Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

FBI Counter Intelligence Division Gets New Assistant Director. An agent who helped coordinate federal investigations into foreign spying on U.S. nuclear technology and capabilities has been has been named assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division at the agency's Washington headquarters.

Robert Anderson, Jr., who was named to the new position on Aug. 3 by FBI Director Robert Mueller, had served as the division's deputy assistant director of operations since 2011, according to the FBI.

Anderson became a special agent in 1995, assigned to the Washington Field Office (WFO), where he investigated narcotics and violent crimes. In 1997, he transferred to the Hostage Rescue Team, where he completed deployments to more than 20 countries, said the agency.

In 2001, Anderson became a supervisor in the Counterintelligence Division with oversight responsibility for counterintelligence and espionage investigations, the FBI said. He coordinated several major espionage cases involving the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons laboratories. Anderson also managed the program that placed FBI agents in Department of Energy labs.

As a unit chief, he oversaw the management of nuclear proliferation and espionage investigations, supervising the Phillip Cheng investigation in the San Francisco Division, which led to numerous cases being opened and the arrests of 16 people for dual-use technology transfers. [Read more: GovernmentSecurityNews/6August2012]

Social Media Plays a Growing Role in Open Source Intelligence, Experts Say. Analysts increasingly are turning to social media forums such as Facebook and Twitter to gather valuable information that can be used to help predict social, cultural and political shifts, and events before they might otherwise be apparent, intelligence community veterans Tuesday said at a panel discussion on open-source intelligence hosted by Government Executive.

"We take a large look at the world and see if there's a surprise out there," said Patrick O'Neil, analytic director of the Open Source Center for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "We're trying to avoid a surprise."

The intelligence community has long debated the value of open source intelligence, which is collected from public data, as opposed to covert or clandestine sources. While the panelists all were proponents of open source intelligence, they noted although social media offers significant new collection sources, its role should not be overstated.

"There are adopters of technology but that doesn't mean they carry the voice of a nation or an entire populous," said Craig Parisot, chief operating officer at Invertix, a technology company with more than a dozen patents in messaging, search and data mining innovations.

O'Neil said while only 20 percent of the world's population uses social media, the huge volume of data makes processing information into actionable intelligence difficult. Despite those limitations, social media can provide valuable information for analysts, such as the identity of key influencers, he said.

"What we look at is impact," he said.

He added while social media provides analysts with a wealth of new data, the problems of determining the veracity and meaning of that data are not all that different from those inherent in traditional intelligence collection methods. [Read more: Katz/NextGov/31July2012]

Ex-Gaddafi Spy Chief al-Senussi 'Will Not Be Extradited'. Mauritania's president has said former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi must be tried there before being extradited.

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said Mr. Senussi, who fled after last year's uprising, must first face charges of illegal entry into Mauritania.

Libya is seeking to try Mr. Senussi for crimes committed during his time as Muammar Gaddafi's right-hand man.

He is also wanted by France and the International Criminal Court.

Mr. Senussi was held at Nouakchott airport after flying in from Morocco in March, five months after the capture and death of Gaddafi.

Two months later he was charged for illegally entering the country and for the use of forged documents, judicial officials at the time said.

"Senussi has problems with Mauritania's judiciary and has to face court for entering Mauritania under a false identity," President Abdel Aziz said overnight on Sunday in the town of Atar.

"The passport Senussi used to enter Mauritania was not falsified but it presents him as Malian and under a fake name, which is why he must undergo trial in Mauritania," Mr. Abdel Aziz said, according to AFP news agency.

He said the Mauritanian stance had already been made clear to Libyan and French officials. [Read more: BBC/6August2012]

Syrian Intelligence Officers Defect to Jordan. Three Syrian intelligence officers have defected from the Damascus regime and sought refuge in neighbouring Jordan, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army said on Sunday.

"Colonel Yarab al-Shara, his brother Mohammed Kanaan al-Shara and Colonel Yasser Ali Hajj, who worked in political intelligence in Damascus, have defected and are in Jordan," Kassem Saadeddine told AFP.

Colonel Shara was head of the information department of the intelligence unit located in the capital.

The Shara brothers are from the same clan as Syria's Sunni Muslim vice president, Faruq al-Shara. [Read more: AFP/5August2012]

German Police Arrest Suspected NATO Spy. German police have arrested a civilian employee of NATO on suspicion of espionage at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, federal prosecutors said Aug. 7.

The prosecutor's office in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe said the 60-year-old German national identified only as Manfred K. was believed to have stolen "state secrets" for unidentified "third parties".

"He is believed to have illegally acquired, as a NATO civilian employee, classified data belonging to his employer at the U.S. armed forces' air base at Ramstein and to have copied it onto his personal computer," it said in a statement.

"It is suspected that this was done with the intention of passing the obtained data on to unauthorized third parties." [Read more: AgenceFrancePresse/7August2012]

Egypt's Brotherhood Says Mossad Behind Sinai Attack. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on its website that the attack on a police station in Sinai on Sunday in which 16 policemen were killed "can be attributed to Mossad" and was an attempt to thwart Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

The statement said Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was trying to abort the Egyptian uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak last year and that it was "imperative to review clauses" of the agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Egypt branded the Islamist gunmen behind the attack as "infidels" and promised on Monday to launch a crackdown following the massacre that has strained Cairo's ties with both Israel and Palestinians.

The bloodshed represented an early diplomatic test for Mursi, who took office at the end of June after staunch U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was overthrown last year in a popular uprising.

Mubarak had cooperated closely with Israel on security and suppressed Islamist movements such as Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood which rejects violence to achieve its goals but whose leaders often voiced hostility towards the Jewish state.

The group said on its website on Monday: "This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago." [Read more: Reuters/6August2012]

Iran Nuclear Plants Hit By Virus Playing AC/DC, Website Says. Iran's nuclear facilities have suffered a cyber attack that shut down computers and played music from the rock band AC/DC, the F-Secure Security Labs website said.

A new worm targeted Iran's nuclear program, closing down the "automation network" at the Natanz and Fordo facilities, the Internet security site reported, citing an e-mail it said was sent by a scientist inside Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

The virus also prompted several of the computers on site to play the song "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC at full volume in the middle of the night, according to the e-mail, part of which is published in English on the website.

F-Secure Security Labs, which is linked to F-Secure Oyj (FSC1V), the Finnish maker of security and cloud software, said that while it was unable to verify the details of the attack described, it had confirmed that the scientist who reported them was sending and receiving the e-mails from within Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

Iran's nuclear program and oil facilities have been subject to a succession of cyber attacks that the Foreign Ministry said in May were launched by hostile governments as part of a broader "soft war." Iran accuses the U.S. and Israel of trying to sabotage its technological progress. Both countries say Iran's nuclear activities may have military intent, an allegation that Iran denies. [Read more: Nasseri/Bloomberg/25July2012]

Obama Authorized Secret Support for Syrian Rebels. President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that. [Read more: Hosenball/Reuters/1August2012]

Senators Consider Softening Measure Cracking Down on Security Leaks. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are considering changes that would cut the teeth out of legislation designed to crack down on national-security leaks.

The lawmakers are considering softening penalties for leaks in a committee-approved bill authorizing intelligence agencies before the legislation hits the Senate floor.

The bill approved by the committee would have stripped intelligence officials of their clearances for leaking to the press. It also would block national-security officials from making contact with the media even after they've left the government.

Both of those provisions might now be weakened because of pressure from critics of the bill, according to sources. After the Intelligence panel approved its version of the bill, it came under criticism from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who said it went too far in hampering media access on issues of national security.

A spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Intelligence panel, acknowledged senators are taking these criticisms into account. The spokesman declined to comment on specific changes to the bill, but suggested they were possible. [Read more: Mu�oz/TheHill/6August2012]

CIA Joins Federal Mobile App Brigade. The Central Intelligence Agency has joined the ranks of federal agencies offering mobile applications to the public with the release of a mobile version of CIA.gov.

Using a mobile device, visitors to the CIA website can contact the agency, apply for a job, get a quick overview of the agency and its mission, and access content from the CIA Museum.

The CIA Museum, located on the grounds of the agency's headquarters in McLean, Va., isn't open to the public. The agency recently announced it has redesigned the museum's online gallery to improve navigation, added an interactive timeline and video, and expanded access to its historical collections.

Included in the online exhibits are technologies developed for the CIA that eventually led to public benefits. For instance, improvements in battery technology for the agency later were incorporated into medical devices such as pacemakers and consumer products such as digital cameras. [Read more: Wait/InformationWeek/2August2012]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Five Things You Need to Know About U.S. National Security. This weekend marks the conclusion of this year's Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, an event that brought together some of the key players in the world of defense and national security policy.

Here the five moments that the Security Clearance Blog's team will be talking about on the flight back to Washington: [Read more: Merica/CNN/29July2012]

CIA on Twitter? The Agency Spies a Fake Account. By design, the CIA isn't necessarily the most ... transparent of government agencies. So it's difficult to imagine the home of spooks and spies would take to Twitter, the epicenter of oversharing.

Still, it seemed that some people were duped by a fake Twitter account that purported to be the official voice of Langley. The user @US_CIA employed the agency's official seal and at first tweeted messages that seemed straightforward enough to have come out of CIA public affairs. Adding to the ruse, the spoof tweeter had a good command of intelligence issues and jargon. Still, something about the tweets seemed slightly askew, like the addition of the line, "If you can't beat them, join them" tacked onto an otherwise mundane hiring notice.

Then the tweets grew increasingly wacky and it became clear that the folks behind it weren't genuine g-men.

"The Agency is an equal opportunity employer. Here at the CIA we respect all religions, not just the Church of Latter Day Saints," read one recent tweet.

Say what? Then this: "Dear Ayatollah @khamenei_ir, please consider tweeting in English. Our sole Arabic speaking NED analyst is out on vacation this week. Thanks!"

Yikes. Cue international crisis.

After our colleague Greg Miller asked around about the mysterious Twitter account, it seems the CIA contacted Twitter to have it shut down. [Read more: Heil/WashingtonPost/1August2012]

Wanted: Locksmith to Open Doors to World of Spy Secrets. Handy with a lock pick? Watched all the James Bond movies? Want to see the world, meet interesting people and break into their embassy to steal their secrets? The Australian Secret Intelligence Service might have the job for you.

In a new notice on its careers webpage, ASIS, Australia's foreign intelligence agency, is looking for a ''corporate locksmith''.

''This is a unique role for a highly motivated and dedicated locksmith to provide complex locksmith services and advice across our organisation,'' the notice states. ''The position involves interstate and overseas travel, often at short notice.''

While such ''advice'' could involve cracking into the safes of certain Canberra embassies, the job is more likely to involve keeping ASIS's secrets secure.

The job notice says the successful applicant would have to manage the purchasing of all locks, safes and other secure containers for the service. Like most security and intelligence agencies, ASIS uses state-of-the-art safes to protect its many ''products''.

Like Australia's five other intelligence agencies, ASIS has experienced a remarkable decade of growth since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with its annual budget appropriations growing from $54 million in 2002 to $246 million this year.

For the first time in its 60-year history, the service's director-general, Nick Warner, last month gave a public speech during which he said the 21st century had given ASIS's work ''a new urgency and importance''. [Read more: Welch/SydneyMorningHerald/8August2012]

Section III - COMMENTARY

To Fix Leaks, Fix Culture of Secrecy. At the end of July, the Senate intelligence committee marked up legislation drafted in response to recent high-profile leaks of classified information. The committee's chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, claims that the bill will address the "culture of leaks" in Washington. But the leaks are a symptom of the intelligence community's culture of secrecy - and the bill would make that problem worse in a host of ways.

Any insider will tell you that the government classifies far too much information. Top military and national security officials estimate that between 50% and 90% of classified documents could safely be released. That adds up to a massive amount of unnecessary secrecy when one considers there were 92 million decisions to classify information in 2011 alone.

The WikiLeaks disclosures featured some vivid examples, such as a cable from an American diplomat who classified his description of a typical wedding in the province of Dagestan.

The impetus for the current Senate bill - a series of leaks of classified information that may have been implicitly or explicitly "authorized" by top administration officials - illustrates the problem. High-level intelligence officials are not enemies of the state. If they are approving the disclosure of classified information, it's a pretty safe bet the material didn't require classifying in the first place.

Overclassification contributes directly to leaks that threaten national security. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart commented in 1971, "when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion."

Put simply, officials who routinely see innocuous documents stamped "Secret" lose respect for the system, and that puts all secrets, the real ones as well as the purely nominal ones, at risk. [Read more: Goitein/CNN/6August2012]

No Surprises: Israel, America, and Spying. Israelis spying on Americans is in the news again: Leaders of the Jewish state just petitioned for Jonathan Pollard's release and the Associated Press reported with alarm that U.S. national-security officials at times consider Israel to be "a genuine counterintelligence threat." Its tone of breathless outrage suggests: How dare they! Who do they think they are?

But spying on allies is the norm, and it's a two-way street. Before getting too worked up, Americans should realize that Washington is no innocent. From Reagan to Obama, the U.S. government has sustained a massive spying effort against Israel.

Observers have drawn the obvious conclusion: Yitzhak Rabin, twice prime minister, commented, in Caroline Glick's paraphrase, that "every few years Israel discovers another U.S. agent committing espionage against the state." An Israeli counterintelligence agent notes that Americans "are trying to spy on us all the time - every way they can." Matthew M. Aid, the American author of Intel Wars, finds that Washington "started spying on Israel even before the state of Israel was formally founded in 1948, and Israel has always spied on us."

As Aid indicates, the spying is reciprocal. What's more, it's been routine, known, and implicitly accepted by both sides. It's also not terribly worrisome, for these allies share much in common, from moral values to ideological enemies, and they often work in tandem. Therefore the mutual spying has few larger consequences.

Why then spy at all? Why not invite Israel into the Anglophone "five eyes" grouping that promises not to spy on each other? Because Israel is at war. As Ben-Zur of Shin Bet puts it, "At the end of the day, the United States does not want to be surprised. Even by us." Nor, for that matter, do the Israelis want to be surprised. Even by Americans. [Read more: Pipes/NationalReviewOnline/7August2012]

Why the U.S. Isn't Arming Syria's Opposition - Yet. If there was a sliding scale for American involvement in foreign conflicts, after 16 months of violence in Syria, the U.S. might just have reached the quarter mark between zero involvement and full-fledged war. "We're moving at some sort of glacial pace" towards armed intervention, says Jeff White, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency who's currently a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "First, you go in and assess the people you might want to work with... It seems to me that we've gotten through the assessing process and we kind of know who we want to work with but in terms of providing lethal assistance, we're not there yet."

Up until this point the only thing the U.S. has owned up to is providing humanitarian assistance and communications equipment. But a report from Reuter's Mark Hosenball this week revealed that President Obama signed a secret order authorizing intelligence and covert support to groups seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar Assad. That so-called "finding" was only approved within the last month, sources say, and does not include lethal support. In other words, the U.S. won't be sending in Seal Team Six to take down Assad any time soon, but it is training certain groups to handle and gather intelligence. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor had no comment on the matter.

The Free Syrian Army has long sought from the U.S. intelligence instead of arms, which they're getting in abundance from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Though he couldn't confirm that the FSA is now getting intelligence assistance, Brian Sayers, the FSA's lobbyist in Washington, says that he's focused on a broader spectrum of support. [Read more: Newton-Small/Time/3August2012]

Anyone Watching Stockpiles of Weapons? Here's an assumption any post-9/11American might make: Someone in a dark room full of computers and video monitors deep inside one of our snoopy federal law enforcement agencies is tracking the purchases of large caches of weapons and ammunition by anyone at any time anywhere in the country, including Anne Arundel County.

Isn't that the sort of thing we've been paying for with our federal taxes over the last decade?

People who buy explosives for bombs or enough weapons to outfit a small army - they're monitored by someone deep inside the Department of Homeland Security and our vast array of federal agencies, right?

Like a lot of my fellow Americans, I assume highly trained security analysts are constantly watching for electronic purchases of numerous firearms and ammo, and throw red flags when they see a trend that looks like trouble.

It might creep out civil-liberties purists, but most rational Americans alarmed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks probably take comfort in knowing Big Brother is always on duty, watching for nuts, foreign or domestic, who want to kill us en masse.

But as we've learned in the aftermath of the movie theater massacre in Aurora, you can buy 6,350 rounds of ammo over the Internet within 120 days and no one in any kind of authority will have a clue.

Last week, police in Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties displayed more than 20 guns - handguns, shotguns, rifles - and thousands of rounds of ammunition confiscated from the Crofton apartment of a young man who is alleged to have threatened his boss and co-workers. The boss reported the threat to police, and police believe they averted a "violent episode" by taking it seriously.

The list of seized items was long, and included an assault rifle that sells for $1,200, advertised as a "fully military-spec compliant rifle for law enforcement ... now available to everyone." There were 40 steel ammo cases and a night-vision scope that retails for about $2,500. By my rough estimate, the value of the Crofton cache is about $15,000.

The young man hasn't been charged with anything; he's undergoing psychiatric treatment and evaluation.

Police tell us that at least 15 of his weapons were registered - not surprising, but troubling nonetheless. As we've learned before, and in Aurora most recently, there's no need for disturbed people with no criminal or mental health issue in their backgrounds to go into the gun underground for their weapons. They can purchase all they want from licensed dealers.

Which poses the question: Isn't anyone paying attention to people who stockpile weapons like this?

The answer: No. [Read more: Rodricks/BaltimoreSun/30July2012]

Spy Chief Called Silicon Valley Stooge in Army Software Civil War. This is how nasty and personal the fight over the Army's wartime brain has become: Pentagon functionaries are now calling one of their own top generals a corporate stooge; the Army's supposedly independent technology testers are calling for their own reports to be destroyed; and on Thursday, Congress' top investigators demanded answers from the Defense Secretary and for all documents related to the controversy ASAP.

Under development for the better part of a decade, the $2.3 billion DCGS-A ("Distributed Common Ground System - Army") is supposed to serve as the primary source for mining intelligence and surveillance data on the battlefield - everything from informants' tips to satellites' images to militants' fingerprints. It's designed to be the one resource that Army intel analysts can use to find links between events, build dossiers on high-level targets, and plot out enemy attacks.

At least, that's the plan. In reality, there's a sizable contingent of troops - including some senior officers - who think that DCGS-A is too slow and too complicated to get the job done. Instead of DCGS - built by defense contracting giants like Lockheed, Raytheon, and IBM - these troops have instead begged for a data mining, information visualization, and link analysis suite from a controversial Silicon Valley firm called Palantir.

And that has the Army's defenders of DCGS-A pissed. [Read more: Shachtman/Wired/1August2012]

Section IV - Coming Events

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in August, September, and beyond, with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are in detail below and online.

Saturday, 11 August 2012, 11 am - 3 pm - Orange Park, FL - AFIO North Florida Chapter luncheon features Special Forces officer.

Our next Chapter meeting will be held at the Country Club of Orange Park.
This meeting will feature an extremely interesting guest speaker in the person of Mr. Tom Waskovich. He is a former Special Forces (Green Beret) officer who served as a Team Leader and Reaction Force Platoon Leader for MACVSOG, the only Top Secret unit in Vietnam. He participated in the first covert mission to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1969, which was perhaps the most successful of the SOG missions.
Tom is also the past Executive Director of the Special Operations Association and also served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the SOA, which is made up of more than 2,000 current and former Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Air Force Air Commandos, who served
in covert operations behind enemy lines.
He is the founder and past President of the Board of Directors and currently President Emeritus of Vetwork (www.vetwork.org), a veterans assistance program that was founded in 1987. He was Chairman of the St. Johns County (FL) Veterans Council in 2005 and has acted as the military advisor and assistant producer for the Vietnam documentary "Service, Sacrifice and Courage."
Please RSVP to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or call 904-545-9549 as soon as possible. Remember that guests and prospective members are cordially invited, and we need 20 attendees to keep the country club happy

Wednesday, 15 August 2012, noon - Washington, DC – "Spies on Screen: Our Man Flint" at the International Spy Museum
He was the best - undisciplined but the best.
Erratic weather, global disaster, eco-terrorism. 21st century problems? Guess again: these issues are circa 1966! Out-of-control earthquakes and pop-up volcanoes are just part of a world-saving mission for super agent Derek Flint. James Coburn portrays the uber spy who is tops at everything from seduction and deduction to dolphin chit-chat. When the world's intelligence agencies realize their top operatives are being picked off, Flint's former boss, intelligence chief Cramden, played by Lee J. Cobb, grudgingly calls in "the original man of mystery." Flint battles the controlling secret organization GALAXY, all while keeping his cool and his mojo. As an Americanized version of James Bond, Flint's over-the-top persona as the sexiest, suavest, smartest, and sportiest spy is 007 taken to the extreme. Following the screening, International Spy Museum Executive Director Peter Earnest, will discuss how pop culture portrayals of spies and villains affected his own career as an officer in the Clandestine Service of the CIA during the 60s and 70s. He may even reveal whether all spies really are glamorous playboys.
Tickets: $9. Price includes screening, special spy debrief, and popcorn. Register at www.spymuseum.org

21 August 2012, 11:30 am - 2 pm - McLean, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets to hear Tom Dowling on "Iran: Cultural Quirks and How To Understand Them."

Tom Dowling will speak on "Iran: Understanding the cultural quirks that shape Iranian behavior and make it difficult for us to understand them." Tom is a retired Foreign Service Officer with 30 years of experience working mostly in or on the Middle East. He served in Iran from 1976 to 1978 and worked on the State Department working group during the first months of the revolution. Later, he was consul in charge in Dubai from 1980 to 1982. From 1996 to 2002, he served as deputy director and acting director of Department of State/Bureau of Intelligence and Research for Near East and South Asia. For the life of the 9-11 Commission, he worked on this commission as a professional staff member of a group responsible for tracing the origins of Al Qaeda. Last Summer Tom helped organize and spoke twice at an Intelligence Community seminar on Iran. He has been a faculty member at NIU since 1998 and taught courses on Middle East for Intel Analysts, Islam in Modern World, and Operational Capability Analysis, which he was instrumental in its development. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Hunter College City University of New York with a BA in Political Science. Other degrees include a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University and a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College. For this forum, you may attribute the speaker's remarks. Everything will be on the record.
The Defense Intelligence Forum is open to members of all Intelligence Community associations and their guests. Make reservations by 20 August 2012 by email to diforum@diaalumni.org. Include names, telephone numbers, and email addresses. For each attendee, choose among chicken cacciatore, tilapia puttanesca, lasagna, sausage with peppers, or fettuccini with portabella for your luncheon selection.
Pay at the door with a check for $ 29.00 per person, payable to DIAA, Inc. Check is preferred, but will accept cash; however, credit cards payments are discouraged.

22-24 August 2012 - Raleigh, NC - "Dramatic Revelations - J. Edgar Hoover, Castro, Deep Throat, Carlos the Jackal, and Secret from CIA" the theme of the 8th Annual Raleigh Spy Conference

8th Raleigh Spy Conference – August 22-24, NC Museum of History
Dramatic Revelations: Castro, J. Edgar Hoover, Deep Throat, CIA Secrets From the Deep and the New Profile of Today's Terrorist

Ready to register? Go to www.raleighspyconference.com to register to review the line-up for 2012 and to learn about past conferences. You can also register by telephone by calling Carlie Sorosiak at Raleigh Metro Magazine, 919-831-0999 or email carlie@metromagazine.net.  

Need more info on the conference? Fidel Castro had foreknowledge of the JFK assassination. Who was the real J Edgar Hoover? Deep Throat's motives were not what the public thought.  How did the CIA scoop a satellite 12,000 below the sea? What is the new profile of today's terrorist?

These are the topics for the 8th Raleigh Spy Conference August 22-24 at the NC Museum of History, presented by top experts drawing on the latest in declassified information. And the public is invited to learn and ask question and get to know  each speaker personally:

Brian Latell – Keynote speaker,  formerly a Cuba hand for the CIA, has plowed through newly declassified documents - and interviewed secret Cuban agents who can now talk for the first time - for his new book Castro's Secrets, revealing that the Cuban intelligence services were highly sophisticated. Cuban operatives duped the CIA and planted nearly 50 double agents in the US intelligence services. Latell also reveals from secret sources that Castro had prior knowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

John Fox  - FBI Historian,  on J. Edgar Hoover's role as chief domestic intelligence officer of the United States - and as one of the most significant and controversial figures in American history – while serving as FBI Director from 1924 to his death in 1972. But who was the real Hoover?

Max Holland, editor of the insider web site Washington Decoded - and a prolific and respected author on key events of the modern era - has dug into newly declassified documents to reveal the true story of the motivation that compelled FBI assistant director Mark Felt to disguise himself as the infamous Deep Throat, the source that played a major role in bringing down a presidency and elevating two obscure journalists to super-star status. Watergate remains a watershed event in American history - and Mark Felt was the man who made it happen.

David Waltrop, a CIA officer currently serving as a Program Manager in the Agency's Historical Collections Division will share the recently declassified story of one of the most secret operations of the Cold War. Called An Underwater Ice Station Zebra, this little known undersea mission was hidden in rumor and speculation - until now.

Albert Grajales, INTERPOL Director of Puerto Rico and Coordinator of Intelligence / Antiterrorism Office of the Attorney General (Secretary of Justice) and the Special Investigations Bureau (SIB) of Puerto Rico will present an insider's assessment of the profile of the modern terrorist, beginning with Carlos the Jackal up to today's dangerous operatives.

Event will feature rare appearance outside of the CIA Store inside CIA headquarters in Langley, VA...representatives of the Employee Activity Association will be on-site offering dozens of gifts and items ordinarily available only to CIA employees and VIP visitors to the Agency.

A very special person will be the subject of a tribute at the 8th Raleigh Spy Conference- Brian Kelley, the CIA officer who played a major role in the creation of the conference who passed away a month after last year's event. The tribute will be led by Dan Mulvenna, a former security officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a close friend of Kelley's who has also served as a speaker at the conference.

"Brian was key in the success of the Raleigh Spy Conference", said RSC founder Bernie Reeves. "He loved recruiting top experts to speak, and he loved being in Raleigh and the friends he made here. Dan is putting together a fitting tribute for Brian that will communicate his important role as an intelligence officer - and his unique ability to create lasting friendships".

The Raleigh Spy Conference is recognized for its leading role in providing a dynamic environment to the general public for the discussion of declassified information released since the end of the Cold War. The roster of speakers since 2003 has included highly regarded intelligence officers, scholars  and authors.

Go to www.raleighspyconference.com to register to review the line-up for 2012 and to learn about past conferences. You can also register by telephone by calling Carlie Sorosiak at Raleigh Metro Magazine, 919-831-0999 or email carlie@metromagazine.net.   

The Raleigh Spy Conference was founded in 2003 by Bernie Reeves, editor and publisher of Raleigh Metro Magazine (www.metronc.com). Discounts are offered for intelligence workers, members of the armed forces, students, and seniors.
Bernie Reeves and Raleigh Metro Magazine will be hosting this 8th Raleigh Spy Conference at the NC Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.
And if you missed the 7th Raleigh Spy Conference, a beautifully prepared set of DVDs of event are available here.

Friday, 24 August 2012, 11 am – Washington, DC - "The Double Game," by Dan Fesperman book signing at The International Spy Museum Store

This thrillingly, inventive novel is all about spies and their secrets, fathers and sons, lovers and fate, and duplicity and loyalty—a maze of intrigue built from the espionage classics of the Cold War.
A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster reveals to up-and-coming journalist Bill Cage that he'd once considered spying for the enemy. For Cage, a fan who grew up as a Foreign Service brat in the very cities where Lemaster set his plots, the story creates a brief but embarrassing sensation. More than two decades later, Cage, by then a lonely, disillusioned PR man, receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper. Spiked with cryptic references to some of his and his father's favorite old spy novels, the note is the first of many literary bread crumbs that soon lead him back to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest in search of the truth, even as the events of Lemaster's past eerily—and dangerously—begin intersecting with those of his own. Why is beautiful Litzi Strauss back in his life after thirty years? How much of his father's job involved the CIA? Did Bill, as a child, become a pawn? As the suspense steadily increases, a "long stalemate of secrecy" may finally be broken.
A creative interplay with some of the best lines of classic spy fiction genre mixed with an original voice. This novel will immerse you in a clever and intriguing twist of plots and keep you a willing accomplice to the end. [All statements by Museum and do not reflect AFIO assessment of this book]
Free! No registration required.

28 August 2012, 5 to 9PM - Washington, DC - Integrating Intelligence: Knowledge, Decision & Action by the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association

Opening Remarks: Sean M. Joyce, DD/FBI; Keynote: Hon. William H. Webster, former D/FBI.
Sessions: ONE: Integrating our Knowledge—Improving Intelligence Analysis with Technology, featuring Gurvais Grigg, FBI; Dr. Colleen McCue, GeoEye. TWO: Integrating Intelligence and Operations— An Evaluation of the New "Fusion Cell" Model featuring Maureen Baginski, National Security Partners LLC; Dr. John C. Gannon, Bipartisan Policy Center; Wayne Murphy, NSA; Eric Velez-Villar, FBI - AD/Intel.
Event location: National Press Club, Washington, DC. Heavy Hors d'oeuvres, Drinks, and More. Register or more information here.

30 August 2012 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Col. Joseph (Joe) Felter, US Army and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Felter will be speaking about current topics on counterinsurgency strategy. The meeting will be held at UICC, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat/Wawona): 11:30AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-members. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate meat or fish) at afiosf@aol.com and mail a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011.

Thursday, 30 August 2012, 11 am – Washington, DC - "The Drone Paradigm" by Fred Harrison book signing at The International Spy Museum Store

Author Fred Harrison brings over 30 years of experience in the Office of Naval Intelligence, National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency into realistic yarns that could be happening today.
Harrison's career has involved interagency projects, including a key role in the development of Intelink (Top Secret Intranet: How U.S. Intelligence Built Intelink - the World's Largest, Most Secure Network). His portrayal of the relationships between federal, state, local and international law enforcement/intelligence organizations, based on this experience, adds extraordinary realism to his novels that already contain believable and exciting plots.
In his newest novel, "The Drone Paradigm", Harrison takes us to Afghanistan. In a bid to conclude American involvement in Afghanistan successfully, Washington places a risky bet on the prospects of would-be Taliban leader Mir Batani Khan, a young, fearless insurgent seeking to unite the warring factions within Afghanistan under his leadership to develop the country's bountiful resources and great economic potential. CIA provides cash and covert assistance in the form of drone strikes against common enemies. Operative Hannah Crossman and others are deployed to advise Batani and keep him alive. After a number of bold strikes, however, it becomes apparent that Batani's success has alarmed Pakistan's leadership, which fears a prospective competition with a resurgent Afghanistan. Action shifts rapidly from Washington to Paris to Islamabad to Dushanbe, Kabul, the hinterlands of Afghanistan and back again. Frederick Harrison's characters range from the insurgent-on-the-street to the President of the United States, all against a present day, real world background that will absorb the reader's interest. [All statements by Museum and do not reflect AFIO assessment of this book]
Free! No registration required.

10 - 14 September 2012 - Helen, GA - 2012 ASA Veteran Annual Reunion

Attention all veterans who were fortunate to be stationed at the 14th USASA Fld. Sta. in Hakata, Japan on the island of Kyushu. It's time for another reunion. The reunion will be held at the Helendorf River Inn & Conference Center. This hotel/motel is right in the middle of Helen so one can walk just about anywhere they wish to go.
Reservations can be made by calling (800) 445-2271. Don't forget to mention you are with the 14th, ASA veterans reunion and the reunion date of Sept. 10th - 14th. A contract for a block of 15 Chattahoochee riverfront rooms has been reserved and will be held until August 1 awaiting individual reservations. Our reunion date is the week before Oktoberfest, so if we need more than 15 rooms, we need to know so we can reserve additional ones. Room prices are much higher during the Octoberfest event. The total cost per room will be $296.00 plus 15% state and local taxes for four nights. The cost is for a single or double occupancy. Each of these rooms will have a refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, private balcony and are all elevator accessible.
Meeting space for our reunion group will be available all four days with out any additional cost. They also have free WI-FI and an enclosed heated pool. If you wish to learn more about where we will be staying for our 14th. ASA 2012 reunion, you can click the URL - http://www.helendorf.com/ If you have any questions or ideas please call 770-957-1085 or e-mail Tom & Marianne Morfoot at mm30248@earthlink.net

12 September 2012 - Albuquerque, NM - AFIO NM Chapter Hosts Fall Meeting. Details to follow.

EVENT IS FILLED: 13 September 2012 - Fairfax, VA - "The DCI Papers" - a CIA Historical Documents 'Release Event' Conference co-hosted with George Mason University's School of Public Policy.

Intelligence, Policy and Politics: The DCI, the White House and Congress Thursday, September 13, 2012 from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM (ET) Arlington, VA

The CIA and George Mason School of Public Policy host "Intelligence, Policy and Politics," featuring panel discussions with former DCIs including Michael Hayden (confirmed), James Woolsey (confirmed), Leon Panetta (confirmed), Porter Goss (confirmed), William Webster, and other invited officials, and a keynote from CIA Chief Historian Dr. David Robarge.
This event takes place at George Mason University, Founders Hall, 3351 N Fairfax Dr Arlington, VA 22201
EVENT IS CURRENTLY OVERSUBSCRIBED. Should a wait-list be established, the link to it will appear here and be announced in the Weekly Notes.

Thursday, 13 September 2012, 10:15 - 11:45 am - Washington, DC - Stealing Soviet Secrets from the Bottom of the Sea - CIA's Attempt to Recover Soviet Sub by CIA's David Sharp, at the International Spy Museum

When the CIA attempted to recover a Soviet sub from the floor of the North Pacific Ocean in 1974, David Sharp was there. As a CIA officer, he was personally involved in both the development and the operation of the recovery system created to raise the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129. Sharp, author of The CIA's Greatest Covert Operation: Inside the Daring Mission to Recover a Nuclear-Armed Soviet Sub, will share his story and will give you an insider's perspective on the advanced technology required to attempt such an audacious project. He'll also discuss the complex cover story under which the CIA disguised the entire recovery program as a commercial ocean mining venture under the ostensible sponsorship of the famous Howard Hughes with his ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer. More information at www.spymuseum.org

14-15 September 2012 - Syracuse, NY - 3rd Annual Seminar on Teaching Law and National Security: Educating the Next Generation of Decisionmakers: The Intersection of National Security Law and International Affairs
In modern foreign affairs and national and international security governance, the policy and subject area experts and lawyers attend the same meetings, hash out common policy positions, and worry about how to implement their prescriptions. Yet the international affairs experts and national security lawyers work in parallel, not together. They speak different professional languages, and their analytic reference points and methods are normally divergent, if not inharmonious. At times, a good deal of energy in governance is spent finding common ground between the lawyers and the policy experts. The objective of the Conference is to explore ways to enrich the education in our related but disparate disciplines by exposing one side and its methods and ways of approaching problems to the other.
$150 registration fee. For more information or to register: http://insct.org/teaching-national-security-law-seminar/

Thursday, 17 September 2012 - Washington, DC - Geospatial Intelligence and the Lay of the Land by Keith Masback, USGIF at the International Spy Museum

How can you plan humanitarian assistance projects, disaster relief, or pinpoint an enemy—perhaps in Abbottabad—from great distances with as few surprises as possible? Geospatial intelligence. GEOINT is the combined use of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information to give the clearest possible picture of an area - including its "human terrain" - before boots hit the ground. Keith J. Masback, President of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, will explain the basics of this relatively new category of intel, and he will discuss the general techniques that could be used in varying missions, from responding to natural and man-made disasters, to watching suspected nuclear sites, to tracking down high value targets like Osama bin Laden.
Tickets: $90. Internet Quick Tix code for the program: 1M2-627 or call 202 633-3030. Visit www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 20 September 2012, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Major General Thomas R. Csrnko (Ret) Commanding General, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

MG Csrnko was Commanding Officer of the Green Berets at Ft Bragg, NC, he will talk about Intelligence and how it is used by Special Forces and Special Ops. To be held at The Inn at Palmer Divide, 443 S. Highway 105 Palmer Lake, CO, Exit 161 westbound off I-25, West on Highway 105. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

20 September 2012 12:30 - 2 pm - Los Angeles, CA - The AFIO Los Angeles Area Chapter luncheon focuses on "Intelligence & Security Issues Facing Los Angeles Harbor.

The Port of Los Angeles is the number one port by container volume and cargo value in the United States, its world-class security operations which include Homeland Security operations and the nation's largest dedicated port police force, will be the topic of discussion. Location: The LMU campus. RSVP to attend to afio_la@yahoo.com. Lunch will be served.

Thursday, 20 September 2012, 10:15 - 11:45 am - Washington, DC - History of U-2, A-12, OXCART, and SR-71 by Gene Poteat, at the International Spy Museum

S. Eugene Poteat, retired senior CIA Scientific Intelligence Officer, and current President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, helped develop and launch some of the most incredible technology of the Cold War. He'll brief you on the history of the U-2, A-12 OXCART, and SR-71 aircraft; stealth; past, current, and future drones; and the roles of these craft in past crises, such as the Missile and Bomber Gap, Berlin Crisis, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the current struggle against terrorism. Poteat received the CIA's Medal of Merit and the National Reconnaissance Office's Meritorious Civilian Award for his technological innovations.

Thursday, 20 September 2012 - Mahwah, NJ - IACSP 20th Annual Terrorism, Trends & Forecasts Symposium

Location: Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute.
Top presenters will be featured in the areas of antiterrorism, homeland security, consequence management, and other related areas.
The event is attended by a combined audience of law enforcement and emergency responders, corrections, homeland security, military, intelligence community, academia, and corporate security personnel.
Several writers and staff for the IACSP's longstanding publication, The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, will be on hand at the symposium, as well as members of the IACSP advisory board. The IACSP's journal has been in publication since the 1980's (over 25 years).
Further information available at www.iacsp.com

Friday, 5 October 2012, 6-7:30 pm - Washington, DC - "The Precipice of Nuclear Annihilation: Through the Eyes of the Cuban Missile Crisis - 50 Years Later" - talk by former CIA Scientific Officer Gene Poteat at the Institute of World Politics

You are cordially invited to attend a special lecture on the topic of "The Precipice of Nuclear Annihilation: Through the Eyes of the Cuban Missile Crisis Fifty Years Later - The Value of Evidence over Speculation"
by Gene Poteat, current President, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, is a Retired Senior CIA Scientific Intelligence Officer.
With the emergence of unstable nuclear-armed nations and their despotic leaders, what lessons should we have learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when dealing with today's crises? How was the U.S. blindsided by the Soviet missile build-up in Cuba ...just a few miles south of Florida? How close did we come to a nuclear exchange and, during the showdown, who blinked first? What secret agreements were made that ended the crisis and how did they differ from face-saving press releases? What were the long-term consequences of the agreement that ended the Crisis.
CIA Scientific Officer Gene Poteat was on the scene in 1962. His first-hand account and revelations will answer these questions.
Location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu.

9 October 2012 - MacDill AFB, FL - AFIO Suncoast Chapter Meeting

Speaker TBA. Location – Surf's Edge Club on MacDill AFB.
Questions or registrations? Email or call the Chapter Secretary at mfshapiro@att.net. Check-in at 1130 hours; opening ceremonies, lunch and business meeting at noon, followed by our speaker.
Note that our meetings have moved to a new facility, the Surf's Edge Club, where the luncheon cost is $20.
You must present your $20 check payable to "Suncoast Chapter, AFIO" (or cash) at check-in to cover the luncheon.
Anyone with special AFIO Gate Access should proceed to the Bayshore Gate. If you need directions, please let us know.
The cash wine and soda bar will open at 1100 hours for those that wish to come early to socialize. Inquiries to Michael Shapiro Secretary, Florida Suncoast Chapter of AFIO at (813) 832-1164 or at mfshapiro@att.net or visit www.suncoastafio.org

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

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