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News you may have missed #0064

August 11, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

US battling CIA rendition case in three courts. Useful legal status summary of the case of Binyam Mohamed and four other former or current CIA detainees, who allege they were tortured at Guantánamo Bay.
Iran purges Intelligence Ministry officials. More information on an apparent purge in the ranks of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, which we first noted a few days ago.
US Pentagon monitoring Twitter, YouTube. Newly released government documents show the US military is monitoring activity on popular websites such as YouTube and Twitter to scrutinize and react to coverage of “high-profile events”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Binyam Mohamed, CIA, extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Iran, lawsuits, Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, News, news you may have missed, social networking, surveillance, torture, Twitter, United States, US DoD, YouTube

News you may have missed #0061

August 7, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Finland police identify body of WWII Soviet spy. Police believe a body found near Kouvola, Finland, to be the World War II remnants of a Soviet spy. The man apparently parachuted to his death. The body will be offered to the Russian Embassy for repatriation –an offer that is expected to be refused.
Hacker conferences attract spies, thieves. Interesting account of Defcon conference anecdotes by CNET correspondent Elinor Mills, who has been attending Defcon since 1995.
Interesting interview with lawyer behind CIA lawsuit. McClatchy news agency has published a rare interview with Brian Leighton, the lawyer representing retired Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officer Richard A. Horn, who in 1994 claimed that CIA agents illegally wiretapped his conversations while he was stationed in Burma.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brian Leighton, CIA, computer hacking, DEA, DefCon conference, espionage, Finland, Kouvola (Finland), lawsuits, News, news you may have missed, Richard A. Horn, Russian embassy in Finland, United States, USSR, World War II

News you may have missed #0060

August 6, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ex-FBI translator tests US Justice Department again. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has spent seven years trying to get a court to hear her allegations that Turkish intelligence agents had penetrated her unit, the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress. This weekend she’s going to try again.
Bulgaria appoints new National Security Agency director. Tsvetelin Yovchev is the new head of the State National Security Agency (DANS). The Agency’s previous director, Petko Sertov, recently handed his resignation, allegedly after Bulgaria’s “American partners were said to have lost faith” in him. He will now serve as Bulgaria’s general consul in Thessaloniki, northern Greece.
US paper sees power struggle inside Iranian intelligence. The Washington Times claims the recent firing of intelligence minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, two other Ali Khamenei loyalists and nearly 20 other high-ranking officials, has weakened Khamenei’s hold over the Iranian intelligence ministry and has strengthened the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ali Khamenei, Bulgaria, DANS (Bulgaria), diplomacy, FBI, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Greece, Iran, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, lawsuits, Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran, MİT (Turkey), Petko Sertov, Sibel Edmonds, Thessaloniki (Greece), Tsvetelin Yovchev, Turkey, United States, US Department of State, US DoD

CIA whistleblower’s memo on Peru declassified after eight years

August 6, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

V.L. Montesinos

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A memorandum drafted in 2001 by a CIA officer, detailing assistance illegally provided by the CIA to the former chief of Peruvian intelligence, has been declassified following an eight-year court battle. In the memorandum, CIA employee Franz Boening argued that the Agency violated US law by providing material and political assistance to Vladimiro Ilich Montesinos Torres, a graduate of the US Army’s School of the Americas and longtime CIA operative, who headed Peru’s Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN) under the corrupt administration of President Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori is now in prison, as is Montesinos himself. But in 2001, the CIA Inspector General, to whom Boening’s memorandum was addressed, took no action in response to the officer’s allegations. What is more, the CIA proceeded to classify Boening’s memorandum, claiming that its disclosure “reasonably could be expected to cause damage to national security”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alberto Fujimori, censorship, CIA, CIA Inspector General, corruption, declassification, Franz Boening, government secrecy, informants, lawsuits, News, Peru, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN), United States, US Army School of the Americas, Vladimiro Montesinos, whistleblowing

Ex-DoD analyst accused of spying says he was FBI double spy

July 31, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Larry Franklin

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Lawrence Anthony Franklin, the former US Defense Department analyst whose 12-year prison sentence was suspended last month, now claims he was an FBI informant in a case of alleged spying by the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington. Franklin was accused by the US government of handing classified military information to Uzi Arad, Naor Gilon, an Israeli Embassy official in Washington, as well as to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, both lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Besides Franklin, Rosen and Weissman were also taken to court by the FBI. Last May, however, US Justice Department prosecutors dropped all charges against the two former AIPAC members. It was just a matter of time before Franklin’s sentence was also suspended. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with AIPAC, CBS News, eavesdropping, FBI, informants, Israel, Israeli embassy in the US, John Miller, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, lawsuits, Naor Gilon, News, Steve Rosen, United States, US Department of Justice, US DoD, Uzi Arad

Obama administration opposes release of Cheney records in Valerie Plame case

July 30, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Valerie Plame

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Obama administration officials are pressuring a US judge to stop the release of former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s records in the case of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame sought compensation after she was publicly named as a secret CIA operative. Along with her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, she has fought a legal campaign, arguing that several Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, and even President George W. Bush himself, were behind the leak of her CIA role. Cheney had a lengthy interview with prosecutors pursuing the leak case, but the transcripts of the exchange have so far remained secret, on national security grounds. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Dick Cheney, Emmet Sullivan, George W. Bush, government secrecy, Joseph Wilson, lawsuits, News, Obama Administration, United States, US Department of Justice, Valerie Plame-Wilson

News you may have missed #0044

July 27, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Attorney behind CIA lawsuit gives interview. Brian C. Leighton, the attorney representing former Drug Enforcement Agency officer Richard A. Horn, who claims that CIA agents illegally wiretapped his conversations, has given an interview to The Merced Sun-Star.
Germany accuses China of industrial espionage. A senior German counterintelligence official has said Germany is under attack from an increasing number of state-backed Chinese spying operations that are costing the German economy tens of billions of euros a year. Similar claims were made in May.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brian C. Leighton, Burma, China, CIA, DEA, espionage, Germany, industrial espionage, Internet, lawsuits, News, news you may have missed, Rangoon (Burma), Richard A. Horn, wiretapping

News you may have missed #0038

July 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

NZ spy satellite dish to be repaired after activists’ raid. New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau says it is preparing to mend a spy satellite dish in Waihopai Spy Base, which was “totalled” by Ploughshares peace group activists last year.
Group plans lawsuit to reveal CIA’s Pentagon Papers. The Washington-based Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to force the CIA and other US intelligence agencies to come clean on their “war on terrorism” practices under the Bush administration.
NSA using cloud model for intelligence sharing. The US National Security Agency is implementing cloud-computing technologies in a new intelligence collection system. The new system, currently in testing, will be geographically distributed in data centers around the United States.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bush Administration, CIA, cloud computing, ECHELON, Electronic Frontier Foundation, GCSB (New Zealand), lawsuits, New Zealand, News, news you may have missed, NSA, Ploughshares, political activism, Waihopai (New Zealand), War on Terrorism

Judge accuses CIA of fraud in 15-year court case

July 22, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Judge Lamberth

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A 15-year old lawsuit against the CIA unexpectedly resurfaced yesterday, after a US federal judge accused the CIA attorneys of fraud and warned the former and current CIA leadership of serious legal sanctions. US District Judge Royce Lamberth said the CIA misled him on several occasions by falsely claiming that the “state secrets” clause applied to the case, which three consecutive US administrations have tried to bury. The case was filed in 1994 by retired Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officer Richard A. Horn, who claimed that CIA agents illegally wiretapped his conversations while he was stationed in Burma. It appears that, at the time, the US diplomatic representation in Burma and the CIA station in Rangoon were at loggerheads with the DEA. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Arthur Brown, Bill Clinton, Burma, Bush Administration, CIA, corruption, DEA, Franklin Hurdle Jr., George Tenet, Jeffrey Yeates, John A. Rizzo, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, lawsuits, Leon Panetta, News, Obama Administration, Rangoon (Burma), Richard A. Horn, Robert T. Eatinger, State Secrets clause, United States, war on drugs, wiretapping

Larry Franklin, implicated in Israeli spy affair, breaks silence

July 6, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Franklin

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Lawrence Anthony Franklin, the former US Defense Department analyst whose 12-year prison sentence was suspended last month, has finally broken his silence. Franklin, who was accused by the US government of handing classified US military information to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, has told Jeff Stein of SpyTalk that he handed out the secret information “in hopes that it would be passed on to the White House”. He said he was “worried” the Bush administration pursued a schizophrenic policy on Iran and had not calculated the Iranian reaction to a possible US invasion of Iraq. He therefore decided to pass on the classified information, which included “the names and locations of Iran’s secret agents and safe houses in Iraq”, to AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who claimed they had senior contacts in the Bush administration. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with AIPAC, CIA, Dick Cheney, disappearances, Douglas Feith, espionage, FBI, Iran, Israel, John Hannah, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, lawsuits, Manucher Ghorbanifar, News, Paul Wolfowitz, Steve Rosen, United States, William Luti

Charges dropped against AIPAC lobbyists involved in Franklin spy case

May 4, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As intelNews reported on April 23, based on a tip by The Washington Post, it has been announced that the two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists involved in the Lawrence Franklin spy case in the US will escape trial. Lawrence Anthony Franklin was a US Defense Department analyst who in 2006 was given a 12-year prison sentence for handing classified US military information to Israeli agent Uzi Arad, Israeli Embassy official Naor Gilon, as well as to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, both former AIPAC lobbyists. But on Friday US Justice Department prosecutors dropped all charges against the two former AIPAC members due to “significant reservations about the case”, even though several Department officials believe that Rosen and Weissman “acted imprudently”, according to The New York Times. As IntelNews has learned, the decision was taken despite significant objections from FBI officials, who desperately pressured the Department to go forward with the trial until the very last minute. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, FBI, Israel, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, lawsuits, Naor Gilon, News, Steve Rosen, United States, US Department of State, Uzi Arad

Vietnam veterans sue CIA for mind control experiments

January 9, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) have filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA, the US Department of Defense and numerous other government entities and individuals, for subjecting US military personnel to chemical, biological and mind control experiments from 1953 until 1976. The Washington, DC-based group said it filed the lawsuit on behalf of six elderly veterans “with multiple diseases and ailments”, who were subjected to “secret experiments to test toxic chemical and biological substances under code names such as MKULTRA”. The codeword refers to a lengthy research program by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI, a.k.a. Technical Services Division) to test the effects of various types of drugs in altering the brain function of unsuspecting subjects. Read more of this post