Counterintelligence News for the week of:

October 8-14, 2006

Swiss data protection official denounces disclosure of banking information
Switzerland's top Federal Data Protection and Information Hanspeter Thür said Friday that Swiss banks violated national secrecy laws when they failed to inform customers using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) international banking cooperative service that their personal data could be disclosed to third parties, including the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)….(Jurist, 14 Oct 06)

Swiss Official Says Banks Broke Law by Supplying Data to U.S.

….(New York Times, 14 Oct 06)

Secret intelligence unit at root of scandal in Brazil

In the last weeks of 1989, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was locked in a tightening race for Brazil's presidency when a bombshell fell on his campaign….(Mercury News, 13 Oct 06)

U.S. govt appeals court's NSA wiretapping decision

...The U.S. Justice Department, in documents filed with a federal court in Cincinnati, argued that President George W. Bush had acted within the law in authorizing the surveillance of domestic wiretaps of international telephone calls…(Reuters, 13 Oct 06)

Report: Agency loss of personal information widespread

The loss of personal data is a common occurrence across government, largely because of poor physical security and portable computers and disks that go missing, according to a new report from the House Government Reform Committee….(Gov Exec, 13 Oct 06)

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests

…The documents indicated that intelligence reports and tips about antiwar protests, including mundane details like the schedule for weekly planning meetings, were widely shared among analysts from the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security….(New York Times, 13 Oct 06)

The future of malware: Trojan horses

…The identity of the attackers is mostly unknown. Security experts have theories of multiple gangs in different parts of the world, but haven't been able to pinpoint them. The motivation of the attackers is also topic of dispute. From his analysis, Shipp believes the intent is to steal information. "In other words, corporate espionage,"…(CNet, 13 Oct 06)

Data protection commissioner slams banks

Swiss data protection law was violated in the Swift affair - in which international banking transaction details were revealed to the United States - says a top official. Hanspeter Thür, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner, stated on Friday that Swiss banks should have informed their customers of the move….(Swiss Info, 13 Oct 06)

Swiss banks broke law by passing banking data to CIA, data protection chief says

Swiss banks violated the law by passing banking information on to the U.S.' Central Intelligence Agency, the country's top data protection official said Friday….(AP, 13 Oct 06)

Germany Is Urged to Ban CIA Agents Accused of Kidnapping

…Munich state prosecutor August Stern sent the names and aliases of CIA operatives and contractors to the Federal Criminal Police Office, asking that the agents not be allowed to enter Germany for fear of committing more crimes. Stern has faced increasing pressure from German politicians to file arrest warrants against as many as 13 U.S. intelligence agents....(LA Times, 13 Oct 06)

CIA cautions recruits to be clandestine

…Michael J. Mau, regional recruiter for the Central Intelligence Agency, brought his team in to pitch the agency to students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, one of a number of business, government and nongovernment agencies that pass through the graduate school in search of talent. The CIA, Mau said, is particularly interested in recruiting people with language skills. Monterey Institute, where most students are dual language and other majors such as business, diplomacy and international studies, is a particularly target-rich environment….(Monterey Herald, 13 Oct 06)

Book outlines how spy exposed U.S. intelligence secrets to Cuba

Enemies: How America's Foes are Stealing Our Vital Secrets and How We Let it Happen, by Bill Getz

A senior Cuba analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency gave Havana detailed information on U.S. eavesdropping programs aimed at the Castro government, allowing Cuba to mount effective counterintelligence and deception operations for year, according to a new book on U.S. intelligence failures. Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes, who was born in Puerto Rico….(Mercury News, 13 Oct 06)

A distorted use of National Intelligence Estimate report

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military theorist, said, "Know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril." Knowing your enemy is always difficult, and knowing yourself is never as easy as it sounds….(Daily Press, 13 Oct 06)

Cold Warrior

Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War, by Robert L. Beisner

…Though Acheson served during the transition when America emerged as a world power and enjoyed a nuclear monopoly, the scale of government was as yet relatively small, and Washington was still a comparatively provincial city….(New York Times, 12 Oct 06)

Court says eavesdropping program can continue

The government can continue to use its warrantless domestic wiretap program pending the Justice Department's appeal of a federal judge's ruling outlawing the program, an Appeals Court in Cincinnati ruled on Wednesday. The ruling overturned District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision last week to deny a lengthy stay in the case, which is expected to end up with the Supreme Court....(Reuters, 12 Oct 06)

EU lawmakers to meet with intelligence leaders on CIA prisons issue

The commission of the European Parliament, which is to pay a visit between October 17 and 19 to make further verifications concerning the CIA secret detention facilities allegedly hosted by Romania, will have a series of talks with the recently appointed heads of the domestic intelligence services (SRI), Foreign Intelligence Agency (SIE), as well as with the former SRI and SIE chiefs and lawmakers in the defense committees….(Bucharest Daily, 12 Oct 06)

Russian Spies Exposed in Africa

…Experts believe that news accusations of espionage result from stiff competition for Nigerian oil. Russia’s Zarubezhneft and LUKOIL are eager to make a move into Western Africa, a region that the United States currently controls….(Kommersant, 12 Oct 06)

TSA Secrecy Rules Eased

...$34.8 billion homeland security spending bill signed by President Bush last week requires the department to release "security sensitive information" that is more than three years old and is not part of existing plans or certain categories, barring "a rational reason" cited by Secretary Michael Chertoff that it should remain secret….(Washington Post, 12 Oct 06)

TSA Secrecy Rules Eased

Republicans Call for Inquiry in Documents Case

… Mr. Berger admitted last year that he deliberately took classified documents out of the National Archives in 2003 and destroyed some of them….(AP, 12 Oct 06)

Intelligence failure cited in Korean crisis

Recent U.S. intelligence analyses of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs were flawed and the lack of clarity on the issue hampered U.S. diplomatic efforts to avert the underground blast detected Sunday, according to Bush administration officials….(Washington Times, 12 Oct 06)

Students Help Museum Collect Cold War History

Fairfax County students have launched a partnership with the organizers of the Cold War Museum and will conduct interviews for an oral history project to help preserve personal recollections of events such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis…(Washington Post, 12 Oct 06)

A FAR GREATER EVIL: THE ESPIONAGE AND SEDITION ACTS OF WORLD WAR I:

8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday; closes Nov. 24. National Archives and Records Administration

Six Held on Charges of Spying for Russia

…Court papers allege that the Nigerians colluded with Irishman James Nolan, Romanian Bogdan Dumitrescu and Israeli Eliav Hommossany to illegally obtain classified security documents and that they intended to pass them to the Russian Embassy in Nigeria…(LA Times, 12 Oct 06)

The Hungarian Revolution: Spy Games

…The Redskin operation was part of a larger spy program called Redwood that took advantage of relaxed restrictions on tourist and student visas, Hardy says. There is little declassified documentation from the agency about the specifics of Redwood, but other operations provide some clues. According to historian Charles Gati, another series of operations called RedSox/RedCap was similar to Redwood, though it focused on considerably more dangerous illegal boarder crossings….(US News & World Report, 11 Oct 06)

The Hungarian Revolution: North Korea Takes Its Cue

It is a strange quirk of history that the effects of the Hungarian revolt continue to be felt today not in Budapest but in North Korea. In a new paper, published by the Smithsonian's Cold War International History Project, historian James Person reveals how the events in Budapest in 1956 helped make North Korea the reclusive Stalinist state that it is today….(US News & World Report, 11 Oct 06)

Document: Clandestine Services History—The Hungarian Revolution and Planning for the Future

Coca-Cola trade secrets theft case set for trial

A federal court Tuesday set trial in November for three people charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from The Coca-Cola Co. and trying to sell the material to rival PepsiCo Inc. The jury trial before U.S. District Judge J. Owen Forrester will be called during a two-week period starting Nov. 13, according to a notice signed by a courtroom deputy clerk….(AP, 11 Oct 06)

Nigeria Charges 6 People With Spying

Nigeria on Tuesday charged six people, including men from Ireland, Israel and Romania, with illegally obtaining classified defense documents. Court papers allege the men worked with three Nigerian Defense Ministry officials to obtain information "related to a protected place.".….(AP, 11 Oct 06)

Lithuania expels Russian diplomat for spying

Lithuania has expelled a Russian diplomat for spying. However, Lithuanian officials say this incident is in no way related to the crisis in Georgian-Russian relations, which erupted after Georgia arrested four Russian officers for spying….(Messenger, 11 Oct 06)

Israeli arrested in Nigeria, FM claims not for spying

A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed Tuesday that an Israeli was among three foreigners detained in Nigeria this week, but he denied reports that the arrest had any connection to spying. The ministry spokesman said the alleged offense was "purely commercial" in nature and was "not political or anything related to espionage." …(Jerusalem Post, 11 Oct 06)

FBI Agents Still Lacking Arabic Skills

…The same challenge is facing the CIA and other agencies as the government competes with the private sector for a limited number of applicants with foreign-language proficiency, according to U.S. officials and experts....(Washington Post, 11 Oct 06)

Francis C. MacDonald CIA Officer

Francis C. MacDonald, 80, a Central Intelligence Agency officer, died from complications of emphysema Oct. 4… He worked for the CIA in Bolivia, Panama, Guatemala, Guyana and Mexico, as well as Washington. When he retired in 2003, he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal…..(Washington Post, 11 Oct 06)

U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren

… To date, Mr. (Nicholas) Negroponte, the brother of the United States intelligence director, John D. Negroponte, has reached tentative purchase agreements with Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria and Thailand, and has struck a manufacturing deal with Quanta Computer Inc., a Taiwanese computer maker…..(New York Times, 11 Oct 06)

Privacy groups rap DHS plan to limit access to clearance information

Privacy advocates have voiced strong opposition to the Homeland Security Department's proposal to scale back the amount of information that security clearance applicants can access about government investigations of their background…..(Gov Exec, 10 Oct 06)

F.B.I. Struggling to Reinvent Itself to Fight Terror

…Philip Mudd, who had just joined the bureau from the rival Central Intelligence Agency, was pitching a program called Domain Management, designed to get agents to move beyond chasing criminal cases and start gathering intelligence…..(New York Times, 10 Oct 06)

Russia’s Economic and Political Warfare Failing to subdue Georgia

Russia’s economic and psychological warfare against Georgia is intensifying in the wake of, and notwithstanding, the release of four Russian military intelligence officers who had been caught in Georgia. Arrested on September 27 and indicted for espionage and subversion, the four officers (a colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, and a major) were handed over to the OSCE in Tbilisi on October 2 for transfer to Russia….(Eurasia Daily 10 Oct 06)

Documents: CIA Warned of Plane Bomb Plot

An anti-Castro militant now in a Texas jail warned the CIA months before the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that fellow exiles were planning such an attack, according to a newly released U.S. government document. The document shows that Luis Posada Carriles _ who had worked for the CIA but was cut off by the agency earlier that year _ was secretly telling the CIA that his fellow far-right Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro's communist government were plotting to bring down a commercial jet. ….(AP, 10 Oct 06)

Two former UK officials facing April trial for Aljazeera 'bombing' memo leak
An April trial date has been set for former Cabinet Office spokesman David Keogh and former parliamentary researcher Leo O'Connor, accused of violating Section 3 of Britain's Official Secrets Act by leaking a secret memo in which President Bush was said to have told Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004 of a plan to bomb Arab broadcaster Aljazeera at the height of the US campaign against Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah…..(Jurist, 10 Oct 06)

Cover-up claim as judge rules Bush memo trial must be secret
The government was accused yesterday of covering up evidence about war crimes after it won a court ruling that the trial of two men charged with leaking details of a meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush must be held in private…(Guardian, 10 Oct 06)

How Pakistani scientist sold bomb secrets to North Korea

… The North Koreans had no trouble in finding willing assistants in the international community. In 1975, the young Pakistani scientist AQ Khan had returned home, after working at a uranium enrichment facility in the Netherlands, and was looking for customers….(Independent, 10 Oct 06)

Sinclair S. 'Sandy' Martel State Department Official

Sinclair S. "Sandy" Martel, 68, deputy assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, died of cardiopulmonary arrest Oct. 4…(Washington Post, 10 Oct 06)

BBC to launch TV channel for Iran

A Farsi language TV channel is to be launched by the BBC, targeting viewers in Iran with news and factual output.…(BBC, 10 Oct 06)

Bahrain king reassures Shiite clergy over polls

…The Council of Muslim Scholars had sought Sunday's meeting with the king following charges by a Briton, since expelled as an alleged spy, that a Sunni clique within the government was plotting to maintain the minority sect's domination of the archipelago, the Al-Wasat daily said….(Middle-East Online, 10 Oct 06)

Romania’s Intelligence Services To Hand In All Archives By Year end

All the files of Romania’s former communist secret police Securitate held by Romania’s intelligence services are to be delivered to the authority in charge of studying the archives, CNSAS, by yearend, as decided Tuesday at a meeting between President Traian Basescu, the heads of intelligence services and CNSAS members….(Media Fax, 10 Oct 06)

Emerging Technologies in U.S. A Ripe Target for Espionage

...Lan Lee and Yuefei Ge stand accused of stealing proprietary chip designs and software from their employer, NetLogic Microsystems of Mountain View, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in San Jose. Now investigators are asking the Department of Justice to charge Lee, an American citizen, and Ge, a Chinese national, with a more serious crime: economic espionage to benefit China…..(Government Technology, 9 Oct 06)

Ex-HP Chair Dunn says charges she led spying a lie

Former Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ.N) board member Thomas Perkins orchestrated a campaign to oust Patricia Dunn, the ex-chairman of the computer maker, in response to a probe she led to plug board-level leaks, Dunn told the news program "60 Minutes," in an episode aired on Sunday. The interview with Dunn followed her arraignment last week on felony charges for ordering a company investigation that led to spying on journalists and board members. Four former HP employees or contractors were also charged in spying scandal….(Reuters, 9 Oct 06)

Pentagon Analyst Gets 3 Months for Passing Out Secrets

...Judge Gerald Bruce Lee said the charges against Ronald Montaperto, were "very serious" but decided on the light sentence because of letters of support from military and intelligence officials. Montaperto handed over secret and top secret material during 60 meetings with Chinese officials….(Israel National News, 9 Oct 06)

Suing Over the CIA's Red Pen

…(Gary) Berntsen resigned, wrote his book and, as required, submitted "Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personnel Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander" to the CIA's Publications Review Board, which redacted about five pages of the 400-plus-page manuscript….(Washington Post, 9 Oct 06)

Pakistan's shadowy secret service

...Like many other military intelligence organizations, the shadowy ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) zealously guards its secrets and evidence against it is sketchy…..(BBC, 9 Oct 06)

German Tells Court CIA Kidnapped Him

A German citizen testified Monday in a Spanish court that he was kidnapped and tortured by U.S. intelligence agents in 2003, then flown by the CIA to Afghanistan where he was imprisoned and abused for five months….(AP, 9 Oct 06)

Lithuania expels Russian diplomat for suspected espionage

Lithuania expelled a senior Russian diplomat on Sunday for suspected spying, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported, quoting unnamed sources….(Xinhua, 9 Oct 06)

Secrets case hearing in private

A pre-trial hearing of the case of two men accused of leaking details between world leaders has been held in private at the Old Bailey. David Keogh and Leo O'Connor, both from Northampton, have been charged under the Official Secrets Act….(BBC, 9 Oct 06)

The American Way of Secrecy

…It has become a cliché to say that “everything changed” after 9/11, but for two great American intellectuals — the sociologist Edward Shils and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former New York senator — recent events would have represented the eternal return of the same….(New York Times, 8 Oct 06)