Fort Hood | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #318

US State Dept. lawyer defends CIA drone attacks. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh has told a conference that “the considered view of this administration” is that the controversial CIA-operated drone attacks inside Pakistan “comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war”.
How the CIA let Anwar al-Aulaqi escape to Yemen. Last year, the Yemeni government asked the CIA to help collect intelligence on US-born al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Aulaqi. But the CIA refused, and so did US Special Forces officials, who had been asked by the Yemenis to help them pursue Aulaqi. Just months later, US Army Major Malik Nidal Hasan, who was in contact with al-Aulaqi, killed 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.
More on alleged Israeli spy caught in Algeria. Algerian authorities insist that a man (identified only as “Alberto”), who was captured after entering Algeria using a forged Spanish passport, is a Mossad agent. There are also rumors that the US embassy in Algiers has been involved in the case, and that it was for this reason that FBI deputy director John Pistole traveled to Algeria last week.

No immediate firings expected over US intel failures. Should some US intelligence officials lose their jobs over the three recent security failures, i.e. the Ford Hood shooting, the Christmas Day bomber, and the Forward Operating Base Chapman suicide bombing? It doesn’t look like it.
Tajikistan sentences alleged Uzbek spy. The Tajik government has sentenced Tajik citizen Boymurod Anarov to 20 years behind bars for gathering “information about energy projects in Tajikistan” on behalf of Uzbek intelligence. Last July, the government leveled similar charges against the director of the country’s Vostokredmet uranium-reprocessing plant.
Nozette first came to FBI attention in 2002. Maryland scientist Stewart Nozette, who is accused of giving classified defense information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, was under suspicion of breaching top-secret protocols as early as 2002, according to court documents.

November 14, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Did US Rep. Hoekstra compromise a secret NSA spy program? Rep. Peter Hoekstra (MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence panel, may have inadvertently compromised a sensitive National Security Agency email collection program while commenting on allegedly intercepted emails sent and received by Fort Hood shooter Malik Nadal Hasan.
Blog requests readers’ help to examine released documents. Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog has issued a request for readers to help pore over thousands of US government documents relating to the proposed immunity for telephone companies involved in the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The documents were released following a FOIA lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
An opportunity in Cuba for CIA field agents? They’d have to pose as McDonald’s restaurant workers.

Overt clues and tactical challenges in the Hasan case. The White House has authorized an investigation into US intelligence agencies’ handling of information relating to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. But the fact is that, by their very nature, individual actors and small cells are very difficult for the intelligence agencies to detect.
US government-authorized wiretapping not reliable, research finds. Telephone users who suspect their calls are wiretapped by a US law enforcement agency could disable the taps by overwhelming the telephone system’s thin bandwidth, according to a new research paper on the subject.
Israeli spying in Lebanon violates UN resolutions, says UN official. The bizarre, self-exploding wiretapping devices discovered by Lebanese security forces last month along the Lebanese-Israeli border violate UN Security Council Resolution 1701, says the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams.

An intel officer’s view on Fort Hood shooter. “Delve into Malik Nadal Hasan’s social network and check with intelligence sources to find out if he had ever had contact with [militant] organizations around the world”.
Coup rumors circulating in Paraguay. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has ordered the replacement of top military commanders, a day after publicly dismissing rumors circulating about a military coup. Did someone say “Honduras“?
US embassy in Panama looking for spy cameras. Why is the US embassy in Panama City looking for “wireless spy cameras disguised as baseball hats, jackets, pens and handbags”?