CIA-JSOC convergence impedes covert action oversight, researcher warns

August 8, 2022 by 2 Comments

US Capitol CongressA GROWING CONVERGENCE BETWEEN the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States military has been one of the most notable changes in American intelligence after 9/11. Some argue that the resulting overlap between the CIA and the military, in both capabilities and operations, has altered their character —perhaps permanently. The CIA has become more involved than ever before in lethal operations, while the military has embraced intelligence work with unprecedented intensity.

Today, more than two decades after 9/11, joint activities between the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have become customary. JSOC was founded in the aftermath of operation EAGLE CLAW —the failed attempt to free US diplomatic personnel held in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis. Its mission is to bring together the Special Operations Forces (SOF) elements across the US military. In addition to ensuring inter-operability and standardization between these elements, JSOC oversees the operations of elite joint SOF units that perform highly classified activities around the world.

Increasingly since 9/11, the CIA and JSOC have been launching combined counter-terrorism operations and have learned to compete less and collaborate more —though turf wars between them are not uncommon. Today it is not unusual for CIA civilians to gather intelligence on a particular target before hand it over to JSOC, which in turn tasks its military personnel to use lethal force against the target. This type of collaboration may bear fruits in the counter-terrorism domain, but also makes it difficult for the US political leadership, primarily Congress, to exercise appropriate oversight over covert action.

Partial Oversight

In an article published on Sunday, Dr. Jennifer Kibbe, Professor of Government at Franklin and Marshall College, and a specialist on the oversight of intelligence operations, explores the effects of the CIA-JSOC convergence on democratic accountability. The article, “CIA/SOF Convergence and Congressional Oversight”, appears in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence and National Security. If features statements from interviews by current and former Congressional staffers with experience in working for the intelligence committees of the US Congress. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , ,

Danish military spy chief ‘relieved of duty’ following whistleblower revelations

August 26, 2020 by Leave a comment

Lars FindsenThe director of Denmark’s military intelligence service has been “relieved of duty for the time being”, following a series of whistleblower revelations, according to the country’s Ministry of Defense. Little is known about the precise nature of the revelations, but they are believed to relate to large-scale intelligence collection of information belonging to Danish citizens, which the spy agency is prohibited from accessing.

The news was revealed on Monday by the Danish Oversight Board, known as TET, which is responsible for supervising the work of Denmark’s intelligence agencies. The TET said that “whistleblower complaints” had revealed information that pointed to improper intelligence collection practices by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE, or DDIS in English). Moreover, when confronted by the TET, the DDIS “withheld key information” about its collection practices and even gave “incorrect information relating to the collection and disclosure of information”, according to the watchdog.

The press release by the TET said that the DDIS had carried out “operational activities” that violated Danish law and violated the privacy of Danish citizens. It also said that the illegal “operational activities” had taken place “for as many as six years”. However, the watchdog added that, given the “classified content” of the intelligence service’s mission and activities, it could “not provide further information to the public”. It is believed, however, that the controversy involves a system of mass surveillance of telecommunications, which somehow collected information exchanged domestically between Danish citizens, or between them and foreign nationals. The DDIS is forbidden by law to spy on the domestic activities of Danes.

The Danish Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that DDIS Director Lars Findsen, had been “relieved of duty for the time being”, while officials investigated a multi-volume report produced by TET investigators about the alleged improprieties by the spy agency. The ministry added that two more senior DDIS officials had been placed on leave, but said they could not be named for reasons of national security.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 August 2020 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

US military intelligence staff allege ‘toxic’ work environment, lack of oversight

December 21, 2017 by Leave a comment

Defense Intelligence Agency DIACurrent and former employees of the United States’ primary military intelligence agency have publicly accused the agency’s senior watchdog of not doing her job and sabotaging the careers of her subordinates. According to Foreign Policy, which interviewed the disgruntled employees, “no one is policing” the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the moment. The DIA is one of the largest institutions in the US Intelligence Community. It collects, analyzes and disseminates foreign military-related intelligence, and has active personnel stationed in over 140 countries. As is the case with every agency in the US Intelligence Community, the DIA’s activities are monitored by an internal office of the Inspector General. The office is tasked with investigating allegations of illegality, mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse inside the DIA.

However, two former employees allege that the DIA Inspector General’s office has effectively been disbanded, with most of its personnel having been fired, reassigned or pressured to leave in recent years. They also claim that the current dysfunctional state of the office is due to the “toxic” leadership style of the Inspector General herself, Kristi Waschull. Foreign Policy named the two former employees as David Steele, who has nearly 40 years’ experience in military intelligence, and Ron Foster, who until recently was head of investigations at the DIA’s office of the Inspector General. The two men claim that they were “fired or involuntarily reassigned” overnight “with no warning”, because they challenged Waschull’s leadership style and decisions. They told Foreign Policy that they could not discuss the details of specific cases, because they are classified. But they claimed that Waschull repeatedly sought to soften the language of inspection reports about problems in the DIA, and that she “retaliated against them and their colleagues” when they resisted her efforts.

In 2016, a Congressional investigation was carried out into allegations by as many as 50 DIA analysts that their reports about the Islamic State were being deliberately tweaked by officials at the US Central Command, the Pentagon body that directs and coordinates American military operations in Egypt, the Middle East and Central Asia. The Foreign Policy article did not mention whether the analysts’ allegations are included in the complaints launched against Waschull by Steele and Foster. The publication said that the two men filed complaints against the Inspector General in 2015, and that they are still awaiting resolution. The DIA refused to comment on the allegations, but denied that any wrongdoing had taken place in the office of the Inspector General.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 December 2017 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

German parliament report on NSA spying contains little consensus

July 3, 2017 by Leave a comment

Angela MerkelA lengthy parliamentary report on American intelligence activities in Germany was presented last week in Berlin, but was condemned by opposition parties as insufficient and incomplete, prompting calls for a new investigation. The parliamentary probe was initiated in 2013, following a series of revelations by Edward Snowden, a former employee of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency who defected to Russia. Snowden alleged that both agencies spied on Germany, with the NSA going so far as to eavesdrop on the personal telephone communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The allegations shocked German public opinion, and resulted in the unprecedented expulsion of the CIA station chief in Berlin —the most senior US intelligence official in the country. However, the parliamentary probe soon broadened its scope to include subsequent allegations that German intelligence agencies collaborated with the NSA in spying against other Western countries.

Last Wednesday, after three years of work, the parliamentary committee, known officially as the “German Parliamentary Committee Investigating the NSA Spying Scandal”, presented its findings to the Bundestag. They consist of thousands of pages of technical details concerning interception methods and capabilities. However, the final report fails to draw concrete conclusions, and its concluding section does not reflect a consensus among the committee’s members. The section begins by noting that, “unfortunately, despite an initial shared conviction by all parliamentary groups about the need for the investigation, substantial disagreements emerged between the governing and opposition groups, concerning the methodology and goals of the committee’s work”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

New South Korean president bans spy agency’s domestic operations

June 5, 2017 by Leave a comment

Moon Jae-in and Suh Hoon in South KoreaThe new president of South Korea has officially banned the country’s spy agency from engaging in domestic intelligence gathering, in a move that some say signals an era of sweeping security reforms in the country. South Korea’s intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) fell into disrepute in recent years, after many of its officers were found to have secretly sided with conservative political candidates for public office. In 2015, the NIS’ former director, Won Sei-hoon, was jailed for directing intelligence officers to post online criticisms of liberal politicians.

Won headed the NIS from 2008 to 2013, during the administration of conservative President Lee Myung-bak. During the 2012 presidential elections, Won ordered a group of NIS officers to “flood the Internet” with messages accusing liberal political candidates of being “North Korean sympathizers”. One of those candidates, Moon Jae-in, of the left-of-center Democratic Party of Korea, is now the country’s president. Moon succeeded his main right-wing rival, Park Geun-hye, who resigned in March of this year following a series of financial scandals. In the months prior to his assumption of the presidency, Moon promised his supporters that he would reform the NIS and prevent it from meddling again into South Korea’s domestic political affairs.

Last Thursday, President Moon replaced all of NIS’ deputy directors, who are tasked with focusing on North Korea and other foreign countries, espionage and terrorism, and cyber security. Later on the same day, Moon announced the appointment of Suh Hoon as director of NIS. Suh is a career intelligence officer who served as one of NIS’ deputy directors until Thursday’s appointment. Within hours of his appointment, Suh had ordered the termination of all NIS domestic intelligence-gathering operations and vowed to reform the spy agency once and for all. He also said that he would proceed to dissolve the NIS’ domestic wing, and that all such tasks would be transferred to South Korea’s National Police Agency. The new NIS director also vowed that, under his leadership, the NIS would become “a completely different entity” and that he would apply “a zero tolerance principle” in cases of contravention by NIS officers.

Also on Thursday, the NIS issued a press release stating that all domestic operations by the agency had been terminated and that no information was being gathered on government entities, media or other organizations in South Korea.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 05 June 2017 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Senior US intelligence official tells Congress not to ‘micromanage’ spy efforts

December 5, 2016 by 1 Comment

James ClapperThe United States’ senior intelligence officer has told Congress that new legislation requiring spy agencies to act against alleged Russian covert operations constitutes “micromanagement” of the American Intelligence Community. The Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a number of intelligence-related requirements and provisions, is debated and enacted each year by Congress. This year’s legislation has already been approved by the intelligence committees of the Senate and House of Representatives. Last week it was enacted by the House, while the Senate is preparing to debate it this week.

The legislation currently under debate includes instructions to the US Intelligence Community to set up an interagency committee to formulate responses to perceived Russian covert operations around the world. The term ‘covert operations’ refers to actions by intelligence agencies designed to influence foreign political, military or economic affairs or events. The topic received media attention during the 2016 US presidential election, when Washington repeatedly accused Moscow of trying to shape its outcome. This year’s Intelligence Authorization bill requires every US intelligence agency to appoint a representative to serve on a joint panel that will address alleged Russian covert operations in the US, Europe and elsewhere in the world.

But in September of this year, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, America’s most senior intelligence official, authored a letter to Congress arguing that the requirement for an interagency panel to look into Russian covert operations should be scrapped. According to the Reuters news agency, which said last week that it saw a copy of the letter, Clapper argues that his letter echoes the unanimous view of the US Intelligence Community. He goes on to claim that the requirement to set up a special committee with an operational focus exceeds Congress’ role of overseer of the Intelligence Community and enters the realm of prescribing intelligence tasks. That, says Clapper in his letter, amounts to “micromanagement” of the Intelligence Community by Congress. Furthermore, he argues, the Intelligence Community has already taken steps to address Russian covert operations, thus the suggested panel would “duplicate current work” on the issue. Finally, Clapper’s letter suggests that the required panel would “hinder cooperation” with some of America’s overseas allies, though the Reuters report did not explain the precise justification for that claim.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 05 December 2016 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Did domestic snooping by Canadian spy agency increase 26-fold in a year?

August 25, 2016 by 1 Comment

CSE Canada - IAThe volume of domestic communications that were intercepted by Canada’s spy agency increased 26 times between 2014 and 2015, according to a recently released report by a government watchdog. The same report states that intercepted information about Canadian citizens, which is given to Canada’s spy agency by the intelligence organizations of other Western countries, has increased so much that it now requires an elaborate mechanism to analyze it. When asked to explain the reasons for these increases, Canadian government officials said they could not do so without divulging secrets of national importance.

Information about these increases is contained in the latest annual report by the Office of the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment. The body was set up in 1996 to review the operations of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). Founded in 1946, CSE is Canada’s primary signals intelligence agency. It is responsible for interception foreign communications while at the same time securing the communications of the Canadian government. The Office of the Commissioner monitors CSE’s activities and ensures that they conform with Canadian law. It also investigates complaints against the CSE’s conduct of and its officers.

Canadian law forbids the CSE from intercepting communications in which at least one of the parties participating in the exchange is located in Canada. If that happens, the message exchange is termed “private communication” and CSE is not allowed to intercept it, unless it gets written permission from Canada’s National Defense minister. Such permission is usually given only if the interception is deemed essential to protect Canadian national security or national defense. If a “private communication” is inadvertently intercepted, CSE is required to take “satisfactory measures” to protect the personal privacy of the participant in the exchange that is located inside Canada.

According to the CSE commissioner’s report for 2015, which was released in July, but was only recently made available to the media, CSE intercepted 342 “private communications” in 2014-2015. The year before, the spy agency had intercepted just 13 such exchanges. The report states that all 342 instances of interception during 2014-2015 were either unintentional or critical for the protection of Canada’s security. It further states that the reason for the huge increase is to be found in “the technical characteristics of a particular communications technology and of the manner in which private communications are counted”.

Canadian newspaper The Ottawa Citizen asked the CSE commissioner, Jean-Pierre Plouffe, to explain what he meant by “technical characteristics of a particular communications technology” in his report. His office responded that the commissioner could not explain the subject in more detail, because doing so would “reveal CSE operational capabilities” and thus hurt Canada’s national security. The newspaper also contacted CSE, but was given a similar answer. Some telecommunications security experts speculate that the increase in intercepted “private communications” may be due to exchanges in social media, whereby each message is counted separately.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 25 August 2016 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

German intelligence spied on EU and NATO allies, report finds

July 12, 2016 by Leave a comment

Bad Aibling - IAA major parliamentary inquiry into the operations of Germany’s main intelligence agency has concluded that it spied on nearly 3,500 foreign targets in recent years, most of which belonged to allied countries. The inquiry was initiated by the German government in response to a number of recent public controversies involving the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, known as BND.

In 2015, the BND was found to have secretly collaborated with the US National Security Agency (NSA) in spying on several European governments and private companies. According to German investigative magazine Der Spiegel, the BND used its facilities at Germany’s Bad Aibling listening station to help the NSA spy on, among other targets, the palace of the French president in Paris, the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, and the France-based European conglomerate Airbus. In response to the revelations, Airbus filed a criminal complaint against the German government, while Belgium and Switzerland launched official investigations into the joint BND-NSA activities. The extent of the BND-NSA collaboration prompted widespread public criticism in Germany. In response to the criticism, German Chancellor Angela Merkel promptly fired the director of the BND in April of this year. Additionally, the German chancellor authorized a parliamentary inquiry into the operations of the BND, which was completed last spring.

The resulting 300-page report has not been made public. But summaries leaked to the German media reveal that the BND spied on 3,300 targets until the end of 2013. Nearly 70 percent of these targets belonged to countries that are members of the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and are thus some of Germany’s closest international allies. The targets allegedly included “hundreds of diplomatic missions” in Europe and elsewhere, as well as heads of state, government ministers, aides to foreign cabinet officials, and heads of foreign militaries. The report summary also states that the BND targeted non-governmental organizations and private corporations that are operate in the areas of aviation, weapons design, transportation, advertising and the media.

Last month, the German cabinet approved draft legislation that aims to reform the BND. The legislation explicitly bans the agency from spying on foreign governments or corporations for the benefit of German companies. It also prevents it from spying on targets within the European Union, unless the operation pertains to “information to recognize and confront threats to internal or external security”. The legislation also calls for the establishment of a new independent oversight body consisting of senior judges and representatives of the Office of the Federal Prosecutor, whose job will be to evaluate and approve the BND’s proposed espionage activities against foreign targets.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 12 July 2016 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Egypt president removes spy officials following damning human-rights report

July 5, 2016 by 1 Comment

Abdel Fatah al-SisiSeventeen senior Egyptian intelligence officials were summarily removed from their posts hours after the government’s human-rights monitoring body issued a damning report of violations by security agencies. The removal of the officers was announced on Sunday in the official journal of the Egyptian government, in an article that bore the signature of Egypt’s President, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It listed the names of 17 senior officers of Egypt’s feared General Intelligence Directorate (GID). The article said the 17 would go into early retirement “based on their own requests”, but provided no information on the reasons why they allegedly asked to retire as a group, or who will replace them.

The announcement of the intelligence officers’ removal came shortly after the publication of the annual report on the state of human rights in Egypt by the country’s official government monitoring organization. Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights said in its 2016 report, published over the weekend, that the rights of citizens have “not yet become a priority for the state”. It added that the state of human rights in Egypt remains alarmingly poor despite the adoption of the country’s new constitution in 2014. Egyptian and international rights monitoring organizations claim that as many as 60,000 people have been arrested for political reasons since 2013, when the military overthrew the government of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, following months of protests against his administration.

Focusing on the period between April 2015 and March of this year, the report lists over 260 cases of enforced disappearances of individuals, of which 143 remain under what is termed by the authorities “pretrial detention”. The report further notes that “pretrial detention”, which is often indefinite, has become “a punishment in itself”, and points out that the numbers of prisoners currently held pretrial detention centers exceed their capacity three times over. Consequently, pretrial detainees are forced to “take turns sleeping due to lack of space”, says the report. It also criticizes Egypt’s security and intelligence services for failing to curb the use of torture, which remains widespread despite its condemnation by the government and the conviction of several police and security officers who were found to have tortured detainees to death.

The removal of the 17 senior GID officers highlights the embattled state and internal divisions that continue to plague the Sisi administration, two years after the military strongman assumed power in the country, following a military coup. His administration has focused largely on a violent crackdown against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which includes the imposition of death sentences on hundreds of thousands of people who were convicted in mass trials. Sisi’s legitimacy is disputed by the Muslim Brotherhood —arguably Egypt’s most popular social movement— and secularist reformers, who boycotted en masse the election that propelled him to the presidency. Sisi won with 97 percent of the vote in a heavily boycotted ballot that was reminiscent of the staged elections held by longtime Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. At the same time, however, Sisi is facing challenges from within the military and intelligence services, which some believe may be planning another coup. In June 2014, a less than a month after taking office, SIS replaced 14 senior GID officials. He fired another 11 a year later, while 13 more were forced to retire last December.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 July 2016 | Permalink

 

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

US lawmaker claims Pentagon is resisting probe into tweaked ISIS analysis

March 1, 2016 by Leave a comment

ISIS forces in RamadiThe leading lawmaker in the United States Congressional intelligence committee has accused the Department of Defense of resisting his efforts to investigate claims that intelligence products on the Islamic State were manipulated. Representative Devin Nunes (R-Ca.), who chairs the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said last week that he and his staffers were experiencing a “lack of cooperation” from the military during the course of an official probe into intelligence products. Nunes was referring to allegations, first published in The New York Times in August of last year, that reports about the Islamic State were being deliberately tweaked by officials at the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the Pentagon body that directs and coordinates American military operations in Egypt, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Since that time, it has emerged that more than 50 intelligence analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come forward to complain to the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General that their reports on the Islamic State were altered by CENTCOM officials, in order to give a falsely positive projection of US policy in relation to the militant Sunni organization. Some of the analysts have sharply criticized what they describe as the deliberate politicization of their reports by CENTCOM. Their complaints are now believed to be part of an official investigation into the matter by the Inspector General. The latter is required to produce a report in cooperation with the intelligence oversight committees of the US Congress.

But Nunes, who represents one such Congressional committee, complained last week that his staffers had been repeatedly forced to cancel fact-finding trips to CENTCOM’s headquarters in Florida. He also said at an intelligence committee hearing last week that he had been “made aware” that CENTCOM officials had systematically destroyed digital and printed files relating to the investigation. Nunes added that his committee expected the DoD to “provide these and other documents” in a timely manner. He added that his committee would “do a lot of interviews” in order to detect “what files were deleted”, since those “are the ones they don’t want you to see”.

Reporters from Foreign Policy magazine contacted CENTCOM spokesman Patrick Ryder, who refused to discuss the specifics of the case. He said, however, that all emails sent by senior CENTCOM officials are “kept in storage for record-keeping purposes”, and therefore “cannot be deleted”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 March 2016 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

CIA’s internal watchdog post remains vacant despite mounting calls to fill it

August 6, 2015 by Leave a comment

CIAThe administration of United States President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a replacement for the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general despite calls by Congress to quickly fill the sensitive post. The position has remained vacant since the end of January of this year, when David Buckley resigned after four years on the job. The position was created in 1989 in the aftermath of the so-called Iran-Contra affair, as part of a broader effort to institute independent oversight of the CIA. The Agency’s inspector general is tasked with, among other things, probing allegations of institutional illegality or personnel misconduct, and evaluating concerns raised by whistleblowers.

According to Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent of Yahoo News, there are “mounting concerns on Capitol Hill” about the failure of the White House to nominate a replacement for Buckley, more than six months following his departure. Isikoff wrote that Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Ca), who chairs the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to President Obama in June urging him to nominate a new CIA inspector general “as soon as possible”. In her letter, Feinstein expressed alarm over the delay, which could adversely affect a growing list of sensitive internal probes at the Agency. But the White House has yet to respond to Feinstein, let alone nominate a candidate for the position, said Isikoff.

Several government watchdogs and observers told Yahoo News that the situation at the CIA inspector general’s office is “hardly unique” and noted that the process for appointing inspector generals for US government agencies usually “takes too long”. Moreover, the Agency’s office of the inspector general is not headless; it is led by interim inspector general Christopher R. Sharpley, a government lawyer who worked under Buckley. However, many wonder whether the delay stems from the President’s inability to find an individual with a reputation for impartiality and the determination to handle one of the US Intelligence Community’s most challenging posts.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 August 2015 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

German parliament may sue government to access British spy files

June 19, 2015 by Leave a comment

Angela Merkel and David CameronA German parliamentary committee investigating spying operations may take the German government to court in order to force it to give up secret documents on Berlin’s intelligence cooperation with Britain. The Committee of Inquiry into Intelligence Operations was set up in 2014, after files leaked by American defector Edward Snowden revealed 1 that the United States had been spying on the telephone communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But the scope of the committee expanded earlier this year, when it emerged that, while being spied upon by the US and Britain, Germany also collaborated 2 with American and British intelligence agencies in order to spy on France and other European countries.

Last week, the German Office of the Federal Prosecutor concluded 3 its criminal investigation into alleged espionage operations by the US National Security Agency against Chancellor Merkel. German officials said they had to drop the probe because of the unwillingness of US government officials to share information on the subject. But the parliamentary committee continues the inquiry on the related subject of Germany’s intelligence cooperation with the Britain and the US. The committee’s chairman, Dr. Patrick Sensburg, said on Thursday that his team of investigators would consider “going to court” in order to force the German government to release all relevant documents. Speaking 4 to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Dr. Sensburg said that the parliamentary inquiry had a right to investigate intelligence cooperation between Berlin and London.

However, as intelNews reported 5 in February, the British government is said to have warned Germany that all intelligence cooperation between the two countries will be terminated should classified information about British intelligence operations be shared with an inquiry. Dr. Sensburg was asked by The Telegraph whether reports of the British warnings were true, but he responded that he was unable to comment on the matter.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/18/01-1718/

  1. J. FITSANAKIS “US surveillance or Merkel’s phone prompts angry German reaction” intelNews [24oct2013] ↩
  2. J. FITSANAKIS “Airbus to sue Germany for helping US spy on its operations” intelNews [01may2015] ↩
  3. T. SCHLEIFER “Germany drops probe into U.S. spying on Merkel” cnn [13jun2015] ↩
  4. J. HUGGLER “German spy inquiry could demand access to British secrets” The Daily Telegraph [18jun2015] ↩
  5. J. FITSANAKIS “Britain threatens to stop intelligence cooperation with Germany” intelNews [13feb2015] ↩

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #891

April 2, 2015 by Leave a comment

Edward SnowdenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
►►Sophisticated malware found in 10 countries ‘came from Lebanon’. An Israeli-based computer security firm has discovered a computer spying campaign that it said “likely” originated with a government agency or political group in Lebanon, underscoring how far the capability for sophisticated computer espionage is spreading beyond the world’s top powers. Researchers ruled out any financial motive for the effort that targeted telecommunications and networking companies, military contractors, media organizations and other institutions in Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and seven other countries. The campaign dates back at least three years and allegedly deploys hand-crafted software with some of the hallmarks of state-sponsored computer espionage.
►►Canada’s spy watchdog struggles to keep tabs on agencies. The Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which monitors Canada’s intelligence agencies, said continued vacancies on its board, the inability to investigate spy operations with other agencies, and delays in intelligence agencies providing required information are “key risks” to its mandate. As a result, SIRC said it can review only a “small number” of intelligence operations each year.
►►Analysis: After Snowden NSA faces recruitment challenge. This year, the NSA needs to find 1,600 recruits. Hundreds of them must come from highly specialized fields like computer science and mathematics. So far the agency has been successful. But with its popularity down, and pay from wealthy Silicon Valley companies way up, Agency officials concede that recruitment is a worry.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reactions to US Senate’s CIA report fall along party lines

December 10, 2014 by Leave a comment

Cover of the Senate reportBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Almost immediately following the release of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee’s summary-report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program, American public figures began to hurriedly fall in line along predictable partisan positions on the subject. The 500-page document, released on Tuesday, represents the publicly available version of a 6,000-page report that dismisses the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program as an intelligence failure. It also details instances of systematic use of torture by the Agency and accuses it of lying to Congress and the Executive about the effectiveness of its detention methods. But the published report was boycotted by the Senate Committee’s Republican Party members; consequently, it was authored solely by the group’s Democratic Party members, who currently constitute a majority in the Committee. Its Republican members, led by Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga), released an alternative 160-page minority report that dismisses the majority document as an inaccurate and hastily produced account, which endangers American national security. The Republican-supported minority statement praises the CIA for weakening al-Qaeda in the years after 9/11 and lambasts its critics for “misrepresentations of fact” rooted in “political motivations”. Meanwhile, as senior officials in the administration of US President Barack Obama voiced support for the Senate report, an anonymous group of former senior CIA officials launched a website lambasting it as “the single worst example of Congressional oversight in our many years of government service”. IntelNews understands that the website, entitled “CIA Saved Lives”, is organized by Bill Harlow, the CIA’s public-affairs director from 1997 to 2004, who is close to the Agency’s former Director, George Tenet. Tenet was a trusted advisor of then-US President George W. Bush, and led the CIA during the implementation of the early stages of the post-9/11 interrogation program. The CIA’s own response to the Senate report came in a public press release that acknowledged “serious mistakes” in the interrogation program while defending its alleged effectiveness in weakening of al-Qaeda. Rare examples of public figures that broke party lines were Susan Collins (R-Me), the only Senate Intelligence Committee Republican not to endorse the minority report, and Senator John McCain (R-Az). McCain, who underwent years of torture as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, said the CIA’s use of torture “stained [America’s] national honor” and had done “much harm and little practical good”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Brennan apologizes after internal report finds CIA spied on Congress

August 1, 2014 by 1 Comment

John Brennan and Dianne FeinsteinBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency has apologized to Congress members after an internal inquiry found that the Agency spied on Congressional staff investigating its use of torture in interrogations. The investigation, conducted by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector-General, was prompted by the very public spat back in March between the Agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee. The latter is tasked, along with its sister body in the House of Representatives, with exercising legislative oversight of the Intelligence Community. Many members of the Committee, which has just concluded a probe over the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation against terrorism detainees, believe that, not only was the CIA’s use of torture methods illegal, but that it also failed to generate useful intelligence. The CIA, however, has denied this all along, and has been quite possessive of documents relating to the subject, which the Committee believed had a right to access. When the Committee accused the CIA of illegally searching the computers used by staffers to carry out their research into CIA files, the Agency responded by asking the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into whether Congressional staffers illegally removed classified documents from the CIA’s archives that were beyond the scope of the Committee’s investigation. But the CIA’s own report appears to have completely vindicated Congress, having found that CIA officers created a fake online identity in order to surreptitiously access a number of computers used by Congressional staffers. The report’s findings prompted a private meeting earlier this week between CIA Director John Brennan and two senior members of the Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga), during which Brennan reportedly apologized. Feinstein, however, who was very vocal in denouncing the CIA’s shenanigans back in March, allegedly took Brennan to task about his staunch defense of his employees last spring. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts