US rewarding Colombia despite knowledge of military abuses, declassified records show

January 8, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Earlier this year, the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation nominated Colombia as a leading candidate for economic assistance under the Millennium Challenge Act. The Act provides financial rewards to US allies “that enter into compacts with the United States to support policies and programs that advance the progress of such countries [toward] demonstrated commitment to just and democratic governance”. However, internal US government documents published yesterday by researchers at The National Security Archive, show that Colombia’s favored treatment by the US comes despite knowledge of serious and systematic abuses by the Colombian military and security establishment. According to the declassified documents, the CIA and senior US diplomats in Bogotá have known since at least 1994 that the country’s security forces (largely trained and backed by the US) systematically engage in “death squad tactics”, and collaborate with drug running cartels. Read more of this post

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Comment: CIA Insiders Issue Political Threats Against Obama, Panetta

January 8, 2009 by 14 Comments

Panetta

Panetta

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On January 6, I explained that US President Elect Barack Obama’s nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA will intensify his ongoing quarrel with the troubled agency. I further stated that the CIA, which is not known for welcoming previous Directors it perceives as outsiders, has already “shown signs of refusing to cooperate with the incoming Administration”. This is now becoming clearer, as numerous CIA sources come forward to sharply denounce Panetta’s nomination and, in some cases, even hurtle political threats at the Obama Administration and its nominee. In one such case, a “former intelligence official” speaking to The Washington Post reminded Obama and Panetta that “many of the people Panetta will be expected to lead [at the CIA] would have participated in implementing [torture-based] interrogation polic[ies]”. Another “former senior official” warned Obama and Panetta to “think twice about pledges they make now [about the handling of terrorism detainees] because they may come back to haunt them in the future if some dire circumstances occur”. Read more of this post

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MI5 Director in rare public interview

January 8, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The head of MI5, Britain’s foremost counterintelligence agency, has given the first public interview of an MI5 serving Director General in the organization’s 100-year history. Jonathan Evans, who became Director General of MI5 last April, answered questions in a face-to-face interview, on January 6, with a carefully selected group of security correspondents representing a handful of British media outlets. Among other things, Evans confirmed that al-Qaeda’s Pakistan-based leaders are actively trying to recruit British-born Muslims to stage attacks inside the UK. He estimated at “around 2,000” the number of individuals in Britain who are actively involved in such efforts, with many more involved in “fundraising, helping people to travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Sometimes they provide equipment, support and propaganda”, he said. Read more of this post

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Further technical details emerge on Mumbai attacks

January 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

Mumbai attacker

Mumbai attacker

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
On December 9, we reported that the Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, used voice-over-Internet-protocol (VOIP) software to communicate with the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on the ground and direct the operation on a real-time basis. We further noted that VOIP signals pose severe barriers to communications interception, as well as to the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to locate the source of target calls. The Mumbai attacks were a typical example of this. Thus, even though Indian intelligence services know that the handlers of the Mumbai attackers were located in Pakistan, their VOIP communications data pointed to companies in New Jersey and Austria. Further details have now emerged of a virtual number, 1-201-253-1824, which the handlers of the Mumbai attackers actually generated via a California-based VOIP provider. Read more of this post

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DoJ continues criminal investigation of NSA whistleblower

January 7, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last month, Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official, revealed himself as the source who initially tipped off The New York Times about NSA’s operation STELLAR WIND, a domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau eventually revealed the program in a front page article, relying on interviews with nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders. Despite numerous indications that STELLAR WIND may be unconstitutional, and despite the impending change of guard at the White House, the US Department of Justice appears to be actively pursuing its criminal investigation of Tamm. Read more of this post

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Obama to nominate wiretapping critic for critical DoJ post

January 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Yesterday we wrote that Leon Panetta’s nomination to direct the CIA is part of a broader effort by US President Elect Barack Obama to reestablish governmental “oversight over the intelligence community, which […] was effectively terminated [after] 9/11”. Now rumors of yet another nomination come to support the view of a broader plan by Barack Obama “to depart from some of the most controversial legal policies of the Bush administration”. The President Elect is shortly expected to nominate David Kris, a former national security legal adviser in the Department of Justice, to lead the DoJ’s National Security Division. The Division was established in 2006 to oversee intelligence activities by US government agencies relating to counterespionage and counterterrorism. Read more of this post

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British authorities admit to hacking computers

January 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The British Home Office has joined an EU-wide agreement that prompts European law enforcement agencies to resort to computer hacking (termed “remote searching” in the official document) in order to combat cyber crime. Commenting on the move, a spokesman for the UK Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) admitted that British law enforcement and intelligence agencies already conduct “a small number” of such operations every year. Specifically, the spokesman said that “remote searching”, which allows the authorities to covertly examine the contents and activity of targeted computers, was employed during “194 clandestine searches […] of people’s homes, offices and hotel bedrooms”. Read more of this post

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US Judge allows legal challenge of warrantless wiretapping

January 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

Pete Seda, fmr head of Al-Haramain

Pete Seda, fmr head of Al-Haramain

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ever since September 2004, when they were taken to court accused of terrorist links by the US government, the directors of Al-Haramain, a Saudi-based Islamic charity with offices in Oregon and Missouri, have suspected their telephones had been tapped under the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Their suspicions were confirmed last July, when US government prosecutors mistakenly gave the charity’s legal team a classified document showing that the FBI had indeed tapped the group’s office phones. The group’s legal team used the classified document as a basis to sue the Bush Administration, claiming that warrantless wiretapping violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, the presiding Judge, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, ruled that the lawsuit rested on a classified document that Al-Haramain’s lawyers were not supposed to have access to in the first place. He therefore dismissed the case and ordered the Islamic charity’s legal team to return the document to the FBI. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Panetta’s CIA Nomination Part of Broader Obama Plan

January 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
America’s largest newspapers describe US President Elect Barack Obama’s choice of Leon E. Panetta as CIA’s next Director as “a surpris[ing] and unusual choice” that has “stunned the national intelligence community“. These descriptions are not far from the truth. More importantly, however, the selection of the former Bill Clinton aide to head the nation’s most powerful intelligence agency reveals the continuing rift between the incoming Democratic Administration and many conservative hawks at the CIA. The latter openly warned the President Elect last month that he “may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party”. Keep reading →

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Austin activist reveals himself to be FBI informant

January 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

Brandon Darby

Brandon Darby

In the days just prior to last year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, two activists from Texas used a rented U-Haul trailer to transport dozens of homemade shields, helmets and batons to Minnesota’s capital. The two activists, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, presumably intended the homemade protection gear to be used in street demonstrations during the RNC. They were eventually intercepted by St. Paul police officers who appeared to know what the two men were hauling. The officers, who did not use a warrant, proceeded to smash the trailer’s lock and seize its contents. This incident appears to have failed to convince McKay and Crowder of the obvious existence of an informant in their ranks. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Pakistan’s former spy chief sees wider geopolitical games in region

January 5, 2009 by Leave a comment

Hamid Gul

Hamid Gul

Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, the controversial former Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has expressed the view that Pakistan’s nuclear disarmament is the ultimate aim of the US-Indian alliance. Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, Gul said India’s insistence on charging the ISI with complicity in the 2008 Mumbai attack is “part of a greater conspiracy to discredit the body for being an extension of the Pakistan Army” and eventually questioning the latter’s role as guardian of the country’s nuclear arsenal. “Once the Army and the ISI are demolished [the US and India] will reach out to our nuclear capability saying it is not is safe hands”, said the retired Lieutenant General. In discussing the increasing military and political collaboration between the US and India, Gul noted that “the Americans and Israel [are] hell-bent that India should be given pre-eminence in the region”, acting as the dominant regional power. He described such a scenario as essentially positioning India to the role of overseer of “60 per cent of the world’s trade [which] passes through the Indian Ocean”, including transport routes of “Gulf oil, bound for China and Japan, [which] will be under the shadow of India’s sole nuclear power”. Read more of this post

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Indian Home Minister points to sophistication of Mumbai attacks

January 5, 2009 by Leave a comment

Prior to an official visit to the US, later this week, India’s Home Minister said yesterday that the sophisticated planning and professional execution of the 2008 Mumbai attacks points to involvement of “state actors” in the operation. Speaking to India’s NDTV news network, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who is the Indian government’s  Union Minister of Home Affairs, said he presumes those behind the attack “are state actors or state-assisted actors unless the contrary is proved”. The Home Minister justified his rationale based on the meticulous execution of the coordinated militant assault of last November, which killed nearly 180 people in India’s largest city. “Somebody who is familiar with intelligence and who is familiar with commando operations has directed this operation”, said Chidambaram. “It was too enormous a crime and required very elaborate planning, communication networks, financial backing. It was a very, very sophisticated operation”. The Home Minister will be delivering a “detailed dossier” to US Homeland Security officials later this week, which reportedly includes “electronic evidence […] and intercepts” as well as reports from interrogations. [IA]

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Costa Rican political police rocked by high-level corruption scandal

January 5, 2009 by 1 Comment

DIS scandal

DIS scandal

For years, Costa Rica’s unions and opposition activists have accused the country’s political police, the Dirección de Inteligencia y Seguridad (DIS), of illegally spying on lawful political activity. Yet their allegations never made it into the US State Department’s annual human rights reports on Costa Rica. The Department’s latest report claims that the country’s “civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces”. Last November, however, government investigators uncovered an enormous money-laundering cartel operating inside DIS, whose head was no other than the organization’s Deputy Director, Roberto Guillén. Guillén, who was forced to step down on November 25, employed DIS computers to access private information of unsuspecting citizens, and used the data to launder nearly half a million dollars in illegal transfers to himself and others. Read more of this post

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CIA conducting ‘unprecedented’ operations in Britain

January 4, 2009 by Leave a comment

British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph has published an article (reprinted in Australia’s The Age) discussing what it describes as CIA’s “unprecedented intelligence-gathering operation in Britain”. The paper cites “security sources in Washington and London” in revealing that the US spy agency is “recruiting and handling a record number of informers within the British Pakistani community”. Security circles in Washington have been known to express concerns about militant tendencies in that community, which is nearly one-million-strong. Bruce Reidel, a 26-year CIA veteran and al-Qaeda expert, who now advises US President Elect Barack Obama’s transition team, says that Britain’s Muslim community (whose members can travel to the US without visas) is “regarded by the American intelligence community as perhaps the single-biggest threat environment.” Read more of this post

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Hamas copies Israel’s random phone call tactic

January 3, 2009 by Leave a comment

Hamas message

Hamas message

IntelNews has been reporting in recent days that Israeli intelligence are placing random calls to cell phones of Gaza residents prompting them to evacuate Hamas-affiliated targets. We also reported that this technique, which Israel also employed in Lebanon and Syria during the last couple of years, seems to have resulted in a backlash for the Israeli Defense Forces, as Gaza residents receiving these random calls often rush to the roofs of potential target buildings in efforts to prevent the attacks. It now appears that Hamas, the Palestinian group in charge of the Gaza strip, is employing a similar tactic to warn Israeli cell phone subscribers that Qassam rockets will fall “on all cities” and that “shelters [will] not protect” them. Read more of this post

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