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DoJ continues criminal investigation of NSA whistleblower

January 7, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last month, Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official, revealed himself as the source who initially tipped off The New York Times about NSA’s operation STELLAR WIND, a domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau eventually revealed the program in a front page article, relying on interviews with nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders. Despite numerous indications that STELLAR WIND may be unconstitutional, and despite the impending change of guard at the White House, the US Department of Justice appears to be actively pursuing its criminal investigation of Tamm. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, data mining, domestic intelligence, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, News, NSA, OIPR, operation STELLAR WIND, Steven Tyrrell, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing

US Judge allows legal challenge of warrantless wiretapping

January 7, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Pete Seda, fmr head of Al-Haramain

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ever since September 2004, when they were taken to court accused of terrorist links by the US government, the directors of Al-Haramain, a Saudi-based Islamic charity with offices in Oregon and Missouri, have suspected their telephones had been tapped under the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Their suspicions were confirmed last July, when US government prosecutors mistakenly gave the charity’s legal team a classified document showing that the FBI had indeed tapped the group’s office phones. The group’s legal team used the classified document as a basis to sue the Bush Administration, claiming that warrantless wiretapping violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, the presiding Judge, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, ruled that the lawsuit rested on a classified document that Al-Haramain’s lawyers were not supposed to have access to in the first place. He therefore dismissed the case and ordered the Islamic charity’s legal team to return the document to the FBI. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Al-Haramain, communications interception, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, News, warrantless communications interception

Austin activist reveals himself to be FBI informant

January 6, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Brandon Darby

In the days just prior to last year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, two activists from Texas used a rented U-Haul trailer to transport dozens of homemade shields, helmets and batons to Minnesota’s capital. The two activists, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, presumably intended the homemade protection gear to be used in street demonstrations during the RNC. They were eventually intercepted by St. Paul police officers who appeared to know what the two men were hauling. The officers, who did not use a warrant, proceeded to smash the trailer’s lock and seize its contents. This incident appears to have failed to convince McKay and Crowder of the obvious existence of an informant in their ranks. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 2008 Republican National Convention, Bradley Crowder, Brandon Darby, Common Ground Relief, David McKay, domestic intelligence, FBI, informants, Minneapolis Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee, News, political policing, Scott Crow, surveillance, United States

Analysis: Report discusses foreign espionage targets inside US

January 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a new strategy report broadly addressing foreign espionage activity in the US. The report, which has been circulated within the National Association of Chiefs of Police, claims that America is “targeted from nearly every corner of the globe”. Citing data from 2003, it states that “dozens of countries” had “hundreds of known or suspected intelligence officers [entering or traveling] within the United States”. Accordingly, FBI counterintelligence investigations spanned the entire country and involved “all 56 [of the Bureau’s] field offices”. More importantly, the FBI strategy report stresses that foreign intelligence activity within the nation is today “far more complex than it has ever been historically” due to its increasingly asymmetrical character. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, counterintelligence, Critical National Assets, economic espionage, FBI, Foreign Counterintelligence Program (US)

FBI continues arrests of Iraqi intelligence operatives in US

December 31, 2008 by intelNews 1 Comment

Using Iraqi intelligence documents recovered during the 2003 US invasion, the FBI is continuing its arrests of Iraqi agents on US soil. On December 23, Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, an American citizen of Iraqi origin, pleaded guilty to having “served for more than a decade as an agent of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. FBI documents state that Al-Dellemy exploited the proximity of his Maryland restaurant to the National Security Agency to “gather information about the US government”. On December 24, Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish, a Canadian citizen of Iraqi origin, was arrested while entering the United States from Canada, and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government before, during, and shortly after the US invasion of Iraq. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with counterintelligence, espionage, FBI, Iraq, Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish, Mukhabarat (Iraq), News, NSA, Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, United States

Analysis: Editor cautions against lionizing Deep Throat

December 19, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Greg Mitchell, the author and editor of Editor & Publisher, has authored a column cautioning against the uncritical lionization of former FBI official W. Mark Felt, who died yesterday at the age of 95. In 2005, Felt voluntarily revealed he was the mysterious whistleblower nicknamed Deep Throat, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, which lead to the eventual resignation of US President Richard Nixon. Mitchell urges “[j]ournalists and many others lionizing the former FBI official [to] not overlook the fact that Felt was one of the architects of the bureau’s notorious COINTELPRO domestic spying-and-burglary campaign”. Felt was in fact found guilty of authorizing several illegal black bag operations in the state of New Jersey under COINTELPRO, an illegal domestic surveillance and sabotage project directed by the FBI with the participation of the CIA and NSA. Black bag operations refer to covert, surreptitious entries into structures in the course of human intelligence missions. Mitchell correctly points out that “[o]nly a pardon, courtesy of Ronald Reagan, kept him out of jail for a long term”. [JF]

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, black bag operations, CIA, COINTELPRO, Cold War, Deep Throat, domestic intelligence, FBI, Mark Felt, NSA, United States, Watergate

Journalist talks about revealing NSA program whistleblower

December 18, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek investigative correspondent who authored the recent article about Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower of NSA’s domestic spying program, has given an interview to Democracy Now. Isikoff, who wrote the article with Tamm’s consent, states in the interview that “Tamm’s lawyers have been told that US Department of Justice officials [are going to leave] the decision on whether to prosecute [Tamm] to the Obama Justice Department”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, data mining, domestic intelligence, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, James Risen, News, NSA, OIPR, operation STELLAR WIND, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing

US federal appeals court upholds National Security Letters

December 16, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

National Security Letters (NSLs) are types of warrantless subpoenas issued by US government agencies. They are typically used to force organizations or companies to surrender information pertaining to individuals or groups. In the late 1970s, NSLs were used in rare instances by the FBI during investigations. The 2001 USA PATRIOT Act marked an unparalleled expansion of the power of NSLs, allowing their use against American citizens even in cases when they are not targets of criminal investigations. The USA PATRIOT Act also ratified a gag order provision preventing NSL recipients from disclosing the letter’s existence. The CIA, FBI and the US Department of Defense are all known to have issued several NSLs in recent years. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with ACLU, CIA, domestic intelligence, FBI, Michael Mukasey, National Security Letters, News, telecommunication service providers, US DoD, USA PATRIOT Act

Whistleblower who disclosed NSA domestic spying program comes forth

December 15, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Exactly three years ago, New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed NSA’s domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. Nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders helped the two journalists unravel the NSA scheme. But the initial tip came from what Lichtblau describes in his book, Bush’s Law, as a “walk-in” source with intimate knowledge of the US intelligence community’s practices. That “walk-in” source has now come forth. His name is Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official who held a Sensitive Compartmented Security clearance (“a level above Top Secret”) issued by the US government. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, data mining, domestic intelligence, Eric Lichtblau, FBI, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, James Risen, News, NSA, OIPR, operation STELLAR WIND, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas M. Tamm, United States, US Department of Justice, warrantless communications interception, whistleblowing

Report discusses blowback of US rendition program in Somalia

December 4, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Paul Salopek appears to be just about the only mainstream American reporter paying attention to America’s secret war in Africa, and specifically in Somalia. In what is in fact America’s most recent war, the US approved and assisted an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, in late 2006. The operational aim of the invasion was to terminate the local grass roots leadership of the Islamic Courts Union and prevent “anarchic Somalia from becoming the world’s next Afghanistan”. A new article by Salopek sheds light on the use of extraordinary rendition by US military and intelligence agencies during that invasion. Read more of this post