Free Republic

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran lacks the capability to block the world's leading shipping route for crude oil exports. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Iranian Navy, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has failed to procure the platforms or weapons required to block the Straits of Hormuz, the passage for 60 percent of the world's oil trade. In a report, the Washington-based center said the United States could block any Iranian attempt to attack Gulf shipping, particularly from the sea. "Iran could not close the Strait of Hormuz, or halt tanker traffic, and its submarines and much...

Mounties had mole in alleged terror cell Exclusive: Law prohibits publication of prominent member of Muslim community Toronto red Star Jul. 13, 2006. 05:23 AM MICHELLE SHEPHARD STAFF REPORTER A well-known member of Toronto's Muslim community worked as a police agent to infiltrate an alleged terrorism cell that police say was planning attacks in Canada, the Toronto Star has learned. Although his identity is now known within the community and also to some of the 17 terrorism suspects arrested June 2, his name cannot be published due to Canadian laws. Sources say the man worked for the Canadian Security...

Lock our doors to terrorists The London Free Press Tuesday, 20 June, 2006 By Rory Leishman In a statement at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed that his government will spend more than $250 million over the next two years to improve passenger and baggage screening at airports, rail terminals, urban transit facilities and ports. "This is how the fight against terrorism will be won," he said. "Modernizing equipment and procedures, plugging the holes, filling the gaps and thinking one step ahead of the agents of hate and terror." Harper is right. When, though,...

A Canadian counterterrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries.Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden and Bangladesh.The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes that include an FBI case called Operation Northern Exposure and a British probe known as Operation Mazhar.At a news conference yesterday, the RCMP announced terrorism charges had been laid against a...

Canada has its own crop of homegrown terrorists capable of acts like the deadly attacks on London's transit system last summer, says Canada's spy agency. "I can tell you that all of the circumstances that led to the London transit bombings . . . are resident here and now in Canada,'' Jack Hooper, operations director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a Senate committee Monday. The threat from Canadian-bred terrorists is considered by CSIS to be on a par with external terror threats, Hooper said during an appearance with RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli. He did not, however, say how...

Shocking New Book Published "Canada's Spies Attacked Me: A True Story of CSIS Terrorizing a Canadian Abroad" Champaign, IL (PRWEB) April 23, 2006 -- Canada's Spies Attacked Me: A True Story of CSIS Terrorizing a Canadian Abroad is a autobiography about how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) attacked the author, Mark Garzone, in America. This occurred when his family was going to complain to the SIRC, the watchdog of CSIS. The story starts back in 1998 when his father Mario Garzone, a Croatian-Canadian, telephoned the Croatian Embassy in Canada asking for a list of publishers for a book he...

Prior to joining CSIS in August 2001, Mary O. McCarthy was a senior policy adviser to the CIA's deputy director for science and technology. Until July 2001, she served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council (NSC) Staff, under both Presidents Clinton and Bush. From 1991 until her appointment to the NSC, McCarthy served on the National Intelligence Council. She began her government service as an analyst, then manager, in CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, holding positions in both African and Latin American analysis. From 1979 to 1984 she was employed...

WASHINGTON – Crusty and unapologetic, Donald H. Rumsfeld is the public face of an unpopular war and a target of unrelenting criticism. A growing number of commanders who served under him say he has botched the Iraq operation, ignored the advice of his generals and should be replaced. The White House insists the defense secretary retains President Bush's confidence. Few close to the administration expect him to be shown the door. “The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday as the administration circled...

How the CIA Funds Anti-Bush Propaganda By Bill Gertz The Washington Times | September 14, 2004 The CIA's Counterterrorist Center has spent more than $15 million in the past three years funding studies, reports and conferences produced by former Democratic administration officials and other critics of the Bush administration. The latest effort was a $300,000 grant by the CIA to the Atlantic Council for a study co-authored by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who wrote a best seller accusing the Bush administration of failing in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq.

Has cartoon rage in Denmark over the cartoons of Muhammad printed by the newspaper Jyllands Posten now taken the form of hacker attacks against that paper's website? "Denmark subject to islamic cyber-attacks," from the Dansk-Svensk blogspot, with thanks to Steen: from www.politiken.dk the 29 of jan. a German version will appear later today: New hacker attack paralyzes Jyllands-Posten The web version of Jyllands-Posten is off-line. Hackers pulled off another large attack on the website of the paper. The web version of the paper Jyllands-Posten, www.jp.dk, has again been knocked to the ground. The web paper is under attack by hackers....

Terrorists are perpetual threat, CSIS saysBy COLIN FREEZE September 10, 2005 Globe and Mail Terrorists will always be terrorists, and neither time nor prison can temper their probable plots to kill civilians, Canada's spy service says. “Individuals who have attended terrorist training camps or who have independently opted for radical Islam must be considered threats to Canadian public safety for the indefinite future,” reads a court-filed CSIS report obtained by The Globe and Mail. “It is highly unlikely that they will cast off their views on jihad and justification for the use of violence. “Given the long planning periods typical...

Anti-terror team targets imam National security squad collecting intelligence on controversial cleric based at Fraser Street mosque Amy O'Brian, with a file from Brad Badelt Vancouver Sun A counter-terrorism team of police and other national security experts is investigating a radical Muslim cleric in Vancouver who has been known to promote Islamic holy war against Jews and other non-Muslim people. Sheik Younus Kathrada, a cleric at the Dar al-Madinah mosque on Fraser Street, is being investigated by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, INSET, which collects intelligence on "targets that are a threat to national security," according to the RCMP...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A former Canadian spymaster has backed claims by a Chinese defector that China maintains an extensive spy network in Australia. The former chief of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's Asia-Pacific Bureau, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, backed the claims of Chen Yonglin, a former employee of the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Australia, in an interview with Australian television late Wednesday. Chen, 37, abandoned his middle-ranking diplomatic post at China's consulate in May and asked for asylum, saying he would be persecuted if he returned home because of his sympathy for the Falun Gong movement, which China brands an evil...

Chinese spies cost Canada billions: Harper CTV.ca News Staff Conservatives accused the government of not addressing the presence of Chinese industrial spies during question period Thursday. "Today the former head of the CSIS Asia desk confirmed reports from defectors that close to 1000 Chinese government agent spies have infiltrated Canada," Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said. Harper quoted the former CSIS official, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, as believing Chinese spies cost Canada $1 billion every month through industrial espionage. Juneau-Katsuya oversaw the CSIS Asia desk during the mid-1990s. He told reporters that China is a serious threat to Canadian security. Reports of Chinese...

Reid Morden, the Canadian spy working with Paul Volcker on the independent UN inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal, is the CEO who was at the helm of the Canadian Security Investigation Services (CSIS) when most of the 300 tapes and wiretaps, collected both before and after the 1985 crash of Air India Flight 182, were destroyed. Some feel that the destroyed tapes and wiretaps were crucial evidence that could have led to a guilty charge in the trial of the accused on the crash of Flight 182. CSIS, Canada’s top spy agency, has always maintained that the destroyed tapes had...

Operation Sidewinder. It sounds like a Hollywood spy movie starring Harrison Ford. For a long time, Sidewinder moldered on the shelf as just another conspiracy theory. In reality, Sidewinder was a controversial report put together by a small but hard-working team of RCMP and CSIS (Canadian Security & Intelligence Service) officials. It was Sidewinder that sounded the first alarm bells that China is one of the greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry. But even after Sidewinder was side swiped by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, intelligence proves that there is no doubt that an active Chinese...

WASHINGTON - Americans' fingerprints should be added to their passports, outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday, hoping to include the United States in a growing global security standard but risking a privacy fight at home. Ridge said passports could ideally include biometric finger scans — for all 10 fingers — to help customs officials quickly and accurately identify U.S. travelers. He offered no details on how the plan might deal with privacy concerns or guard against international identity theft. "If we're going to ask the rest of the world to put fingerprints on their passports, we ought to...

A national security probe has been launched into the office of Immigration Minister Judy Sgro after a senior staffer was quietly fired for suspicion of being a threat to the country, government officials say. The staffer, a Canadian of Sri Lankan origin, had worked for several weeks in Sgro's Ottawa office, according to sources close to the case. Sources said the Toronto man, whose identity hasn't been released, was given a top position because he was a tireless recruiter of South Asians for the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Six sources, including police, a Liberal and Conservative MPs and immigration...

A new director was named Tuesday for Canada's spy service, which has been without a permanent head since Ward Elcock ended his 10-year term in the spring. Prime Minister Paul Martin said Tuesday that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service will be headed by Jim Judd, who has formerly served as the highest-ranking bureaucrat with the Department of National Defence. Coincidentally, Mr. Elcock was named in August to the defence post Mr. Judd once held. "Jim Judd brings proven and sound leadership to his new position," Mr. Martin said in a statement. "His unique combination of foreign and defence policy...

Judges approve more than 99 per cent of the requests by CSIS to spy on people in Canada, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. While the government says espionage is one of its most intrusive powers, records show that Federal Court judges almost never disagree with Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents who ask for permission to take extraordinary steps so they can discover more about suspected terrorists or foreign spies. CSIS officials say this speaks to the fact that they run a highly disciplined spy service, whereas critics suggest judges are giving carte blanche to intelligence operations....