CIA technical expert arrested for pilfering equipment

Anritsu spectrum analyzer

An analyzer

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A CIA communications technology specialist has been charged with selling CIA communications equipment to a private broker. FBI counterintelligence agents arrested Todd Brandon Fehrmann on February 26, several weeks after he sold $60,000-worth of equipment to Massachusetts-based Bizi International, Inc. Fehrmann’s CIA connection is concealed in the FBI affidavit, but The Washington Times says US government officials and even Fehrmann himself have now confirmed that he worked for the agency. The pilfered equipment appears to have included a dozen portable spectrum analyzers –handheld devices used to detect and gauge cell phone signals, among other things. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #301

  • Six more arrested in Lebanon for spying for Israel. The Lebanese army has arrested at least six more people in southern and northern Lebanon, among them former army officers, on suspicion of spying sharing information about the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah with Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Dozens of alleged Israeli spy cells have been uncovered in Lebanon in recent months.
  • Survey of US spy agencies’ web presence. US intelligence agencies are using the Web to share information and engage the public. Some offer mobile versions and social networking tools –others badly need an update.
  • Danish journalist admits using job as cover to spy for Israel. Herbert Pundik, a Danish former newspaper editor, has admitted he used his journalism credentials to spy for Israel for a decade in the 1960s, saying he felt an obligation as a Jew.

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News you may have missed #299

  • US lawmaker wants to stop CIA agents working second jobs. Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) says she will offer an amendment to the Intelligence Reauthorization bill later this week that would put new rules into place on the practice of intelligence officers who take second jobs in the private sector.
  • Poland admits to aiding CIA. After human rights groups revealed evidence that showed CIA rendition planes landing in Poland in 2003, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency has admitted for the first time that Poland played a role in the controversial US program.
  • Former Romanian-German spy fired for secret past. German author Peter Grosz was fired on Thursday from his role as director of the theater festival in the German city of Oppenheim, following revelations that he had spied on fellow authors for Romania’s Securitate communist secret police during the 1970s. Large numbers of Romanian former intelligence agents now reside in Germany.

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News you may have missed #297

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News you may have missed #295

  • US spies want super-sensitive human lie detectors. IARPA, the research unit of the US intelligence community is soliciting proposals for a five-year, three-phased overhaul of current deception-detection technology, which will include research on what is called “pre-conscious human assessment of trustworthiness”.
  • UK may purchase IP monitoring system from CIA-linked company. A security startup with close links to the CIA is touting a system to the UK government that monitors every IP address on the internet for malware, as part of its declared aim of improving cyber war capabilities. The firm has built a massive database of security breaches across the globe and is currently monitoring about 250 million compromised machines.
  • No Americans on CIA’s assassination list. The Washington Post has corrected an earlier report, flagged by intelNews earlier this month, which claimed that the US President has authorized the CIA to kill Americans abroad. According to new information, there are no Americans currently on the CIA hit list, but there are four on the list of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). It is worth noting that JSOC, which some say is gradually taking over the CIA’s paramilitary mission, lacks the CIA’s mandatory Congressional oversight and has a history of being run directly out of the White House.

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News you may have missed #294

  • Tensions mount in Turkey over alleged coup plot. Simmering tensions between Turkey’s government and judicial elite erupted into open confrontation Thursday, over the handling of a probe into the Ergenekon network, an alleged military-intelligence plot to topple the Islamist-rooted government.
  • CIA recruiting Chinese-Americans. The CIA is posting recruitment advertisements in Southern California’s Chinese language media during the Lunar New Year, in an attempt to hire Chinese Americans. This is part of a wider effort by the Agency to increase numbers of ethnic minority employees by 22 to 30 percent by 2012.
  • Two alleged Israeli spies sentenced to death in Lebanon. Retired police officer Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, who was arrested by Lebanese authorities in 2006, has been given a death conviction for “collaboration and espionage on behalf of the Israeli enemy”. Another defendant, Palestinian Hussein Khattab, has been convicted in absentia for his alleged involvement in the murders of members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

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Analysis: Taliban knew about US Special Forces presence in Pakistan

Bombed site in Shahi Koto, Pakistan

Bombed site

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
There has been remarkably little coverage in the US media of the deaths earlier this month of three US Special Forces operatives in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, who were killed in a bomb attack in the city of Shahi Koto. Most of the few analyses that have commented on the importance of this event have focused on the inevitable revelation that US troops are indeed active in Pakistan. But what about the intelligence angle? It appears that the bombing, which took place outside a newly built girls’ school in the town, was in fact aimed at the US troops, and that the attackers were aware of their supposedly secret presence in the area. The operation was therefore carefully targeted, and the suicide bomber appears to have patiently waited for the arrival of the Pakistani Frontier Corps five-vehicle convoy to arrive at the school. Read more of this post

Analysis: Google-NSA partnership part of broader trend

Google

Google

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
We reported last week the apparent alliance between the Google Corporation and the US National Security Agency, which is the main US government organization tasked with communications interception, as well as communications security. The partnership, which began soon after Google’s decision to close down its venture business in China, where its operations came repeatedly under cyber-attack, has caused considerable controversy among civil liberties advocates. But an op-ed in the US-based Federal News Radio website describes it as the beginning of a new trend, which is likely to intensify. Read more of this post

Pune attack tests India-Pakistan intelligence collaboration

The German Bakery, Pune, India

The attack target

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
There is intense speculation about a possible breakdown in Indian-Pakistani intelligence relations, following last week’s bomb attack in the Indian city of Pune, which killed at least nine and seriously injured close to 60 people.  The attack, which presents operational similarities with the 2002 Bali bombing in Indonesia, targeted The German Bakery, a popular restaurant in the town, on a Saturday night. It is perhaps worth noting that the bomb, which was concealed in a backpack under a restaurant table, exploded almost next door to the Osho Meditation Resort, which US authorities say was scouted as a potential Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT) soft target by David Headley. The American-born Headley was arrested by the FBI in October for having links to LeT. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0288

News you may have missed #0287

  • India still trying to get access to Headley. Congratulations to The New York Times, for managing to publish a feature-length article about the constant requests by Indian intelligence officials to interrogate David C. Headley, currently held in a US prison, without probing why the US is refusing to facilitate these requests. The American-born Headley was arrested in October for having links to Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. There are rumors in India and Pakistan that Headley is in fact a renegade CIA informant.
  • Spanish double agent sentenced to 12 years. Roberto Flórez García, a former employee of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), was arrested in September for giving classified documents to Russian intelligence, via Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid. This was Spain’s first treason conviction since returning to democracy in 1978 after decades of military dictatorship.

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News you may have missed #0286 (Internet edition)

  • Email trojan targeted at US .gov, .mil accounts. A Trojan-containing email, which is spoofed so that it appears to have been sent by the US National Intelligence Council, appears to have been directed solely at US government and military email accounts.
  • Analysis: Smuggling secret information through VOIP. Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) systems use a series of protocols to essentially create an open, unmediated link between two computers. VOIP applications also provide a way to make sure the packets are ordered quickly and correctly. And that’s a goldmine for anyone trying to send hidden messages.
  • ACLU concerned about Google-NSA partnership. Google corporation has turned to the US National Security Agency for assistance in warding off cyberattacks. But the American Civil Liberties Union is among several organizations that view the partnership as “troubling”.

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News you may have missed #0286

  • More on CIA spies working for corporations. Author Eamon Javers provides more information about his new book, in which he examines the increasing phenomenon of CIA agents working for private corporations on the side.
  • Rio Tinto spy controversy thickens. Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto says it is “extremely worried” about four of its staff, who were arrested last July by Chinese authorities and have now been formally charged with espionage.
  • Court keeps White House spy emails secret. Two weeks ago, US President Barack Obama declared in his State of the Union address that “it’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress”. This does not appear to apply to telecommunication industry lobbyists, who campaigned in favor of facilitating warrantless communications interception through the National Security Agency’s STELLAR WIND program.

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News you may have missed #0285

  • Canadian government resists release of Cold-War-era files. Canadian journalists are fighting for the release of Cold-War-era government files on Tommy Douglas, a prominent social democratic politician idolized in Canada for his central role in establishing the country’s public health care system. But the government argues that releasing the files would imperil national security and compromise contemporary spy sources and methods.
  • NPR launches series on confidential informants. Informants are often considered a vital crime fighting tool; but what happens if those informants go astray? Washington-based National Public Radio is launching a special investigation into this controversial subject.
  • CIA returns to US university campuses. American anthropologist David Price explains that the US intelligence community is gradually re-establishing its academic recruitment network, which was shattered in the 1970s.

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News you may have missed #0284

  • Real IRA faction killed MI5 informant, says Irish police. The Gardai have concluded that a Real IRA faction executed Denis Donaldson, a former Sinn Fein official who turned informer for MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Last year, the Real IRA took responsibility for the 2007 killing.
  • NATO spy station up for sale. A Canadian NATO spy station in Nova Scotia that operated between 1983 and 2006 is for sale for US$1.4 million. It appears that the site’s current owner, who doesn’t want to be identified, bought it from the Canadian Defense Department after the base was closed down.
  • Analysis on the Binyam Mohamed disclosures and UK-US spy cooperation. This analysis, by Michael Clarke, director of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, is probably the best synopsis of the meaning of the recent court order to disclose Binyam Mohamed’s torture records, which has complicated US-UK spy relations.

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