Free Republic

"So, if the mohajroon.com forum was shut down..." SNIPPET: "...back in 2007, when the UAE told the forum administrator it was either that or he was going to jail... ...how is it that the same forum administrator was able to turn right around and start the al-Shmokh forum? A forum which - ironically, or not so ironically - has recently become involved in accusing other forums of being fronts for intelligence agencies."

Murder and Spies: A Spy Catcher's Warning May 20, 2009 International News Analysis Today By Toby Westerman The national security of the United States is for sale, and every American is in danger as a result, according to a counterintelligence expert who was central to the interrogation and conviction of a spy considered to be one of the most grave threats to national security ever apprehended in the United States. Chris Simmons, currently a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army Reserve counterintelligence services and founder of the online Cuban Intelligence Research Center, gave an exclusive interview to International News Analysis...

New Unit of DIA Will Take the Offensive On Counterintelligence - By Walter Pincus Monday, August 18, 2008; A09 The Defense Intelligence Agency's newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is going to have an office authorized for the first time to carry out "strategic offensive counterintelligence operations," according to Mike Pick, who will direct the program. Such covert offensive operations are carried out at home and abroad against people known or suspected to be foreign intelligence officers or connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities -- but not against U.S. citizens, said Toby Sullivan, director of counterintelligence...

As fears grow over Iran secretly developing nuclear weapons, U.S. counterintelligence officials are keeping a close eye on scientists from Iran and other Muslim nations working at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, WND has learned. The Energy Department recently revoked the security clearance of an Egyptian-born nuclear physicist because he was suspected of "conflicting allegiances." Last year, DOE and FBI agents began questioning Moniem El-Ganayni, who worked on the side as a Muslim prison chaplain.

THE Protect America Act, enacted in August, has lived up to its name and objective: making the country safer while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Under this new law, we now have the speed and agility necessary to detect terrorist and other evolving national security threats. Information obtained under this law has helped us develop a greater understanding of international Qaeda networks, and the law has allowed us to obtain significant insight into terrorist planning. Congress needs to act again. The Protect America Act expires in less than two months, on Feb. 1. We must be able to continue...

The President signed a six-month modification to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on Sunday, after the Democrat-controlled Congress agreed to Administration provisions. The move was met by howls of protest from the ACLU and the left leaning punditry; and Speaker Pelosi moved to change the law before it was even signed. But is this law the end of the Fourth Amendment? And if it's so bad, why did Democrats vote for it? What are we talking about, anyway?

~~~snip~~~ The successful investigation and capture of one of U.S. intelligence's prized employees was pushed deep inside the pages of newspapers -- if it appeared at all -- due to 9/11. The lapse in intelligence that led to those attacks overshadowed a rare instance when a mole was successfully outed. ~~~snip~~~ True Believer shows that catching spies within our own intelligence structure is a painstaking process. Carmichael, as much as he is able (given that agencies like DIA just can't let certain information out), walks readers through each step of evidence gathering and case development, while illustrating the challenges in...

This is not a guide to shoplifting, but about the wholesale theft of U.S. strategic material and its consequences. Increasingly, American classified information and material is being compromised, either through espionage, outright theft or though negligence creating a serious breach in Western security. What seems amazing is that all this is hardly making any impression on those in charge of U.S. strategic security. For example, in an article only briefly noted on April 2, 2007, under the banner: Computers missing at anti-spy agency: 20 desktop computers, at least 14 of which contained classified material on nuclear weapons design, are unaccounted...

HH: This hour, don’t go anywhere. I’m joined by Colonel Stuart Herrington, retired from the United States Army. He’s a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I don’t know who taught him how to read. They had to send out of state for that, then. He’s a graduate of Duquesne University, University of Florida. He has had a career in human and counterintelligence that few can rival in the United States. Most recently, July of 2006, he was asked by the U.S. Army to train a new organization of Army interrogators, which was being prepared for deployment to Iraq. He has been...

One of the main and most persistent problems of this entire conflict has been the general failure by the public, as well as by many in the military and Intelligence communities to recognize the links between criminal activity directly associated with terrorism, overall terrorist strategy (on a regional and global basis), terrorist propaganda efforts (both directed towards their own potential recruits and used as a vehicle to suppress or depress opposition efforts - psychological and political attacks against the War Efforts in Iraq for instance), and the art of infiltration. Terrorism, and terrorist recruitment, is an underground, undercover, and clandestine...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - A self-described methamphetamine addict said he doesn't know anything about the classified Los Alamos National Laboratory data that authorities found in the mobile home where he was staying. "I was basically at the wrong place at the wrong time," Justin Stone, 20, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from jail.

N. Korea beefs up counterintelligence following nuclear test SHENYANG, China, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has toughened surveillance of locals suspected of gathering information about its atomic and military activities in the wake of its Oct. 9 atomic bomb test, an informed source said Sunday. The Ministry of People's Security, Pyongyang's top police agency, issued a directive to its security agencies on Oct. 15 that they should closely monitor and report suspicious activities, the source said. Those subject to stronger surveillance include former North Korean defectors, former convicts, smugglers, merchants and those who have relatives in China, the source...

Spying Myths of the Russian - Polish Confrontation Pavel Simonov, AIA Russian section Russian national TV channel 1 came out yesterday with sensational news on the success of the Russian special services in their struggle against the agents of the Polish intelligence. Strangely enough, officials in Moscow and Warsaw have not noticed this report. Diplomats and representatives of special services whom the AIA addressed for comment, could neither confirm, nor deny this information. Independent experts consider this report as part of Moscow's propaganda campaign against Warsaw... State-owned Channel 1 of the Russian TV came out yesterday with sensational news on...

Polish Nightmares of the Russian Counterintelligence Simon Araloff, AIA European section Today’s problems in the relations between the Russian and Polish secret services originate still in the 1920’s. Then, after a failure of the campaign of bolsheviks against Warsaw, the Soviet counterintelligence begun the "hunting for the Polish witches" throughout the country. In parallel, the Russians themselves were engaged in an active intelligence and terrorist activity in the territory of Poland. They called it "vigorous intelligence" in their professional tongue. Already in the 1930’s thousands of Soviet citizens lost their freedom and lives charged with the collaboration with the Polish...

The top ranks of government counterintelligence agencies are empty due to resignations and retirements amid a dispute over the role of counterspying, U.S. intelligence officials say. The most senior U.S. government counterintelligence official -- presidential appointee Michelle Van Cleave -- resigned last month after the office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), which she headed, was made part of the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)... Intelligence officials said the failure to fill the top posts is a sign of bias against counterspying by senior intelligence officials under DNI John Negroponte and at other agencies. It goes...

As Americans take stock of the news that the government has been involved in domestic warrantless eavesdropping as well as surveillance of "potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States," many people are troubled, including me. Although the government may be interested in my ACLU membership, my wife's participation in war protests or my affiliation with the liberal United Church of Christ, my real anxiety stems from the fact that I am a soldier and may now be under suspicion from my friends and neighbors. Specifically, given the information slowly leaking out of Washington, it may not be farfetched...

A recent report on US intelligence harshly critiqued counter-spy efforts.WASHINGTON – Amid all the criticism of the US's faulty intelligence-gathering, a new concern is surfacing about America's premier national-security agencies - their vulnerability to counterespionage. Because the US has reached such lone, superpower status, government officials say, at least 90 countries - in addition to Al Qaeda - are attempting to steal some of the nation's most sacred secrets. It's not only foes, like members of terror groups or nations that are adversaries of the US, but friends as well. The top five countries trying to snoop on US plans...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Nearly 80 Americans have been caught spying since 1985, and the Bush administration has launched a more aggressive anti-spying effort to better combat foreign intelligence activities, according to a new strategy report made public yesterday. The National Counterintelligence Strategy was approved March 1 by President Bush, marking the first time that the U.S. government has sought to formulate a comprehensive counterspy program, said Michelle Van Cleave, head of the office of the national counterintelligence executive, a White House-level intelligence post. The strategy calls for "specific counterintelligence policies for attacking foreign intelligence services systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations,"...

WASHINGTON - President Bush has approved the nation's first counterintelligence strategy, directing the intelligence agencies to go on the offensive — together — against foreign and terrorist threats. Counterintelligence is the government-wide effort to protect against foreign espionage and intelligence collection. But professionals in this narrow specialty concede the work has largely been done piecemeal by the 15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, and often in reaction to intelligence that's already been lost. Released Monday, the president's strategy directs the intelligence community to "identify, assess, neutralize and exploit the intelligence activities" of countries, terrorist groups and international...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Reuters) - The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for pre-emptive action against foreign intelligence services viewed as threats to U.S. national security, officials said on Saturday. The first national U.S. counterintelligence strategy, which President Bush (news - web sites) approved on March 1, aims to combat intelligence services from countries hungry for U.S. military and nuclear secrets, such as China and Iran (news - web sites), both at home and abroad, counterintelligence officials said. Officials at a counterintelligence conference at Texas A&M University described the strategy as an extension of the post-Sept....

The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for "attacking" foreign spy services and the spy components of terrorist groups before they can strike, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave said in a speech here that the past policy of waiting for intelligence threats to emerge "ceded the initiative to the adversary." "No longer will we wait until taking action," Miss Van Cleave said during a conference hosted by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. "To meet the threat, U.S. counterintelligence needs to go...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for "attacking" foreign spy services and the spy components of terrorist groups before they can strike, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave said in a speech here that the past policy of waiting for intelligence threats to emerge "ceded the initiative to the adversary." "No longer will we wait until taking action," Miss Van Cleave said during a conference hosted by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. "To meet the threat, U.S.

The new mission for counterintelligence is to identify foreign spies and terrorist threats, and then develop "a counterintelligence doctrine of attacking foreign intelligence services systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations," Miss Van Cleave said. The offensive counterintelligence strategy is part of the Bush administration's policy of pre-empting strategic threats. It is also part of President Bush's announced plan to promote democracy and freedom and undermine global tyranny, she said.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Reuters) - The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for pre-emptive action against foreign intelligence services viewed as threats to U.S. national security, officials said on Saturday. The first national U.S. counterintelligence strategy, which President Bush approved on March 1, aims to combat intelligence services from countries hungry for U.S. military and nuclear secrets, such as China and Iran, both at home and abroad, counterintelligence officials said. Officials at a counterintelligence conference at Texas A&M University described the strategy as an extension of the post-Sept. 11 foreign policy initiative known as the Bush...

Recently a number of former CIA officers received an invitation from the Spy Museum in Washington to attend a luncheon for former KGB Col. Victor Cherkashin. The event, as the invitation said, would afford "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine and dish with an extraordinary spymaster." In the heyday of the Cold War, such an offer, delivered with slightly more discretion, might have been the prelude to a KGB recruitment operation. Now it's merely the notice for a book party celebrating yet another memoir by a former KGB officer recounting how the KGB duped the CIA. In this case, there is...

Fake SEAL accuses soldiers of torture 21 DEC 2004 VeriSEAL TAMPA, Florida - A former California National Guard soldier who accused others in his unit of torturing Iraqi prisoners may have military justice problems of his own. Frank "Greg" Ford claims to have witnessed members of his National Guard battalion torturing Iraqi prisoners while his unit was stationed in Samarra in 2003, according to David DeBatto, a former National Guard Tactical HUMINT Team (THT) member and author of a story titled "Whitewashing Torture" published on a far left web site in early December. DeBatto says that Ford reported the alleged...

The website of the National Institute of Truth Verification, which markets the Computerized Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA) -- a purported voice-based lie detector -- confirms that the U.S. Government is using this device for intelligence purposes in the war on terror. And yet the manufacturer has admitted in court that the device "is not capable of lie detection." See, Federal Use of CVSA Confirmed.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, with Department of Homeland Security Sec. Tom Ridge, President Bush talks about what steps he will be taking with regard to the recommendations made by the Sept. 11 comission in their final report a few weeks ago. Live Monday 11:20 ET (approx) on CSPAN

[My Translation....] It was made known that the [ROK] National Intelligence Service (NIS) has summoned and is conducting an internal investigation on an NIS official, who had been dispatched to the Los Angeles Counsulate General, on suspicion of supporting the collection of election funds amongst the overseas Korean community for the [US] Democratic Party. According to a government official on the 7th, last month the NIS conducted an emergency summons and is in the midst of an investigation on a certain Mr. Jung, an NIS official (Grade 4), who had previously worked as the vice counsel at both the LA...

It’s not too early to draw some lessons from the Madrid attacks of 11 March. For al-Qai’da, the attacks and subsequent Socialist victory were a vindication of its basic strategy. They proved that a Western nation can be forced into retreat by a well-timed terrorist attack, one calibrated to inflict as much death as possible. There are plenty in the al-Qai’da leadership who believe Spain’s appeasement is a harbinger of things to come, and that America’s forceful response to 911 will wind up being a one-time fluke. Osama and company have reason for hope, thanks to the Spanish electorate. For...

For the Soldier ... anytime, anywhere Soldiers converge for ‘crash’ intel courses Story by Sgt. Kristi T. JaegerPhotos by Pfc. Joy ParianteScout staffFORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. (Feb. 5, 2004) -- More than 100 U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard enlisted Soldiers arrived Jan. 31 to take part in training for military occupation specialty 97B, counterintelligence agent, and 97E, human intelligence collector. (Click on thumbnail for higher-resolution photo)Sgt. Samuel G. Lockhart, 141st Military Intelligence Battalion, Logan, Utah, spent part of Saturday afternoon stacking duffel bags in front of Riley Barracks, where the Reserve and National Guard Soldiers will be residing throughout...

<p>WASHINGTON - Army counterintelligence agents are forcing many Iraqi employees of the U.S.-led civilian authority in Baghdad to submit to polygraph tests after a list of Saddam Hussein's spies was discovered in his briefcase, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Military officials said yesterday "several" Iraqis working as translators and low-level functionaries for the Coalition Provisional Authority and some who have been hired for the police are being given lie-detector tests this week on suspicion they are giving inside information to Ba'athist terrorist cells.</p>

A Marple Newtown graduate who headed an Air Force special unit which he describes as the "FBI and CIA in one" has received a Bronze Star for a laundry list of deeds that included the round-up of two Taliban officers in Afghanistan and the retrieval of rockets, warheads and "uniquely lethal weapons" in Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Kevin J. Jacobsen is currently the deputy director for counterintelligence, Office of the Secretary of Defense, stationed at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. Prior to this most recent assignment, he commanded an expeditionary field investigations squadron for the US Air Force, a division of...

<p>WASHINGTON - The FBI is creating a new weapons of mass destruction section to address growing concerns that terrorists will try to detonate a dirty bomb or launch a chemical or biological attack in the United States, The Post has learned.</p>

SALEM - He was the quiet, well-groomed man in the suit, who kept to himself in this neighborhood nestled at the edge of a bustling college, where almost everybody seemed to be from somewhere else and nobody stood out. But yesterday, a different Ahmed Fathy Mehalba was on display, this time in a federal court, where he appeared in jeans and an orange golf shirt, accused of possessing classified information he allegedly acquired at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he worked as a civilian translator. Just what route the Egyptian-born Mehalba, 31, took after his days...

<p>Counterintelligence measures were in place at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp when two translators and a Muslim chaplain who worked there were arrested on suspicion of espionage, the nation's top military officer said yesterday.</p> <p>"But it should not be a surprise that in a time of war, people try to infiltrate this way," Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Robert Hanssen, whom the FBI calls the most damaging spy in its history, was a "mediocre" agent who escaped detection because he was loosely supervised by a bureau that fooled itself into believing it had no spies in its ranks, the Justice Department's inspector general said Thursday.</p>

<p>Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen became the most damaging spy in bureau history not because of his espionage abilities but because of a 20-year lapse in the FBI's ability to deter or detect spies in the agency and a lack of supervision by its officials, a report said yesterday.</p>

WASHINGTON - One of the most damaging espionage cases in U.S. history was more the result of poor oversight by the FBI than master spying by Robert Hanssen, said a Justice Department report released Thursday. The FBI's deficiencies, including an almost blind trust in its own agents, enabled Hanssen to spy for the Soviet Union and Russia for more than two decades, according to the investigation by inspector general Glenn A. Fine. The report concluded that Hanssen, a top FBI counterespionage official, received little supervision and the bureau had few checks in place that would deter him from spying or...

Less Than Meets the Eye? U.S. Government Sting Operation Criticized as Setup By Brian Ross Aug. 13— Administration officials are leaving out key facts and exaggerating the significance of the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States, law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS. They say there's a lot less than meets the eye. The accused ringleader, British national Hemant Lakhani, appeared today in federal court in Newark, N.J., and was ordered held without bond on charges of attempting to provide material support and material resources to terrorists and acting as an arms broker without a license. Outside...

<p>Referred to by her spy masters only as "Mrs. Galt," she is by day an unremarkable American housewife and mother. But after her two children go to bed, she plunges into a secret world of Internet chat rooms and Web sites populated by some of the most dangerous people on earth.</p>

By CURT ANDERSON THE Associated Press WASHINGTON - The world wants what America has, from cutting-edge computer software to scientific research and sensitive defense technology, and nations and overseas companies are increasingly using espionage to get it. In fact, the FBI believes more foreign spies than ever are operating in the United States. Even as it concentrates on preventing terrorism, the FBI is overhauling its counterintelligence efforts to blunt the threat. Agents are less focused on finding spies among diplomats and embassies - hallmarks of the long Cold War with the Soviet Union - and more interested in espionage directed...

<p>ASHINGTON -- The world wants what America has, from cutting-edge computer software to scientific research and sensitive defense technology, and nations and overseas companies are increasingly using espionage to get it.</p> <p>In fact, the FBI believes more foreign spies than ever are operating in the United States.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP)--The world wants what America has, from cutting-edge computer software to scientific research and sensitive defense technology, and nations and overseas companies are increasingly using espionage to get it. In fact, the FBI believes more foreign spies than ever are operating in the United States. Even as it concentrates on preventing terrorism, the FBI is overhauling its counterintelligence efforts to blunt the threat. Agents are less focused on finding spies among diplomats and embassies--hallmarks of the long Cold War with the Soviet Union _ and more interested in espionage directed at corporations, research centers and universities. ``Left unchecked, such...

A retired FBI agent who was in charge of Chinese counter-intelligence in California is under arrest, sources told ABCNEWS. The former agent was identified as James Smith. He was being held in connection with his former job, sources said, but the charges were not immediately available. Sources said Congress was being briefed on the arrest before it is announced to the public, which was expected to happen later today. Department of Justice officials declined to comment on the case. Smith retired in from his job in the bureau's Los Angeles office in 2000.

Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 12:40 PM Subject: NCIX WEB SITE UPDATE ADVISORY #24-2002 Dear Friends and Colleagues: According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a loose network of antiwar groups is planning a "week of action against warmongering" to occur December 15 - 21, 2002. Organizers, who have expressed strong opposition to possible U.S. military action against Iraq, are advocating "explicit and direct attack upon the war machine," and have called for attacks on the headquarter facilities and other assets of oil companies and defense contractors, singling out Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Department of Defense (DoD) assets also...

<p>Recently, the National Academy of Sciences issued a landmark report regarding the use of polygraphy by various federal agencies. Although many issues were explored and several conclusions were drawn, none was more important than the finding that polygraph screening is completely invalid as a diagnostic instrument for determining truth regarding counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, past activities of job applicants and other important issues currently so assessed by our various federal, state and local governments.</p>

  View Current Signatures   -   Sign the Petition To:  President George W. Bush President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Bush: We, the undersigned, ask that you issue an executive order immediately stopping all polygraph screening in the Executive Branch. On October 8, 2002, the National Academy of Sciences issued a landmark report regarding the use of polygraphy by various federal agencies. Although many issues were explored and several conclusions were drawn, none was more important than the finding that polygraph screening is completely invalid as a diagnostic...

WASHINGTON, Jul 19, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered an internal investigation into who leaked a highly classified document on possible military actions to topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein, officials said Friday. The investigation, which has not been publicly announced, is being conducted by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, whose primary missions are criminal investigation and counterintelligence. The Pentagon public affairs office would not comment, but the investigation of the leak to The New York Times was confirmed by several senior officials, including some who said they had been questioned in their offices...