James R. Clapper | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #377

Romania sentences two for espionage. A court in Bucharest has sentenced Romanian citizen Floricel Achim and Bulgarian Petar Marinov Zikolov to 12.5 years in prison each, for passing classified information to Ukraine. The two were arrested last February.
Top US senator has concerns about Obama’s DNI nominee. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, has publicly joined those who have expressed concern about President Barack Obama’s nomination of James Clapper to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She says she prefers a civilian for the post.
Yemen arrests leader of attack on southern spy HQ. Yemen has arrested the suspected mastermind of Saturday’s spectacular attack on the government’s southern intelligence headquarters in Aden, which freed detainees and left 11 people dead.

Afghan interior minister and spy chief removed. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has removed interior minister Hanif Atmar and national security director Amrullah Saleh, after accusing them of failing to prevent last week’s Taliban attack on the country’s parliament. It is worth noting that both officials have close ties to Washington.
Analysis: Fight looms over new US intelligence chief. Warring opinions are emerging about James R. Clapper, after US President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate the Pentagon’s current intelligence chief to serve as director of national intelligence.
Analysis: The dangers of turning spies into generals. The CIA’s controversial Predator-drone targeted killings program blends Title 10 of the US code, which governs the military, and Title 50, which covers intelligence operations. This unnerves a number of scholars, who recall that the last time this was done on such a large scale was in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

New book hints at covert US-French spy war. A forthcoming book, Diplomats: Behind the Façade of France’s Embassies, by Franck Renaud, claims that in 2008 French security agents discovered hidden bugs placed by the CIA in the Paris apartment of Pierre Brochand, head of the DGSE, France’s primary intelligence agency. A CIA spokesperson refused to speculate on the accuracy of the allegations.
Obama rethinking his lead pick for DNI. Following skepticism expressed by intelligence insiders, President Obama is reportedly reevaluating his initial choice of James R. Clapper as the leading contender for the post of the Director of National Intelligence.

Another alleged North Korean spy captured in South. A month after two alleged North Korean assassins, posing as defectors, were arrested in the South, Seoul has announced that another defector, an unnamed 36-year-old female, was captured for receiving “Seoul subway information from a former high-ranking subway official”, with whom she had a romantic relationship.
New book on GCHQ out in July. A new book on the history of Britain’s secretive General Communications Headquarters, authored by Warwick University Professor Richard J. Aldrich, is to be published in a few weeks. The book, entitled GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency, will be published by Harper Collins.
Ex-DIA officials skeptical about rumored new DNI. Two former top US Defense Intelligence Agency officials, Jeffrey White and W. Patrick Lang, say retired Air Force Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., a leading candidate to be the next Director of National Intelligence, nearly wrecked the agency’s analysis wing when he ran the organization in the mid-1990s.