Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

House Passes Bill to Fully Fund Homeland Security. The House passed a bill Tuesday afternoon to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year, sending it to President Obama for his expected signature. The measure will not target Obama's executive actions on immigration, giving Democrats what they have long demanded and potentially enraging conservatives bent on fighting the president on immigration.

The vote was 257-167, with some Republicans joining all Democrats who voted to pass the bill, which had already cleared the Senate.

"As you've heard me say a number of times, the House has done its job by passing legislation to fund DHS and block the president's executive actions on immigration," Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) told rank-and-file Republicans in a Tuesday morning meeting, according to a person in the room. "Unfortunately, the fight was never won in the other chamber."

The vote marked a big win for Democrats, who have long demanded that Congress pass a "clean" bill to fund DHS free of any immigration riders. For weeks, Boehner and his top deputies have refused to take up such a bill, as conservatives have demanded using the DHS debate to take on Obama's directives, which include action to prevent the deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. [Read more: Sullivan/WashingtonPost/3March2015]

Fidel Castro Finally Meets the Cuban Five. Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, 88, finally met with all five of the Cuban spies who returned home as heroes after serving long prison terms in the United States, 73 days after the last of them were freed in a prisoner swap.

It had been highly anticipated as a reunion of Cuba's most vaunted heroes. Cuban officials have not explained why it took so long to arrange.

The meeting took place on Saturday, Castro wrote in an article about the visit that appeared in official media on Monday, accompanied by photos of the get-together.

Castro goes by the title of "historic leader" in retirement and the five intelligence agents were recently honored as Heroes of the Republic for spying on anti-Castro extremist groups in the United States and withstanding prison, unjustly according to Cuba. [Read more: Trotta/Reuters/2March2015]

CIA Veterans Finger Putin in Nemtsov Assassination. Four shots, expertly placed. A perfectly timed getaway car. Nearby security cameras turned off "for repair."

The murder of prominent Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, say CIA veterans, many with long experience in Moscow, was obviously a professional job, inspired, if not explicitly ordered, by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin's allies and Russian-controlled media, rejecting any state hand in the affair, have floated a variety of alternate villains responsible for the murder of Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and an outspoken critic of Russia's annexation of Crimea. They range from fellow reformers who wanted to create "a martyr" to personal rivals to "fascists" in Ukraine.

CIA veterans with long experience with Russia were having none of it. Nearly all spoke only on terms of anonymity to discuss such sensitive issues. [Read more: Stein/Newsweek/2March2015]

UK Spies Face Questions About Failure to Stop 'Jihadi John.' British spy agencies are facing questions about how a young Londoner who was on their radar as part of terrorist investigations was able to travel to Syria and become the knife-wielding masked militant known as "Jihadi John."

Officials have identified the man shown in hostage-beheading videos as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born computer science graduate raised and educated in Britain.

Emwazi, now in his mid-20s, was known to the British intelligence services since 2009, in connection with investigations into Islamic terrorism in Somalia and elsewhere.

He is one of a number of men from West London believed to have traveled to Syria in 2012. Several are now dead. [Read more: Katz/AP/27February2015]

British Refusal to Cooperate With Spy Inquiry Causes Row in Germany. Downing Street and the German chancellery are embroiled in a worsening dispute over intelligence-sharing and the covert counter-terrorism campaign because of conflicts arising from the surveillance scandals surrounding the US National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ.

According to German newspaper reports citing government and intelligence officials in Berlin, the Bundestag's inquiry into the NSA controversy is being jeopardised by Britain's refusal to cooperate and its threats to break off all intelligence-sharing with Berlin should the committee reveal any UK secrets.

The weekly magazine Focus reported last month that a national security aide to David Cameron had written to Peter Altmaier, Angela Merkel's chief of staff, refusing all requests for help in the inquiry and warning that Britain would cease supplying terrorism-related intelligence to the Germans unless Berlin yielded.

It emerged during the NSA revelations that the Americans had hacked into Merkel's mobile phone, generating outrage in Germany and feeding growing anti-American sentiment. [Read more: Traynor/TheGuardian/3March2015]

US Intelligence-Sharing Leaves Ukraine in the Dark. The US is providing spy-satellite imagery to Ukraine to help in its fight against Russia-backed rebels, but with a catch: the images are significantly degraded to avoid provoking Russia or compromising US secrets.

The White House agreed last year to Ukraine's request to provide the photos and other intelligence. But before delivering them, US officials black out military staging areas on Russian territory and reduce the resolution so that enemy formations can't be clearly made out, making them less useful to Ukrainian military commanders.

Those steps, which delay the delivery of the images by at least 24 hours, are designed to keep the US out of the so-called kill chain - military jargon for the stages of lethal operations - because of concerns that furnishing actionable intelligence to the Ukrainians could trigger a more aggressive Russian military response.

The images also are being obscured to reduce the risk that, if the Russians were to obtain them, they could glean important intelligence about US satellite capabilities. [Read more: Entous&Barnes/WallStreetJournal/27February2015]

Army Researchers Asking Industry for Ways to Speed Sensor-Fusion Intelligence to Warfighters. US Army researchers are reaching out to industry for new ways to speed actionable intelligence to the field commanders and warfighters on the front-lines who need it most.

To do this, researchers are asking industry for ideas on creating a common electronic architecture for performing multi-modal fusion within signal processors, on the payload of sensor platforms, on maneuvering vehicles, and at fixed site locations.

Officials of the Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., have issued a request for information (W56KGU-15-R-A025) for the Multi-modal Signal and Fusion Processor project.

This initiative seeks new ideas for a common architecture that can fuse information from several different kinds of battlefield sensors. This common architecture for sensor fusion, furthermore, could function within signal processors, on sensor payloads, on maneuvering vehicles and aircraft, and at fixed-site locations. [Read more: Keller/Military&Aerospace/27February2015]

US Intelligence Officials Say Global Threats Persist From Russia, Terrorists. The top US intelligence official told a Senate panel Thursday that Russian-backed separatists would probably continue their advance through Ukraine this spring and that he favors providing lethal arms to help defend the area.

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper predicted the Russian-backed separatists would move from eastern Ukraine into Mariupol, a strategic area on the Sea of Azov. He said that arming Ukrainian forces to prevent further advances would probably provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin , but it is unclear how he would respond.

"Predicting exactly what Putin will do or what his behavior will be is something of an unknown," Mr. Clapper said at a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also said Mr. Putin was clinging to a "fig leaf" by denying involvement in Ukraine.

Mr. Clapper, joined at the hearing by the Defense Intelligence Agency director, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, painted a bleak picture of numerous world-wide threats. The hearing is an annual event, held early each year, and gives lawmakers a chance to probe intelligence officials in an unclassified setting for details about global threats. [Read more: Paletta/WallStreetJournal/26February2015]

Doug Wolfe: CIA to Roll Out Intell App Marketplace, Cloud Data Hub. The CIA is set to launch a marketplace of software applications designed specifically for US intelligence agencies next month, Federal Times reported Thursday.

Aaron Boyd writes Doug Wolfe, CIA's chief information officer, said the app store would allow intelligence personnel to try apps, subscribe to third-party services and download open source software products.

"The ability to do that and bypass a lot of the licensing process and everything else will be hugely valuable for our analysts and will give us the kind of mission outcomes we're looking for," Wolfe told Federal Times after his speech at a Cloudera-hosted forum held Wednesday in Virginia.

He also expects the agency to implement a Cloudera-made enterprise data hub in April, according to a separate report by Nextgov. [Read more: Hoffman/ExecutiveGov/27February2015]

Senate, in Break From Past, Holds Closed Hearing on Intelligence Threats. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday held a closed-door, classified hearing with top intelligence officials to review various threats around the world, a break from tradition as the hearing usually represents the only time each year that lawmakers can publicly question the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.

The gathering is typically called the "world-wide threats" hearing, and it has been open to the public for at least the past 15 years.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held its version of the hearing - also behind closed doors - on Wednesday.

The Senate panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R., NC), met with "national security leaders" on Tuesday in a classified setting as part of a new format he plans for the committee, his spokeswoman said. Instead of a single hearing with numerous intelligence officials, he plans to hold individual open hearings that spotlight one agency at a time while keeping other hearings closed to the public. [Read more: Paletta/WallStreetJournal/25February2015]

One of FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists Captured in Somalia. A Somali-American on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list has been captured, Somali intelligence officials said Tuesday.

Liban Haji Mohamed was arrested as he traveled from an area controlled by terror group Al-Shabaab in southern Somalia.

The one-time cabdriver in northern Virginia is being held and interrogated by Somali officials.

Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency did not say when Mohamed was captured but said the suspect had been under surveillance for several days. [Read more: Nor/CNN/3March2015]

Russian Intelligence Gets an Upgrade With Satellite Launch. Russia launched a next-generation military reconnaissance satellite Friday, ushering in an era of digital mapping from orbit after decades of relying on film returned to Earth inside landing capsules.

The mission blasted off at 1101 GMT (6:01 a.m. EST) Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome about 500 miles north of Moscow. A three-stage kerosene-fueled Soyuz 2-1a rocket deployed the spacecraft less than 10 minutes later, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The secretive satellite - the first in the so-called the Bars M series - is believed to carry a high-resolution digital camera to collect global imagery for Russian military forces. Its exact capabilities are kept secret by Russian authorities.

Russia named the satellite Kosmos 2503 after the launch, keeping with naming scheme for the country's military spacecraft. [Read more: Clark/SpaceflightNow/28February2015]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

The Spy Who Came in From al-Qaeda. Aimen Dean is a founder member of al-Qaeda, who changed tack in 1998 and became a spy for Britain's security and intelligence services, MI5 and MI6. Interviewed by Peter Marshall, he describes his years working in Afghanistan and London as one of the West's most valuable assets in the fight against militant Islam.

Valued first by al-Qaeda and then British security and intelligence, Aimen Dean's life under cover came to an abrupt end when the cover was blown. An American writer disclosed his identity with details that could only be sourced to Dean. That was eight years ago. [Read more: Marshall/BBC/2March2015]

What Is Russia up to in the Arctic? The M�ger� air defense monitoring base is inside a mountain at the end of an unmarked country road two hours south of Oslo, Norway. With only a rudimentary sentry box, a simple draw gate and a lone soldier guarding its entrance, the installation looks more like the set for a movie about the Nazi occupation of the country than a key link in the country's state-of-the-art defenses.

At the end of a long, narrow tunnel into the mountain, in a cavernous room filled with computers and radar monitor screens, intelligence specialists stare at blinking icons marking the movement of aircraft around Norwegian airspace. On an all-too-typical afternoon recently, they watched as two nuclear-capable Tu-95 Russian Bear Bombers floated like fireflies across the top right of their monitors. A few desks away, an airman picked up phone and called Bod�, a military base on Norway's northern coast. Moments later, two F-16s rose to eyeball the intruders. 

It turned out the Russian bombers were just practicing some kind of circling maneuver outside of Norway's Arctic air space. But on January 28 two more Tu-95 bombers, escorted by tankers and Russia's most advanced MiG-31 fighter jets, showed up off the coast. One of them was carrying "a nuclear payload," according to the London Sunday Express, which cited intercepted radio traffic. And last fall, a Russian Tu-22 supersonic bomber skirting Norway's northern airspace was photographed carrying a cruise missile in launching position, according to the Barents Observer blog. Similar examples abound. [Read more: Stein/Newsweek/24February2015]

Spy: CIA Kept Me From My Soulmate. �Mack Charles' fell in love with a fellow CIA undercover operative. Then, he claims in an explosive, $25 million lawsuit, agency bigwigs tried to crush him.

On January 5, 2010, the chief of the CIA's secretive paramilitary operations division accused one of the agency's elite undercover operatives of financial shenanigans and getting too friendly with a female colleague.

The operative, who uses the alias Mack L. Charles, said the allegations are not only false but part of a larger smear campaign to tarnish his stellar CIA career, run him out of the agency, and keep him from marrying the woman he loves. And now he's suing the CIA, demanding a jaw-dropping $25 million in damages, and accusing one of his bosses of launching a conspiracy against him, all while she abused alcohol and helped run a failed multibillion-dollar intelligence program rife with fraud, waste, and abuse. It's a legal fight that threatens to expose some of agency's dirty laundry, involving tales of internal rivalries and bureaucratic backstabbing rarely seen in public.

The accusations are included in a now-declassified memo introduced in Charles's lawsuit, which he filed in January in US District for the District of Columbia. Charles (perhaps quixotically) is representing himself in the case and says the CIA has tried to throw up roadblocks to keep him from obtaining legal counsel, a move that one lawyer said is practically unheard of in all his years representing intelligence agency employees. [Read more: Harris/TheDailyBeast/2March2015]

The Open-Source Spies of World War Il. The ubiquity of cell phones, cameras and the Internet has unleashed a bounty of open-source material for spies to understand the world. Today, American spies patrol web forums for shots of China's latest jet fighters or information about jihadis in the Middle East.

Though the technology to hemorrhage data about yourself has made the job easier, it's by no means a new practice. For as long as we've had open sources, we've had open-source spies.

And that was especially true during World War II, when the job of open-source intelligence analysis fell principally to the men and women of the Research and Analysis branch of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.

OSS chief William "Wild Bill" Donovan believed in collecting secret intelligence by covert means. But he also saw value in hoovering up as much information from open sources as possible, and charged the R&A branch with analyzing it. [Read more: Rawnsley/Medium.com/2March2015]

Questions about the war on the terrorists: If the West wins, the intelligence agencies must find answers. For all the ink that has been spilled over intelligence and interrogations in the last year, three critical questions have not been addressed and need to be soon, especially in light of recent events in Paris and the horror that is the Islamic State: What is the mission, what are the rules, and what is the tolerance for risk? Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently said the threat “is beyond anything we’ve faced,” and it is foolish to think an attack like we saw in Paris cannot happen here. I have been an intelligence officer for more than 40 years, and I know that these are questions that can only be answered by elected officials, opinion makers and the American people.

The answers are political decisions and have far-reaching implications that we as a nation must be willing to live with. The mission question is really two questions: Where do you want the intelligence community to focus its limited resources, and how do you want to deal with the terrorism issue, specifically? If you see the United States as a global power with global interests, then you want a global intelligence capability and a global presence. It must be resourced accordingly. [Read more: Petersen/WTimes/22Feb2015]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Defeating ISIS Without American Ground Forces. While ISIS can, and must, be defeated as soon as possible, it is wrong to suggest that America should lead the fight. In fact, it must be done without further US ground units as even the threat of intervention by American troops plays directly into the enemy's strategy. Psychologically attuned and media savvy, ISIS employs tactics specifically designed to push Western emotional hot-buttons and are used with the sole purpose to draw us further into the fray. Unfortunately, we continually play their game thus exacerbating the situation and assisting in their sophisticated recruitment efforts.

The first step is to acknowledge that this is a religious war, albeit predominantly intra-Islamic in nature. It is most important to note that it is those nations in the region that have the most to lose if ISIS continues its barbaric aggression. Thousands of Muslims have been ruthlessly slaughtered while only a handful of foreigners have died, albeit in very high profile cases. Therefore, this war must be fought by the Islamic nations of the Middle East. Strategically, there is both a long and short game, and it may take intervention by strange and uncomfortable bedfellows to accomplish the mission.

To understand the issues, a great description of the threat is found in Graeme Wood's article "What ISIS Really Wants," published this week in The Atlantic. Two critical issues stand out. First, in order to establish their caliphate, ISIS must hold territory. The second is their apocalyptic vision; one that anticipates near extermination of their fighters before final victory. Rather than fearing death, as do most Westerners, ISIS combatants view it as a reward. While acknowledging you cannot kill an idea, the requirement to hold land is the Achilles heel of ISIS. What can be done is to physically eliminate the ISIS occupation of all lands they have subjugated. Air power alone is insufficient and waiting to retrain the Iraqi army requires too much time.

As an alternative, a coalition of ground forces from Islamic countries should be established to completely defeat all ISIS elements. [Read more: Alexander/TheWorldPost/23February2015]

Why Americans Don't Trust the Intelligence Community. In his NSA Constitution Day speech, and in a follow-up post last week with Ashley Deeks, Ben offered this "tentative hypothesis" for why the intelligence community, and NSA in particular, engenders so much distrust among "reasonable" Americans: whereas most of our laws (theoretically) apply to people irrespective of race, class or gender, the intelligence community does not operate under even facially neutral principles.

To explain what they mean by non-neutrality, Ashley and Ben write: "When it comes to the intelligence community....the law allows those actors to do things other people cannot." They go on to note that this definition raises a question: why does the American public consistently rate so highly the US military, an institution whose members necessarily detain and kill people with legal immunity? Their answer: "while US domestic law is not neutral in regulating the military, the international law that regulates the military does, in fact, contain neutral principles - principles with which the US military, as a general matter, scrupulously abides."

I think this definition of non-neutrality may be too broad to be meaningful. That is, I don't think the fact that the intelligence community can lawfully do things forbidden to others satisfactorily explains Americans' deep misgivings about the intelligence community, any more than it accounts for the public's currently low opinion of law enforcement (also permitted, in their official capacity, to do all sorts of things the average citizen cannot do). Nor is it clear to me that the development of neutral principles, on the domestic or international plane, would help relieve the public's misgivings. Here I point to certain neutral principles already in place to govern NSA activity, including but not limited to complex compliance requirements for the collection of Section 215 telephony metadata; these don't appear to be improving NSA's popularity (I think Ben is right to suggest, elsewhere in his speech, that their complexity is part of the problem, but there is more to it, as I note below).

So allow me to tweak the theory. [Read more: Chong/Lawfare/3March2015]

What Are the Spies for? The scandals have come thick and fast. On February 18th news leaked that two NCOs in Peru's naval intelligence agency were being tried in a military court for selling information to Chile. That came days after several political foes of Peru's president, Ollanta Humala, complained of being spied on by the National Intelligence Directorate (Dini). In January two former Panamanian security chiefs were arrested on charges of spying on scores of citizens for Ricardo Martinelli, a former president.

In Colombia, government negotiators conducting peace talks with the FARC guerrillas had their communications hacked last year, seemingly by army intelligence agents. The former director of the country's now dissolved Department of Administrative Security (DAS) faces trial for illegal phone tapping of adversaries of �lvaro Uribe, a former president.

Argentina's president, Cristina Fern�ndez de Kirchner, accuses a sacked former intelligence chief, Jaime Stiuso, of inspiring the recent accusation by Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor, that she and her foreign minister colluded with Iran to suppress the truth about the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires; she also hinted that Mr. Stiuso was behind Mr. Nisman's subsequent death in January. In Venezuela, the government sent intelligence agents to arrest the mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma. In the dungeons of the service's forbidding grey marble headquarters in Caracas, several student leaders are still incarcerated after anti-government protests last year.

There is an odd one out in these cases. If Chile's navy has indeed spied on its Peruvian counterpart, which its government denies, that is hardly unusual. It would be surprising if Peru's armed forces did not run agents in Chile. The two countries have long mistrusted each other, though relations have recently improved. If not exactly legitimate, secret information is often useful in apprising countries of the intentions of others.

All the other cases are symptoms of two Latin American diseases: the partisan abuse of intelligence services by governments to spy on political opponents, and a tendency for spy agencies to pursue their own agendas. [Read more: TheEconomist/28February2015]

Section IV - Books and Upcoming Events

Books

Jamil Maidan Flores - Gen. Almonte: A Portrait of the Spy as Philosopher. Last week in the run-up to the 29th anniversary of the 1986 people power revolution in the Philippines, retired army general Jose T. Almonte, launched a book he co-authored with investigative reporter Marites Danguilan Vitug.

Titled Endless Journey: A Memoir, the book recounts the colorful ways he served four presidents: Diosdado Macapagal, Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon C. Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos.

I began a friendship with him when he was head of the Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau (EIIB) during the administration of Cory Aquino. By then he had made a name for himself as an intelligence operative, military reformist and political thinker.

During the Vietnam War, as the intelligence officer of the Philippine Civic Action Group to Vietnam (PhilcagV), he walked into Viet Cong territory and talked its leaders into omitting the battalion-size Philippine troop contingent in their battle plans. In turn the Philcag would focus on civic action and strictly avoid combat.

"If you kill a few of us," he told the Viet Cong, "there will be a massive reaction. Every Filipino will want to come here and fight. Remember, we have ten million unemployed."

Never once did the Viet Cong mount an attack against the Philcag camp, not even during the Tet Offensive in early 1968. [Read more: Flores/JakartaGlobe/1March2015]

-------------------
Obituaries

John P. Craven, 90, Pioneer of Spying at Sea, Dies. John P. Craven, a former Navy scientist whose innovations in ocean technology and exploration led to some of the nation's most celebrated feats of espionage, died on Feb. 12 in Hawaii. He was 90.

The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, his family said.

From 1959 to 1969, as chief scientist of the Special Projects Office, Dr. Craven led the Navy's drive to expand its presence into the crushing depths of the sea. Among other things, he turned submarines into spy machines that could reach down miles to inspect and retrieve lost enemy mat�riel, including nuclear arms.

Dr. Craven liked to regale friends and journalists with as much of his personal history in the Navy as the nation's secrecy laws would allow, resulting in books and articles that sought to illuminate his Cold War exploits.

"There's a hell of a lot of stuff that went on," he said in an interview in 1993 on the front porch of his home overlooking Honolulu. After all, he added philosophically, "the whole object of life is to adapt." [Read more: Broad/NewYorkTimes/18February2015]

AFIO EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

5 March 2015 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Andr� Le Gallo Chapter hosts Lt. Col. Enrique Oti, National Security Affairs Fellow, Hoover Institution. Topic: "Chinese Threats to the Internet - It is Not Just Hacking." The briefing will cover Chinese hacker methodologies and will dive deeply into Chinese vision for the future of cyberspace and the threats to the United States that this entails. Four unique Chinese cyber strategies (domestic development, international environment, domestic security and war) will be discussed.

11:30AM no host cocktails; meeting starts at noon. United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, SF (between Sloat/Wawona). E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi at afiosf@aol.com and you will be sent an Eventbrite link to reigster. Alternately, mail a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011. Members and students: $25; non-members $35. $35 at the door. RSVP is required for this meeting.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 11:30am - Scottsdale, AZ - AFIO Arizona Chapter hears Rick Dale, Emergency Management Expert on "Ensuring our Homeland Security."

What keeps you awake at night? Would you sleep better knowing that Arizona State University�s Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security is creating solutions to threats to our safety and well-being?
Learn of emerging solutions to issues such as the early detection of Ebola, human and sex trafficking, and the ability to immediately detect impairment due to marijuana and drug usage. Discover how the center brings together the knowledge and capacity of the entire ASU enterprise to create innovative solutions for the preparation, response, recovery, and management of natural or man-made incidents.
Rick E. Dale is Executive Director of the ASU Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security and Professor of Practice in the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. He will be discussing "Ensuring our Homeland Security." Prior to joining ASU in 2013 to launch the center, Dale served as executive chairman and chief executive officer of IXP Corporation. Dale founded IXP in 2000, building it into an industry leader serving the emergency-solution needs of government, university, healthcare, and energy clients. Dale has more than three decades of experience in executive and technical management, professional services, and system integration in the broad emergency solution sector.

LOCATION: McCormick Ranch Golf Course, 7505 McCormick Pkwy, Scottsdale ~ Phone 480.948.0260.
RSVP to Simone at simone@afioaz.org or call her at 602.570.6016 no later than 72 hrs ahead of time. Meeting fees are now $25.00

Thursday, 19 March 2015, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO � The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Col. T. Small, Special Operations Command North.

The presentation is about Turkey, the Region and Current Conflicts. To be held at The Monument Hill Country Club, 18945 Pebble Beach Way, Monument, CO 80132. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net Directions are here.

19 March 2015, 12.30-2pm - Los Angeles, CA - AFIO-LA Chapter Meets to discuss spy "Christopher Marlowe" with Francis Hamit

Francis Hamit will be discussing "Christopher Marlowe" an upcoming film about the poet, playwright and spy who helped to defeat the Spanish Armada. The spy thriller is based on the 1988 stage play about Christopher Marlowe's service as a secret agent for the Crowne. The film will be shot in the UK later this year and Francis Hamit will serve as the Executive Producer. More about that movie can be seen here.
Location: LAPD-ARTC, 5651 W Manchester Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Francis Hamit served in the US Army Security Agency during the Vietnam War. Francis Hamit discovered this story when he worked for the Encylopaedia Britannica and wrote a number articles about intelligence organizations and personalities, he has written several historical fiction spy thrillers and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and a member of AFIO since 1987.
RSVP via email AFIO_LA@yahoo.com

Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 5:30-9pm - New York, NY - AFIO New York Metro Meeting Features Joseph Wippl, former CIA Clandestine Services Officer.

Joseph Wippl is a former CIA officer who spent 30 years as an operations officer in the National Clandestine Service (NCS). Wippl served overseas in Bonn, West Germany; Guatemala City; Luxembourg; Madrid, Spain; Mexico City; Vienna, Austria; and Berlin, Germany. On assignments in CIA headquarters, he served as the Deputy Chief of Human Resources, as the Senior NCS representative to the Aldrich Ames Damage Assessment Team, as Chief of Europe Division and as the CIA�s Director of Congressional Affairs. Wippl has coordinated extensively with other members of the US IC. He currently teaches at Boston University. Prior to that he occupied the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program. Wippl has taught at BU since 2006 where he serves as Director of Graduate Studies, Professor of the Practice of International Relations; BU Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

Location: Society of Illustrators building, 128 East 63rd St, between Park Ave and Lexington Ave.

To register or for more information contact Jerry Goodwin at afiometro@gmail.com

Other Upcoming Events

Wednesday, 11 March 2015, noon - Washington DC - Global Terrorism, Esponiage and Cybersecurity Monthly Update with David Major at the International Spy Museum

Join David Major, retired FBI agent and former Director of Counterintelligence, Intelligence and Security Programs, for a briefing on the hottest intelligence and security issues, breaches, and penetrations. Presented in partnership with The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre), these updates will cover worldwide events such as breaking espionage cases and arrest reports, cyber espionage incidents, and terrorist activity. Find out Snowden’s current status and what could happen next with this case. Major uses his expertise to analyze trends and highlight emerging issues of interest to both intelligence and national security professionals and the public. Cases are drawn from the CI Centre’s SPYPEDIA®, the most comprehensive source of espionage information in the world, containing events and information that may not be reported by mainstream media outlets. Major will also highlight and review the latest books and reports to keep you current on what is hitting think tank desks.

Tickets: Free! No registration required. Visit www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 4:30 - 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Surviving the End: A Practical Guide for Everyday Americans in the Age of Terror" - presentation by James Jay Carafano at the Institute of World Politics

Bioterrorism. Dirty bombs. Electromagnetic pulse attacks. Threats with the power to annihilate our way of life constantly hang over Americans' heads. But you don't have to dig yourself a bunker to make it through the worst.
Terrorism expert and former Army Lt. Colonel James Jay Carafano has created the guide for everyday Americans to weather the harshest storms. Surviving the End is a disaster preparation book for average Americans, outlining practical, achievable, common-sense skills and precautions that anyone can take to prepare for the next big disaster. You don't have to have a cellar full of canned goods or battlefield combat training to follow Carafano's recommendations. Surviving the End covers situations from natural disasters to global warfare with a down-to-earth style that average families can relate to and learn from. With advice that could be applied to personal emergencies as well as national emergencies, the tips and tricks Carafano shares aren't just for doomsday, they're for every day.
James Jay Carafano, Heritage Foundation's leading expert on national security and foreign policy challenges, is an accomplished historian, author and teacher. Carafano is adjunct professor at Georgetown University and The Institute of World Politics and has served as a visiting professor at National Defense University, assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., director of military studies at the Army's Center of Military History, and fleet professor at the U.S. Naval War College.
Event location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th St NW, Washington, D.C. 20036. Parking map
Questions: contact sdwyer@iwp.edu otherwise Register here.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 6:30pm-7:00pm - Washington DC - "Spies & Wine: Frauds, Fakes, and Fun" at the International Spy Museum

Are drinking and counterfeiting an unlikely combination? Not for the experts in this lighthearted exploration of spies and wine. For intelligence officers like Tony Mendez, whose most famous mission during his time in the CIA was portrayed in the film ARGO, the ability to create documents that would pass as valid behind enemy lines could mean the difference between life and death. For Jason Tesauro, author, chief sommelier and national brand director for Barboursville Vineyards, the ability to understand the subtle differences between European wines and their “counterfeit” counterparts is vital to keeping his palate polished and his clientele happy. Former CIA chief of disguise Jonna Mendez will brief us on some of her favorite (declassified) CIA drinking tips and tales. Following this lively discussion, guests will have the opportunity to taste and compare three different European wines with their Virginia twins, including Champagne, Vermentino and Bourdeaux blends.
Guests must be 21 to participate. Ticket price includes three wine comparison tastings, six wines total.
Tickets: $75. Register at www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 5 - 7:30 pm - Arlington, VA - BG (R) Peter Zwack discusses Experiences in Russia as US Senior Defense Official to the Turbulent Present

FAOA [Foreign Area Officer Association] Distinguished Speaker & Reception Event features BG (Ret) Peter Zwack, former Defense Attaché (DATT) to Russia. BG Zwack, a US Army FAO, will address his experiences in Russia as the US Senior Defense Official (SDO)/DATT, going from a period of peaceful security cooperation and the successful Sochi Winter Olympics to the rapid deterioration of relations between the United States and Russia to their lowest point since the Cold War as a result of the Crimean and eastern Ukraine crises. Reception: 5:00 to 6:30; Remarks and Q&A: 6:30 to 7:30
Location: Army-Navy Country Club, 1700 Army-Navy Dr, Arlington VA 22202 Price: $25.
Event includes appetizers and cash bar. Dress: Coat and Tie/Uniform of the Day
Register here.

13-15 March 2015 - Groton, CT - The New England Chapter of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association (NCVA-NE) holds Spring Mini-Reunion.

THE NCVA-NE holds its spring mini-reunion at the Groton Inn and Suites, Groton, CT. The hotel registration cut-off date for the guaranteed rate is 13 February 2015. For additional information call Mr. Ed Carey at (603) 424-4192 or Mr. Vic Knorowski, publicity chairman, at (518) 664-8032.
NCVA-NE consists of those vets who served with the U.S. Naval Security Group or one of its successor commands (NETWARCOM, CYBERCOM), and were honorably discharged from U.S. Armed Forces, and now reside in New England or the surrounding states. Members that need a registration form or hotel information can get either by visiting the NCVA-NE Yahoo group website.

Wednesday, 18 March 2015, 12:00pm - Washington DC - Global Terrorism, Espionage and Cybersecurity Monthly Update featuring David Major at the International Spy Museum

Join David Major, retired FBI agent and former Director of Counterintelligence, Intelligence and Security Programs, for a briefing on the hottest intelligence and security issues, breaches, and penetrations. Presented in partnership with The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre), these updates will cover worldwide events such as breaking espionage cases and arrest reports, cyber espionage incidents, and terrorist activity. Find out Snowden’s current status and what could happen next with this case. Major uses his expertise to analyze trends and highlight emerging issues of interest to both intelligence and national security professionals and the public. Cases are drawn from the CI Centre’s SPYPEDIA®, the most comprehensive source of espionage information in the world, containing events and information that may not be reported by mainstream media outlets. Major will also highlight and review the latest books and reports to keep you current on what is hitting think tank desks.
Tickets: Free! No reservations required. Visit www.spymuseum.org

Tues-Wed, 24-25 March 2015 - Washington, DC - International Conference on Exercises, Gaming, and Simulations for Intelligence and National Security, Communication, Culture & Technology Program (CCTP)

Dates and times: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 at 8:30 AM - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 7:00 PM (EDT)
This international conference, between the Center for Intelligence Services and Democratic Systems at Rey Juan Carlos University and the School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University will enhance the role of experiential learning methods and techniques showcasing original simulations, exercises, and games applied to national security intelligence, competitive intelligence, and foreign affairs. The conference will bring together ideas, concepts and demonstrations that can further train and educate military, law enforcement, and national security professionals.
A sample of conference topics include:  Scenario-based approach for developing the links between analysis and reporting;  Computational Simulation In Intelligence Analysis;  The Induction Game and Intelligence Education;  Gaming and Modeling Before a Crisis;  Use of Gaming and Exercise as Part of an Engagement Strategy;  Gaming the Nexus between Intelligence and Policy;  Concrete Tabletop Exercises for Cognitive Skill Development in Analysts;  Serious gaming & how to create visionary practitioners and policy makers;  Balancing Realism and Playability in the Intelligence Classroom;  Structured Analytic Techniques for Cyber Security through Role Playing; Cyber-Attack and Ethics Simulations;  Virtual Training Systems and Survival Humanistic Factors;
Discounted hotel accommodations, questions or comments should be directed to Dr. Jan Goldman jg28@georgetown.edu or Dr. Ruben Arcos Martin, ruben.arcos@urjc.es (outside North America)
Registration and Information is available here.

Thursday, 09 April 2015, 7 - 10pm - Washington DC - An Evening with a Futurist: Dinner with Marc Goodman at the International Spy Museum

Futurist Marc Goodman was voted by the TED Talks community as the speaker �most likely to freak you out.� A global thinker, writer, and consultant focused on the profound change technology is having on terrorism, crime, and security, he was the FBI�s Futurist in Residence and has worked for INTERPOL, the United Nations, NATO, and the LAPD―and tonight he�ll be your companion at dinner. As the founder of the Future Crimes Institute, Marc Goodman shares his thoughts on how disruptive technologies―such as artificial intelligence, the social data revolution, synthetic biology, virtual worlds, robotics, ubiquitous computing, and location-based services―form the basis for his new book Future Crimes. At this gathering, International Spy Museum historian Dr. Vince Houghton will lead a conversation with Goodman about the future of cyber intrigue. They will cover everything from cyberterrorism to the Dark Web to how individuals, businesses, and governments can protect themselves from cyber crimes too terrifying to imagine. You will be one of only seven guests at Poste Moderne Brasserie for this three-course dinner. You will receive a copy of Future Crimes when you reserve your space.
To Register: contact Laura Hicken lhicken@spymuseum.org or 202.654.0932. Tickets: $300. Visit www.spymuseum.org

Friday, 10 April 2015, 4:30-6:30 PM - Washington, DC - "British Patriot or Soviet Spy? Clarifying a Major Cold War Mystery" - A Conference at the Institute of World Politics

AFIO members are cordially invited to a presentation analyzing whether former MI5 Director General, Roger Hollis, was or was not a Soviet agent.
Will include argument maps by Paul Monk, Ph.D. Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Australian Defence Intelligence Organization; Argument mapping/Bayesian expert; Co-founder of Austhink, a critical-thinking skills consulting firm.
Reception to follow
Panelists are:
Raymond J. Batvinis, Ph.D., Retired FBI Supervisory Agent; IWP Professor of counterintelligence history; author of The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence.
David L. Charney, M.D., Consulting psychiatrist to the U. S. intelligence community; expert on the psychology of the �insider spy�; Medical Director, Roundhouse Square Counseling Center.
Harvey Klehr, Ph.D., Intelligence historian, Emory University; Co-author of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America.
Moderator
John L. Wilhelm, Former US Navy Intelligence Officer; TIME magazine correspondent; Independent PBS Writer/Producer/Director; author of a forthcoming history of Russian Military Intelligence (the GRU).
More information about this conference can be found here.
To register online, do so here.
Event location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th St NW, Washington, D.C. 20036. Parking map.
Please contact sdwyer@iwp.edu with any questions

Monday, 13 April 2015, 6:30pm - Washington DC - Sensors Everywhere: Satellites and Mobile Technology for Documenting Human Rights Abuses - at the International Spy Museum

Human rights investigators increasingly use advanced technologies such as imagery satellites in their work documenting abuses around the globe. Traditionally these tools have been reserved for national intelligence services, but now they are standard tools for research by private organizations as well.
These readily available �eyes in the sky� give safe access to dangerous conflict zones such as Syria, or closed-off areas such as political prison camps in North Korea. Next generation micro-satellites even have the potential to provide full-motion video documentation. While satellite imagery has been likened to looking through a soda straw, the spread of cell phones and digital social networks provides visual documentation in real-time on a massive scale. However, this comes with its own challenges, as videos or pictures shared via YouTube or Facebook can be faked or shared within the wrong context.
Join us for a thought-provoking evening with Christoph Koettl of Amnesty International on the opportunities and pitfalls of advanced technologies in the hands of private researchers and investigators.
Dr. Mark Stout, the program director of the MA in Global Security Studies and the Certificate in National Security Studies at Johns Hopkins University, will host.
Tickets: $10. Visit www.spymuseum.org

Tuesday, 21 April 2015, 6:30pm - Washington DC - The Rosenbergs: The 'Definitive' Debate at the International Spy Museum

More than sixty years after their execution in June 1953 for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for the Soviet Union, in a few hardbitten, blind-to-facts circles, the debate still rages about the Rosenbergs' guilt or innocence. Especially among their family members and friends. Mike Meeropol, the son of Julius and Ethel, has spent his life whitewashing, fine-tuning, and nit-picking the perfidy of his parents� secret lives, their trials, their well-deserved convictions for espionage, and ultimately their executions. Sam Roberts, journalist for The New York Times, is the author of The Brother, a book written with exclusive access to David Greenglass, Ethel�s brother, whose testimony almost single-handedly convicted the couple in the era before classified VENONA decrypts were released to show they were guilty as charged. In this debate, these Rosenberg scholars―with different perspectives on a case long-settled by intelligence scholars―will take on the divisive issues and key questions that remain to the few holdouts despite the declassification of intelligence files from the United States and the Soviet Union that prove they were guilty and deserving of the punishment they received.
As a voice of reason, Dr. Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum and an expert on nuclear intelligence, will moderate this debate on the Rosenbergs treason and punishment.
Tickets: $15, Members of the Inner Circle: $12. Visit www.spymuseum.org

26 April to 3 May 2015 - Berlin and Vienna - ESPIONAGE IN EUROPE: Now and Then - a New York Times Journey with AFIO Member/former CIA Officer, Jon Wiant.

Reserve now to travel on this exciting eight day intelligence excursion. "Espionage in Europe: Now and Then" is a journey focused on history & context. From the Cold War to present day government phone-hacking. Berlin and Vienna are two of Europe's capital cities that have seen more than their fair share of activity. Explore how, why and who was involved, the back stories and realization that it will never go away.
Join us on a unique tour to Berlin and Vienna, to learn about both underground goings on and those taking place in plain site, how World War II shaped Cold War intelligence operations and why our espionage bases in Berlin and Vienna became the dangerous front lines of our conflict with the Soviet Union. The Times-selected expert accompanying this trip is Prof. Jon A Wiant, retired Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, former White House director of intelligence policy and former member of the CIA. To hear more about this tour, listen to Jon Wiant speak, during a recent webinar.
Cost: $7,450 pp, +$1,000 single supplement. Deposit $500. Itinerary: 8 days, 7 nights. Activity Level: More active trips involving hiking over moderately strenuous and varied terrain, usually ― but not always ― with vehicle support and at elevations most often below 10,000 feet, or trips with significant hiking days, wilderness camping, or other mandatory activity. On some trips, you can elect to skip a day�s hike, depending on logistics. Questions? Call 855-698-7979.

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