Situation Report: CIA venture group funds video recorder firm

July 1, 2012 by Leave a comment

In-Q-TelBy TIMOTHY W. COLEMAN | intelNews.org |
On June 27, In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of the United States intelligence community, announced a strategic partnership with Looxcie, makers of the first ever “wear and share” videocam recorders. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In-Q-Tel, created in 1999, is the foremost strategic investor on behalf of the US Intelligence Community. Originally called “Peleus”, In-Q-Tel was initially associated with the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T).  Interestingly enough, the “Q” in In-Q-Tel’s branding is apparently derived from a fictional character in the James Bond movies referred to as “Q”.  As many movie fans will recall, “Q” was responsible for outfitting Bond and other 00s with the famed and awe-inspiring gadgetry and technical equipment needed for missions. Having evolved from the CIA’s DS&T, whose primary purpose is to “create, adapt, develop and operate technical collection systems and apply enabling technologies to the collection, processing and analysis of information”, In-Q-Tel’s strategic investments in dual-purpose technology firms is hardly surprising. In fact, In-Q-Tel has a notable track record, especially given the fact that it is a government-run venture capital fund. Successful as it may be, In-Q-Tel represents itself quite humbly, formally explaining that it is a “not-for-profit organization […] created to bridge the gap between the technology needs of the Intelligence Community and new advances in commercial technology”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #753

June 27, 2012 by 4 Comments

James ClapperBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►US spy agencies consider new polygraph questions. The US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is considering a proposal to force intelligence agency employees to answer a direct question in their polygraph examinations about whether they have disclosed information to reporters. The Los Angeles Times quotes “officials familiar with the matter”, who say that Clapper is preparing “changes to the counterintelligence polygraph policy”, though “no final decisions have been made”.
►►Ex-“New Republic” editor speaks out against Pollard release. Few American journals can claim to have stood more staunchly by Israel than The New Republic. So we should be paying attention when Martin Peretz, who edited the magazine from 1974 until 2011, comes out against the proposed release of Jonathan Jay Pollard. Pollard is a former US Navy analyst, who is serving a life sentence for spying on the US for Israel. Peretz calls Pollard “a scoundrel spy” and reminds his readers that “before he decided to deliver reams of sensitive [US] intelligence and defense documents to Israel’s security apparatus, [Pollard] was negotiating with Pakistan […] to do similar chores for it”.
►►UK leader considered using special forces to seize Russian ship. British Prime Minister David Cameron considered ordering British special forces to board and impound a Russian ship suspected of carrying arms to Russian ally Syria, it has emerged. The ship, MV Alaed, was sailing in British waters when the US placed pressure on Britain to halt it. But the Russian ship suddenly changed course about 50 miles off the north coast of Scotland and it is showing that its next port of call is Murmansk, in Russia.

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News you may have missed #752

June 26, 2012 by Leave a comment

Charles SchumerBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►US companies ‘use military-style planes’ to make maps. Companies such as Apple and Google could push the limits of citizens’ privacy thanks to the use of “military-grade spy planes” when creating their next-generation mapping technologies, according to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). Schumer expressed his concerns in a letter to the two companies, arguing that hyper-detailed images of people’s backyards and other objects could pose a threat to both privacy and national security. The Senator also pointed out the potential for criminals and, yes, even terrorists to view detailed maps of “sensitive utilities”.
►►CIA wanted ‘torture cage’ for secret prison. Polish Senator Jozef Pinior claims prosecutors in Krakow have a document that shows a local contractor was asked to build a cage at Stare Kiekuty, a Polish army base used as a CIA prison for al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. “In a state with rights”, Pinior told the Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza, “people in prison are not kept in cages”. He said a cage was “non-standard equipment” for a prison, but standard “if torture was used there”. After Poland launched its official investigation of the Stare Kiekuty site, President Bronislaw Komorowski said the probe was needed because “the reputation of Poland is at stake”.
►►US Air Force spy planes facing postwar cut. The US Air Force plans to cut back on the number of Hawker Beechcraft’s MC-12 spy planes it wants to operate after the draw-down from Afghanistan and Iraq, official data indicates. With declining operations, the aircraft began to lose its priority role and recent comments indicated at least some of the aircraft would either be grounded or given to the National Guard or other services. Since the MC-12 was first deployed in Iraq, U. forces have acquired access to more sophisticated surveillance aircraft as well as drones that can perform roles previously assigned to manned aircraft.

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CIA helping Turkey, Saudi Arabia, smuggle weapons into Syria: sources

June 25, 2012 by 5 Comments

Turkish-Syrian borderBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A growing team of United States Central Intelligence Agency personnel is currently in Turkey overseeing a multinational effort to secretly deliver weapons to Syrian anti-government rebels, according to The New York Times. Quoting “American officials and Arab intelligence officers”, the paper said last week that the weapons are being smuggled into Syria primarily through the Turkish border. The financial cost of smuggling into Syria such weapons as antitank explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic rifles, has so far been covered by the governments of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to the article. The funds are partly required to bribe members of what The Times describes as “a shadowy network of intermediaries”, which reportedly includes forces loyal to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is a Sunni group that is widely viewed as the most dominant of the anti-government factions that make up the rebel side in the ongoing Syrian uprising. The paper quotes an “Arab intelligence official”, who says the CIA contingent in Turkey “is trying to make new sources and recruit people” along the porous Turkish-Syrian border. But its presence in the volatile region, which has been constant for “several weeks”, according to The Times, is also aimed at keeping the smuggled weapons out of the reach of Syrian anti-government forces that are allied with militant Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. The article notes that American support for the Syrian rebels has been minimal, when compared with that in Libya in 2011, mostly because of staunch Russian support for the government forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #750 (US edition)

June 22, 2012 by Leave a comment

NROL-38 reconnaissance spacecraftBy TIMOTHY W. COLEMAN | intelNews.org |
►►US spy agency launches new satellite. The US National Reconnaissance Office, the agency tasked with overseeing America’s intelligence satellites, successfully placed a new spy satellite into orbit. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the NROL-38 reconnaissance spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite launch, sitting atop an Atlas 5 rocket, was streamed live via Webcast for several minutes before being terminated due to national security restrictions and the classified nature of the mission. Particulars regarding the capabilities or specific purpose of the spy satellite were not provided. However, just a few days before, the US Air Force’s highly classified space plane known as the  AX-37B returned to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
►►FBI takes on larger domestic intelligence role. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, under a newly devised action plan, will be afforded a greater role in domestic intelligence efforts in the US, according to a recent Washington Post article.  Senior level field agents at the bureau are expected to serve as representatives for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the agency created after 9/11 to oversee activities of all US intelligence efforts. The Post quotes CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, who —remarkably, considering CIA/ODNI relations in recent years— said that the agency has not opposed the ODNI’s move to elevate FBI agents in the US, and that “the program is working well”.
►►CIA declassifies 9/11 documents. The CIA released this past week hundreds of pages of declassified documents related to the September 11, 2001, attacks, which detail the agency’s budgetary woes leading up to the deadly strikes and its attempts to track al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The National Security Archive at George Washington University says it obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are heavily redacted and offer little new information about what the US knew about the al-Qaeda plot before 2001.

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US and Israel behind computer virus that hit Iran, say sources

June 22, 2012 by 5 Comments

Flame virus code segmentBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Flame, a sophisticated computer malware that was detected last month in computers belonging to the Iranian National Oil Company and Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum, was created by Israel and the United States, according to a leading American newspaper. Quoting “officials familiar with US cyber-operations”, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the malware, which is said to be “massive in size”, is part of a wider covert program codenamed OLYMPIC GAMES. The paper said that the US portion of the program is spearheaded by the National Security Agency, which specializes in cyberespionage, and the CIA’s Information Operations Center. The Post further claims that OLYMPIC GAMES has a three-fold mission: to delay the development of the Iranian nuclear program; to discourage Israeli and American officials from resorting to a conventional military attack on Iran; and to buy time for those officials who favor addressing the Iranian nuclear stalemate with diplomatic pressures coupled with sanctions. According to one “former intelligence official” quoted in The Post, the scale of OLYMPIC GAMES “is proportionate to the problem that’s trying to be resolved”. Russian antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, which first spotted the Flame virus in May, said that it is “one of the most complex threats ever discovered”. It is over 20 megabytes in size, consisting of 650,000 lines of code. In comparison, Stuxnet, a computer super-virus that was detected by experts in 2010, and caused unprecedented waves of panic among Iranian cybersecurity experts, was 500 kilobytes in size. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #749

June 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

Mohammed DahabiBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Why did CIA Director secretly visit Czech Republic? The CIA Director, David Petraeus, is known to make frequent secret trips to places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq. But why was his recent trip to the Czech Republic kept secret? Photographs published in a Czech daily paper showed the CIA director and his team boarding a military plane at Prague’s Ruzyne Airport, headed for their next destination, Sofia, Bulgaria. But neither the US Embassy in Prague, nor the CIA will respond to questions by Czech media about Petraeus’ secretive visit to the former Soviet Bloc nation.
►►Jordan’s ex-spy chief on trial for corruption. Jordan’s former spy chief, General , who headed the General Intelligence Department (GID) from 2005 to 2009, has gone on trial in Amman on charges of corruption, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. In a case highlighting corruption in the country’s vaunted intelligence community, the prosecutor said Dahabi’s wealth had quadrupled during his years in office, reaching almost $40 million by the end of 2011. The money, he said, was held in several foreign currency accounts in a leading domestic bank.
►►CIA still refuses to comment on Predator drone attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency continues to refuse to confirm or deny the covert military use of drones to kill suspected terrorists overseas. This is despite numerous public comments on the CIA’s drone attacks in far-flung locales such as Yemen from various government officials, including former CIA Director Leon Panetta and US President Barack Obama. The development comes as 26 members of Congress asked Obama, in a letter, to consider the consequences of drone killing and to explain the necessity of the program.

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News you may have missed #748 (US edition)

June 20, 2012 by Leave a comment

Michael HaydenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►US lawmakers probe China companies over spy concerns. In letters sent last week to Chinese communications hardware firms Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation, a group of senior members of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee have outlined concerns about the companies’ ties with the Chinese government, including the role of a “party committee” at Huawei. The lawmakers have also asked about Huawei’s relationships with five US consulting firms and requested an expansive collection of documents, including the contracts between the firms and Huawei.
►►Lone Senator resists Bush/Obama NSA wiretapping plan. The Obama administration wanted a quick, no-questions-asked-or-answered renewal of broad electronic eavesdropping powers that largely legalized the Bush administration’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program. That’s despite President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to revisit and revise the rules to protect Americans’ rights. Everything seemed to be going to plan after a Senate committee approved the re-authorization in secret last month. But Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has stepped in to stop the bill because the government refuses to say how often the spy powers are being used.
►►What did Hayden tell Obama in January 2009? In December of 2008, a meeting took place between the incoming US Presiden Barack Obama and the departing CIA Director Michael Hayden. Several days later, on January 15, Hayden told journalists that Obama had privately assured him that “no plans to launch a legal inquiry” into the CIA’s use of controversial interrogation methods during the Bush administration. Now, several years later, Salon has published an insider’s account of what was said in that meeting between Obama and Hayden, as well as during the days that followed.

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Western spy agencies ‘sharing intelligence’ with Syrian rebels

June 20, 2012 by 1 Comment

Robert MoodBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A British newspaper has cited defense sources claiming that British and American intelligence agencies are passing vital information to Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow the country’s government. British tabloid The Daily Star quoted “a British defense source” who said that most of the raw intelligence on Syria is picked up by sophisticated British and American satellites monitoring Syrian communications. Once gathered and assessed by intelligence analysts in Washington and London, the information is passed on to operatives of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s MI6, who are allegedly operating on the ground in Syria. They in turn communicate actionable intelligence to rebel leaders in Syria, who are fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to the British tabloid, information passed on to rebel leaders includes detailed satellite imagery of Syrian pro-government troop movements around the country, as well as the contents of intercepted communications between senior Syrian military commanders and their subordinates in the field. The Star quotes one unnamed British government source who claims that the satellites are so sophisticated that they allow British and American eavesdroppers to identify the individuals whose voices are heard in the intercepted communications, with the aid of advanced voice recognition systems. The intelligence has reportedly enabled rebel commanders to evacuate locations targeted by government forces, and may also have allowed the rebels to organize successful counterstrikes in response to offensives conducted by troops loyal to Damascus. Washington-based publication The Hill contacted the CIA and the White House but their spokespersons refused to comment on what they called “an ongoing intelligence operation” in Syria. A spokesman from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office would only tell The Star that “all actions remain on the table”.   Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #746

June 18, 2012 by Leave a comment

Jeffrey Paul DelisleBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Germany charges alleged Moroccan spy. German Federal prosecutors on Tuesday said the suspect, identified only as Moroccan-German dual national Mohammed B., was spying for Moroccan intelligence on supporters of the POLISARIO Front, which seeks independence for the Western Sahara region. They say he was paid €22,800 for the work in 2011, and then falsified invoices to claim he had done work for Morocco’s state airline to disguise where the money originated. He was arrested in February but released from custody on June 5 after prosecutors say he admitted to the charges.
►►Delisle spy case in Canada adjourned until July 4. The case of Canadian navy intelligence officer Jeffrey Paul Delisle, who is accused of espionage, has been adjourned until next month, because his lawyer, Mike Taylor, says he needs more time to review information about his client. According to Taylor, much of the information he has received so far from the Canadian government has been redacted because of security concerns. Moreover, he said that the “voluminous” amount of information has to be vetted by several justice and intelligence agencies before it can be handed over to him, slowing down the process of moving the case forward.
►►Obama to deny Israeli calls for Pollard’s release. The administration of US President Barack Obama has indicated that it will reject any appeal by senior Israeli political figures to commute the life sentence of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. “Our position has not changed and will not change today”, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing last week. “Mr. Pollard was convicted of extremely serious crimes”, he said.

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CIA ‘seriously damaged’ China’s overseas spy network, sources say

June 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

Ministry of State Security branch office in Hubei Province, ChinaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A high-level Chinese security official, who was arrested earlier this year in China for spying for the United States, compromised several Chinese agents operating on American soil, according to sources. Reuters news agency, which broke the initial story of the Chinese official’s arrest earlier this month, published last week a lengthy update on the spy affair. The article quoted “two sources with direct knowledge on the matter”, who claimed the issue was considered serious enough in Beijing to prompt the personal intervention of Chinese President Hu Jintao. Jintao, who is also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, personally ordered an investigation into the case, said Reuters. The investigation focused on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s primary intelligence agency, where the accused spy was reportedly working at the time of his arrest. Although Chinese media have remained silent on the issue, the arrested official is said to have worked as a senior aide to MSS Vice Minister Lu Zhongwei. The Reuters article alleges that the investigation, which is said to be continuing, has concluded that the aide had been a paid informant of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and that the information he provided to the CIA included “political, economic and strategic intelligence”. But the sources also told Reuters that some of the government secrets that the MSS aide gave the CIA related to China’s network of spies operating on American soil. The latest Reuters article strengthens the widespread view that the latest espionage scandal caused serious damage to China’s espionage network in the US. Some observers now argue that this represents China’s most damaging espionage scandal since 1985, when Yu Qiangsheng, a senior Chinese intelligence official, defected to the United States. Read more of this post

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‘Massive expansion’ in US covert operations in Africa

June 14, 2012 by 4 Comments

US military base in DjiboutiBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The United States administration of President Barack Obama is implementing a near-unprecedented expansion of covert operations by American military forces throughout Africa, aimed at a host of armed groups deemed extremist by Washington. A lead article published yesterday in The Washington Post quotes over a dozen unnamed American and African officials, as well as military contractors, who refer to the US military-led effort as Project CREEKSAND. It allegedly involves secret operations in several African countries, conducted out of a large network of small air bases located in strategic locations around the continent. According to The Post, most of the airplanes used in Project CREEKSAND are small, unarmed, disguised to look like private aircraft, and bear no military markings or government insignia. In reality, however, they carry sophisticated electronic equipment designed to collect signals intelligence, while some are used to transport US Special Forces troops during capture or kill missions. The paper quotes an unnamed “former senior US commander […] involved in setting up the [air bases] network”, who alleges that the US government has built about a dozen such bases throughout Africa since 2007. These secret air bases are located in countries such as Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya, and Seychelles. Most of the US personnel involved in Project CREEKSAND consists of Special Operations forces tasked with “training foreign security forces [and] performing aid missions”. However, The Post alleges that there are also small teams of US operatives who are “dedicated to tracking and killing suspected terrorists”. Read more of this post

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Ex-diplomat: US thinks Israeli spy Pollard was not acting alone

June 12, 2012 by 7 Comments

Itamar RabinovichBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
One of Israel’s former ambassadors to Washington has told a radio program that United States officials suspect Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American who spied for Israel in the 1980s, was not acting alone. Itamar Rabinovich, who was Tel Aviv’s most senior diplomat on US soil from 1993 to 1996, told Israel Radio on Monday that this is probably the reason behind Washington’s refusal to release the imprisoned spy. Pollard was a US Navy intelligence analyst who spied for Israel, in exchange for money, from 1984 until his arrest in 1986. Many in US counterintelligence consider him one of the most damaging double spies in American history. But he is widely viewed as a hero in Israel, and Israelis, as well as many pro-Israel Americans, are actively pressuring the US administration of President Barack Obama to release him. According to Rabinovich, however, the main reason behind the US refusal to release Pollard is that officials in the US Intelligence Community think that Israel has concealed the full extent of his activities on US soil. Furthermore, Rabinovich said in his interview that Washington believes Israel has shielded other Americans who either collaborated with Pollard or worked alongside him at the time. “They suspect that he wasn’t the only one, that there were additional Pollards”, said Rabinovich, adding that “Israel, despite its promises, did not reveal all the cards in this case and in similar cases”. The former ambassador said that, to his knowledge, “Israel [still] hasn’t said everything” to the Americans about the extent of Pollard’s espionage activities on US soil. Expounding on this, he said that “the claim concerning the enormous damage done to the Americans” by Pollard’s activities is one thing, “but there is also a hidden [claim], which is not voiced openly, but is implied”. The Americans, said Rabinovich, are “punishing Israel at Jonathan Pollard’s expense. They are angry with Israel more than with Pollard”. Read more of this post

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Interview with agent who caught US-Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard

June 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

Jonathan PollardBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Twenty-six years ago this month, a United States court convicted Jonathan Jay Pollard, a US Navy analyst who had been caught spying on his country for Israel. Pollard, who is still serving his life sentence, enjoys tremendous popularity in Israel as well as among pro-Israeli public figures in the US. His supporters in Israel and elsewhere view him as a hero who is serving an unfairly harsh sentence and they pressure the US government to release him. In light of that, it is worth paying attention to a recent radio interview with the man who caught him spying on America. The interview was conducted by Mike Lanchin, a reporter and producer for BBC radio’s Witness program. Lanchin managed to trace Ron Olive, a retired Assistant Special Agent at US Navy Counterintelligence, who in June 1986 cracked the Pollard case, leading to the spy’s arrest and eventual conviction. Olive, who now runs his own security consultancy firm in Arizona, told Witness that it took him and his fellow investigators over six months to piece together their case against Pollard. He added that, according to his investigation, “Pollard stole so many documents, so highly classified, more so than any other spy in the history of this country, in such a short period of time”. The case, said Olive, was the worst he had ever seen and it “devastated the entire [US] Intelligence Community”. The reason was not only the volume of stolen classified material, but also the fact that Pollard “could have been stopped from the very beginning”. Read more of this post

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U-2 pilot captured by USSR in 1960 to receive posthumous Silver Star

June 8, 2012 by 1 Comment

Francis Gary PowersBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An American Central Intelligence Agency pilot, who was criticized during the Cold War for allowing Soviet forces to capture him alive during the 1960 U-2 incident, is to be posthumously awarded a military decoration for valor. Francis Gary Powers was one of several pilots who participated in Project HOMERUN, a joint effort by the CIA and the National Security Agency that surreptitiously gathered signals and photographic intelligence on Soviet military sites. The program, which has been described by some historians as one of the most successful intelligence projects in US history, relied on the U-2’s ability to fly beyond 70,000 feet over the Soviet Union, thus avoiding detection or attack by Soviet forces. But this impression was false; in reality, Soviet radars had been able to detect nearly every U-2 flight over Soviet territory. Eventually, on May 1, 1960, Soviet forces were able to shoot down one of the U-2 flights using a surface-to-air missile. Shortly after the USSR announced that an American plane had been shot down over Soviet territory, the US administration of President Dwight Eisenhower pretended that the plane was a NASA weather research aircraft that had “drifted into Soviet airspace” when the pilot had “lost consciousness”. At that point, however, Washington had no idea that the CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers, had been captured alive by Soviet forces. This was later announced by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who scored a major diplomatic coup for the Soviets. Following his arrest, Powers spent nearly two years in a Moscow prison before being exchanged for Soviet KGB spy Rudolf Abel, who had been captured in the US in 1957.  Recently declassified documents show that some CIA analysts had refused to believe that the USSR was capable of shooting down a U-2 aircraft, and thought that Powers had voluntarily defected to the Soviet Union. Read more of this post

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