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News you may have missed #373 (CIA edition)

June 11, 2010 by intelNews 2 Comments

CIA forerunner’s sabotage manual released. Here is the Simple Sabotage Field Manual (.pdf) of the Office of Strategic Services (wartime forerunner of the CIA), dating from 1944. Via Bruce Schneier’s blog.
CIA misread South Korea signs, documents show. Declassified CIA documents on South Korea show that the US spy agency was surprised by the 1979 assassination of dictator Pak Chung Hee, by his intelligence chief, did not anticipate the ensuring military coup d’etat, and dismissed the growing unrest that eventually led to a near-civil war in the country.
Ex-CIA top official’s op-ed supports Miranda rights. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Philip Mudd, a former senior official at the CIA and the FBI, argues that reading terrorist suspects their Miranda rights has never impeded an intelligence investigation.

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News you may have missed #359

May 26, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

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.

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News you may have missed #356

May 21, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

US intel failures facilitated Christmas bomb plot: Senate report. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released a summary (.pdf) of their investigation into the so-called Christmas bomb plot of last December. The report concludes that the would-be bomber was effectively assisted by “systemic failures across the Intelligence Community”.
More alleged Korean double spies dispute charges. Inspired by the case of the late Lee Soo-geun, who was shot by South Korea after being falsely charged with spying for North Korea, more alleged South Korean double spies are coming forward to reveal that, like Lee, their incriminating confessions were extracted through torture.
Israeli IDF soldiers fall prey to Facebook spy. A number of Israeli soldiers fell victim to a Facebook spy scam, according to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. The Israel Defense Forces members appear to have befriend a young woman on the social networking site, who may have been a Hezbollah operative. This is not the first time this has happened.

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South charges North Korean agents with assassination plot

April 23, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Hwang Jang-yop

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Two North Koreans who defected to South Korea last November have allegedly admitted to being intelligence officers on a mission to assassinate a North Korean former senior official. The official, Hwang Jang-yop, caused a sensation on both sides of the border when he defected to the South in 1997. A former secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, Hwang was the North’s primary theorist and the ideological architect of juche, the philosophy of self-reliance, which is North Korea’s officially sanctioned state dogma. Since his defection, the 87-year-old Hwang, who is believed to have ideologically mentored North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, has been living in the South with around-the-clock security protection. The two self-confessed spies, Tong Myong Kwan and Kim Myung Ho, both 36, have allegedly admitted posing as defectors, while in reality being on an assassination mission on behalf of the intelligence unit of the North Korean Ministry of Defense. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0274

January 31, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Japanese reporter cleared of 1974 espionage charges. A Japanese newspaper correspondent in South Korea, whose life was ruined in 1974, after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of helping fund North Korean espionage activities, has been acquitted in a retrial.
CIA interrogated al-Qaeda suspect in Poland, claims UN. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of the 2000 al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole, was interrogated in a secret CIA prison in northern Poland, claims a UN report. Similar allegations have also been leveled against 12 nations, among them EU states such as Romania and Lithuania.

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News you may have missed #0270

January 27, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

S. Korean court orders damages in alleged spy case. Lee Soo-geun was a senior North Korean government apparatchik, who defected to the South and joined its intelligence service in 1967. Later, however, when he attempted to flee to a third country, he was arrested by South Korean counterintelligence agents, charged with working as a double agent, and shot. But now a court in Seoul has concluded that Lee’s confession was extracted by force, and has ordered that damages be paid to Lee’s niece, who was imprisoned for allegedly helping him.
Belarus reshuffles KGB leadership. Last week, Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenko carried out a major reshuffle in the country’s State Security Committee (KGB), a surprise move which affected all KGB deputy chairs and regional department heads. Retired KGB lieutenant colonel Valery Kostka explains the reasoning behind the reshuffle.

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News you may have missed #0255 (espionage edition)

January 15, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korea jails alleged spy for 10 years. A 37-year-old college professor, identified only as Lee, has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly spying undercover on behalf of North Korea for 17 years. South Korean authorities said Lee, who was charged in November, was recruited by the North in 1992, while studying in New Delhi, India.
New details in Nozette spy case. Maryland scientist Stewart Nozette, who is accused of giving classified defense information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, may have impersonated a naval research official in order to acquire classified information, according to new court documents.
“I didn’t kill Islamic Jihad members because I was busy spying for Israel“. Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, a retired Lebanese Internal Security Forces official, has already confessed to having “collaborated with Israeli intelligence agents” between 1993 and 2006. But he denies having participated in the 2006 assassinations of two Islamic Jihad leaders in Lebanon, because on the night of the assassinations he was conducting a reconnaissance mission in Lebanon on behalf of Israeli spy agency Mossad.

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News you may have missed #0175

November 10, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean spy agency now regards North as ‘international affairs’. The Seoul-based National Intelligence Service (NIS) has relocated its unit that monitors North Korea under a department dealing with international affairs. The change, described as a “paradigm shift” by one South Korean official, apparently reflects President Lee Myung-bak’s view that the North Korean issue should be dealt more “from the international geopolitical perspective”.
Robbery of S. African intel agent was planned, say officials. The robbery by five men of a woman said to be an agent of South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency “was conducted as though it was very well planned”, according to police.
Interview with ex-West German spy master. Radio France Internationale has aired an interview with Hans-Georg Wieck, chief of the West German Secret Service (BND) between 1985 and 1990. Among other things, Wieck claims that BND had “well-placed” agents in East Germany, as well as in spy services of other communist, including the KGB.

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S. Korea arrests two for spying for US defense contractor

November 5, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

NorthropGrumman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The government of South Korea announced the arrest on Tuesday of two former South Korean army colonels for allegedly leaking defense secrets to US defense contractor giant Northrop Grumman. South Korean authorities identified the individuals simply as “Hwang” and “Ryu”, and said they both worked for the Security Management Institute, a Seoul-based intelligence think-tank with strong connections to South Korea’s armed forces. Details are still sketchy, but it appears the two former army colonels used their military contacts to gain access to classified information on hardware purchase plans and operations of South Korea’s navy and coast guard. They then allegedly passed on this information to employees of Northrop Grumman, the world’s largest builder of military vessels and fourth largest defense contractor in 2008. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0163

November 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean ex-spy master dies. Lee Hu-rak, who has died at age 85, headed the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, a predecessor of today’s National Intelligence Service, from 1970-1973. He was best known for brokering the signing of a historic 1972 peace document with North Korea, after an unprecedented secret trip to Pyongyang, during which he met North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.
Spy like us. How a mild-mannered Baltimore antique dealer became one of the FBI’s best undercover agents.
Bulgaria quits plans to disband State National Security Agency. Bulgaria’s government has made clear it does not plan to suspend, but just to “streamline”, the operations of the scandal-prone State National Security Agency DANS.

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News you may have missed #0162

November 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean 1967 spy case was “trumped up”, report finds. A national truth commission set up by South Korea’s primary intelligence organization, the National Intelligence Service, has concluded that the so-called Tongbaengnim spy ring case was “grossly trumped up”. The case culminated in a public show-trial of 194 South Korean academics, artists and students, accused of spying for North Korea.
CIA torture sparked rift with FBI. The Associated Press is reporting what intelNews readers have known since July 20; namely that the CIA’s use of “harsh interrogation techniques” against captured terror suspects made FBI interrogators wary of the legality of the methods. As a result, FBI agents were barred from the interrogations.
Analysis: Friendship is no bar to espionage. As relations between Taiwan and China improve, would it be reasonable to expect that China will temper espionage activity against Taiwan, and vice-versa?

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News you may have missed #0160

November 1, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean college teacher charged with spying for North. A 37-year-old South Korean college instructor, identified only as Lee, has been charged with spying for North Korea since 1992.
Analysis: The CIA’s Afghan payroll. The revelation by The New York Times Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has long been on the payroll of the CIA is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg, says IPS correspondent Gareth Porter.
US spy budget up $2 billion since 2008. US spy agencies spent $49.8 billion in fiscal year 2009, $2 billion more than in 2008 and the second such multibillion-dollar increase in as many years.

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News you may have missed #0146

October 18, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

RAND wants the US to abstain from cyberattacks. A new report by the US Pentagon’s research arm, RAND Corporation, suggests the US may be better off playing cyber-defense instead of resorting to cyberattacks. On offense, cyberwar might be better relegated to support roles, and then only “sparingly and precisely”, according to the report. The study comes as the US military fires up its new unified Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) program this month.
Turkey says it foiled al-Qaida plot against Israeli, US targets. Turkish security forces detained on Thursday 32 suspected members of al-Qaeda, believed to have been planning attacks on Israeli, US and NATO targets. The suspects, some of whom are said to have been trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, were detained in simultaneous raids across eight provinces.
South Korea arrests alleged Swedish-handled spy. A former South Korean air force major general, identified only as Kim, was arrested last Friday on charges of leaking classified military information to Swedish defense and aviation company Saab, between August 2008 and May this year.

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News you may have missed #0134

October 8, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

S. Korean government tries to silence anti-surveillance activist. Park Won-sun, the executive director of the Hope Institute, a civic think tank, says he will continue to criticize the country’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) for spying on civilians, despite charges filed against him by the government.
Cleric in CIA kidnap trial seeks millions. Hassan Moustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian cleric kidnapped by the CIA from a Milan street in 2003, has asked for €10 million ($15 million) in damages from the American and Italian defendants charged in his abduction.
Three US-based Chinese nationals accused of selling arms to China. Chinese nationals Zhen Zhou Wu, Yufeng Wei, Bo Li and Chitron Electronics and Shenzhen Chitron Electronics Co. Ltd., face a 38-count indictment for conspiring to violate the US Arms Export Control Act for allegedly exporting defense weapons and electronics, money laundering and filing false documents with the US Department of Commerce.

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News you may have missed #0114

September 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

US Senate Democrats seek stronger wiretap law. Led by Russ Feingold (WI) and Dick Durbin (IL), the Senate group proposes stronger safeguards and higher standards of judicial oversight for surveillance activity, including withdrawing immunity to telecom companies that participated in warrantless communications surveillance during the Bush Administration.
South Korean spy agency in trouble over expenses. The scandal-prone National Intelligence Service of South Korea is being scrutinized again for spending billions of wons in unaccounted “special activities”.
Movie script tells story of British police detective turned KGB spy. Daniel Craig and Jude Law are said to be in the running to play the lead role in a new film about the story of John Symonds, a British former police detective who worked for the KGB from 1972 until 1980. In 1981, when he approached MI5 and MI6 and offered to turn into a triple agent for the UK spy services, he was dismissed as a fantasist.