News you may have missed #0085
August 28, 2009 Leave a comment
- How the ACLU got the CIA agents’ photos. As intelNews reported earlier this week, the ACLU has been trying to identify CIA agents who participated in torture of detainees, by taking surreptitious pictures outside the operatives’ homes. It is worth noting that uncovering the identities of CIA officers is legal, so long as it is based on publicly available records.
- Russian espionage case is bigger than initially thought, say Czech officials. Intelligence authorities in the Czech Republic say the two Russian agents who were recently expelled from the country last week were not primarily interested in the US missile defense shield.
- US spy community builds Wikipedia-style database. Intellipedia, the intelligence community’s version of Wikipedia has grown markedly since its formal launch in 2006. It now averages more than 15,000 edits per day and is home to 900,000 pages and 100,000 user accounts.
Analysis: Assessing the record of Russian espionage
August 29, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment
R. Kupchinsky
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Roman Kupchinsky has penned an article for The Prague Post, in which he examines the recent expulsion of two Russian spies from the Czech Republic as part of a broader decline in Russian intelligence operations. The Jamestown Foundation analyst explains that Vladimir Putin’s campaign to rebuild the Russian espionage activities abroad to their former glory has not borne fruits. Rather, the gradual decay in Russia’s global intelligence presence, which began in the early 1980s, continues to mire the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The SVR is the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate (PGU), which was responsible for foreign operations and intelligence collection. Although Kupchinsky’s view is shared by a many Western intelligence observers, some remain skeptical. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Cold War, counterintelligence, Czech Republic, espionage, Estonia, FSB, KGB, KGB First Chief Directorate, Roman Kupchinsky, Russia, SVR (Russia), USSR