Posted on 07/16/2019 7:26:01 AM PDT by RightGeek
Leaked U.K. diplomatic cables critical of President Trump have led Britain’s ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, to announce his departure from Washington earlier than expected. But the story is not yet concluded.
According to one current and one former U.S. government official speaking on the condition of anonymity, Darroch repeatedly leaked classified U.S. intelligence information, including highly classified information, to a journalist for a U.S.-based media outlet. The sources are consolidated by the reaction my related inquiries have received from other government officials.
These leaks are unrelated to the diplomatic cables which sparked Trump's anger and Darroch's departure.
Still, one source says that the U.S. government was so alarmed by Darroch's leaks that it launched an official investigation to find the source of the information. That source described the leaked intelligence as “very sensitive,” and suggested that exigent U.S. security concerns motivated the investigation. That source says that non-U.S. government derived records showed the ambassador and journalist exchanging messages on a continuing basis. The source emphasized that these communications were not derived from U.S. government actions.
A second source, a career government official, described the leaks as "unprecedented."
The Washington Examiner has been unable to confirm how long any investigation continued or whether it has since been suspended. But concern inside the U.S. government over the leaks was significant.
One of the sources said that the ambassador repeatedly transmitted highly classified U.S. originator-control intelligence information to the journalist. ORCON intelligence, as it's called in the intelligence world, is closely held and carefully distributed. At least some of this information was classified at the "Five Eyes" alliance classification level, meaning it was distributed by the U.S. only to Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. Some intelligence may also have been classified at the U.S.-U.K. only level.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Really? The nickname "five eyes" derives from the fact that all the anglophone nations collect intelligence and share it with the others. This alliance allows the anglosphere to collect intelligence, especially signals, from around the globe because of their geographical distribution. Your suggestion would cut the US out of intelligence gathered by the Aussies at Pine Gap, UK signals intelligence from GCHQ, and the Communications Security Establishment Canada.
So because of a dumb UK envoy who has resigned in disgrace you would cut off US access to a trove of signals intelligence. Good idea, good luck with that.
“...ambassadors do a lot more than we think they do.”
The heavy lifting is staff work. The talking head is usually a political appointee.
When I performed IT in the foreign service in posts abroad, the ambassador or consulate general was given distribution on nearly everything.
This is an entirely different situation.
GCHQ was involved in the attempted Coup against citizen Trump, president Elect Trump and probably President Trump.
That caused their director to resign to spend more time with his family.
Canada with Trudeau as their lead anti America cheerleader in Canada is not trustworthy.
New Zealand, give me a break.
Australia’s new PM may be okay. However, an OZ PM years ago, didn’t even know about 5 Eyes. He apparently was such a bad security risk his own Intel people decided to not read him in.
Back to the UK, dealing with them now is like trusting London’s wonderful mayor.
I’m British and I hope this leads to the collapse of 5 eyes. Its a scam designed to get around domestic laws preventing intelligence services spying on their own citizens by contracting it out to one of the other members of 5 eyes. Our governments have a cosy little cartel going where each government each spy on each other’s people and then share that information with each other.
There is no reason why specific, relevent intelligence cannot be shared rather than have everything automatically shared between the members.
“I’m British and I hope this leads to the collapse of 5 eyes. Its a scam designed to get around domestic laws preventing intelligence services spying on their own citizens by contracting it out to one of the other members of 5 eyes. Our governments have a cozy little cartel going where each government each spy on each other’s people and then share that information with each other.”
Absolutely, that was the original 5 eyes concept: we would spy on the UK, Australia Canada and NZ’s people so they didn’t have to. Then, they spied on Americans like Citizen Trump, Trump President elect and President Trump while the FBI/CIA didn’t break the law. The Brits spied on and meddled in our primaries, actual election, and post election.
We have been monitoring your private and business conversations for 60+ years and vice versa.
As you noted, it is a total scam.
Bingo!
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