AFIO - Association of Former Intelligence Officers

About AFIO
Chapters and Chapter Activities
Membership
Corporate
Weekly Intelligence Notes
Event Schedule
Bulletin Board
Book Review
Search
AFIO Store
Other Intelligence Sites
Home Page

Weekly Intelligence Notes
9 June 2000

WINs contain intelligence-related open source items and commentaries produced and edited by Roy Jonkers for AFIO members and subscribers. Associate Editor John Macartney was a major contributor to this WIN.

WINs are protected by copyright laws and may not be reproduced except with the permission of the producer/editor afio@afio.com.

Warning Notice: Perishability of Links:  WINs, sent weekly to members, often contain numerous webpage links to fast-breaking news, documents or other items of interest; unfortunately, after four weeks many of these websites [especially newspaper and other media sites] remove items or shift them into fee-only archives.  This underscores the benefit of receiving the WINs as they are released.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION I
- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

APPARENT SUICIDE OF STAFF DIRECTOR OF HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE -- Police found the body of Millis, 47, Staff Director of the HPSCI, on Sunday 4 June in a motel room in northern Virginia, dead from a gunshot wound -- an apparent suicide. An investigation is continuing. Rep Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the HPSCI, said in a statement that "this is tragic news that stunned us all" and expressed "deep sympathy" to Millis' wife, Linda, and their children. CIA Director George Tenet said "we in the intelligence community are shocked and saddened by this tragic loss. We worked closely together with John for many years. He was a tenacious advocate for a strong national intelligence capability."
John Millis held a PhD in southwest Asian studies. He had been a clandestine CIA officer earlier in his career and was a frequent public speaker on intelligence matters. He was a strong supporter of AFIO and it's objectives. He will be missed. Rest in peace John. (WashPost 6June2000) (Jonkers )
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4896-2000Jun6.html

PANEL ADVOCATES EASING RESTRICTIONS ON CIA -- BUT CIA OBJECTS. The National Commission on Terrorism formally recommended this week that the CIA loosen restrictions on the recruitment of "unsavory" counterterrorist informants, expressing a bipartisan consensus that layers of headquarters bureaucracy had created a "risk averse" culture among CIA officers in the field. "One cannot prowl the back streets of states where terrorist incidents occur and recruit only nice people in order to inform on terrorist groups," former CIA director R. James Woolsey, a commission member, told reporters as the 10-member panel released its final report.
But CIA officials immediately disputed the commission's conclusion, insisting that guidelines -- implemented five years ago by former CIA director John M. Deutch in the wake of a political brouhaha over alleged human rights abuses in Guatemala by CIA informants -- had not harmed counterterrorist operations. Operations are said to be going forward with appropriate agents, but with care taken to have headquarters approval so that CIA line personnel are protected.
The case for the use of "polluted" informants and agents rather than Choir boy types is plain enough, justified by the cause of pursuing US policies and campaigns against terrorism, etc. Thus the report is no surprise and on the face of it, valid. This is a case where both media-fanned political human rights hysteria and bureaucratic CYA efforts impact on clandestine operations. One trusts that common-sense prevails and our capability is not damaged. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4134-2000Jun5.html
 
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Curbing-Terrorism.html
(Macartney & Jonkers)

BRITISH DEFENSE ATTACHÉ ASSASSINATED IN GREECE. A British defense attaché was killed June 8 in an ambush shooting that was attributed to the "November 17" group. The victim, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, was shot in the head and chest as he drove to work. Two men on a motorcycle fired at the car on a main avenue connecting the capital's northern suburbs to the city center. The shooting occurred at almost the exact spot where an American naval attaché was gunned down in 1983. "November 17," which has claimed "credit" for this murder, is a 25 year old leftist and anti-American group that seems to have a "Robin Hood" status in Greece which has heretofore protected them from vigorous law enforcement -- that is precisely why the recent US Commission on Terrorism recommended that Greece be listed as "non cooperative" and have sanctions imposed.
Since 1975, when November 17 claimed credit for killing the CIA Station Chief in Athens, the group has been blamed for 23 killings, 4 of them Americans. In this case, the group said the British Brigadier was killed because of his role in last year's Kosovo air operations.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23945-2000Jun8.html 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27114-2000Jun9.html 
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/060900athens-diplomat-killing.html 
(Macartney)

INTERNET INTERCEPT REGULATION IN EUROPE -- Telecoms operators must allow law enforcement agencies to intercept e-mail messages according to new legislation being prepared by the European Commission. The proposals, prompted by a perceived increase in crime over the Internet, will also look at the prevention of spam mail and anonymous and unsolicited messages. The drive will broaden existing EU data privacy directives to cover email, but is expected to suggest strict guidelines on exactly what communications can be intercepted and why.  
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/22/ns-15855.html 
 
(Levine Newsbits 06/08) (Jonkers)

US CYBERATTACK ANALYSIS PROGRAM -- The General Services Administration on 8 June released the draft request for proposals on the Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNet), a program that will provide a single analysis and response center for government-wide cyberattacks. The FIDNet program is intended to create an environment that will enable civilian agencies to react collectively to cyberattacks and security incidents rather than having each agency trying to respond on its own.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0605/web-fidnet-06-08-00.asp 
(Levine's Newsbits 0608) (Jonkers)

SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

HOMOSEXUAL PRIDE MONTH AT CIA -- Gay Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) addressed a "gay pride"celebration at CIA headquarters on June 6th. Some 100 gay intelligence workers met in the CIA's awards suite, members of ANGLE, the Agency Network of Gay and Lesbian Employees, which received official recognition last year from the agency's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. The group also included a number of homosexual NSA employees, members of the Alan Turing Chapter of Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Employees (GLOBE), which was formed at its Fort Meade headquarters last year.
A decade ago homosexuals were automatically denied US government security clearances, but that policy began to change in 1991, and was changed absolutely by a Clinton Executive Order in 1995 prohibiting the denial of security clearances "solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the employee." The Clinton executive order rescinded an earlier directive, dating from the Eisenhower administration, that classified homosexuality as a "sexual perversion" which had made it automatic grounds for denying a clearance.
Both CIA and NSA have been low-key in covering these developments. Rep. Porter Goss noted that he was ambivalent on the issue. Former DCI James Woolsey commented that "the problem in earlier times was one of blackmail. If the blackmail threat is removed, which ... was ratified by the Clinton order in the summer of 1995, it seems to me gays and lesbians ought to able to be CIA officers."
As the next act, ANGLE is considering joining homosexual State Department employees in asking for the government to pay some overseas living expenses for their domestic partners, as is done for spouses of heterosexuals. (WashPost 9 June2000, p. 1) (Jonkers)
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25298-2000Jun8.html

CIA SEEKS TO HIRE ETHNIC AMERICAN CASE OFFICERS -- CIA, on the biggest hiring effort in years, is pushing diversity -- partly to "look more like America," and also to hire case officers who will blend in overseas. Officials say that a third of the new operations officers hired in the past year have been women, while 11 percent have been minorities as traditionally defined (blacks, Asians or Hispanics). Moreover, 20 percent of all new operations officers are native speakers of a foreign language and 75 percent have advanced proficiency in foreign languages, many because they were born or have lived abroad. Almost half have advanced degrees. "We are currently hiring officers in the DO with specialized skills directly applicable to combating terrorism worldwide," such as fluency in Russian, Arabic, Farsi and Chinese, said James L. Pavitt, the agency's deputy director for operations.
COMMENT: Not mentioned is what used to be a concern in regard to hiring "ethnics." That is, might they be more loyal to their motherland than to their new country? Probably not, but concerns about "racial profiling" make it politically incorrect to ask or even consider such questions.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13495-2000May26.html   
(Macartney)

NEW SENSORS IN THE BATTLE AGAINST TERRORISM AND NARCOTICS -- New tech sensors may soon be used to scan airline passengers for contraband. Researchers believe that when terrorists and drug couriers touch explosives or drug-laden packages, their hands pick up chemical residue. Traces of the residue could then be transferred to travel documents such as passports, customs forms or boarding passes. Depending on the type of chemical, residue can remain on hands from a few days to a few weeks. The machines are sensitive enough to detect just a fraction of a fingerprint containing traces of explosive or narcotic. http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/05/29/documentscanner0529_01.html?s=nav_bn_headlines 
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/05/29/documentscanner0529_01.html?s=nav_bn_headlines 
(Macartney)

INFORMATION AGE INSECURITY - LAPTOP COMPUTERS -- Britain's Defense Minister Lewis Moonie told the House of Commons this week that, since May, 1997, fifty-nine laptops have been stolen and eight others cannot be accounted for by the staff members. Some of these laptop computers contained classified or otherwise sensitive information, including at least one holding highly secret data on the joint U.S./British stealth strike fighter aircraft.
U.S. intelligence and corporate security officials have also become increasingly alarmed over the growing incidence of theft of laptop computers. In the DoD, a counterintelligence investigation is said to be underway on this subject. Senior U.S. counterintelligence authorities are convinced that there is a concerted effort by unidentified foreign intelligence services to steal laptops belonging to high-level Western military and intelligence officials. During recent hearings convened by U.S. lawmakers, the FBI acknowledged that foreign intelligence agencies have made the theft of laptops a priority. The officials said laptops belonging to U.S. and Western foreign policy and intelligence officials are prime targets of foreign intelligence services.
Michael J. Waguespack, director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC, http://www.nacic.gov), has previously noted that "economic and industrial espionage" has involved "break-ins in which laptop computers or disks were stolen ... the target was information rather than equipment.... Some countries persuade hotel operators to provide intelligence collectors with access to visitors' luggage or rooms. During these surreptitious break-ins, known colloquially as 'bag ops,' unattended luggage is searched for sensitive information, which is either copied or stolen."
According to the Technology Theft Prevention Foundation, an average of one laptop per week is stolen from hotels and the convention center in Santa Clara, Calif., a popular location for technology industry conferences. "There are some organizations that do industrial espionage that have bounties out on the notebook computers of officers of specific corporations," John G. O'Leary, director of education for the Computer Security Institute pointed out several years ago. "Those organizations will pay tens of thousands of dollars for those notebooks, because the
information on them may be worth millions of dollars."
(SOURCES (tm) - Issue #209, 8 Jun 2000 
http://www.dso.com/newsletter.html
(Jonkers)

SECTION III - BOOKS

INTELLIGENCE AND THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, by Richard J. Aldrich, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2000, ISBN 0 521 64186 1, 384 pp (in very small print), plus Notes, Index, Bibliography. Professor Richard Aldridge, a former Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University and currently the Director of the Asia-Pacific Studies Institute at the University of Nottingham, has produced a scholarly treatise on the development of the British secret services and its relations with its American intelligence counterparts in WWII. He posits that, after the battle of Midway, the allies, as embodied at the highest levels by Churchill and Roosevelt, were increasingly concerned with each other's future ambitions in Asia, and that this influenced the conduct of intelligence cooperation. To illustrate, this quote from Winston Churchill, addressed to Anthony Eden in April 1945: "Foreign Secretary, What do you say? I am lukewarm and therefore looking for guidance. On the whole I incline against another S.O.E - O.S.S duel, on ground too favourable to that dirty Donovan." The latter, of course, was General William J. Donovan, a sincere and valuable friend to Britain, so why this reference? It was provoked by the clandestine rivalry over the future of China, and in microcosm illustrates the complex wartime connections between the politics of secret service and the politics of empire, explored at length in this book. Readable (even if the print is small) and expertly done, for the scholar and student of political science and history. (Jonkers)

SECTION IV - MISCELLANEOUS

E
BBN #6 Schedule Correction: The NMIA Potomac Chapter Luncheon is scheduled for Tuesday 13 June, not on the 15th as announced. Updated information appeared on our website at www.afio.com.
______________________________________________________
EVERY MEMBER SPONSOR A MEMBER!

For comments, contact the editor at afio@afio.com
For email address changes, contact Mrs Gretchen Campbell at afionational@cs.com 
For back issues of the WIN, check the AFIO Website www.afio.com 


EVERY MEMBER SPONSOR A MEMBER IN 2000
++++++++++++++++++++++++end+++++++++++++++++++++++

Back to Top


Back to Top


About AFIO | Chapters & Chapter Activities | Membership | Corporate | Weekly Intelligence Notes | Event Schedule | Bulletin Board | Book Reviews | Search | AFIO Store | | Other Intel Sites | Home Page

AFIO Central Office
6723 Whittier Avenue, Suite 303A
McLean, Virginia 22101-4533
Telephone: 703 790 0320 | Facsimile: 703 991 1278
Email: afio@afio.com