Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

CIA 'Using Smaller Missiles Against al-Qaeda to Avoid Civilian Deaths.' The Central Intelligence Agency in the US has started using smaller missiles in its hunt for al-Qaeda and other Islamic militant leaders in Pakistan in the hope of minimizing civilian casualties, according to a newspaper report.

Citing unnamed current and former officials in the US and Pakistan, The Washington Post newspaper said the new technology had resulted in more accurate strikes that have provoked relatively little public outrage.

According to the report, one such missile was used by the CIA last month in Miram Shah, a Pakistani town in the tribal province of South Waziristan.

The projectile, which was no bigger than a violin case and weighed about 35 pounds (16kg), hit a house there and killed a top al-Qaeda official and about nine other suspected terrorists, the paper said.

The mud-brick house collapsed and the roof of a neighboring house was damaged, but no one else in the town was hurt.

According to paper, just over 20 civilians are known to have died in missile strikes since January 2009. Over that period there is reported to have been more than 70 drone attacks that killed 400 suspected terrorists and insurgents. The CIA declined to comment on the article.

Last month the US announced it would deliver 1,000 laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan. The deal, which was also set to include the delivery of 18 new F16 fighter jets and a dozen surveillance drones later in the year, was an apparent pay-off for greater co-operation against al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

At the time US military officials said that the sales, mostly funded by US grants, were intended to enhance the Pakistani military's capacity to strike militant targets accurately and with minimum civilian casualties in the tribal areas near the Afghan border.  [TimesOnline/26April2010] 

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta Unveils Blueprint for Agency's Future. In remarks to the Agency workforce, Director Leon E. Panetta unveiled CIA 2015, his blueprint for the organization's future. CIA 2015 is an aggressive plan that builds on outstanding work done since 9/11. Its goal is to ensure that the Agency continues to act decisively on today's national security challenges - such as terrorism, the proliferation of dangerous technology, cyber threats, and the actions of rogue states - while pivoting more easily toward emerging priorities.

"There's something I've often said about government, but it applies to every organization," said Director Panetta. "We govern either by leadership or by crisis. Leadership means making tough choices and planning ahead. That's why we're taking a hard look at future challenges, and what we want our Agency to look like five years from now. It's our responsibility to get out in front of any problems, and CIA 2015 will help us do that."

Director Panetta outlined CIA 2015's three pillars. The first is investing in people. The CIA will recruit, train, and retain a highly talented and diverse workforce with the strengths to tackle any mission that arises. Bolstering the Agency's foreign language capabilities is essential to that objective. The plan doubles the number of clandestine officers - and triples the number of analysts - enrolled in language training.

The CIA will enhance its use of more flexible and innovative deployments overseas - including new approaches to cover - paving the way for even better intelligence collection. More co-location of analysts and operators at home and abroad will both enrich the information provided to policymakers and lead to even more operational success in the field. This sort of fusion has more than proved its value over the years, and has been key to victories in counterterrorism and counterproliferation, among other disciplines.

The second pillar is investing in technology to extend the CIA's operational and analytic reach and become more efficient. Agency personnel must be able to operate effectively and securely in a rapidly changing global information environment. The plan boosts the CIA's potential for human-enabled technical collection and provides advanced software tools to help Agency officers tackle the huge volume of data they encounter in their work.

The third pillar is to achieve a new level of agility in maintaining the Agency's global presence and surging for emergencies. The Agency will transform its support platforms around the world and consolidate certain business functions. Director Panetta commended the Agency's tradition of minimal bureaucracy, a key ingredient in its responsiveness and impact. "When we're told to get a job done, we can do it," he said. "But we can't take anything for granted. As good as we are, we can be better. As capable as we are, we can do more. As smart as we are, we can be tougher."

He closed by paying tribute to the men and women of the CIA. Noting the bravery that Agency officers so often show - including in situations overseas like natural disasters that go beyond their intelligence charter - Director Panetta said, "You reflect not only America's strength, but its ingenuity and decency, too."

"During the course of my career, I've come to appreciate the people who truly focus on doing what's right for the nation. I'm honored to lead this Agency and to be part of its amazing mission. My goal is to build on the strengths of the CIA and keep it the very best intelligence agency in the 21st century. Every generation has dedicated itself to the American dream of giving our children a better life. The test of our success is whether we can give our children a safer world."

The Director's session with employees, held in the Headquarters Auditorium, was also broadcast to CIA personnel in the Washington area and overseas. [CIA.GOV/26April2010] 

Indian Diplomat Held for Passing Secrets to Pakistan. A senior Indian woman diplomat of the level of second secretary in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has been arrested for passing on Indian state secrets to Pakistan intelligence agencies for two years.

53-year-old IFS Group B officer Madhuri Gupta was working in the press wing of the Indian High Commission, according to intelligence sources. It is unlikely that she was a lone spy operating on her own. But there is so far no confirmation of any others arrested or interrogated. According to sources, simultaneously, the station head of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in Islamabad R K Sharma has also come under the scanner, according to sources.

Home secretary G K Pillai said Gupta had been passing information to Pakistani agencies. "She has been arrested," he said.

According to sources, Gupta, a spinster, is alleged to have been taking information from the RAW station head in Islamabad, which was passed to the Pakistani spy agencies.

The sources said that the role of Sharma had also come under scanner for allegedly abusing his position and passing information to Gupta. However, it was not clear whether he knew the woman officer's real designs, the sources said.

The internal security establishment is extremely cagey about the role of Indian diplomats abroad. The four independent anonymous sources, who confirmed this information to TV channel Times Now, were reluctant to reveal exactly what kind of information the alleged mole was privy to. However suffice to say for now that the officer may have been on the pay-role of the Pakistani establishment, and was allegedly passing on crucial strategic information belonging to Pakistan.

The Ministry of External Affairs sources said an official statement will be given out the complete facts in the case. However sources did mention that Gupta, who is also believed to be an Urdu interpreter and a staffer for 30 years who has served in Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Islamabad, has confessed to the crime.

This is the first-ever case of a senior Indian diplomat being arrested for such a crime. What is more, Indian agencies believe that the 45-year-old is just a part of a massive Pakistani spy ring and there may have been others in the Indian diplomatic establishment also engaged in counter espionage. Currently the exact nature of the inducements to Gupta for her services is not known.

But the revelation is shocking and will have wide ramifications, coming as it does as the SAARC summit is underway at Thimphu in Bhutan and will doubtless have to be taken up with Pakistan at the highest level. The extent of damage done will also have to be assessed.

"She is in the information wing, which is isolated from the political wing and not in the most vital departments and could not have been privy to the most sensitive of documents. However it is a penetration. We earlier had a penetration by East Europeans, but this is a first from Pakistan," said former MEA secretary K C Singh reacting to the news.

Gupta was apparently being tracked for nearly a year by the Indian government both in Islamabad and in New Delhi at her residence, before being carefully brought over to India on the excuse of SAARC related work. She was detained in New Delhi four days ago, and interrogated by a special group comprising members of different agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, RAW and Delhi police, before being arrested. A court remanded her to further police custody of another five days on Monday.

Government sources say Gupta, who was liaising officer between Indian and other embassies in Islamabad, has risen through the ranks and was engaged in espionage for the Pakistanis for about two years. She has been produced in a local court in East Delhi where she stays, and remanded to 10 days police custody.

"I am not trying to discriminate on the basis of class, but a person who has not been properly trained and brought up in the values of the services can perhaps be more susceptible to foreign inducements easily. Nevertheless, given the fact that all those working in Islamabad know that they are under watch and being targeted by Pakistani intelligence which is on the lookout for chinks - that they were able to penetrate the embassy is shocking," said Union minister Kapil Sibal. He said it was imperative to ascertain what information had been leaked.

Speaking in the development, Times Now strategic affairs expert Mahroof Raza said, "The Indian government would have found it extremely difficult to hold an Indian officer in the High Commission if she was working for the Pakistani government. She would be having patrons in the Pakistani system who would make it extremely difficult to get her back and put her through legal and administrative proceedings. This is perhaps the first time an Indian diplomat has been caught spying overseas and working against Indian interests. This gives a completely different dimension to Pakistan's desire to know what India is up to on foreign policy." [TimesofIndia/26April2010]

Proposed Bill Could Increase FSB's Power. The Federal Security Service could get more power to intimidate citizens and punish them for not complying with what is vaguely described as "legitimate demands" from its officers, according to a government-drafted bill.

The bill, submitted to the State Duma on Saturday, is apparently aimed at lending more legitimacy to the FSB's informal ways of work. But documentation accompanying the bill suggested that it could also be used by law enforcement to target media reporting unfavorably about the state's actions.

Among the provisions in the legislation is a rule that would allow the FSB to warn citizens or legal entities that their behavior is creating conditions that could lead to crime, even if there are no legal grounds to hold them criminally responsible.

The FSB also wants to introduce fines for citizens and legal entities for not obeying FSB officials' demands or for hindering their work.

Under the existing Administrative Code, those who disobey orders of police, military, prison or migration officials can be punished by a fine of up to 1,000 rubles (about $35) or be arrested for 15 days. The code does not include FSB in this clause, but by law, FSB officials are considered to be in military service and therefore have the right to issue fines or conduct arrests.

An explanatory note accompanying the bill noted the rise of "extremist activity" in Russia and suggested that the amendments were urgently needed. Citing figures from the Investigative Committee, the document said 460 extremist crimes were registered in Russia in 2008, or nearly 30 percent higher than a year earlier.

The note, posted on the Duma's web site, said the media was partly to blame for the rise of extremism.

"Some media outlets, both print and electronic, openly help shape negative processes in the spiritual sphere, propagate individualism, violence and mistrust of the state's capacity to protect its citizens, effectively drawing young people into extremist activities."

The bill would mark a return to the Soviet-era practice of informal talks, in which officers from the FSB predecessor, the KGB, would intimidate public activists from speaking against the government, human rights activists said.

Lev Ponomaryov, a Soviet dissident who now heads the Committee for Human Rights, recalled how decades ago university students were forced to sign agreements with the KGB promising that they would fight political dissent.

"People will be forced to cooperate with the FSB, and they could face fines and arrests. This is a serious situation and we will protest against these amendments," Ponomaryov said.

Under the law now, warnings to those believed to be involved in suspicious activities are issued by prosecutors. Also, citizens are now free to disregard the FSB's calls to informal talks.

Andrei Soldatov, head of the Agentura think tank, which studies security agencies, said the changes were prepared to raise the FSB's profile and return some of the pre-emptive security functions that it has lost in recent years.

"People got used to the fact that they are investigating cases. But the FSB wants to act when there is no case and they want to act pre-emptively," Soldatov said.

During the 2000s, law enforcement agencies, including the FSB, were amassing legal authority and resources, saying they needed more power to fight extremism and terrorism.

Often, these powers were applied to intimidate and silence political dissent, especially after the controversial law on extremism was adopted in 2007. The law made criticism of the authorities and sowing discord between social groups a punishable crime.

Russian courts have ruled several times since then in extremist cases that officials and law enforcement officers are distinguishable social groups, and they have issued harsh sentences to defendants who have criticized them.

Mikhail Grishankov, first deputy head of the Duma's Security Committee and a member of the ruling United Russia party, said the amendments were developed long ago.

"In the framework of preventive measures, new opportunities will emerge for the FSB," Grishankov, a retired FSB officer, told The Moscow Times.

Even under the new legislation, if it were to pass, a person could not be forced to cooperate with the FSB. "This is his right," he said.

Ponomaryov said the bill appeared to be in response to the recent terrorist bombings in the Moscow metro last month, in which 40 people were killed.

State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov sparked a storm of criticism earlier this month for linking the newspapers Vedomosti and Moskovsky Komsomolets to terrorists for publishing articles that he called "suspicious."

Gryzlov told President Dmitry Medvedev that the newspapers had been critical of the state's response to the attacks and attributed them to revenge for the Kremlin's policy in the Caucasus, which rebel leader Doku Umarov cited as his reason when he claimed responsibility.

Google was forced to remove a YouTube video, in which Umarov claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they were retribution for FSB killings of innocent civilians, after an outcry from United Russia deputies. [Bratersky/TheMoscowTimes/27April2010]

British Embassy Security Chief Bill Shaw Jailed for Two Years After Afghan "Bribe." The manager of a British security company that provides protection for the British Embassy in Kabul has been sentenced to two years in a notorious Afghan prison for corruption.

Bill Shaw, a former British Army officer, is employed by G4S which provides security for British diplomatic personnel in Kabul including those from the Foreign Office, Department for International Development and Revenue and Customs. He was detained in Kabul on March 4 and accused of paying a $20,000 (�13,000) bribe to Afghan officials for the return of two armored vehicles belonging to the company.

Mr. Shaw, who holds an MBE for 20-years service with the Royal Military Police, told the court that he believed he was paying a fine rather than a bribe for the release of the two vehicles, which were impounded last October.

G4S said in a statement that the company continues to support Mr. Shaw's assertions of innocence. A spokesman told reporters the charges against him were "totally misconceived."

His lawyer, Kimberly Motley, said that the case had been poorly conducted and that Mr. Shaw would launch an appeal.

G4S is the world's largest security company and the single largest private sector employer of ex-British servicemen. The British Embassy in Kabul is defended by a mixed force of ex-Gurkhas and British soldiers employed by G4S.

Mr. Shaw will serve his sentence at Pul-e-Charki jail, a crumbling jail outside Kabul where many of the other inmates are convicted Taliban prisoners.

The case brought against Mr. Shaw was first reported by The Times in March. It is the most high profile case brought before a new anti-corruption tribunal set up under intense Western pressure by the Karzai Government to address chronic corruption after last year's presidential elections.

A G4S spokesman told The Times: "Bill was arrested...following his support for an ongoing investigation into alleged corrupt activities. We believe the arrest to be the result of a misunderstanding...and continue to work closely with the Afghan authorities and the British Embassy... to better understand the circumstances surrounding the detention and charges."

Afghanistan is the second most corrupt country on earth, according to the Index on Corruption, second only to Somalia.

Relations between the many security companies working in the Afghan capital and local authorities are frequently tense with security companies complaining that the rules governing their activities are continuously being changed.

Insiders at the British Embassy told The Times that Mr. Shaw paid the $20,000 to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the intelligence service, after the vehicles were impounded because they lacked Ministry of Interior Licenses.

Once paid, the two NDS agents who received the money were reported to have disappeared. The NDS began its own inquiry into events and Mr. Shaw was called for questioning.

"It was suggested to him at this point that it was a good idea to leave the country on a British military flight," one insider said, adding that Mr. Shaw had cleared the $20,000 fine with his head office in London before paying it. "But he didn't take that advice. Next the NDS turned up and arrested him."

An Afghan employee of G4S was also convicted and sentenced to two years. [Coughlen/TimesOnline/27April2010] 

CIA Whispering Campaign Reinforces Drone Attacks. A CIA disinformation campaign has Pakistan-based Taliban leaders sleeping in foxholes in fear of Predator-style missile attacks, a former top CIA operations official says.

"We have them thinking that we can track them anywhere, that we've got devices in their cars, their houses, everywhere," said the former official, who remains a consultant on intelligence issues.

"They're so afraid to stay in their houses at night they're digging foxholes to sleep in."

The whispering campaign, carried out by local Pakistanis and Afghans on the CIA payroll, is made all the more potent by actual drone attacks, which now involve the use of smaller missiles and advanced surveillance technology to minimize civilian deaths, according to a report today by The Post's Joby Warrick and Peter Finn.

Contributing to the frequency of the attacks in Pakistan and Iraq is the ever-increasing ability of the CIA and its Pentagon partners to quickly react to the intercepted cell-phone calls of insurgency leaders.

"As soon as they go up on a phone, if we've got one of those numbers, we can almost instantly trace it and locate it," a U.S. counterinsurgency operative working on the Af-Pak border told me recently. "And they relay that information to us, so we can catch them crossing the border" into Afghanistan.

"It's like mowing a lawn," he said. "The problem is, like a lawn, they keep coming."

Al Qaeda's top inner circle, on the other hand, long ago discarded cell phones in favor of "6th century technology," the former official said - messages delivered by hand - to foil the drones.

In 2008 the Post's Bob Woodward wrote of new, top secret techniques that were proving to be a game-changer for U.S. forces battling al Qaeda in Iraq.

"This is very sensitive and very top secret, but there are secret operational capabilities that have been developed by the military to locate, target, and kill leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders. That is one of the true breakthroughs," Woodward told "60 Minutes" while promoting his new book, "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008."

Woodward compared the new techniques to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret, $20 billion project during World War II to build an atomic bomb. [Stein/WashingtonPost/27April2010] 

U.S. Subpoenas Times Reporter Over Book on C.I.A. The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The author, James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena requiring him to provide documents and to testify May 4 before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., about his sources for a chapter of his book, "State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration." The chapter largely focuses on problems with a covert C.I.A. effort to disrupt alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research.

Mr. Risen referred questions to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel L.L.P., who said that Mr. Risen would not comply with the demand and would ask a judge to quash the subpoena.

The subpoena comes two weeks after the indictment of a former National Security Agency official on charges apparently arising from an investigation into a series of Baltimore Sun articles that exposed technical failings and cost overruns of several agency programs that cost billions of dollars.

The lead prosecutor in both investigations is William Welch II. He formerly led the Justice Department's public integrity unit, but left that position in October after its botched prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Matthew A. Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to discuss the subpoena to Mr. Risen or to confirm its existence. "As a general matter, we have consistently said that leaks of classified information are a matter we take extremely seriously," he said.

Mr. Risen and a colleague won a Pulitzer Prize for a December 2005 New York Times article that exposed the existence of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program. While many critics - including Barack Obama, then a senator - called that program illegal, the Bush administration denounced the article as a damaging leak of classified information and opened an investigation into its sources. No one has been indicted in that matter.

The second chapter in Mr. Risen's book provides a detailed description of the program. But Mr. Kurtzberg said the Justice Department was seeking information only about Mr. Risen's sources for the ninth chapter, which centers on the C.I.A.'s effort to disrupt Iranian nuclear research. That material did not appear in The Times.

The book describes how the agency sent a Russian nuclear scientist - who had defected to the United States and was secretly working for the C.I.A. - to Vienna in February 2000 to give plans for a nuclear bomb triggering device to an Iranian official under the pretext that he would provide further assistance in exchange for money. The C.I.A. had hidden a technical flaw in the designs.

The scientist immediately spotted the flaw, Mr. Risen reported. Nevertheless, the agency proceeded with the operation, so the scientist decided on his own to alert the Iranians that there was a problem in the designs, thinking they would not take him seriously otherwise.

Mr. Risen described the operation as reckless, arguing that Iranian scientists may have been able to "extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws." He also wrote that a C.I.A. case officer, believing that the agency had "assisted the Iranians in joining the nuclear club," told a Congressional intelligence committee about the problems, but that no action was taken.

It is not clear whether the Iranians had figured out that the Russian scientist had been working for the C.I.A. before publication of Mr. Risen's book.

The Bush administration had sought Mr. Risen's cooperation in identifying his sources for the Iran chapter of his book, and it obtained an earlier subpoena against him in January 2008 under Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey. But Mr. Risen fought the subpoena, and never had to testify before it expired last summer. That left it up to Mr. Holder to decide whether to press forward with the matter by seeking a new subpoena.

If a judge does not agree to quash the subpoena and Mr. Risen still refuses to comply, he risks being held in contempt of court. In 2005, a Times reporter, Judith Miller, was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify in connection with the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case.

Department rules say prosecutors may seek such subpoenas only if the information they are seeking is essential and cannot be obtained another way, and the attorney general must personally sign off after balancing the public's interest in the news against the public's interest in effective law enforcement.

Congress is considering legislation that would let judges make that determination, giving them greater power to quash subpoenas to reporters. The Obama administration supports such a media-shield bill, and the House of Representatives has passed a version of it. But a Senate version has been stalled for months. [Savage/NYTimes/29April2010] 

Pentagon Taking Closer Look at Afghan Intel Unit. Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a closer look at a military outfit accused of using contractors to help track down militants in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.

The Pentagon has already launched a criminal investigation into a Defense Department employee, who, instead of providing U.S. commanders details on Afghanistan's social and tribal landscape, is accused of running an off-the-books spy operation.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates ordered an additional review to see whether the unit may have broken Pentagon rules and regulations on intelligence gathering.

"Short of criminality, did they break the rules with regards to our policy on this issue?" Morrell said. "Was there inappropriate intelligence gathering being done under the auspices of this information operations contract?"

The allegations, first detailed in a New York Times report last month, centered on Michael Furlong, who the newspaper said hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces operatives.

The contractors gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps and then sent that material to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, unnamed officials told the paper.

Furlong has denied any wrongdoing.

Gates last month ordered an initial 15-day review of so-called information operations in the U.S. war effort, a massive endeavor receiving more than $500 million in funding in fiscal year 2010.

It can include anything from electronic warfare to gathering open-source information about Afghanistan's tribal structures or broadcasting a military message on local radio.

Morrell said the 15-day review exposed no other questionable contracts, but there was room to improve "strategic management and oversight including contracting oversight."

Gates also ordered the Pentagon to review information operations in the fiscal year 2011 budget request, Morrell said.

"If necessary, he is prepared to reorganize, realign so that these functions are housed in the proper places and managed by the proper people," Morrell said. [Stewart/Reuters/27April2010] 

Amateur Model Known as "Katya" Revealed as Russian Honeytrap Bait. Ekaterina Gerasimova has piercing blue eyes, an innocent girl-next-door face, and likes to do a little amateur modeling.

But if her "victims" are to be believed, she is the Kremlin's most effective secret agent and a latter-day Mata Hari.

Her mission, it is claimed, is to discredit prominent Kremlin critics by luring them into compromising situations using vintage KGB honey trap techniques.

Offering her own body, sex, and drugs from cocaine to marijuana as an inducement, "Katya" as she is usually known has tried and often succeeded in bedding at least half a dozen high-profile Kremlin critics.

The reputational damage she has inflicted has varied from serious to negligible depending on her victim's marital status and response.

Her latest victim was Viktor Shenderovich, a journalist and the script writer on Russia's now defunct version of the Spitting Image TV satire.

Mr. Shenderovich, who is married and has a daughter, admits that he slept with Ms. Gerasimova but claims he was set up by the Kremlin.

Though he has tried to laugh the incident off, his credibility as an authoritative critic of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, appears to have been at least partly dented by the sting and his marriage is now reportedly in trouble.

The editor of Russian Newsweek magazine also fell under Ms. Gerasimova's spell and was filmed in his underpants chopping up what looked like cocaine after having sex with her.

A clutch of anti-Kremlin opposition figures and activists including a man who looked like the leader of the radical National Bolshevik Party have also been caught in flagrante delicto with the twenty-something model.

But unlike Soviet times when the secret service used compromising material or 'compromat' as it was known to blackmail, Ms. Gerasimova's exploits have been widely publicized in grainy and heavily edited videos on the internet.

The videos are often accompanied by mocking music and subtitles. It has taken a few weeks for her victims to realize that they have all been set up by one and the same girl.

Yet little is known about Ms. Gerasimova beyond that she registered for an online modeling agency that supplied pretty girls for ad campaigns, trade exhibitions and fashion shoots.

Pictures of her show a brunette posing in her underwear wearing pink nail varnish and a broad smile.

Nicknamed 'Moo-Moo' after the surname she appears to have given herself on a social networking site, victims say she used different first names, had different cover stories, and was highly persistent in her advances.

Some of the victims say they knew something was wrong when she suddenly produced drugs or, in one case, asked a young opposition leader to join her and a female friend in experimenting with a large selection of sex toys.

The politician, Ilya Yashin, said he got up and left at that point after asking her whether they were being filmed.

Katya herself appears to have disappeared into the ether but at least one other prominent Kremlin critic has already warned that he expects a similar video featuring himself and Katya to hit the internet soon. [Osborn/Telegraph/29April2010] 

Spy Couple Talking to Authorities. Authorities say a U.S. couple who admit they spied on their country for Cuba for three decades have been providing details of their clandestine activities.

Former State Department employee Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn Myers, who pleaded guilty last November, will be sentenced July 16, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Tuesday.

Under their plea agreements, Walter Kendall Myers has agreed to a life sentence without parole while Gwendolyn Myers could serve 6-7 1/2 years. The couple, who also are to pay the government $1.7 million and forfeit other assets, are asking they be sent to prisons as close together as possible.

The U.S. Justice Department said the couple have met with federal officials 50 to 60 times to go over details of their spying, The Miami Herald reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Michael Harvey told the judge the investigators were "still on track" to complete the "debriefings" in 30 to 40 days, the newspaper said.

The pair have said through their attorney that they had engaged in espionage "not out of selfish motive or hope of personal gain but out of conscience and personal commitment." [UPI/28April2010] 

CIA To Station More Analysts Overseas as Part of its Strategy. The CIA's overseas expansion since Sept. 11, 2001, has mainly been evident on the operations side, with more case officers, more drone strikes and the distribution of a lot more cash. But the agency also has been sending abroad more employees from its less-flashy directorate, in what officials described as a major shift in how the agency trains and deploys its analysts.

One U.S. intelligence official said "hundreds" of analysts are already in overseas assignments, a number that is expected to grow under a plan unveiled this week by CIA Director Leon Panetta.

In a speech to the agency workforce, Panetta said there would be "more co-location of analysts and operators at home and abroad" over the next five years, and that the fusion of the two "has been key to victories in counterterrorism and counterproliferation."

The deployments mark a significant change from the agency's practice of relying on a small army of analysts at CIA headquarters to make sense of the information gathered by case officers abroad.

Altering that arrangement creates logistical challenges as well as security risks, particularly as the agency ramps up the rotation of analysts in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite the dangers, current and former CIA officials said using more analysts overseas has helped the agency overcome post-Sept. 11 problems.

In particular, officials said that foreign assignments have been crucial to accelerating the training of analysts, giving them a deeper understanding of the countries and subjects they cover in a shorter amount of time. Having analysts work alongside case officers - rather than half a world away - has also sped up the tempo of operations against al-Qaeda and other adversaries.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, CIA analysts use satellite imagery and other intelligence to help direct unmanned-aircraft strikes and military raids on Taliban sites.

"Instead of wiring back to Washington, nine hours out of sync, you've got analysts right there who can help," said Mark M. Lowenthal, formerly a senior CIA official.

A U.S. intelligence official said the work from overseas teams of analysts and operators has been crucial in a number of recent cases, including the disruption of a 2006 airliner plot and the discovery of Iran's undeclared uranium-enrichment facility last year near the city of Qom.

CIA analysts also played a major role in the agency's secret prisons. "It was the analysts who did all the debriefings of detainees after they started cooperating," said a former CIA official.

Panetta is the latest in a line of CIA directors, dating at least to the 1990s, to push for sending more analysts abroad. A major obstacle has been providing training and finding ways to make room. Analysts are not usually trained in survival skills or spycraft, nor do they generally work undercover. That changes when they go overseas to work with undercover operatives.

The positions set aside for the CIA in U.S. embassies, where case officers often pose as diplomats, are often in short supply. The constraints are less significant in war zones, where analysts can pose as Defense Department staff.

The CIA has come under criticism recently for putting employees in dangerous posts abroad without adequate preparation.

The agency base in Afghanistan that was struck by a suicide bomb in December, killing seven CIA employees, was run by a woman who had spent most of her career tracking al-Qaeda as a reports officer - a job that generally involves fielding intelligence reports but staying away from the front lines.

CIA officials have defended the move, noting that she had undergone significant training and had held sensitive positions in Afghanistan before. Her name has not been publicly disclosed. None of those killed at Forward Operating Base Chapman were analysts, and officials stressed that those taking part in Panetta's program will not be placed in operational roles, such as recruiting informants and taking part in raids.

Lowenthal said Panetta's plan may also help the CIA protect its turf. Some advocates have argued that it should focus on collection and lose the analytic function.

Sending more analysts overseas to work with their clandestine counterparts "may be part of a way for Panetta to make sure that doesn't happen," Lowenthal said. [Miller/WashingtonPost/29April2010] 

Ex-Spy's Killing Exposes Militant Rifts in North Waziristan. The hornet's nest of militant groups in Pakistan's mountainous northwest was already complicated. Now, analysts have to factor in the Asian Tigers.

The previously unknown group recently identified itself as responsible for the kidnapping of a British journalist and two former Pakistani spies who had traveled to the tribal areas in late March to film a documentary. On Friday, Pakistani authorities said the Asian Tigers had fatally shot one of the captives, prominent ex-intelligence officer Khalid Khawaja.

That would be an unsurprising fate in famously dangerous North Waziristan, a region populated by Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents. But the two former spies were known allies of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, which apparently led them to believe they would have safe passage.

Pakistani officials, who confirmed Khawaja's death on the condition of anonymity, said they think the Asian Tigers are a sectarian faction of a militant group based in Pakistan's Punjabi region.

The murky circumstances sparked speculation about whether Khawaja - who had campaigned against the alleged disappearances of suspected militants by intelligence services - may have been set up by former colleagues.

Many analysts said his killing highlighted the tangled nature of Pakistan's militant web, and how little old connections might mean as new groups arise. [Brulliard/WashingtonPost/30April2010] 

US Engineers Develop Spy Plane that Lands Vertically, Clings to Wall. American engineers are trying to develop a spy drone that could fly silently into a city and perch on a wall for days, vertically undetected.

Stanford University is developing the technology for the "Perching Project".

A video released recently shows the team has made significant progress in getting a model plane flying at 35km/h to automatically stall near a vertical surface and hold on to the wall with its tiny spines.

Stanford professor Mark Cutkosky and student Alexis Desbiens believe the technology could lead to "a flock of small, unmanned air vehicles (that) flies quietly into a city, maneuvering among the buildings".

"They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat- or insect-like, in relative safety and obscurity," News.com.au quoted them, as writing.

While perched on the wall the drone could record sound and vision, and even recharge itself if needed.

A small propeller could help the plane creep along a wall until it finds an ideal spot.

After the mission is complete, the plane's hooks will disengage and it could easily fly off.  [DNAIndia/30April2010] 

German Court Orders Eichmann Files Released. A federal court has ordered the government to release secret files kept by the German intelligence service on top Nazi Adolf Eichmann after World War II.

The ruling came after reporter Gabriele Weber sued to have the BND release the 4,500 pages of files. She says they could fill in gaps about Eichmann's postwar life and how he escaped to Argentina.

The BND had argued releasing the files could jeopardize the work of an informant and harm relations with a "foreign intelligence service" that provided some of the information.

But the Federal Administrative Court ruled that while the BND could withhold some files for those reasons it could not keep them all secret.

It was not immediately clear when the files would be turned over. [AP/1May2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Manuel Noriega - From US Friend to Foe. Before Saddam Hussein there was Manuel Noriega. Like Saddam, Noriega enjoyed US support until he turned into a wayward ally, then an embarrassment, and finally an "imminent danger" who had to be overthrown.

Noriega was recruited as a CIA informant while studying at a military academy in Peru. He received intelligence and counterintelligence training at the School of the Americas at Fort Gulick, Panama, in 1967, as well as a course in psychological operations at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was to remain on the CIA payroll until February 1988.

After a military coup in 1968, Noriega quickly rose through the ranks and became head of Panama's military intelligence and a key figure under General Omar Torrijos, the military ruler who signed a treaty with the US to restore the Panama canal zone to Panamanian sovereignty in 1977.

After Torrijos's death in a mysterious plane crash in 1981, Noriega consolidated his power, becoming Panama's de facto ruler, promoting himself to full general in 1983.

Noriega made himself valuable to the US during the Contra wars when he allowed the US to set up listening posts in Panama and by helping the US campaign against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Noriega allowed Panama to be used as a conduit for US money and weapons for the Contras as then US president Ronald Reagan sought to undermine the Sandinistas. But Noriega's increasing brutality turned him into a liability, especially after the assassination of Hugo Spadafora, a political opponent who was found beheaded in 1985.

By the late 1980s, the US turned against Noriega. The 1988 Senate subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics and international operations concluded that "the saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate US policy towards his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama.

"It is clear that each US government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medell�n Cartel [a member of which was the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar]."

Noriega was indicted by two US federal grand juries in Florida on charges of drug trafficking and racketeering and the CIA took him off its payroll. The next year, Noriega's image as a thuggish dictator was reinforced in the starkest terms as opposition candidates in the presidential election were stopped and beaten up by Noriega's "dignity battalions".

Following a series of incidents that culminated in the death of an American soldier, President George Bush decided it was time for regime change. In December 1989, Bush sent in US troops to overthrow Noriega, offering a $1m reward for information leading to his capture.

"General Noriega's reckless threats and attacks upon Americans in Panama created an imminent danger to the 35,000 American citizens in Panama. As president, I have no higher obligation than to safeguard the lives of American citizens," Bush said at the time.

Operation Just Cause ended in Noriega's capture when he surrendered to US troops after taking refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama. In one of the more bizarre episodes of the invasion, US forces played loud rock music - including I Fought the Law, by the Clash - to put pressure on Noriega to give himself up. Losses on the US side were 24 troops, plus three civilian casualties. The number of Panamanian civilian deaths was put at about 200, although there are claims that the number is much higher.

Noriega was convicted in Miami in 1992 on multiple charges, including drug trafficking, and sentenced to 40 years. That was reduced for good behaviour and he completed his sentence in 2007. Since then inmate 38699-079, as he was numbered in prison, has dedicated himself to fighting extradition to France, where he has been accused of laundering up to $3m (�2m) of drug money through property purchases in Paris.  [Guardian/27April2010] 

Famous Saigon Photo Captured Doctor's Escape to a New Life. It is among the most searing images from the fall of Saigon 35 years ago: a line of South Vietnamese people climbing a ladder to reach a U.S. helicopter perched atop an apartment-building elevator shaft.

Those who board leave behind their homes and families for destinations unknown. Those who don't face death or concentration camps.

Though the faces are too small to be identified, Dr. Tong Huynh recognizes himself as the second figure from the top of the ladder on April 29, 1975.

Just ahead of him, reaching for the hand of a man believed to be a CIA employee, is his friend Thiet-Tan Nguyen, Huynh says. The tiny head next to Huynh is a teenage girl named Tuyet-Dong Bui, whom he held as she struggled against the powerful wash of the chopper's blades.

"Every April 29th I remember that day almost every minute," Huynh said.

Now 69 with a family medical practice, Huynh keeps a framed photo of the rooftop evacuation scene in the den of his suburban Atlanta home. He says he called the Atlanta office of the United Press International (UPI) office to talk about the photo and was given a copy.

Shot by UPI staffer Hubert van Es, a Dutch photojournalist, it's an enduring image of the Vietnam War and inspired the closing scene of the musical "Miss Saigon."

Huynh had a larger version made for the annual Remembrance Day ceremony that will be held Sunday in a nearby Vietnamese community club. The annual event marks April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, the government surrendered and the war officially ended.

"That was the day we lost our country," Huynh said. "It's not a joyous day. It's a painful day. We relive a little bit of our pain."

About 70,000 Vietnamese people live in Georgia, said Kim-Hanh Dang of the Vietnamese Community of Georgia. Veterans groups say 8,000 to 10,000 of them served in the South Vietnamese army or police force.

"The armed forces guys have a hard time forgetting," said Huynh, a captain in the South Vietnamese army. "No old soldier wants to lose a war."

Memories spill out when Huynh talks about his last day in Saigon, the city where he grew up. With the North Vietnamese advancing, he had put his wife, sister and mother on a plane days earlier. Chaos filled the streets. His army commander told him, "If you have a chance to go, don't stay around."

With several friends and his father, he searched for a way to escape with no success. Crowds outside the U.S. Embassy were so thick, they couldn't get inside. Another friend, a general's son, said he knew a spot where a helicopter would arrive. That connection would save his life.

"My father was so tired," Huynh said. "He said, 'You go.' We embraced and I said goodbye to him. I said, 'If I succeed, you won't see me anymore.' "

His father, who spent seven years in a concentration camp, later came to the United States, where he died.

Huynh and his friends drove to an apartment house on Gia Long Street, where CIA officials were housed. (One of the misconceptions of the Vietnam War is that the photo was taken at the U.S. Embassy.) They climbed seven or eight flights of stairs and waited on the roof.

Bui, the girl in the photo with Huynh, remembers the people on the roof were high-ranking South Vietnamese army members or their families.

When the helicopter landed, the scramble began. Huynh and his friends climbed on board. The eight-passenger chopper was loaded with 20 people.

Some men who didn't make it fought to climb aboard, but a large American on the roof, probably a CIA employee, pushed them back.

Huynh said the overloaded copter had to land at the embassy, where the pilot ejected a dozen people before taking the rest to a U.S. ship.

He spent six months in relocation camps in Guam and Pennsylvania before reuniting with his wife in Montreal.

Eventually, he and his wife moved to Roanoke, Va., where a church sponsored the family. Though he'd been an ear, nose and throat specialist in Vietnam, in Virginia he could only get a job as a hospital scrub nurse. He studied, passed his medical boards and moved to Atlanta in 1980.

Huynh stays in touch with his friends from that day. Nguyen is also a doctor, living in California. Bui, the girl in the photo with Huynh, lives in Mission Viejo, Calif., and is a scientist with a biotech company. She's related to Huynh by marriage and sometimes visits him in Georgia.

She, too, remembers April 29, 1975 - "the biggest event of my life": "By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was so exhausted." [Ellis/SeattleTimes/28April2010]

The French Spy, the CIA, and the Syrian Reactor. The pictures were crystal clear: A clandestine Syrian nuclear facility, bombed by Israeli jets, lay in ruins on the edge of the desert, 90 miles south of Damascus.

Most important, the photos showed that the core of the reactor, built with secret North Korean help, had been totally destroyed.

But at CIA headquarters, Deputy Director Stephen R. Kappes was chafing - at what he didn't have, according to two former intelligence officials, recounting the tale only on condition of anonymity because the incident remains sensitive.

Recently returned from a self-imposed, two-year exile, the career spy wanted somebody to eyeball that wreckage - get in close, point a camera at it, maybe even take a radiation reading.

Days had passed, however, and the CIA, with an estimated budget of $10 billion in 2009, had not been able to get a spy out there.

It wasn't that close-in photos would be crucial: It was a point of pride. This is what first-class intelligence services do. They dispatch spies to watch and hear things that their fabulous technology might have missed.

And Kappes, who had quit the agency in 2004 rather than take instruction from the staff of Bush's CIA Director Porter Goss, wanted to show what the spies under his direction could do. Alas, somebody else was about to beat him to it.

According to the former officials, the French military attach� in Damascus simply took it upon himself to drive out to the reactor on his own and take pictures.

One of the former officials said that the attach�, whose name could not be learned, drove out to the desert site, near the village of At Tibnah, trailing a virtual caravan of Syrian "minders," domestic security agents assigned to follow him around.

When he pulled up to the reactor site, according to this source, the attach� jerked his thumb over his shoulder and told the bewildered guards, "They're with me."

Apparently that bought him enough time to snap some pictures.

But the second former official said "there was no sign of security personnel being present" at the site.

The attach� "drove there and took the photos from his vehicle," said the former official. "A few had the steering wheel and dashboard prominently featured.

"He was never out of the vehicle, and he never got into the wreckage itself. But he was damn close, and it was a really ballsy move," the source added.

A little while later, the French presented the photos to the CIA.

"It was a major embarrassment for [Kappes], who kept pushing them to come up with a plan on an almost daily basis," the first former intelligence official maintains.

"I think the big issue was that CIA couldn't come up with a way of obtaining the photos. Near East Division management, as well as the Damascus station, was paralyzed, could not come up with a plan, and here the French just drive up and do it."

CIA spokesman George Little called "this account... off the mark."

"But what is for certain," Little added, "is that Deputy Director Kappes always encourages bold action and smart risk. The discovery of the Syrian covert nuclear reactor was a textbook intelligence success - one achieved after a careful review of information from multiple sources over a period of time."

Likewise, the second former official pooh-poohed the idea that Kappes was embarrassed or upset.

"I don't recall him being pissed that we didn't have anyone there," the former official said. "Syria for us is a tough place, and he understands that."

"The French photos were nothing more than an unexpected extra, which confirmed the bomb damage we had seen," the former official said. "We were just struck by how close the attach� got, and the lack of any apparent security."

"The overhead was far better," the former official added. "It showed us the reactor was out of action, and also helped later when the Syrians began hiding what was left, bulldozing and covering it with sand."

Much ado about nothing, a third intelligence operations veteran snorted.

Military attach�s everywhere, he said, "love to do ground-level photography, pretending like they're James Bonds or something.

"It's the kind of stunt those services like to perform." [Stein/WashingtonPost/29April2010] 

Downed U-2 Pilot's Son on Own Mission in Russia. Fifty years ago, U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, a dramatic episode of the Cold War that pushed the rival superpowers closer to confrontation.

Now his son has come to Moscow on a mission of his own: By telling his late father's story, he hopes to help preserve Cold War history and prevent future generations of Russians and Americans from ever again facing the threat of nuclear war.

On May 1, 1960, Powers was in the cockpit of the world's highest-flying plane, concentrated on keeping his course steady to film Soviet military bases far below, when he saw an orange flash all around him. His plane had been hit by a Soviet surface-to-air missile. He parachuted to safety but was quickly captured.

In the months before Powers' plane was downed, Moscow and Washington had been moving cautiously toward a thaw. The U-2 incident shattered these efforts.

It also humiliated U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had to admit that an initial claim by his administration that the plane was on a weather mission was a lie.

"In order to understand the world today you must understand how we got here and we got here through the Cold War," the pilot's 44-year-old son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., said Friday.

"And then we have to understand how this period of time developed and expanded and how close we came to nuclear war, but through diplomacy and some luck we were able to avert it during the Cuban Missile Crisis" of 1962.

The younger Powers joined Russian military historians in speaking to soldiers and cadets at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, where the charred wreckage of his father's U-2 spy plane is on display. He had traveled to Russia twice in the 1990s, but this was his first time speaking publicly.

His visit comes as Washington and Moscow try to push the reset button to improve ties, recently signing a deal on reducing their nuclear arsenals.

Powers Jr. has dedicated his professional life to preserving Cold War history. His own museum, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and essentially a traveling exhibit since he founded it in 1996, has just found its first permanent home on a former Army communications base outside Washington. He also runs spy tours of the U.S. capital.

His father's fateful mission was the 24th overflight of the Soviet Union in a highly secretive CIA program that was considered vital for national security at a time before spy satellites.

Among many other Soviet secrets, the previous flights had revealed that Soviet long-range bomber and intercontinental nuclear missile programs were not as advanced as feared, allowing the U.S. to avoid an immediate costly buildup of its own forces.

After nearly four years of unsuccessful Soviet attempts to intercept the U-2s flying at about 70,000 feet (over 21,000 meters), the CIA grew confident of the plane's immunity to Soviet defenses. But the Soviets worked desperately to develop higher-flying fighter jets and a powerful new air defense missile.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev received reports about another U.S. spy plane intrusion as he was preparing to attend a Red Square parade on May Day, one of the main Soviet holidays. His son, Sergei, then a young missile designer, told the Associated Press that he discussed this with his father that morning.

"I asked him: Will they shoot it down this time?" the younger Khrushchev recalled. "And he said: What kind of question is that? They will if they don't let the chance slip by."

Khrushchev was standing on Lenin's mausoleum with other Soviet officials watching the parade when the Soviet air defense chief, Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, walked purposefully along the stands, climbed up the stairs and whispered the news about downing the plane into his ear.

When Powers' plane went missing over the Soviet Union and no statements came immediately from the Kremlin, the CIA assumed that neither the pilot nor the spying equipment had survived. On May 3, the U.S. claimed that a high-altitude weather plane had gone missing on a flight over Turkey.

Khrushchev kept a poker face, announcing first that a U.S. spy plane had been downed without saying a word about its pilot. The U.S. stubbornly stuck to its cover story until the Soviet leader announced May 7 that the pilot had been caught and had confessed to spying.

"The Americans, the U.S., for the first time were caught red-handed in espionage activities," Powers Jr. said.

For Khrushchev, the incident provided a long-sought opportunity to punish the United States.

"My father perceived the U-2 flights as not only damaging national security, but even more important as a sign of condescension, a demonstration by the Americans that they could do whatever they want and fly where they liked without consequences," Sergei Khrushchev said in a recent telephone interview. "He decided to take revenge and said: Let's wait a bit and see what the Americans will do."

The scandal led to the collapse of a peace summit in Paris scheduled for mid-May and also ruined hopes for a quick agreement on a nuclear test ban.

"The hawks won, and tensions heightened," said Sergei Khrushchev, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

After months of KGB interrogation, Powers was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August 1960. But he was exchanged for KGB spy Col. Rudolph Abel on Feb. 10, 1962.

Back from Soviet captivity, Powers went through debriefings by CIA officers unwilling to believe that his plane had been shot down by a Soviet missile. Some thought Powers had inadvertently descended to a lower altitude, allowing the Soviets to intercept him.

"The American military, the American government just couldn't bring themselves to believe that the Soviets were more advanced than they may have thought," the younger Powers said.

Powers was eventually exonerated. He worked as a test pilot for Lockheed until 1970, then flew a light plane as a traffic reporter and later worked as a pilot for a Los Angeles television station. He died when his helicopter crashed on Aug. 1, 1977.

After the Soviet collapse, Soviet military veterans unveiled previously hidden details of the incident.

It became known that the Soviets accidentally shot down one of their own fighter planes that had been scrambled to intercept Powers' aircraft. Its pilot was killed.

When Powers' plane was still in the air, another Soviet fighter pilot was ordered to intercept the U-2 in a factory-fresh Su-9 fighter carrying no weapons. The pilot was told to ram the American plane at the cost of his own life, but he couldn't locate Powers and landed safely.

Powers Jr. remembered bugging his father with questions on how high he was flying on May 1, 1960: "He got so tired of me asking this question that he finally looked at me one day and said: Gary, I wasn't flying high enough." [AP/30April2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

NYPD Intelligence Making FBI Blue, by Jeff Stein. The body of the last Pakistani terrorist was hardly cold in November 2008 when representatives of the New York Police Department's intelligence unit showed up in Mumbai.

"We're from the U.S. government," they told Indian security officials, according to a senior former U.S. intelligence official who now does private business in the country.

The Indians were left confused by who exactly was representing American intelligence in Mumbai, he said. Was it the CIA, FBI, or these men who said they were from "the U.S. government"?

The incident could not be independently verified, although NYPD chief Raymond W. Kelly was not shy about telling a congressional panel later that "within hours of the end of the attacks, the NYPD notified the Indian government that we would be sending personnel there."

"By December 5," he added, "our Intelligence Division had produced an analysis, which we shared with the FBI."

The FBI was not all that grateful, according to several former bureau and CIA sources.

Indeed, tension between the FBI and the NYPD's intelligence division has only deepened since then, according to a lacerating analysis by a veteran New York crime reporter.

"There is... a wall of distrust and envy between the FBI and the higher-ups of NYPD's Intelligence Division," Leonard Levitt wrote last week on his blog, NYPD Confidential.

The cause: "freelancing" by NYPD Intelligence, from Mumbai and London, where its detectives have conducted their own investigations into terrorist plots, to Queens, where they nearly derailed a domestic terrorism investigation, according to Levitt, buttressed by other sources.

"The Intelligence Division, which is headed by the former CIA operative David Cohen, operates in its own orbit with its own rules," wrote Levitt, author last year of "NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Country's Greatest Police Force."

Cohen spent most of his career in the intelligence directorate, where he was known as a hardnosed manager and gained a measure of notoriety for writing a report, later dismissed by an internal CIA review, that blamed the Soviets for the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. He briefly headed the agency's Directorate of Operations, the DO, in the mid-1990s.

"Since his appointment [to the NYPD] in 2002, Cohen has often circumvented the FBI," Levitt wrote.

"This column has long reported on Cohen's penchant for sending Intel detectives on out-of-state investigations, where the NYPD has no legal jurisdiction, without informing the Bureau, as well as his and Kelly's stationing Intel detectives overseas to rival the FBI," Levitt added.

"In addition, both Cohen and Kelly have gone out of their way to publicly disparage the FBI. Both have stated they do not trust the FBI to protect the city from terrorism, that the NYPD must go it alone."

Paul J. Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, dismissed Levitt's comments out of hand.

"Our relations, including David Cohen's, with the FBI is [sic] excellent," Browne said by e-mail on Friday. "That kills those who wish it was otherwise."

Asked who would "wish" bad relations on the FBI and NYPD, Browne said, "the scribe you're quoting." He called Levitt "simply malicious."

Levitt called Browne's response "typical - he won't answer my specific questions."

An FBI spokesman declined to comment on "a journalist's comment."

From 1995 to 2005, Levitt's "One Police Plaza" column for the Long Island newspaper Newsday was must reading inside the NYPD itself. Before Newsday, Levitt was a reporter with the Associated Press and the Detroit News.

Levitt's critical analysis focused on the role of NYPD intelligence operatives in trying to disrupt a terrorist attack on the New York subway last year. Zarein Ahmedzay, a New York City taxi driver, and Najibullah Zazi, a Denver airport shuttle bus driver, eventually pleaded guilty, saying senior al-Qaeda leaders ordered them to carry out the plot.

Levitt called the NYPD operatives' handling of their informant in the case, a Queens imam, as "Lone Cowboy behavior" that "jeopardized the investigation into the most serious threat to national security since" the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

"It now appears that the NYPD spoke with Imam Ahmad Wais Afzali not once, as has been reported, but at least three times, urging him to spy on suspects in a plot to blow up New York City subways," Levitt wrote. "And the police apparently did this without informing their own partners in the terrorism investigation - the FBI."

"The result: Instead of helping the investigation, the NYPD's meddling led the imam to warn ringleader Najibullah Zazi that authorities were on to him, short-circuiting the crucial evidence-gathering surveillance and forcing the FBI to make arrests prematurely."

NYPD spokesman Browne refused to answer a half dozen questions about the NYPD's handling of the imam, saying "the assumptions of the questions... are false and as such not answerable."

"The NYPD and FBI worked closely on Zazi and knew what each other was doing along the way," Browne declared.

A former senior CIA counterterrorism official said Cohen "was not held in high regard by the DO...because he was not an operator and had never served in the field."

Even so, the former official expressed sympathy for the NYPD Intelligence detectives.

"Cohen aside, and bad NYPD tradecraft notwithstanding, I understand the frustration the cops feel," the ex-CIA official said, on condition of anonymity in exchange for speaking freely about a sensitive issue.

"There are glaciers sliding into the sea faster than the FBI moves sometimes. And, God knows, the NYPD has learned the hard way that CIA is not necessarily going to do its job and provide the requisite warning of a pending attack." [Stein/WashingtonPost/26April2010]

Smart Change is Slow for US Intelligence Agencies, by Suzanne Simmons. There they stood, an unprecedented public gathering of all heads of the American intelligence community. The 16 leaders of the agencies and departments that make up the intelligence community stood at attention behind Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair last week to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the position's formation.

Change doesn't come easily, especially when dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy of the federal government. So it's not surprising that five years after Congress created the job to run the sprawling 16-member community, it is very much a work in progress.

But did this rare appearance in front of TV cameras by a group of people who prefer not being seen reflect the reality of a seamless intelligence community, sharing information and collaborating to keep the nation safe?

The answer might be found in what had the potential to be the worst attack on the U.S. since September 11. The failed attempt to blow up a commercial airliner on Christmas Day exposed many weak points.

At a conference this month on the state of intelligence reform, Blair said December 25 "shows us that yesterday's improvements from 9/11 are not adequate to meet today's problems, much less tomorrow's problems."

Officials have said the problems ran the gamut from information that was hard to access because of outdated database software to faulty visa procedures to the failure of analysts to put together the threads of information and see the coming threat.

Former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin believes that the bombing attempt provides a great opportunity for the intelligence director to help further transform the intelligence community.

"Only the DNI by law can take the steps required in the aftermath to tune up the performance of the community," he said.

That might be easier said than done.

David Shedd, one of the deputy directors of national intelligence, said the reform legislation that created the director position provoked tensions by giving him "department-like responsibilities" but also making it clear that the person "could not abrogate the authorities of any other department head."

In other words, "the DNI, by design, straddles everyone else's turf."

Since only one of the 16 intelligence agencies or offices - the CIA - operates independent of a department, the law left the director of national intelligence with limited authority. Other intelligence units are attached to agencies like the Department of Defense. Shedd says the director must rely on personal relationships - with the president, Congress and his colleagues in the community - to get the job done.

Former Homeland Security Adviser Frances Fragos Townsend believes that the director's power rests with the president.

"The president must be clear on what it is he wants his DNI to do, what role he wants him to fulfill and how he expects him to execute it," she said.

One of the forces behind intelligence reform, former congressman Lee Hamilton, agrees. He explained that the law is ambiguous and that only the president can resolve the turf battles.

Most of the experts say there is no need or it isn't realistically feasible to pursue another legislative fix for the directorship. However, one person who knows quite a bit about the job doesn't necessarily agree.

Former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell maintains that the law does need to be revisited. He says that to get things done in a bureaucracy, you need authority, direction and control. That is why he wants to see a tenured director of national intelligence: that is, a director with a fixed term in office, and a Cabinet-rank Department of Intelligence.

"If we don't do it that way, we are going to continue to argue about these issues, and it will be personality dependent," McConnell said.

When asked about his predecessor's comment, Blair was noncommittal.

"I'm kind of pretty busy trying to work with what I have," he said.

Some members of Congress have complained about the size of the director's office.

There are more than 1,800 people under the auspices of the director of national intelligence, but nearly 1,200 of them work for mission support offices such as the National Counterterrorism Center. Shedd believes that those numbers are relatively small for the work that is being done.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, does not want to see the director's office become a big bureaucracy. It should be "lean and nimble," she said.

There has also been debate about whether the director of national intelligence should be the primary spokesperson for the intelligence community. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden was critical of the visible absence of Blair after the December 25 bombing attempt. Instead, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan spoke.

It is something that "100,000 people in the intelligence community... took note of," Hayden observed. The retired general added that "he needs to be and to be seen as the primary legitimate spokesman for what goes well and what goes ill inside the American intelligence community."

Hamilton agreed that the director should be the chief spokesman, not necessarily the only one.

Blair brushed off the criticism, saying he spends less time counting his time on camera than he does focusing on his work behind the scenes.

There are success stories. Hayden said the director of national intelligence shares some of the credit for making Americans safer today. He also called the National Counterterrorism Center, which was created by the intelligence reform legislation, an "unalloyed success story in terms of what it has done to change how we defend the country."

Harman said intelligence products are much better. According to Shedd, the update of the laws governing surveillance of Americans and the focus on cybersecurity would not have been accomplished if not for McConnell's efforts.

But all of the current and former officials attending the Bipartisan Policy Center's intelligence reform conference this month agreed that the community needs to be better.

Thomas Kean, the co-chairman of 9/11 Commission, says that although intelligence sharing among the community has significantly improved, it's not as strong as it should be. Hamilton pointed to the need for improvements in human intelligence and gaps on the analytic side.

Blair said that among his key goals the next five years is to expand the assigning of intelligence agents to spend time at other agencies and to extend sharing of information between the collectors of intelligence and the analysts of it.

Change might turn out to be generational. As Blair and others have maintained, it is the younger intelligence officers who tend to be more imaginative and innovative and to see themselves as players on a team. With more than 50 percent of the intelligence work force having joined government since the 2001 attacks, they could in large part be the answer to how the intelligence community will transform itself into the seamless entity envisioned by the reform legislation. [Simmons/CNN/28April2010] 

Section IV - BOOKS, JOBS AND COMING EVENTS

Books/Reading

The Guys Who Spied for China, by Gordon Basichis. The Guys Who Spied for China, by Gordon Basichis has just been released on the Apple iPad. The novel is based on his real life experiences uncovering Chinese Espionage Networks operating in the United States in the eighties and nineties.

The Guys Who Spied for China is being published by Minstrel's Alley, an independent publishing and media group. The book was also released as a trade paperback and Kindle and is available through Amazon, Ingram, Baker and Taylor as well as bookstores around the country.

"We are very excited about seeing The Guys Who Spied for China released through iPad" said M.J. Hammond, publisher and president of Minstrel's Alley. "The Apple iPad is a breakthrough platform for many applications, including EPublishing. And we believe E-Publishing is the wave of the future."

"The Guys Who Spied for China is our first published offering, so we naturally wish to oversee every stage of our marketing effort. We are pleased that it is now a Quarter Finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition."

"This roman a clef is a most unusual spy book as it breaks the mold for this genre. It tells the story of what it is like to be suddenly thrust into the world of espionage. We believe it should draw not only from spy freaks but from a wider, more literary readership as well."

Hammond describes the book as quirky and authentic with touches of dark humor that will engage the reader. "If you are looking for more than the basic mainstream spy book, you are in for a pleasant surprise. This tells a much richer story. This is a timely book, given the ongoing headlines about Chinese Espionage and the growing tensions again between the United States and China."

Gordon Basichis is the author of two previous books, The Constant Travellers, and Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story. He is the co-founder of Corra Group, a Los Angeles based company that conducts employment background checks and corporate research for companies throughout the United States and around the world. [PR.COM/27April2010]

The Attack Coming From Bytes, Not Bombs - Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It, by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake, reviewed by Michiko Kakutani. Blackouts hit New York, Los Angeles, Washington and more than 100 other American cities. Subways crash. Trains derail. Airplanes fall from the sky.

Gas pipelines explode. Chemical plants release clouds of toxic chlorine. Banks lose all their data. Weather and communication satellites spin out of their orbits. And the Pentagon's classified networks grind to a halt, blinding the greatest military power in the world.

This might sound like a takeoff on the 2007 Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movie, in which a group of cyberterrorists attempts to stage what it calls a "fire sale": a systematic shutdown of the nation's vital communication and utilities infrastructure. According to the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke, however, it's a scenario that could happen in real life - and it could all go down in 15 minutes. While the United States has a first-rate cyberoffense capacity, he says, its lack of a credible defense system, combined with the country's heavy reliance on technology, makes it highly susceptible to a devastating cyberattack.

"The United States is currently far more vulnerable to cyberwar than Russia or China," he writes. "The U.S. is more at risk from cyberwar than are minor states like North Korea. We may even be at risk some day from nations or nonstate actors lacking cyberwar capabilities, but who can hire teams of highly capable hackers."

Lest this sound like the augury of an alarmist, the reader might recall that Mr. Clarke, counterterrorism chief in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, repeatedly warned his superiors about the need for an aggressive plan to combat al Qaeda - with only a pallid response before 9/11. He recounted this campaign in his controversial 2004 book, "Against All Enemies."

Once again, there is a lack of coordination between the various arms of the military and various committees in Congress over how to handle a potential attack. Once again, government agencies and private companies in charge of civilian infrastructure are ill prepared to handle a possible disaster.

In these pages Mr. Clarke uses his insider's knowledge of national security policy to create a harrowing - and persuasive - picture of the cyberthreat the United States faces today. Mr. Clarke is hardly a lone wolf on the subject: Mike McConnell, the former director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee in February that "if we were in a cyberwar today, the United States would lose."

And last November, Steven Chabinsky, deputy assistant director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's cyber division, noted that the F.B.I. was looking into Qaeda sympathizers who want to develop their hacking skills and appear to want to target the United States' infrastructure.

Mr. Clarke - who wrote this book with Robert K. Knake, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations - argues that because the United States military relies so heavily upon databases and new technology, it is "highly vulnerable to cyberattack." And while the newly established Cyber Command, along with the Department of Homeland Security, is supposed to defend the federal government, he writes, "the rest of us are on our own":

"There is no federal agency that has the mission to defend the banking system, the transportation networks or the power grid from cyberattack." In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2009 that the United States' electrical grid had been penetrated by cyberspies (reportedly from China, Russia and other countries), who left behind software that could be used to sabotage the system in the future.

For more than a decade now, Mr. Clarke has been warning about "an electronic Pearl Harbor," and he is familiar with the frustrations of a political bureaucracy. He notes that pressure from both the right and left over the hot-button issues of regulation and privacy have made it difficult for the government to get individual corporations (which control vital services like electricity, Internet access and transportation) to improve their ability to defend themselves against cyberattack.

Meanwhile, Mr. Clarke says, China has developed "the ability to disconnect all Chinese networks from the rest of the global Internet, something that would be handy to have if you thought the U.S. was about to launch a cyberwar attack on you." After the first gulf war, he explains, the Chinese "began to downsize their military" - which reportedly has about one-eighth of the Pentagon's budget (before adding in the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) - and invest in new technologies, which they believed could give them an asymmetric advantage over the United States, despite America's overwhelming conventional arsenal.

As for North Korea, Mr. Clarke says, it employs an Olympics-like approach to creating cyberwarriors, selecting "elite students at the elementary-school level to be groomed as future hackers." North Korea is suspected of being behind the cyberattacks of July 2009 that took down the Web servers of the Treasury, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department and is thought to have placed "trapdoors" - code that allows hackers future access to a network - on computer networks on at least two continents.

Trapdoors are just one device that rival nation states and cyberterrorists can use. There are also "logic bombs" (code that can set off malicious functions when triggered), Distributed Denial of Service (D.D.O.S.) attacks (in which a site or server is flooded with more requests for data than it can process), and foreign-manufactured software and hardware that might have been tampered with before being shipped to the States.

The Defense Department, Mr. Clarke says, began to embrace the cost-saving idea of using commercial off-the-shelf software (instead of applications custom-made in-house) in the '90s, and it "brought to the Pentagon all the same bugs and vulnerabilities that exist on your own computer." He says, for instance, that in 1997, when the Windows system on a retrofitted "smart ship" called the U.S.S. Yorktown crashed, "the cruiser became a floating i-brick, dead in the water."

The United States' lack of an effective cyberdefense system, Mr. Clarke ominously warns, "will tempt opponents to attack in a period of tensions," and it could also tempt America to take pre-emptive action or escalate a cyberconflict very rapidly if attacked. Were such a war to start, it could easily jump international boundaries, causing cascades of collateral damage to unspool around the world.

How best to address this alarming situation? Mr. Clarke reports that a 2009 meeting of some 30 cyberspace "old hands" - former government officials, current bureaucrats, chief security officers of major corporations, academics and senior information technology company officials - came to the conclusion that critical infrastructure should be separated from "the open-to-anyone" Internet. They also came out in favor of more government involvement in cyber research and development and a heightened emphasis on building "resilience" into systems so as to enable recovery, post-attack.

In addition to these suggestions, Mr. Clarke adds some fairly common-sense - but not so easily achieved - recommendations of his own. He argues that America needs to "harden the important networks that a nation-state attacker would target" by putting automated scanning systems in place to look for malware. Also, it needs to make sure that the Pentagon enhances the security of its own networks; and to work toward cyberarms-control agreements with other nations.

"The reality is that a major cyberattack from another nation is likely to originate in the U.S.," Mr. Clarke says, noting that logic bombs and trapdoors are quite likely already in place, "so we will not be able to see it coming and block it with the systems we have now or those that are planned. Yes, we may be able to respond in kind, but our nation will still be devastated by a massive cyberattack on civilian infrastructure that smacks down power grids for weeks, halts trains, grounds aircraft, explodes pipelines and sets fire to refineries."

And should America then decide to cross the line from cyberwarfare to conventional warfare, he says near the end of this chilling book, the highly advanced technology in our military arsenal "may suddenly not work." [Kakutani/NYTimes/27April2010]

Jobs

McMunn Associates, Inc. - a Parsons Company seeks to fill 2 positions. Applicant must be eligible for immediate access to TS/SCI. POC is Molly Ryan, mryan@mcmunn-associates.com or 703-481-6100 ext. 103.

Naval Special Warfare Intelligence Scenario Developer:
Scenario developer and instructor with specific subject matter expertise in cryptology as it relates to Naval Special Warfare (NSW). This position will develop, implement, and instruct NSW related scenarios in support of the Center for Naval Intelligence efforts to provide team training to deploying NSW intelligence personnel at the Fleet Intelligence Training Center and the Naval & Marine Corps Intelligence Center. 4 years minimum experience

Required Capabilities:
- Recent experience directly supporting deployed NSW operations as a Navy Enlisted Cryptologic Technician or Officer.
- Intimate knowledge of the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) discipline with particular emphasis on tactics, techniques, and procedures as they relate to NSW operations worldwide.
- A complete understanding of the typical intelligence information, analytical processes, and C4I infrastructure that supports NSW at the tactical/operational levels.
- Superb written and verbal communicative skills.

Desired Capabilities:
- Experience in course development and training.

Salary Range: Highly competitive total compensation package. Salary negotiable based on experience and qualifications.
Geographic Location: San Diego, CA
Job Location: On-site in Government facility
Work Schedule: Full-time position; normal working hours
Travel Requirement: Up to maximum of 25% (defined as 25% of your time traveling) to coordinate scenario development efforts


Scenario Developer/Scripter with specific subject matter expertise in Naval Special Warfare (NSW). This position will develop and facilitate intelligence aspects of the Naval Special Warfare Final Battle Problem and other NSW training events.

Required Capabilities:
- An absolute minimum of five years experience in the Naval Intelligence Community with extensive understanding and operational experience with Naval Special Warfare; Joint Military operations and exercises; Theater OPLANS; and NSW, Army, & Marine Corps doctrine and training.
- Experience developing detailed Master Scenario Events Lists (MSELs) and detailed scenario injects for joint exercises, with preference on special operations experience.
- Analytical skills sufficient to develop, coordinate, and execute complex and integrated intelligence scenarios and ability to work independently.
- Deep understanding of High Value Individual (HVI) targeting, as well as providing intelligence support to NSW kinetic and Non-kinetic missions, to include HUMINT operations experience.
- Demonstrated understanding and experience regarding PACOM/CENTCOM theater OPLAN/CONPLAN development, coordination, and NSW integration.
- Expert proficiency with Microsoft Windows and Office Suite programs as well as with Analyst Notebook and GIS software.
- Applicants should possess the communication skills to present high-level briefings to all levels of the chain of command and to write comprehensive reports and analyses for their assigned tasks.

Desired Capabilities:
- Recent overseas deployments to the Iraq and/or Afghanistan.
- Designation as a Navy Master Training Specialist
- Project Management Experience

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Program Director, Criminal Justice & Intelligence, University of Maryland University College. Graduate School of Management & Technology
12-Month Collegiate Faculty, Full-Time

University of Maryland University College (UMUC) seeks a Program Director for its Criminal Justice and Intelligence Management Program in the Graduate School of Management and Technology. The new director will join one of the largest online institutions in the world, serving a global student population. UMUC is one of 11 degree-granting institutions in the University System of Maryland (USM). Working adults, military personnel, and other students around the globe are achieving their academic goals through UMUC's innovative educational options, including online instruction, accelerated academic programs, and classroom-based courses taught during the daytime, evenings, and weekends. Currently, more than 34,000 students attend UMUC nationally, and an additional 35,000 students attend UMUC at on site classes in more than 23 countries throughout the world; about 50,000 students are active duty military, veterans, and their families. In 2009, UMUC had over 196,000 online course enrollments. 

Responsibilities:
The Program Director, Criminal Justice is responsible for providing administrative and academic support for the MSM/Criminal Justice and Intelligence Management specialization. Administrative support involves management of all faculty recruitment, hiring, and staffing for both academic areas, as well as general administrative oversight of faculty performance in the classroom. Academic support includes development of course content for the seven criminal justice specialization courses, as well as required onload teaching. In addition the director will assist in the administration of MGMT 610, a core course in the Master of Science of Management Degree and other duties as assigned by the Dean or Chair.

To perform this position effectively requires knowledge of the criminal justice system and intelligence management, knowledge of the online learning environment, an understanding of and commitment to UMUC's mission. Skills required include the ability to effectively use the WebTycho platform and apply online and F2F pedagogical skills to support student learning, program development and implementation skills, excellent communication skills (written and verbal), problem-solving, systems thinking, and planning skills. 

Qualifications:
A terminal degree in Criminal Justice or Intelligence or a related field is required. Successful graduate-level teaching experience and a minimum of five years of professional experience in the area of criminal justice and/or intelligence is required. Position requires excellent communication skills. Previous experience working with adult part-time students, and/or in distance education is also preferred.

This position is available immediately. Salary is commensurate with experience and faculty rank. Rank (Collegiate Assistant Professor, Collegiate Associate Professor, Collegiate Professor) to be awarded based upon qualifications at the time of appointment. If interested, please submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, salary history, and list of three professional references within your application. Cover letters and information should be addressed to: 

Candidate Search - Program Director, Criminal Justice & Intelligence
University of Maryland University College

UMUC offers an excellent benefits package to include tuition remission, a minimum of 28 days of leave, as well as a range of insurance options. For detailed information, please visit: http://www.umuc.edu/personnel/exempt.shtml 

Dr. William W Sondervan
Professor and Executive Director
Criminal Justice Administration and Affiliate Programs 
University of Maryland University College
240 684 2868
Wsondervan@umuc.edu 

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in April and May with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are as follows:

• Wednesday, 5 May 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Abduction, Black Site Prisons, and the CIA: Extraordinary Rendition Today" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 6 May 2010; 12 noon – 1 pm - Washington, DC - "On the Front Lines of Cyber War with Richard A. Clarke" at the International Spy Museum
• Monday, 10 May 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Our Man in Havana" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 13 May 2010; 10 am - 2:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Codebreaking in World War II: The Inside Story" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 20 May 2010; 6 pm - Washington, DC - "Goldfinger" at the International Spy Museum

8 May 2010 - Orange Park, FL - AFIO North Florida Chapter meets to hear Gerhardt Thamm on THE MAKING OF A SPY. Gerhardt Thamm discusses his new book THE MAKING OF A SPY. Chapter meets at Country Club at Orange Park. RSVP to Ken Meyer at kmeyer12@bellsouth.net or call him at 904-777-2050

Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 11:30 a.m. - Scottsdale, AZ - Arizona Chapter of AFIO on "State of Arizona's Finances." TOPIC: The State of Arizona's Finances: What’s Really Going On With The Budget.
Hon. Dean Martin was elected in 2006 as State Treasurer, Arizona’s Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for the prudent custody and management of state and local monies. The Treasurer also serves as the Chairman of the State Board of Investment, and State Loan Commission, as the State Surveyor General, and on the State Land Selection Board. Treasurer Martin is currently second in line of succession to the Governor. He previously served six years as a State Senator and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260). Our meeting fees will be as follows: • $20.00 for AFIO members• $22.00 for guests. For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.

Saturday 15 May 2010, 2 p.m. - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter hosts Dr. Hayat Alvi , specialist on the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic Studies. Dr. Alvi, who is an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, will speak on two subject areas:  (1)  President Obama's policy towards Iran and (2) attempted terrorist attacks and linkage to South East Asia.
Dr. Alvi holds a doctorate in political science from Howard University, a Masters in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan and an undergraduate degree in international studies and journalism from the University of South Florida, Tampa.  She is proficient in Arabic and Urdu and has a working knowledge of Persian.  She is currently working toward a graduate certificate in remote sensing at Northeastern University in Boston. Dr. Alvi is the author of numerous articles and studies including several on the status of women in Afghanistan.  Her books include:  "Regional Integration in the Middle East: An Analysis of Inter-Arab Cooperation", "An Introduction to International Studies: Exploring Frontiers", and "The Arabian Nights Reader".  She is co-editor of the 11th and 12th editions of "Case Studies in Policy Making".
The meeting will be held at the Kennebunk Free Library, 112 Main Street, Kennebunk.  The public is invited.  For information call 207-967-4298

Sunday, 16 May 2010, 11:30 – 1:30 - Cleveland, OH - The AFIO N Ohio Chapter features James Robenalt on "Sex, Espionage and the First World War." Mr. Robenalt is a litigation attorney with Thompson Hine LLP in Cleveland. In 1997 he began representing Avery Dennison Corporation in connection with a major theft of its intellectual property by a Taiwanese scientist. Jim assisted the Department of Justice and the FBI in helping the company to set up a “sting” operation in which the Taiwanese CEO was filmed in a hotel in Cleveland taking trade secrets from the scientist who had confessed and was cooperating. The case drew international attention as it was the first prosecution under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. The prosecution led to the first convictions under the Act, and the company received a jury verdict of $81 million in a related civil case. Jim also represented the company in retaliation suits and proceedings brought by the Taiwanese company in Taiwan and China. The FBI made a training video using the case as its example, and Jim appears in the video.
Jim is the author of The Harding Affair, recounting the story of a future President, his love affair with a woman accused of being a German spy, and the Great War. The Harding Affair tells the previously unexamined and unknown stories of Harding's personal and political life, including his passionate and politically complicated romance. Jim explores the reasons that the United States became involved in the Great War, and explains why so many Americans at the time supported Germany, even after the U.S. entered conflict in the spring of 1917 on the side of Britain and France. The comprehensive revelations are set in a suspenseful narrative that interweaves a real-life romance/spy drama with the story of Harding's rise to the presidency.
For more information on AFIO and our mission of educating the public on the need to support a strong intelligence community in defense of the nation, please visit www.afio.com.
WHERE: Cleveland Yachting Club, 200 Yacht Club Dr., Cleveland, OH 44116-1736, (440) 333-1155
RSVP: Email or phone to Dianne Mueller to her at mueller@afioohio.org or phone at 440) 424-4071. Mail check by May 9th or call..
Cost: AFIO National & Chapter Members: $23 per person. National AFIO Non-Chapter Members: $25 per person. Non-members of AFIO: $30 per person
Mail reservation form and check by May 9, 2010 to: AFIO N Ohio Chapter, Solon Business Campus, 31300 Solon Road, Suite 6, Solon, OH 44139

20 May 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter at the Air Force Academy, Falcon Club features Mark Pfoff of the El Paso Sheriff Office, "Computer Forensics and all things Digital." RSVP to Tom Van Wormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

20 May 2010 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Andr� Le Gallo, former CIA Chief of Station and Senior National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism. Le Gallo will be speaking about Intelligence: Past and Present, comparing the Cold War CIA with today’s. RSVP and pre-payment required. The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate chicken or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

Thursday 20 May 2010, 12:30 p.m. - Los Angeles, CA - AFIO L.A. holds chapter meeting featuring Secret Service Special Agents Greg Ligouri and Adam Kamann. These two members of the Los Angeles Counterfeit Squad will conduct a presentation on understanding counterfeit currency and the counterfeit trends surrounding the Los Angeles area. The presentation will begin at 1:00 PM. Lunch will be served at 12:30 PM at the LMU campus for a cost of $20. Please RSVP via email AFIO_LA@Yahoo.com by no later than May 14, 2010 if you would like to attend the meeting with or without lunch. If directions are needed please forward an email request. Inquiries to afio_la@yahoo.com

24 May 2010, 1:30 pm - Ft Meade, MD - NSA's Center for Cryptologic History holds their 2010 Schorreck Lecture featuring scholar Stephen Budiansky on "What's the Use of Cryptologic History?" This year’s Schorreck Memorial Lecturer will be Stephen Budiansky, who will deliver a talk entitled “What’s the Use of Cryptologic History: Incorporating an Intelligence Perspective into Military and Diplomatic Studies.” Budiansky is a leading scholar in this field who has also served as a Congressional fellow, was a national security correspondent for The Atlantic, and as a freelance journalist his articles have appeared in The New York Times and The Economist. As a cryptologic historian, he has written one of the most definitive accounts of cryptology in World War II, Battle of Wits: the Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II which includes insightful explanations of cryptologic concepts along with well-researched historical analysis. He is the author of numerous other books on military and intelligence history.
The Center for Cryptologic History's Henry F. Schorreck Memorial Lecture series is an annual historical presentation named in honor of the former NSA Historian. It brings in noted individuals in history or the social sciences to address cryptologic issues with an historical perspective.
This lecture is open to the public and will be delivered on 24 May 2010 beginning at 1330 at the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade, Maryland. Those wishing to attend should send an email confirming their intent to kgsieg@nsa.gov (with history@nsa.gov in the ‘cc’ line). Directions to the Museum can be found here.

25 May 2010 - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets to hear Allen Keiswetter on "Political Islam." The DIF meets at the Alpine Restaurant, 4770 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207. Allen L. Keiswetter will speak on political Islam. Allen Keiswetter, a retired senior Foreign Service officer, is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. He has also taught courses on Islam and the Middle East at the National Defense Intelligence College and the National War College. In the Department of State, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs in the Near East Bureau, and Director of the Office of Intelligence Liaison in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His postings abroad include Riyadh, Sanaa, Khartoum, Baghdad, Tunis, Beirut, Brussels and Vietnam.
Make reservations by 18 May by email to diforum@verizon.net. Social hour starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. Give names telephone numbers, email addresses, and choice of chicken al limone, baked salmon, veal marsala, or pasta primavera. Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person payable to DIAA, Inc. They do NOT accept CASH!

25 - 27 May 2010 - Ottawa, CAN - The IAFIE hosts 6th conference on Intelligence Education. The International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE) hosts 6th Annual Conference at the Ottawa Marriott Hotel. Theme: Intelligence Education: A Global Phenomenon. For more information or to register.

27 May 2010, 11:30 a.m. - San Diego, CA - AFIO San Diego Chapter hosts Charles Wurster, USCG (Ret). Charles D. Wurster - President/CEO, The San Diego Port Authority, Retired U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Charles D. Wurster was appointed as the Port's President/CEO by the Board on January 5, 2009. Wurster is a three-star Admiral who served 37 years in the Coast Guard. Before serving as Coast Guard's Commander of the Pacific Area from 2006-2008, he served as Commander of the Fourteenth District in Honolulu. He also served as the Chief of Acquisition in Washington, DC; Chief of Staff for the Pacific Area in Alameda, CA; Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard base in Kodiak, Alaska; and Commanding Officer of the Facilities Design and Construction Center in Seattle, Washington. Wurster holds a Master's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois and graduated with honors from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut
Location: The Trellises Garden Grill, Town and Country Resort and Convention Center, 500 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108
$20.00 per person including gratuity. RSVP for you and your guest required by Friday, May 21, 2010.
Calling Marjon at 619-297-9959 or by sending an Email to Darryl at darryl@pexis.com

Wednesday, 2 June 2010, 6:00 p.m. -- Las Vegas, NV - the AFIO Las Vegas Chapter meets to hear Fred Barber on "The Roman Empire & The New Rome"
Fred Eugene Barber's presentation takes the audience through 2700 years of history in about an hour, so hang on to your chairs. He starts with the founding of Rome, through its conquest of the Mediterranean world, its holding of power, its conversion to Christianity and its collapse into countries most often under new owners. As the vacuum is filled by former Roman colonies as Roman lands are leaving the empire, Mr. Barber gives a brief explanation of how and who filled the vacuum spots, concentrating a bit on the Byzantium and the world of the Arabs and Turks, and how this has affected us here in the New World. Spain, a former Roman province, becomes part of this story because the Arabic peoples controlled and lived in Spain for over 500 years.
Barber is not a professional speaker, but has a passion for history, especially as to how it has affected his America of today. He is a firm believer in the old adage: History repeats itself....and as Rome fell, so might....
Event location will be at The Officers' Club at Nellis Air Force Base. All guests must use the MAIN GATE located at the intersection on Craig Road and Las Vegas Blvd. Address: 5871 Fitzgerald Blvd., Nellis AFB, NV 89191 Phone: 702-644-2582. (Guest names must be submitted to BentleyM@nv.doe.gov or at afiolasvegas@gmail.com by 4:00 p.m., Monday, May 24th. Join us at 5 p.m. in the "Check Six" bar area for liaison and beverages.
If you plan to bring a guest(s), please RSVP with names by 4:00 p.m., Monday, May 24th. Entrance to the Base self and guests cannot be guaranteed if I don't have their names (unless they already have military ID to enter the base).
Dinner: You are welcome to arrive early and join us in the "Check Six" bar area, inside the Officer's Club. The Check Six has an excellent, informal dinner venue along with a selection of snacks. Water will be provided during the meeting, but you may also purchase beverages and food at the bar and bring them to the meeting. Once again, please feel free to bring your spouse and/or guest(s) to dinner as well as our meeting, but remember to submit your guest(s) names to me be the stated deadline above.
Questions? Email afiolasvegas@gmail.com or call 702-295-1024. We look forward to seeing you!

19 June 2010 - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter features lawyer Suzanne Spaulding speaking on "Solving Current National Security Issues." Ms. Spaulding, who is currently Principal, Bingham Consulting Group, Bingham McCutchen LLP, is an authority on national security . She served as director of two congressionally mandated commissions, the National Commission on Terrorism, chaired by Amb. Paul Bremer, III, and the Commission to Assess the Organization of  the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction chaired by former CIA Director, John Deutch.  She has been quoted regularly in media outlets around the country.  She was minority staff director for the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  Previous legislative experience includes legislative director and senior counsel for Sen. Arlen Specter.  She also worked for Rep. Jane Harman.  She was assistant counsel at CIA and  is immediate past chair, American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security.  Ms. Spaulding is currently a member of AFIO's National Board. The meeting will be held at the Kennebunk Free Library, 112 Main St., Kennebunk at 2:00 p.m. The public is invited. For information call 967-4298.

HOLD THE DATE - 17 - 20 August 2010 - Cleveland, OH - AFIO National Symposium on the Great Lakes - "Intelligence and National Security on the Great Lakes"

Co-Hosted with the AFIO Northern Ohio Chapter at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cleveland, OH. Includes presentations by U.S. Coast Guard on Great Lakes security; Canadian counterparts to explain double-border issues; National Air/Space Intelligence Center; Air Force Technical Applications Center; Ohio Aerospace Institute, Tours of NASA Lewis-Brookpark and Plumbrook Stations. Cruise on Lake Erie .
Presentation by famed intelligence author/writer/former MP, Nigel West on Triple-X. Spies in Black Ties™ Dinner
Online Reservations to be taken here, shortly.

6 - 7 October 2011 - Laurel, MD - The NSA's Center for Cryptologic History hosts their Biennial Cryptologic History Symposium with theme: Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.

Historians from the Center, the Intelligence Community, the defense establishment, and the military services, as well as distinguished scholars from American and foreign academic institutions, veterans of the profession, and the interested public all will gather for two days of reflection and debate on topics from the cryptologic past. The theme for the upcoming conference will be: “Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.” This topical approach is especially relevant as the year 2011 is an important anniversary marking the start of many seminal events in our nation’s military history. The events that can be commemorated are many.
Such historical episodes include the 1861 outbreak of the fratricidal Civil War between North and South. Nineteen forty-one saw a surprise attack wrench America into the Second World War. The year 1951 began with the fall of Seoul to Chinese Communist forces with United Nations troops retreating in the Korean War. In 1961, the United States began a commitment of advisory troops in Southeast Asia that would eventually escalate into the Vietnam War; that year also marked the height of the Cold War as epitomized by the physical division of Berlin. Twenty years later, a nascent democratic movement was suppressed by a declaration of martial law in Poland; bipolar confrontation would markedly resurge for much of the 1980s. In 1991, the United States intervened in the Persian Gulf to reverse Saddam Hussein’s aggression, all while the Soviet Union suffered through the throes of its final collapse. And in 2001, the nation came under siege by radical terrorism.
Participants will delve into the roles of signals intelligence and information assurance, and not just as these capabilities supported military operations. More cogently, observers will examine how these factors affected and shaped military tactics, operations, strategy, planning, and command and control throughout history. The role of cryptology in preventing conflict and supporting peaceful pursuits will also be examined. The panels will include presentations in a range of technological, operational, organizational, counterintelligence, policy, and international themes.
Past symposia have featured scholarship that set out new ways to consider out cryptologic heritage, and this one will be no exception. The mix of practitioners, scholars, and the public precipitates a lively debate that promotes an enhanced appreciation for the context of past events. Researchers on traditional and technological cryptologic topics, those whose work in any aspect touches upon the historical aspects of cryptology as defined in its broadest sense, as well as foreign scholars working in this field, are especially encouraged to participate.
The Symposium will be held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center, in Laurel, Maryland, a location central to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas. As has been the case with previous symposia, the conference will provide unparalleled opportunities for interaction with leading historians and distinguished experts. So please make plans to join us for either one or both days of this intellectually stimulating conference.
Interested persons are invited to submit proposals for a potential presentation or even for a full panel. While the topics can relate to this year’s theme, all serious work on any aspect of cryptologic history will be considered. Proposals should include an abstract for each paper and/or a statement of session purpose for each panel, as well as biographical sketches for each presenter. To submit proposals or form more information on this conference, contact Dr. Kent Sieg, the Center’s Symposium Executive Director, at 301-688-2336 or via email at kgsieg@nsa.gov.

For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events

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