforts by military officials to contact associations of retired intelligence personnel in search of qualified Russia experts. The article referenced one recent memorandum from an unnamed senior officer in a military intelligence brigade, which asks retired military personnel to help by contacting retired Russian-language analysts, most of whom are now in their 60s. Other documents suggest that, in addition to analysts, the British military is in need of experts that can help monitor and translate information collected from open-source Russian information channels. The Telegraph places the blame for the shortage on budget cuts implemented by successive British governments on the nation’s Armed Forces. It also faults the defense and security agencies’ “recent focus on the Middle East and Asia”, which is said to have occurred at the expense of Russian linguistic and analytical expertise. The article quotes an unnamed “intelligence source” as saying that Britain’s Ministry of Defense used to offer “extremely good” Russian-language courses, but that “after 9/11” a focus on Arabic displaced Russian and other languages associated with the Cold War. There are also complaints by Russian experts in the British Army that they were “openly derided as being nothing more than a ‘language club’” in the years following 9/11. Read more of this post

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Former KGB officer says Snowden was ‘tricked into going to Russia’

June 9, 2014 by 3 Comments

Boris KarpichkovBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A former major in the Soviet KGB has told the British press that a team of Russian intelligence operatives posing as diplomats “tricked” American intelligence defector Edward Snowden into going to Moscow. Many believe that Snowden, a former computer expert for the United States Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, was recruited by Russian intelligence before defecting to Moscow in June 2013. But former Soviet and Russian intelligence operative Boris Karpichkov has said in an interview that Snowden never intended to defect to Russia, but was lured there by a team of Russians spies. Karpichkov was a major in the Soviet KGB and its domestic-security successor, the FSB, where he worked for 15 years. In the mid-1990s, however, he gradually fell out with his employer and was imprisoned for several months before managing to leave his homeland using one of several false passports that had been supplied to him by Russian intelligence. In 1998 he entered Britain, where he lives with his family today, having been granted political asylum. He told British tabloid newspaper Sunday People that Snowden had first attracted the attention of Russian intelligence in 2007, while he was posted by the CIA to Geneva, Switzerland. During his time there, Snowden posed as a diplomat while maintaining the security of the CIA’s computer facilities located on Swiss soil. According to Karpichkov, the SVR, the post-Soviet successor of the KGB’s foreign-intelligence department, first opened a file on Snowden at that time, and kept updating it for six years, having identified the American computer technician as a “potential defector”. The former KGB operative told the British newspaper that the SVR moved quickly after it emerged that Snowden had abandoned Hawaii, where he had been posted by the NSA, and was hiding in a Hong Kong hotel. He was eventually accosted by a group of SVR spies posing as Russian diplomats. The group managed to persuade him, says Karpichkov, that the Russian government would be able to offer him protection in Moscow while he made up his mind over which country to apply to for political asylum. Read more of this post

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Is Estonia’s Russian counterintelligence program the world’s best?

June 5, 2014 by 7 Comments

EstoniaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Until not so long ago, the former Soviet Republic of Estonia was known as a playground for Russian intelligence. The tiny Baltic state, with a population of just under 1.4 million, a fourth of whom are ethnic Russians, struggled to build its security and intelligence infrastructure following its emergence from communism. Some of the country’s low points during that process include the infamous 2007 cyberattacks, which are believed to have been orchestrated by Moscow, and which kicked the entire country off the World Wide Web for over a week. A year later, authorities in Tallinn announced the arrest of Herman Simm, a senior official at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, who was apprehended along with his wife for spying on behalf of Russian intelligence for nearly 30 years. Since that time, however, Tallinn has been able to transform its Russian counterintelligence program into something resembling the envy of the world, according to Foreign Affairs columnist Michael Weiss. In an intriguing analysis published on Tuesday, Weiss argues that Estonia’s claim to fame in the counterintelligence world centers on its initiative in hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, which was founded in response to the 2007 cyberattacks. But, says Weiss, much more quietly, the tiny Baltic state has become a global leader in “old-fashioned counterintelligence” directed against Russian spy operations on its territory. He quotes one observer as saying that Estonia’s Russian counterintelligence program “is now better by a long way than that of any other country in Europe”. John Schindler, a professor at the United States Naval War College and former analyst at the National Security Agency, tells Weiss that, unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Estonia’s counterintelligence service, Kaitsepolitseiamet, known as KaPo, “intuitively understands Russian intelligence culture”. The agency, says Schindler, used the Simm case as an impetus to upgrade its offensive and defensive counterintelligence posture. This effort led to the well-publicized arrests of Aleksei and Viktoria Dressen, as well as Vladimir Veitman, all Estonian citizens who had been spying for Russia for many years. Read more of this post

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Location of UK’s ‘above top-secret’ Middle East spy base revealed

June 4, 2014 by 4 Comments

GCHQ's Seeb spy base in OmanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The location of a British listening base in the Middle East, which is classified by the British government as “three levels above top-secret”, has been revealed by a technology website. The information had been previously leaked by American defector Edward Snowden to several British newspapers, but the latter refrained from airing it following pressure by the British government. However, the highly classified material was published on Tuesday in online technology review The Register. The author of the revelatory article is Duncan Campbell, a longtime investigative journalist and researcher who has been reporting on intelligence matters for over three decades. In his article, Campbell alleges that the secret British spy base is located in Seeb, in northeast Oman, and is operated by the General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s signals intelligence agency. The base’s primary operational goal is to monitor undersea telecommunications cables serving the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, which pass through the Strait of Hormuz. According to Campbell, the listening facility was initially constructed with British funding as a joint intelligence center with the Omani authorities, with the purpose of intercepting the signals of civilian communications satellites orbiting in the wider region. But it has since developed into one of three high-value GCHQ locations in Oman (referred to as Overseas Processing Centres —OPCs). The three locations, codenamed TIMPANI, GUITAR and CLARINET, form part of a region-wide communications interception program codenamed CIRCUIT. Through CIRCUIT, London has allegedly managed to gain access to nearly a dozen underwater cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which link a host of Arab countries, including Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Interestingly, GCHQ relies on the close cooperation of several telecommunications service providers to meet its interception targets, says Campbell. These include British Telecom, codenamed REMEDY in internal GCHQ documents, and Vodafone, the world’s second-largest mobile telecommunications company, which GCHQ has codenamed GERONTIC. Read more of this post

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US journalist facing jail term for refusing to testify in CIA officer’s trial

June 3, 2014 by 1 Comment

James RisenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
A leading American journalist is facing a possible jail term after the United States Supreme Court refused to consider his appeal against testifying at the trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency officer. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, who worked for the CIA from 1993 until 2002, was arrested in early 2011 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was charged with leaking classified information about Operation MERLIN, a botched CIA covert operation targeting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The operation was publicly revealed for the first time in New York Times reporter James Risen’s 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. In chapter 9 of the book, Risen details a bungled operation by the CIA’s Iran Task Force to pass to the Iranians a series of faulty nuclear bomb design documents. Risen alleges that the CIA operation backlashed and may actually have helped the Iranian nuclear weapons program, as Iranian nuclear engineers would have been able to “extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws”. Risen was summoned to testify in Sterling’s trial, but refused, arguing that having to identify the source of his allegation about Operation MERLIN would infringe on press freedom. On the other side of the argument, the United States government claimed that the freedom of the press does not permit journalists “to refuse to provide direct evidence of criminal wrongdoing by confidential sources”. Risen filed a case in a Virginia court, arguing that he should not be forced to comply with the subpoena issued to him to testify at Sterling’s trial. After the court upheld the subpoena, Risen’s legal team filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. But the Court has now refused to hear the case, which means that Risen will have to testify in Sterling’s trial or face a possible jail sentence. Read more of this post

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