Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Germany Offers Program for Extremists to Quit. Germany's domestic intelligence service has started a program for Islamic radicals who want help to quit extremism.

The program started Monday and addresses people who believe in a "fanatic, violent ideology ... based on Islam."

The program called HATIF - meaning phone in Arabic - aims to help extremists to leave behind their fanatical environment.

They can contact members of the intelligence service online or call a specific number.

The agency - which says it is guaranteeing confidentiality - says it wants to help people get out by supporting them with finding jobs or moving to a different place.

The intelligence service estimates there are more than 36,000 Islamic extremists in Germany but only a fraction are considered potentially violent. [USAToday/19July2010] 

Spy Community Strikes Back at Report United States Intelligence Community is Too Big, Too Expensive. The U.S. spy community hit back quickly Monday at a new report accusing the U.S. of building an intelligence bureaucracy since 9/11 that is too big and too costly to control.

"We accept that we operate in an environment that limits the amount of information we can share," Acting Director of National Intelligence David C. Gompert said in response to a Washington Post series that began Monday.

"However, the fact is, the men and women of the Intelligence Community have improved our operations, thwarted attacks, and are achieving untold successes every day," Gompert said.

The newspaper series, which came with interactive links on the spread of intel branches worldwide, said that more than 1,200 government organizations and 1,900 private companies now work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at more than 10,000 locations across the U.S.

The public and private organizations employ about 854,000 people in the business of spying and protecting the nation, the report said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Post that the massive U.S. intelligence apparatus may have become unwieldy.

Gates said that "Nine years after 9/11, it makes sense to sort of take a look at this and say, 'OK, we've built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?"

The Washington Post series came at an awkward time for the nation's spies.

James Clapper, a retired Air Force general and President Obama's choice to become the new Director of National Intelligence, will begin his confirmation hearings in the Senate Tuesday.

In his statement defending the work of the intel community, Acting Director Clapper said "We can always do better and we will." [Sisk/NYDailyNews/19July2010]

Former North Korea Spy in Japan to Tackle Abductee Issue. A former North Korean spy who blew up a South Korean airliner two decades ago killing 115 people has been allowed into Japan. Kim Hyon-hui will meet the families of Japanese people abducted by North Korea to train its agents. For the visit to take place, Japan has waived immigration rules and police are not expected to question her past use of a fake Japanese passport.

There has been criticism in Japan of the decision to allow Ms Kim's visit.

The former North Korean spy was flown on a government-chartered jet to Tokyo's Haneda airport. Kim Hyon-hui was shielded from view with large umbrellas as she was ushered into a car, and driven to a mountain summer house belonging to the former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

The 48-year old was sentenced to death for bombing a South Korean airliner in 1987, but was later pardoned and became a best selling author.

She has been allowed into Japan to meet the families of people abducted by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s and forced to teach spies to pass themselves off as Japanese.

Kim Hyon-hui is said to have met several during training before the bombing including Megumi Yokota, kidnapped in 1977 while walking to school.

Eight years ago North Korea acknowledged taking 13 people and allowed five to return, saying the rest were dead. Japan has been demanding proof ever since and an investigation into many other suspected abductions.

Critics say any information she may have is likely to be decades out of date, and the trip has been branded a stunt to gloss over the government's lack of progress on the abduction issue. [Buerk/BBC/07202010] 

Ex-MI5 Spy Chief: No Link Between Hussein, 9/11. British and U.S. intelligence had no credible evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States before the 2003 Iraq invasion, the ex-head of Britain's domestic spy agency told the country's inquiry into the war.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, director of the MI5 between 2002 and 2007, said that nothing to connect the attacks to Baghdad was discovered ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The ex-spy chief also said the war caused allies to lose focus on the al-Qaida threat in Afghanistan, emboldened Osama bin Laden and led to the radicalization of a generation of homegrown British extremists.

Manningham-Buller said those pushing the case for war in the United States gave undue prominence to scraps of inconclusive intelligence on possible links between Iraq and the 2001 attacks, singling out the then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"There was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA," she told the inquiry. "It was not a judgment that found favor with some parts of the American machine."

She suggested the dispute led Rumsfeld to disregard CIA intelligence in favor of work produced by his own department.

"It is why Donald Rumsfeld started an alternative intelligence unit in the Pentagon to seek an alternative judgment," said Manningham-Buller, who was a frequent visitor to the U.S. as MI5 chief. "To my mind, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and I have never seen anything to make me change my mind."

Manningham-Buller, who is now a member of the House of Lords, said that the focus of Britain and the U.S. on Iraq had also had far reaching consequences for the mission to tackle global terrorism.

"By focusing on Iraq we reduced the focus on the al-Qaida threat in Afghanistan. I think that was a long-term, major and strategic problem," Manningham-Buller told the panel.

She acknowledged the Iraq war vastly increased the terrorism threat to Britain - with her officers battling to handle a torrent of terrorism plots launched by homegrown radicals in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

"Our involvement in Iraq radicalized, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people - not a whole generation, a few among a generation - who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam," she said.

Manningham-Buller acknowledged that she had not held any one-to-one discussions with Britain's then-prime minister, Tony Blair, to discuss the likely impact invading Iraq would have on the terrorist threat to the U.K. Video messages left by the four suicide bombers who killed 52 commuters in the 2005 attacks on London's subway and bus network referred to Britain's role in Iraq.

The Iraq war had "undoubtedly increased the threat, and by 2004 we were pretty well swamped," Manningham-Buller said.

She told the five-member inquiry panel, appointed by Britain's government, that the decision to invade Iraq had also likely provided an impetus to al-Qaida. "Arguably we gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad, so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before," she said.

The ex-spy chief, giving evidence in a public session, said she had been asked by the British government in the aftermath of the invasion to persuade deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to ditch his plan to disband Iraq's army. But Manningham-Buller said she found she had "not a hope" of changing Wolfowitz's mind.

She also acknowledged that the intelligence picture before the Iraq war was incomplete. A previous British inquiry into the Iraq war criticized flawed intelligence before the invasion.

"The picture was fragmentary," Manningham-Buller said. "The picture was not complete. The picture on intelligence never is."

She said MI5 had refused requests to supply some "low-grade" intelligence for a government dossier on the case for war, a document sharply criticized in the previous inquiry. "We refused because we didn't think it was reliable," Manningham-Buller said.

The Joint Intelligence Committee, which drafted the dossier, had been patchy on Iraq and had "an aura about it that is undeserved," she told the panel.

Other ex-intelligence chiefs have given evidence to the inquiry in private sessions. The inquiry was convened to examine the build-up to the Iraq war, and errors made on post-conflict planning. It won't apportion blame or assign criminal liability for mistakes made, but will issue a report later this year with recommendations for future operations and military missions. [NPR/20July2010]

Indian Diplomat Charged with Spying for Pakistan. A junior Indian diplomat arrested for allegedly spying for Pakistan was charged under the country's official secrets act, news reports said.

Madhuri Gupta, 53, was arrested in April after being recalled from the Indian Embassy in Islamabad where she was posted in the press and information service wing.

She was accused of having passed sensitive information to contacts in Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), until detected by India's Intelligence Bureau.

The Delhi police filed a charge-sheet in a city court, booking her mainly under the provisions of the official secrets act and some sections of the Indian Penal Code, the NDTV network reported.

The police also cited 30 witnesses to back up the charges against Gupta. Judge Kaveri Baweja is scheduled to take up the charge-sheet for consideration on July 21.

Gupta faces jail for up to 14 years if convicted. Gupta, who appeared in court, denied all the charges.

The police had earlier alleged that she was given money for allegedly passing secrets to ISI agents, the PTI news agency reported.

Police said Gupta, who worked in the Indian mission for nearly three years, was monitored for six months before being taken into custody.

She had allegedly passed the information to Pakistani agents using email on her phone, the PTI report said. Police recovered her phone SIM cards which she obtained in Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars and have had troubled ties since their independence from Britain in 1947.

New Delhi has often accused the ISI of aiding Islamist militant groups that carry out attacks in India, including the 2008 carnage in Mumbai, a charge Islamabad denies. [MonstersAndCritics/20July2010] 

Third Man Arrested in Case of Espionage Against Israel. After the arrest last week of Majd Sha'ar, father of 27-year-old Fada Sha'ar, who is suspected of having committed crimes against Israeli security, police arrested a resident of Baka al-Garbiyeh on Tuesday over suspicion of espionage and contact with a foreign agent.

Majd and Fada Sha'ar are both residents of the northern Druze village of Majdal Shams.

A gag order has been imposed on the details of the case.

The defense attorney representing both Majd and Fada Sha'ar told Haaretz last week that the arrest was illogical and strange. According to the attorney, the first suspect's father was detained for questioning following his son's arrest, and released several hours later. [Khoury/Haaretz/20July2010] 

Clapper: Military Intel Budget to be Disclosed. The size of the annual budget for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP), which has been classified up to now, will be publicly disclosed, said Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., the nominee to be the next Director of National Intelligence. He said that he had personally advocated and won approval for release of the budget figure.

"I pushed through and got Secretary [of Defense Robert M.] Gates to approve revelation of the Military Intelligence Program budget," Gen. Clapper told Senator Russ Feingold at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday.

Since 2007, the DNI has declassified and disclosed the size of the National Intelligence Program (NIP) at the end of each fiscal year, in response to a legislative requirement. But despite its name, the NIP is not literally the whole "national intelligence program." Rather, it is one of the two budget constructs, along with the MIP, that make up the total U.S. intelligence budget.

Thus, when former DNI Dennis Blair said last September that the total intelligence budget was around $75 billion, he was referring to the sum of the NIP (which was $49.8 billion at that time) plus the MIP.

"I thought, frankly, we were being a bit disingenuous by only releasing or revealing the National Intelligence Program, which is only part of the story," said Gen. Clapper. "And so Secretary Gates has agreed that we could also publicize that [i.e., the MIP budget]. I think the American people are entitled to know the totality of the investment we make each year in intelligence."

The MIP budget figure has not yet been formally disclosed. A Freedom of Information Act request for the number that was filed in October 2009 by the Federation of American Scientists remains open and pending. [Aftergood/FAS/21July2010] 

Iran Says Scientist Now Claims He Provided Information on CIA. In a game of propaganda ping-pong, an Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States now claims he provided valuable information "...about the CIA," a semiofficial news agency reported, adding that his spy's tale would be made into a TV movie.

American authorities have claimed Shahram Amiri willingly defected to the U.S. but changed his mind and decided to return home without the $5 million he had been paid for what a U.S. official described as "significant" information about his country's disputed nuclear program.

The Fars news agency quoted an unidentified source as saying that Iran's intelligence agents were in touch with Amiri while he was in the U.S. and that they won an intelligence battle against the CIA.

Iran has portrayed the return of Amiri as a blow to American intelligence services that it says were desperate for inside information on Iran's nuclear program. Iran has sought to make maximum propaganda gains from the affair, allowing journalists to cover Amiri's return, sending a senior Foreign Ministry official to greet him and preparing to make a movie about the story.

"This was an intelligence battle between the CIA and us that was designed and managed by Iran," the source was quoted as saying. "We had set various goals in this battle and, by the grace of God, we achieved all our objectives without our rival getting any real victory."

Amiri claims he was kidnapped by American agents in May 2009 while on a pilgrimage to holy Muslim sites in Saudi Arabia.

The Fars report suggests Amiri had been planted to discover how much information the U.S. had gathered about Iran's nuclear program, which Washington believes is aimed at weapons production. Iran says its nuclear work is only for energy production and other peaceful purposes.

"We sought to obtain good information from inside the CIA. While Amiri was still in the U.S., we managed to establish contact with him in early 2010 and obtained very valuable information accordingly. He was managed and guided (by us)," the source told Fars.

The source said Amiri provided more information after his return to Iran last week.

"Iran's intelligence agencies now possess valuable details from inside the CIA, which is a great victory," it said.

To support the claim, the source mentioned the license plate numbers of two cars used by the CIA in Virginia, claiming that some CIA locations, individuals and contacts have been identified.

The source also claimed that the CIA has been blackmailed by various sources, including Iran's opposition group the People's Mujahedeen.

Fars also reported that an Iranian film company affiliated with Iran's state television plans to produce a TV movie about Amiri's case.

Amir Hossein Ashtianipour, director of Sima Film, was quoted by Fars as saying that a group of young graduates have been hired to write the script. [Dareini/AP/21July2010] 

U.S. Spy Chief Nominee Clapper Sees Rising Danger in North Korea Relations. The U.S. may be entering "a dangerous new period" with North Korea marked by military provocations designed to advance the Stalinist state's political goals, President Barack Obama's nominee for intelligence chief said.

That threat is the "most important lesson" for the U.S. intelligence community to take from North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship, James Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee in written testimony for his confirmation hearing yesterday. A retired Air Force lieutenant general, Clapper has held the Pentagon's top intelligence job since 2007.

"We may be entering a dangerous new period when North Korea will once again attempt to advance its internal and external political goals through direct attacks on our allies in the Republic of Korea," said Clapper, who was head of intelligence for U.S. Forces Korea and the Pacific Command in the mid-1980s.

The March sinking of the Cheonan, which the U.S. and South Korea have blamed on a North Korean torpedo, also highlights a "renewed realization that North Korea's military forces still pose a threat that cannot be taken lightly," Clapper told the committee in an 89-page set of answers to policy questions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits the armed border dividing North and South Korea today in a show of U.S. unity with its ally after the sinking.

The tour of the so-called Demilitarized Zone is part of commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. The visit coincides with the arrival of the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier USS George Washington at the southeastern port of Busan before U.S.-South Korea military exercises that have raised tensions with China. [Carpaccio/Bloomberg/20July2010]

Judge Declines to 'Second-Guess' CIA's Refusal to Disclose Methods. The Central Intelligence Agency may still exempt from Freedom of Information Act disclosure materials that reveal intelligence sources and methods, even though they relate to the secret detention and interrogation program that has since been repudiated by the government, a federal judge has ruled.

Southern District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he lacks the authority to order disclosure of materials on the detention and interrogation program deemed illegal by the incoming Obama administration in 2009.

Hellerstein rejected a claim by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs that the act's Exemption 3 cannot be invoked where the material sought concerns actions taken in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The exemption in the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. �552, "should not be a means for a district judge to second-guess the CIA Director's judgment regarding what constitutes an 'acceptable risk ... [to] the agency's intelligence-gathering process,'" Hellerstein said in ACLU v. Department of Defense, 04 Civ. 4151, "or to require the director to give detailed account to the judiciary that would analyze the nature of the intelligence source or method, the value to the overall CIA program, and the risk that disclosure might pose to national security."

The judge's ruling was the latest in a series in the six-year-old Freedom of Information Act litigation on materials relating to the detention, interrogation, mistreatment and even death of prisoners as well as the rendition of detainees to countries that practice torture.

Hellerstein has ordered thousands of documents produced in the case, including in 2005, when he directed the release of photos showing mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. That ruling, later expanded to cover photos of other detainee mistreatment, was upheld by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But while the government's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was pending, Congress passed legislation saying such photos were exempt from FOIA, and the issue is now back before the judge, with the ACLU arguing that the government cannot use the legislation to categorically exempt the photos it is seeking.

Hellerstein has also rejected a host of requests from the ACLU for release of documents on national security grounds and deferred to the executive branch, including in September 2009, when he ruled from the bench against the ACLU in its request for fuller disclosure of memoranda from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel authorizing the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

The judge also refused to order the production of most of the material the ACLU sought on the alleged destruction of hundreds of hours of interrogation videotapes in violation of a court order, which is the subject of a pending contempt motion.

Hellerstein followed his oral rulings with two written orders in October and December, but he also allowed a motion to reconsider by the plaintiffs.

The ACLU renewed its motions, asking for production of the identity of detainees and their dates of capture, some redacted portions of the Legal Counsel memoranda on interrogation techniques, some CIA cables and more information relating to the destruction of the videotapes.

At a hearing on March 24, the ACLU charged that "illegal" activities cannot be exempt from disclosure because President Barack Obama had ended the CIA's terrorist detention and interrogation program, closed detention facilities, and set down new, permissible interrogation techniques.

Appearing for the plaintiffs at the hearing in March, Lawrence S. Lustberg of Gibbons P.C. in Newark told the court that, while the director of national intelligence is supposed to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure, the director is also charged by Congress with ensuring compliance with the Constitution and federal laws.

But in a memorandum of law to Hellerstein in advance of the March 24 hearing, the government, led by Southern District Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Lane, said the summary judgment motions concerned "some of the most sensitive information in the government, including CIA operational cables reflecting the interrogation of high value detainees."

Lane argued that the judge had already "recognized that the question of the propriety of the government's intelligence activities is distinct from whether information can properly be withheld under FOIA."

But Hellerstein in his opinion agreed that while the job of ensuring compliance with the laws and the Constitution "is the director's obligation," it is "not necessarily the district court's prophylaxis."

"Plaintiffs' contention, to limit Exemption 3 to 'lawful' intelligence sources and methods, finds no basis in the statute," he said. "Congress demonstrated its ability to qualify and limit other FOIA exemptions in such a manner, but did not do so in Exemption 3."

Hellerstein said the plaintiffs were seeking to read "limiting language" into the exemption "that would tie the withholding statute to questions of legality of the particular intelligence source or method employed, and confer unwarranted competence to the district court to evaluate national intelligence decisions."

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU said Tuesday the plaintiffs intend to appeal, as "the principle Judge Hellerstein adopts in this decision goes far beyond the specific documents we are fighting for in this case."

"His ruling is, essentially, that the meaning of the phrase 'intelligence sources and methods' is for the CIA to decide," Jaffer said. "If that principle is adopted more generally, it is really going to shut down transparency around the Bush administration's torture program, and it essentially leaves to the CIA the decision whether to disclose information about the CIA's own criminal conduct." [Hamblett/Law.com/21July2010] 

Lockerbie Bomber: Full Inquiry if Fresh Evidence Emerges. David Cameron has not ruled out a full independent inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Diplomats in Washington conceded that if fresh evidence came to light of backroom deals over the release, a "proper investigation" would be rolled out.

The acknowledgment came after Mr. Cameron faced the wrath of US senators who are demanding a no-holds-barred inquiry, amid accusations that the affair is linked to UK oil deals with Libya.

Mr. Cameron had used a press conference with Barack Obama to insist that it had been the Scottish Government which had freed the bomber, and that the decision had been made entirely above board.

But that has failed to dampen US calls for an inquiry into the way the UK Government separately dealt with the case. The accusation is that a lucrative oil deal for BP with Libya, negotiated by Tony Blair, was dependent on a Prisoner Transfer Agreement, allowing Megrahi to apply to return home.

The Prime Minister revealed that he will ask Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to go through all the papers relating to the release.

However, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington said: "If evidence comes to light that casts any doubt on (the handling of the case], then the Prime Minister's clear - it should be properly investigated." [Barnes/Scotsman/22July2010] 

Ex-Officer, Telecom Engineer, 4 Technicians Disappear. Six suspected spies, including a former senior army officer, fled Lebanon following the arrest of Mossad agents Charbel Qazzi and Tareq al-Rabaa.

Suspect Ghassan al-Jud is thought to have escaped to Germany, according to Ad-Diyar. He was a top officer with experience in the army's engineering unit, it said.

Another man from the Khreish family also traveled to London. He was a telecom engineer, Ad-Diyar reported. A friend who drove him to the airport told investigators that he did not know the purpose of the trip.

The newspaper added that around four technicians at Lebanese mobile operators have disappeared as well. Security forces are looking for them. [Naharnet/22July2010] 

CIA Announces New Head of National Clandestine Service. The CIA announced Wednesday it was appointing an experienced spy as the new head of its vast intelligence network, the National Clandestine Service.

John Bennett, who joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1981 after service in the US Marine Corps, will replace retiring NCS chief Michael Sulick.

Bennett's most recent foreign posting was as the agency's station chief in Islamabad, where he guided a "major improvement" in ties with the Pakistanis, according to Newsweek magazine.

CNN said that while in Pakistan, Bennett was in charge of increasing the use of aerial drones in striking suspected terrorists.

Among those killed by drones on his watch was the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, according to CNN.

Bennett, a former chief of the covert paramilitary Special Activities Division and ex-deputy chief of the Africa Division, has spent most of his career working abroad for the CIA, including four tours as station chief.

He "has been at the forefront of the fight against Al-Qaeda and its violent allies," CIA Director Leon Panetta said, pointing to his "impeccable credentials at the very core of intelligence operations - espionage, covert action and liaison."

Panetta also had words of praise for Sulick, who retired in September 2004 after clashing with then-director Porter Goss but was coaxed into returning to the CIA in 2007. [AFP/21July2010]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

DHS Outlines CyberSecurity Planning. On most days, the job of protecting the nation's cybersecurity is filled with things to do.

This fall, that "to do" list is about to get bigger.

Right now, Rand Beers, the Undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate with the Department of Homeland Security has a lot on his mind. For one thing, he's currently overseeing completion of the National Cyber Incident Response Plan - essentially, the playbook for how the federal government will respond to an attack on the nation's cyber infrastructure, part of what has been called the National Response Framework.

"This will be the new plan. It is in the final stages of coordination," Beers told cybersecurity industry representatives at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance breakfast meeting yesterday in Arlington. "It was built as part of a broad outreach program within the government, and within the private sector. And it's absolutely critical to have that kind of input. As we try to move forward in trying to manage cyber-incidents, we can pretty much count on the fact that it's not going to be limited to the government, but it's going to have to involve the private sector."

Beers says also on his to do list: the newest version of a well-known test that will stress the National Cyber Incident Response Plan.

"What we intend to do then, is with the completion of the plan, to test it this fall in the Cyberstorm III exercise, which is our bi-annual exercise, which will take place in September bringing together individuals from the government, from the private sector, and in this case, from the international community as well in order to test the plan and to see, as a result of that, where it leads, what we need to adapt, both in terms of the response plan but in terms of policies and procedures."

Secretary Beers also says that for this Cyberstorm exercise, DHS will use the new National Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center (NCCIC), which he says combines the original US-CERT computer network security program, as well as DHS's Communications Response Center.

Beers also used the occasion of the INSA breakfast to brief the cybersecurity industry reps on the next phase of the Einstein Program. The recently implemented Einstein 2 system is what Beers called an "automatic, passive" cybersecurity system which has so far helped to uncover as many as a quarter of a million cybersecurity "intrusions". Last March, DHS staged its first test of the next and final phase, Einstein 3.

"This Einstein 3 system will be an intrusion protection system to protect those portions of the executive branch, civilian agencies and networks."

Beers says Einstein 3 is designed to scan entire packets of data traveling over a network for signs of an intrusion, and, "hold outside of the .gov domain those signatures that are deemed to be malicious."

Beers briefly discussed the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which the DHS is developing with White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt. He offered no new progress report on the NSTIC, for which the public comment period closed earlier this week.

He did spend his closing moments discussing an important on-going concern: the need to hire more cybersecurity technical experts, acknowledging Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's pledge to hire a thousand new cybersecurity staff, which he characterized as an enormous challenge. Nonetheless, he says, they're making slow progress.

"Within the National Protection and Programs Directorate, within the last few years, we've moved from, in fiscal 2009, we moved from 35 individuals in our national cybersecurity division, to 118, tripling of that particular workforce. Our hope by the end of this fiscal year is to have more than 260 individuals on board."

Beers adds those additions to his staff are not included in the thousand cybersecurity experts promised by Napolitano, saying that those workers are being hired for the rest of DHS to help protect the agency's IT infrastructure. [Cacas/FederalNewsRadio/20July2010] 

How Britain's First Spy Chief Ordered Rasputin's Murder (In a Way That Would Make Every Man Wince). The Rolls-Royce sped along the road through the woods outside Meaux, northern France. It was October 1914, two months after the start of World War I.

Driving the car was Alastair Cumming, a 24-year-old intelligence officer.

Beside him sat his father, Mansfield Cumming, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, who had come out to France to visit him. As well as their intelligence work, they shared a love of fast cars.

Then, in an instant, the Rolls suffered a puncture. The car veered off the road, smashed into a tree and overturned, pinning Mansfield by the leg and flinging his son out onto his head.

Hearing his son moaning, Mansfield tried to extricate himself from the wreckage and crawl over to him. Despite struggling, he couldn't free his leg.

And so, taking out his penknife, he began hacking through the tendons and bone until he had severed his lower leg and freed himself. He then crawled over to where Alastair lay and managed to spread his coat over his dying son. He was found, some time later, unconscious, by the body of his son.

This act of extraordinary bravery, sacrifice and a willingness to use whatever means necessary, however unpleasant, to achieve an end, was to become a secret service legend.

Indeed, to test the mettle of potential recruits, he would plunge a penknife or compass into his wooden leg as he interviewed them. If they flinched, he would dismiss them with a simple: 'Well, you won't do.'

When Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming received the summons from the Admiralty in 1909 to form the new 'Secret Service Bureau', he was testing sea boom defenses at Southampton, having retired from active naval service because of severe sea-sickness.

Fifty years old, this short, stumpy figure - with his small, stern mouth, Mr. Punch chin and an eagle eye that glared piercingly through a gold rimmed monocle - seemed at first an unlikely candidate for the job. He spoke no foreign languages and had spent the past ten years languishing in obscurity.

Yet as an extraordinary new book reveals, within a few years he had firmly established Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, spreading a network of officers and agents across the world.

They would gather intelligence and promote Britain's interests by any means necessary, even murder.

Mansfield Cumming, or 'C' as he became known - the initial with which he marked in his customary green ink any documents he had read - was initially given a modest budget and a tiny office.

Nonetheless, he set about recruiting officers, including the writers Somerset Maugham and Compton Mackenzie.

His agents would sally forth in elaborate disguises, and were always armed with a swordstick - a walking stick that pulled apart to reveal a rapier.

And Cumming and his officers soon found that money and sex were usually the most effective inducements for information.

As war with Germany loomed, an agent code-named Walter Christmas watched the Germans' naval shipyards and reported on the trials of the new dreadnought battleships, the 'remarkable speed' reached by a new torpedo boat, and the continued construction of submarines.

Christmas always insisted that his reports should be collected by pretty young women, probably prostitutes paid for by the service, who would meet him in a hotel room to exchange intelligence.

The partnership between the two oldest professions, spying and prostitution, would endure throughout the service's history.

When the war broke out in August 1914, Cumming's service moved quickly to expand its network of agents across Europe and Russia.

It was imperative to know where the German troops were headed and what armaments they were developing.

Many civilians in Belgium and northern France risked their lives to provide details of enemy troop movements by watching the trains on which they traveled to the front.

One of Cumming's most successful agents was a French-Irish Jesuit priest named O'Caffrey.

In June 1915 he located two Zeppelin airships, housed in sheds near Brussels, that had days earlier dropped bombs on London, killing seven people and injuring 35.

The British wreaked their revenge, bombing and destroying the Zeppelins.

As the war dragged on, the British began to worry that Russia would withdraw from the fighting, freeing up 70 German divisions for the Western Front.

With the Tsar at the front, Russia was ruled by the Tsarina, who was in thrall to the 'holy-man' Grigori Rasputin, a promiscuous, power-crazed drunk.

It was feared that he would persuade her to make peace with Germany, her homeland.

And so, in December 1916, three of Cumming's agents in Russia set out to eliminate Rasputin, in one of the most violent acts undertaken by the service to date.

One of the British agents, Oswald Rayner, together with some members of the Russian court who hated Rasputin, lured him to a palace in Petrograd with the promise of sex.

After plying him with drink, they began to torture him to reveal the truth about his links with Germany.

Whatever he told them, it was not enough. His body was discovered floating in a river.

The autopsy found that Rasputin had been violently beaten with a heavy rubber cosh and his testicles had been crushed flat. He was then shot several times, with Rayner probably firing the fatal round.

Less than a year later, the Bolsheviks took power. As Russia deliberated about continuing with the war, Cumming sent one of his experienced officers, the author Somerset Maugham, who had previously spied in Geneva, to head a mission to Russia.

'The long and the short of it,' the writer recalled, 'was that I should go to Russia and keep the Russians in the war. I was diffident of accepting the post, which seemed to demand capacities that I didn't think I possessed.

'It is not necessary for me to inform the reader that I failed in this lamentably. The new Bolshevik government agreed an armistice with Germany in mid-December 1917 and a week later began peace negotiations.'

But Cumming did not give up easily. As they deliberated about continuing with the war, he is alleged to have ordered one of his agents to assassinate Stalin, who was in favor of peace. The agent refused and was sacked. Russia pulled out of the war later that month.

One of Cumming's most dashing recruits was Paul Dukes, described by a colleague as 'the answer to a spywriter's prayer . . . intelligent, courageous and good-looking'.

He became lovers with a close female confidante of Lenin, who proved a rich source of information on the Bolshevik government. Dukes also pioneered what was to become a standard trick of the trade: hiding incriminating evidence in a waterproof bag in a lavatory cistern.

He explained: 'I have seen pictures, carpets and bookshelves removed [by Bolshevik agents searching spies' home] but it never occurred to anybody to . . . thrust his hand into the water-closet cistern.'

Many of Cumming's officers were happy to indulge themselves in the line of duty.

Norman Dewhurst, who ran agents in Salonika, Greece, during the war, recalled that a favorite meeting place was the local brothel, Madame Fannie's.

'This was a very select house and the girls beautiful. Every time, it was a case of combining business with pleasure for I always came away with some useful information after my visit.'

Sometimes, however, agents overstepped the mark. One Russian agent became involved in a 'Murder League' in Sweden that used femme fatales to lure Bolsheviks to a lakeside villa renowned for orgies, before torturing and brutally murdering them.

When the agent was caught, the British swiftly washed their hands of him.

Indeed, an SIS training manual warned: 'Never confide in women...never give a photo to anyone, especially a female. Cultivate the impression that you are an ass, and have no brains.

Never get drunk . . . if you are obliged to drink heavily . . . take two large spoonfuls of olive oil beforehand; you will not get drunk but can pretend to be so.'

Cumming constantly had to fight for funds for his service. Again and again, his officers had to pay agents and expenses out of their own pockets until reimbursed, and the accounts were forensically combed over by Cumming's Paymaster, known simply as 'Pay'.

Pay seldom left the office and, according to Leslie Nicholson, the bureau chief in Prague: 'had the most exaggerated picture of the sort of life we led'.

This impression was hardly dispelled when, on one of Pay's rare visits to the field, Nicholson took him to a Prague nightclub where they were entertained by 'pretty Hungarian twins who, in unison, performed a rather sexy striptease.

Pay's monocle rose and fell with regularity as his eyebrows lifted in approval or astonishment.'

Another vital recruit of Cumming's organization was the physicist Thomas Merton, the service's first 'Q', who shared Cumming's love of innovation.

One of his early triumphs was to create an invisible ink for writing secret reports.

Previously, agents had used semen for the purpose, which while effective, was not to everyone's liking.

Q also invented methods of concealing reports to get them through enemy lines: in hollow keys, false bottoms of tins, the handles of baskets, on silk paper that was then sewn into the courier's clothes, in hollow teeth, and in boxes of chocolates.

Swordsticks, pioneered by Cumming, also proved useful. One officer, George Hill, was attacked by two German agents in the Russian city of Mogilev during the war.

'I swung round and flourished my walking stick. As I expected, one of my assailants seized hold of it . . . I drew back the rapier-like blade with a jerk and with a forward lunge ran it through the gentleman's side.

'He gave a scream and collapsed on the pavement. His companion, seeing that I was not unarmed, took to his heels.'

In the autumn of 1916, Cumming had more than a thousand officers, with thousands more agents working for them, scattered across the world.

Although he longed to go on missions again himself - describing spying as 'capital sport' - he had become too important to risk. Nonetheless his shadowy presence permeated the service.

'The initial of C was invoked to justify everything,' noted one of his officers, the writer Compton Mackenzie. 'But who C was, and where C was, and what C was, and why C was, we were not told.'

By the end of the war, despite some failures, Cumming's fledgling service had scored some notable triumphs.

Two officers infiltrated and prevented an anarchist plot to kill a number of Allied leaders, including the British War Secretary, Lord Kitchener; the Foreign Secretary; the King of Italy and the French president.

And another of Cumming's men in America smashed a German spy ring that used Irish dockworkers to plant bombs in the holds of ships carrying vital munitions to Britain.

It was dangerous work: the body of a fellow agent who had been watching shipments was washed up in the New York docks riddled with bullets.

Cumming died in 1923, just months before he was due to retire. His spirit lives on, however, not only in the use of his trademark green ink throughout the service, and the habit of referring to its chief as 'C', which endures today, but in the ethos with which he imbued the service he built.

Its work is still carried out in strictest secrecy, the heroic deeds of its members left unsung and unrecorded.

A fitting tribute to a man for whom no sacrifice was too great and no pain too unendurable, so along as it served the greater good. [Venning/Dailymail/22July2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

Spycatcher: An Ex-FBI Agent on Deception, Espionage, Interrogation, and Reading People. At the end of June 2010, Americans were, by some accounts, shocked to learn that 11 Russian "spies" were here, in America, living among us. I say shocked because the media articles and rhetoric that ensued was remarkable. There were those that said these spies (eventually 12) were harmless because they had not really spied on us, while others saw it as some sort of ploy to get attention off the president. Others said it was intended to upset the "reset" that President Obama had initiated with Russia. Then when the spies were traded for "spies" being held by Russia, even more talk ensued, with further speculation and comments.

As a former counterintelligence agent for the FBI, I wanted to wait till the vapid din died down, so that I could comment on the case and perhaps shed some light on the subject.

First of all, that there are spies in the United States living here at the behest of the Russian government should not come as a shock or surprise. In fact, it is to be expected from Russia. The Soviet KGB may not exist anymore in name, but its operations have not changed in any way, they merely had a name change (now called SVR) when the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian Federation was formed.

Let's face it; espionage has been with us probably since the first villager looked over the hill to see what the other village was up to. We have records of espionage from antiquity, Egyptian pharos sent out their own spies, as did Moses (Numbers 13-14) and Joshua (2:1-10) in the bible. Espionage is probably one of the oldest professions because as long a there was one person who had an advantage over another, one army, or one agricultural or trading advantage, I have no doubt, someone was skulking about trying to get their hands on that information or technology. As one convicted spy once told me, "the most valuable thing in the world is not gold or diamonds, it is information." In that regard, he is right.

Information of every kind has its own value depending on who wants it and why. Take industrial espionage, for instance. Industrial espionage can alter the wealth of a nation and thus its capacity to compete commercially and wage war. A great example of this took place around 550 CE, when Justinian I, leader of the Byzantine empire wanted to undo China's historic domination of the silk trade and, at the same time, end the Persian control of this valuable commodity as the middlemen.

Justinian I was undeterred in wresting this information from China, which they protected under penalty of death. So he sent two Nestorian monks into China with the specific intent of conducting industrial espionage. While in China they observed how silk was produced and what the key ingredients were used in silk production. The monks took two hollowed out walking sticks with them ("concealment devices" in intelligence talk) and hid silk worms and mulberry bush seeds inside them - both essential for silk production.

The monks were stopped and searched repeatedly on their journey home. Nevertheless, they were successful in their quest: they single-handedly transferred the technology for silk production to the West and within a short period of time, the silk trade had been completely upended. Byzantium, and thus the Roman Empire, became the world leader in silk production, which is probably why my ties are made in Milan and not in Beijing.

This act of espionage changed trade throughout the world. No less so than when Samuel Slater left England after serving as an apprentice at a "state-of-the-art" cotton mill. In the United States, Slater found eager buyers for the technology he had regarding the most modern techniques in use in England for wool and cotton production. With the information Slater brought, America became the world's leading manufacturer of cotton which shifted wool and cotton production from Europe to the Americas, thus kick starting America's Industrial Revolution. This single act of industrial espionage elevated this new country to international economic eminence in less than 50 years.

These two industrial espionage cases demonstrate that all it takes is one person to alter history, if they are in the right place, at the right time, with the right kind of information. Having people in the right place at the right time was also very fortuitous for the Soviet Union while we were developing the atom bomb. The Soviet Union had, through their sources, access agents, and spotters in the US, developed an espionage ring that could tap into the Manhattan project secrets. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are the most famous or easily recognized of these, and through their work and that of others, the Soviet Union saved millions of dollars in research and development and expedited their own weapon development much earlier than was thought, thus changing the balance of power which allowed brinksmanship in such places as Korea and Cuba. Without the bomb the Soviet Union would never have engaged in such prickly and costly endeavors.

Now we come to the 12 arrested from Yonkers, Boston, and Northern Virginia, who were sent to America and lived here as intelligence "illegals" (term used by intelligence services to describe individuals who are secreted into another country to commit espionage related activities) or sleepers. The charging instruments used by the FBI and Department of Justice merely state that they were part of an ambitious long term SVR plan to place Russian spies in the United States to gather information and recruit others. That is what they have revealed, but we need to explore further.

First of all, when it comes to espionage, nothing in Russia has changed. After all, the real leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was as a career KGB agent who came up through the ranks, and not by exhibiting democratic principles but rather by being a steadfast believer in communist ideology and the especially harsh methods of the Soviet regime with which we are all familiar. In fact, let's not forget, no one presently in a senior leadership position in Russia came up through a nursery of democratic institutions, but rather through the vestiges of Stalin, Kruchev, Andropov, the NKVD and the KGB. Putin, true to his breeding, has surrounded himself with trusted KGB cronies who believe as he does at all levels. So don't expect anything less from Russia than what they are: not our allies. The KGB had illegals in the United States under the Soviet system and the SVR still does, according to most experts, under the Russian Federation. How many are here? No one knows, but one thing we can be sure of, this is one of their favored ways to penetrate a nation and have a presence there and they are not giving up on this technique.

But why you ask? After all, the Russians have satellites and they can intercept communications and break codes. Yes and more. However, the one thing that Russian intelligence will always rely on is a backup system to their technical expertise in case of war (hostilities). They always want to have a human in the loop who can have access to information and more importantly to other humans.

You see, an illegal that passes as an average American, can have access to things no satellite, phone intercept or diplomat can have access to - every day things, such as a car, a home, a library, neighborhood events, air shows on military bases, location of fiber cables, access to gasoline storage facilities, a basement to hide an accomplice, a neighbor's son serving in the military, and so on. If you think like an intelligence officer, then you realize in an open society it's possible to obtain a lot of information. A mere walk in a neighborhood on a Saturday morning can give you access to vehicles parked at a garage sale that have stickers from government installations or high tech companies doing research. These individuals can be tracked or befriended. Neighbors often watch each other's houses and may even have keys, which give an intelligence officer access to the house, or a car, or a gated community. They get invited to parties, meet people and gain access to individuals with knowledge, influence or information. And that is only the beginning. The real danger and worth of an "illegal" manifests if hostilities should ever break out. In case of war, this is a fifth column, an enemy within that can serve to track activities, commit or assist in sabotage, conceal explosives, harbor other hostile individuals, serve as a communications medium or actually assist with espionage to the detriment of the United States.

So when I look at the latest roundup, my congratulations go out to the FBI for their hard work. But I also know that eternal vigilance must continue because Russia trusts no one and they will continue to conduct espionage against the United Stated and gird up, in their own way, for the potential break out of hostilities with the West. They do this because it is in their DNA, which was pounded into them by Stalin and those that followed. They do not trust the West and especially America, which they perceive as a hegemon and threat.

So while the use of "illegals" may be quaint, almost anachronistic, it is emblematic of Russian thinking and desires. This will not be the last time we will catch them with their hand in the cookie jar, even if it's in Yonkers. Espionage is an old game, it requires little technology - all it requires is the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

[Joe Navarro served for 25 years in the FBI as a Spycatcher within the National Security Division. He is the author of many books including, "Hunting Terrorists," as well as the best selling "What Every Body is Saying" and most recently, "Louder Than Words." [Navarro/PsychologyToday/20July2010]

How Congress Fueled the Rise of Private Spies, by Michael Tanji. Despite might you may read in the Washington Post this week, it ain't exactly breaking news that contractors are performing more and more of America's intelligence work. What's interesting is how this came to be - and what to do about it.

Congress, for instance, played a bigger role than you'd think in the rise of intelligence contractors. Think using contractors for intelligence work is a bad thing? The easy solution is for Congress to allow intelligence agencies to hire actual employees. That's not how the game works, though. Contractors are convenient and cost-effective if you know you can cut off their heads at a moments notice when the money runs out or the mission ends; but, of course, the money never runs out because missions never end. It's a very tasty, if expensive, self-licking ice cream cone.

As the first installment of the series points out, there's also a lot of redundancy in the system. But that's not due to a flood of post-9/11 money, at least not directly. The root cause of redundancy is parochialism. You find me the agency in the U.S. intelligence community that is entirely unique and duplicates the work of no one else: I'll be over here holding my breath. Consider:

* The whole point of creating the Defense Intelligence Agency was to take certain responsibilities out of the hands of armed services' intelligence activities, which would assess foreign military intelligence problems in a way that would guarantee them resources and authorities. Of course they didn't simply stop doing what they were doing, they gave their work a new name, alleged some level of uniqueness that a big-bad national-level agency couldn't do properly, and kept doing what they always did.

* Speaking of DIA, it is supposed to be the nation's premiere source of military intelligence; so then why are there people at CIA doing the same thing? Why are there offices at National Security Administration trying to perform "fusion analysis," which is simply bureaucracy-code for "all source" analysis, which is what CIA and DIA do?

Former Director of National Intelligence Blair (as interviewed by the Post) doesn't call this sort of nonsense "redundancy," he calls it "tailoring." That's another bit of bureaucratic code often used to protect bureaucratic fiefdoms. As Dana Priest of the Post effectively points out, the people who need intelligence the most don't have a redundancy problem: they have a volume and value problem. This has always been an issue to some extent, but the problem was exacerbated post-Iraqi Freedom when repackaging the work of others became the norm since it made you look busy but minimized the risk that you would do something foolish like, say, think that country X had weapons of mass destruction, or country Y was going to test a nuclear weapon. Far better to do the minimum and get caught by surprise and then argue for more resources, than to actually go out on a limb to try to do a better job. So easy to dismiss shortcomings when you trump card is "we can't talk about our successes."

The blame for this situation cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of intelligence management: they are simply working the system they've been given as effectively as they can. Congress - which won't pass a real intelligence authorization bill, won't stand firm on Government Accountability Office involvement in oversight affairs, and will use intelligence as a political football when it's convenient - may be the real evil mastermind here. You see, contracting companies can do a lot of things federal agencies and their heads cannot; lobby lawmakers (MZM-Foggo-Wilkes-Cunningham style, not simply schmoozing in Hill hearing rooms), fund and operate PACs, build facilities and hire legions of people in strategic legislative districts. I know, I know, you're shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here ...

Off the top of my head there are a couple of things that could be done to stop the madness:

* Extend and strengthen revolving-door policies so that intelligence executives cannot simply retire on a Friday and be back lobbying their old offices for work the next Monday. A year isn't nearly long enough to negatively impact this common practice. Besides, if you were all that and a bag of chips, wouldn't you have had better luck improving things when you had budget and signature authority? We shouldn't expect change if we just keep recycling the same old people and their same old thinking.

* While we're on the topic of contractors, make sure they're used for the right reasons. The IC should be using contractors for research and development, for deep expertise, for niche skills, to support efforts to solve the hardest problems; not as a way to get around size limitations or hiring freezes. If you really need that many employees, you should be fighting for that many employees. Use intelligence-as-football to your advantage.

* Stop deluding yourselves with bureaucratic reindeer games. Most "intentional redundancy" exists because people are afraid to say "no" to clearly wasteful practices and "yes" to a 90% solution to their problem because it wasn't invented here. Competitive analysis is only an argument if you believe that analysts don't care about the work and are simply mouthpieces for their agencies. This actually leads us down a path to a reform strategy of narrowing down agency expertise to realize efficiencies and reduce redundancy, which will have to wait for another time.

* Stop pretending having a policy means practices have changed. There are indeed policies that address most if not all of the issues this series will bring up, but if they're not acted upon at the functional level, what is the point? No one ever got in trouble toeing the agency-line in the face of someone else's policy. In fact, such behavior is more likely to result in promotion and other rewards. And we wonder why great ideas, bright minds and fresh blood flee so quickly.

* Stop doing things simply for the sake of doing them. The Post points out that there are dozens of military and intelligence organizations performing terrorism follow-the-money analysis. Why? Only a handful of those organizations can actually do something about that particular problem; everyone else is tracking it because it is tangentially helpful to their primary missions, or it's just something you are expected to do if you have a counterterrorism shop. If you don't need to do it: stop. If it's a tertiary concern and someone does it better than you do, work out a deal and use their information so you can repurpose your people to work on something that matters to you.

* Measure intelligence program success with new metrics. It shouldn't be about the size of the budget or office head-count. How many new consumers of your work did you pick up in the last year? How large and active is your intel-social network? How substantive is your sharing and positive is your feedback from the field? How did you enhance collection or analysis without requiring an infusion of cash? What efficiencies did you realize? These are all indicative of strong, forward-thinking, smart-risk-taking intelligence management that is looking out for intel consumers.

* If you're a citizen who cares about these issues, read the entire series and act accordingly. That means reaching out to your elected representatives - especially if they're in intel or defense committees or represent districts or states with an intel-industrial presence - and sounding off. The biggest service the Post provides is making these issues accessible to those who don't have the requisite backgrounds to opine intelligently. Intelligence isn't free. That money comes from somewhere. That's money that - if being spent wastefully - could go to fund something else like healthcare or improved critical infrastructure or - just sayin' - could not be appropriated in the first place and simply left in your pocket.

The idea that this is going to be the spark that lights a fire under the back-sides of intelligence agencies or what passes for intelligence oversight entities, is fanciful. These are not new or misunderstood issues: everyone knows exactly what everyone else is doing. None of this is a problem until Congress wants to make it a problem. As long as there are incentives to maintain the status quo, or at least slow-roll changes, don't think this report is going to have any impact on the business of intelligence. [Tanji/Wired/21July2010]

Washington Post Series Overlooks Intel Success, by Rowan Scarborough. President George W. Bush's rebuilding of an intelligence community broken and demoralized under Bill Clinton should be embraced by conservatives as the U.S.'s best response to the September 11 attacks.

Clinton had so downsized and discarded the Central Intelligence Agency, and 15 other intelligence agencies, that his first CIA director quit. George Tenet, the longest-running CIA chief under Clinton, later wrote that his agency was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy as Clinton was leaving the presidency. The National Intelligence Agency, the nation's listening post, was going deaf, Tenet wrote. It had not kept up with basic technology to penetrate cyberspace.

As I wrote in Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA, under Clinton the CIA rolled up operating bases around the world and all but shut down larger stations. It was in Hamburg, Germany, that leaders among the 9-11 hijackers were radicalized in a mosque and dispatched to Afghanistan for training. The CIA's base in Hamburg where officers could track radicals had been closed by that time. It reopened after 9-11.

The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks highlighted a decade of negligence. Bush began immediately to mobilize the CIA and bolster the ability to analyze the radical Islamic enemy and to track its perpetrators. Subsequently, there were many successes.

Yet, to the Washington Post, which is running a series this week on the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy, none of it worked. The Post reporters, who include William Arkin, a dedicated leftist who once referred to our men and women in uniform as mercenaries, could not find one intelligence official who thinks we are safer nine years later.

Forget the fact many officials believe we are safer. I would offer one piece of evidence amid thousands of pieces of evidence: the CIA tracked down and captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed in 2003. As Osama bin Laden's master planner, Mohammed orchestrated 9-11 and was in the middle of executing more massacres. There was no al Qaeda killer quite as good. Now, he's out of circulation, thanks to the CIA.

Maybe the Post series will do some good in forcing Congress to finally enact an intelligence authorization bill - essentially orders from Congress on what to do - after a five-year absence. Maybe there are too many contractors on the government payroll.

But the series, at least by day three, did not reveal any abuse of power, financial scandals or new blunders. It is more of a "list" service. Lists and locations of military facilities and private contractors where top secret intelligence is conducted - a good guide for would be saboteurs.

"In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space," says the story, headlined, "A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control."

Well, these are interesting numbers. But on their face, do they mean the intel community is out of control? Or do they mean something more benign? Maybe they show a robust response by a nation at war? Or, does it symbolize that, like any federal bureaucracy, there are logjams, petty disputes, a lack of information sharing and redundancy?

In response to the Post series, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) put out a statement, "Key facts about contractors."

The article says contractors are breaking the law by performing core government work. The DNI says they are not.

The intelligence budget is not 70% for contractors - it is for contracts, things like satellites, computer systems, and logistics overseas.

The DNI said it knows how many contractors it hires and how much it spends - contrary to what the Post implies.

"'Top Secret America' has lots of interesting graphics and neat pictures of secret IC facilities in your neighborhood and mine," writes Daniel Goure, a vice president at the pro-business Lexington Institute. "What it lacks are the facts."

Why have intelligence agencies turned to private contractor expertise?

The DNI said, "The growth in contractors was a direct response to an urgent need for unique expertise post-9/11. The surge in contractors allowed the IC to fill the need for seasoned analysts and collectors while rebuilding the permanent, civilian workforce. It also allowed agencies to meet required skills, such as foreign languages, computer science, and electrical engineering."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a former CIA director, provided part of the answer in a 2007 speech in which he chronicled the Clinton-era disaster.

"By the mid-1990s, recruitment of new case officers at CIA had hit a historic low, and the agency's funding was a prime target for budget-cutters," Gates said. "Indeed, within three years of my retirement in 1993, CIA's clandestine service had been cut by 30% - just when Osama bin Laden was gearing up his war on the United States."

Why the CIA, et al, needed to grow should be clear. We knew little about al Qaeda in 2001, owing to Clinton's disinterest and the NSA "going deaf," as Tenet phrased it.

The U.S. needed to soak up everything it could about bin Laden's terror squads, plus a laundry list of other Islamic extremist groups all around the world.

The military became involved in three hot war spots - Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan - plus a global conflict that took troops to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. All these deployments cried out for more intelligence - overhead photos, human sources, intercepts and analysis.

I reported in Sabotage on the rebuilding's growing pains. The CIA performed dismally in Southern Afghanistan, failing to property prepare the battle space for invading Green Berets.

In Iraq, the CIA station seemed disinterested. It was slow to realize and identify the varied insurgent groups.

But it, and military intelligence units, aided by the intelligence expansion that the Washington Post bemoans, got better with time. Sabotage detailed how gumshoe detective work and innovative monitoring of Internet cafes in Iraq helped special operations forces find Abu Musab Zarqawi, al Qaeda's most murderous terrorist in the Middle East. He's now dead.

There were ground-breaking improvements by the NSA. It launched the Digital Network Intelligence program to hone its ability to intercept emails and cell phone communication.

NSA also created the Office of Target Reconnaissance and Survey to come up with new gadgets to intercept calls.

Bush himself authorized the NSA to finally enter the 21st Century by listening in on terrorist communications routed through this country. (The Left railed against the program. Obama has continued it.)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney forced the Obama Administration last year to release parts of a CIA report on the number of terror plots it stopped against the U.S.

None of this could have been done without an expansion of the intelligence budget.

With its graphics identifying contractor sites in America doing top secret work, the Post is sure to delight the Lyndon LaRouche crowd and the hard Left.

It may even win a Pulitzer under the title: "Bush's Bloated Intelligence Budget Left U.S. No Safer." [Mr. Scarborough is a national security writer who has written books on Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA, including the New York Times bestseller Rumsfeld's War.] [Scarborough/HumanEvents/22July2010] 

Section IV - OBITUARIES, JOBS AND COMING EVENTS

Obituaries

Daniel Schorr, anti-CIA muckraker, Dies at 93. Daniel Schorr, whose often controversial broadcast journalism career spanned six decades, died Friday at a Washington hospital. He was 93.

Schorr began as one of Edward R. Murrow's recruits at CBS, earned Emmys in three years for reporting on the Watergate scandal in the 1970s and achieved the distinction of being included on President Richard Nixon's "Enemies List." He counted his inclusion by Nixon as his greatest achievement.

Schorr joined CNN in 1979, becoming the nucleus of the fledgling cable outfit's foray into round-the-clock news and its quest for legitimacy. He left in 1985 and has since been serving as a news analyst for NPR, contributing regularly to "All Things Considered" and other programs.

Schorr likened his TV coverage to that of hard-nosed newspaper investigative journalist, who researched an area extensively and then queried his interviewee with authority, unlike the usual style of sticking a microphone in front of someone and allowing them to make a self-serving statement. He often became part of the story.

In 1957, the New York City native was denied a return visa by the Soviet Union after he had conducted a one-on-one interview with Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev that aired on "Face the Nation." He presented a highly negative report on life under communism in East Germany with "The Land Beyond the Wall: Three Weeks in a German City," which aired on CBS in 1962.

His methods were not always appreciated by both his subjects and superiors. He obtained a copy of the Pike Congressional Committee's report on what he considered illegal CIA and FBI activities in 1976 and sold it to the Village Voice. He was subsequently fired by CBS News and attempted to gave his side of the story in his 1977 autobiography "Clearing the Air."

Schorr's tenure at CNN ended when he "retired" in 1984, claiming that the network "wanted to be rid of what they considered a loose cannon." He objected to CNN founder's Ted Turner's desire to pair Schorr with former Texas governor John Connally as co-commentators during the Republican convention.

He was undeniably blunt and did not mince words. His NPR commentary on the Supreme Court's ruling that essentially awarded the disputed presidential election to George W. Bush over Al Gore garnered widespread wrath among listeners, many of whom considered him to be the poster child for liberal bias in government-run media.

His muckraking style often alienated presidents of both parties: President Eisenhower was soured by his report that John Foster Dulles was retiring (it was true); the Kennedy administration regarded his West German reports as being pro-German, and Nixon regarded him as an enemy.

Schorr's numerous awards include a Peabody, the Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Golden Baton - equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize for broadcasting - and the Edward R. Morrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Schorr was born Aug. 31, 1916, in New York City. He ventured into journalism at age 12, when he phoned the Bronx Home News with details of a roof fire. He worked as a stringer for that paper and the Jewish Daily Bulletin, then served as news editor for the Dutch news agency ANETA from 1941-43, then as a reporter for several newspapers.

During World War II, Schorr served in Army Intelligence. Following his discharge, he worked as a free-lance Washington correspondent for CBS News and in 1953 was assigned to CBS' reopened Moscow Bureau as one of "Murrow's Boys," where he served for two years.

He became CBS News bureau chief in Germany and Central Europe, serving from 1960-66. The next 10 years, he worked as a Washington correspondent for CBS News, during which time he distinguished himself with his Watergate coverage.

Schorr also investigated and filed reports on such issues as education, pollution, poverty and health care, including a provocative CBS Reports program in 1970, "Don't Get Sick in America." That report was distilled into a book, which was published the same year.

He did periodic cameos in such mainstream movies as "The Net" (1995), "The Game" (1997) and "The Siege" (1998).

Survivors include wife Lisbeth, whom he married in 1967; children Jonathan and Lisa; and one grandchild. Memorial plans have not been set. [Byrge/HollywoodReporter/23July2010/others] 

Jobs

Program Director, Criminal Justice & Intelligence, University of Maryland 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. 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. 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 will commensurate with experience and faculty rank. 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. Students and employees of UMUC must apply for this position (Requisition #003248) via www.umuc.edu/facultyrecruit.

Ironclad Technology Services, a contractor providing Intel Support to United States Forces Iraq, has the following openings:

Strategic Debriefers needed to support our Multi-National forces in Iraq
Requires 100% deployment to Iraq. Secret Clearance required. Position requires a minimum four (4) years experience in strategic debriefing or a minimum of six (6) years experience in HUMINT collection operations where a minimum of one (1) year was spent conducting Foreign Military Intelligence Collection Activity (FORMICA) debriefs. Must comprehend and be able to clearly articulate the DoD FORMICA program. MOS 35L/M, 351L/M, 35E, or DOD civilian/joint service equivalents required. Graduate of Strategic Debriefer Course (DSDC), Ft Huachuca, AZ, strongly preferred.

Intelligence Analysts needed to support our Multi-National forces in Iraq
Requires 100% deployment to Iraq. Position requires minimum of 4 years analytical experience within DoD or equivalent Government agencies required, with operational level experience preferred. Experience in either CT, Middle East regional issues and HUMINT or military analysis desired. Possess strong research and writing skills and be capable of effectively operating as a member of a strategic level analytical team in the accomplishment of intelligence products and assessments. TS/SCI clearance required. MOS 1N/35F/ 350F/ 18F / 35D / 34A or equivalent required.

CounterIntelligence Agents needed to support our Multi-National forces in Iraq.
Position requires 100% Deployment to Iraq. Requires minimum 4 yrs experience and a Secret clearance. MOS 35L, 351L, 35E, or DoD civilian/joint service equivalents required.

For more information, please contact Tony Land, Executive Vice President, Ironclad Technology Services LLC. He can be reached at 813-765-4096 or tony.land@ironcladts.com 

Ironclad is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business providing Information Technology and Intel support to the Department of Defense and the Federal Government. Our HQ is located at 2809 S. Lynnhaven Rd., Suite 320, Virginia Beach, VA 23452

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

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

• Thursday, 5 August 2010, noon - Washington, DC - "Silent Sentry: The Untold Story of the National Security Agency" - at the International Spy Museum
• Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Uneasy Alliance: The CIA and ISI in Pakistan" - at the International Spy Museum

28 July 2010, 9 am - 5 pm - Miami, FL - INFRAGARD South Florida and the FBI invite AFIO MEMBERS to their South Florida Conference
Location: Florida International University, Management Advanced Research Center, Room # 125, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33199
Speakers: Eric S. Ackerman, PhD, InfraGard South Florida Chapter President, Stewart L. Appelrouth, CPA, InfraGard Treasurer, SA Nelson J. Barbosa, InfraGard Coordinator/FBI Miami
Sam Fadel, Florida Regional Field Investigator, Corporate Security Department, This presentation will focus on data breach investigations, specifically credit card/account number breaches. Defines the roles of the issuers, law enforcement and forensic experts.
SA Kathleen J. Cymbaluk, Miami FBI Recruiter on FBI Employment Needs. This presentation will discuss current hiring needs of the FBI and requirements on how to qualify and apply.
Stewart Appelrouth and Ed Farath, CPA, Appelrouth/Farah & Co., P.A., This presentation will focus on Financial Fraud, Specifically Ponzi Schemes.
Richard Wickliffe, Team Manager, Special Investigation Unit, State Farm Insurance Companies, Will discuss Fraud, White Collar Financial Issues- and Possible Counterterrorism Implications.
Randall C. Culp, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI, This presentation will discuss Health Care Fraud – Adapting Investigations and Prosecutions to deal with emerging trends.
Gun Running from Broward and Palm Beaches Counties - Mark A. Hastbacka, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI, This presentation will touch on IRA gun running operation in the above counties from a counterterrorism investigation point-of view
RSVP TO Nelson Barbosa at FBI Miami Field Office:Nelson.Barbosa@ic.fbi.gov

Saturday, 31 July 2010, 10 am - 12 noon - Coral Gables, FL - AFIO/Miami Police Department Counter-Terrorism Training. In cooperation with the City of Miami Police Dept, Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security, Officer Marcos T. Perez, AFIO will be presenting a Counter-Terrorism Training and Program. "Operation Miami Shield." There is limited space available for this program.
Please RSVP with checks enclosed before July 21, 2010. There is a $10 charge for AFIO Members. Guests will be charged at $25 per person. Checks payable to "AFIO" and mailed to Tom Spencer at 999 Ponce de Leon Blvd Ste 510, Coral Gables, FL 33134

Saturday, 14 August 2010, 11 am - Orange Park, FL - AFIO Northern Florida Chapter hears expert on technology capabilities of FBI/DEA/ATF regarding air travel.

Social hour from 11:00 am, lunch at noon, and speaker and meeting to follow until 3:00 pm. This meeting's guest speaker will be Mr. Bob DeFrancesco, Security Chief at Jacksonville International Airport. In concert with Ken Nimmich, DeFrancesco will delve privately and confidentially into the technology requirements and capabilities of his systems. He will address successes and failures of both the technology and the dependency of interagency regimes, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, etc. Also in preparation for the meeting, there will be a review of the Nova video on NSA (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ZWtEp3fLLvo) and 9/11 (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8EiiZUUGQyI) ramp up from an interagency perspective. Chapter President Dane Baird applauds Bill Webb on this effort and hopes all members can watch the videos, twice if possible, prior to the meeting. Hopefully these are the right YouTube links to access these videos - let me know if not! For potential upcoming meetings, President Baird has uncovered some impressive resumes of generals and admirals living within reach of Ponte Vedra, including one who flew with the Nationalist Chinese Air Force. Think about it, and let us know if a special China program would be interesting – and we're sure that Bill could certainly enhance and enlighten such presentation(s).
RSVP right away for the 14 August 2010 meeting to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549. The cost will be $16 each, pay the Country Club at the event.

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

AFIO National Symposium: 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. Cruise on Lake Erie .
Spies-in-Black-Ties Dinner and Cruise on Lake Erie. Make your reservations here. Agenda here.

Thursday, 16 September 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO – The Rocky Mountain Chapter features speaker on terrorism.

The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Sheriff Terry Maketa who will speak on legal issues involving El Paso County, crime statistics and give an update on terrorism. To be held at a new location the AFA... Eisenhower Golf Course Club House. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

Thursday-Friday 23-24 September 2010 - Harrisburg, PA - First Annual Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) Symposium "Intelligence and Homeland Security: Policy and Strategy Implications" - The symposium is by Penn State Harrisburg.

SAVE THE DATE! Potential topics: • Careers in the intelligence community; • Cyber security and information; assurance; • Border security; • Critical infrastructure protection (CIP);
• Intelligence and information sharing – domestic and international; • Fusion centers; • Ethical issues in intelligence; • Operations security (OPSEC); • Terrorism; • Drug cartels; • Private sector and NGOs; • Public health; • Geospatial information; • Counter-proliferation.Registration information and call for presentations/papers to follow.
Event location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Hilton Hotel
Contact: Tom Arminio, tja12@psu.edu, tomarminio@gmail.com Mobile: 717-448-5377
or Kate Corbin Tompkins, katespa@psu.edu; Office: 717-948-6058; Mobile: 717-405-2022; Fax: 717-948-6484

24 September 2010 - Tysons Corner, VA - AFIO National Fall Luncheon features CIA Deputy Director, Michael J. Morell.

Noon speaker: Deputy Director Michael J. Morell, CIA and 11 a.m. speaker: Speaker, T.B.A. Check in for badge pickup at 10:30 a.m., Morning Speaker gives address at 11 a.m., Michael J. Morell, Deputy Director, CIA - gives address at noon, Lunch is served at 1 p.m., Event closes at 2 p.m. R E G I S T R A T I O N EVENT LOCATION: The Crowne Plaza, 1960 Chain Bridge Road • McLean, Virginia 22102. Driving directions here or use this link: http://tinyurl.com/8228kw Registration limited HERE

Saturday, 25 September 2010, 10:30 am - Coral Gables, FL - "Management of Kidnap and Extortion Incidents" the topic at the AFIO Miami Chapter event. This program is a seminar conducted by a former Intelligence Officer expert in the subject. More details to follow soon or email trsmiami@aol.com

29-30 September 2010 - Washington, DC - Conference on the American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975 by the U.S. Department of State.

The U.S. Department of State's Office of the Historian is pleased to invite AFIO members to a conference on the American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975, which will be held in the George C. Marshall Conference Center at the State Dept. The conference will feature a number of key Department of State personnel, both past and present. Those speaking will include:
* Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger
* Former Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte
* Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard A. Holbrooke
The conference will include a panel composed of key print and television media personnel from the Vietnam period discussing the impact of the press on public opinion and United States policy. A number of scholarly panels featuring thought-provoking works by leading scholars will also take place. Registration information will be available at the State Dept website, http://history.state.gov, after August 1.

Saturday, 2 October 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - William J. Donovan Award Dinner Honoring Ross Perot by The OSS Society

The OSS Society celebrates the historical accomplishments of the OSS during WWII through a William J. Donovan Award Dinner. This year the annual dinner honors Ross Perot. Event includes special performance by humorist Mark Russell. Black Tie/Dress Mess. Location: Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 1330 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC. By invitation. Tables of ten: $25,000; Table of ten: $15,000; Table of eight: $10,000; Table of Six: $5000; Seating of four: $3,000; One guest: $1,000. Some tickets available for $175 pp. Donations welcomed. Inquiries to The OSS Society at oss@osssociety.org

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

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