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Weekly Intelligence Notes #29-00
21 July 2000

WEEKLY INTELLIGENCE NOTES (WIN) #29-00 dtd 21 July 2000

WINs are based on open-source information. Commentary and opinions included are those of Producer/Editor Roy Jonkers.

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SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

JOHN MILLIS CHILDREN's EDUCATION FUND - At AFIO's request, Mr. Tim Sample, the new Chief of the Professional Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), has provided the following information for anyone wishing to contribute to the Education Fund for the children of Dr. John Millis, the late HPSCI Chief of Staff. This fund was established by the HPSCI staff. Contributions are NOT tax deductible.
Checks should be made payable to: "Millis Children Educational Support Fund." Please include the following account number on the check: "account #131 688". Contributions should be mailed to: The Wright Patman Congressional Credit Union, PO Box 2408, Merrifield, VA 22116-2408.
ALTERNATELY, since the INTELLIGENCE SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION (ISF) will make a contribution the Millis Children Fund, AFIO members may make a tax-deductible contribution to the ISF for inclusion in the ISF donation. Make the check out to ISF and make a notation "Millis Children Fund" on the check, and send it to: AFIO, 6723 Whittier Ave, Ste 303A, McLean, VA 22101-4533. The ISF is 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational organization that has also made a contribution to one of the AFIO scholarship funds and is administered by the AFIO Executive Director.
Dr. John Millis was a strong supporter of the Intelligence Community and of AFIO. His death was a tragedy. This fund and a contribution honor a good man. (Jonkers/Absher)

BILL BLACK NOMINATED DEPUTY DIRECTOR NSA -- Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden has nominated former Agency employee William B. Black Jr. as the next Deputy Director of the Agency, pending approval by the SecDef and the President. Mr. Black began his career at NSA in 1959. He retired from the Agency in 1997, and has been employed by SAIC, a defense contractor, since then, working "across the intelligence community to develop innovative processes for intelligence collection." As the new Deputy Director, Mr. Black will assist the Director in changing NSA's internal processes and culture. Hayden called Black "...a trailblazer ...a cross between an iconoclast and an innovator ...he knows the need to change, adapt, transform." (NSA release 7/21/00) (Jonkers)

NEW WIRETAP AND ENCRYPTION LAWS
-- The Administration on 17 July announced that proposals will be forthcoming to update wiretap laws, both to extend the powers of law enforcement to the online world and to provide new legal protections for electronic communications. White House Chief of Staff John Podesta announced that the new bills would be proposed within ten days, with the intent of having legislation passed by the end of the year.
Telephone conversations are protected from federal wiretapping under the 1968 Crime Patrol and Safe Streets Act, which requires a court order and high-level Justice Department approval. Wiretap rules for e-mail are covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.
Administration officials also announced a plan to loosen controls on the export of encryption software. US companies will be able to export sophisticated cryptography products to users in any nation in the European Union and a number of other countries. The government will eliminate the 30-day waiting period before exports can take place but will keep in place a requirement that new technologies be submitted to the government for a technical review. (Wpost 18Jul, p.1)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/17/clinton.wiretaps.ap/index.html
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/ (Jonkers)

SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

FORMER CHICOM INTELLIGENCE CHIEF TO BE INDICTED -- Major General Ji Shengde, former PLA Intelligence Chief, will be indicted for corruption. He will be charged with embezzlement of public funds, bribe-taking and dereliction of duty involving more than $12.5 million. He is accused of taking a $3.5 million bribe from Lai Changxin, China's most infamous smuggler who, over the course of the past five years, is said to have smuggled $10 Billion worth of oil, cars and electronic goods into China.
The case is of interest for several reasons. One is that General Ji was mentioned in the case of Johnny Chung, the Chinese -American fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Another is that the announcement by a newspaper of the China News Agency indicates an instance of disagreement between the Army and the Party. The army anti-corruption investigators were said to have bungled the investigation. The case was then taken over by the Discipline Inspection Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which rammed it through.
A third reason of special interest is that it provides a glimpse of the intrigue and special protection considerations among the bosses. A number of senior officials have been caught up in corruption and smuggling cases, including Jia Qinglin, Beijing CP boss, and General Liu Huaqing, former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. President Jiang Zemin is said to be doing his best to protect these two men as they have been valuable political allies. By the same token, the indicted Major General Ji is fair game since he lost his "protector" this year -- he was one of the sons of Ji Pengfei, the last of China's old guard, who died last February at age 91.
The intrigues and corruption of the Chinese leadership and the military indicate that China may be considered a (minor) threat to the US or as one of the regional East Asian power contenders, but it appears to be a worm-eaten one suffering from internal rot. (Wpost 18 Jul2000, p. A16) (Jonkers)

IRAQI OPPOSITION FALLING APART? -- The Iraqi opposition was moderately successful immediately after the Gulf War when rebels reached the Baghdad suburbs. But since then they have been limited to operations in territory covered by the northern and southern no-fly- zones -- enforced by the United States and Great Britain with continuing regular bombings. Now Iraqi opposition groups are claiming that they are increasingly the targets of operations by Baghdad's special intelligence service, and there is renewed speculation that the Iraqi opposition is falling apart at the seams.
Generally prone to feuding among themselves, the Iraqi opposition has always been a colorful mix of political, ethnic and religious groups: Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Assyrians, monarchists, communists, liberals and former military officers. Most of these groups meet and coordinate through the umbrella organization named the Iraqi National Congress (INC).
One of the most active militant groups has been the Supreme Council of the Islamic Movement in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite group reportedly backed by Iran, operating in southern Iraq. Either Iraqi or (interestingly enough) Iranian government operatives are now accused of assassinating SCIRI supporters inside Iran.
Kurdish forces in the north of Iraq - perhaps the most militarily capable of all the opposition parties - are also facing divisive problems. The three strongest Kurd factions remain at odds, and have spent as much time fighting each other as they have fighting Iraqi forces. Besides historic clan-based rivalries, the main bone of contention is the tens of millions of dollars in customs fees that comes from control of the border.
The umbrella organization, the Iraqi National Congress isn't faring much better. Representatives of the INC met with U.S. officials in Washington in July but weren't able to shake loose any of the $97 million authorized by the Iraqi Liberation Act. Al-Zaman, an organ of the London-based Iraqi opposition movement, is now claiming that Iraqi intelligence is finishing a plan (nicknamed Hawk-1) to assassinate dissident INC members with car accidents and poison. This story is plausible -- Iraq has assassinated dissidents in the past. Alternatively it may be that the dissidents are plotting against each other and blaming the Iraqi government.
The Iraqi opposition appears to be breaking up under its own internal pressures - and Iraqi security services may be hastening their demise.The intrigue is Byzantine, the combinations endless. Welcome to Saddam's world. (Sources/Global Intel Update 20Jul00) http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/countries/Iraq/default.htm
(courtesy G. Doherty) (Jonkers)

SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE

THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND FBI'S 'CARNIVORE' -- The law enforcement agency's secret box for sniffing emails may run on Windows NT - but details are still a mystery. The FBI's email snooping "Carnivore" -- now the center of a fierce debate over privacy -- began life on a store shelf.
What would later become an email monitoring system had rather humble beginnings as a commercially available email sniffing program. FBI engineers went to work on it 18 months ago, and within a year added enough bells and whistles to create a system for the 2000s -- and a scandal over just how much information the program is able to cull. For the last two weeks, the FBI has been quiet about Carnivore, which it has been using with judges' permission since March to sift through email messages that flow through some of the world's ISPs. But the FBI will be doing a lot more talking beginning Monday. The bureau will introduce its chief technologist, Marcus C. Thomas, to brief the press about Carnivore. Hours later, Thomas and others will be on Capitol Hill, telling Congress the same facts and figures.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/28/ns-16738.html (Levines Newsbits 07/20/00)

UK RIP BILL PROGRESS -- Legislation that will give UK police more power to snoop on Internet users is on the verge of becoming law after passing through a third and final reading in the House of Lords Wednesday. Despite significant amendments to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill, opponents remain convinced that once it becomes law it will damage Britain's e-business credibility
Changes made in the Lords introduced safeguards that give companies the right to sue law enforcers if negligence is suspected in the handling of sensitive information. A further amendment made it incumbent on the police to inform a senior judge before they can capture encryption keys. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/28/ns-16742.html

FBI SEIZES FORMER DOE OFFICIAL'S COMPUTER DRIVE -- The FBI has seized a computer hard drive used by former Energy Department intelligence chief Notra Trulock, concerned that he may have included classified data in a proposed article he submitted for clearance by the CIA. The Washington Post quoted senior U.S. officials as saying the FBI obtained the hard drive after officials at CIA and other federal agencies expressed concern about the possible inclusion of classified information..
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/reuters/docs/216852l.htm
rlevine@ix.netcom.com

SECTION IV -- BOOKS AND OTHER SOURCES

MOST SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL: Intelligence in the Age of Nelson, by Steven E. Maffeo, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md, 2000, ISBN 1-55750-545-4, notes, bibliography, index. This book by a naval officer (USNR) focuses on the British government and navy during the years 1793 and 1815, and attempts to analyze the impact of intelligence upon naval history during this era. It also discusses the effectiveness of command decision-making relative to the commander's use, non-use or misuse of intelligence, as well as the systems developed by governments and navies to make effective use of intelligence. It covers reconnaissance scouts, signals and information transmission, deception and case studies of campaigns. This is an interesting perspective on intelligence as it developed in fairly recent times, providing both a contextual historical update and a professionally relevant focus. Recommended reading, particularly for the history buff. (Jonkers)

AFIO AUTHORS -- AFIO Members who have written a book during the past two years, please send me an email with your name, book title, publisher, date of publication, and ISBN. Include a three-line abstract of the topic. All AFIO authors will be recognized on our Website, and will be eligible for a special book award to be made at the 25th Anniversary Awards Banquet.
Please overlook the fact that a number of you are known to me as authors - and let me have the information once more.
Thanks!
Roy Jonkers
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For comments, contact the editor Roy Jonkers 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

MEMBERS -- We need new members to keep AFIO dynamic and effective. Support the AFIO mission. Sponsor a friend, colleague or acquaintance.

Check our website www.afio.com for membership applications or contact AFIO afio@afio.com +++++++++++++++++++++++++++end+++++++++++++++++++++++


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

 

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