http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/h...46_200507101257

Craig Crawford: Dirty Plot or Accidental Genius?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/h...33_200507101228

David Corn: Explosive New Rove Revelation Coming Soon? UPDATE: It's Here

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/h...38_200507101255

Rep John Conyers: What's Fair Game?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ve_050710203623

Rove's lawyer acknowledges he was Time reporter's source

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/n...itics_leak_dc_5

Bush aide Rove was Time reporter's source-Newsweek

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_incl...?storyID=111696

Experts: The war on terror has just begun

http://www.detnews.com/2005/politics/0507/10/A05-242214.htm

Focus Shifts to Rove's role in the CIA leak case

Cooper Email Identifies Rove As a Source Wall Street Journal (subscription)
The government's investigation of the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent continues, with new revelations further deepening a mystery that has captivated Washington and the news media.
But Plame wasn't identified by name in the discussion, the Bush ... Houston Chronicle
Bush's adviser Rove revealed as exposing CIA agent Sydney Morning Herald (subscription)
NEWS.com.au - Financial Times - Newsweek - Matamat.com - all 107 related »

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 63
July 11, 2005


** A GROWING MILITARY ROLE IN DOMESTIC SECURITY
** SELECTED CRS REPORTS
** A CIA HISTORY OF THE BAY OF PIGS
** REGULATING THE DOGS OF WAR


A GROWING MILITARY ROLE IN DOMESTIC SECURITY

Under pressure of the "war on terrorism," relations between
U.S. military and domestic security and law enforcement
organizations are becoming more fluid, with the military
poised to increase its prominence in domestic security
matters.

"Our adversaries consider US territory an integral part of a
global theater of combat," a Department of Defense report
stated last month.

"We must therefore have a strategy that applies to the
domestic context the key principles that are driving the
transformation of US power projection and joint expeditionary
warfare."

See "Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support," U.S.
Department of Defense, June 2005 (1.2 MB PDF file):

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/homeland.pdf

There are legal limits on military involvement in civilian
affairs enshrined in the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally
prohibits the Army and the Air Force from performing civilian
functions without specific authorization. But there are
exceptions to those limits, and pending legislation would
modify them further.

See "Terrorism: Some Legal Restrictions on Military Assistance
to Domestic Authorities Following a Terrorist Attack,"
Congressional Research Service, updated May 27, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS21012.pdf

See also "The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: A
Sketch," Congressional Research Service, updated June 6,
2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20590.pdf

and a longer study of "The Posse Comitatus Act and Related
Matters: The Use of the Military to Execute Civilian Law,"
Congressional Research Service, updated June 1, 2000:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/95-964.pdf


SELECTED CRS REPORTS

Some other recent reports of the Congressional Research
Service obtained by Secrecy News include the following.

"Presidential Succession: An Overview with Analysis of
Legislation Proposed in the 109th Congress," June 29, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32969.pdf

"U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues
for Congress," updated June 9, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS21048.pdf


A CIA HISTORY OF THE BAY OF PIGS

An internal CIA history of the Bay of Pigs has found its way
into the public domain as one of the beneficent effects of
the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.

Most internal CIA histories are routinely withheld from
disclosure, regardless of their age. But apparently because
the Bay of Pigs history touched on the question of
assassination policy, it was caught up in the broad sweep of
the JFK Act and declassified.

The document was located at the National Archives by Prof.
David Barrett of Villanova University, who copied the 295
page volume and posted it on his web site.

See "The Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, volume
III: Evolution of CIA's Anti-Castro Policies, 1951-January
1961":

http://www14.homepage.villanova.edu/david.barrett/bop.html


REGULATING THE DOGS OF WAR

The use of dogs in military missions from combat support to
narcotics detection is addressed in a new U.S. Army Field
Manual.

"The highly aggressive dog tactics of the 1960s and 1970s are
long gone," the manual states.

"Today, [military dog] teams are employed in dynamic ways
never before imagined."

Military dogs are "used around the world from Afghanistan to
Africa and from the Balkans to Iraq."

However, "[military dog] handlers will not use their [dogs] to
guard prisoners inside prisons or detainee holding facilities
and confinement facilities. In addition, [dog] handlers will
not use their [dogs] to degrade, torture, injure, or mistreat
EPWs [enemy prisoners of war], detained personnel, civilian
internees (CIs), or other detainees in US custody."

See "Military Working Dogs," U.S. Army Field Manual 3-19.17,
July 2005 (135 pages, 5.0 MB PDF file):

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-19-17.pdf




_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

Democrats urge Bush to fire Rove in leak scandal Reuters
By Adam Entous. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House faced mounting Democratic calls for President Bush to sideline or fire his top political aide Karl Rove on Monday over his involvement in a CIA leak scandal. After publicly defending Rove two years ago, the White House responded to the barrage by saying it would not comment at the request of the prosecutors investigating who leaked the identify of CIA agent Valerie Plame. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said. Other Democrats urged Bush to sideline Rove by suspending his access to classified information and said the deputy White House chief of staff should "clear the air" by answering questions from Congress. Another lawmaker said the intentional disclosure of a covert agent's identity amounted to an "act of treason." The attacks were prompted by reports that Rove was one of the secret sources who spoke to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The Washington Post on Monday quoted Rove's lawyer as saying that his client did not mention Plame by name. Plame's name was leaked, her diplomat husband said, because of his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war. Rove's lawyer was not immediately available to comment. "The president should immediately suspend Karl Rove's security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat. "It is time for the President to keep his word. Karl Rove should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York. Several other Democrats have also called on Rove to explain his role or resign. Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and the ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee, called for a congressional hearing to hear testimony from Rove, who is widely seen as the architect of Bush's election victories. "The recent disclosures about Mr. Rove's actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them. The intentional disclosure of a covert CIA agent's identity would be an act of treason," Waxman said. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote the White House asking Rove to "tell Americans what he knew, when he knew it, and who he may have told about Valerie Plame's identity in order to clear the air once and for all." A U.S. federal judge had ordered Cooper, along with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, to testify in the case and reveal their sources. Cooper avoided a jail sentence last week by agreeing to testify. Miller refused to testify and was jailed.

INUNDATED WITH QUESTIONS
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who was inundated with questions about Rove at his daily news briefing, declined to comment when asked whether Bush continued to have confidence in Rove. "You're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation, and I would not read anything into it," McClellan said of his refusal to comment. McClellan also refused to say whether Rove's job could be changed, or whether Bush stood by his pledge to fire anybody found responsible for the leak. "I think we all want to see the prosecutors get to the bottom of this matter, the president wants to see the prosecutors get to the bottom of this matter," McClellan said. A grand jury investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, a Justice Department prosecutor, is seeking to determine who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's name to the media in 2003 and whether any laws were violated. McClellan would not address what critics said were contradictory statements issued in the past by the White House and now by Rove's lawyer. "I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously, and at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that," McClellan said. In September and October 2003, McClellan rejected as "ridiculous" any suggestion that Rove was involved in the Plame leak. When asked at an Oct. 10, 2003, briefing whether Rove and two other White House aides had ever told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, McClellan said: "I spoke with those individuals... and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this... the leaking of classified information."
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
The real Rove scandal Los Angeles Times
White House Mum On Rove Leak CBS News
Houston Chronicle - AlterNet - Consortium News - Seattle Post Intelligencer - all 594 related »

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_194215913.html

Chinese Company and Chevron Face Off for Unocal
Hank Plante
Reporting

(CBS 5) A former CIA director is warning that a Chinese oil company's attempt to take over Unocal poses a threat to national security, and those fears could help Bay Area-based Chevron win the bidding war.

Energy is a national security issue according to those who want to block the Chinese company CNOOC from buying Los Angeles-based Unocal for $18.5 billion dollars. That's $2.5 billion more than San Ramon-based Chevron is offering for Unocal. So Congress stepped in with hearings Wednesday.

"We are dealing with a takeover attempt by the most powerful Communist dictatorship in the world -- an organ of its state, for all practical purposes, attempting to take over an American corporation," said former CIA director James Woolsey.

All of this is being played out against the backdrop of higher American oil prices, which many experts attribute to growing competition from China and India. And that competition will only increase, as those nations watch their economies explode with growth.

"What we see in this battle is China trying to gain access to more of the world's hydrocarbon resources: oil, gas," said Jim Jelter of MarketWatch.com. "They are doing it in a way that is reminiscent of the old Wall Street way of tackling resources -- just buying them after they have already been discovered by somebody else."

China, like the United States, imports most of its energy. They don't have enough resources at home to fuel their economy. That's another reason that the competition for oil between China and the U.S. is increasing.

"China today, with its expanding economy... may be the most rapidly expanding middle class in the world," said New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. "It adds about 1000 cars a day to the roads in Beijing... They want the lifestyle that we have. They don't want to work for us. They want to be us."

And they want to own us, at least in the case of Unocal, which is why Congress is asking questions. Lawmakers may take action to block the Chinese bid, thus giving Unocal to Chevron. Unocal's board will meet to take all of this up on August 10.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopN...s-covertops.xml

CIA re-established as top U.S. spy agency

WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) -- The White House will designate the CIA as being in charge of U.S. human spying operations even if other agencies are involved, The New York Times said.

The newspaper said the decision is a rejection of recommendations by a presidential commission. The White House's response is to be released this week, the Times said.

The decision is something of a victory for the CIA, which has been trying to keep hold of its long role as the main U.S. agency for covert operations. Also with the appointment of a director of national intelligence, the CIA director has been cut from some daily intelligence briefings at the White House, the Times said.

Both the presidential commission and the Sept. 11 commission had recommended some of those duties be given to the Pentagon. The FBI had also sought a role in some spying operations, the newspaper reported.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

http://english.people.com.cn/200507/14/eng...714_196119.html

What a large pool of US 'secrets'!

The "No.1" of the world invariably acts differently, it tries to be ledader in everything, even in the number of "secrets" it possesses.

According to a recent New York Times report, the number of official US secret documents set an all-time high last year, about 15.6 million documents were classified as confidential, this figure almost doubled that of 2001. At present, there are 145 confidential documents per minute on average. "Land security, sensitive information" and other fuzzy words have emerged at the historic moment, matters originally are not secret, but as long as they are seen as "sensitive information", they become confidential matters of the state. In the meantime, document-deciphering process has been slowed, official US documents deciphered in 1997 came to about 200 million pages, while the number was only 28 million pages last year.

Just as traveling in the United States has become increasingly inconvenient, matters prone to be classified as concerning secrecy are the "by-products" of the counter-terrorist war: After the "September 11" incident in 2001, with a view to guaranteeing land security, law court that originally could be open to the public ceased opening to the public; the Department of Agriculture, the Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency were authorized to grade the secrecy for their documents; the Department of Justice declared that certain government documents were no longer opened to the public. Some are so-called secrets and some sound funny. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) budgets of he United States in the 1950-1960s are to this date still regarded as something secret, the reason for this is said to be "preventing America's enemies from figuring out the CIA's focus of state security through their analyses".

Those with a gentle mindset are mostly sincere and transparent; while those with an impetuous mindset are greatly scared and in a state of extreme nervousness, which is followed by more secrets. Too many secrets make it hard to avoid giving people the feeling of purposefully turning simple things into mysteries, and "mistaking the shadow of a bow in one's cup as a snake", thus making people query its effect. Theoreticians had long before refuted that the reason given by the US government for keeping secrets is "fear of terrorists taking advantage of loopholes", but Washington's failing to prevent the occurrence of the "September 11" tragedy didn't lie in the leakage of intelligence, it was precisely because departments concerned and the general public could not share related intelligence and thus failed to prevent trouble before it happened.

Just as happiness, sometimes security is a kind of feeling. After using forces for several times, President Bush repeatedly stressed that the world had become increasingly safe. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan refuted this several times, saying he didn't feel that this world had become increasingly safe. An increasing number of secrets reminds people of the images of three carved monkeys on the streets abroad: One monkey covers its eyes, another monkey plugs its ears, the third one muffles its mouth. It seems that secrets have been kept, but security has not been achieved, it is really hard to give a clear explanation.

By People's Daily Online

http://www.nysun.com/article/16229

Book: Iranian Warned CIA Before 9/11

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A43226

Karl Rove: Worse Than Osama Bin Laden
FBI and Congress must act against White House traitors

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cf...=11&ItemID=8295

Mission Accomplished: Iraq Is Broken
by Saul Landau
July 14, 2005

It’s hard to believe that supposedly intelligent people like Senators Joseph Biden (DE), Hillary Clinton (NY) and John Kerry (MA) call for “staying the course” in Iraq and acting responsibly by] sending more US troops with more fire power over there.

Don’t they understand that American soldiers break, not fix? The more US soldiers in Iraq, the more damage they will do and the more enemies they will make. To limit damage, to act morally and responsibly, remove the cause of violence and chaos in Iraq: the US military presence.

Since the early 1950s, US Presidents have used troops and the CIA to break other countries, not fix them. In 1953, the CIA shattered Iran’s integrity by overthrowing the elected Mossadegh government. 26 years later, Iranians overthrew the US-backed Shah. In 1979, Iranians showed the depth of their rage by also seizing scores of US officials as hostages. The Ayatollah’s regime labeled the United States “The Great Satan” – for screwing their country.

In 1954, the CIA smashed Guatemala by overthrowing a democratically elected government and replacing it with a military gang that killed and looted for forty years. Embraced by the Pentagon, these gangsters in uniform slaughtered as many as 100,000 Guatemalans (mostly indigenous peasants) and stole their land. The country has not yet recovered.

On September 11, 1973, Richard Nixon helped rupture Chile by “destabilizing” its elected government. For seventeen subsequent years, Washington supported a bloody military dictatorship led by General August Pinochet, a specialist in assassinating, disappearing and torturing his opponents at home and abroad. In 1991, the civilian government’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission listed Pinochet’s crimes: 3,197 people assassinated or disappeared, tens of thousands tortured, hundreds of thousands forced into exile.

In March 2003, George W. Bush ordered the US military to break Iraq. The US arsenal destroyed the electricity and water supply, damaged sewage treatment and other vital sanitary facilities and pulverized bridges, other public places and thousands of homes. On May 1, 2003, dressed in a jump suit, Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced: “Mission Accomplished.”

His critics, myself included, laughed at such braggadocio. We misunderstood him. He had accomplished the standard post-WWII US military mission: He broke another country.

The US-led Coalition has not restored what it demolished in Iraq, nor reestablished services to the level of Saddam Hussein’s regime. They imprisoned tens of thousands of Iraqis, subjecting many of those to systematic torture.

Former prisoner Ali Abbas told journalist Dahr Jamail that to break the will of Iraqi prisoners, US guards at Abu Ghraib “used electricity on us” while millions of homes lacked electricity for hours each day. “They also "expletive deleted" on us, used dogs against us…and starved us.” As Abbas told Jamail, “the Americans delivered electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house” (Jamail testimony at the World Tribunal on Iraq, June 25, 2005, Istanbul). Estimates of Iraqis in prison range as high as eighty thousand, most of whom have not been charged.

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, the breaking began. US planes and artillery delivered more than 300 tons of uranium tipped bombs and shells to targets in southern Iraq alone. Residue from these weapons turned into particles that people -- including US troops –inhaled. In 2003, more US toxic material rained down on the Iraqi environment.

In September 2002, I saw dying kids in the Baghdad Children’s Hospital. Iraqi doctors had already surmised that only the presence of depleted uranium could have caused such a profound spike in the cancer rates among children.

In June 2005, Dr. Thomas Fasy of the Mr. Sinai School of Medicine concluded that data from Iraqi hospitals indicated that depleted uranium’s effect had shown up dramatically in a more than 400% rise in children’s cancer in just over a decade. Uranium ions bond with DNA and this, he said, has also caused a notable leap in children’s leukemia rates along with sharply elevated incidences of congenital birth defects. The United States literally released cancer-causing material into Iraqi air, soil and water.

This toxic metal had performed the coup de grace to the Iraqi health system, already devastated by US bombing and embargo, Fasy said. The cost of such breakage: human life (World Tribunal on Iraq, June 26, 2005).

In November 2004, US soldiers carried out punitive action in Falluja, a city of some 300,000 residents, an operation that surpassed the 1936 Nazi bombing of Guernica in Spain. Falluja was reduced to rubble. Thousands died.

On the economic front, Washington broke Iraq as well – of its socialist habit. US colonial administrator J. Paul Bremer forced a constitution down Iraqi throats – to break their statist economic system. He planned to privatize some 200 state-owned enterprises. Management of port facilities at Umm Qasr went to Stevedoring Services of America, a US company. “Bremer studiously ignored the rapidly rising unemployment and social disorder that arose from the destruction of a social order.” “If privatization isn’t halted,” wrote Naomi Klein, ‘free Iraq’ will be the most sold country on earth” (The Nation, April 28, 2003).

But Iraqis resist. They continually sabotage the oil pipeline. Indeed, such tactics have caused major oil companies to lose enthusiasm for owning Iraqi oil. Besides, they do well under the current OPEC arrangement -- $60 a barrel -- and have no wish to change it.

Iraqi workers also have not welcomed the selling of state-owned factories to foreigners. Some work forces have even threatened to assassinate prospective buyers. This does not make investors feel as if modern Iraq provides a welcome climate (Naomi Klein, speech at Cal Poly Pomona, November 2004).

The chaos that engulfs Iraq does not improve from the presence of US troops. Iraqis who testified in the Istanbul World Tribunal on Iraq told about intense hatred of their people for the occupiers. The Iraqis feel abused by far more than the publicized incidents at Abu Ghraib. On routine US patrols and raids, trigger-happy young soldiers gun down innocent Iraqis. Pilots drop bombs on coordinates where people live. The 2004 documentary Gunner Palace resembles scenes from the TV show Cops. GIs bash down doors, charge into homes with fingers on rifle triggers shouting “on the floor "expletive deleted",” while women scream and children cry. The humiliated and handcuffed men go to prison. The soldiers then return to their posh living quarters and count the days remaining before they can go home. Like the GIs in Vietnam three plus decades ago, those in Iraq sacrifice lives, limbs and psyches. But as the film makes clear, most don’t know the purpose of their military mission.

Indeed, Iraqis recall well how US troops watched passively while massive looting took place of their national, historic treasure [How does one fix a broken Babylon? A crime wave swept the country and Armed Americans shrugged. Women can no longer walk the streets in safety as they once did. US occupations has also pitted Sunnis against Shiites, Kurds against Turkmen. Some Iraqi Christians have fled in fear to Syria. Bush omitted these facts and ignored the violence and chaos that define daily life. US personnel avidly train young Iraqis into constabulary form – those that survive the regular suicide bombings and other attacks aimed at the police.

This scenario – reality -- does not penetrate the heads of key Democrats who continue to talk about “our obligation” to fix Iraq. Words don’t fix broken lives or property. Commitment to democracy calls for more than the United States appointing an Iraqi government and calling it democratic or forcing an Iraqi election in which millions bravely voted, but for what never got reported. The media and the White House ignored the startling fact that the majority of Iraqis voted against the US-chosen Iyad Allawi and for the United Iraqi Alliance, which demanded “a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq” (The Nation, February 11, 2005).

Instead of picking up on the withdrawal demand, before more breakage occurs, foolish Democratic Senators demand that Bush send in more troops. Bush ironically appears as more moderate as he appeals for patriotic unity in the form of flying the flag on July 4.

What must Iraqis feel at the sight of that flag on July 4? In its name, the US military has destroyed their cities, tortured their people, shot many of them for no reason at checkpoints or wherever the troops happened to be patrolling. Iraqis have scarce electricity, food and water and no secure jobs. Yet, Bush keeps repeating that he “liberated Iraq.”

On June 28, addressing the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, Bush asked implying that “our” people had given up a lot to wage his war : “Is the sacrifice worth it?” He quickly answered his own question. “It is worth it…”

The Iraq war has cost him nothing – perhaps a few hours of missed video golf.

“We have more work to do,” he stated. Yes, Bush stands as a national model of sacrifice and hard work! And Iraqis must think that those Democrats who ask for more troops are either crazy or stark opportunists. It will take them that much longer to restore some integrity to their broken society.

Landau testified before the World Tribunal on Iraq June 24-27, Istanbul.

http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle12047.html

A Connection Between 'The FaceBook' and CIA?

Big Brothers, Big Facebook: Your Orwellian Community

A few days ago I stumbled across a couple articles mentioning TheFacebook, and a little start-up capital they happened to get in the sum of $13 million. The number intrigued me, so I did a little more research, a little more stumbling, and found something that even I still have a hard time accepting. So, here's what I came up with:

(p.s. - I'm hoping that someone from EFF or people concerned with privacy rights will take notice. This really worries me and a lot of my friends.)

TheFacebook.com, created in February of 2004 by 21 year old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, is a student social network now active at more than 800 campuses, with more than 2.8 million registered users. [1] Among its features, TheFacebook allows a user to upload a picture of themselves and can include information about their favorite music, books, movies, their address, phone number, e-mail, clubs, jobs, educational history, and even political affiliations. Facebook is extremely popular, attracting on average 80 percent of a school's undergraduate population. However, there are some questions raised regarding privacy concerns on the site, and when some digging is done to find out who is really behind the site's management, there are more questions than answers.

The first venture capital money to come into TheFacebook, $500,000 worth, came from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of Paypal. [1] A Stanford graduate and former columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Thiel is author of the book "The Diversity Myth," [2] which received praises from notable neo-conservatives such as William Kristol. [3] In fact, Thiel is on the board of the radical conservative group VanguardPAC. [4]

Further funding came in the form of $12.7 million from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel's manager James Breyer was former chair of the National Venture Capital Association (NVAC). [1] Breyer served on NVAC's board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, [5] a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. [6] This firm works in various aspects of information technology and intelligence, including most notably "nurturing data mining technologies."

Breyer has also served on the board of BBN Technologies, a research and development firm known for spearheading the ARPANET, or what we know today as the Internet. [7] In October of 2004, Dr. Anita Jones climbed on board, becoming a part of a firm packed with leaders from other areas of Silicon Valley's venture capital community, including none other than Gilman Louie. But what is most interesting is Dr. Jones' experience prior to joining BBN.

Jones herself served on the Board of Directors for In-Q-Tel, and was previously the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the U.S. Department of Defense. Her responsibilities included serving as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and overseeing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

While the nearly $13 million that came from Accel to fund The Facebook certainly looks suspicious and unfortunately disturbing after reviewing all of this information, the only problem on the surface seems to be the appearance of some incestuous relationships between the Pentagon, the CIA, and these venture capital firms. But this goes further than just the initial appearances. DARPA shot to national fame in 2002 when John Markoff of the New York Times announced the existence of the "Information Awareness Office" (IAO). [8] According to Wikipedia, "the IAO has the stated mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone, in a centralized location, for easy perusal by the United States government, including (though not limited to) Internet activity, credit card purchase histories, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, driver's licenses, utility bills, tax returns, and any other available data." [9] Protests came from civil libertarians on both the right and the left who saw the IAO as a new Orwellian arm of the United States government. After Congress investigated DARPA's project, funding was cut off and IAO was essentially dead in the water.

The Information Awareness Office seems to have survived some of its original purposes in a mutated form, found in today's Facebook. In fact, one of IAO's original example technologies included "human network analysis and behavior model building engines," [10] a surprising echo of the social networking mapping that Facebook does using SVG visualizations. [11] Add that to the information that Facebook collects and compare it to the startlingly similar goal of the IAO. It appears at first glance that DoD, along with the CIA, has managed to circumvent its previous Congressionally established limitations and find corporate sponsorship for its programs, under the thin veil of a useful social network for unwitting college students.

And those college students continue to log on to TheFacebook, completely unaware of the massive affronts to their privacy. The so-called "Privacy Policy" [12] of Facebook includes a statement saying that they "may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." It goes on to say that, "We may be required to disclose customer information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law or to protect our interests or property. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."

Some of the aspects of the privacy policy are downright creepy and confusing. This particular gem is especially disturbing: "Thefacebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site." And there's no telling when the privacy policy may change. As of when this was written (July 1, 2005), the policy was effective as of June 28, 2005.

Who knows where the information they collect about these three million college students, alumni, and professors is going, or what they intend to do with it. The fact that these companies and agencies are all so closely related, and that The Facebook has almost no organizational transparency are all cause for concern. Hopefully we can soon uncover the truth.


[1] "Accel Partners Invests In Thefacebook.com" [Accel.com]
Link

[2] Peter Thiel's book, "The Diversity Myth" [Amazon.com]
Link

[3] Kristol's commentary, as well as others, can be found here:
Link

[4] VanguardPAC Board of Advisors [TheVanguard.org]
Link

[5] In-Q-Tel - About Us [In-Q-Tel.org]
Link

[6] "Jim Breyer of Accel Partners Elected Chairman of National Venture Capital Association" [NVCA.org]
Link (PDF)

[7] General Catalyst Partners :: News - "BBN Technologies Appoints Dr. Anita K. Jones to Board of Directors"
(This includes information about BBN's involvement in ARPANET, as well as Jones' past with DARPA and In-Q-Tel)
Link

[8] New York Times - "Many Tools Of Big Brother Are Now Up And Running" by John Markoff and John Schwartz, December 23, 2002, Late Edition - Final, Section C, Page 1, Column 2 [NYTimes.com]
Link

[9] Information Awareness Office [Wikipedia.org]
Link

[10] The Internet Archive's archived page of DARPA's Information Awareness Office
Link

[11] Thefacebook.com FAQ - Visualizations [Thefacebook.com]
Link

[12] Thefacebook.com Privacy Policy [Thefacebook.com]
Link

Total "Terrorism" Information Awareness (TIA)
Introduction | News Items | FOIA Documents | Resources | Previous News

Latest News
EPIC Urges Scrutiny of Proposed Federal Profiling Agency. In a letter (pdf) to a House subcommittee, EPIC urged careful scrutiny of the Department of Homeland Security's proposed Office of Screening Coordination and Operations. This office would oversee vast databases of digital fingerprints and photographs, eye scans and personal information from millions of American citizens and lawful foreign visitors. Homeland Security has announced that the office's operations would be conducted in a manner that safeguards civil liberties, but the agency has not yet explained how it proposes to protect privacy rights or ensure accountability. For more information, visit EPIC's U.S. Domestic Spending on Surveillance Page. (Mar. 1, 2005)

Docs Show Meetings Between Clark, Poindexter. New documents (pdf) show that General Wesley Clark, a lobbyist for commercial data company Acxiom, met with former Total Information Awareness developer, Admiral John Poindexter in May and June 2002. Previously obtained documents from the same time period indicate that Acxiom was considered as a source of personal information for a government "mega-scale database." For more information, see the EPIC Total Information Awareness Page. (Sept. 13, 2004)

Study Finds Extensive Data Mining in Federal Agencies. The General Accounting Office has issued a report (pdf) that identifies almost 200 data mining projects throughout the federal government that are either operational or in the planning stage. Many of them make use of personally identifiable data obtained from private sector databases. Sen. Daniel Akaka, who requested the study, released a statement and said, "It is time that we review agency practices and existing law to ensure that the privacy rights of individuals are not violated through the development of new technology." (May 27)

Committee Calls for Data Mining Privacy Protections. The Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee has issued a report (3.5 MB pdf) recommending that Congress pass laws to protect civil liberties when the government sifts through computer databases containing personal information. The committee, established to review the Defense Department data mining initiatives after the Total Information Awareness fiasco, also proposed that federal agencies be required to obtain authorization from a special federal court "before engaging in data mining with personally identifiable information concerning U.S. persons." For more information, see the EPIC Total Information Awareness Page. (May 17, 2004)

DARPA Discussed Acxiom As TIA Data Source. A document (pdf) obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act shows internal communications among Defense Advanced Research Project Agency employees considering data broker Acxiom as a supplier of personal information for Total Information Awareness. A senior Acxiom official offered to help the agency with TIA, and suggested methods to avoid public scrutiny of the transfer of data from the company to the government. For more information, see the EPIC TIA Page. (Feb. 5, 2004)

EPIC Year in Review. EPIC's survey of the 2003 Privacy Year in Review notes the collapse of Total Information Awareness, surveillance cameras in schools, a Supreme Court victory for privacy, legal battles over the Do Not Call list, busted luggage locks, anti-terrorism laws used for routine criminal investigations, and a conservative radio commentator asking for privacy. (Dec. 31, 2003)

Introduction
In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking system called "Total Information Awareness" (TIA), which was intended to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPA's Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant.

TIA purported to capture the "information signature" of people so that the government could track potential terrorists and criminals involved in "low-intensity/low-density" forms of warfare and crime. The goal was to track individuals through collecting as much information about them as possible and using computer algorithms and human analysis to detect potential activity.

The project called for the development of "revolutionary technology for ultra-large all-source information repositories," which would contain information from multiple sources to create a "virtual, centralized, grand database." This database would be populated by transaction data contained in current databases such as financial records, medical records, communication records, and travel records as well as new sources of information. Also fed into the database would be intelligence data.

A key component of the TIA project was to develop data-mining or knowledge discovery tools that would sort through the massive amounts of information to find patterns and associations. TIA would also develop search tools such as Project Genoa, which Admiral Poindexter's former employer Syntek Technologies assisted in developing. TIA aimed to fund the development of more such tools and data-mining technology to help analysts understand and even "preempt" future action.

A further crucial component was the development of biometric technology to enable the identification and tracking of individuals. DARPA had already funded its "Human ID at a Distance" program, which aimed to positively identify people from a distance through technologies such as face recognition or gait recognition. A nationwide identification system would have been of great assistance to such a project by providing an easy means to track individuals across multiple information sources.

DARPA's Broad Agency Announcement 02-08 soliciting proposals from industry stated that the initial plan was for a five year research project into these various technologies. The interim goal was to build "leave-behind prototypes with a limited number of proof-of-concept demonstrations in extremely high risk, high payoff areas."

In September 2003, Congress eliminated funding for the controversial project and closed the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, which had developed TIA. This does not, however, necessarily signal the end of other government data-mining initiatives that are similar to TIA. Projects such as the Novel Intelligence from Massive Data within the Intelligence Community Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) will apparently move forward. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are also working on data-mining projects that will fuse commercial databases, public databases, and intelligence data and had meetings with TIA developers.

TIA Report to Congress May 2003.
Congress Report Executive Summary and FAQ May 2003.
TIA System Description (PDF, 4.5 MB).
Poindexter's August 2002 Speech.
Booz Allen Hamilton defense contract, $62 million awarded for research into Total Information Awareness project.
Pentagon Briefing Transcript on Surveillance System. November 20, 2002.
DARPA Technology briefings. August 2002 (see under "Information Awareness Office").
DARPA FY03 budget. For TIA budget details see sections on PE 0602301E, Project ST-28 and PE 0603760E, Project CCC-01, and PE 0602301E, Project ST-11.
DARPA Response (PDF) to public scrutiny.
Security with Privacy (PDF) – DARPA ISAT Study 2002.
News Items
Opinion: Total Information Awareness II? St. Petersburg Times (FL), May 31, 2004.
U.S. Still Mining Terror Data, Wired News, February 23, 2004.
Pentagon Terror Spy Lab Closed, CBSNews.com, September 25, 2003.
Pentagon's "Terror Information Awareness" program will end, USA Today, September 25, 2003.
Senate Targets DoD Spy Program, CBSNews.com, July 16, 2003.
Funding for TIA All But Dead, Wired News, July 14, 2003.
Defense, Justice report on surveillance activities, Government Executive, May 28, 2003.
Domestic snooping; A change of name has not improved a bad project, Charlotte Observer Editorial, May 27, 2003.
Balancing Liberty, Security, Washington Times, May 26, 2003.
The Admiral Sees You Walking, He Knows Who You Are Maureen Dowd, New York Times, May 25, 2003.
In the Aftermath of Sept. 11 New York Times Editorial, May 23, 2003.
Use of Data Collection Systems Is Up Sharply Following 9/11, Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2003.
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE; Experts Say Technology Is Widely Disseminated Inside and Outside Military, New York Times, May 21, 2003.
New Name of Pentagon Data Sweep Focuses on Terror, New York Times, May 21, 2003.
Data program must solve privacy fears, says the Pentagon, Washington Times, May 21, 2003.
Who's Watching the Watchers?, PC World, May 20, 2003.
U.S. promises limits on computer dragnet CNET News, May 20, 2003.
Pentagon Details New Surveillance System Washington Post, May 20, 2003.
Pentagon Defends Data Search Plan, Wired News, May 21, 2003.
Pentagon agency defends anti-terror data mining initiative, Government Executive, May 20, 2003.
Ideological foes agree: Privacy rights in danger Barr & Murphy, Atlanta Journal, May 16, 2003.
Data Expert is Cautious About Misuse of Information. New York Times, March 25, 2003.
Security, Privacy Concerns Clash. Oakland Tribune, March 17, 2003.
California research center at the heart of data-mining storm. Government Executive, March 11, 2003.
Total Information Delusion. Business 2.0, February 3, 2003.
Total Information Awareness official responds to criticism. Government Executive, January 31, 2003.
System to aid development of data base. Daily Texan, January 31, 2003.
Congress Should not Prematurely Short-Circut the Total Information Awareness Program. Heritage Foundation, January 28, 2003.
Senate Rebuffs Domestic Spy Plan. Wired News, January 23, 2003.
Beware of Total Information Awareness. Cato Institute, January 20, 2003.
Poindexter's Still a Technocrat, Still a Lightning Rod. New York Times, January 20, 2003.
Senators vow to halt 'data mining' project. San Jose Mercury News, January 17, 2003.
Awareness project unites left, right. USA Today, January 16, 2003.
Palo Alto scientist may hold keys to privacy. San Mateo News, January 6, 2003.
Dick Armey's warning. Nat Hentoff, Washington Times, January 6, 2003.
George Orwell here we come. CNET, January 6, 2003.
Database monitor far from a reality. San Jose Mercury News, December 26, 2002.
Snooping in All the Wrong Places. BusinessWeek, December 18, 2002.
Perspective: Tech's answer to Big Brother. CNET, December 16, 2002.
Critics Say Defense 'Total Information Awareness' Impractical. Govexec.com, December 12, 2002.
Big Brother and Another Overblown Privacy Scare. National Journal, December 10, 2002.
Can a massive database of information on Americans really preempt terrorist attacks? Wired, December 2, 2002.
Congress on alert for civil liberties. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 1, 2002.
The Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Project: Americans Under the Microscope? CATO Institute, November 26, 2002.
ACLU Action Alert on Total Information Awareness.
Really 'Big Brother': Given its potential to invade the privacy of everyone, the Total Information Awareness program should be shut down before it starts. St. Petersburg Times, Editorial, November 24, 2002.
If You're Not Paranoid, You Oughta' Be. Salt Lake Tribune, November 24, 2002.
In the Name of Security. New York Times, November 23, 2002.
FBI's Increased Powers Under Spotlight. Financial Times, November 21, 2002.
Pentagon Defends Anti-Terror Project. Associated Press, November 21, 2002.
Fighting Terror By Terrifying U.S. Citizens. San Francisco Chronicle, November 20, 2002.
Total Information Unawareness. Government Executive, November 20, 2002.
Massive Database Dragnet Explored. San Jose Mercury News, November 20, 2002.
No Orwellian Scheme Behind DARPA's Total Information Awareness System. Heritage Foundation WebMemo, November 20, 2002.
A Snooper's Dream. New York Times, Editorial, November 18, 2002.
'Big Brother' looming larger. Arizona Republic, November 18, 2002.
Big Brother Goes to Washington. Newsweek, November 18, 2002.
Electronic snoops will make us open books. St. Petersburg Times, November 17, 2002.
Security and privacy. The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), November 16, 2002.
Don't let homeland defense damage citizens' rights. Houston Chronicle, November 15, 2002.
What price security? The Plain Dealer, November 15, 2002.
A government without brakes? Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY), November 15, 2002.
Orwell's nightmare. Times-Picayune (New Orleans), November 15, 2002.
Homeland bill a supersnoop's dream. Washington Times, November 15, 2002.
Total Information Awareness. Washington Post, Editorial, November 15, 2002.
Domestic Snooping; Bedrock Values Matter Even In These Dangerous Times. Charlotte Observer, November 15, 2002.
You Are A Suspect. William Safire, New York Times, November 14, 2002.
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally. Washington Post, November 12, 2002.
Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans. New York Times, November 9, 2002.
Terrorist-tracking tools. National Journal, September 10, 2002.
Data mining aims at national security. Federal Computer Week, March 4, 2002.
FOIA Documents
Documents obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Letters to contractors approving/rejecting funding for TIA projects, including names of companies and proposal titles. Available for download in four parts:


[Part 1: PDF, 728 KB]
[Part 2: PDF, 872 KB]
[Part 3: PDF, 688 KB]
[Part 4: PDF, 476 KB]


EPIC has also made available an analysis of these documents, as well as a table of approved contractors.

"Security with Privacy" (PDF, 840K). Defense Department study, released in December 2002.

Document showing internal communications among Defense Advanced Research Project Agency employees considering data broker Acxiom as a supplier of personal information for Total Information Awareness. A senior Acxiom official offered to help the agency with TIA, and suggested methods to avoid public scrutiny of the transfer of data from the company to the government.

Documents showing that General Wesley Clark, a lobbyist for commercial data company Acxiom, met with former Total Information Awareness developer, Admiral John Poindexter in May and June 2002.
Resources
Materials from EPIC's November 2002 briefing on TIA.
EPIC's Profiling page
EPIC's National ID page
EPIC's Biometrics page
EPIC's Passenger Profiling page
Humorous Flash animation on TIA, from cartoonist Mark Fiore.
Previous News
Report Criticizes Total Information Awareness. The Department of Defense's inspector general has released a report (pdf) criticizing the agency's lack of consideration of privacy concerns when developing the Total Information Awareness system. The report states that the lack of a formal assessment on the privacy implications for U.S. citizens meant the Pentagon "risks spending funds to develop systems that may be neither deployable nor used to their fullest potential without costly revisions and retrofits." For more information, see EPIC's Total Information Awareness page. (Dec. 31, 2003)

Congress Kills Total Info Awareness Project. Congress has eliminated funding for the controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) project and closed the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, the entity that housed TIA and was formerly headed by Adm. John Poindexter. This does not, however, necessarily signal the end of other government data-mining initiatives that are similar to TIA. Projects such as the Novel Intelligence from Massive Data within the Intelligence Community Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) will apparently move forward. See EPIC's Total Information Awareness Page for more information. (Sept. 26, 2003)

Poindexter's Recent Op-Ed Reflects Inconsistencies in Statements regarding Total Information Awareness (TIA). On Sept. 10 John Poindexter, the former director of the Information Awareness Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, published an Op-Ed in the New York Times regarding the Total Information Awareness program. Poindexter's statement--and the Department of Defense's latest characterization of TIA in general--is inconsistent with earlier statements regarding the purpose and capabilities of the program. (Sept. 10, 2003)

Poindexter Resigns But Defends "Total Info" Plan. In a letter (pdf) to the Director of the Pentagon's research agency, retired Admiral John Poindexter has formalized his resignation as head of the Information Awareness Office. He defends the controversial Total Information Awareness program and cites the Privacy with Security (pdf) study as an example of his office's efforts to "protect the privacy of innocent people." That study was first released as a result of an FOIA lawsuit filed by EPIC. See EPIC's Total Awareness Page for background information. (Aug. 14, 2003)

Senate Nixes Domestic Spy Plan. The United States Senate has voted unanimously to block funding for the Total Information Awareness program. According to the Defense Department appropriations, no funding "may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program." The Administration lobbied to keep the funding intact. See the EPIC Total Information Awareness Page. (Jul. 18, 2003)

Name Changed. Problem Solved. The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has released a report on the "Terrorism" Information Awareness Program. The name change is intended to address concerns that a massive program of public surveillance may raise privacy concerns. An Executive Summary and a FAQ is also available. (May 20, 2003)

Info Awareness Report Due. The Department Defense research agency is expected to submit a report to Congress today on the Total Information Awareness program. In February Congress suspended funding for the surveillance program and required the Defense Department to describe the project's privacy implications. An EPIC lawsuit has produced contractor documents that reveal key projects on monitoring and tracking individuals in the United States.(May 20, 2003)

EPIC Obtains More Info on Total Info Awareness. An EPIC lawsuit (pdf) has resulted in the release of additional documents about Total Information Awareness. The most recent disclosures provide more details on specific projects, including deliverables and timelines. For more information, see the updated table of contractors. (April 4, 2003)

EPIC Obtains Contractor Documents for Defense Dept. Domestic Surveillance Project. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit [PDF] pursued by EPIC has led to the disclosure of 180 pages detailing the projects that were funded and rejected by the Office of Information Awareness, headed by John Poindexter. The documents, which include the names of companies seeking Total Information Awareness (TIA) funding, as well as proposal titles, are available for download in four parts: [Part 1: PDF, 728KB] [Part 2: PDF, 872KB] [Part 3: PDF, 688KB] [Part 4: PDF, 476KB]. See EPIC's analysis of the documents and table of contractors. (Feb. 27, 2003)

The final text of the Congressional action on the Total Information Awareness project was signed into law by the President. The text extends the deadline for the Defense Department report to 90 days and restricts the implementation of the program on U.S. persons only. (Feb. 20, 2003)

Senate Limits Total Information Awareness System. Senators led by Ron Wyden (D-OR) accepted Amendment 59 to a spending bill that will suspend the development of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system. Funding for development of TIA will end 60 days after the passage of the bill unless the intelligence community submits a detailed report to Congress on the privacy and civil liberties implications of the system. The amendment further requires Congressional authorization before TIA is deployed by any agency. However, exceptions in the amendment allow President Bush to approve continued funding for TIA, and the use of TIA for military operations outside the United States. (Jan. 24, 2003)

Computer Scientists Criticize TIA. The US Association for Computing Machinery, a group of computer scientists and information technology professionals, wrote to the Senate Armed Services committee about TIA. The letter details the privacy and security risks inherent in the Total Information Awareness architecture and questions the technical feasibility of the vision. (Jan. 23, 2003)

New DoD-FBI links Exposed. In a preliminary response to Senator Grassley's (R-IA) letter seeking additional information about TIA, the Defense Department acknowledged that it was possibly developing a MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the FBI to experiment with TIA technology. Senator Grassley then wrote to Attorney General Ashcroft seeking additional information about potential links between the FBI and TIA. Senator Grassley has also introduced SA53, an amendment that limits the funding of TIA for domestic intelligence purposes, into the appropriations bill. (Jan. 21, 2003)

Senator Feingold introduces Data-mining Moratorium Act. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 188, the Data-mining Moratorium Act, which would limit the use of data mining technology by the Defense department and by the new Department of Homeland Security without Congressional approval and appropriate civil liberties protections. (Jan. 16, 2003)

Senator Harkin Calls for Hearings on TIA. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) sent a letter to Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), requesting that hearings be held on TIA and Admiral Poindexter's role in developing the project. He called on Poindexter to testify before Congress. (Jan. 13, 2003)

Senators Pose Data Mining Questions to Ashcroft. In a seven-page letter (PDF) to Attorney General John Ashcroft, three members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked for detailed information on "current 'data mining' operations, practices and policies at the Department of Justice." The request includes information concerning DOJ involvement in the controversial Total Information Awareness project at the Defense Department. For examples of the types of information available to the government in private sector databases, see EPIC's Public Records and Privacy and Profiling and Privacy pages. (Jan. 13, 2003)

Pentagon Makes Incomplete Response to TIA FOIA Request. After EPIC filed suit (PDF) challenging its failure to release documents about the controversial "Total Information Awareness" program, the Defense Department has provided one document – a study titled "Security with Privacy" (PDF, 840K). The study recommends more DoD research on privacy, but does not address policy issues and states that it is "not a review of Total Information Awareness." (Dec. 19, 2002)

Sen. Schumer Urges Rumsfeld to Find Replacement for Poindexter. The New York Daily News reports that Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has written to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asking him to find a replacement for Admiral John Poindexter, who currently heads the Total Information Awareness program. "If we need a big brother, John Poindexter is the last guy on the list that I would choose," said Senator Schumer on ABC's This Week. (Nov. 26, 2002)

EPIC Holds Briefing on Total Information Awareness. EPIC held a briefing at the National Press Club today on Total Information Awareness and the civil liberties implications of the Homeland Security Act. Speakers included EPIC's Executive Director Marc Rotenberg and General Counsel David Sobel; Katie Corrigan, ACLU; and Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists. For more information, see the briefing materials. (Nov. 25, 2002)

Total Cost of TIA: $240 Million in FY 2001-2003. Contrary to a statement of a Defense Department spokesperson that the TIA budget is $10 million, DARPA documents show that it is $240 million for fiscal years 2001-2003. The TIA system, in fact, consists of several related programs unaccounted for by the official. The budget states that: "The primary goal of TIA is the assured transition of a system-level prototype that integrates technology and components developed in other DARPA programs including Genoa, Genoa-II, TIDES, Genisys, EELD, WAE, HID, and Bio-Surveillance." (p. 273). (Nov. 25, 2002)

Rep. Armey: Homeland Security Bill Does not Authorize TIA. Communications Daily reports that Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) said that the Homeland Security Bill "…does not authorize, fund or move into the department anything like it (Total Information Awareness)." He further stated that the use of data mining tools in the bill are "…intended solely to authorize the use of advanced techniques to sift through existing intelligence data, not to open a new method of intruding lawful, everyday transactions of American citizens." (Nov. 25, 2002)

Sen. Grassley Calls for Inspector General to Review TIA. The Boston Globe reports that Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has instructed the Inspector General of the Defense Department to review the TIA system. In a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, Grassley wrote "I am at a loss to understand why DoD resources are being spent on research for domestic law enforcement." (Nov. 22, 2002)

DARPA Ends Consideration of eDNA Project. The New York Times reports that DARPA considered but decided not to pursue a plan to uniquely identify Web users through tying their communications to biometric identifiers. The eDNA proposal read: "We envisage that all network and client resources will maintain traces of user eDNA so that the user can be uniquely identified as having visited a Web site, having started a process or having sent a packet." (Nov. 22, 2002)

EPIC Requests DARPA Documents on TIA. EPIC filed an expedited FOIA request today seeking DARPA records on what modifications TIA might make to any existing legal, statutory and regulatory frameworks concerning governmental access to and use of transactional and other records about individuals. The request also sought records concerning the potential privacy and civil liberties implications of the activities proposed for the TIA project. (Nov. 21, 2002)

Sen. Feinstein Calls for Legislation to Protect Against TIA. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Senator Feinstein (D-CA) plans to introduce legislation to ensure that the Total Information Awareness project does not infringe on the privacy rights of Americans. "This is a panoply, which isn't carefully conscribed and controlled, for a George Orwell America,'' Feinstein told the Mercury News. "And I don't think the American people are ready for that by a long shot." (Nov. 20, 2002)

Senator Lieberman Limits Homeland Security Department Development of TIA. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) inserted an explanatory paragraph into the Congressional Record with passage of the Homeland Security Act that limits the new Department of Homeland Security from adopting or replicating TIA. The statement reads: "Nothing in this legislation should be construed as requiring or encouraging HSARPA (Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency) to adopt or replicate any specific programs within DARPA, such as the Total Information Awareness Program, or as conferring HSARPA with any additional authority to overcome privacy laws when developing technologies for information-collection." Cong. Rec. S11412 (2002). (Nov. 19, 2002)

Sen. Nelson Questions TIA System. Senator Nelson (D-FL) issued a statement on TIA announcing that he would scrutinize the system. He said, "I have a serious concern about whether this type of program, called Total Information Awareness, can be used responsibly...I intend to advocate that Congress and the Senate Armed Services Committee vigorously oversee this program to ensure there is no abuse of law-abiding individuals' privacy." Cong. Rec. S11250 (2002). (Nov. 18, 2002)

Groups Urge Senate to Stop Total Information Awareness. In an open letter over 30 civil liberties groups urged Senators Thomas Daschle (D-SD) and Trent Lott (R-MS) to amend the Homeland Security Act to stop further development of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. (Nov. 18, 2002)

Leading Newspapers Blast Defense Dept. Surveillance Project. Newspapers across the country are opposing the Department of Defense's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project. The New York Times said today that "Congress should shut down the program pending a thorough investigation." Earlier the Washington Post wrote "the defense secretary should appoint an outside committee to oversee it before it proceeds." For more information, see EPIC's TIA Page. (Nov. 18, 2002)

New Total Information Awareness Details. EPIC has obtained the system description (PDF, 4.5 MB) for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program. The document describes an elaborate system of human identification and surveillance. EPIC is pursuing a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Defense to obtain further information about the TIA Program. (Nov. 15, 2002)

Poindexter's History Includes Attempt to Centralize Computer Control at NSA. As National Security Adviser, Admiral Poindexter was involved with a controversial Reagan administration initiative in 1984 known as National Security Decision Directive, NSDD 145. NSDD-145 gave the National Security Agency (NSA) control over security for all government computer systems containing "sensitive but unclassified" information. This was followed by a second directive issued by Poindexter that extended military authority over all computer and communications security for the federal government and private industry. The Computer Security Act, passed by Congress in 1987, reestablished authority for computer security policy at the National Institute for Standards & Technology. For more information see EPIC's Computer Security Act page.

DARPA Plans "Total Information Awareness." The New York Times reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a tracking system called "Total Information Awareness" (TIA), that claims to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The system, being developed by John Poindexter, the director of DARPA's Information Awareness Office, is envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant. For more information, see DARPA's TIA Page, and the EPIC Profiling Page. (Nov. 12, 2002)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EPIC Privacy Page | EPIC Home Page
Last Updated: March 21, 2005
Page URL: http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/default.html

http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/

Electronic Privacy Information Center

http://www.thecolorofinfinity.com/blog/arc...rothers_bi.html

Big Brothers, Big Facebook: Your Orwellian Community

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2859084

Spin Cycle: Administration again has damaged its credibility
Outing Karl Rove

American intelligence got just about everything wrong concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What has never been investigated, however, is whether President Bush deliberately manipulated the information he received in order to make his case for war.
That is the root of the affair that has sucked several journalists and deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove into its vortex, and why it is important.
In January 2003, President Bush told the world that British intelligence had uncovered a plot by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger. However, the evidence of the supposed Niger purchase has been debunked as a forgery.
In July 2003, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV wrote in The New York Times that the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to check into the supposed purchase and he had reported it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had taken place. The administration should have known that, he argued.
Eight days later, Robert Novak wrote a column arguing that Wilson's mission was a low-level CIA affair, probably was unknown to CIA director George Tenet and was "less than definitive." The spin here was to discredit Wilson.
Novak also wrote: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate
[the uranium sale]."
That might have been the end of it, except that it is illegal to identify a covert CIA agent if the person outing the spy knows she is working under cover and that the government is trying to keep it that way. That is why a special prosecutor is investigating.
For months, the White House denied that Karl Rove outed Plame to Novak. The president and his chief spokesman said that any member of the administration who had done such a thing would be fired.
Now, Newsweek has reported that Rove talked to Time reporter Matt Cooper about Wilson and his wife in the days prior to Novak's column. So it looks as though Rove tried to discredit Wilson, but whether he deliberately outed Plame is unknown.
What we do know is that the White House misled the public about Rove's involvement in the spin cycle. But the question remains whether this is part of a larger pattern of deception that led the United States into war.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/14/business/unocal.php

Ex-chief of CIA opposes sale of oil firm to China

http://english.ohmynews.com/TALK_BACK/bbs_...&bb_code=282429

It Just Gets Worse
http://nytimes.com/2005/07/11/opinion/11herbert.html

Back in March 2004 President Bush had a great time displaying what he felt was a hilarious set of photos showing him searching the Oval Office for the weapons of mass destruction that hadn't been found in Iraq. It was a spoof he performed at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.

The photos showed the president peering behind curtains and looking under furniture for the missing weapons. Mr. Bush offered mock captions for the photos, saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"

If there's something funny about Mr. Bush's misbegotten war, I've yet to see it. The president deliberately led Americans traumatized by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into the false belief that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that a pre-emptive invasion would make the United States less vulnerable to terrorism.

Close to 600 Americans had already died in Iraq when Mr. Bush was cracking up the audience with his tasteless photos at the glittering Washington gathering. The toll of Americans has now passed 1,750. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Scores of thousands of men, women and children have been horribly wounded. And there is no end in sight.

Last week's terror bombings in London should be seen as a reminder not just that Mr. Bush's war was a hideous diversion of focus and resources from the essential battle against terror, but that it has actually increased the danger of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

The C.I.A. warned the administration in a classified report in May that Iraq - since the American invasion in 2003 - had become a training ground in which novice terrorists were schooled in assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other terror techniques. The report said Iraq could prove to be more effective than Afghanistan in the early days of Al Qaeda as a place to train terrorists who could then disperse to other parts of the world, including the United States.

Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as deputy director of the State Department's counterterrorism office, said on National Public Radio last week: "You now in Iraq have a recruiting ground in which jihadists, people who previously were not willing to go out and embrace the vision of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, are now aligning themselves with elements that have declared allegiance to him. And in the course of that, they're learning how to build bombs. They're learning how to conduct military operations."

Has the president given any thought to leveling with the American people about how bad the situation has become? And is he even considering what for him would be the radical notion of soliciting the counsel of wise men and women who might give him a different perspective on war and terror than the Kool-Aid-drinking true believers who have brought us to this dreadful state of affairs? The true believers continue to argue that the proper strategy is to stay the current catastrophic course.

Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush's adventure in Iraq. In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5 billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.

The war has diminished the stature and weakened the credibility of the United Sates around the world. And it has delivered a body blow to the readiness of America's armed forces. Much of the military is now overdeployed, undertrained and overworked. Many of the troops are serving multiple tours in Iraq. No wonder potential recruits are staying away in droves.

Whatever one's views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field.

The immediate challenge to President Bush is to dispense with the destructive fantasies of the true believers in his administration and to begin to see America's current predicament clearly. New voices with new approaches and new ideas need to be heard. The hole we're in is deep enough. We need to stop digging.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/cgi-bin/new...2236863788&fa=1

Report Says FBI Didn't Act on Warnings of 9/11Report Says FBI Didn't Act on Warnings of 9/11

June 10, 2005 2:22 p.m. EST


Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON, DC (AHN) - A Justice Department report claims the FBI missed several opportunities to uncover vital information regarding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that could have led agents to two of the hijackers.

Inspector General Glenn Fine says, "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks."

According to the report, two months before the attacks, an FBI agent told his superiors that Osama bin Laden was sending students to the United States to study ways to take down U.S. aircraft.

The Candian Broadcasting Corporation claims the FBI also had hard information that future hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar were in the United States, but it conducted an investigation "without much urgency or priority."

The report blames the FBI for handing the investigation of Mihdhar to a single, inexperienced agent.

The missed opportunities also related to problems with information sharing between the CIA and FBI.

CIA agents reviewed incoming cables containing a substantial amount of information about Mihdhar, including that he was travelling and he had a U.S. visa. But, the agency never approved giving the information about Mihdhar to the FBI.

The report also criticizes the FBI for not knowing about the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar, who were living openly in San Diego in 2000.

The two men had rented a room in the home of a long-time FBI informant.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/071405F.html

The Gray Lady's Dishonesty
By Michael M. Rosen Published 07/14/2005


As the national "paper of record", the New York Times has obligations not only to its readers, its writers, and its sources, as well as its brothers-in-arms in the worldwide media, but to all Americans. Devotees of the Times are invited to place their trust in the paper's reports, its editorials -- and its integrity.


It's a shame, then, that the paper has gone so far out on a limb in the recent Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame affair in naked pursuit of two paramount objectives, to the exclusion of all others: uncompromisingly defending the inviolability of reportorial privilege and relentlessly excoriating the Bush administration.

But strangely enough, in this case, it turns out that the two objectives are fundamentally at loggerheads. In order for the administration to "do the right thing," in the eyes of the fabled Gray Lady, it must conduct a thorough investigation of whether a government official, in mid-2003, knowingly leaked to the media the identity of Plame, said to be a covert CIA agent at the time. Yet in order to uncover the leaker, federal investigators must interrogate the most relevant witnesses to the alleged crime, namely the recipients of the leaks.


This paradox has forced the Times -- and other liberal papers and commentators -- to turn linguistic and logical cartwheels when justifying their statements and actions. Thus, investigators under the guidance of the prosecutor, former United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, are enjoined to suss out any and all violations of the law and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The administration is called upon to take all necessary measures to comply with the law.

But -- and here's the rub -- journalists need not comply with the legal prerogatives of the investigators, says the Times, even if the Supreme Court itself declares that they must. This disconnect -- in which the paper seems to believe that it and its reporters are above the law -- will erode the trust that the public vests in Big Media.

To be sure, the Times appears at least to recognize the potential for hypocrisy or self-contradiction in its statements. In its first editorial on the issue [indirect link], the paper lavished attention on the specter of a whitewash, since the investigation was to be conducted by the Justice Department of John Ashcroft, ostensibly the President's lackey. The Times then opined that while it opposes leak investigations in general, there might be cause for an exception in the Wilson-Plame situation, which the paper likened to disclosing troop movements during war.

However, the editorial continued, because Congress barred the prosecution of any journalist who obtained the name of a covert operative from a government official, the "Bush administration should not use the serious purpose of this inquiry to turn it into an investigation of…any…journalist, or to attempt to compel any journalists to reveal their sources."

Leave aside, for the moment, the backwardness of the Times' logic (the fact that Congress exempted journalists from liability, without shielding them from investigative pressures to divulge their sources, if anything reinforces their obligation to comply with prosecutors). More important is that the horns of the dilemma are on display for all to see: on the one hand, the sheer importance -- indeed, the implications for our very national security! -- of this investigation; on the other, the inoculation of reporters from prosecutorial probing.

But the very nature of the "crime" here renders the Times' position absurd: the actions in question inherently involve revealing sensitive information to journalists. Congress has criminalized a very specific category of speech, speech that has effectively lost its protected status.

By analogy, a client generally owns a privilege in any communication he imparts to his attorney. But if, for example, he specifically informs his lawyer that he intends to kill someone imminently, the attorney must break her client's confidence and report him to the authorities.

Here, in a federal investigation, there exists no such reportorial privilege (although there are moves afoot to establish one). Regardless, if one existed, it would and should not cover the conduct in question. The (alleged) speech is itself the crime; its only witnesses are the accused and the reporter. But the Times seeks to kneecap the prosecution by sequestering these witnesses.



Such muddled reasoning and empty posturing does nothing to endear the paper, or Big Media in general, to the news-consuming public. Increased reliance on blogs and talk radio -- generally more transparent and less pompous modes of communication -- will likely result from the kerfuffle, as will diminished belief that the Times has the country's best interests in mind.

Of course, not every liberal newspaperman condones the Times' approach. Michael Kinsley, head honcho of the Los Angeles Times´ editorial page, lit into the Gray Lady in a recent piece. And some conservatives have been a bit too eager to exonerate Karl Rove (who has been implicated as a source of some information by one reporter) or to slam Judith Miller (who now sits in an Alexandria, VA, prison for refusing to disclose her source(s)). Nevertheless, the Times (of New York) has gotten far too overheated about both the investigation and the endangerment of journalistic privilege.

Emblematic of the Times' inconsistent approach is its conclusion in Wednesday's editorial: "Mr. Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom. While we like government officials who are willing to whisper vital information, we like even more government officials who tell the truth in public."

The first part of this quote is troublesome enough. Rove has reportedly already given blanket permission for any journalist to disclose to prosecutors the content of their conversations with him about the issue; even if the Times is correct in dismissing such waivers as coerced, why is editorial coercion any less offensive than the prosecutorial version? The paper seems to believe it's alright to pressure a governmental official to publicly disclose matters under (secret) grand-jury investigation, but it's anathema to ask a journalist to comply, confidentially, with the same investigation.

But worse is the second part. The Times, like all newspapers, trades in "whisper[ed] vital information" as a mechanism for ensuring that officials -- from Rove to Wilson -- "tell the truth in public." Why, then, is it so reluctant to ensure the integrity of an investigation designed to do just that? What we Americans like are reporters -- and newspapers -- with a similar allegiance to seeking the truth.



Michael M. Rosen, a TCS contributing writer, is an attorney in San Diego

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a07f58be-f3c7-11d...000e2511c8.html

Call for CIA probe into Iran dissident 'leak



By Demetri Sevastopulos Washington
Published: July 13 2005 22:27

A senior Republican politician will ask the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate whether a former agent endangered US national security by allegedly leaking the identity of an Iranian dissident to journalists.

Curt Weldon, vice-chairman of the House armed services committee, told the FT he wants the CIA to investigate whether Bill Murray, a former CIA Paris station chief, disclosed the identity of “Ali,” the alias used by a Paris-based Iranian dissident which he says was classified.

The move is the latest attack on the agency by members of Congress who are critical of its failure to prevent the September 11 2001 attacks. Congress has already passed legislation overhauling the intelligence community, and creating a new director of national intelligence to oversee the 15 intelligence branches, reducing the power of the CIA.

In his recent book, Countdown to Terror, Mr Weldon accused the CIA of ignoring information provided by Ali about potential terror attacks on the US and the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Those claims led Mr Murray to respond publicly that Ali never provided any credible information.

Last month, Mr Murray, who has met Ali in Paris, described him as a “fabricator” who has close ties to Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer discredited by the CIA over his role in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal in the late 1980s.

In response to Mr Weldon, Mr Murray says he did not provide the identity of Ali to journalists who wrote stories for the Washington Post and the American Prospect or “to anyone else”.

He also denies that his identity was classified, a view shared by another former senior intelligence official familiar with the Ali case, who described Mr Weldon's charges as “reprehensible”. Mr Murray says the claims by Mr Weldon and Ali hurt, not helped, CIA efforts to counter terrorism.

“ Ali and his boss Manucher Ghorbanifar and people like them make the real job of ferreting out terrorist plotting more difficult, they waste time and resources in the field and in Washington and they confuse the issue,” he said

In a letter to Mr Weldon, the CIA said Ali was simply “embellishing press reporting” in a likely attempt to influence the US to overthrow the current Iranian government. That conclusion has echoes of the case of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who worked with neo-conservatives to push the case for war in Iraq based on evidence of weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be false.

Mr Murray says he warned Mr Weldon that Ali was a fabricator the night before the congressman met Ali and Mr Ghorbanifar in Paris last year, which Mr Weldon said is “an absolute lie”.

Mr Weldon said the CIA is trying to protect its reputation. He accused Steven Kappes, former CIA deputy director of operations, of lying by saying he would arrange for a CIA operative to meet Ali, only to learn that he was interviewed instead by French intelligence. Former senior officials say the French met Ali after he alleged that Iranians were planning to assassinate former President George Bush. Mr Murray later met Ali on several occasions.

Mr Weldon also said he threw Mr Kappes out of a meeting in Moscow in 1999 when Mr Kappes was CIA station chief because he believed embassy officials had lied about their ability to contact a source he wanted to meet. But former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mr Kappes was not present.

James Woolsey, former director of the CIA who endorsed Mr Weldon's book as "a case study of an intelligence failure with potentially catastrophic consequences for the US" on Wednesday said he had no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Ali. But he said he generally agreed with Mr Weldon's criticisms of the CIA.

"I don't know Ali," said Mr Woolsey. "But I have a good deal of confidence in Curt Weldon. The CIA is far too hasty in writing off contacts with people because they believe they some bad association or some association with someone that they think has not dealt properly with them in the past."

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank07142005.html

Liberals and the CIA
Rove Agency
By JOSHUA FRANK

So it looks as if Karl Rove actually did it. President Bush's top strategist purportedly leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the press in an attempt to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had criticized the Bush Administration's faulty claim that Saddam Hussein was going nuclear.

The latest revelation that Karl Rove served as Matt Cooper's inside guy thrills many liberals in Washington. Senator John Kerry and Hilary Clinton, along with several other top Democrats, have all called on Bush to fire Rove for threatening our national security by outing a CIA operative. David Corn declared in The Nation that Rove acted "in a reckless and cavalier fashion, ignoring national security interests to score a political point against a policy foe." The White House press corps is also up in arms over Press Secretary Scott McClellan's blatant lies, as he assures them repeatedly that the leak did not originate within the White House.

It's all a bunch of liberal hoopla, however. Despite Rove's political motivations for leaking Plame to the press, we shouldn't be so quick to dub him a traitor, or even call for his firing over the leak. Sure Rove should be hauled off to the pen for helping propagate Bush's illegal war on Iraq -- but he should also be commended for outing an undercover CIA agent, no matter how inadvertent his good deed may have been.

That's right. I don't share the liberals' admiration for the Central Intelligence Agency. But I think it is important to note the broader context of the alleged Rove leak. Unlike most mindless punditry's take on the matter, Rove's move was not just a personal tit-for-tat aimed at Joseph Wilson, but part of a larger White House effort to counter increasing CIA rumblings about the short sightedness of Bush's Iraq endeavor. Thus some might say that Plame should not have been leaked to the press. But the fact is the CIA, besides its potential "good deeds," has for far too long served as the front for US supremacy across the globe, as well as at home.

The numerous actions the CIA has taken since 1945 have been guilty, either directly or indirectly, of helping remove dozens of governments from power - many of which were democratically elected.

According to William Blum, author of "Rogue State": "From 1945 to the end of the [20th] century, the USA attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the USA caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."

The CIA of course, played an integral role in all of these bloody coups. In 1949 the CIA successfully helped to change the government in Syria, as well as in Greece that same year. They did the same in Cuba in 1952 and Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, South Vietnam in 1955, Haiti in 1957, Laos in 1958, South Korea and Ecuador in 1960, the Dominican Republic and Honduras in 1963, Brazil and Bolivia in 1964, Zaire in 1965, Ghana in 1966, Cambodia in 1970, El Salvador in 1972, Chile in 1973, South Korea in 1979, Liberia in 1980, Chad in 1982, Grenada in 1983, Fiji in 1987,

Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2004. And this only represents a list of "successful" US interventions. Many others have failed. Let us not overlook what the CIA has done here in the United States under the guise of "national security."

As the late journalist Gary Webb exposed in the mid-1990s, right-wing drug dealers in Latin America helped finance a CIA-backed covert war in Nicaragua by selling loads of cocaine to street gangs in Los Angeles, who then turned the pale powder into crack and distributed it throughout poor black neighborhoods nationwide.

But the CIA's narcotics dealings didn't begin in the 1990s - the CIA's drug propagation dates back at least to 1947 in Afghanistan, as Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair explain in their seminal book, "Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press."

Back in the 1960s the CIA, along with the FBI, routinely used "mail covers" (the recording of names and addresses) and electronic surveillance in order to spy on activists in the anti-war and civil rights movements. The CIA alone admitted to photographing the outside of 2.7 million pieces of mail during those years, as well as opening more than 214,000.

Right now, as Professor David Price recently exposed in CounterPunch, the CIA places covert agents in American university classrooms to spy on students and faculty. And this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the CIA's invasive and violent history in the US.

So you'll have to excuse me if I think Karl Rove did us all a favor by outing Valerie Plame. We can only hope more Beltway insiders follow his lead.

Joshua Frank is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at www.brickburner.org. Joshua can be reached at Joshua@brickburner.org.

Go on the offensive against terror:

Create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9503.htm

http://snipurl.com/gc35



In case you missed it:

American Terror : -

More than two years ago, we wrote here of a secret Pentagon plan to foment terrorism by sending covert agents to infiltrate terrorist groups and goad them into action -- in other words, committing acts of murder and destruction.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7786.htm

http://snipurl.com/gc37

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163083,00.html

Bush Intel Briefings Get Revamped

http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2005...teAndHouse.html


CIA Agents Letter to US Senate and House
18 July 2005

AN OPEN STATEMENT TO THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE.

The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Dr. William Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate

The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority Leader of the Senate


We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.

The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this "talking point":

Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."

Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."

Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."

House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."

These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.

While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation’s security.

We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation’s leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.

Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government’s protection of their covert status.

For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.

Sincerely yours,



_____________________________________

Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA


JOINED BY:

Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA

Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA

Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA

Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA

Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA

Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA

Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA

Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/20/cia.leak.ap/

Ex-officers: CIA leak may have harmed US



WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eleven former intelligence officers say the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity may have damaged national security and the government's ability to gather intelligence.

The former officers made their views known in a three-page statement to congressional leaders.

They said the Republican National Committee has circulated suggestions for officials to deal with the Plame case by focusing on the idea that Plame was not working undercover and legally merited no protection.

Thousands of U.S. intelligence officers work at desks in the Washington area every day whose identities are shielded, as Plame's was when her identity was leaked by Bush administration officials, the 11 former officers said.

The former officers' statement comes amid revelations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was involved in leaking Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, also was a source for Cooper on the Plame story.

The Plame leaks followed public criticism of President Bush's White House by Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson.

Wilson, a former ambassador and career diplomat, suggested administration officials had manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq.

A criminal investigation into the leaks is under way.

"Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the 11 said. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Ex-Intel Officers Speak on Plame's Behalf

WASHINGTON -- Eleven former intelligence officers are speaking up on behalf of CIA officer Valerie Plame, saying leaking her identity may have damaged national security and threatens the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=6723

The Spies Who Came in From the Hot Tub
Tom Engelhardt


Tom Dispatch
Like so much else in our moment, it contravened laws the U.S. had once signed onto, pretzeled the English language, went directly to the darkside, was connected to various administration lies and manipulations that preceded the invasion of Iraq, and was based on taking the American taxpayer to the cleaners. I'm talking about a now-notorious Bush administration "extraordinary rendition" in Italy, the secret kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan in early 2003, his transport via U.S. airbases in Italy and Germany to Egypt, and there, evidently with the CIA station chief for Italy riding shotgun, directly into the hands of Egyptian torturers. This was but one of an unknown number of extraordinary-rendition operations – the estimate is more than 100 since Sept. 11, 2001, but no one really knows – that have taken place all over the world and have delivered terror suspects into the custody of Uzbeki, Syrian, Egyptian, and other hands notorious for their use of torture. It just so happens that this operation took place on the democratic soil of an ally that possessed an independent judiciary, and that the team of 19 or more participants, some speaking fluent Italian, passed through that country not like the undercover agents of our imagination, but, as former CIA clandestine officer Melissa Boyle Mahle told Reuters, "like elephants stampeding through Milan. They left huge footprints."

Those gargantuan footprints – and some good detective work by the Italian police based on unsecured cell phones (evidently from a batch issued to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Rome), hotel bills, credit card receipts, and the like – have given us a glimpse into the unexpectedly extravagant "shadow war" being conducted on our behalf by the Bush administration through the Central Intelligence Agency. So let me skip the normal discussions of kidnappings, torture, or whether we violated Italian sovereignty, and just concentrate on what those footprints revealed. If the president's Global War on Terror has been saddled with the inelegant acronym GWOT, the Italian rendition operation should perhaps be given the acronym LDVWOT, or La Dolce Vita War on Terror.

Of course, if Vice President Dick Cheney could say of administration tax cuts, "We won the [2002] midterms. This is our due"; if House Majority Leader Tom DeLay could charge his airfare to Great Britain to an American Express card issued to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and food and phone calls at a Scottish golf-course hotel to a credit card issued to Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham; if Halliburton could slip a reputed $813 million extra in "costs" into a contract to provide logistical support for U.S. troops (including "$152,000 in 'movie library costs' [and] a $1.5 million tailoring bill"); then why shouldn't the Spartan warriors of the intelligence community capture a few taxpayer bucks while preparing a kidnapping in Italy?

Here's what we know at present about this particular version of La Dolce Vita:

The CIA agents took rooms in Milan's five-star hotels, including the Principe di Savoia, "one of the world's most luxuriously appointed hotels" where they rang up $42,000 in expenses; the Westin Palace, the Milan Hilton, and the Star Hotel Rosa as well as similar places in the seaside resort of La Spezia and in Florence, running up cumulative hotel bills of $144,984.
They ate in the equivalent of five-star restaurants in Milan and elsewhere, evidently fancying themselves gourmet undercover agents.
As a mixed team – at least six women took part in the operation – men and women on at least two occasions took double rooms together in these hotels. (There is no indication that any of them were married – to each other, at least.)
After the successful kidnapping was done and the cleric dispatched to sunny Egypt, they evidently decided they deserved a respite from their exertions; so several of them left for a vacation in Venice, while four others headed for the Mediterranean coast north of Tuscany, all on the taxpayer dole.
They charged up to $500 a day apiece, according to Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post, to "Diners Club accounts created to match their recently forged identities"; wielded Visa cards (assumedly similarly linked to their fake identities); and made sure they got or used frequent flier miles. (The Diner's Club, when queried by TomDispatch, refused to comment on any aspect of the case.) Our master spies "rarely paid in cash," adds Whitlock, "gave their frequent traveler account numbers to desk clerks and made dozens of calls from unsecure phones in their rooms."
To move their captive in comfort – for them – they summoned up not some grimy cargo plane but a Learjet to take him to Germany and a Gulfstream V to transport him to Egypt, the sorts of spiffy private jets normally used by CEOs and movie stars.
You would think that our representatives in Congress, reading about this in their local newspapers, might raise the odd question about the rich-and-famous life-styles of our secret agents. So far, however, despite the well-reported use of taxpayer dollars to fund trysts, vacations, and the good life, nary a peep on the subject has come from Congress; nor has anyone yet called for the money to be returned to the American people.

Now, because a Milan prosecutor had the temerity to issue arrest warrants for 13 of our high-flying spies and to seek warrants for another six of them – the great majority are now officially "on the run" and assumedly have been pulled out of Europe by the Agency. The CIA station chief who headed the operation had even bought a retirement house near Turin. "That he thought he could live out his golden years in Italy," reports Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times, "is another indication of the impunity with which he and the others felt they were operating, Italian prosecutors say."

A small tip for Interpol investigators: If any of these agents are still at large in Europe, I wouldn't be checking out obscure safe-houses. The places to search are top-of-the-line hotels, Michelin-recommended restaurants, and elite vacation spots across the continent.

When evaluating the CIA's actions in Italy, you might consider the Agency's mission statement as laid out at its Web site: "Our success depends on our ability to act with total discretion. … Our mission requires complete personal integrity. … We accomplish things others cannot, often at great risk. … We stand by one another and behind one another." Or you might simply adapt an ad line from one of the few credit cards the team in Milan seems not to have used: The nightly cost of a room in Milan's Hotel Principe di Savoia, $450; the cost of a Coke from a mini-bar in one of its rooms, $10; the cost of leasing GulfstreamV for a month, $229,639; that feeling of taking the American taxpayer for a ride, priceless.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War.

[Special thanks go to Nick Turse for his typically invaluable research aid.]

Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt

Italy seeks 6 more arrests in CIA case CNN International
An Italian court issued six new arrest warrants Monday for suspected CIA agents alleged to have kidnapped an Egyptian-born radical Muslim cleric in Milan. Italian prosecutors allege the cleric was spirited to Egypt for interrogation and torture. Milan Judge Chiara Nobile in June issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents, all accused of kidnapping Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, in February 2003, a source close to the investigation said. All 19 are now considered fugitives in Italy. At the time of the alleged kidnapping, the Milan prosecutors were investigating the imam for his suspected links to terrorism. The deputy district attorney of Milan and lead investigator, Armando Spataro, in a June statement called Nasr's alleged seizure "a totally illegal act that violates gravely Italy's sovereignty." "It is also a damaging and counterproductive act against the efficiency of the fight against terrorism," Spataro said. "If the kidnapping of the person in question had not been carried out, Nasr ... would now be detained and subject to Italian justice," he said. "More importantly, the ongoing investigations had revealed important information which could have led to other suspects and arrests. "The Italian investigation was a major breakthrough into a terrorist network in Milan which also operated overseas," he said. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi summoned U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler for an explanation, but no details of their meeting were released. Last month, the Italian government vigorously denied allegations that it authorized the CIA to carry out the alleged kidnapping. In an Italian newspaper interview earlier this month, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said Italy's SISMI military secret service approved the operation. (Full story) CIA sources, who were not identified, told CNN that the agency briefed and sought approval from its Italian counterpart for the abduction. The sources, speaking days before Scheuer's interview appeared July 4 in the Italian daily La Repubblica, said those actions were routine in such cases, known as "renditions" -- transfers of subjects from one country to another. A former U.S. official, who also was not identified, said in March that the CIA uses the rendition process only with strict government oversight. A White House spokesman at the time denied the United States used the practice to "export torture." (Full story) Responding to Scheuer's comments in La Repubblica, the prime minister's office said the analysts' allegations, "beyond being false, are also absolutely incompatible with the contents of the conversation between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and U.S. Ambassador to Rome Mel Sembler." An Italian government statement said that "neither the government, nor diplomatic corps, nor the director of SISMI nor the information and security apparatus ever received any sort of advisement from United States authorities." The row over the alleged operation comes only months after Italian agent Nicola Calipari was shot dead by U.S. troops at a checkpoint as he escorted a freed Italian hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport in March. (Full story)
Italy issues fresh CIA warrants BBC News
Italy seeks 6 more arrests in CIA kidnap case Reuters
Special Broadcasting Service - Guardian Unlimited - Forbes - Los Angeles Times - all 87 related »

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/business...VPTw&oref=login

What's Offline
Why the C.I.A. Wants M.B.A.'s

By PAUL B. BROWN
Published: July 23, 2005
THE plush end of the hotel market is about to become even more luxurious.

Two industry executives who helped define the high-end market - Horst H. Schulze, formerly president and chief operating officer of Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and Robert H. Burns, founder of the luxury brand Regent International, which began in Hong Kong - are planning new upscale offerings.

As described in this month's Hotels, "the magazine of the worldwide hotel industry," Mr. Schulze plans two different, but as yet unnamed brands.

"The first will be positioned somewhere between a Ritz-Carlton and a Westin," he explains in the article. "Not as fancy as a Four Seasons - less marble and silk - but with the service reliability of a 5-star brand."

The second "will focus on the luxury traveler looking for the experience of a deluxe independent hotel, but with the reliability and consistency of a brand."

Mr. Burns will be concentrating on China, Vietnam and Thailand, creating smaller hotels than the grand ones that are now there. Guests will be pampered.

"Everything you put in your hand will be luxurious," he said. "You can't just get away with charm anymore. You have to have the best - the best plumbing, the best furniture, the best sheets and superior service."

WHAT, ME WORRY? People over 45 freely report that they are worried about making ends meet and not having enough cash to cover an emergency. So what's their No. 1 financial priority? Saving for a nice vacation, according to a survey conducted by AARP, which reports the findings in the July-August issue of its magazine.

"The older population is a study in contradictions," says Sislena Grocer Ledbetter, AARP senior research adviser. "Even with all these bills staring them in the face, the majority of them (63%) say their first priority is to save for a vacation."

"After that, they plan to sock away money to pay off medical bills (61%), save for retirement (57%) and pay off credit cards and loans (45%)."

FEELING WANTED Crooked chief executives and increased terrorist threats are proving to be a boon to newly minted finance professionals, CFO magazine reports this month.

"The U.S. government will hire as many as 13,000 professionals for business-related functions in the next two years," according to the article by Kate O'Sullivan.

Many will be hired by the Internal Revenue Service, but "other agencies, like the F.B.I. and the Securities and Exchange Commission are actively recruiting finance types, throwing themselves head-on into competition with private-sector employers, such as consulting firms," Ms. O'Sullivan writes.

Even the Central Intelligence Agency has shown interest. "The discipline in terms of being able to problem-solve and make quick, sound decisions based on little information takes a kind of mental agility that many M.B.A. holders have," says Harold Tate, chief of the C.I.A.'s recruitment center.

But it's the agency's mission and not the paycheck that is the lure. Despite the increased demand, there are no plans to raise the pay and benefits to match those offered by the private sector. "They're not coming here to earn a bunch of money," Mr. Tate said. "They know that."

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrat...05/07_26/ba.asp

Bush orders FBI to launch National Security Service for domestic intelligence

BACKGROUNDER: Compiled by Bill Gertz


Bush orders FBI to launch National Security Service for domestic intelligence

The FBI has been ordered to create a new domestic intelligence branch to better deal with terrorists and foreign spies.


FBI Director Robert Mueller, left, CIA Director Porter Goss, center, and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, right., listen as President Bush delivers his remarks on the war on terrorism during a visit to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., on July 11. AP Photo/Susan Walsh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Bush announced last week the creation of a new National Security Service within the FBI.
The new NSS will "more completely integrate the bureau's work with the intelligence community," Bush said during a speech.

"The purpose of this change is to strengthen the FBI so it not only investigates terrorist crimes after they happen, but the FBI can be more capable to stop the terrorist acts before they happen," Bush said.

In the past the FBI has resisted efforts at reforms aimed at strengthening its intelligence-gathering capabilities. An intelligence division was created under recent reform legislation, but it is limited to analyzing intelligence and has no authority to task FBI agents or other U.S. intelligence collectors to gather information.

Many FBI agents oppose dedicated intelligence work because they view it as contrary to the bureau's law enforcement mission. The new service will require increased training for intelligence work and a dedicated cadre of counterintelligence and security agents.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Myers rejects China-led group's call for U.S. pullout from Central Asia

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has rejected calls from a Beijing-backed organization for the United States to set a timetable for the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.
"Central Asia is important to the United States for lots of reasons, not just for operations in Afghanistan," Myers told reporters last week. "It's important to us for lots of reasons. Security and stability in Central Asia is an important concept, and those that can bring security and stability ought to be welcome in Central Asia."

Myers said the United States has "no territorial design" on Central Asia.

"Part of why we're there is, yes, we need some of the support for Afghanistan," he said.

Myers said a recent statement from the Shanghai Communiqué Organization calling for a U.S. deadline on troop withdrawal was not "particularly useful." The organization is led by China and includes Russia and representatives of Central Asian nations.

"It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries. That's how I view it," he said.

China opposes the U.S. stationing of forces in states near its western border, fearing the bases could be used in a future conflict to conduct operations against China.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rumsfeld calls moderate Muslims key to winning ideological war against terror

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that he does not know if new terrorists are being created to replace those being capture or killed in the global war on terrorism.
"No one knows. We know that there are elements to the global war on terror, against the battle — the struggle that's taking place within that religion by extremists versus the moderates."

Moderate Muslims represent an overwhelming majority and extremists are a relatively small but lethal cadre.

The best strategy is offensive, he said, and requires going after terrorists by blocking safe havens where they plan, train and organize attacks on innocent men, women and children.

Also, efforts are needed to make sure that "there are not large numbers of people being brought in to the intake of this terrorist apparatus and network that exists in the world," he said.

"And that battle ultimately is going to be won by people within that religion, by the moderates overcoming the extremists," Rumsfeld said. "Anything that the rest of the world can do to encourage that and to support that — and to see that it succeeds over time — is important. But there's no way for anyone to know what is happening all across the globe among that extremist element that is financing, recruiting, training and then deploying murderers."

Violent Islamists are seeking to reestablish the Caliphate around the globe. "Their purpose is to destroy free people so that they can no longer function as free people and have to change their way of life dramatically, then they are a serious problem for the world. And they are a serious problem for the world," he said.

"I believe progress is being made, but I wouldn't think there's anyone who could answer the question," he said. "It continues to be a question that I think about and worry about."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


U.S. to seek sanctions on Hizbullah

The U.S. government recently drew up a proposal for the UN Security Council to impose an international arms embargo on the terrorist group Hizbullah.
The goal of the embargo will be to prevent arms from reaching Hizbullah terrorists operating in Lebanon.

London's Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al Awsat, quoting French government sources in Paris, said the proposal has been conveyed to U.s. allies, including Britain and France.

The goal would be to disarm Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is moving toward democracy.

Iran is Hizbullah's main arms supplier, along with Syria, which has provided key logistic support for the arms to the Shi'ite terrorist group, which has been blamed for numerous bombings and attacks in the Middle East and around the world.

The report said the French group agreed with disarming Hizbullah but opposed an embargo as inappropriate at the present time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Polish link to London bombings

Polish authorities are investigating a British national of Pakistani origin who lives in Lublin, Poland for possible connections to the July 7 London terrorist bombings.
A spokeswoman for the Internal Security Agency, known as ABW, told the official Polish news agency that the suspect was an active member of an organized crime group. No charges were filed against the man.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Russia alerts jet fighters against intruding jetliner

Russian jet fighter interceptors and surface-to-air missiles were put on alert last week in response to the intrusion into Russian airspace by a Vietnamese civilian jetliner.
The Boeing 767 violated Russian airspace early July 12, a military spokesman told Interfax.

"The 5th air army and air defense units immediately spotted the plane. Its flight was qualified as a violation of flight regulations. Two fighters, three missile units and other forces were prepared for use in the Urals and Moscow air defense zones," Russian Air Force Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov said.

The jet, owned by a Vietnamese transport service, was enroute from Hanoi to Russia. Its flight plan was not filed with Russian air traffic control..


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Syrian agents arrested in Iraq

Two Syrian government agents were arrested in Iraq recently and revealed they had dispatched 1,000 terrorists into northern Iraq.
The Irbil newspaper Jamawar reported July 11 that the two men, a former colonel and a former lieutenant colonel, were arrested July 7 near Kask. Both had worked for Syria's Mukhabarat spy service.

The two men had organized the dispatch of terrorists from the Syrian city of Halab to Iraq, particularly Mosul. The terrorists were sent to counter the Iraqi security forces' Lightning operations, which focused on rooting out insurgents in northern Iraq.

Most of the terrorists sent from Syria are Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese nationals.

Ex-CIA Officer Suing Over Bin Laden Book By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 28, 1:29 PM ET



WASHINGTON - The CIA is squelching publication of a new book detailing events leading up to Osama bin Laden's escape from his Tora Bora mountain stronghold during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, says a former CIA officer who led much of the fighting.

In a story he says he resigned from the agency to tell, Gary Berntsen recounts the attacks he coordinated at the peak of the fighting in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001, including how U.S. commanders knew bin Laden was in the rugged mountains near the Pakistani border and the al-Qaida leader's much-discussed getaway.

Berntsen claims in a federal court lawsuit that the CIA is over-classifying his manuscript and has repeatedly missed deadlines written into its own regulations to review his book. His attorney, Roy Krieger, said he delivered papers to the U.S. District Court in Washington after hours Wednesday.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigiliano said Bernsten's manuscript is subject to the same pre-publication review as that of all former employees.

"There, the guideline is that it contain no classified information," he said. "In this case, the process is moving forward."

During the 2004 election, President Bush and other senior administration officials repeatedly said that commanders did not know whether bin Laden was at Tora Bora when U.S. and allied Afghan forces attacked there in 2001.

They rejected allegations by Sen. John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee, that the United States had missed an opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden because they had "outsourced" the fighting to Afghan warlords.

"When I watched the presidential debates, it was clear to me ... the debate and discussions on Tora Bora were — from both sides — completely incorrect," said Berntsen, who won't provide details until the agency finishes declassifying his book. "It did not represent the reality of what happened on the ground."

A Republican and avid Bush supporter, Berntsen, 48, retired in June and hasn't spoken publicly before.

His book chronicles chapters of his 23 years with the agency. Berntsen spent most of his career as a case officer in the Middle East, serving as the top U.S. intelligence official in three countries.

It covers his role handling the agency's response to al-Qaida's 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. And the book continues through late 2001 when he was assigned to command a CIA team inserted into Afghanistan, code-named "Jawbreaker" — the title of his book, tentatively due out in October.

Berntsen said the story highlights the actions of four brave Muslim American men who went with him.

It's also about decision-making: "Who stepped up, who didn't in all of this," said Berntsen, the recipient of two of the CIA's three highest medals, one for preventing Islamic extremists from assassinating the Indian prime minister in 1996.

He said he felt compelled to write his story. But he also acknowledges he retired two years early because he ruffled senior management feathers. It was clear he wouldn't get further promotions.

Krieger said his client's First Amendment rights are being violated. He's also suing under the Administrative Procedures Act, arguing that the agency has taken more than twice the 30 days allowed by regulation to review the 330-page book.

Berntsen's book is one of a handful written recently by former CIA officers who have wrestled with the agency over what could be published.

An agency official said the regulations state the goal in general is to complete prepublication review within 30 days. For longer or more complex manuscripts, that review may take longer, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the litigation is pending.

Senator Questions Bolton Role in CIA Leak Probe
Thursday, July 28, 2005

WASHINGTON — Two of Washington's most contentious political issues of late have collided — the nomination of John Bolton (search) to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative's name to the press.

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden (search) of Delaware, who opposes Bolton's nomination, faxed a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (search) on Wednesday asking if it was true that Bolton was called to testify to the grand jury about who leaked the name of Valerie Plame (search) to reporters. If Bolton did testify, some Democrats say, he should have amended his response to a questionnaire filled out for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The latest request comes after months of protests from Senate Democrats on Bolton being confirmed and delays in holding a vote on his nomination to the United Nations. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on Thursday said that chamber will revisit the Bolton nomination after Congress' August recess.

Earlier this week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted that the president may grant Bolton a recess appointment in August, while sources told FOX News on Thursday that the recess appointment could come as early as next week. Such a move would mean Bolton could serve until January 2007, the end of the current Congress.

In his letter, Biden said: "I write to request that you or the nominee inform the committee whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter, and if so, when that occurred," wrote Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who led the Democratic filibuster last month against the nominee.

But a State Department official said Bolton does not need to change his response.

"Mr. Bolton, as part of the nomination process, supplied an answer to the question that asked whether or not a nominee as been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative, including an inspector general congressional or grand jury investigation, within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Thursday.

"Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say 'no.' And that answer is truthful then and it remains the case now."

Before he was nominated, Bolton served as the State Department's undersecretary for arms control and international security since 2001. His official title is senior adviser to the secretary of state. Democrats argue Bolton is ill-mannered and hot-tempered, making him unsuitable for the top U.S. diplomatic post at the international body.

Democrats have also insisted that they want to see early drafts of Bolton's House testimony on Syria delivered two years ago, as well as the names of 36 individuals listed in National Security Agency intercepts that Bolton had requested and been permitted to view.

"I think it's a fishing expedition -- it looks to me it's not a red flag that's being raised, it's a red herring," former GOP Rep. George Nethercutt of Washington told FOX News about Biden seeking a potential Bolton-CIA leak connection.

Nethercutt said it's just another way Democrats are trying to stall Bolton's nomination.

"I think at some point, the president has to be able to have his nominees in placed in positions like the United Nations ambassadorship," he added. "I think it's very important we have someone on duty at this huge bureaucracy that is the United Nations. I think Mr. Bolton is that strong representative … let's give him a chance."

But former Texas gubernatorial candidate Gary Mauro, said erring on the side of caution is the best bet so far as the nominee is considered. Mauro rejected the notion that the issue is merely a delaying tactic on the part of Democrats.

"The fact is, a couple more weeks isn't going to matter at this point" so far as when a vote is held on the Bolton nomination, the Democrat told FOX News on Thursday. "It seems to me this is easy to answer: Did he or did he not go to the grand jury? If he didn't, Biden will look silly and we can move forward."

The Memo

At issue is a classified memo from June 2003 that said Plame worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. The document could be a flashpoint because of the controversy swirling over who in the White House, if anyone, leaked Plame's name, whether she was a covert agent at the time and whether this particular memo made it clear to Bush officials and others that her identity should be concealed.

California Rep. Jane Harman (search), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has asked the State Department for two different versions of the memo from its bureau of intelligence and research that discussed Plame, a congressional aide said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (search), D-Calif., told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the news report that caught Biden's attention to the matter suggested that the grand jury sought Bolton's cooperation in connection with the document.

Boxer said Biden sought clarification because Bolton had responded in March to a "boilerplate" committee questionnaire that asked if the nominee had been "interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), congressional, or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony."

Bolton swore in an affidavit that the questionnaire answers were all true. Boxer declined to state whether Bolton had responded "no" to that question, but said, "he indicated in his form that he had not [been interviewed or asked to supply information in such proceedings]."

Boxer also mentioned that former Bush adviser Karen Hughes recently filled out the same questionnaire for her nomination to a State Department post, in which she acknowledged testifying before the grand jury in the same case.

Attempt to clarify the matter on Monday failed, so Biden directly faxed a letter to Rice.

The State Department responded on Wednesday.

Boxer conceded it was possible that Bolton's answer was true when he gave it; he could have cooperated in the CIA leak case after he filled out the questionnaire in March. The Biden letter asked Rice if, and when, that cooperation occurred.

Boxer said she believes the special counsel had completed interviewing witnesses by March, and that even if Bolton's alleged cooperation came later, "ethics tells me you go and amend" the questionnaire.

The Background

The grand jury was convened in the fall of 2003 to discover whether anyone in the White House violated the law in leaking Plame's name to reporters. Plame, who was working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., was said to be under nonofficial cover at the time.

Plame's husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson (search), suggested his wife's identity was revealed in retaliation for his July 2003 editorial in The New York Times, in which he suggested the Bush administration manipulated intelligence reports to boost Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction threat.

Rove testified that he spoke with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame, though without identifying her by name. Rove said he was first told of her name by another reporter.

But the June 2003 classified memo in question was sent to the White House just days before a news report published Plame's name. That memo, written by then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, noted that "Valerie Wilson" worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. It also explained how Mrs. Wilson suggested her husband go on the fact-finding mission to Niger to see if Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium there.

Opponents suggest that Rove or someone else in the White House may have gotten Plame's name from the classified memo rather than from reporters, as Rove suggested.

More than two dozen Democratic senators (search) on Monday asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to investigate the leak of Plame's name, saying that her safety had been compromised.

"The United States Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch, whether a law has been broken or not," reads the letter authored by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Boxer is one of the signatories. "It is time for Congress to fulfill that constitutional responsibility in this matter by initiating a thorough investigation."

Bolton was nominated in March for the U.N. post but has twice failed to win the 60 Senate votes needed to end debate and move toward final confirmation.

FOX News' Sharon Kehnemui Liss, James Rosen and Teri Schultz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Top Spy's No. 2 Tells of Changes to Avoid Error

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 28 - John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, has imposed strict safeguards intended to ensure that the government's National Intelligence Estimates are based on credible information instead of the kinds of unsubstantiated claims that were the basis for prewar intelligence on Iraq, his top deputy said Thursday.

John D. Negroponte has imposed new intelligence safeguards, his deputy testified before Congress.


The deputy, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, made clear that the change should be seen as a response to the intelligence failures on Iraq, most notably the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 that asserted that the Iraqis had chemical and biological weapons and were rebuilding their nuclear program. Those assertions were proved wrong, and a presidential commission said in March that the fault lay in part with failures by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and others to validate the reliability of their sources and to share their doubts with others.

General Hayden, testifying before a House Intelligence subcommittee, said the change was intended to give new, critical scrutiny to both human and technical intelligence, including reports from agents, satellite photographs and intercepted communications. Among the focuses, he said, will be "who said what, why, and why do we think this is true?"

National Intelligence Estimates are periodic classified reports, prepared by the intelligence community for the president and other national leaders, that are intended to identify trends of significance to national security. General Hayden acknowledged Thursday that the new precautions were likely to result in estimates that proved much less definitive than in the past. But he said he and Mr. Negroponte would embrace "a higher tolerance for ambiguity" than had been accepted and would encourage analysts to be forthright about what they did not know.

General Hayden described the change as "a major breakthrough" that would significantly widen the circle of senior intelligence officials required to be given detailed knowledge about other agencies' sources. In the past, 15 spy chiefs who make up the National Intelligence Board and have final word on what the estimates say have been expected to endorse them with only limited knowledge about other agencies' sources.

Under Mr. Negroponte, General Hayden said, no National Intelligence Estimate will be approved until each agency whose sources are being used as a basis for the findings articulates to all others its "confidence in the source." One intelligence official said this precaution was adopted in early May. Other government officials said the standard had already been applied, to a recent highly classified intelligence report on Iran, producing findings that the officials described as infused with considerable uncertainty about the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

General Hayden's testimony to the subcommittee was the first given to Congress by a member of Mr. Negroponte's team since his office was established 90 days ago. The creation of that office was the most significant overhaul of the American intelligence apparatus in half a century, and General Hayden said he believed that it had left the agencies equipped to act with more agility and speed to combat terrorism and other national security threats.

The Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies had already imposed changes of their own in response to intelligence failures related to Iraq, with the C.I.A. requiring in particular that its Directorate of Operations share more information with intelligence analysts. And at a briefing this month, senior intelligence officials who report to Mr. Negroponte outlined other changes intended to promote more transparency about intelligence sources.

But the change described by General Hayden extends that approach to the National Intelligence Board, the high-level interagency group, whose reviews of intelligence estimates have not always been rigorous. For example, General Hayden acknowledged, as a member of that body in 2002 he voted in favor of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. But he based his judgment, he said, on detailed knowledge only about the communications intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency, which he then headed.

Under the old system, General Hayden said, he was neither expected nor permitted to learn more about the human sources from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and satellite photographs from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency on which many judgments were based.

The general was warmly received by the House panel, which included Representatives Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Intelligence Committee's chairman, and Jane Harman of California, its top Democrat. Both mentioned the recent terror attacks in London and in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and Ms. Harman asked General Hayden to reassure the panel that the intelligence reorganization had left the government better equipped than before Sept. 11, 2001, to avert a similar attack on the United States.

General Hayden said the terms of the law that created Mr. Negroponte's post would allow intelligence agencies to respond more swiftly and with more agility to threats than in the past, when there was a looser structure headed by the director of central intelligence.

"If we step up to that," he said, "we get more speed and more direct action."

Ms. Harman replied sharply, "You must step up to that!"

Addressing General Hayden later, she said: "The times are dangerous. The terrorists are here. Most of us believe that an attack could occur at any time."

"Keep us safe," she added.

Plame leak damaged a major CIA investigation linking senior Bush
administration officials to WMD proliferation. U.S. intelligence
insiders have pointed out that the White House is using "Rovegate" and
"Who in the White House said what to whom?" as a smoke screen to divert
attention away from the actual counter-proliferation work Mrs. Wilson
and her Brewster Jennings & Associates team were engaged in. The
arrival of Timothy Flanigan as Patrick J. Fitzgerald's boss is likely
related to the mountains of evidence Fitzgerald has now collected to
indict senior White House officials, particularly, Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, for criminal conspiracy in exposing a sensitive U.S.
intelligence operation that was targeting some of their closest
political and business associates. Libby, it will be recalled, was the
attorney for fugitive global smuggler and multi-bilionaire Marc Rich,
someone who has close ties to the Sharon government and Israeli
intelligence. It is no coincidence that FBI
translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds uncovered nuclear
material and narcotics trafficking involving Turkish intermediaries
with ties to Israel at the same time Brewster Jennings and the CIA's
Counter Proliferation Division was hot on the trail of nuclear
proliferators tied to the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon and the A.
Q. Khan network of Pakistan.



Feith and Libby: Ultimate targets of CIA counter-proliferation team?

An arrest in early 2004 points to the links between Israeli agents and
Islamist groups bent on producing weapons of mass destruction,
including nuclear weapons. According to intelligence sources, this was
a network that was a major focus of Edmonds' and Valerie Plame Wilson's
work. In January 2004, FBI and U.S. Customs agents arrested Asher
Karni, a Hungarian-born Orthodox Jew, Israeli citizen, and resident of
Cape Town, South Africa, at Denver International Airport for illegally
exporting 200 electrically triggered spark gaps -- devices that send
synchronized electrical pulses and are used in nuclear weapons -- to
Pakistan via a New Jersey export company named Giza Technologies of
Secaucus (owned by Zeki Bilmen -- whom the FBI has identified as a
Turkish Jew who was already under surveillance by the CIA team). The
cargo manifest listed the equipment as electronics gear [lithotripters
used to break up kidney stones] for the Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto,
South Africa. However, the initial shipment of 66 triggers did not go
to the hospital but to Karni?s Top-Cape Technology of Cape Town, South
Africa. Top Cape, in turn, sent the triggers to AJKMC Lithography Aid
Society in Islamabad, Pakistan through Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Top-Cape "officially" traded in military and aviation electronics
equipment. It was during the summer of 2003, when Valerie Plame and her
team -- at a critical stage of their investigation of the A. Q. Khan
network -- were outed by White House officials Karl Rove, Scooter
Libby, and at least one other individual (possibly Elliot Abrams), that
Karni received an e-mail from his long time Pakistani associate Humayun
Khan (no relation to A. Q. Khan) asking for 200 triggers to be sent to
his Islamabad-based company, Pakland PME.

After initially attempting to purchase the devices from a sale agent in
France -- an attempt that proved unsuccessful when the French agent
demanded a U.S. export license for the triggers because the end
destination was Pakistan -- Karni managed to obtain the triggers from
Perkin-Elmer's manufacturing plant in Massachusetts through Giza
Technologies. Karni's e-mail traffic to and from Khan was being
intercepted by a covert agent in South Africa and being forwarded to
U.S. authorities. It is not known whether the covert agent was a
Brewster Jennings' asset but it would not be surprising considering
Karni was an important link in the A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling
network. By the time the initital shipment of 66 triggers were sent to
Karni's Cape Town office, U.S. and South African intelligence were
already closely monitoring the transaction and the key players
involved. It is also noteworthy that Karni previously worked for a Cape
Town electronic import firm called Eagle Technology but was fired after
it was discovered by his boss that he was making secret deals to ship
nuclear components to Israel, India, Pakistan, and possibly, North
Korea. Karni had been in South Africa for 20 years after arriving from
Israel. His time in South Africa coincided with the apartheid
government's rapid development of its own (since disestablished)
nuclear weapons program and very close military ties between South
Africa and Israel.



A.Q. Khan link to Israeli smuggler: Designed to speed up Iranian
nuclear development to justify U.S./Israeli attack on Iran.

As for Humayun Khan, the Los Angeles Times discovered that the
Pakistani "businessman" had been involved in nuclear weapons smuggling
since 1975 when he was engaged in business with a former Nazi named
Alfred Hempel, who was the kingpin in a global nuclear smuggling
network active throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Hempel died in 1989. In
an interview aired by PBS's Frontline on July 26, Humayun Khan said he
never realized Karni was Jewish, stating that the Israeli masqueraded
as a Muslim. However, what is clear is that an Israeli-based network,
involving key neo-conservatives in the Bush adminstration, were
attempting to speed up the clock on the delivery by the A. Q. Khan
network of prohibited nuclear material to countries like Iran, thereby
justifying a pre-emptive U.S. (and Israeli-supported) attack on Iranian
nuclear installations. It was this network that attracted the attention
of the CIA and when it realized some of the "men behind the curtain"
were in the Pentagon, they had their smoking gun evidence of double
dealing by Bush administration officials and their compatriots in the
Sharon government.

Although AJKMC, the Pakistani company, said it merely printed copies of
the Koran, U.S. investigators pointed out the initials also stand for
the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, an Islamist opposition
party that supports groups allied to Al Qaeda in Kashmir. Some
anti-terrorism experts believe that Osama Bin laden may be hiding in
Kashmir.

According to FBI insiders, wiretaps of phone calls in the
Giza-Bilmen-Karni smuggling ring yielded the name Douglas Feith, the
Undersecretary of Defense for Plans and Policy and one of Donald
Rumsfeld?s chief advisers, and Turkish MIT intelligence members of the
Turkish American Council. A Malaysian link was also discovered in
Karni?s network.



Israeli nuclear arms smuggler Asher Karni: His links to Bush
administration and Israeli officials may have been the real reason
Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings & Associates operations were
exposed.

A Federal Judge in Denver said Karni could be released on $75,000 bail
but the government appealed the decision to Judge Thomas Hogan of the
U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. Hogan is the judge who ordered
New York Times reporter Judith Miller to prison for her failure to
testify before the Grand Jury. The federal prosecutors? appeal failed
and Karni was released on bail into the custody of Rabbi Herzel Kranz.
Karni was ordered to wear an electronic monitor and was ordered to
remain at the Hebrew Sheltering Home in Maryland.

July 26, 2005 -- CIA agents concerned about counter-intelligence "hits"
masked as terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of the outing by the
White House of the identities of covert CIA agents, CIA professionals
are concerned about past and future terrorist bombings being used by
foreign counter-intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations to
selectively assassinate CIA agents and assets identified as being
involved in America's counter-WMD proliferation operations. Of
particular concern are small scale terrorist attacks directed against
restaurants, cafes, hotels, and bars where agents and their assets
meet. They point to the July 23 bomb blast at an Istanbul cafe near the
Galata Bridge which is frequented by Turks and foreigners. The
relatively low yield blast injured two people, a Dutchman and a Turk.
Turkey remains a central focus by U.S. intelligence agencies on WMD
proliferation because of its close links to the former Soviet Central
Asian states, Pakistan, Israel, and former Warsaw Pact eastern European
nations. The Marriott Hotel in Jakarta was car bombed on August 5,
2003, just a few weeks after the White House leaked Valerie Plame's
name and her NOC firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, to several
reporters, including columnist Robert Novak. Some 14 people were killed
and 148 injured in the Marriott bombing. According to intelligence
sources, a covert team of CIA agents on a classified mission were due
to stay and meet at the hotel the day the bombing occurred but they
canceled their reservations at the last minute when they were tipped
off that they were targets for an attack. The CIA team was reportedly
involved in the capture in Thailand of Al Qaeda terrorist chief
Hambali, thought to have been involved, in addition to the Bali
nightclub and other bombings, in trying to procure radioactive material
(cesium-137 and cobalt-60) smuggled from the former Soviet Union via
Laos to Thailand. It is not known whether any Brewster Jennings NOCs or
assets were members of the CIA team that captured Hambali but the
terrorist's connections to an international network of radioactive
material smugglers would suggest CIA Counter Proliferation Division
(CPD) involvement at a minimum. Plame and her Brewster Jennings
colleagues reported to the CPD. The Jakarta bombing was blamed on Al
Qaeda's Indonesian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiya.

Spy's Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says:

The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9635.htm

http://snipurl.com/gn9s

Review Finds Iran Far From Nuclear Bomb

By Dafna Linzer

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

'I was living fiction' :

A former CIA agent talks to Stephen Moss about what makes a terrorist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1541372,00.html

http://snipurl.com/gp2j

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ry_050803192551

CIA trained Iraqi paramilitaries to create pre-war unrest
Wed Aug 3, 3:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Before the start of the US-led war in

Iraq in March 2003, the

CIA reportedly recruited and trained a paramilitary group named the Scorpions to foment rebellion.


Authorized by

President George W. Bush in March 2002 as part of a policy of "regime change" in Iraq, the Scorpions were made made up mostly of exiles recruited by the Kurds who were sent to Iraqi cities including Baghdad, Fallujah and Qaim to give the impression that a rebellion was under way, current and former US intelligence officials told The Washington Post.

Trained with millions of dollars to conduct light sabotage, the covert unit was even given former Soviet Hind helicopters, but most of its missions were delayed and it ended up merely "sowing confusion", by painting graffiti on walls or cutting electricity.

The speed of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, intelligence officials said, negated most of the Scorpions' missions.

So after the war, the CIA used the Scorpions to try to infiltrate the insurgency, to act as translators, to help out in interrogations and, from time to time, to do "the dirty work," one official said.

In one case, members of the Scorpions wearing masks and carrying clubs and pipes beat up an Iraqi general in the presence of CIA and US military personnel, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The CIA's control over the Scorpions weakened as chaos grew in Iraq, another intelligence official said.

"Even though they were set up by us, they weren't well supervised," said the official.

The Scorpion teams, who after the war wore civilian clothes and traveled in civilian vehicles, were mistaken for insurgents and attacked by US soldiers, the officials said.

Pentagon says it plans 'support role,' but critics worry new plan will encroach on domestic laws.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0804/dailyUpdate.html

Today's Top News Stories

• Mortgage rates continue to climb; 30-year avg. 5.82% - 3:02 PM
• Martha still tethered - 10:32 AM
• NATO can take over Afghan security in 2006 - 10:03 AM
• Jobless claims fall, a good sign for economy - 9:08 AM
• NYPD says London bombers used everyday components - 9:54 AM


• Add USATODAY.com RSS feeds







E-Mail Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free Daily Briefing e-newsletter and get the top news of the day in your inbox.

E-mail:
Select one: HTML Text


Breaking News E-Mail Alerts

• Get breaking news in your inbox as it happens






Former pro-Israel lobbyists charged with classified leaks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former employees of a pro-Israel lobbying organization were indicted Thursday on charges they conspired to obtain and disclose classified U.S. defense information over a five-year period.
An indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., names Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, the organization's former senior Iran analyst.

The five-count indictment also spells out in greater detail the government's case against Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, who already is facing charges he leaked classified military information to an Israeli official and the AIPAC employees.

Rosen and Weissman disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics that included terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda and U.S. policy in Iran, the indictment says. Among their contacts were foreign government officials and reporters, the indictment says.

Franklin's relationship with the men dates to 2003, the indictment said.

Plato Cacheris, Franklin's lawyer, said he had been expecting additional charges. He said Franklin cooperated with investigators for three months in 2004.

The FBI's long-running investigation has focused on whether Franklin, of Kearneysville, W.Va., passed classified U.S. material on Iran to AIPAC, the influential main Israeli lobbying organization in Washington, and whether that group in turn passed it on to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny any wrongdoing. Franklin has pleaded innocent.

AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April.

Paul McNulty, the U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, Va., planned a news conference Thursday afternoon to discuss developments in the case.

Rosen, quoted in The New Yorker magazine last month, denied knowingly receiving classified information. A spokesman for his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, declined comment Thursday. John Nassikas, Weissman's lawyer, did not immediately provide comment.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CIA at work in Iran?:

Iran sends in troops to crush border unrest :

The Iranian government has deployed large numbers of troops in cities in the northwestern region which borders Iraq in an effort to quell three weeks of civil unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more than 300 wounded, according to reports from "dissident groups."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1543031,00.html

http://snipurl.com/gr43

FBI boosts national security branch


By Richard B. Schmitt and Josh Meyer / Los Angeles Times


WASHINGTON -- The FBI shook up the management team of its intelligence arm late Friday, promoting a career veteran and hiring a top counter-terrorism specialist from the CIA to take charge of the fledgling operation.

The bureau announced that Gary Bald, a 28-year FBI veteran who is currently the top official overseeing counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, would become head of an expanded unit known as the National Security Branch, which would also include the FBI's existing intelligence directorate. An outsider, Philip Mudd, the deputy director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, was named to be Bald's deputy.

The moves are a response to recommendations adopted by the White House this summer that are included in the report of a presidential commission that identified gaps in the nation's intelligence apparatus. The commission -- headed by federal judge Lawrence Silberman and former Virginia Gov. Charles Robb -- was particularly critical of the FBI, saying the bureau needed to do more to integrate intelligence-gathering with operations in the field.

In a written statement, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said the new structure was "the next step in the evolution of the FBI's intelligence capabilities." He said Bald and Mudd were "uniquely qualified" to head it.

At the same time, the bureau announced the retirement of Maureen Baginski, a linguist and former National Security Agency analyst Mueller hired two years ago to head the intelligence unit. The bureau said Baginski would become a "senior advisor" to the Bureau, assuming unspecified duties. She was unavailable for comment, an FBI spokeswoman said..

Mudd is currently the No. 2 official in the CIA-headed Counterterrorism Center, which oversees the U.S. government's "all-source analysis" and clandestine operations on a wide range of subjects, including the threats posed by al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other global jihadist organizations and their potential use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

A veteran counter-terrorism analyst, Mudd is highly regarded for his breadth and depth of knowledge of terrorist groups and their support among radical fundamentalist and religious organizations. He has held leadership posts within the CIA and affiliated National Intelligence Council and the White House-directed National Security Council for the past 20 years. In particular, he is considered one of the government's top experts on South Asian militant groups.

Since 1992, he has helped lead its counter-terrorism analysis effort in the Middle East, with an emphasis on Iranian state-sponsored terrorism. Mudd also spent two years as chief of the CIA's analysis group directed against Iraq, according to an FBI statement issued Friday.

"This guy is one of the best in the business," one senior U.S. intelligence official said Friday. "Not only does he know the material -- the threat and who poses it -- but he has worked to counter it and has the ability to explain it to all manner of audiences in and outside government."

Bald is among the bureau's most-senior officials. As special agent in charge of its Baltimore division, he oversaw the Washington-area sniper investigation in the fall of 2002. Since last October, he has had overall responsibility for terrorism and counter-intelligence, the FBI's two highest priority investigative programs

Career Lawyer Gets Oversight of CIA Probe By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 13, 9:32 AM ET



WASHINGTON - David Margolis, a lawyer at the Justice Department for 40 years, was named Friday to oversee a special prosecutor's investigation of who in the Bush administration disclosed the name of an undercover CIA officer.

Margolis, whose title is associate deputy attorney general, is taking the place of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, whose last day of work was Friday. Comey will be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel.

Comey made the designation of Margolis. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has stepped aside from the probe because he was White House counsel when Valerie Plame's name was leaked in 2003 and he has testified to the grand jury investigating the unauthorized disclosure.

Comey gave broad discretion to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago when he was appointed to investigate the leak in December 2003. Margolis is not expected to alter Fitzgerald's mandate in what are likely to be the final months of his investigation. The grand jury ends its term in October.

No one has been charged in the Plame case. However, it's known that Karl Rove, a top aide to President Bush, and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, discussed Plame with reporters before her name was first published by columnist Robert Novak in July 2003.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to tell prosecutors to whom she talked about Plame.

The departure of Comey, who had been second in command at the Justice Department since 2003, leaves vacancies in two key posts. Christopher Wray resigned as head of the Criminal division in May.

President Bush has nominated Timothy E. Flanigan, once Gonzales' deputy in the White House, to take Comey's job. Alice Fisher has been nominated to lead the criminal division.

Neither has been confirmed. Flanigan faced tough questioning in his Senate confirmation hearing about his role in allowing aggressive interrogation techniques be used on detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq and his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., the Judiciary Committee chairman, indicated he might oppose Flanigan's confirmation because he didn't like his answers. A committee vote on Flanigan has not been scheduled, and the committee will begin hearings on John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court when Congress returns to work in September.

Fisher's nomination had been held up through July by at least two senators, one Republican, one Democrat. Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, was seeking to question an FBI agent about a delay in obtaining a wiretap in a terrorism financing investigation. Grassley lifted his objection after meeting with Gonzales.

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., also met with Gonzales, but he continues to hold up Fisher's nomination because he wants to talk directly to an agent who wrote an e-mail about allegedly abusive interrogations at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval facility.

"In my weekly meetings with DOJ we often discussed (Defense Department) techniques and how they were not effective or producing intel that was reliable," the agent wrote. In his next sentence, he said Fisher, then the No. 2 in the criminal division, was among department officials who attended all the meetings.

Fisher has said she did not recall taking part in such discussions and Justice officials have said the agent did not intend to say she had. But Gonzales has refused to let senators question the agent, saying it violates long-standing policy.

After failing to persuade Levin to let Fisher's nomination proceed, Gonzales went public with the dispute, saying the vacancy was especially inopportune following terror attacks in England and Egypt in July.

Comey's departure "makes it imperative that key national security officials, such as Ms. Fisher, be confirmed so that the department is able to adequately respond to whatever emergencies may arise," Gonzales said in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

___

Exclusive: CIA Commander: U.S. Let bin Laden Slip Away

Mazhar Ali Khan / AP
Cornered? Bin Laden was in Tora Bora, a new book says


Newsweek
Aug. 15, 2005 issue - During the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and John Kerry battled about whether Osama bin Laden had escaped from Tora Bora in the final days of the war in Afghanistan. Bush, Kerry charged, "didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down and kill" the leader of Al Qaeda. The president called his opponent's allegation "the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking." Bush asserted that U.S. commanders on the ground did not know if bin Laden was at the mountain hideaway along the Afghan border.

But in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001," Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. "Bin Laden was never within our grasp." Berntsen says Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was."

In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."

Berntsen's book gives, by contrast, a heroic portrayal of CIA activities at Tora Bora and in the war on terror. Ironically, he has sued the agency over what he calls unacceptable delays in approving his book—a standard process for ex-agency employees describing classified matters. "They're just holding the book," which is scheduled for October release, he says. "CIA officers, Special Forces and U.S. air power drove the Taliban out in 70 days. The CIA has taken roughly 80 days to clear my book." Jennifer Millerwise, a CIA spokeswoman, says Berntsen's "timeline is not accurate," adding that he submitted his book as an ex-employee only in mid-June. "We take seriously our goal of responding quickly."

—Michael Hirsh

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.