This film presents an account of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activities that had previously been covert, including actions in Iran, Vietnam, Laos, the Congo, Cuba, and Guatemala. The film includes interviews with CIA director Allen Dulles and Dick Bissel.
Law enforcement organizations are making tens of thousands of requests for private electronic information from companies such as Sprint, Facebook and AOL, but few detailed statistics are available, according to a privacy researcher.
Police and other agencies have “enthusiastically embraced” asking for e-mail, instant messages and mobile-phone location data, but there’s no U.S. federal law that requires the reporting of requests for stored communications data, wrote Christopher Soghoian, a doctoral candidate at the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University, in a newly published paper.
“Unfortunately, there are no reporting requirements for the modern surveillance methods that make up the majority of law enforcement requests to service providers and telephone companies,” Soghoian wrote. “As such, this surveillance largely occurs off the books, with no way for Congress or the general public to know the true scale of such activities.”
That’s in contrast to traditional wiretaps and “pen registers,” which record non-content data around a particular communication, such as the number dialed or e-mail address that a communication was sent to. The U.S. Congress mandates that it should receive reports on these requests, which are compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Soghoian wrote.
If law enforcement wants to intercept e-mail or instant messages in real-time, they are required to report it. Since 1997, federal law enforcement has requested real-time intercepts only 67 times, with state law enforcement agents obtaining 54 intercept orders.
Soghoian wrote that those low figures may seem counterintuitive given the real-time nature of electronic communications. But all of the communications are stored, he noted.
“It is often cheaper and easier to do it after the fact rather than in real-time,” Soghoian wrote.
Cox Communications, a major U.S. service provider, charges $3,500 for a wiretap and $2,500 for a pen register. Account information, however, costs a mere $40.
Soghoian found through his research that law enforcement agencies requested more than 30,000 wiretaps between 1987 and 2009. But the scale of requests for stored communications appears to be much greater. Citing a New York Times story from 2006, Soghoian wrote that AOL was receiving 1,000 requests per month.
In 2009, Facebook told the news magazine Newsweek that it received 10 to 20 requests from police per day. Sprint received so many requests from law enforcement for mobile-phone location information that it overwhelmed its 110-person electronic surveillance team. It then set up a Web interface to give police direct access to users’ location data, which was used more than 8 million times in one year, Soghoian wrote, citing a U.S. Court of Appeals judge.
Those sample figures indicate the real total number of requests is likely much, much higher, since U.S. law does not require reporting and companies are reluctant to voluntarily release the data.
“The reason for this widespread secrecy appears to be a fear that such information may scare users and give them reason to fear that their private information is not safe,” Soghoian wrote.
In 2000, the House of Representatives considered legislation that would have set standards for reporting requests by police for location information, such as the tracking of mobile phones. But the Department of Justice opposed the bill, Soghoian wrote, saying the reporting requirements would be too time consuming.
Soghoian argues that Congress should have oversight of these new surveillance powers. He recommended mandating that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts compile statistics on requests for stored communications as they do now for wiretap orders. The information could be sent to the office by the courts rather than the DOJ.
“These reporting requirements would provide Congress with the information necessary to make sound policy in the area of electronic surveillance,” Soghoian wrote.
Source: MacWorld
Have a suspicious neighbor you want to snitch on? There’s an app for that.
A new app called the “PatriotApp” doesn’t come filled with powerful quotes from our founding fathers or even a digital copy of the Constitution but instead it comes with a graphical interface that allows patriots — of course – to report any suspicious activity to the appropriate government agency.
See someone trying to get on a plane that looks suspicious? Click on the suspicious activity icon on the app and report the person directly to the FBI. See someone polluting down a local storm drain? You can report them to directly to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The app plays on the popular uprising of the Tea Party. Although they already have a “very cool” and “state of the art” app of their own called the “Tea Party Finder.” The PatriotApp is available for both the iPhone and the iPad.
Regardless, be sure not to confuse the PatriotApp with the PATRIOT Act. The two are very different things.
Google’s roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it’s got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users’ unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.
Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he’s “horrified” by the discovery.
“I am appalled… I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View,” according to German broadcaster ARD.
Spooks have long desired the ability to cross reference the Mac address of a user’s connection with their real identity and virtual identity, such as their Gmail or Facebook account.
Other companies have logged broadcasting WLAN networks and published the information. By contrast Google has not published the WLAN map, or Street View in Germany; Google hopes to launch the service by the end of the year.
But Google’s uniquely cavalier approach to privacy, and its potential ability to cross reference the information raises additional concerns. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn’t worry about privacy unless they have something to hide. And when there’s nowhere left to hide…?
Source: The Register UK
Source: cbs4.com
A CBS4 I-Team investigation into your safety and security raises troubling questions about your cell phone and how it might be used against you. We’re not talking about how a cell phone and its records could be used in a court of law, although that’s a possibility too, but how it can be used as a tool to spy on your life by people meant to do you harm.
What’s worse, the technology is so advanced that experts say people can spy on you using your cell phone and you will have no idea it’s even happening.
I-Team investigator Stephen Stock spent the last six months researching how this technology works.
Talking, texting and tweeting you see it all the time.
If they appear to be everywhere, the US Census bureau says they truly are. In a nation of 309 Million people officials estimate there are as many as 200 million cell phones.
The majority of Americans use all these cell phones to talk, text or tweet.
But all this high tech communication hides a dark and troubling danger.
“I don’t think the general public is aware how insidious this can be,” said private investigator and cell phone spyware expert Tim Wilcox.
Wilcox owns and runs one of the premier private investigative companies in the country, International Investigators, Inc. International Investigators does a lot of things. But one the company’s specialties and expertise is uncovering and exposing hidden spy tools like bugs in cell phones and other appliances.
Click here to go to the International Investigators’ website.
“It takes about 90 seconds to download the spyware and you’re in business,” said Wilcox of some versions of this software that can be loaded onto someone’s cell phone.
The spyware is a lurking danger that turns your cell phone into a secret listening device, an instrument used to spy against you. Worse yet, you’ll likely never know it is on your phone.
“There could be anywhere from three to five or six million cell phones that are infected with spyware (at any one time),” said Wilcox.
This spyware, otherwise called malware, can be found through a simple search on the Internet. The software can be loaded onto your phone in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Once it is on your phone and operating it can turn your cell phone against you.
“I put $70 malware onto a phone (for demonstration) through blue tooth and then onto this computer,” said Daniel Smith, an expert in uncovering and defeating this type of spyware.
Smith, a recent graduate of Purdue University’s College of Technology, is an expert at finding and getting rid of malware on all kinds of computers and cell phones. Smith works for International Investigators, Inc. And he travels the country investigating complaints of people who believe their cell phones are being used to spy on them.
“That’s the file name that’s controlling my phone,” Smith said as he showed the I-Team a small piece of computer code, four short lines, hidden among millions of lines of computer programming language that run his cell phone and all its applicatons.
Smith demonstrated for the CBS4 I-Team how easy it can be to install and listen in and how hard it is to detect that the malware is even present.
“This is what we’re looking for?” asked I-Team investigator Stephen Stock pointing to the computer screen. “Four lines of code?”
“Four lines of code,” said Smith. “That is the file in the computer, the spyware.”
These four lines of instructions hide a program that allows the person who installed it on your phone to take every bit of information from your cell phone, your pictures, your personal addresses, your data, your life.
“Now you have a list of everything that’s on my phone,” said Smith as he showed how the spyware quickly downloaded everything from his cell phone for the I-Team to view on another, disconnected computer.
To find out exactly how this all works, the CBS4 I-Team bought and installed several versions of spyware on anchor Jawan Strader’s blackberry. We did all of this with his knowledge and participation.
During the installation and running of some versions of the software the I-Team ran into several glitches. Sometimes the software allowed us to “spy” and sometimes it didn’t.
The I-Team discovered this type of spyware doesn’t always work on all cell phones. The older and less sophisticated the phone, apparently the harder it is to use them to “spy.”
But once the I-Team got the software working, the capability was scary. The I-Team could read all of Jawan’s e-mails. The I-Team read all of his text messages.
I-Team investigator Stephen Stock also got alerts on his cell phone every time Jawan got a call, an e-mail or a text. That way Stock could monitor Jawan’s incoming communication at all times.
And even though Jawan met meeting behind closed doors with news director Cesar Aldama and assistant news director Nick Bourne, even with the blackberry turned off, investigator Stock could still dial in and listen to the conversation while standing several miles away.
And the closed-door meetings’ participants would never have known that Stock was listening had the I-Team not told them. Remember the cell phone was off. Despite that, Stock was able to use the spyware to dial in and listen using the Blackberry’s speaker feature. Experts say that same thing can be done using a cell phone’s camera feature.
The spyware also allows someone to listen in on cell phone calls in real time, as they are happening.
The I-Team also used the spyware to track our expert, Daniel Smith’s, movements in real time. All while he was in Indiana, as the I-Team sat in Miami.
All of this is illegal in the United States without a court warrant. However, this spyware software is sold on the Internet by offshore companies.
Our experts say as many as 5 to 6% of all cell phones in the US may have once had or now have this spyware on them.
“This is a stack of the complaints we get from people worried about their phones being infected with spyware,” said Tim Wilcox as he showed the I-Team a thick folder filled with e-mails and letters from people complaining that someone apparently is spying on them.
“And you get three or four of these a week?” asked I-Team investigator Stock.
“We get three to four every day,” replied Wilcox.
To learn more about the risks associated with spyware on your cell phone the I-Team also traveled to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, to talk to one of the world’s experts on cyber-security, Richard Mislan.
“It (the cell phone) becomes a monitor of you and the use of your phone,” said Mislan, Assistant Professor at Purdue’s College of Technology.
For more on Purdue’s College of Technology’s click here.
Assistant Professor Mislan also serves on the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Task Force, is Editor of Small Scale Digital Device Forensics Journal and is director of Mobile Forensics World.
Mislan and his students at Purdue’s College of Technology research just about anything you can think of when it comes to cell phones.
Mislan says this spyware technology ability to spy is limited only by your phone’s capabilities.
“The phones are getting more advanced,” said Mislan. “And so when that happens obviously there to be had on those phone. And so say we added a video at this point or a video camera option on this phone. Well maybe now there’s an exploit that allows me to say ‘open up that video camera and let me record everything happening right now.’”
Mislan’s office is filled with old, used phones used in his research. Some of the old phones date back to the beginning of cell phones. Others are the most advanced, high tech mobile tools on the market.
Mislan said he worries that the public and even government regulators don’t realize the safety and security risks this spyware poses to the public.
“Eventually something is going to happen for us to really step back (and assess and do something about this),” said Mislan.
While he doesn’t like to talk about his clients and said there are things he is prohibited from saying, research papers published by Mislan show he and his team have done work for the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and military intelligence.
As for the risk to the public posed by this technology, Mislan speaks freely and unequivocally.
“The more high profile phones you go, the smarter they are, the more data that can be exploited,” said Mislan.
In fact, the federal government is using this technology to check out American citizens without a warrant.
The I-Team learned of a half dozen cases across the country in states as varied as New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania, where federal magistrates were asked to throw out cases because federal agents had tracked people in real time through their cell phone. In these cases this cell phone monitoring took place without a hearing, without a warrant without even legal probable cause.
One of the cases has now gone to a Federal Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania.
“It’s an incredibly intrusive thing for the government to be able to track you,” said Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Stanley heads the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Libertiesheadquarters in Washington, D.C. The ACLU has joined some of the court cases listed above in fighting some of the federal prosecutors’ actions.
“It’s not that hard if you’re a bad guy then they can get a warrant on you. If you’re not a bad guy then why do they want to track you?” said Stanley.
Stanley, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have joined efforts in at least two federal cases trying to stop this use of spying on citizens through cell phones without a court order.
“The government is trying to claim they should be able to get location information about your phone both where you’ve been in the past and also in some cases tracking you in real time without going through the Fourth Amendment,” said Stanley. “And without showing a probable cause that you’re involved in wrongdoing and getting a warrant.”
Click here for a link to the Electronic Frontier’s Foundation and a listing of the cases in question.
So far, in all but one case the federal magistrates, judges, even an appeals court, have ruled against the federal investigators and for requiring proof of probable cause.
“If I told somebody back in 1975, ‘You know what, in 30 years every American practically is going to be carrying a tracking device with them that tells the government everywhere they go live and in real time,’” said Stanley. “That person would have said I guess that means the Soviet Union is going to win the Cold War.”
Lawsuit: School administrator ‘may be a voyeur’ who spied on kids for personal gratification
A Philadelphia-area school district secretly took “thousands” of webcam photos of students in their homes and tracked their Web site visits and parts of online chats through spy software installed on the students’ school-issued laptops, a Pennsylvania court heard yesterday.
In February, the family of Blake Robbins, a student at Harriton High School in Rosemont, sued the Lower Merion School District after the district admitted to them it had been spying on students via a remote-activated feature on the laptops it issued to all its 2,300 high school pupils.
In a motion filed in court on Thursday, Robbins’ lawyers asserted that the school district had taken at least 400 snapshots of 15-year-old Robbins, including some of him sleeping. The motion also stated that “thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
And in a strange twist to the story, the lawyers also suggested that Carol Cafiero, one of two school administrators with access to the spying technology, “may be a voyeur” who spied on students for her personal gratification, as some of the images taken by the laptops may have ended up on her personal computer.
The motion asks the judge to force Cafiero to turn over her home computer, which she has refused to do so far. Earlier this week, during a deposition, Cafiero pleaded the Fifth Amendment to all questions regarding her involvement in the alleged school spying.
Watching the students at home was like “a little [Lower Merion School District] soap opera,” said a staffer in an email obtained by Robbins’ lawyers.
“I know, I love it,” Cafiero responded in a reply email, as quoted at the Inquirer.
If true, the allegations against Cafiero would realize privacy advocates’ worst fears about the school district’s monitoring of students at home: That the technology is all too open to abuse by those who would seek to exploit children.
So far, there have been no allegations that the cameras captured any images of nude students, which could fall within the definition of child pornography.
On Thursday, the judge presiding over the case in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia restricted access to the images to the lawyers involved in the case, reports KYW news radio. The school board says it will soon notify the parents of children whose pictures were taken by the spy software, and is working on a way to transfer the photos to the parents, the Inquirer reported Friday.
The latest claims made against the school district contradict what the district itself has said about the use of the cameras. In February, when news of the spy software broke, the school district published a statement saying administrators had activated the monitoring system only 42 times, most of those in order to retrieve lost or stolen laptops.
But the allegations made Thursday suggest “there were 42 instances when they began intensive surveillance on the suspected stolen computers,” reports tech blog Slashdot. “This consisted of (among other things) transmitting a picture from the laptop’s webcam every 15 minutes. This may have gone on for weeks.”
The school district announced in February it was shutting down the spy software, shortly after news of the spy software went public.
Robbins’ family launched the lawsuit two months ago after Blake Robbins was called into a vice-principal’s office and accused of taking drugs. As evidence, the vice-principal showed a photo of pills in Robbins’ bedroom. The Robbins family said the pills were candy, and launched a class-action lawsuit alleging the school district violated Blake’s right to privacy.
This week, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who held hearings into the Lower Merion School District’s spying activities, introduced legislation limiting the use of surveillance software.
The proposed Surreptitious Video Surveillance Act of 2010 “would update the federal wiretapping statute to create serious criminal and civil penalties for secret, nonconsensual video surveillance inside any temporary or permanent residence, be it your house, your apartment, or your hotel room,” reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
An undercover law enforcement officer infiltrated a Christian militia group to gather evidence that led to FBI raids of the Michigan-based Hutaree group over the weekend.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet told U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Scheer this afternoon that the leader of the group, David B. Stone, 45, of Clayton wanted the undercover agent to prepare bombs to fight law enforcement officers, who the group regarded as enemies of the country.
During the ongoing detention hearing, which began around 1:15 p.m., for eight alleged members of the group, Waterstreet played an audiotape of Stone saying, “Now is the time to strike and take our nation back. … This war will come whether we are ready or not. We will fight alongside anyone that calls the new world order their enemy.”
Stone’s speech was clandestinely recorded on Feb. 6 in a vehicle as members of the group were headed to Kentucky for a meeting with other militia groups, the prosecutor said, adding that Stone’s remarks were part of a speech he planned to deliver at a gathering in Kentucky.
According to prosecutors, on the way back from Kentucky, Stone pointed out a Hudson, Mich., police officer who had pulled someone over and said: “We’re going to pop him, guaranteed.”
Someone else in the van mentioned the Hudson police department was a small force, prompting a reply from Stone: “We’ll pop every one of them.”
The new information about the group came out during the detention hearing at the federal courthouse in Detroit in which Scheer is to decide whether the eight are to remain jailed pending trial. A ninth member of the group appeared Tuesday in federal court in Indiana and was to be transferred to Michigan.
Several members of the group are charged with seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, and knowingly transferring arms used in violent crimes.
Newly court-appointed defense lawyers repeatedly objected to Waterstreet’s allegations made during the hearing. The defense lawyers said the government should be forced to put an agent on the witness stand, and subject to cross-examination, so the magistrate could more thoroughly weigh the credibility of the claims.
Scheer repeatedly overruled such objections.
Stone’s lawyer, William Swor, of Detroit sought to mitigate the government’s claims, arguing, “All they’re saying is my client has opinions and knows how to use his mouth.”
Swor argued that Waterstreet had presented no evidence of a crime or justification for the magistrate to conclude that the defendants represented a danger to the community or a risk of flight if they were released.
It is not yet clear who the agent was who infiltrated the group or how he apparently gained the group’s confidence.
During the weekend raids at Stone’s home, agents seized more than 300 pieces of evidence, including explosives, bomb components and shrapnel, Waterstone said.
Waterstreet said one defendant Kristopher Sickles, 27, of Sandusky, Ohio told the group in January that he shot his pet cat to determine “If I could kill something I had a feeling for.”
A theme that developed throughout today’s hearing from defense lawyers was that Hutaree members were big talkers, who were short on action.
“That’s all you have, is a lot of talk – guys who like to dress up in fatigues,” said Michael Rataj, who represents Tina Stone, the wife of David Stone. “Absolutely nothing illegal about any of it.”
David Stone’s lawyer, Swor, said in court: “He talked, he trained. So what?” He added, “What we heard is that Mr. Stone talked a lot and that Mr. Stone is angry.”
The detention hearings will resume at 1 p.m. Thursday.
After the hearing today, David Stone Sr.’s ex-wife, Donna Stone, angrily left the courthouse with Shannon Witt, who recently married Joshua Stone, and Brittany Bryant, the fiancée to David Stone Jr.
“I don’t have a comment; neither does anyone else,” Donna Stone said between profanities. “Leave us alone.”
Source: Freep.com
CIA officers in Afghanistan were so eager to meet the spy they believed would help them crack al-Qaida’s leadership they planned a birthday celebration for his visit in December, current and former U.S. officials said.
A birthday cake was waiting.
But before they could even begin to question their golden source, he detonated a powerful bomb, killing himself and seven CIA employees in one of the deadliest attacks in the agency’s history.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old doctor who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence officials, was really a double agent.
The account of the planned birthday gathering is the latest evidence that CIA officials at the Afghan base trusted the Jordanian and wanted to build rapport with him. It was confirmed by current and former officials briefed on the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The bombing not only weakened U.S. intelligence operations, it touched off a sometimes contentious debate within the close-knit intelligence community about whether such emotions led the CIA to be too lax with its security.
CIA Director Leon Panetta has scoffed at suggestions that security lapses were to blame for the attack. But it remains unclear why there was such a large contingent around al-Balawi when the bomb erupted.
It’s not unusual for CIA officers to offer gestures such as a birthday cake or a small gift for spies they are overseeing, former intelligence officials said. Such gestures lighten the mood and take some of the pressure off. And they tell an informant that he’s important.
“Normally, though, that’s something you do after you’ve established a relationship,” said former CIA and National Security Council official Bruce Riedel, who was not aware of the CIA’s birthday plans for al-Balawi. “It’s not something you do on the first date.”
Such celebrations are typically discreet, small affairs of one or two officers. In this case, many officials were nearby when al-Balawi arrived at the base. Seven were killed and six others were wounded.
In an interview made public after his death, al-Balawi said he knew in advance that he was meeting “an entire CIA team.” He said he had been planning to kidnap or kill his Jordanian intelligence contact, but the chance to take out CIA officers was too tempting.
“We planned for something but got a bigger gift, a gift from Allah, who brought us, through his accompaniment, a valuable prey: Americans, and from the CIA,” al-Balawi said. “That’s when I became certain that the best way to teach Jordanian intelligence and the CIA a lesson is with the martyrdom belt.”
Al-Balawi’s contacts with Jordanian intelligence, one of the CIA’s most trusted partners in the Middle East, gave him credibility. He was thought to have critical intelligence about al-Qaida’s No. 2 official, Ayman al-Zawahri. He was not searched.
Shortly after the attack, Panetta pushed back against criticism that poor spycraft was to blame.
“That’s like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills,” Panetta wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.
Robert Baer, a former top Middle East CIA operative, heaped criticism on the agency in this month’s GQ magazine. Baer said the top officer at the base “was in over her head” and never should have let so many people meet the source.
“Informants should always be met one-on-one,” Baer wrote. “Always.”
CIA spokesman George Little had harsh words for former employees who criticized the agency from retirement.
“They don’t have all the facts of this case, yet they criticize those who were on the front lines on Dec. 30, including some whose lives were taken. That’s disgraceful,” Little said.
“Informed criticism can be very valuable,” he said. “Some of the junk I’ve seen in the press clearly isn’t.”
Afghan Suicide Bomber Kills 7 C.I.A (Aljazeera)
Sounds like the people behind Wikileaks are under some pressure. Since this is unlikely to turn up in your newspapers, I post it here to spread awareness.
Wikileaks has a mission of bringing hidden information to light, when it’s in the public interest. Wikipedia outlines their greatest hits, including Gauntanamo Bay procedure documents, scientology secrets, and net censorship lists. They come under fire sometimes for hosting material that probably isn’t much in the public interest, but overall they have contributed some compelling information to some fractious global arguments.
In the last 24 hours, their Twitter feed has contained some worrying content.
All those came out in a rush, then silence for hours. Might just be a timezone thing, with people sleeping, or maybe there’s been no news, or maybe everyone with access to the Twitter feed has been detained. I await more information.
UPDATE: “To those worrying about us–we’re fine, and will issue a suitable riposte shortly.” 8.22am NZ time.
UPDATE: Just noticed that the first tweet quoted, “WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup” is gone from the feed. Now I wish I’d linked to all of them individually. Anyway, it was definitely there, and I think Linda is right that it is this previously-referred-to video
UPDATE: commenter eru found the missing tweet. It isn’t visible in the ordinary feed for some reason.
WikiLeaks Release 1.0 (1st of 7 parts)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a study of US “information operations” after a Pentagon official allegedly set up a spy network with private contractors, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
A small team of senior military and defense officials will “conduct a quick look assessment” and report their findings within 15 days, press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference.
He said the assessment would look at the role of private contractors in what the military calls information operations, which covers a range of efforts including psychological warfare and public relations.
The study was “designed to provide the secretary with a factual baseline from which to determine whether or not systematic problems exist and if so, proper scope and focus of subsequent corrective action,” Morrell said.
He said a separate Pentagon investigation was examining allegations that a Defense Department official had hired private contractors in an unofficial spy ring to help with manhunts of militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The official reportedly set up the network under the guise of an information-gathering program.
“There is an ongoing investigation by investigative bodies in this building including the IG (Inspector General) in the particulars of that case,” Morrell said.
The allegations were reported first in The New York Times.
Some US officials told the paper they were concerned that the Defense Department employee, Michael Furlong, was running an “off-the-books” spy operation, and were not sure who condoned and supervised his work.
It was possible that Furlong?s network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to gather information about the region, according to the paper.
Gates on Monday said the role of private contractors in collecting intelligence in the field was “something I need to know more about.”
Congress approved about 520 million dollars for “information operations” for fiscal 2010 and takes “a great deal of interest” in the subject, Morrell said.
A declassified Pentagon document written in 2003 stressed the importance of information operations, referring to efforts to plant stories in foreign media and plans to destroy enemy computer networks if necessary.
The document, “Information Operations Roadmap,” was signed by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and released in 2006.
