Archive for the 'Intelligence Services' Category

Page 2 of 2

The Problem With Intelligence

Published on January 14, 2008 in Competitive Intelligence and Intelligence Services. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

In 300 B.C. Chinese princes were told that to rule they must turn the empire into their eyes and ears. “Though he may live in the deepest retreat of his palace, at the end of tortuous corridors, nothing escapes him, nothing is hidden from him, nothing can escape his vigilant watch.” (Levi, Le grand empereur, pp.187).

Such a system relies not only on the honour of the eyes and ears, but also his subordinates whose capacity for deception and treachery is unbounded.

The weakness of any such intelligence system is the quality of the human resources employed. The problem still exists today, even with technical collection, due to the hypocritical analysts and scheming bureaucrats between the data and the decision-maker.

Botched Background Investigation – Part II

Published on December 28, 2007 in Espionage, Intelligence Services, Security and Terrorism. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A few weeks ago I wrote about a botched background investigation of a former FBI and CIA Intelligence Analyst who entered into a sham marriage to gain citizenship. It turns out that she had ties to Hezbollah.

Now a US Marine Captain has plead guilty of helping the potential Hezbollah operative gain citizenship in the same way she herself did. Read Hezbollah: Signs of a Sophisticated Intelligence Apparatus to see how an incompetent background investigation can have far-reaching implications.

the cases demonstrate that the FBI, CIA and Marine Corps all failed to detect this web of sham marriages when they conducted background investigations on the women in question, especially since the marriages were within the seven-year investigative window required for Prouty’s FBI clearance and Spinelli’s enlistment in the Marine Corps. A full field background investigation should have been able to determine the nature of the sham marriages, given that the women never lived with their purported husbands.”

China uses cover company to spy on NSA

Published on December 22, 2007 in Espionage and Intelligence Services. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

China’s intelligence service gained access to a secret National Security Agency listening post in Hawaii through a Chinese-language translation service, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

According to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, China’s Ministry of State Security, the main civilian spy service, carried out the operations by setting up a Chinese translation service in Hawaii that represented itself as a U.S.-origin company.

OSINT Primer

Published on December 18, 2007 in Competitive Intelligence, Intelligence Services and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , .

To understand what Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) can uncover and how it is, and is not used, I suggest you read the following documents:

Open Source Intelligence

Published on December 5, 2007 in Competitive Intelligence, Intelligence Services and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has been around for a very long time, but in recent years its importance has grown. For example, the USA has the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which was established in 1941, transcribing and translating foreign broadcasts. It absorbed the Defense Department’s Joint Publications Research Service, which did a similar function with foreign printed materials, including newspapers, magazines, and technical journals. In November 2005, it was announced that FBIS would become part of the newly-formed Open Source Center, tasked with the collection and analysing of freely-available intelligence.

In Open Source Intelligence by RICHARD S. FRIEDMAN, Ambassador Johnstone’s story about using CNN to gather needed information shows how OSINT often goes unrecognised as a valuable resource. However, that is changing if these are any measure: Pentagon’s “Best Source of Intel”: TV and The Enemy is Me.

In the private sector, we now have companies with experienced handlers using foreign language specialists who read hundreds of newspapers, listen to radio broadcasts, and watch foreign TV news to produce intelligence reports.

A Spy in Your Pocket

Published on November 30, 2007 in Communication, Dirty Tricks, Industrial Espionage, Intelligence Services, Privacy, Security and Surveillance. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

An article entitled Stalked by a cell phone: Who’s spying on you? warns of the danger of downloading software to your cell phone, connecting to the Internet from a mobile phone, and the dangers of letting it get out of your sight.

Update: See this at:

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9346833 and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyKcoDaofg

Botched Background Investigation

Published on November 16, 2007 in Intelligence Services. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

An ex-FBI & CIA agent with a brother-in-law linked to Hezbollah pleads guilty to database searches, raising questions about the security of top secret files in the war on terror.

The case raises questions about hiring practices and background checks by two of the nation’s most security-sensitive and secretive agencies… “It’s hard to imagine a greater threat than the situation where a foreign national uses fraud to attain citizenship and then, based on that fraud, insinuates herself into a sensitive position in the U.S. government.”

It seems she got somebody to marry her so she could become a citizen. The background investigation did not uncover this, nor did the polygraph examination that the US government places so much trust in.

Since this news broke it seems she held some very responsible positions and her brother, along with Prouty’s sister and others, was charged in 2006 by the U.S. attorney in Detroit with tax evasion in connection with a scheme to conceal more than $20 million in cash… and to route funds to persons in Lebanon with links to Hezbollah.” The sister is currently serving 18 months in a federal prison.

Inter-agency Cooperation Will Save US

Published on October 29, 2007 in Intelligence Services and Terrorism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Inter-agency cooperation and intelligence sharing seems to need some improvement in the US…

Driven to desperation by restrictive information sharing rules, and concerned about the terrorist threat to their homes and loved ones, at least five American intelligence officers established a domestic espionage ring. The target of their actions: the federal government. The beneficiary of their actions: Los Angeles. How has it come to this, that otherwise patriotic and loyal citizens feel compelled to work against their government in order to serve and protect their communities?

One member of the ring works in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the other in the LAPD. Maziarz, then an intelligence analyst at Camp Pendleton, was invaluable to the ring because of his ability to regularly access national intelligence databases and pass a steady stream of information to his accomplices on terrorism suspects in the LA area.

For the full story go to ThreatsWatch

Evidence of Chinese Nuclear Sub Found

Published on October 26, 2007 in Competitive Intelligence, Espionage, Industrial Espionage, Intelligence Services, Methods, Private Investigator, Search Engines, Security, Sources, Surveillance and Terrorism. 0 Comments

Blogger and analyst for the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Hans M. Kristensen, recently discovered a photo of a second and possibly a third Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine at Bohai Shipyard in northeast China. He discovered the image using Google Earth, an online mapping service provided by Internet search engine giant Google, and posted his discovery on his blog on October 4.

The use of Google Earth for this creates some interesting challenges for both governments and private industry. In the private sector, security officials now must consider the loss of proprietary and competitive data through satellite imagery. An example of this might be the construction of new production facilities. In the past, overflights of such facilities have given rise to law suits. Now that the data already exists and  is searchable, how does one protect against a loss of critical information in this manner?

I predict the creative use of camouflage will become normal practice over the next couple of decades.

FBI and the Internet

Published on October 25, 2007 in Intelligence Services, Security and Terrorism. 0 Comments

An article at the Danger Room illustrates how ineffective large organizations can become. No business would operate like this…

Two-Thirds of G-Men Still Can’t Get Online

Bigger Still Isn’t Better

Published on October 9, 2007 in Competitive Intelligence, Intelligence Services and Terrorism. 0 Comments

the $40 billion a year intel bureaucracy was not delivering much of value

In Iraq, a hodge podge of geeks and reservists (many of them cops or corporate “competitive intelligence” specialists) came up with lots of new ideas about how to collect, analyze and distribute intelligence. This was usually done at the divisional or brigade level, although some battalions, and even infantry companies, have come up with their own innovations. It was innovations like this that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and many prominent terrorists….

The combat troops also have an immediate incentive to make their intel operations work. If they don’t, they, or people they know, could get killed.

Too bad this type of incentive doesn’t exist in the private sector.

Satellight Imagery

Published on September 9, 2007 in Intelligence Services. 0 Comments

FOXNews reports that the US Department of Homeland Security will begin to share spy satellite data with domestic law enforcement agencies next year. The article pointed out that getting the data isn’t the end of the story – to be meaningful, someone somewhere has to analyze it and local law enforcement does not typically have this capability. Analysts across the intelligence community are swamped with data from foreign surveillance, and they may have little time for doing the analysis for law enforcement agencies.

US launches ‘MySpace for spies’

Published on August 24, 2007 in Intelligence Services. 0 Comments

The Financial Times reports that the intelligence community within the United States government sees more use to social networking sites than just recruitment. The government is trying to improve inter-agency communication that plagued it before the 9/11 attacks, the paper reports that, “Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, believes the common workspace – a kind of ‘MySpace for analysts’ – will generate better analysis by breaking down firewalls across the traditionally stove-piped intelligence community.”

According to this article, the government expects to deploy the social network – named “A-Space” – to all of its intelligence agencies by December. Its sad that we can’t observe how it functions.