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WASHINGTON — The CIA Inspector General’s Office has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of malfeasance at the spy agency in connection with a yet-to-be released Senate Intelligence Committee report into the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program, McClatchy has learned. The criminal referral may be related to what several knowledgeable people said was CIA monitoring of computers used by Senate aides to prepare the study. The monitoring may have violated an agreement between the committee and the agency. The development marks an unprecedented breakdown in relations between the CIA and its congressional overseers amid an extraordinary closed-door battle...

Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Iran’s Support for Terrorism Worldwide Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa 2172 House Rayburn Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Mar 4, 2014 10:00am

ORANGE PARK, FLA. — The death of a Navy commander found in a room at the Astoria Hotel on Feb. 12 was ruled a homicide, the Orange Park Police Department announced Wednesday. The Jacksonville Medical Examiner's Office made the ruling on Feb. 13 in the death of Cmdr. Alphonso Doss, 44, of Pensacola, according to the release from the OPPD. Doss' manner of death is not being released at this time while the OPPD and the Clay County Sheriff's Office investigate. Doss reported to Naval Education and Training Command in Nov. 2011, according to the Navy. While in Jacksonville, he...

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents. Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in...

TECHNOLOGY 7887 kHz, Your Home for Classic Cuban Espionage Radio The shortwave radio signals that the alleged Russian spies were using are still surprisingly effective. By Brett Sokol Posted Tuesday, July 6, 2010, at 1:53 PM ET The FBI documents that accompanied last week's arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies are alternately creepy—who knew the Tribeca Barnes & Noble was a hotbed of espionage?—and comical—turns out even foreign spies wanted to cash in on suburban New Jersey's real estate boom. With a nod to Boris and Natasha, the accused are also said to have used short-wave radio, a 1920s-era technology...

MONTREAL -- Passport Canada secretly supplied a new identity and passport to a Mossad agent living in Canada after the Israeli spy participated in the 2010 plot to kill a leader of terrorist group Hamas in a Dubai hotel, a Montreal businessman has alleged. Mysterious Canadian-Iranian businessman Arian Azarbar made the startling allegations in an exclusive interview with QMI Agency. Azarbar says he learned about the top secret operation during a relationship he had with Trina Kennedy, a senior national security investigator at Passport Canada. "The Canadian government has said we had nothing to do with this, but it is...

We’ve got a new nation-state espionage malware. "The Mask" was discovered by Kaspersky Labs: The primary targets are government institutions, diplomatic offices and embassies, energy, oil and gas companies, research organizations and activists. Victims of this targeted attack have been found in 31 countries around the world -- from the Middle East and Europe to Africa and the Americas. The main objective of the attackers is to gather sensitive data from the infected systems. These include office documents, but also various encryption keys, VPN configurations, SSH keys (serving as a means of identifying a user to an SSH server) and...

Abdel Hamid el-Rajoub, a Palestinian, became an informant for Israel while serving time in an Israeli prison. Palestinian informants play a key role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though both sides can be reluctant to speak about it. Rajoub, who now lives in Israel, says he is no longer an informant. Abdel Hamid el-Rajoub, a Palestinian, became an informant for Israel while serving time in an Israeli prison. Palestinian informants play a key role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though both sides can be reluctant to speak about it. Rajoub, who now lives in Israel, says he is no longer an informant....

The U.S. government has waived laws banning Chinese components being fitted in their Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT)-built F-35 fighter jets in order to keep the $392 billion program on track during 2012 and 2013, according to a report released by Reuters on Friday. According to the report, Pentagon documents showed that chief U.S. arms buyer Frank Kendall had allowed two F-35 suppliers, Northrup Grumman (NYSE:NOC) and Honeywell International (NYSE:HON) to use landing gears, magnets and other hardware supplied from China. Had the waivers not been issued, both companies would have violated federal law and the program could have been...

As more and more human rights of U.S. citizens are violated in the name of safety and security, the group Anonymous stands to fight at the side of Americans. Over the holiday weekend, they have even gone as far to announce a call to arms. The fact that many people are still unaware of the “hacker” group Anonymous is sign of censorship by today’s mainstream media. There is a clear need for groups such as Anonymous as the fact of this direct censorships shows just how clouded the media’s freedom of speech has become. anon5 (See also: Obama Secretly Signs...

Dennis drawn to North Korea by his Rodman: report Staff Reporter 2013-12-26 08:55 (GMT+8) Retired NBA great Dennis Rodman loves visiting North Korea not just to train local basketball players but to enjoy the sexual services laid on for him by his pal, the country's supreme leader Kim Jong-un, reports Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po. The Hall of Famer departed from North Korea on Monday after training local players for an exhibition game against former NBA veterans scheduled for Jan. 8, Kim's birthday. This was his third visit to the country in the past year. Known for his wild...

Eavesdropping is “unacceptable” among close allies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, ordering an official inquiry into reports that the United States had spied on Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu himself. It was the first response from Netanyahu after weekend revelations that US and British intelligence services intercepted emails in his office and that of his predecessor Ehud Olmert, and also spied on former defense minister Ehud Barak. “In the close ties between Israel and the United States, there are things that must not be done and that are not acceptable to us,” the prime minister said at a Likud faction...

Former CIA Director James Woolsey had harsh words Tuesday for anyone thinking about giving Edward Snowden amnesty, and argued the NSA leaker should be “hanged” if he’s ever tried and convicted of treason. Woolsey, along with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton, spoke Tuesday in Washington in an interview with Fox News. “I think giving him amnesty is idiotic,” Woolsey said. “He should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead."

The Obama Administration soon will be releasing its list of countries that support international terrorism. Currently on the list are: Iran, Sudan, Syria and Cuba. Cuba has been listed since 1982 but Reps. James P. McGovern, D-Mass., and Kathy Castor, D-Fl., propose to remove Cuba from the list. They argue that because Raúl Castro has taken control of the island from his brother Fidel, Cuba no longer poses a threat to the United States. An article appearing in Sunday’s [April 21] Washington Post presents a less benign appraisal of Cuba’s intentions. The author, Jim Popkin, focuses on the career of...

The European parliament is lining up Edward Snowden to give evidence by video link this month, in spite of resistance by British Conservatives, a Green MEP has announced. Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP, said parliamentarians wanted Snowden to appear before the assembly's committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE). Albrecht said it would represent a great success for the parliament's investigation into mass surveillance of EU citizens. He said: "Half a year after the first publications from his collection of numerous NSA documents, the truth of which has not so far been refuted, there are still...

EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmström Wednesday (27 November) faced accusations that she has been too soft in her response to the US spying program. The commissioner told deputies in the civil liberties committee that she had closed an inquiry into allegations the US intelligence agency was accessing people’s financial details from the Belgian-based Swift company. …

This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them... Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on...

Microsoft is moving toward a major new effort to encrypt its Internet traffic amid fears that the National Security Agency may have broken into its global communications links, said people familiar with the emerging plans. Suspicions at Microsoft, while building for several months, sharpened in October when it was reported that the NSA was intercepting traffic inside the private networks of Google and Yahoo, two industry rivals with similar global infrastructures, said people with direct knowledge of the company’s deliberations. They said top Microsoft executives are meeting this week to decide what encryption initiatives to deploy and how quickly.

British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud. . . . . (A lot of information in the article. Check out comments, too.) .........................................................................................................

US lawmakers will launch a “goodwill” mission to Europe next week to smooth ties frayed by spying revelations including allegedly on Chancellor Angela Merkel. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and two members of the House of Representatives will visit Berlin on Monday and Brussels Tuesday to address the transatlantic partnership as well as concerns about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance activities. …

Mavis Batey was a British student of 19, midway through her university course in German Romanticism, when she was recruited for a top-secret assignment during World War II.“This is going to be an interesting job, Mata Hari, seducing Prussian officers,� she recalled thinking years later. “But I don’t think either my legs or my German were good enough because they sent me to the Government Code and Cipher School.�In May 1940, Mrs. Batey — then the unmarried Mavis Lever — joined the team of code breakers at Bletchley Park, the British cryptography headquarters. Trained in the enemy’s language and endowed...

Human rights groups urged the U.N. General Assembly Thursday to approve a resolution to protect the right to privacy against unlawful surveillance in the digital age and criticized the U.S. and its key allies for trying to weaken it. Brazil and Germany, whose leaders have allegedly been targeted by U.S. eavesdropping, circulated a revised draft late Wednesday after intense negotiations. The rights organizations said Thursday the text was “relatively undamaged,” despite lobbying by the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which comprise the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing group. The key compromise dropped the contention that the domestic and international interception...

On Saturday, Nov. 16, the United States marks a milestone: the 80th anniversary of when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the Soviet Union and "normalized" U.S.-USSR relations. It is a day that should live in infamy. But it's a day that hardly anyone has ever heard of. I certainly hadn't before researching my book, "American Betrayal." As I studied the event, however, it became clear that it was on this day 80 years ago that what I call "American betrayal" began. It is the date on which the U.S. government institutionally learned to lie. After the Bolsheviks seized dictatorial powers...

Scotland Yard on Wednesday reversed a coroner's finding of foul play in the 2010 death of British spy Gareth Williams, concluding that an accident was likely responsible for the death of the code-breaker whose naked, decomposing body was found stuffed inside a zipped and padlocked gym bag. London Metropolitan Police investigators had undertaken a review of evidence in the case 16 months ago, after initial restrictions on homicide detectives' access to details of Williams' intelligence work were lifted by the British secret service, MI6. Deputy Asst. Commissioner Martin Hewitt told journalists in London that investigators only had access to Williams'...

Following recent revelations about NSA spying, Spiegel has learned that Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently issued a security warning to authorities in the country’s 16 states. The domestic intelligence agency warned in an Oct. 30 letter that “an emotional response from certain segments of the population cannot be ruled out” and recommended that “security measures aimed at protecting US facilities in Germany should be increased.” The agency said the background behind the “potential threat” was ongoing discussions about the “collection of Germans’ data by the United States.” …

Agent Carrie Mathison is a topical figure. The main character in the American TV series “Homeland,” played by the wonderful Claire Danes, shows her true relevance in the first few episodes, in which Mathison is nervously sitting at home, observing and listening in on the life of a terror suspect on a large screen. His apartment is bugged and Mathison is determined to find out as much as she can about him. She is hysterical, bipolar, paranoid and sick—all advantageous traits for her job. The real-life intelligence services of the United States take things much further than agent Carrie Mathison....

As a former trainer reveals, the U.S. government deployed nonhuman operatives—ravens, pigeons, even cats—to spy on cold war adversariesThere would be a rustle of oily black feathers as a raven settled on the window ledge of a once-grand apartment building in some Eastern European capital. The bird would pace across the ledge a few times but quickly depart. In an apartment on the other side of the window, no one would shift his attention from the briefing papers or the chilled vodka set out on a table. Nor would anything seem amiss in the jagged piece of gray slate resting...

US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged in a German newspaper on Thursday that “tensions” had arisen between the US and Germany over revelations of US espionage, but said relations would remain strong. The German government is studying the possibility of questioning US fugitive leaker Edward Snowden in Russia after admitting he could be in danger of extradition if he were to come to Germany. … Asked what needed to be done to repair US-German ties, Kerry said that Washington was talking with its German partners “about how we better coordinate our secret service efforts and, in doing so, can...

Germany on Tuesday asked the British ambassador to come to the foreign ministry to discuss a newspaper report that a covert spying station was operating in Berlin with hi-tech equipment mounted on the embassy roof. Documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden show that Britain’s surveillance agency is operating a network of “electronic spy posts” from within a stone’s throw of the Bundestag and German chancellor’s office, the Independent reported. …

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding has said the Union should create its own intelligence service by 2020. Speaking on Monday (4 November) to Greek daily Naftemporiki on the US snooping scandal, she said: “What we need is to strengthen Europe in this field, so we can level the playing field with our US partners.” She added: “I would therefore wish to use this occasion to negotiate an agreement on stronger secret service co-operation among the EU member states—so that we can speak with a strong common voice to the US. The NSA needs a counterweight. My long-term proposal would therefore...

It seems that every day brings new claims and counter-claims about who’s spying on whom. Governments are trying to limit the damage, but that damage is not limited to governments, expert Jeremie Zimmermann told DW.… It’s something of historical amplitude and we still need to take some distance to be able to understand what is exactly going on. What we see is the unraveling of the very infrastructure for a total surveillance society that we are realizing, day by day, is already deployed all around the world under our feet. The infrastructure for surveilling everything about everybody all the time....

“It would be a disaster for American-German relations if Snowden came to Germany and publicly testified before the Bundestag.” What Green MP Christian Ströbele ultimately is hoping for after his surprise visit with Edward Snowden in Moscow would be a nightmare for Stephen Szabo of the German Marshall Fund, as well for the Obama administration. The relationship between the two countries is headed towards “a deep, downward spiral,” says Szabo. This must be stopped. If Snowden were to come to Germany with official blessing, the situation would escalate further, warns the long-time Germany expert and vice-president of the German Marshall...

I am very happy to reveal that at this year's gathering of the Pumpkins Papers Irregulars, a deluxe dinner held in Washington by intelligence experts and interested observers to honor the memory of Whittaker Chambers and his triumph over the traitor Alger Hiss, I was given the annual honor of lighting the pumpkin and later addressing the assembly about American Betrayal. Highlights of the evening included warm tributes to fallen Cold Warriors: M. Stanton Evans on the late Herbert Romerstein (1931-2013), and Paul Kengor on the late Judge William P. Clark (1931-2013). This year's "coveted" Victor Navasky Award, presented by...

Secretary of State John Kerry’s remark that some National Security Agency surveillance “reached too far” was the first time a high-ranking Obama administration official acknowledged that U.S. snooping abroad might be seen as overzealous. After launching into a vigorous defense of surveillance as an effective counterterror tool, Kerry acknowledged to a video conference on open government in London that “in some cases, I acknowledge to you, as has the president, that some of these actions have reached too far, and we are going to make sure that does not happen in the future.” …

The National Security Agency spied on the future Pope Francis before and during the Vatican conclave at which he was chosen to succeed Benedict XVI, it was claimed on Wednesday. The American spy agency monitored telephone calls made to and from the residence in Rome where the then Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio stayed during the conclave, the secret election at which cardinals chose him as pontiff on March 13. The claims were made by Panorama, an Italian weekly news magazine, which said that the NSA monitored the telephone calls of many bishops and cardinals at the Vatican in the...

Members of a delegation from the European Union Parliament say they will look into a claim by the director of the National Security Agency that European countries helped it collect phone records in Europe. NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander told Congress the U.S. was given data by NATO partners as part of a program to protect military interests. …

Britain has been forced to “silently acquiesce” to a European Union statement expressing “deep concern” over American spying and intelligence operations that have undermined trust between Europe’s governments. Germany and France joined forces in the early hours of Friday morning to isolate Britain by demanding that United States sign a “code of conduct” with them and other EU countries to prevent American intelligence services spying on Europe. … Following tense talks throughout Thursday night a Brussels summit on the conduct of US snooping operations, including accusations that Britain was spying on Italy, David Cameron was forced by 27 other European...

Secretary of State John Kerry went to Europe to talk about Mideast peace, Syria and Iran. What he got was an earful of outrage over U.S. snooping abroad. President Barack Obama has defended America’s surveillance dragnet to leaders of Russia, Mexico, Brazil, France and Germany, but the international anger over the disclosures shows no signs of abating in the short run. … Diplomatic relations are built on trust. If America’s credibility is in question, the U.S. will find it harder to maintain alliances, influence world opinion and maybe even close trade deals. …

According to The Guardian, the NSA has been monitoring the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another U.S. government department. This has all been revealed in documents provided by Edward Snowden. The memo, given over by the whistleblower, shows that the NSA encourages senior officials in its “customer” departments (meaning White House, Department of State and the Pentagon) to share their rolodexes so that they could add phone numbers of foreign politicians to their surveillance lists. This same document also notes that one official in particular gave over 200 numbers, of...

Diplomats are not surprised that the security agencies under US President Barack Obama have reportedly been monitoring close allies like German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has failed to foster close relationships with other heads of state, causing much frustration around the world. … The Democrat, who prefers to spend his evenings with his family or alone in front of his computer, has made it no secret in Washington that he does not want to make new friends. That maxim especially applies to his foreign diplomacy. Unlike his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama is loved by the people of the world,...

Germany said it believed that U.S. intelligence agencies may be spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, an intrusion that it said would constitute a “grave breach of trust” between the longtime allies. Ms. Merkel called President Barack Obama on Wednesday and made clear that such surveillance among allies would be “fully unacceptable,” her spokesman, Steffen [...]

The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years. It hacked into the president's public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico. The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets. That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the...

JERUSALEM, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Turkey deliberately blew the cover of an Israeli spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012 and dealt a significant blow to Israeli intelligence gathering, according to a report in the Washington Post on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from Israel or Turkey, but Israeli ministers have accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of adopting an anti-Israeli stance in recent years to bolster his country's standing in the Muslim world. Once-strong relations between Turkey and Israel hit the rocks in 2010 after Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists who were seeking to break...

Moscow (AFP) - US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden warned of dangers to democracy in the first video released of the fugitive since Russia granted him temporary asylum in August. "If we can't understand the policies and programmes of our government we can't grant our consent in regulating them," Snowden said in one of the short video clips posted on the WikiLeaks website Friday night. The anti-secrecy group said the videos were filmed Wednesday when Snowden met with a group of four retired US ex-intelligence workers and activists now seeking to promote ethics within the profession. Snowden, a former National Security...

Spies & Secrets: 4 True Stories From Tom Clancy's Novels Sometimes truth may be stranger than fiction, but for best-selling author Tom Clancy, the two are often more closely paralleled. Clancy died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at the age of 66, but his thrilling, espionage and military-inspired novels helped him become one of the most well-known American authors. From a dramatic Soviet-era defection to a high-profile assassination plot, here are four true stories from Clancy's novels. • The Hunt for Red October Clancy's first novel, "The Hunt for Red October," was published in 1984. The book introduced Clancy's most famous fictional...

A bipartisan group of senators is calling for the inspector general of the intelligence community to do a comprehensive review of spying by the National Security Agency. … The lawmakers want to know how information about Americans was collected, retained, analyzed and disseminated. … The lawmakers asked what steps were taken to protect Americans’ privacy. …

In the latest fallout from the Edward Snowden affair, the president of Brazil canceled a state visit to Washington out of anger that the National Security Agency had spied on her and other Brazilian officials, deepening a rift with the Obama administration. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday called off the high-profile visit that both governments had planned for Oct. 23. A White House spokesman sought to downplay the diplomatic snub by a key ally and trading partner, and described the decision to indefinitely postpone the visit as mutual. The White House said in a statement that Rousseff and President...

Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel Peace Prize By: Tal Kopan July 15, 2013 10:41 AM EDT A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009. According to a translation of the letter published by the Daily Mail and RT.com, Umeå University professor Stefan Svallfors wrote the committee that Snowden has made the world safer in releasing information about United States surveillance. “Edward Snowden has - in a heroic effort at great personal cost -...

Thousands took to the streets in Berlin Saturday in protests against Internet surveillance activities by the US National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, and the German government’s perceived lax reaction to them. … The protest was organized under the slogan “Freedom Rather Than Fear” and demonstrators carried banners saying: “Stop spying on us” and, more sarcastically: “Thanks to PRISM (the US government’s vast data collection programs), the government finally knows what the people want”. …

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) – A lawyer for Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning said in a blog post on Thursday the soldier is doing well as she goes through processing at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth. David Coombs wrote that he spoke on Wednesday with Manning, previously known as Bradley Manning, while she goes through the three-to-four-week period known as indoctrination at the Kansas prison. Coombs, who lives in Rhode Island, also said he plans to travel there in the coming weeks to meet with medical staff and the leadership in the quest to allow Manning to receive hormone therapy....