News you may have missed #0005

• Republican Senator’s extra-marital affair endangered national security. John Ensign is a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, including its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, giving him and his staff access to extremely sensitive national defense information. His extra-marital affair made him vulnerable to blackmail by hostile spy services or other interests eager to pry secrets from his position on sensitive national security committees, veteran counterintelligence officials say.
• Thank goodness reformists didn’t win in Iran election, says Mossad. Israel spy chief Meir Dagan, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on June 17 that if reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had won the elections “Israel would have a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat”.
• CIA still fighting full release of detainee report. According to two intelligence officials, the CIA is pushing the Obama administration to suppress passages describing in graphic detail how the agency handled its detainees, arguing that the material could damage ongoing counterterrorism operations by laying bare sensitive intelligence procedures and methods.
• US electricity industry to scan grid for spies. The planned scan is part of a pilot initiative to see whether Chinese spies have infiltrated computer networks running the US power grid. IntelNews has been keeping an eye on revelations that foreign spies have penetrated the electronic infrastructure of America’s electrical supply grid.
• US Supreme Court declines review of Cuban Five case. It and its supporters argue Cuban spies received a fair trial in heart of Miami Cuban-American community, but Cuban government says it will continue to campaign for their release.