Saturday, June 20, 2009

Leon Panetta and the C.I.A.: newyorker.com


Comment: I'm not shy about my opinion of Leon Panetta and Obama's decision to entrust the CIA to his care. Now Jane Mayer asks: "Can Leon Panetta move the CIA forward without confronting its past?"

Remember -- it's Jane Mayer asking the question.

Sorry -- I can't resist -- Spoiler: The interview ends with Panetta staring out over the grounds of the CIA and saying that sometimes all he can do is "say a lot of Hail Marys."

Leon Panetta and the C.I.A.: newyorker.com


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New "C" for MI6 is UK's Ambassador to UN



Comment: In a surprise move that signals a decision to break with previous MI6 involvement with controversies over Iraqi WMD "dossiers" and cooperation with enhanced interrogation techniques, 10 Downing Street has appointed a career diplomat to serves as the Chief -- "C" -- of the Secret Intelligence Service. A collection of excerpts profiling Sir John Sawyers and the anticipated shifts within MI6 follows . . .

From Times Online
June 16, 2009
Outsider Sir John Sawers Appointed New Head of MI6
Michael Evans, Defence Editor

From The Times
June 17, 2009
After Iraq WMD Fiasco, MI6 Faces New Challenge Under Sir John Sawers
Michael Evans, Defence Editor

Sir John Sawers Named New MI6 Chief
By Matt Falloon
Reuters UK, June 16, 2009



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New Details on U.S. Assistance to Lebanese CI


Comment: As previously reported, U.S. technology and training has helped Lebanese counterintelligence identify Israeli espionage activity. Now, additional new details emerge . . .


Last update - 09:10 14/06/2009
Report: U.S. Technology Helped Uncover Israel Spy Ring in Lebanon
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

Excerpt: American training and technology enabled a breakthrough to crack the alleged Israeli spy ring in Lebanon, media in the Arab world reported.

Over 20 suspects, including a high-ranking army official, have been charged with spying for Israel over many years, media reports say.

Since 2006, the United States has supplied the Lebanese with $1 billion in assistance, including $410 million to improve the work of the Lebanese police and intelligence services.
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

I Knew Eugenio de Sosa Chabau


I knew Eugenio de Sosa Chabau.  De Sosa Chabau was publisher of the oldest Spanish language newspaper in the Western Hemisphere, Diario de la Marina, in his native Cuba, when he was imprisoned and tortured for two decades simply for opposing Castro’s communist regime.  In Castro’s Cuba editorial criticism brings prison and torture.

Somehow, America’s Left is not disturbed by Castro’s brand of torture or grounds for imprisonment.  This past Friday, Walter Kendall Myers 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, being agents of a foreign government and wire fraud – all based on long-standing anger about U.S. policies that inspired these aging hippies – the dregs of the ‘60s – to spy for Cuba for three decades.  Sadly, they are not alone. A professor in South Florida and even a senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst have also been convicted of espionage on behalf of Cuba in the past few years.  The Washington Post and other media outlets write sympathetic “news” reports and the notion of Castro’s Cuba as an anachronistically quaint remnant of communism in a tropical paradise persists.

Allow me to strip away the mythology of Castro’s Cuba and lay bare the brutality of his (and his brother, Raul’s) stranglehold on the people living 90 miles from Miami.  The spies who betray our country and bolster the Castro regime never met my friend, Eugenio de Sosa Chabau.

De Sosa Chabau and I first met in Miami, FL, during the summer of 2001, thanks to Jose Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the Rescue, a pro-democracy, humanitarian group of pilots that conducted search and rescue missions for rafters in the Florida Straits. I learned of de Sosa Chabau’s wealthy, prominent family and his upbringing that included his friendship with all-boys prep-school classmate John FitzGerald Kennedy, another member of the Class of 1935 at the exclusive Choate School in Connecticut.

De Sosa Chabau’s friendship with Kennedy and his success at smuggling an early warning out of prison to the U.S. Government concerning the stationing of Russian missiles on the island nation would earn him prolonged physical and psychological torture.

In October 2001, de Sosa Chabau and I traveled together to Brussels, Belgium, where he filed a complaint in the Belgian Royal Courts against Castro for committing crimes against humanity.  I am honored to have prepared de Sosa Chabau’s sworn declaration that served as the primary exhibit in the Court complaint.

Three months later de Sosa Chabau died of cancer during a visit to his family in Dallas over the Christmas holiday.

Throughout his 20-year sentence, de Sosa Chabau was tortured in various prisons throughout the island, including the notorious Isle of Pines and later at the Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital outside of Havana

His punishment included frequent beatings by prison guards, electric shocks to his head and genitals, as well as being force-fed and injected with hallucinogenic drugs. He often went days without food or water and was kept in a tiny, dark dirt cell during periods of solitary confinement. On one occasion the prison administrators orchestrated an elaborate ruse trying to convince him that his daughter and grandchildren had been killed in a plane crash – all in an effort to break de Sosa Chabau psychologically.

De Sosa Chabau was released from prison in 1980. Years later he relived some of his nightmarish experiences in prison when he recognized a man in South Florida who had tortured him with electric shock. That man, Eriberto Mederos, a head nurse at Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital, was convicted on August 1, 2002, of obtaining American citizenship fraudulently. Mederos specifically told de Sosa Chabau that the purpose of his punishment in the hospital was because of his “counter-revolutionary” opposition to the Communist dictatorship in Cuba. On August 23, 2002, Eriberto Mederos died before a sentence was imposed.

Those committing espionage against the United States betray our country and condemn those Cubans seeking a the slightest glimmer of individual liberty to electric shock, hallucinogens, filthy cells, poor food, and forced labor, among other indignities, for their “counter-revolutionary” thoughts or deeds.

Where is the week-long profile of Castro's torture and imprisonment on the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times?  How about the CNN special?  Where is the media's interest or respect for a newspaper publisher of the integrity, bravery and caliber of my friend, Eugenio de Sosa Chabau?


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Friday, June 5, 2009

Refugee Espionage in Sweden


Comment: The Swedish Security Police make an arrest for “refugee espionage” – efforts to hunt down critics and dissidents by foreign powers. The targeted refugees are often coerced into cooperating with the foreign service in any number of ways.

Interestingly, secure refugee detention centers in Sweden have a “difficult” working relationship with the security and police forces – who blame the Swedish Migration Board with being infiltrated with radical Leftist political activists.


Security Police Arrest 'Refugee Spy'
By Paul O'Mahony
Published: 4 Jun 09 16:03 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/19876/20090604/

Security police (Säkerhetspolisen - Säpo) in Stockholm have arrested a Swedish citizen suspected of spying on refugees coming to Sweden from an undisclosed country.
The suspect has been under surveillance for some time and was arrested by the security police in the capital on Thursday, Säpo said in a statement.

Säpo added that it was bound by confidentiality agreements and was not at liberty to divulge any further details about the case.

A public prosecutor has until lunchtime on Sunday to decide whether the suspect should be remanded in custody.

"These cases are difficult to detect and difficult to investigate. First of all, there's never anybody who reports a crime," prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand told news agency TT.

"The crime is predicated on the involvement of a foreign power and mostly, though not always, the people in charge are very good at what they do. They take every possible precaution and I think I'd go as far as to say that they are considerably more careful than many people involved in more traditional serious crime."

The crime of 'refugee espionage' (flyktingspionage) is widespread in Sweden, according to Säpo, with a number of countries committing major resources to gathering information about dissidents who have fled their domestic borders for Sweden.

The crime is considered serious and is viewed as a threat to Sweden's national security.

In 2008, Säpo revealed that an intelligence officer stationed at an undisclosed embassy had been declared persona non grata and deported from Sweden after he was found to have spied on refugees and threatened them with torture and imprisonment if they refused to assist him with his covert operations.

Säpo said its investigations in the case had also led to the deportation of several intelligence agents who had cooperated with the undercover officer.


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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Pathetic & Dangerous


Comment:  This is what the Iraqi national service is worried about?  What they're spending their time on?  And U.S. Armed Forces & Intelligence Officers are putting their lives on the line for the sixth year running?

Iraqi Intelligence Sues Guardian

Martin Chulov in Baghdad
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 May 2009 23.26 BST

Iraq's national intelligence service has launched a court action to sue the Guardian, claiming to have been defamed by a story that characterised the regime of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as increasingly autocratic.

The story, by award-winning correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, was published in April, when the Iraqi leader was in London on an investment drive. It included interviews with three unnamed members of the Iraqi national intelligence service (INIS), who said elements of Maliki's rule resembled a dictatorship.

Maliki called for legal action to be launched on his return to Iraq and the ostensibly independent INIS filed a writ demanding $1m in damages for what it said was a "false and defamatory" report.

The INIS also demanded that Abdul-Ahad reveal the identity of the agents who spoke to him, which the Guardian has refused to do.

The Iraqi government initially ordered the paper's Baghdad bureau to be closed, but has backed away from that threat.

The Guardian is standing by the story and has retained an Iraqi lawyer to contest the charges. Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief, said: "We are disappointed that prime minister Maliki has launched this misguided action against the Guardian. We will, of course, contest it."

The case was postponed until 23 June.

Staff of Iraq's interior ministry, meanwhile, are suing the New York Times over a report that 35 of them had been sacked.


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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Another Chinese Ethnic "Compatriot" Self-recruitment


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Former Boeing Engineer Goes to Trial on Espionage Charges
Dongfan 'Greg' Chung provided Space Shuttle secrets to China, federal prosecutor says.
By Rachani Srisavasdi
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A former Boeing engineer betrayed the United States by providing confidential information about the Space Shuttle program to the People's Republic of China, a federal prosecutor said in opening statements Tuesday.

"Information, security and betrayal," Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples said in the trial of Dongfan "Greg" Chung. "These are the three pillars of the government's case."

The defense attorney for Chung – a 73-year-old grandfather who resides in Orange – countered that his client refused Chinese officials' overtures to reveal classified information on military and space technology secrets.

"So much of this evidence is (about) what my client didn't do," Thomas Bienert Jr. said. "It makes him a non-spy. … People were trying to get him to give him things."

Chung was arrested in February 2008, after an unsealed indictment accused Chung of giving secrets to China since the late 1970s. He is charged with ten counts, including six of economic espionage, as well as acting as an agent for the People's Republic of China.

The case comes two years after the conviction of another former Orange County engineer, Chi Mak, on charges of exporting sensitive defense technology to China.

Mak, who was sentenced to 24 ½ years in prison, knew Chung. In fact, federal agents interviewed Chung during the Mak investigation. During a September 2006 interview, Chung said he met Mak around 1980 at a meeting in Los Angeles organized by a Chinese organization, FBI Agent Kevin Moberly said during his testimony Tuesday.

"He told me he suspected Chi Mak was providing sensitive information to China,'' said Moberly, the trial's second witness.
Agents also found information in Mak's home about Chung, prosecutors said.

During a search of Mak's home in June 2006, a letter was found from a senior aviation official in China. That missive, dated May 2, 1987, was addressed to Chung and asked him to provide information on airplanes and the space shuttle, according to prosecutors.

Chung, who has been out on bond since his arrest, listened intently to the first day of testimony. His wife sat in the courtroom gallery's back row and took notes. The couple's two sons did not attend the proceedings.

Chung, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in China in 1936 and moved to Taiwan in 1948, according to the government's trial brief. He came to the United States in 1962, and got a master's degree at the University of Minnesota, and was later hired by Boeing, prosecutors said.

For most of his career, Chung worked as an analyst on the fuselage section of the Space Shuttle, according to prosecutors. He moved to Southern California in 1973, when he was employed by Rockwell in Downey, prosecutors said. Rockwell was acquired by Boeing, and in 1999, Chung moved to Boeing's plant in Huntington Beach, according to prosecutors.

He was laid off by Boeing in 2002 but worked there until 2006 on a contractual basis, they added.

Federal agents found a quarter of a million documents at Chung's home – information from Rockwell, Boeing and other aerospace companies, according to Moberly's testimony.

"There is no question the defendant worked for the Chinese government," Staples said during opening statements.
During his opening statement, Bienert explained the information was in Chung's home because Chung was a "pack rat,'' who held onto all information.

"With all respect to my client, his house gives new meaning to clutter,'' said Bienert, as photos of Chung's home – filled with stacks of paper and clutter – flashed on television screens.

The defense attorney did acknowledge Chung provided some information about technology to officials – but only information already out in the public domain.

Chung, he explained, "was committed to trying to see China become more part of new millennium."

He also questioned the freshness of the government's case, citing letters from the 1980s between Chung and Chinese officials.

The statute of limitations had run on any potential criminal activity by Chung, he added.

The bench trial is being heard by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, who presided over the Mak case. It is expected to last about two weeks.
###

Comment -- A glimpse at Chung's possible motivation(s):
  • Chung indicated to his PRC handlers a desire to contribute to the “motherland.”
  • "I don't know what I can do for the country. Having been a Chinese compatriot for over thirty years and being proud of the achievements by the people's efforts for the motherland, I am regretful for not contributing anything.....I would like to make an effort to contribute . . . "
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