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News you may have missed #496

April 12, 2011 by intelNews Leave a comment

US secretly collaborating with Chinese spies on North Korea. Leaked records of highly sensitive US-China defense consultations reveal that the CIA, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the US Defense Department, have all held secret discussions on North Korea with Chinese military intelligence.
Cuba denounces acquittal of ex-CIA agent. Cuba has denounced as a ‘farce’ the acquittal in the United States of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who Havana says participated in terrorist attacks against the island. Carriles was accused of lying to US immigration officials.
Analysis: US spy agencies struggling to adjust to Middle East changes. With popular protests toppling rulers in Tunisia and Egypt and threatening leaders in Yemen and elsewhere, US intelligence agencies are struggling to adjust to a radically changed landscape, US officials, former intelligence officers and experts say.

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News you may have missed #489

March 31, 2011 by intelNews Leave a comment

Russian spies want their stuff back from the FBI. Two of the ten Russians deported from the United States in a spy row last July have demanded that some of the property they were forced to leave behind be returned to them. The claim was lodged on behalf of Vladimir and Lidia Guryev, better known as Richard and Cynthia Murphy.
Kuwait sentences three to death for espionage. Two Iranians and a Kuwaiti national, all serving in Kuwait’s army, were condemned to death yesterday for belonging to an Iranian spy ring, which allegedly passed on information to the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards. A Syrian and a stateless Arab, who are also members of the alleged spy ring, were handed life terms.
‘Foreign spies’ hacked Australian leader’s computer. Chinese hackers seeking information on commercial secrets are suspected of having broken into a computer used by Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister. Her computer was among 10 machines used by senior government ministers which were compromised by the hackers. According to one source, the Australians were tipped off to the hacking by the CIA and the FBI.

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News you may have missed #487 (Canada edition)

March 27, 2011 by intelNews 1 Comment

Canadian MPs want spy services director to quit. A group of Canadian parliamentarians have asked for the resignation of the country’s Security Intelligence Service director Dick Fadden, who claimed last summer that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments.
Canada agencies still not sharing intelligence. Almost a decade after 9/11, the many arms of Canada’s national security network still do not share all their intelligence about terrorist threats with sister agencies, according to a new parliamentary report by the special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism.
Chinese intelligence are after us, say immigrants to Canada. A spokesman for a Falun Gong group in Ottawa has accused the Chinese government of planting spies among the Chinese ex-pat community in the country. According to an unnamed former employee at China’s embassy in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005, there are more than 1,000 Chinese spies operating in Canada.

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General arrested in Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in 50 years

February 10, 2011 by intelNews Leave a comment

Lo Hsien-che

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A “tall, beautiful and chic” Chinese female operative, who held an Australian passport, appears to be behind Taiwan’s most serious espionage scandal in almost half a century, according to news reports. The scandal centers on the arrest earlier this week of Major General Lo Hsien-che, who heads the Taiwanese military’s Office of Communications and Information. Taiwanese prosecutors said that General Lo is the most senior Taiwanese official to be arrested on espionage charges since the early 1960s. He had apparently been investigated for several months by Taiwanese counterintelligence investigators, who claim that Lo was recruited by Chinese intelligence while stationed in Thailand, between 2002 and 2005. Paris-based Agence France Presse cites The China Times in reporting that the General was lured by a female Chinese operative in her early 30s, who cajoled him with “sex and money”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #468

January 14, 2011 by intelNews Leave a comment

Lawyer says Assange could face death penalty in US. Mark Stephens, a defense attorney for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims his client could face the death penalty if he is extradited to Sweden, and if that country then passes him to US authorities.
Uncertain future for CIA’s climate change unit. The future of the CIA’s unit on climate change is “in jeopardy” because of pressure for intelligence budget cuts and resistance from conservative lawmakers, according to a new report by Northwestern University. Here is an excellent report from Canada on the CIA’s climate change endeavors.
Renault files official espionage complaint. French carmaker Renault has lodged an official complaint on the suspected industrial espionage case that led to the suspension of three executives. Meanwhile, China denies connection with what has become known in France as “L’affaire Renault‎”.

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News you may have missed #466

January 7, 2011 by intelNews 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 intelNews 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 intelNews 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 intelNews Leave a comment

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 intelNews 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 intelNews 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 intelNews 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 intelNews 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 intelNews Leave a comment

Stuxnet cyber superweapon moves to China. The Stuxnet computer virus, dubbed the world’s “first cyber superweapon” by experts, and which may have been designed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, has found a new target: China. The computer worm has infecting millions of computers around the country, Chinese state media reported this week.
Stuxnet worm heralds new era of global cyberwar. The Stuxnet worm, which Iran admits has affected 30,000 of its computers, was a sophisticated attack almost certainly orchestrated by a state. It also appears that intelligence operatives were used to deliver the worm to its goal.
Israeli cyber unit allegedly responsible for Iran computer worm. Some experts claim that Unit 8200, an elite Israeli military group responsible for cyberwarfare, has been accused of creating a virus that has crippled Iran’s computer systems and stopped work at its newest nuclear power station.

[Research credit to Arthur Sbygniew]

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News you may have missed #431

September 14, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

WikiLeaks to publish massive Iraq War document cache. A massive cache of previously unpublished classified US military documents from the Iraq War is being prepared for publication by WikiLeaks in a few weeks, a new report has confirmed.
Untangling the bizarre CIA links to the Ground Zero mosque. Interestingly, New York, native R. Leslie Deak, who is one of the earliest backers of the nonprofit group behind the so-called ‘Ground Zero mosque’, is connected with Patriot Defense Group, LLC, a private defense contractor with CIA ties.
Plaque honours Tibetan ‘freedom fighters’ at CIA camp. The US Forest Service has unveiled a plaque to commemorate the training given to anti-Chinese Tibetan ‘freedom fighters’ by the CIA, at Colorado’s Camp Hale from 1958 to 1964. See here for previous intelNews coverage of this little-known incident.