Alfa Cellular | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #403

Hundreds of FBI agents accused of cheating on spy rules test. The US Justice Department is investigating claims that hundreds of FBI agents cheated on an exam designed to test their knowledge of new rules about spying on suspects. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, agents could be disciplined or even fired.
Lebanon charges second telecoms worker with espionage . Lebanese authorities have widened an investigation into Alfa, Lebanon’s state-owned cellular telecommunications provider, charging a second Alfa worker, Tareq Raba, with spying for Israel.
Google, CIA invest in ‘future’ of web monitoring. The investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel, is backing a new company called Recorded Future, which monitors the web in real time and says it uses that information to predict the future. Google is also backing the same startup.

Alleged Lebanese spy for Israel flees to Germany, says Lebanon. Lebanese media claim that Rasan al-Jud, who Lebanese authorities accuse of having aided Israel with the help of employees at Alfa, Lebanon’s state-owned cellular telecommunications provider, has fled Lebanon and is currently in Frankfurt, Germany. But a German Foreign Ministry spokesman has said that “the Foreign Ministry does not have any particular knowledge about the news item”.
Japan defends costly visit by Korean spy. Japan’s government has defended a costly four-day visit by Kim Hyun-Hee, a former North Korean spy, who blew up a South Korean jet in 1987, killing 115 people. Despite the high expectations, the former spy produced little news about Japanese nationals kidnapped decades ago by Pyongyang.
Analysis: Slaying the US intelligence behemoth. Commenting on the recent Washington Post investigative series on the US intelligence complex, author Philip Smucker comments that there is an essential disconnect at work. Namely, Islamic perceptions are not understood to be ‘hard intelligence’. The US is still trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, or to apply conventional intelligence to an asymmetrical world.