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2005 Intelligence News:

20051231

US - International - Iraq - Secret - GOV - Terrorism - Intelligence - Telecommunications- E-Mail - Privacy - Politics - Media - Enforcement - "US investigates leak of spy program: Prosecutors focus on disclosure to New York Times." ... "The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into recent disclosures about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program that was secretly authorized by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said yesterday." ... "Justice Department prosecutors will focus on whether classified information about the program was unlawfully disclosed to The New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of people in the United States without court-approved warrants, officials said." ... "The case is the latest in a series of clashes between the media and the Bush administration, which has aggressively enforced restrictions on classified information and has frequently complained about media disclosures related to terrorism or the war in Iraq." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost via -BostonGlobe

20051230

Secret - Government - Intelligence - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Politics - Media - "Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry Into Leak of Domestic Spying." ... "The Justice Department said today that it had opened a criminal investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a secret National Security Agency program under which President Bush authorized eavesdropping on people in the United States without a court warrant." ... "The investigation apparently began in recent days following a formal referral from the agency regarding the leak, federal officials said on condition of anonymity." ... "The program, whose existence was revealed in an article in The New York Times on Dec. 16, has provoked sharp criticism from civil liberties groups, some members of Congress and some former intelligence officials who believe it circumvents the law governing national security eavesdropping." -By Scott Shane -NYTimes

20051228

Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Florida - Oregon - Ohio - Virginia - "Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts." ... "Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda." ... "The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out." ... "The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say." -By Eric Lichtblau and James Risen (1, 2) -NYTimes

20051227

Secret - Government - Law Enforcement - Law - Privacy - "U.S. secret surveillance up sharply since Sept. 11." ... "Federal applications for a special U.S. court to authorize secret surveillance rose sharply after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the panel required changes to the requests at a even greater rate, government documents show." ... "The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court received a total of 3,436." -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk

20051226

Government- Military - Intelligence - Secret - Prisons - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Law - Media- Politics - "Fear destroys what bin Laden could not." ... "One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help." ... "If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled." ... "Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated." ... "If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them." ... "If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy." -By Robert Steinback -Miami/Herald

20051224

Government - Terrorism - Law Enforcement - Law - Telecommunications - Business - Internet - Privacy - Politics - "Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report." ... "The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials." ... "The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said." ... "As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said." ... "The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program." -By Eric Lichtblau and James Risen (1, 2) -NYTimes

20051223

Secret- Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Law - Privacy - History - Samuel Alito - "In 1984 memo, Alito defends domestic wiretaps." ... "As a Reagan administration lawyer, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito argued that federal officials can't be sued for damages for wiretapping Americans without warrants in national security cases, a document released Friday showed." ... "Alito's position may complicate his prospects for confirmation because its disclosure comes amid an uproar over a four-year-old Bush administration counterterrorism operation that's been eavesdropping on Americans without court approval." ... "President Bush's argument that he has the legal and constitutional authority to direct the National Security Agency to conduct the secret domestic surveillance operation is almost certain to end up before the Supreme Court." -By Jonathan S. Landay -Knight Ridder via -MercuryNews
Italy - EU - US - Egypt -Intelligence - "Italy court issues EU arrest warrant for CIA team." ... "A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Italy's financial capital in 2003, Prosecutor Armando Spataro said on Friday." ... "Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured." -Reuters

20051222

Secret - Government - Terrorism- Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail - Privacy - Politics - "Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program." ... "The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources." ... "Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court." (1, 2) -By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost
US - Arizona - Mexico - Drugs - Terrorism - Law - Intelligence - "Surprise - terror war aids drug war: One Arizona border unit sees marijuana haul triple." ... "As Congress and President Bush wrangle over the USA Patriot Act, the Border Security bill, and other tools of the war on terror, they may want to keep another law-enforcement group in mind - the nation's drug-fighters." ... "That's because the war on terror is proving to be a boon to the war on drugs. Drug seizures are up all along the US-Mexico border. Nowhere is the trend clearer than along a desolate 118-mile patch of Arizona desert across the border from the Mexican state of Sonora." ... "In what is rapidly becoming one of the highest drug-trafficking and people- smuggling sectors along the border, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers there have seized 13,000 pounds of marijuana since Oct. 1, triple the amount captured in the same period last year. That year, fiscal 2005, also set a record. The reasons for the success? Better intelligence-sharing, increased manpower, and improved technology that border officials have received in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks." -By Faye Bowers -CSMonitor

20051221

Government- Political - Intelligence - Privacy - Law - History - "Limits to power: Restrictions on domestic spying were put in place for a reason." ... "It's an old argument. Back during the Vietnam War, government photographers went to the anti-war demonstrations and took pictures of the demonstrators. Protest leaders thought, probably correctly, that their phones were tapped. Even I, a reporter covering the protests, heard some odd clicking noises when I picked up the phone to make some calls. And, of course, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, who made his own laws, eavesdropped on Martin Luther King Jr., among others, though we didn't know it at the time." ... "Outside the law? John Mitchell, who was President Richard Nixon's Attorney General, argued that the government didn't need a warrant to tap the phone of any political dissenter it thought was a threat to national security, which certainly does sound like the secret police at work. But in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Mitchell was wrong. Justice Lewis Powell, a Nixon appointee, wrote for the unanimous court that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects Americans from "unreasonable searches and seizures" and that that freedom "cannot be properly guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely at the discretion of the executive branch."" ... "President Bush obviously thinks the court was wrong, since he ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2002 to begin eavesdropping on American citizens without a court-issued warrant." -By Bruce Morton -CNN
Secret - Government - Intelligence - "Surveillance-court judge quits in protest." ... "A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources." ... "U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation." ... "Two associates familiar with his decision said Tuesday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable." -By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer -WashingtonPost via -SeattleTimes.NWsource

20051220

Government - Military - Intelligence - Total Information Awareness - Secrecy - Consumer - Telecommunications -Databases - Privacy - Law -West-Virginia - Dick Cheney - Terrorism - "Bush, Democrats swap charges over his approval of wiretaps." ... "The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, released a letter he wrote to Vice President Dick Cheney on July 17, 2003, the day he learned of the surveillance in a meeting with Cheney, three other lawmakers and the heads of the CIA and NSA. Rockefeller expressed deep misgivings and said the program reminded him of Total Information Awareness, a controversial Pentagon effort to mine credit-card data, cellphone calls and even bank withdrawals to spot terrorist activity." ... ""These concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues" by secrecy laws, Rockefeller said Monday. He accused the president and his aides of "repeatedly misrepresenting the facts" in recent days and demanded a "full investigation into the legal and operational aspects of the program" now that the program has come to light." -By Todd J. Gillman -DallasNews.com via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
Environment - Animals - Terrorism - Civil Righs - Law - Politics - Indiana - "F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show." ... "Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show." ... "But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest." ... "One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis [Indiana] planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." (1, 2) -By Eric Lichtblau -NYTimes
Government - Telecommunications - EMail - Intelligence - Law - West-Virginia- Cheney, Dick - "Democrats: Briefings weren't approvals for wiretapping." ... "Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings." ... ""I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. "As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney."" ... "Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaeda." -AP via -USATODAY

20051219

Government- Military - Intelligence - Privacy - Law - Politics - "Bush's Snoopgate: The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times' eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper's editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn't just out of concern about national security." ... "The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists-in fact, all American Muslims, period-have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that "the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy." But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a "shameful act," it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab." ... "No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story-which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year-because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker." -By Jonathan Alter -MSNBC/Newsweek
Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Civil Liberties - Privacy - Law - "Bush strongly defends eavesdropping program." ... "President Bush on Monday forcefully defended his administration's eavesdropping program for terror suspects living in the United States as an essential element of protecting Americans from a new enemy, and he said whoever unmasked the secret plan had committed a "shameful act."" ... "As Republicans joined Democrats in calling for a congressional inquiry into the domestic spying program, the president insisted he had the legal and constitutional authority to order surveillance. He said he was concerned about citizens' civil liberties but denied suggestions that he had abused the power of the presidency, and he vowed not to abandon the plan he approved after the 2001 terror attacks." ... ""To say `unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject," Bush said. "I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country."" -ChicagoTribune via -MercuryNews
Secret - Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail - Privacy - Law - "President Bush Defends Secret Wiretaps, Urges Patriot Act Renewal." ... "In his final news conference of the year, President Bush offered a stern defense of his ordering of secret wiretaps within the United States and made a spirited plea for the renewal of the Patriot Act." ... "The president's top priority was to quell the growing outrage over the revelation on Friday by The New York Times of a widespread, ongoing domestic eavesdropping program by the National Security Agency that has targeted phone conversations and e-mail exchanges within the U.S." ... "Though the disclosure of the covert domestic spying program has caused concern among both Democrats and Republicans, with some calling for hearings into whether it violates the Constitution, Bush vigorously defended his right to order the program, which he said he has renewed more than 30 times." -MTV.com /News

20051218

Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence- Privacy - Law - Wisconsin - "Bush, under fire, defends spy program: President says eavesdropping policy is 'vital'." ... "President Bush acknowledged yesterday that he has repeatedly authorized secret eavesdropping within the United States without obtaining warrants, a policy that some critics called illegal. The admission came one day after the president refused to address the issue." ... "Bush yesterday said he reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and vowed to continue it despite criticism by some members of both political parties." ... "But Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, urged the president to suspend the program immediately. Feingold said the program violates a law that requires a court order for such surveillance." -By Michael Kranish -Boston/Globe

20051217

Secret - Government - Terrorism - Privacy - Politics - Civil Liberties - Law - "Update 3: Bush Acknowledges Approving Eavesdropping." ... "President Bush said Saturday he has no intention of stopping his personal authorizations of a post-Sept. 11 secret eavesdropping program in the U.S., lashing out at those involved in revealing it while defending it as crucial to preventing future attacks." ... "Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency without obtaining warrants from a court violates civil liberties." -AP via -Forbes
Intelligence - Politics - "Robert Novak Leaving CNN for Fox News." ... "Robert Novak, the gruff-voiced political pundit and occasional loose cannon in a three-piece suit, is leaving CNN and going to work for Fox News." ... "In the recent past, Novak has been making news more than commenting on it. In a controversial move, he printed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame in a 2003 newspaper column, which triggered a full-fledged, multilayered investigation into who leaked that information. In August he cursed at fellow analyst James Carville and abandoned the set of a CNN political talk show mid-broadcast. Just recently he suggested to a group in North Carolina that President Bush knows the source of the CIA leak. Asked if these incidents led to his departure, he laughed and said he doesn't think so." -By Linton Weeks-WashingtonPost

20051216

Iraq- US - Intelligence - "Official: Al-Zarqawi Caught, Freed." ... "Iraqi security forces caught terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Fallujah area last year but released him because they didn't realize who he was, the deputy interior minister said in an interview broadcast Friday." ... "CNN broadcast a similar report late Thursday, but it could not be confirmed. But a U.S. official said in Washington that American intelligence believed it was plausible." -AP via-CBSNews
Secret - Government - Military - Terrorism - EMail - Telecommunications - Law - Politics - History - "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying: Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court." ... "President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night." ... "For more than four years, the NSA tasked other military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official." ... "The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said." ... "It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said." -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Dafna Linzer and Peter Baker -WashingtonPost
Government - Secrets - Civil Liberties - Privacy - "Official: Bush authorized spying multiple times: Senior intelligence officer says President personally gave NSA permission." ... "President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night." ... "The disclosure follows angry demands by lawmakers earlier in the day for a congressional inquiry into whether the monitoring by the highly secretive National Security Agency violated civil liberties." (1, 2) -AP via -MSNBC
US - World - Government - Secret - Telecommunications - Intelligence - Privacy - Terrorism - Law - "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." ... "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials." ... "Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications." ... "The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau with contributions by Barclay Walsh -NYTimes

20051215

Lebanon- Syria - Political - Intelligence - Terrorism - "UN extends Lebanon murder probe, chastises Syria." ... "The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend for six months the international probe into the murder of a Lebanese leader and told Syria it was not co-operating fully with investigators." ... "The resolution also authorises the U.N. commission to provide technical assistance to the Beirut government investigating a string of other politically motivated murders or attempted killings in the last year." ... "Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who headed the U.N. inquiry, on Monday released a 25-page report saying new evidence had reinforced his earlier judgement that Syrian intelligence officials and their Lebanese allies, were involved in the killing." -By Evelyn Leopold -Reuters
Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Prisons - Law - Arizona - "Bush backs down on proposed torture ban." ... "President Bush on Thursday abandoned his opposition to an anti-torture amendment by Sen. John McCain in the face of overwhelming support for the measure in Congress." ... "Bush backed down from a veto threat after being unable to muster support from one-third of either the House or Senate, even though his own Republican Party controls both chambers. The measure by McCain, R-Ariz., is attached to the annual defense spending bill that funds the war on terrorism." ... "The amendment says no one in U.S. government custody, whether prisoner of war or terrorist," shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," regardless of where the prisoner is being held." -By John Diamond with contributions by David Jackson -USATODAY
US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence- "Bush Admits Mistakes but Defends War: He accepts responsibility for acting on flawed intelligence but says the invasion was justified. Aides hope his candor will boost his ratings." ... "President Bush said Wednesday that he accepted responsibility for deciding to wage war in Iraq in part on the basis of faulty intelligence, but that he remained convinced history would conclude he had done the right thing." ... "Speaking hours before Iraqis began arriving at the polls to elect a new government, Bush acknowledged miscalculations and mistakes before and after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003." ... ""It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush told a group of political leaders and scholars at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center. "As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."" -By Warren Vieth -LAtimes

20051214

Military - Intelligence - Law - Secrets - Arizona - "New Army Rules May Snarl Talks With McCain on Detainee Issue." ... "The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by [Arizona Republican] Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday." ... "The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said." ... "The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations." -By Eric Schmitt with contributions by Joel Brinkley -NYTimes

20051212

US- Iraq - World - Intelligence - Politics - "Peace-making a core mission in new Pentagon policy." ... "After years of internal debate, the Pentagon has embraced a fundamental change in policy which calls for the U.S. armed forces to be equally adept at waging war and making peace." ... "The new course, announced in a Pentagon directive, follows widespread criticism of the conduct of the war in Iraq, where U.S. forces scored a swift, decisive victory over conventional opponents but found themselves ill-equipped to deal with post-combat chaos and an increasingly effective insurgency." ... "The directive says that establishing order and security, restoring essential services and meeting the humanitarian needs of the population of a vanquished country were a "core U.S. military mission.""" ... "The directive specifies the need for better language skills, more regional expertise, better intelligence and counterintelligence, more emphasis on studying foreign cultures and more coordination with foreign governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations." (1, 2) -By Bernd Debusmannn -Reuters

dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/300005.htm

US - Taiwan- "US diplomat had affair with spy: A former top US diplomat has pleaded guilty to not disclosing a relationship with a Taiwanese intelligence officer." ... "Donald Keyser, 62, also pleaded guilty to illegally removing classified documents from the US State Department where he was employed until 2004." -BBC /News
France - Terrorism - Intelligence - "French target 'Islamic network': Police investigating suspected plans for attacks in France have arrested at least 20 people during raids in and around Paris." ... "They described the arrests as a "major operation aimed at disbanding an Islamist network linked to terrorism"." ... "Agents of the domestic intelligence service, the DST, raided homes around Paris before dawn." -BBC /News
UN - Lebanon - Syria - Terrorism - "Update 7: U.N.: Evidence Solidifies Hariri Report." ... "New evidence has reinforced investigators' belief that the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, a U.N. probe said Monday." ... "The report said Syria was moving at a "slow pace" in meeting council demands for cooperation. The document also cited evidence that Syrian authorities had arrested and threatened relatives of one witness, Husam Taher Husam, shortly before he recanted testimony that was central to the original findings, spelled out in an October report." ... ""Preliminary investigation leads to the conclusion that Mr. Husam is being manipulated by the Syrian authorities," the report said." -AP via -Forbes
UN - Syria - Lebanon - Terrorism- "Hariri Murder Coordinated by Spy Services, UN Says (Update2)." ... "New witnesses confirmed that Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services plotted the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, the German prosecutor investigating the crime said, and he urged the Syrian government to cooperate more fully with his probe." ... "Investigator Detlev Mehlis cited additional information that ``points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals and planning of other criminal activities.''" ... "Syria, led by President Bashar al-Assad, has denied any involvement in the truck-bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others on Feb. 14 in Beirut." -By Bill Varner -Bloomberg

20051207

US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Opinion - Economy - "Poll: Bush's Ratings Bump Up." ... "The President’s overall approval rating has risen from 35 percent in October to 40 percent now, and his ratings on handling the economy and the war in Iraq have also improved." ... "The Bush Administration continues to face criticism from many Democrats and other war opponents about the way pre-war intelligence was handled, and whether there truly was a compelling connection between Iraq and the terror threat to the United States. Fifty-two percent of Americans think the Bush Administration deliberately misled the public in making the case for war, while 44 percent say it did not." ... "An overwhelming majority of Americans think this Congress should be asking questions about pre-war intelligence. Fifty-six percent call it a very important line of questioning, and another 24 percent call it somewhat important." -CBSNews

20051206

US - Germany - Afghanistan - Secret - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Prisons - Law - Politics - VA- "German citizen held in secret prison sues ex-CIA director." ... "A German citizen whom the CIA abducted from Macedonia and held in a secret prison in Afghanistan for five months sued former CIA Director George Tenet on Tuesday, saying he'd been tortured." ... "[Khaled] Al-Masri's lawsuit, filed by ACLU lawyers in Alexandria, Va. [Virginia], sheds light on the CIA's secret practice of "extraordinary renditions," using special teams to capture suspected terrorists and transport them to countries that practice torture or to one of the agency's reported secret prisons in Eastern Europe or Asia." ... "In the four years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA has captured about 3,000 people, including some top al-Qaida leaders, according to a Washington Post report. Intelligence committees in Congress have been told that the CIA's inspector general is investigating possible "erroneous renditions."" ... "U.S. officials refuse to confirm or deny the existence of secret prisons." -By Frank Davies and Warren P. Strobel -MercuryNews
US - Germany - Intelligence - "‘Abduction’ case tarnishes Rice’s efforts to repair ties with Berlin." ... "Attempts to repair strained relations between the US and Germany backfired on Tuesday after Angela Merkel, Germany’s new chancellor, said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had admitted that in the case of a German citizen [Khaled el-Masri] who says he was abducted and detained for several months two years ago the US had made “a mistake”, a claim swiftly denied by US officials." ... "“We talked about the case, which the US government has accepted as a mistake,” Ms Merkel said after meeting Ms Rice in Berlin. “I am very glad that the secretary of state has repeated again here that when mistakes happen they must of course be corrected immediately.”" ... "Ms Rice gave a more circumspect account of the meeting. “As I told the chancellor, I cannot comment on specific aspects of our intelligence activities. . . I have also stressed that on the political area, mistakes sometimes happen,” she said. -By Bertrand Benoit and Hugh Williamson -FT.com
US - Iraq