US State Dept. third highest official was espionage suspect, says ex-FBI agent

September 30, 2009 by 3 Comments

Marc Grossman

Marc Grossman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State during the Bush Administration, was suspect in a lengthy counterespionage probe by the FBI, according to a former senior Bureau agent. John M. Cole, an 18-year FBI veteran who worked for the Counterintelligence Division of the Bureau’s National Security Branch, said the investigation into Grossman centered on activities by Turkish and Israeli intelligence in the United States. Cole was speaking to former CIA agent Philip Giraldi, currently of The American Conservative magazine, a paleoconservative publication, which was one of a handful of US media outlets that gave column space to recent revelations of Turkish intelligence activities by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds, a translator for the FBI, spent seven years trying to get a US court to hear her allegations that Turkish intelligence agents penetrated her unit, the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0120

September 29, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Film on America’s most famous whistleblower. A new documentary film, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, examines the life of Daniel Ellsberg, a US Pentagon employee who leaked documents to the American public in order to stop the Vietnam War. Ellsberg, 78, is still a pariah in the US defense community. He told the Associated Press that at a RAND (research arm of the Pentagon, where he used to work) reunion several years back, no one would shake his hand.
  • Retired US Air Force officer convicted in China spying case. Retired US Air Force officer James W. Fondren Jr. faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars, after being convicted of selling classified information on US-China military relations to a Chinese agent and lying to the FBI about it. The US Department of Justice accused Fondren, 62, of being part of a spy ring that operated on US soil under the supervision of Chinese government officials, whom Fondren supplied with classified documents for over three years, beginning in 2004.
  • Request to halt CIA probe “nonsense” says former agent. A controversial request by seven former heads of the CIA to end the inquiry into abuse of terrorism suspects held by the Agency is “nonsense”, says Bob Baer, a 20-year CIA caseworker in the Mid-East and former CIA station chief in Iraq. “To say let’s not look further into this because it could upset the agency is like saying let’s not look into Bernie Madoff because it could upset the financial sector”, said Baer.

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CIA censored me to avoid embarrassment, says ex-οfficer

September 11, 2009 by 1 Comment

V.L. Montesinos

V.L. Montesinos

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
More than a month after Secrecy News reported the legal victory of a former CIA agent, who managed to have a censored report he wrote about the CIA’s dirty dealings in Peru declassified, a US news outlet has finally given some attention to the story. On August 4 (see previous intelNews reporting), Secrecy News revealed that a memorandum drafted in 2001 by CIA officer Franz Boening, detailing assistance illegally provided by the CIA to the then chief of Peruvian intelligence, had finally been declassified following an eight-year court battle. In the censored memorandum, Boening argued that the Agency violated US law by providing material and political assistance to Vladimiro Lenin 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. Read more of this post

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Ex-FBI translator alleges Turkish intelligence activities in US

August 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A former FBI translator has alleged that agents acting at the behest of the Turkish government have bugged, blackmailed and bribed US politicians. Sibel Edmonds has spent seven years trying to get a US court to hear her allegations that Turkish intelligence agents penetrated her unit, the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress. On August 8, she gave a public testimony at the Washington headquarters of the National Whistleblowers Association, in an attempt to keep her case alive in the public eye. Among other allegations, she said that Turkish intelligence agents bugged the apartment of a female member of Congress and then blackmailed her, threatening to expose her extra-marital affair. Read more of this post

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CIA whistleblower’s memo on Peru declassified after eight years

August 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

V.L. Montesinos

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

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News you may have missed #0051

August 1, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Instigator of Church committee hearings speaks about domestic intelligence. Christopher Pyle, the American whistleblower who in the 1970s sparked the Church Committee hearings on intelligence activities, has spoken about the recent revelations of US Army personnel spying on activist groups in Washington state. Pyle provided interesting historical context linking domestic espionage in the 1960s and 1970s with current developments in the so-called “war on terrorism”.
  • Declassified US President’s Daily Brief is reclassified. The CIA says that extracts of the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) that were declassified in 2006, during the prosecution of former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby, are “currently and properly classified”. PDB declassifications occur extremely rarely.
  • Australian intelligence to focus on cybersecurity. David Irvine, the recently appointed director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, has identified cyberespionage as “a growing national security risk”.

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Wiretap whistleblower shunned by US Congress, media

July 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Mark Klein

Mark Klein

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Those of you who have been following the ongoing revelations about STELLAR WIND, the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless wiretapping scheme authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11, will know about Thomas M. Tamm. Tamm was the Justice Department official who in 2005 first notified The New York Times about the existence of the project. But Tamm was not the only whistleblower in the case. He was joined soon afterwards by another insider, Mark Klein. Klein had just retired from AT&T as a communications technician when he read The New York Times revelations about STELLAR WIND. As soon as he read the paper’s vague description of the NSA project, Klein realized he had in his possession AT&T documents describing exactly how the company shared its customers’ telephone communications with the NSA, through a secret room at the AT&T Folsom Street facility in San Francisco. To this day, Klein remains the only AT&T employee to have come forward with information on STELLAR WIND. But, apparently, nobody cares. Read more of this post

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Dutch spy service sued for raiding journalist’s home

July 9, 2009 by Leave a comment

van der Graaf

van der Graaf

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Holland’s General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) has been sued by the country’s largest newspaper for bugging telephones belonging to its journalists and editors and for raiding the house of a reporter. Last June, the home of Jolande van der Graaf, who works for De Telegraaf newspaper, was raided by security agents after she authored two investigative articles dealing with AIVD’s intelligence failures in the Iraq War. The raid followed the arrest of an AIVD worker and her partner, also an ex-AIVD agent, who allegedly leaked classified information to De Telegraaf. Following the raid, the newspaper discovered that the personal and work phones of van der Graff, as well as other De Telegraaf journalists and editors, including the paper’s chief editor, Sjuul Paradijs, were wiretapped by AIVD in the course of its investigation. Read more of this post

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US whistleblowing legislation gets little media attention

May 15, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Unlike American news outlets, the US intelligence community is paying a lot of attention right now to HR 1507, known as the 2009 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. The act is currently making the rounds at two US House of Representatives committees, namely the Oversight and Government Reform and the Homeland Security committee. There was an interesting debate yesterday morning at the Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing, where proponents and opponents of HR 1507 focused on the bill’s provisions protecting the rights of whistleblowers in the intelligence and security services. Under current legislation (the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, or ICWPA), there is a large gap separating the rights of intelligence and security whistleblowers from those of other government employees. Read more of this post

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NSA tried to spy on US Congress member

April 17, 2009 by 3 Comments

Thomas Tamm

Thomas Tamm

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An anonymous intelligence official has told The New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) attempted to wiretap the personal communications of a US Congressman without court approval. The gigantic US government agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance, as well as communications security, believed that the Congressman “was in contact […] with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance”, said the paper. NSA agents tried therefore to set in motion a warrantless communications interception operation against the Congressman, while he participated in a “Congressional delegation to the Middle East”, either in 2005 or 2006. Read more of this post

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Australian ex-intelligence agent tried for leaking documents

April 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

Bali bombings

Bali bombings

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The trial has begun in Australia of a former intelligence agent accused of conspiring to leak classified documents to the press. The prosecution is accusing James Paul Seivers, a former surveillance expert with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), of photocopying secret intelligence reports about the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, and leaking them to the Australian press, with the help of his co-tenant. The secret reports, which had been compiled a few weeks before the Bali bombings, contained warnings by American intelligence agents that jihadist groups in Indonesia were preparing large-scale attacks on popular tourist nightspots. The leaked documents were published in the Australian press and led to strong criticism of Australian intelligence authorities; the latter were widely seen as having failed to prevent the bombings, which killed over 200 people, among them 88 Australian citizens. Read more of this post

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NSA whistleblower reveals routine spying on American media

January 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

Russell Tice

Russell Tice

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Russell Tice, an analyst with the National Security Agency (NSA) until 2005, was among several inside sources who in 2005 helped The New York Times reveal NSA’s warrantless spying program. A few months earlier, Tice had been fired by the NSA after he started to investigate a suspicious communications-monitoring program he was involved in. The last time Mr. Tice spoke publicly about his experience at the NSA was in 2006. He then waited until the Bush Administration was out of the White House before he made any more revelations. Hours after Barack Obama’s inauguration, Tice surfaced again, this time giving an interview to MSNBC’s Keith Olberman. Read more of this post

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DoJ continues criminal investigation of NSA whistleblower

January 7, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last month, Thomas M. Tamm, a former US Justice Department official, revealed himself as the source who initially tipped off The New York Times about NSA’s operation STELLAR WIND, a domestic warrantless spying program, which was secretly authorized by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. New York Times journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau eventually revealed the program in a front page article, relying on interviews with nearly a dozen undisclosed insiders. Despite numerous indications that STELLAR WIND may be unconstitutional, and despite the impending change of guard at the White House, the US Department of Justice appears to be actively pursuing its criminal investigation of Tamm. Read more of this post

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Journalist talks about revealing NSA program whistleblower

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek investigative correspondent who authored the recent article about Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower of NSA’s domestic spying program, has given an interview to Democracy Now. Isikoff, who wrote the article with Tamm’s consent, states in the interview that “Tamm’s lawyers have been told that US Department of Justice officials [are going to leave] the decision on whether to prosecute [Tamm] to the Obama Justice Department”. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Speculation rife about NSA’s STELLAR WIND project

December 17, 2008 by 3 Comments

Tamm on the cover of Newsweek

Tamm on the cover of Newsweek

The recent voluntary coming forth of Thomas M. Tamm as the whistleblower behind NSA’s warrantless wiretapping scheme has considerably revived speculation about the Agency’s STELLAR WIND project, which appears to have both oral communications and data surveillance components. A superb analysis published in Ars Technica yesterday reasons that the data surveillance component of project STELLAR WIND, which was first revealed in 2006, is in fact far broader and potentially far more controversial than its wireless wiretapping aspect. The article reminds that, in the past, STELLAR WIND has been referred to in public as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, though “that seems to have been invented after the fact to allow officials to testify before Congress on the aspects of STELLAR WIND that had been exposed without admitting to any of the activities that hadn’t yet come to light”. Read more of this post

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