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“Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the [Cuban intelligence service],” says an FBI report from Sept. 2nd.“One recruitment method used by the Cubans is to appeal to American leftists’ ideology. “For instance, someone who is allied with communist or leftist ideology may assist the [Cuban intelligence service] because of his/her personal beliefs.” Not that any of the above should come as earth-shaking news to anyone who:A: Attended a typical college and suffered through typical Liberal Arts courses. B. Knows anything at all about the history of Cuban spying in the U.S.Give the A.B....

Cuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.Cuban intelligence services “have perfected the work of placing agents, that includes aggressively targeting U.S. universities under the assumption that a percentage of students will eventually move on to positions within the U.S. government that can provide access to information of use to the [Cuban intelligence service],” the five-page unclassified FBI report says. It notes that the Cubans “devote a significant amount of resources to targeting and exploiting U.S. academia.”“Academia has been and remains...

Cuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.

Kyiv appears to have taken a page from Stalin's book in a bid to root out pro-Russian spies looking to weaken Ukraine's defenses from within. Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey has announced the creation of a Special Service, similar to a counterintelligence organization that existed during Josef Stalin's rule, to deal with subversive elements in the Ukrainian military. "Today, more than ever, it is important to get rid of the Russian 'fifth column' in the Ukrainian armed forces and the Defense Ministry," he wrote on Facebook on August 30. "In order to expose and dispose of enemy agents, due to...

On June 24, 2012, the body of Shane Todd, a young US electrical engineer, was found hanging in his Singapore apartment. The Singapore Police say it was suicide, but the Todd family believes he was murdered. -excerpt- ... Shane told his family that he was being asked to compromise US security and he feared for his life. Shane refused to do what he was being asked to do and turned in his sixty day notice at IME. Shane found a good job with a company in Virginia, and bought a ticket to fly back to the US on July 1,...

A former US navy sailor who led a spy ring for the Soviet Union has died in a prison medical centre at the age of 77. Retired Navy Warrant Officer John Walker Jr was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 for passing codes and other sensitive data to the USSR. He had recruited his son, his brother and friend to continue spying after he retired. All were convicted.

BERLIN — German weekly Der Spiegel reports that the country's foreign intelligence agency eavesdropped on calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton. Der Spiegel reported Saturday that the agency, known by its acronym BND, tapped a satellite phone conversation Kerry made in 2013. The magazine says the agency also recorded a conversation between Clinton and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan a year earlier. Without naming its sources, Der Spiegel says the calls were collected accidentally and the three officials weren't directly targeted.

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is about to put a new advanced satellite into space to spy on other countries’ satellites. On Wednesday, a Delta IV rocket will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., and place two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites into orbit. They will be the first GSSAP satellites ever launched. “This neighborhood watch twosome … will be on the lookout for nefarious capability other nations might try to place in that critical orbital regime,” Gen. William Shelton, the head of Air Force Space Command, told reporters at the Pentagon. Because of its enhanced maneuvering capabilities,...

New documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden confirm that the NSA and the FBI spy on Muslim-American leaders, including Republican Party politicians and military veterans. The article describes an NSA spreadsheet that “shows 7,485 email addresses listed as monitored between 2002 and 2008.” The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies. According to documents provided by Snowden, the list of Americans monitored by their own government includes: • Faisal Gill, a Pakistani-American, is a longtime Republican Party operative and one-time candidate for public office who...

The head of Germany's parliamentary inquiry into the NSA spying scandal has suggested the government return to using typewriters to protect national secrets from prying eyes. German soldier allegedly spied for US (09 Jul 14) 'Wake up Germany and smell the cyber-coffee' (08 Jul 14) 'Enough!' Germans say in latest US spy scandal (07 Jul 14) Germany's politicians are considering going back to using old-fashioned typewriters to create sensitive documents, head of the inquiry committee Patrick Sensburg told ARD broadcaster on Monday. “Unlike other inquiry committees, we are investigating an ongoing situation. Intelligence activities are still going on, they are...

Russia is expected to renew former National Security Agency contractor and leaker Edward Snowden’s request for extended asylum because ”his life is endangered,” according to a Russian government official. “I see no problem in prolonging the temporary asylum,” Vladimir Volokh, head of an advisory body to Russia’s Federal Migration Service told the Interfax news agency Friday, according to Reuters. ”The circumstances have not changed. As before, Snowden’s life is endangered so the FMS has grounds to extend his status.” Snowden was granted one year of asylum on Aug. 1, 2013 after leaking a cache of classified NSA intelligence documents to reporters, flying out of...

A federal judge has sentenced a California chemical engineer to 15 years in prison and fined him $28.3 million for a rare economic-espionage conviction for selling China a secret recipe to a widely used white pigment. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White said Thursday in Oakland that Walter Liew, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had "turned against his adopted country over greed." White noted that U.S. authorities had managed to trace $22 million of the $28 million received by Liew to various Singapore and Chinese companies controlled by Liew's in-laws before losing the trail.

Russia's swashbuckling military intelligence unit is full of assassins, arms dealers, and bandits. And what they pulled off in Ukraine was just the beginning.re are two ways an espionage agency can prove its worth to the government it serves. Either it can be truly useful (think: locating a most-wanted terrorist), or it can engender fear, dislike, and vilification from its rivals (think: being named a major threat in congressional testimony). But when a spy agency does both, its worth is beyond question. Since the Ukraine crisis began, the Kremlin has few doubts about the importance of the GRU, Russia's military...

Israel is known for its advanced intelligence capabilities but, according to an Iranian cleric, that is because it uses sorcery. The comments by Valiollah Naghipourfar, a cleric and professor at Tehran University, were made in a recent interview he gave to Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and were republished by the IranWire website. …

The German government has ordered the expulsion of a CIA official in Berlin in response to two cases of alleged spying by the US. The official is said to have acted as a CIA contact at the US embassy, reports say, in a scandal that has infuriated German politicians. A German intelligence official was arrested last week on suspicion of spying. An inquiry has also begun into a German defense ministry worker, reports said. “The representative of the US intelligence services at the embassy of the United States of America has been told to leave Germany,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert...

Germany may step up its counter-espionage efforts after an employee of its intelligence service was arrested on suspicion of spying for the US. Measures being considered in response to scandal include monitoring the intelligence activities of nominal Nato allies such as America, Britain and France, as well as expelling US agents from Germany. According to a report in Bild, interior minister Thomas de Maizière has emphasised the urgent need for a "360 degree vision" of the foreign secret agency's activities. The newspaper claims to have obtained an internal document which outlines "concrete counter measures", thus moving away from a policy...

Newser) – You might think that giving a green light to Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis and allegedly fraudulently submitting 660,000 other background checks without actually completing them would prevent you from getting future government contracts. But you'd be wrong, because the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $190 million contract to US Investigations Services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why? Because USIS hasn't actually been suspended, and, as one immigration official explained, unless there is such a suspension in place, "by law and policy, we have to go with the lowest bidder." USIS isn't barred, the Office of...

Jamie Estrada, 41, of Los Lunas, N.M., pleaded guilty Monday to the unlawful interception of electronic communications and false statement charges arising out of the unlawful interception of wire communications intended for others, including New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez and members of her staff. Estrada briefly served as campaign manager in 2009, as Martinez was beginning her bid for governor. The Republican won election in 2010 and took office in January 2011. “Each and every one of us has a right and an expectation of privacy in our electronic communications, including our emails, and those who violate the law by...

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Vahid Hosseini, 62, of Reston, Virginia, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, for exporting various high-tech unlicensed goods to Iran, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and for laundering money wired to him from multiple overseas accounts. Hosseini agreed to forfeit $50,000 as part of his guilty plea in this case. Hosseini pleaded guilty on March 6, 2014. According to court documents, from at least as early as January 2008 to July 2013, Hosseini operated a business known as Sabern Instruments from his residence in Reston....

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has found the court of public opinion to be far more receptive than a court of law. He conducts the occasional interview with seemingly sympathetic journalists. NBC News aired one such interview with anchorman Brian Williams on Wednesday night. "Do you see yourself as a patriot?" Williams asked. "I do," answered Snowden, now 30. He was just trying to protect the country and the Constitution "from the encroachment of adversaries -- and those adversaries don't have to be foreign countries." Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was having none of it. "In...