SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 80
July 17, 2006
Secrecy News Blog:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/** FORMER STATE OFFICIAL KEYSER REBUTS ESPIONAGE ALLEGATIONS
** CIA REPORT ON TERRORIST RECRUITMENT (2002)
** DOD DOCTRINE ON OPERATIONS SECURITY
** ODNI CASTS A WIDE NET TO HIRE STAFF
** ANDORRA RATIFIES NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY
FORMER STATE OFFICIAL KEYSER REBUTS ESPIONAGE ALLEGATIONS
Former State Department China expert Donald Keyser last week firmly
disputed allegations that he had engaged in espionage on behalf of
Taiwanese intelligence.
"Mr. Keyser denies that he was ever an agent of Taiwan's intelligence
agency," his attorneys said in a statement. They further denied that
he had failed to comply with the terms of his plea agreement, as the
government asserted earlier this month (Secrecy News, 07/14/06).
"Mr. Keyser disclosed no classified information to [Taiwanese
intelligence official] Ms. Cheng or her superior, Mr. Huang, and his
communications were all in furtherance of U.S. Government interests,
even if he was answering questions that Ms. Cheng asked him,"
according to a July 14 motion filed by the defense.
The defense argued in its latest pleading that the government was
improperly using the Classified Information Procedures Act to
withhold vital information from the defense.
The new defense motion features a supporting declaration by Kent
Harrington, a former CIA officer (and public affairs official), who
warned the court against relying on isolated, unanalyzed scraps of
foreign intelligence information such as Chinese government
communications to draw legal conclusions about the Keyser case.
"When we acquire the communications of any foreign government
agency..., there is a tendency to assume that the contents are
unvarnished facts, but experience tells us otherwise," Mr. Harrington
wrote.
"Such communications are just as prone as other forms of intelligence
to manipulation and can also contain false or exaggerated statements
designed to advance the career or the bureaucratic position of the
author," he wrote.
See the July 14, 2006 defense pleading in the Keyser case, with the
attached Harrington declaration, here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/keyser071406.pdfTime Magazine reported on Saturday that Mr. Keyser's wife, a CIA
officer detailed to the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence, was aware that Mr. Keyser had improperly stored
classified records at home and had also done so herself.
See "A Steamy Spy Scandal at the State Department," Time, July 15:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1214911,00.htmlThe government allegations cited in the Time story are grossly
misleading, Mr. Keyser emailed friends over the weekend. The Time
story, he said, "lacks only a nocturnal descent of alien spacecraft,
a documented Elvis sighting, and a cameo performance by Michael
Jackson to qualify for enshrinement in The National Enquirer hall of
fame."
See "Official at Center of Taiwanese Spying Probe Cries Foul" by Josh
Gerstein, New York Sun, July 17:
http://www.nysun.com/article/36134The Keyser case is before Judge T.S. Ellis, III, who also presides
over the controversial case of two former officials of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee who are accused of improperly
receiving and transmitting classified information. The trial in that
case, which had been set for August 7, has been postponed until a new
date which is to be set by the court on July 18.
CIA REPORT ON TERRORIST RECRUITMENT (2002)
A 2002 report prepared by the CIA Counterterrorist Center discusses
how terrorists recruit members in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay.
"Terrorists groups, including al-Qa'ida, use incarcerated members to
recruit and train new members, and in some cases run terrorist
organizations and manage or facilitate terrorist attacks."
The classified CIA report was previously published on the web site The
Smoking Gun (www.thesmokinggun.com).
See "Terrorists: Recruiting and Operating Behind Bars," CIA
Counterterrorism Center, August 20, 2002:
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/ctc082002.pdfThe last page of the document provides an extensive list of sources
which are numbered -- "but the numbers aren't keyed to the text,"
noticed former CIA analyst Allen Thomson.
He recalled being puzzled by this practice more than two decades ago,
and investigating the matter at the time.
"The list of sources wasn't kept for reasons of documenting the
reasoning that went into publications," Mr. Thomson explained. "It
was solely a security requirement so that, should somebody think that
information had been published at too low a level of classification,
the matter could be checked. Curiously, there was no master copy with
the sources keyed to the text to aid in such security checking, so I
suspect that checking was seldom done, if ever."
DOD DOCTRINE ON OPERATIONS SECURITY
"Operations security" (OPSEC) refers to the practice of identifying
and controlling information that could be exploited by a hostile
observer to discern intelligence about U.S. operations.
"OPSEC is a methodology that denies critical information to an
adversary," according to a new Defense Department publication on the
subject.
"Unlike security programs that seek to protect classified information,
OPSEC measures identify, control, and protect generally unclassified
evidence that is associated with sensitive operations and
activities."
See "Operations Security," Joint Publication 3-13.3, June 29, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3_13_3.pdfODNI CASTS A WIDE NET TO HIRE STAFF
Many U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the congressional
intelligence oversight committees hire their senior staff from a
predictable, somewhat in-grown pool of personnel, which frequently
includes those who have previously worked in the intelligence field
since they can be immediately cleared.
But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence seems to be
casting an unusually wide net as it seeks the best qualified staff it
can find in academia and the public interest sector.
Historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, a China specialist at Georgetown
University, became an Assistant Deputy Director of National
Intelligence for Analytic Integrity in January 2006, and was
appointed last month as the first ODNI "analytic ombudsman." (She
also previously served in the State Department.)
In her new capacity, Dr. Tucker will be "a fact finder, mediator, and
facilitator for intelligence analysts who desire to raise concerns
regarding timeliness, politicization and objectivity in intelligence
analysis without fear of reprisal," according to a June 16 ODNI news
release.
Even more remarkably, Timothy H. Edgar, a prominent critic of Bush
Administration national security policies with the American Civil
Liberties Union, has joined the ODNI staff.
"I have recently taken a job as deputy to Alex Joel, the Civil
Liberties Protection Officer in the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence," he wrote in an email message to former
colleagues last week.
"This was a position that Congress mandated in the Intelligence Reform
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and it reports directly to the
DNI."
"The new job is challenging and I am looking forward to continuing to
defend civil liberties within the government," Mr. Edgar wrote.
ANDORRA RATIFIES NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY
The tiny Western European nation of Andorra has become the latest
country to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
On July 12, it became the 134th country to do so, according to a news
release today from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization in
Vienna:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/07/ctbto071706.htmlOn the same day, Armenia became the 133rd country to ratify the
Treaty. The United States has not ratified it.
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691