News you may have missed #466

January 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • France blasts economic warfare by industrial spies. The French government says it is the victim of an economic war, after Renault, France’s partially state-owned carmaker, suspended three top executives over leaks of secret electric-car technology. The French intelligence services are probing a possible Chinese connection. It should be noted that, according to US estimates, France leads industrial spying in Europe.
  • Canada a target for foreign interference, says spy chief. A keenly anticipated report by Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Richard Fadden paints a picture of a broad threat of foreign interference from countries out to influence Canada’s policy and politicians, target dissidents and pilfer technology. It is the most detailed articulation of the spy service’s concerns about overtures from foreign agents, including two suspected cases involving provincial cabinet ministers.
  • Jordanian Hamas spy awarded PhD in jail. Jordanian Azzam Jaber, jailed in Jordan for spying for the Palestinian group Hamas on potential targets including the Israeli embassy, has obtained his doctorate from the University of Yarmuk.

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News you may have missed #463

December 30, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Iranian spy minister admits hacking emails. Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi has publicly admitted that the Iranian government has hacked into the emails of Iranian opposition members. He claimed the hacking, conducted by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, revealed messages exchanged between “foreigners and their elements inside Iran”.
  • Details on CIA officer killed in Afghanistan. An interesting article in The Washingtonian offers an interesting background story on Jennifer Matthews, a CIA officer who was killed nearly a year ago in Afghanistan in a suicide bombing by Taliban double-agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.
  • China jails South Korean alleged spy. China is getting tougher with South Korean spies caught on Chinese soil collecting intelligence on North Korea, and has jailed one of them for more than a year, despite pleas from Seoul, according to news reports.

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News you may have missed #455

November 24, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Israel says it did not kill German politician. Israel has rejected a claim by a Swiss chemistry professor that the 1987 murder of German politician Uwe Barschel had the hallmarks of a Mossad assassination. For more on Barschel see previous intelNews story here.
  • Foreign cyber spies targeted UK defense official. Foreign spies, probably working for the People’s Republic of China, targeted senior British defense official Joanna Hole, in a sophisticated spear phishing operation that aimed to steal military secrets. The plan was foiled last year when Hole became suspicious of an email she received from a contact she had met at a conference.
  • The 10 most interesting CIA-backed startups. America’s only federally funded venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, was created in 1999 during the tech boom. The company invests in startups developing technologies that could prove useful to the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

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Taiwan grapples with ‘largest military spy scandal in 20 years’

November 4, 2010 by Leave a comment

Taiwan

Taiwan

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Two Taiwanese double agents have been arrested in Taipei, in connection with what one newspaper editorial described as the most serious case of military espionage to hit the country in two decades. The two men, who have been charged with conspiracy to conduct espionage on behalf of a foreign power, were detained on Tuesday, after they were witnessed exchanging classified information at a busy outdoor location by Taiwanese counterintelligence agents. One of them, identified as Lo Chi-cheng, is allegedly a Colonel in Taiwan’s Military Information Bureau, the most powerful intelligence organization under Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. According to Taiwanese officials, he operated for several years as a procurer of classified military information on behalf of his unnamed co-conspirator, a Taiwanese businessman who is reportedly “linked to Taiwan’s intelligence network”. The unnamed businessman, who was also detained Tuesday, would then pass the classified information to a handler from Chinese intelligence. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #447

October 29, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • UK MI6 chief speaks publicly for the first time. Sir John Sawers, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, has delivered what he said was the first public address by a serving chief of the agency in its 101-year history.
  • WikiLeaks to release secret Russia, China logs. Whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which has published hundreds of US war logs, is preparing to release secret files from Russia and China, Russian newspaper Kommersant said on Tuesday.
  • Renegade CIA agent’s papers acquired by NYU. The private papers of the late Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more controversial than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring.

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News you may have missed #446

October 28, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • American pleads guilty to spying for China. Glenn D. Shriver acknowledged on Friday that he accepted $70,000 from Chinese spies as he attempted to secure jobs with the CIA and US Foreign Service that would have allowed him to expose US government secrets. He apparently spent two years going through the CIA hiring process and reached the final security screenings. But US intelligence sources say Shriver was discovered very early in the hiring process.
  • Obama widens CIA operations in Pakistan. The US is pushing to expand secret CIA operations in Pakistan. But Islamabad is so far rebuffing US requests to allow additional CIA officers and special operations military trainers to enter the country.
  • US spy balloons blew towards Iran. The latest WikiLeaks revelations show that on two occasions in 2006 American JLens spy balloons broke from their moorings in Iraq and drifted toward the Iranian airspace. No information on the balloons’ fate is reported in the war logs. Did Iran get hold of them?

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Proposed US-Chinese telecom deal worries US legislators

October 28, 2010 by 1 Comment

Huawei HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Three US Congress members have raised security concerns about a proposed deal between American and Chinese telecommunications companies, claiming that it could facilitate Chinese espionage in the United States. The proposed collaboration is between US-based Sprint-Nextel and Cricket Wireless, and Chinese hardware manufacturers ZTE Corporation and Huawei Technologies. But three US Senators, Jon Kyl (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), have written to US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski, claiming that the ZTE and Huawei are effectively controlled by China’s civilian and military intelligence establishment. According to the legislators, if the proposed deal goes through the Chinese government may be able to use ZTE and Huawei to “manipulate switches, routers, or software embedded in American telecommunications networks so that communications can be disrupted, intercepted, tampered with, or purposely misrouted”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #443

October 25, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • First budget cuts in a decade for UK spy agencies. Spending on Britain’s intelligence agencies is set to fall by 7%, for the first time in more than a decade. This is be expected to force MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to cap staff numbers, merge some of their operations, and scrap plans to modernize some of their buildings. Looks like even more British spies will be moving to Australia.
  • South Koreans arrested for trying to defect to North. Three South Koreans, including a medical doctor, are being investigated after allegedly trying to defect to North Korea from China. It is extremely unusual for South Koreans or other nationals to attempt to defect to the North.
  • Plame calls Fair Game movie ‘accurate portrayal’. CIA agent Valerie Plame has said the movie Fair Game, based on her book, is a “really good, accurate portrayal of what we went through, both personally and in the political maelstrom that we live through”. The Bush administration was accused of blowing Plame’s cover as retaliation after her diplomat husband openly challenged the reasoning behind the Iraq War.

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News you may have missed #438 (Stuxnet edition)

October 5, 2010 by Leave a comment

[Research credit to Arthur Sbygniew]

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News you may have missed #431

September 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

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CIA spies consider Mossad ‘most unfriendly’ agency

September 7, 2010 by 3 Comments

Mossad seal

Mossad seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This blog frequently considers the issue of US-Israeli intelligence relations, said to be undergoing a turbulent period in recent times. Indeed, the change of guard at the White House, the rearrangement of Washington’s policy priorities following the economic crash, as well as the dramatic rightwing shift in Israeli politics have rapidly altered the political playing field between the two nations. To this extent, it is worth noting that Meir Dagan, director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, told a Knesset committee last July that “Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden”. How is this evident in intelligence relations between Washington and Tel Aviv? The Washington Post’s security correspondent Jeff Stein may be able to help fill in the picture. He wrote a few days ago that an internal poll, which was recently administered to CIA operatives, found that Israeli intelligence agencies are considered the world’s least friendly and most uncooperative with their US counterparts. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #425 (US edition)

September 6, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • US Pentagon considering pre-emptive cyber-strikes? This is what The Washington Post is reporting, noting that military officials are “still wrestling with how to pursue the strategy legally”. If anyone in the DoD discovers a legal method of launching pre-emptive aggression, we’d sure like to know.
  • More changes in US FISA court. After a recent change of leadership, the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court is considering new compliance rules for handling surveillance requests by US counterspy agencies. The court authorizes requests by agencies for surveillance of foreign suspects operating inside the US.
  • Why do US officials want to deport Chinese defector? Washington wants to deport Li Fengzhi, a Chinese ex-intelligence agent who defected to the US in 2004, back to China, where he could be executed for treason. There are rumors that Li may have “oversold” himself to the FBI and the CIA.

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News you may have missed #418

August 25, 2010 by 1 Comment

  • US military pays for intel widely available online. Experts say that the vast majority of the ‘intelligence’ needed by the United States is freely available on the Internet. But that has not stopped a company called Military Periscope from selling its subscription services to the US government, on things such as updates on foreign militaries, peacekeeping missions, weapons databases and terrorist organizations “via monthly CD-ROM delivery”.
  • Son of Russian spies could return to US for school. Tim Foley, the elder son of Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley, the two deported US residents who were living a double life as Russian spies, may be trying to return to study in the United States, but his younger brother plans to stay in Moscow.
  • German spy chief notes cyberattack surge. Cyberattacks against German corporate and government computers have been on the rise since 2005, according to Heinz Fromm, Director of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He said the attacks “come mainly from Asia, often from China”, and that often “state agencies are involved”.

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News you may have missed #405

August 3, 2010 by 2 Comments

  • Democracy Now on Google-CIA partnership. Democracy Now has aired an interview with John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Inside Google project, and Noah Shachtman, of Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog, who broke the story of the Google-CIA investment partnership.
  • Ex-CIA chief downplays cyberwar with China. Retired CIA chief Michael Hayden downplayed the notion that the US is in a raging “cyberwar” with China during a speech on Thursday at the Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas.
  • Men held over parcel bomb sent to MI6. Two men have been arrested in north Wales, after parcel bombs were sent to the offices of the British government executive at 10 Downing Street, and the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s external intelligence agency. The two men, aged 52 and 21, are believed to be related and of Pakistani origin.

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Canadian politicians work for foreign powers, says Canada spy chief

June 30, 2010 by Leave a comment

Richard Fadden

Richard Fadden

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Canadian state’s senior intelligence executive caused an uproar last weekend after he claimed that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments. In an interview for an investigative program on state-owned CBC television, Richard Fadden, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), said that his intelligence officers are aware of “some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries”. He also claimed that CSIS investigators were aware of at least two cabinet ministers in two Canadian provinces, who were “agents of influence”, as well as other public officials that were secretly representing “foreign interests”.  Read more of this post

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