US spy agencies invest in Internet-monitoring company

October 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

In-Q-Tel logo

In-Q-Tel logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital investment arm, is funding a private software company specializing in monitoring online social media, such as YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. The company, Visible Technologies, unleashes web crawlers that scan and sift through over half a million Internet sites a day, looking for open-source intelligence (OSINT) of interest to its customers. The latter receive real-time updates of Internet activity, based on specific sets of keywords they provide. Noah Shachtman, of Wired’s Danger Room blog, correctly notes that In-Q-Tel’s latest investment is indicative of a wider trend within US intelligence agencies to enhance their foreign OSINT collection and analysis. Incidentally, the US Pentagon has shown similar interests since 2006. Read more of this post

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Iran government spying on ex-pat dissidents, says Germany

October 20, 2009 by Leave a comment

Manfred Murck

Manfred Murck

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A German intelligence official has said Iranian government agents are actively spying on Iranian dissidents living in Germany. Speaking to the Panorama program on Germany’s ARD state-owned television station, Manfred Murck, deputy director of the Hamburg branch of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s primary domestic intelligence service, said his department is aware of Iranian intelligence activity targeting Iranians living in Germany. “We know that the Iranian (secret) service has its people circulating in demonstrations. Read more of this post

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Mossad declassifies a document for the first time in its history

October 20, 2009 by Leave a comment

Mossad logo

Mossad logo

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
For the first time in its existence, the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, has released a document from its secret archive. The secretive spy agency agreed to release its official founding charter in the context of a year-long legal battle with two Israeli daily newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha’aretz. Last year, the two papers filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice, claiming that the Mossad, as well as Israel’s internal spy agency Shin Bet, and the country’s Atomic Energy Commission, were not adhering to Israel’s archive laws. According to the petition, the three agencies were breaking the law by “maintaining their own archives and keeping them closed to the general public”. The High Court of Justice is still deliberating the case, but Mossad recently approached Ha’aretz and offered to voluntarily release its founding charter. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0148

October 20, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Secret special service held to commemorate 100 years of MI5 and MI6. The Queen has attended an unpublicized special service at London’s Westminster Abbey to mark the centenary of MI5 and MI6. It appears that the heads of the security and intelligence services were present for the unique ceremony in the cloisters of the Abbey. The service was also attended by prime minister Gordon Brown, foreign secretary David Miliband, and home secretary Alan Johnson, among others.
  • Canadian court ends spy services’ free rein in deporting foreigners. The Federal Court has dealt the government another setback in its attempts to deport alleged terrorists, based on the controversial security-certificate provision, which allows the government to use secret evidence in order to detain and deport foreigners. Thus, the deportation from Canada of Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui has been halted. Last July another deportation case, that of Hassan Almrei, a Syrian immigrant who was arrested in 2001 on suspicion of belonging to an Islamist-tied forgery group, was also halted on similar grounds.
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Senior Afghan official says Pakistan aided Kabul suicide bombing

October 19, 2009 by Leave a comment

ISI HQ

ISI HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior advisor to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistani intelligence services of aiding suicide bombers strike targets in Afghan capital Kabul and other areas in Afghanistan. Speaking last week to Reuters news agency, Davood Moradian, senior policy aide in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alleged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency systematically helps “anti-Western militants” in Afghanistan mount attacks against civilian and military targets alike. Moradian hinted that the ISI assistance to the militants is sanctioned by senior officials in the Pakistani government. The latter view it as a means to “arouse Western concern for stability” in Pakistan, which may in turn translate into increasing Western financial aid poring to the country, said Moradian. Read more of this post

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MI5 chief defends use of intelligence extracted through torture

October 19, 2009 by Leave a comment

Jonathan Evans

Jonathan Evans

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
In an unprecedented public speech, the director of MI5, Britain’s national counterintelligence agency, said the intelligence extracted by torturing suspects after 9/11 had stopped “many attacks” on Western and other targets. Last January, Jonathan Evans, who was named director of MI5 in April 2007, gave the first-ever media interview by an MI5 director in history. Last Thursday, he made history once again by giving the first-ever public speech by an MI5 chief. Speaking at the University of Bristol, England, Evans said MI5 was right to cooperate after 9/11 with US and other intelligence agencies, even if those agencies were known to routinely extract information from detainees through torture. In doing so, he revealed that MI5’s own knowledge of al-Qaeda was “inadequate” at the time of 9/11, and that the agency “had to get overseas help at the time”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0147

October 19, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Major purge in Gambian intelligence services. The Gambian government gave no official reasons for the dismissal of 27 officers from the country’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA). But local media said the dismissals were aimed to end bitter internal turf wars that have affected NIA’s performance.
  • US Congress bars release of more torture photos. US House and Senate members have approved legislation that would permit the Pentagon to withhold photographs if it determines that their disclosure “would endanger citizens of the US, members of the US Armed Forces, or employees of the US government deployed outside the US”. The ACLU said that “the suppression of these photos will ultimately be far more damaging to our national security than their disclosure would be”.
  • Russia jails alleged Georgian spy. A Russian military court has jailed Russian Army sergeant Jemal Nakaidze for nine years, for passing secrets to Georgia during a war between the two countries last year. See here for more on the recent tug-of-war between Russia and Georgia.

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News you may have missed #0146

October 18, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • RAND wants the US to abstain from cyberattacks. A new report by the US Pentagon’s research arm, RAND Corporation, suggests the US may be better off playing cyber-defense instead of resorting to cyberattacks. On offense, cyberwar might be better relegated to support roles, and then only “sparingly and precisely”, according to the report. The study comes as the US military fires up its new unified Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) program this month.
  • Turkey says it foiled al-Qaida plot against Israeli, US targets. Turkish security forces detained on Thursday 32 suspected members of al-Qaeda, believed to have been planning attacks on Israeli, US and NATO targets. The suspects, some of whom are said to have been trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, were detained in simultaneous raids across eight provinces.
  • South Korea arrests alleged Swedish-handled spy. A former South Korean air force major general, identified only as Kim, was arrested last Friday on charges of leaking classified military information to Swedish defense and aviation company Saab, between August 2008 and May this year.

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Analysis: NSA emerging as the world’s most powerful spy agency

October 17, 2009 by 2 Comments

James Bamford

James Bamford

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Regular readers of this blog know that the US National Security Agency is in the process of renovating its soon-to-be-unveiled Texas Cryptology Center, a 470,000-square-foot facility that will cost “upwards of $130 million” and be used primarily to store intercepted communications data. They also know that the gigantic Agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance, as well as communications security, is also building a 1 million square foot data center at Utah’s Camp Williams. Finally, as we reported last August, the NSA is currently laying out a 20-year plan to construct 5.8 million square feet of new working and storage space on its Fort George G. Meade headquarters in Maryland, and staff it with 11,000 people. What does all this mean? Read more of this post

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Russia jails man for passing military secrets to US Pentagon

October 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

Iskander missile

Iskander missile

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A Serb national was given an eight-year sentence by a Russian court earlier today, for allegedly passing classified information on Russian defense projects to an agent of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Agents with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, arrested the 61-year-old man, named Aleksandar Georgijevic, at a Moscow airport in 2007, as he was reportedly trying to leave Russia. They accused him of giving secret documents to Farid Rafi, whom the Russians claim was “working in the interests of the intelligence agency of the US defense ministry”. Georgijevic’s trial took place behind closed doors. But Russian media report that he began collecting classified information in as early as 1998, focusing primarily on the Russian military’s R-500 supersonic cruise missile, as well as the Iskander, Blokada and Khrizantema-C  tactical missiles. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0145

October 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Alleged Norwegian spies appeal Congo sentence. Two Norwegian citizens arrested last May in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on spying charges have begun an appeal against their sentence. The DRC has ordered Norway to pay $60 million in reparations for the spying incident, but Oslo says the two men had no ties to the Norwegian government.
  • Mother of Israeli-handled spy sues government. The mother of Muhamad Said Sabr, an Egyptian nuclear engineer convicted in 2007 of spying for Israel, has filed a damage suit against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ambassador to Egypt Shalom Cohen. She claims mental damage as a result of her son’s being recruited by the Mossad.
  • Pakistan defends spy agencies after week of carnage. Pakistan defended its intelligence agencies Tuesday after a bloody week which saw 125 people killed in a wave of attacks blamed on Taliban militants. Interior Minister Rehman Malik alleged the country’s spy services “foiled at least a hundred attacks before they were carried out”. But local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police.

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Russia accuses Georgian intelligence of aiding Islamists

October 15, 2009 by 1 Comment

A.V. Bortnikov

A.V. Bortnikov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has accused Georgian intelligence and security services of aiding anti-Moscow militants in Russia’s southern republics. Speaking before Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee on Tuesday, Alexander V. Bortnikov said that the FSB’s counterintelligence department had seized a number of “audio reports” from Islamist militants active in the Russian Caucasus, which allegedly show that a number of “al-Qaeda emissaries” mediate between militants in Russia and “Georgian special services”. The latter, said Bortnikov, train militants from Chechnya, Dagestan and North Caucasus, and supply them with funds, weapons and explosives. But the Washington-based Radio Free Europe has quoted David Bakradze, the speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, as denying Bortnikov’s “groundless” allegations. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0144

October 15, 2009 by 1 Comment

  • Cuban Five convict’s sentence cut to 22 years. As intelNews reported on October 12, Antonio Guerrero, a member of the Cuban Five spy ring, has had his life sentence cut to 22 years, following a successful appeal. Given the time he has already served since his 1998 arrest, and benefits for good behavior, Guerrero could be released in seven years. The Cuban Five were sentenced in 2001 for spying on the US for Cuba.
  • Was British MP a Czech agent during Cold War? A recently published book on MI5’s history by Cambridge historian Dr. Christopher Andrew has reignited rumors that Labour Party parliamentarian John Stonehouse worked as an agent for the Czech StB intelligence agency in the 1960s.
  • West German spies collected East German jokes during Cold War. West German spies diligently recorded popular East German jokes about communism during the Cold War, in an attempt to gain insights into the public mood, according to recently released intelligence files.

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News you may have missed #0143

October 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Documents shed light on secret US-Japan nuclear deal. The George Washington University’s National Security Archive has published a number of declassified US government documents, as well as interviews with and memoirs of diplomats, which appear to confirm the existence of a rumored secret nuclear agreement between Washington and Tokyo. Both sides have for years denied the existence of the agreement, which is said to allow US military vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons to enter Japanese territorial waters, as long as Japan is protected by the US nuclear umbrella.
  • Man killed by Houston Police was not our agent, says CIA. Roland Vincent Carnaby, who was shot dead by police on a Houston highway at the end of a high-speed chase in 2008, was not an undercover CIA operative, Langley has said. It also said that it holds no files or other materials relating Carnaby. But Carnaby’s widow’s lawyer, Randall Kallinena, insists the deceased did “a whole lot of counterintelligence work at the highest level where it was helpful to the United States”.

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Senator says Obama employs Bush tactics on spy secrecy

October 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Democratic senator has alleged that the Obama Administration is copying the Bush Administration’s tactics by “stonewalling and road blocking” Congress on intelligence issues. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), the only Senator to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act during its first vote, said during a nomination hearing on Tuesday that he suspects the White House is still withholding information from Congressional intelligence panel members. Feingold voiced the allegation during the nomination hearing in Congress of David Gompert, incoming deputy director of national intelligence, who will serve under director of national intelligence Dennis C. Blair. In recent months, Senator Feingold has emerged as one of the most vocal Democratic critics of the Obama administration’s policies on intelligence and security. Read more of this post

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