Free Republic

SNIPPET: "While these various elements of the jihadist network are distinct, the Internet brings them together, especially at the grassroots level. Videos, websites and online magazines indoctrinate aspiring militants in the jihadist ideology and provide a forum for like-minded individuals and groups."

Reporting from London— Calling the espionage episode "embarrassing," a former British government official has admitted that a fake rock discovered by the Russian security service in a Moscow park in 2006 concealed a listening device planted by British spies. "They had us bang to rights," Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, says in a BBC documentary, using a British expression for being caught red-handed. "Clearly, they had known about it for some time and had been saving it up for a political purpose." The multi-part documentary, "Putin, Russia and the West," scheduled to begin...

It didn’t take long for the See Something, Say Something campaign initiated by the Department of Homeland Security last year to show promising results. According to a report from St. Paul Minnesota’s KARE11 and NPR, actionable human intelligence is on the rise at the nation’s largest mall, and it’s being cross-referenced with personal information and threat assessments via the recently made public nationwide network of government Fusion centers. While a mystery to most Americans, the existence of Fusion centers recently made waves when they were brought to the mainstream public’s attention by talk show host Alex Jones and former governor...

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said on TV in June at least 2 CIA spies identified in Hezbollah ranks; current and former U.S. officials concede this happened, says damage has spread. The CIA’s operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Monday. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.

A U.S. Army specialist has been arrested at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska on suspicion of espionage, an Army spokesman said on Tuesday. Specialist William Colton Millay, a 22-year-old military policeman, was taken into custody on October 28, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bill Coppernoll told Reuters. Coppernoll said Millay, of Owensboro, Kentucky, was arrested following a joint espionage investigation conducted by the FBI and Army Counterintelligence special agents.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a troubled period in U.S.-Pakistani relations, Pakistani forces have arrested five key al-Qaida suspects at the CIA's request, including a senior operative whose name has not been made public, and also allowed U.S. intelligence officers to question those detainees, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. Pakistan has also stopped demanding the CIA suspend the covert drone strikes that have damaged al-Qaida's militant ranks in Pakistan's tribal areas, officials on both sides say — though the Pakistanis say they have simply put this on the back burner for now. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to...

Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot Martin Bright, home affairs editor Sunday November 10, 2002 The Observer British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'. The...

Media: Just days before the U.S.-Colombia free trade pact heads for a vote, the Washington Post publishes a story claiming Colombia's miracle is a sham. This is a smear unworthy of the name "journalism." Topping the front page in its Sunday edition with "A case of aid gone bad in Colombia," the Post attempted to rewrite history by claiming the U.S.'s $8 billion Plan Colombia military program that broke the back of its drug cartels was really ... a waste. Pay no attention to the safety, security and economic growth that have made Colombia such an attractive partner for a...

Two American hikers who were detained in Iran have been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of "illegal entry" and "espionage," the state TV website says.

2011/08/06 10:01 KST S. Korea to raise reward money for reporting spies, spy ships SEOUL, Aug. 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will sharply raise the amount of money given to people who report spies and spy ships as part of its efforts to raise peoples' awareness toward national security threats, the government said Saturday. The Ministry of Justice said a preannouncement of legislation has been made that will revise current rules regarding rewards so a maximum 500 million won (US$467,700) can be given for information on spies, and 750 million won for people who report spy ships.

The Latest From Obamacare: Send Government Spies To The Doctors OfficeJoe Weisenthal | Jun. 27, 2011, 8:08 PM | 441 | 18 In order to figure out why it's so hard to get a doctor's appointment, or even obtain a primary care doctor in the first place, the Health and Human Services Department proposed to send "mystery shoppers" into doctor's office. This notice -- via ABC's Jake Tapper -- was posted by the HHS back in April, and basically it's exactly what you'd expect from such a plan: send mystery shoppers into various offices posing as either insured or uninsured...

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday the group had captured three spies among its members, two of whom were recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The spies, one of whom was recruited five months ago, did not pose a serious threat to the movement or its military capabilities, he said. "None of these three cases are within the first line of senior leadership. They were not in positions of sensitive responsibility ... it is impossible to touch the military and security infrastructure of the resistance and its ability to confront," he said in a...

Was Huma Abedin — wife of Anthony Weiner and deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton — unaware that her mother was reported as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? Did Western media miss what has been revealed in several Arab newspapers and left secret in American government circles? Al-Liwa Al-Arabi (translated here) claims to have leaked an extensive list, partially published by Al-Jazeera and several other major Arab newspapers, that includes Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, in the Brotherhood’s secret women’s division — known as the Muslim Sisterhood or International Women’s Organization (IWO).

Media blackout: CIA director accused of links to Communist spy contact -- scandal ignored Wes Vernon June 13, 2011 If you have been depending on the mainstream media for your news the past few days, you are probably learning here for the first time that CIA Director Leon Panetta has been called out for his links to an important open member of the Communist Party. Some background When this writer first arrived in Washington, D.C., as a reporter in 1968, one of my assignments was to cover the congressional delegation from Washington State. Occasionally, both Democrat and Republican members of...

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned Americans not to take the slaying of Osama bin-Laden as a cue to ease up on our vigilance. “Al-Qaeda is not the only threat to our government,” Napolitano said. “Enemies are everywhere.” Because enemies are everywhere Napolitano urged everyone to keep an eye out for signs of trouble. “If you know of people in your neighborhood who have guns let us know,” the Secretary requested. “If you overhear conversations that are critical of government policies or programs give us a call.” Napolitano counseled against “letting hazy conceptions about Constitutional rights deter anyone from...

In a major blow to the Justice Department, one of its biggest leak prosecutions in years all but collapsed late Thursday when federal prosecutors withdrew all their felony charges against a former National Security Agency official accused of providing classified information to a journalist. Instead, under a plea deal reached with prosecutors, former NSA official Thomas Drake has agreed to plead guilty in federal court on Friday to a single misdemeanor count of "exceeding authorized use of a computer" -- a minor charge for which he will receive no jail time, a senior administration official told NBC. “This is close...

decora writes "Crypto-mathematician Bill Binney worked in the Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center at the NSA. There, he worked on NSA's ThinThread program; a way to monitor the flood of internet data from outside the US while protecting the privacy of US citizens. In a new interview with Jane Mayer, he says his program 'got twisted. ... I should apologize to the American people. It's violated everyone's rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world. ... my people were brought in, and they told me, "Can you believe they're doing this? They're getting billing records on US...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper. Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.</p>

U.S.embassy personnel drove to the E-1 area of Maaleh Adumin last week and lied to activists who had erected tents, telling them they were police while taking photographs. Shortly after the vehicles left, police arrived and confiscated the tents, but the American embassy later confirmed that the license plates belonged to American diplomatic personnel. The incident was “espionage,” charged National Union Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, who said he will ask the Knesset to discuss the event. American officials responded that their personnel were carrying out “routine activities” but did not explain why they lied to activists. The area involved...

From the team that brought you Blackwater and the pre-9/11 counterterrorism program Able Danger comes “Jellyfish Intelligence.” That’s the name a group of former US intelligence officials and executives from the controversial security firm have chosen for a new private outfit that offers “predictive intelligence” for Fortune 500 corporations and senior-level executives and that aims to “protect human lives and their business interests throughout the world. The company blends traditional models of a strategic consulting firm with what it claims is an extensive network of human sources—people who, in an official context, would be called spies. Jellyfish employs a network...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Extradited Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison for Masterminding First-Ever Hack Into Internet Phone Networks Defendant Also Ordered to Pay Over $1 Million in Restitution NEWARK, NJ—The first individual ever charged with hacking into the networks of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers and reselling hacked VoIP services for a profit was sentenced today to 120 months in prison, United States Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Edwin Andres Pena, 27, transmitted over 10 million minutes of unauthorized telephone calls over the victims' networks. Pena, a Venezuelan citizen, fled the United States...

It wasn’t a typical catwalk display. But then, Anna Chapman isn’t your typical catwalk model. The former Russian spy, who was unmasked working in America by the FBI last year, made a surprise appearance at Moscow Fashion Week in a fur-lined jacket and black leather trousers.

A jury on Friday acquitted a former military translator of secretly working as an Iraqi agent in the US but convicted him of making false statements when he sought a security clearance. The split verdict offered some relief to Issam "Sam" Hamama, who claimed he was only passing along basic information about Iraqis in the US when he reached out to Iraqi officials in the 1990s during the regime of Saddam Hussein. "We've been vindicated. They were accusing him of voluntarily working as a spy," defense lawyer Haytham Faraj said. Hamama, 60, of El Cajon, California, was found not guilty...

Ex-CIA Officer Indicted for Leaking Classified Info to New York Slimes Reporter Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, was indicted today for leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen. The indictment shows that the federal government had access to their e-mail and phone contacts going back several years. Sterling served on the Iran desk of the CIA in the 1990s, and oversaw a classified program aimed at sabotaging the development of its nuclear programming. He left the CIA in 2000 and sued for racial discrimination (he is African American) in a case that went all the way...

Vladimir Putin better set his digital recorder! Russian spy and Putin favourite Anna Chapman still shuns questions about her years undercover in the United States, but starting next week she'll uncover other mysteries on Russian television. A spokeswoman for REN-TV, a private nationwide channel, announced that Chapman will host a new weekly television show that allows her 'to use all her talents to solve the world's most complicated mysteries.'

"....Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and co-author of the new book "Shariah: The Threat to America." He told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.

The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda By RUTH WEDGWOOD NEW HAVEN — It makes no sense to win a trial but lose the war. With this in mind, a majority of the American public favors giving President Bush the option to use military tribunals against the Qaeda terror network. The tribunals are designed to permit a "full and fair trial" of war crimes without compromising our ability to track the network's future plans. Al Qaeda's skill at countersurveillance has made plain the need to protect sensitive intelligence sources at trial. But some international-law scholars suggest that President Bush's ...

Iran has hanged one of seven suspected spies for supplying Israel with secrets on Iran’s missile programs, and the regime’s courts have sentenced a second man to death for “counter-revolutionary activities.” The regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrested seven people in October on charges of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. “These spies supplied the enemy with information on Iran's judiciary, military and space agencies, among other things, prior to their arrest,” trumpeted Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency. Ali Akbar Siadat was hanged in a Tehran prison after being convicted of receiving $60,000 dollars “to give classified information to...

Whistleblowing outfit Wikileaks has been flogging secret information which it has been collecting to make cash on the side. According to a co-founder, who left the organisation, John Young, Wikileaks has a lucrative sideline flogging intelligence information the site had obtained. Young said he left the site in 2007 because he was worried by the fact that the outfit was mismanaging its funds and that Wikileaks was engaged in the selling of documents. Speaking to WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on his radio program on New York's WABC Radio Young claimed that Wikileaks was a money-making operation and follows the...

The CIA has recalled it top officer from Pakistan after his cover was blown and his life threatened. The alleged name of the CIA's station chief in Islamabad was revealed by a Pakistani man, Kareem Khan, who has threatened to sue the intelligence agency over the death of his son and brother in a U.S. missile strike. Khan and his lawyers told a news conference in November that they would seek a $500 million payment for his family members' deaths and warned they may sue CIA director Leon Panetta, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the man they identified as...

Sexy Russian spy Anna Chapman's boss was working for us. The head of Russia's spy operations in America defected just before he betrayed Chapman and her nine fellow sleeper agents last summer -- and the Kremlin has ordered a hit team to kill him as revenge, according to a bombshell report yesterday. Senior officials in Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's government said the double agent -- identified only as "Colonel Shcherbakov" -- was a devastating blow to Russia's SVR intelligence agency and touched off a probe.

Top Russian spy defects after betraying U.S. ring By Thomas Grove Thomas Grove 21 mins ago MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War. The newspaper, Kommersant, named the man as Colonel Shcherbakov, and said he was responsible for unmasking a Russian spy ring in the United States in June whose arrests humiliated Moscow and clouded a "reset" in ties with Washington. The betrayal would make Shcherbakov...

RUSSIAN President Dmitry Medvedev has handed top state honours to the Russian spies deported from the US in July in the biggest spy scandal since the Cold War, the Kremlin says. "A ceremony took place in the Kremlin today to hand top state honours to a number of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) employees, including the spies who were working in the United States and returned to Russia in July," Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said in a statement on Russian news agencies. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who served as a KGB agent in East Germany, has said that he has met...

Obama File 110 hereStanley Kurtz's new book "Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism", finally proves that Barack Obama attended the Democratic Socialists of America - run Socialist Scholars Conferences in 1983 and 1984. He also reveals how some of the marxists participating in those conferences would influence Obama's career in later years. In this post I look at the 10th annual Socialist Scholars Conference held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in April 1992. One panel in particular was important: "Towards a New Party", with Elaine Bernard, Arthur Lipow, Kurt Stand and Judy Page. The...

An Israeli rabbi has blessed the use of female spies in "honeytrap" or "honeypot" stings against terrorists, according to a study called "Illicit Sex for the Sake of National Security." The ruling by Rabbi Ari Schvat, contained in a study published by the Zomet Institute, was first reported by the news agency DPA and published by Haaretz.com. Israeli officials confirmed the rabbinical ruling and the gist of the study for ABC News.

Sidney Reilly, nicknamed the 'Ace of Spies,' planned to kill the whole of the Soviet leadership during a meeting at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1918 An MI6 agent became a serial killer as he used pretty young women to lure Russians to their deaths with the promise of sex, new documents reveal. A Cossack colonel called Mohammed Bek Hadji Lashet, and his gang used the women to attract communists to a lakeside villa where they were tortured and then killed, according to a new history of the intelligence service. The book, Six, by former military intelligence officer Michael Smith, reveals...

A scientist and his wife who both worked at the leading US nuclear research facility were arrested Friday and charged with trying to pass nuclear arms secrets to Venezuela, the US Department of Justice said. The pair, both Americans, "have been indicted on charges of communicating classified nuclear weapons data to a person they believed to be a Venezuelan government official and conspiring to participate in the development of an atomic weapon for Venezuela," the department said in a statement. The defendants, Pedro Mascheroni, 75, and Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, could face life in prison if convicted on all charges.

<p>London, England (CNN) -- Metropolitan police in London, England, appealed Monday for further information about last month's death of a man who worked for a British intelligence agency and whose naked body was found in a padlocked duffel bag in his bathroom.</p>

NOTE The following text is a quote: Chinese National Charged with Economic Espionage Involving Theft of Trade Secrets from Leading Agricultural Company Based in Indianapolis WASHINGTON—Kexue Huang, aka John, 45, has been arrested and charged in a 17-count indictment with economic espionage intended to benefit a foreign government and instrumentalities, and interstate and foreign transportation of stolen property, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison for the Southern District of Indiana. Huang was arrested on July 13, 2010, in Westborough, Massachusetts by FBI agents, and today made his initial appearance...

For years after 9/11, the U.S. did little to fight cyber-attacks by Islamic terrorists and others. For eight years, George “Faux-Counterterrorism” Bush and for nearly two years of Obama, we went through useless, incompetent cyber-terrorism officials who did nothing. For most of the last nine years after the attacks, the FBI didn’t even have e-mail, despite a bloated budget for computers and other cyber-activity. And, as I told you in March, a TSA employee was allowed to remain at his computer–and inserted a virus–after he knew his TSA employment was terminated. We simply do not take cyber-security seriously. Last week,...

Asking you to say something if you happen to see something is a modest request. But what might induce you to adopt a disguise and spy on your fellow citizens? How about a generous proliferation of vice, combined with a healthy dose of corrupt law enforcement, and some strong encouragement (including a small stipend) from morally minded civic leaders?Out of just such fertile soil, a wide-ranging program of amateur surveillance flourished in early 20th century New York City. Ordinary folks — settlement house workers, off-duty state Excise Department employees, dry-goods jobbers — moonlighted as denizens of the demimonde, going undercover...

SNIPPET: "The oldest son of two Russian spies bagged in a summer sweep of undercover moles may have known his folks were working for the other side while they all lived the good life in Cambridge. “I’d say it’s logical to presume, and we suspect that he knew something, yes, toward the end,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers said yesterday. The feds believe the Cambridge couple - going by the names Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Foley - hid their secret life from their two boys, 16 and 20 years old. The oldest, however, may have caught on...

MURDERED MI6 worker Gareth Williams was a secret transvestite who may have been killed by a gay lover, detectives said yesterday. His body lay undiscovered for TWO WEEKS after he was killed and his remains stuffed into a suitcase in his bath. Cops found women's clothing that would fit him at his Pimlico flat in central London, a short distance from MI6's HQ beside the Thames.

President Barack Obama has nominated Mari Carmen Aponte to become the next ambassador of El Salvador, a decade after she was forced to withdrawal her name from consideration for a similar post following concerns about alleged ties to Cuba, Newsmax.com reports. A former FBI official told Fox News that Aponte’s 1998 nomination by president Clinton began receiving attention after the foreign relations panel questioned her about a past relationship with Roberto Tamayo, who was alleged to have "possible ties to the Cuban government" and made "repeated trips there." Current White House spokesman Tommy Vietor responded, "as has been previously reported,...

Politics: President Obama hit a new low in using a recess appointment to name Maria del Carmen Aponte as U.S. envoy to El Salvador. The radical has consorted with Cuban spies but will be taking no questions. Dismissing three congressional holds on Aponte's ambassadorial confirmation as "playing politics," Obama used his vacation to slip Aponte through to represent the U.S. to the strategic Central American country, without a vote in Congress. That gives Aponte, a campaign contributor aligned to the immigration lobby, access to top-secret information as a political reward. But Aponte's past is one big red flag. From 1982...

This is huge news coming on the heels of Barack Obama’s support for the Ground Zero Mosque. He has appointed Maria del Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to El Salvador. Three United States Senators have a hold on her nomination. Why? Because she had a longterm relationship with a top Cuban spy. She withdrew as a Clinton appointee back in the 90’s because of it. Senators questioned whether or not Aponte knew about her lover’s spying on the United States and had other serious concerns related to that relationship. How will the American public react when they learn Barack Obama...

Security: The Pentagon report warning that Beijing is amassing high-tech missiles leaves out another alarming domestic security issue: massive Chinese spying. Forget about the Russian spy ring the FBI broke up that stole mostly headlines (as opposed to U.S. secrets) for their amateurish methods. This is no joke. These Chinese moles mean business. And they're stealing highly sensitive military secrets. At least 44 of them have been quietly prosecuted in the last two years alone — a figure that dwarfs the number of Russian spies expelled last month. And those are just the ones we've caught. The Chinese agents are...

Israel's foreign diplomats have refused to work with Mossad spies "anywhere in the world" after agents effectively broke a strike picket line. The rift was caused after the agency’s spies stepped in to help organise a trip for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to Greece next week, after foreign diplomatic staff refused because of industrial action over pay. The strike, which was triggered by claims that diplomats get half the pay of defence ministry officials, has seen workers engineering a series of diplomatic faux pas. These include leaving the wife of Estonia’s president stranded at a restaurant outside Jerusalem...

SPIES WHO LOOK JUST LIKE US: THE GAME THAT IS NOT A GAME SNIPPET: "The basic task of all spies, including the SVR Russian operatives recently caught, is to "steal and shape," Simmons explained. The "steal" aspect is best known to the public, that is, stealing another nation's military or production secrets, but Simmons also described how spies can "shape" a nation. Spies engaged in the "shape" aspect of espionage are known as "agents of influence," Simmons said. These "agents of influence" attempt to mold the thinking of a society or a government by targeting "experts who are quoted in...

A group of human-rights organizations is pressing WikiLeaks to do a better job of redacting names from thousands of war documents it is publishing, joining the list of critics that claim the Web site's actions could jeopardize the safety of Afghans who aided the U.S. military. The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange...