Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

CNN Says Pakistan Protecting Osama bin Laden; France on Alert for Terrorist Attacks. Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are living comfortably in northwest Pakistan under the protection of members of the nation's intelligence service, a top NATO official has reportedly told CNN.

The claim comes amid fresh warnings by Saudi intelligence of terror attacks targeting Europe - especially France - by the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Mr. bin Laden's group. A British official said Monday that the United Kingdom faces a "very serious threat" of terrorist attacks, reported Agence France-Presse, while the United States and Japan earlier this month both issued travel alerts for Europe.

The latest report could add pressure on Pakistan to eliminate havens on its territory for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

CNN quoted an anonymous NATO official saying that the top two leaders of Al Qaeda were living close to each other, but not together, in houses in northwest Pakistan, protected by locals and members of Pakistani intelligence. "Nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave," the official told CNN.

The official said the general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which neighbors Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the US invasion in 2001.

The area that the official described covers hundreds of square miles of some of the most rugged terrain in Pakistan inhabited by fiercely independent tribes.

Pakistan's interior minister denied Monday that bin Laden and Zawahiri are on Pakistani soil and said such reports had proven false in the past, according to CNN.

But their group, Al Qaeda, has remained active around the world. Saudi intelligence officials have issued fresh warnings of a possible attack in Europe, warnings that will likely add to weeks of jitters triggered by vague reports of possible attacks planned for Europe.

The latest warnings were made public in a radio interview Sunday with French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, who said that "several days" earlier, Saudi intelligence informed France that the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was "active or about to become active in Europe," according to Al Jazeera.

"This is not about overestimating the threat or underestimating it," he told France's RTL Radio. "I am indicating, based on all these elements, that the threat is real."

Hortefeux said, in the spirit of "informing, not alarming" the public, that the government had received a warning days earlier from Saudi intelligence about a terrorist threat to "the European continent, especially France," according to Le Figaro. "Our vigilance remains intact," he said, according to Le Figaro.

Hortefeux said the latest alert from Saudi intelligence followed other alerts, including a Sept. 9 Interpol warning, and a Sept. 16 alert warning of attacks by female suicide bombers, according to Le Monde. Hortefeux said an average of two terror plots against France were broken up per year, and 61 people were now in French prisons for involvement in terrorism.

France's current threat level is "reinforced red" (rouge renforce), the second-highest level after "scarlet red" (rouge ecarlate), according to Le Monde.

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated twice in recent months over terror fears. France has issued travel warnings to its citizens for the United Kingdom. Britain on Sunday updated travel advice for France and Germany, saying that there was a "high threat of terrorism" in those countries, "including in public places frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers," according to Agence France-Presse. Britain's threat level is "severe," its second highest level.

Al Qaeda's Yemen-based offshoot has been reaching out to Muslims based in the Europe and the US with an English-language online magazine that encourages random attacks and instructions on bombmaking and do-it-yourself terror ideas such as welding steel blades onto a pickup truck and driving into a crowd, according to Agence France-Presse. [Adams/CSMonitor/18October2010] 

CIA Sues Ex-Agent for Book's Breach of "Secrecy." The CIA has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against a former deep-cover agent who published a book critical of the agency without allowing CIA censors to remove large portions of the manuscript before publication.

Ishmael Jones, pen name for the 20-year CIA veteran and Arabic speaker who said he sought to expose corruption in the agency, is facing a civil lawsuit over his 2008 book, "The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture."

The book is a detailed account of his career inside the CIA's clandestine service and his work as a "nonofficial cover" operative in the Middle East and Europe.

"The book contains no classified information and I do not profit from it," Mr. Jones told The Washington Times. "CIA censors attack this book because it exposes the CIA as a place to get rich, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted or stolen in espionage programs that produce nothing."

The CIA said in a statement to The Times that the legal action was filed against the former officer for "breaking his secrecy agreement."

"CIA officers are duty-bound to observe the terms of their secrecy agreement with the agency," CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in the statement. "This lawsuit clearly reinforces that message."

According to the CIA statement, "prepublication review - an obligation 'Jones' freely assumed - is an indispensable tool to protect intelligence sources, methods, and activities. In publishing without authorization, he risked the disclosure of classified information."

The action was based on the Supreme Court case against former CIA officer Frank Snepp, which required him to pay the agency proceeds from the book and to cease further violations of the secrecy agreement, the CIA said.

One of Mr. Jones' main disclosures in the book is that, despite being limited solely to collecting secrets outside the country, 90 percent of CIA employees live and work entirely inside the United States. The U.S.-based work force is "largely ineffective" and the failure to have more people outside the United States violates the agency's founding charter.

"We need to make Americans safer by increasing the tiny numbers of CIA heroes serving undercover in foreign lands," he said. "We need financial accountability and whistleblower systems to stop tremendous waste and theft." The lawsuit is one of a few cases brought by the agency against former officers since the Snepp case, who was forced to pay the agency over his 1977 book about Vietnam, "Decent Interval."

According to CIA sources, Mr. Panetta was a key supporter of suing Mr. Jones.

The lawsuit is being revealed as the Obama administration prepares to respond to a new round of public disclosures of classified military documents from Iraq to be posted on the website WikiLeaks.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also recently said in a speech that President Obama had expressed concerns over extensive press disclosures of sensitive information.

Mr. Jones' book contains details about his undercover meetings with recruited agents and his frustration in working with CIA bureaucrats in Washington who he said had made effective intelligence gathering, such as recruiting scientists involved in foreign weapons of mass destruction programs, very difficult.

Additionally, Mr. Jones revealed in the paperback version of the book that a list of recruited agents that CIA officials showed to the president and members of Congress included key sources who had no access to secrets.

"And I know these guys on the list, and they're American citizens who live in the U.S., and they shouldn't be sources at all," he said.

He also accused the CIA of misusing some $3 billion appropriated by Congress for post-Sept. 11 programs to beef up human spying programs.

The lawsuit was filed in July in U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia. Mr. Jones said he was never notified by the agency and discovered it only after he was served with court papers in late September.

The civil suit charges that Mr. Jones' breached a 1989 agreement by publishing "a book without the agency's permission and in violation of his secrecy agreement."

It states that Mr. Jones submitted a manuscript to the CIA pre-publication review board on April 10, 2007, and the agency replied that it "informed defendant Jones that it could not approve any portion of his manuscript for publication."

Mr. Jones submitted a revised manuscript in July 2007. In December 2007, the CIA told him it was approving only certain portions for publication and denying permission for the "remainder of the manuscript, even using a pen name."

The lawsuit also states that, by publishing the book, Mr. Jones had undermined "confidence and trust in the CIA and its prepublication review process." As a result, the CIA wants Mr. Jones to turn over all money he made from the book to the agency.

The agency also sought permission to sue Mr. Jones under his pseudonym to prevent "foreign governments, enterprising journalists and amateur spy hunters" from learning the details from the book that could expose intelligence sources and collection methods, according to court papers in the case.

Such disclosures would "anger and embarrass... foreign governments and cause them to take action that would be detrimental to the CIA's mission, such as reducing intelligence sharing or demanding that CIA officers leave the country," Kevin J. Mikolashek, assistant U.S. attorney, stated in one document.

Mr. Jones stated in the book that "all individuals, unless they are public figures, are obscured in order to make it impossible to identify any CIA employee or agent." Dates and places were changed and no classified information about sources and methods was disclosed, he wrote.

"Without reviewing the book, the CIA disapproved the publication of every word," Mr. Jones said. "During the course of a year, I repeated my request to the CIA that it identify any classified information in the book. The CIA eventually returned it to me with all but a few paragraphs wiped out."

Mr. Jones said he worked with CIA censors who seemed to agree that the book did not contain classified information and suggested that it might be approved with minor revisions.

The former CIA officer said he wrote the book to expose waste and abuse within the agency.

"By attempting to censor this manuscript, the CIA puts Americans at risk," Mr. Jones wrote in an introduction to the book. "The purpose of the book is to add to the criticism and debate about reform of the organization. Criticism and debate is how we solve things in America and I consider it my duty to publish this manuscript." Steven Aftergood, who monitors government secrecy issues for the Federation of American Scientists, said that CIA is probably on solid legal ground in the case "although it may be unfortunate for the author and the reading public."

Since Mr. Snepp's book was released, "courts have held that the manuscripts of former CIA employees are subject to pre-publication review even if they do not actually contain any classified information," Mr. Aftergood said. "To a regular person, this might look like an infringement on an author's freedom of expression, but when you sign a nondisclosure agreement with the CIA, you surrender some of that freedom." [Gertz/WashingtonTimes/18October2010]

Pentagon Asks Media Not to Publish War Leaks. The Pentagon asked media organizations not to publish any classified war files released by the WikiLeaks Web site, as the U.S. braces for the potential disclosure of hundreds of thousands of secret Iraq war documents.

In July, WikiLeaks obtained and released nearly 77,000 classified military reports from Afghanistan. Now, the Pentagon says the group has as many as 400,000 documents from a military database on operations in Iraq.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange on Monday downplayed expectations that a leak was imminent. In a Twitter post, Assange said information were coming from "a single tabloid blog" that had put out a "tremendous amount" of false information about his site.

Still, the military says its 120-person task force has been on high alert. The group has been reviewing the documents for weeks to determine what information might be compromised.

Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that the military isn't sure if WikiLeaks has shared the Iraq war logs with any news organizations. But, he said, media should not disseminate the "stolen" information even if it's already posted online by WikiLeaks.

"The concern is that WikiLeaks as an organization should not be made more credible by having credible news organizations facilitate what they're doing," Lapan said.

WikiLeaks was largely unknown until this spring, when it released a gritty war video of Army helicopters gunning down a group of men - including two unarmed Reuters photographers - in Iraq.

The group in July gained international notoriety when it coordinated its release of the 77,000 Afghan war logs with The New York Times, The Guardian in London and the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The New York Times says it omitted information from its coverage that would have jeopardized military operations or exposed Afghan informants. The Times also declined to provide a Web link to the WikiLeaks data base.

Der Spiegel and The Guardian said it withheld sensitive information as well, although The Guardian published a selection of the documents that it believed were significant.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has told Congress that the July leak did not expose the nation's most sensitive intelligence secrets. But, he maintained, the release still put U.S. interests at risk because it exposed the names of some Afghans who had cooperated with U.S. forces.

The military has an ongoing investigation into how the documents were leaked. An Army intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, Spc. Bradley Manning, has been arrested in connection with the release of other materials to WikiLeaks.

In a separate development Monday, Swedish authorities have rejected Assange's request for residency, a potential setback in his efforts to gain protection from Swedish press freedom laws. [AP/17October2010] 

Plan to Store Britons' Phone and Internet Data Revived. The British government is to revive a plan to store every email, webpage visit and phone call made in the UK, a move that goes against a pledge made by the Liberal Democrats ahead of the election.

The interception modernization program, proposed under Labour, would require internet service providers to retain data about how people have used the internet, and for phone networks to record details about phone calls, for an unspecified period.

The government says police and security services would be able to access that data if they could demonstrate it was to prevent a "terror-related" crime.

The revival of the program is buried in the strategic defense and security review, which was published yesterday. The review says the program is required to "maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do, to protect the public".

Ahead of the election, the Lib Dems said they would "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason", a pledge which appears in the coalition agreement

The review says communications data provides evidence in court, and has played a role in "every major security service counterterrorism operation, and in 95% of all serious organized crime investigations".

It says: "We will introduce a program to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework... We will put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the government's approach to information storage and civil liberties."

The Home Office confirmed today it would introduce legislation, but said no timetable or estimate of costs had yet been set.

The cost of the program has been estimated at a minimum of �2bn by the London School of Economics, in a paper published last year. The government had previously declined to respond to Freedom of Information queries about the project.

Guy Herbert, of the No2ID group, which opposed ID cards, said: "It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."

Isabella Sankey, of Liberty, told the Telegraph: "Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn."  [Guardian/20October2010] 

New Australian Counter-Terrorism Center Opens Amid "Hundreds" of Australian Threats. Hundreds of potential terrorist attacks on Australian interests are under investigation, spy chief David Irvine says.

Mr. Irvine was speaking at the formal opening of a counter-terrorism control centre at ASIO headquarters in Canberra by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland.

While he did not provide any more details, the chief of ASIO was keen to promise the nation's spooks were working hard.

"The threat is real,'' Mr. Irvine told reporters in a rare public appearance today.

Ms. Gillard said the failed attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253 in late 2009 demonstrated the need for national security agencies to operate seamlessly in sharing information and intelligence, to combat terrorism and other national security threats.

Everything from internet chatter to phone intercepts is combed by ASIO in its attempts to stay ahead of the scores of groups and individuals threatening Australia.

"ASIO receives millions of pieces of information every year,'' Mr. Irvine said.

But, he warned, ASIO could not do the job alone and that was one of the reasons behind the centre.

Staff from the federal police and other intelligence bodies like the Defense Signals Directorate would be seconded to the centre.

"Governments need to be carefully integrated ... to be effective against terrorists,'' Mr. Irvine said.

Mr. McClelland is the minister responsible for ASIO and its counterparts in the secret world of espionage and intelligence gathering.

While he was quick to praise staff at the organization, he remained wary of future threats.

"These successes do not mean that we can rest on our laurels,'' Mr. McClelland said.

The counter-terrorism control centre was originally promised by the government in its white paper on the issue, issued earlier this year.
[DailyTelegraph/20October2010] 

DoD Expanding Domestic Cyber Role. The Defense Department is quietly taking on an expanding role in defending U.S. critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

In a break with previous policy, the military now is prepared to provide cyber expertise to other government agencies and to certain private companies to counter attacks on their computer networks, the Pentagon's cyber policy chief, Robert Butler, said Wednesday.

An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response to a cyber attack.

While the Department of Homeland Security officially remains the lead government agency on cyber defense, the new agreement "sets up an opportunity for DHS to take advantage of the expertise" in the Pentagon, and particularly the secretive electronic spying agency, the National Security Agency, said Butler, who is a deputy assistant defense secretary.

The two agencies - Defense and Homeland Security - "will help each other in more tangible ways then they have in the past," Butler told a group of defense reporters.

Among other things, a senior DHS cyber official and other DHS employees will move to the NSA to be closer to the heart of the military's cyber defense capability. Closer collaboration provides "an opportunity to look at new ways that we can do national cyber incident response," he said.

"DoD's focus is really about getting into the mix. We want to plan together and work together with other departments... to ensure that they understand the military's cyber capabilities and that the military understands what other agencies and private companies can do for cyber defense," Butler said.

Improving agency and industry "situational awareness" in cyberspace is a central objective, Butler said.

Developing and maintaining a clear picture of the threats in cyberspace remains difficult, apparently even for the NSA. In part, that's because new uses for the Internet are invented every day, Butler said, and it's not always clear whether new activity is harmful or benign. Even the Defense Department is still "in the mode of understanding."

In the event of a cyber attack, it's still extremely difficult to tell who is attacking. It's not even clear what constitutes an attack.

"As we move forward, one of the key things we have is to agree on is the taxonomy," he said. There is lots of discussion about "cyberwar," "cyber attacks," and "hostile intent," but there is no agreement on exactly what those terms mean.

Developing standard definitions remains under discussion among U.S. government agencies and between international governments and organizations, he said. [Mathews/NavyTimes/20October2010] 

Jordan Warned CIA About Informer. Jordan tried to warn off the CIA about an informer who later attacked the spy agency's base in Afghanistan last year, killing seven Americans, a US intelligence official said on Tuesday.

Concerns about working with the informer had to be "weighed against the information he had already provided, and his potential to lead us to the most senior figures in al-Qaeda", the intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Details of Jordanian misgivings emerged as the CIA unveiled the findings of an internal review into the December 30 bombing, with the agency's director saying the spy service failed to vet the informer amid a series of "missteps".

An internal task force probing the incident concluded that the "assailant was not fully vetted and that sufficient security precautions were not taken", CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a statement to agency employees.

"These missteps occurred because of shortcomings" across the agency, including "management oversight", Panetta said.

Only three weeks before the attack, a CIA officer received warnings from his Jordanian counterpart about the bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, but chose not to inform his superiors, the New York Times reported, citing Panetta.

The officer was apparently dismissive of the warning because he suspected the Jordanian intelligence officer who offered it was jealous of a colleague's close relationship with Balawi, the Times reported Panetta as saying.

The December 30 attack on a major CIA base in Khost, near the Pakistan border, was a devastating blow for the spy agency and the second deadliest single assault on the CIA in its history.

Central Intelligence Agency officers believed Balawi was a valuable contact and had invited him onto the base of the compound without patting him down.

When he was about to undergo a search near a building entrance, he set off his explosive with CIA agents standing nearby. Balawi was tied to Taliban insurgents battling US-led forces in Afghanistan, and had been plotting to attack his CIA handlers.

No single individual or group could be assigned blame for the incident, Panetta's statement said.

"Rather, it was the intense determination to accomplish the mission that influenced the judgments that were made," he said.

Some former CIA officials and analysts have questioned the role of the chief of the Khost base, Jennifer Matthews, who was among those killed in the bombing.

It was unclear if the agency had decided to avoid assigning blame out of respect for those who had died, including Matthews, who lacked experience in the field.

"A lot of the evidence here died with the people," Panetta told the Times.

In his statement, Panetta said he approved a series of recommendations from the task force, including tightening security procedures, improving training, bolstering communication and "reinforced counterintelligence practices".

The agency would place a priority on applying "the skills and experience of senior officers more effectively in sensitive cases," and "more carefully manage information sharing with other intelligence services," in an apparent reference to how Jordan's concerns were handled.

Despite the Khost attack, Panetta vowed that the spy agency would carry on what he called "the most aggressive counterterrorism operations in our history".

"We will sustain that momentum and, whenever possible, intensify our pursuit," he said.

The CIA has been pursuing an intense bombing campaign against Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in northwest Pakistan using pilotless drones, despite public criticism in Pakistan and from Western human rights groups. [AP/20October2010]

Date Set for Spy Trial of US Hikers in Iran. The trial of two US hikers accused of spying on Iran is to start November 6, the ISNA news agency reported.

Heydar Moslehi, the head of Iran's intelligence service, said Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal would face trial and his organization would provide the court with evidence, ISNA said.

The families of the two Americans, who were arrested after straying across the Iranian border from Iraq last year, were reportedly informed by their lawyer in Iran that the trial would start November 6.

Bauer and Fattal were arrested with Sarah Shourd in July 2009 when they allegedly crossed the unmarked border while hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region.

Shourd was released last month because of illness after posting 500,000-dollars bail and returned to the United States.

Moslehi said that if necessary, Shourd should return to Iran for the trial. [MonstersandCritics/20October2010]

Seoul Arrests Alleged N. Korean Spy. South Korean authorities said on Wednesday they have arrested a North Korean spy who posed as a political defector with the intention of assassinating a former member of the ruling North Korean regime.

A spokesman for the National Intelligence Service said the alleged spy was arrested by the Seoul city prosecutor late on Tuesday for conspiring to kill Hwang Jang-yop, a leading Communist ideologue who had once been a mentor to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.

Mr. Hwang, 87, died of heart failure earlier this month. Police officials said on Wednesday that his death had no connection to the arrest.

The would-be assassin, Ri Dong-sam, 46, was reportedly an agent with Office 35, a division of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, described by the United States as "North Korea's premier intelligence organization." Office 35 and its director, Gen. Kim Yong-chol, were placed under economic sanctions in August by the United States Treasury Department for the illicit export of weapons.

Citing unidentified intelligence officials, several South Korean newspapers assembled details of Mr. Ri's mission that read like a John Le Carr� thriller.

He began five years of espionage training in North Korea in 1998, achieving the rank of senior colonel in the military commission of the Workers' Party.

He crossed the border into China in 2004 under orders from General Kim, even as other assassins and hit squads were infiltrating into the South. He reportedly spent the next five years in China before making his way in December 2009 to either Thailand or Laos.

In May, two other potential assassins from the North - they too were hunting Mr. Hwang - were arrested in Seoul. The two men, majors in the North Korean Army, also were posing as defectors. They were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in July.

They confessed to having trained for six years before reaching South Korea on their mission.

"I'm sure there are more North Korean spies who are after my life somewhere," Mr. Hwang was quoted as saying at the time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ri heard of his comrades' arrests, news reports said, and he delayed his entry into South Korea until August of this year. Upon arriving in the South, like all defectors from the North, Mr. Ri was sequestered and questioned by South Korean intelligence agents.

He reportedly admitted that he had been an agent with Office 35 but said he had had to flee because he had been accused of corruption. He was tripped up, investigators said, when he gave confusing answers about his hometown.

Mr. Hwang, who was a bitter and disillusioned critic of North Korea, had been one of the Communist regime's chief theoreticians, largely responsible for developing the guiding philosophy of juche, or self-reliance.

He defected in Beijing while returning from a trip to Tokyo, seeking asylum in the South Korean Embassy. Under protest and threats of retaliation by Pyongyang, China eventually allowed Mr. Hwang to leave.

Three days after Mr. Hwang's defection, another North Korean defector, Lee Han-young, the nephew of one of Kim Jong-il's favorite consorts, was shot in the head outside his apartment near Seoul. Mr. Lee's defection in 1982 had been kept a secret, and he had changed his name and undergone plastic surgery to conceal his identity. Senior South Korean officials immediately blamed a North Korean hit squad for the attack.

Mr. Hwang's family back in North Korea suffered badly after his defection. His wife and one daughter are believed to have committed suicide. His son and another daughter, and his granddaughters, were reportedly sent to labor camps.

Mr. Hwang died Oct. 9 in a safe house in Seoul, where he had lived for many years under government protection. He was buried with state honors in the Daejeon National Cemetery, and a former South Korean president, Kim Young-sam, served as the honorary chairman of the funeral committee.
[McDonald&Su-Hyun/NYTimes/21October2010]

American Pleads Guilty to Trying to Spy for China. A Detroit man on Friday pleaded guilty to trying to get a job with the Central Intelligence Agency in order to spy for China and to hiding contacts and money he got from Chinese intelligence agents.

Glenn Shriver, 28, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to communicate national defense information. His plea agreement, made public during a hearing in federal court in Virginia, called for a sentence of 48 months in prison.

Shriver acknowledged at the hearing that he met with Chinese officials about 20 times beginning in 2004 and that he received a total of about $70,000 from Chinese intelligence officers.

One $40,000 payment was in exchange for his agreement to apply for a job in the U.S. government, obtain classified information and pass it to China, according to Judge Liam O'Grady who described the allegations during the hearing.

Prosecutors said there were continued attempts by foreign governments to convince Americans to spy on their own country.

"We remain vigilant against threats to our national security and will do everything in our power to find and punish those who seek to betray our country," Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.

Shriver was originally charged in June with five counts for lying on his application to join the CIA. He had said he had no contact with foreign agents although he had met with Chinese intelligence officers several times and they paid him money.

One of Shriver's lawyers, G. Allen Dale, called the plea agreement a fair resolution of the case and said his client would cooperate with prosecutors to provide any information they needed, which could reduce his sentence.

Shriver had faced up to 10 years in prison.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have been tense over U.S. concerns over what it sees as the undervaluing of the yuan and over trade ties. China is the largest holder of U.S. debt and has worked closely with Washington on some key foreign policy issues, like reining in North Korea's nuclear program.

Attorney General Eric Holder visited China this week and said the two countries needed to cooperate more on law enforcement, including fighting international crime, terrorism and drug trafficking. [Polsfky/Reuters/22October2010] 

Journalist Linked to Espionage Case Back in Israel for Questioning. A journalist who published information based on classified documents leaked by a former Israeli army soldier arrived in Israel Sunday and will be interrogated in the next 48 hours.

Uri Blau, a journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, received top-secret information from an ex-Israeli soldier and wrote several articles based on the nearly 2,000 documents stolen from the army.

The articles denounced the allegedly illegal actions of the Israeli Army in the occupied West Bank.

Blau was in London when the case was publicized by Israeli media and the ex-soldier, Anat Kam, 23, was arrested. Over the last six months he has refused to come back to Israel.

Blau finally arrived Sunday after agreeing to a joint interrogation by police and internal Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet. He must also declare that he is no longer in possession of any of the stolen documents.

Kam has been accused of photocopying and scanning 2,000 classified documents during her compulsory military service in the army's central command and of passing them onto the journalist.

Central command includes the West Bank in its operations and some 700 of the documents were classified as 'top secret.'

The Shin Bet has also accused Kam of copying information on the army's order of battle, intelligence operations and weapons systems.

The intelligence agency believes that the case represented a real danger to soldiers and civilians, and the potential damage to Israeli security was 'extremely serious.'  [MonstersandCritics/24October2010] 

Wider Role for CIA Sought. The U.S. is pushing to expand a secret CIA effort to help Pakistan target militants in their havens near the Afghan border, according to senior officials, as the White House seeks new ways to prod Islamabad into more aggressive action against groups allied with al Qaeda,

The push comes as relations between Washington and Islamabad have soured over U.S. impatience with the slow pace of Pakistani strikes against militants who routinely attack U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has said he will begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in July, increasing the urgency to show progress in the nine-year war against the Taliban.

The U.S. asked Pakistan in recent weeks to allow additional Central Intelligence Agency officers and special operations military trainers to enter the country as part of Washington's efforts to intensify pressure on militants.

The requests have so far been rebuffed by Islamabad, which remains extremely wary of allowing a larger U.S. ground presence in Pakistan, illustrating the precarious nature of relations between Washington and its wartime ally.

The number of CIA personnel in Pakistan has grown substantially in recent years. The exact number is highly classified. The push for more forces reflects, in part, the increased need for intelligence to support the CIA drone program that has killed hundreds of militants with missile strikes. The additional officers could help Pakistani forces reach targets drones can't.

There are currently about 900 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, 600 of which are providing flood relief and 150 of which are assigned to the training mission.

A senior Pakistani official said relations with the CIA remain strong but Islamabad continues to oppose a large increase in the number of American personnel on the ground.

The Obama administration has been ramping up pressure on Islamabad in recent weeks to attack militants after months of publicly praising Pakistani efforts. The CIA has intensified drone strikes in Pakistan, and the military in Afghanistan has carried out cross-border helicopter raids, underlining U.S. doubts Islamabad can be relied upon to be more aggressive. Officials have even said they were going to stop asking for Pakistani help with the U.S.'s most difficult adversary in the region, the North Waziristan-based Haqqani network, because it was unproductive.

The various moves reflect a growing belief that the Pakistani safe havens are a bigger threat to Afghan stability than previously thought.

When senior Pakistani officials visited Washington this week, Obama administration officials signaled they are willing to push for a long-term military aid package. But they also have made clear to Pakistani officials they expect tangible results, and they threatened that current cash payments to Pakistan could be reduced if things don't improve in tribal areas such as North Waziristan.

The current efforts to expand CIA presence are meant to expand intelligence collection and facilitate more aggressive Pakistani-led actions on the ground. Some U.S. officials, however, remain hopeful that Islamabad will allow a greater covert presence that could include CIA paramilitary forces.

Given Pakistan's objections to U.S. ground troops, using more CIA paramilitary forces could be a "viable option," said a government official. "That gives them a little bit of cover," the official added, referring to the Pakistanis.

U.S. officials said a stronger U.S-Pakistan intelligence partnership would not be a substitute for closer working relationship with the military's special operation forces.

Much of the on-ground intelligence in Pakistan is gathered by the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Some U.S. officials believe Pakistan wants the U.S. to remain dependent on the ISI for that intelligence.

While the Obama administration has been focused on North Waziristan, officials said there also is a need for Pakistani operations in the southern city of Quetta and the surrounding province of Baluchistan. The U.S. hopes that if it can develop precise information on militant leaders, it could entice the Pakistan government to arrest some top members of the Quetta Shura, the ruling council of the Afghan Taliban movement.

Some officials are hopeful that Islamabad will reverse course and grant the additional CIA and military visas in the coming days. The Pakistani government has in the past used its control over visas to express displeasure with U.S. policy and limit the number of Americans who can work in the country.

Tensions remain between the Pakistan military and the U.S. military in Afghanistan, especially after a series of cross border raids by NATO in recent weeks.

In September, the CIA stepped up the pace of drone strikes in Pakistan, in part to counter suspected terrorism plots in western Europe as well as cross-border attacks by the Haqqani network. The stepped-up activity by the CIA has received little criticism from Pakistan, and tacit support from the government.

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who visited Islamabad late last month, said ISI has been "very cooperative," playing down tensions over U.S. allegations that elements of the intelligence agency were helping the Haqqanis and other militant groups fighting the U.S. "We're getting good cooperation," Mr. Panetta said.

Pakistani officials believe the CIA is better able to keep details of its operations largely out of the public eye, although the agency's drone program has received widespread attention and is enormously unpopular with the Pakistani public.

U.S. military forces on the ground remain a red line for Islamabad. A senior Pakistani official said if the Pakistan public became aware of U.S. military forces conducting combat operations on Pakistani territory, it would wipe out popular support for fighting the militants in the tribal areas. Whether covert CIA forces would cross that line however, remains an open question. [Barnes&Entous/WallStreetJournal/24October2010].

Russian Spy on Trial in Poland. On Friday, Tadeusz J., a Russian citizen, was put on trial in Warsaw on charges of espionage. He was arrested in February 2009, but details of his identity and activities were not made known to the public until January this year.

The man is accused of working for the GRU, Russia's intelligence directorate, and is believed to have been operating in Poland for over 10 years using a legitimate business as a cover.

Tadeusz J. had been under surveillance by Poland's Internal Security Agency for a number of months before his arrest. They found an encoding device and special recording equipment at his home.

Daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reports that he belonged to a hunting club whose members included a number of retired Polish generals who treated him as a close confidante.

The daily writes that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev probably used Tadeusz J.'s arrest as the reason for dismissing the GRU's head, General Valentina Korabelnikova, in April 2009.

The trial is being held in the Polish Supreme Court but because most of the evidence remains classified, it is closed to the public.

Before the trial Tadeusz J. told members of the press that he "felt innocent."

If convicted, he faces from one to ten years in prison. [Hayes/WBJ/24October2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Moves to Free Convicted Spy Pollard Pick Up in US and Israel. As convicted spy Jonathan Pollard approaches 25 years behind bars, Israelis and others are renewing efforts to secure freedom for the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, who is serving a life sentence for relaying military documents to Israel.

Pollard's case has been a source of constant friction between Israel and the United States, its staunchest ally. Israeli leaders have failed to persuade Washington to release the 56-year-old American Jew, whom Israelis and some U.S. officials say was given an unduly long sentence for spying for a friendly government.

Several recent appeals have come from those who consider Pollard's life sentence unjustified.

Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of Defense at the time of Pollard's arrest in November 1985, wrote in a public letter to President Obama in late September that the sentence was too harsh and the result of an "almost visceral dislike of Israel" by former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Korb says the average sentence for Pollard's offence is two to four years and under current guidelines the maximum sentence is 10 years.

Rafi Eitan, the former chief of the Israeli intelligence unit that recruited Pollard, last week claimed that the U.S. had reneged on its verbal pledge to release Pollard after 10 years. Eitan said Pollard remained imprisoned despite the fact that some of the U.S. charges against him - specifically, spying for the former Soviet Union - had been refuted.

Eitan said some espionage activities originally attributed to Pollard were later discovered to have been the work of Russian mole Aldrich Ames, who was arrested in 1994.

Pollard's New York-based attorneys last week filed a new petition for clemency, asking Obama to commute the sentence to time served.

Their request was supported by a letter recently circulated by four Democrats in Congress urging Obama to release Pollard as a way of encouraging Israel to take risks for peace.

The issue was even reportedly broached during recent talks aimed at crafting a list of American incentives to persuade Israel to extend its partial freeze on West Bank settlement construction and get peace talks back on track. But officials on both sides later distanced themselves from the proposal.

"Right now, I hope there is some change in the atmosphere," Yuli Edelstein, Israel's diaspora affairs minister and one of several Israeli politicians who have visited Pollard in his prison cell in Butner, North Carolina, said in an interview. "I would dare say that in the last few weeks there is more attention on this issue. But we've already suffered several disappointments in the past."

Edelstein added that there have been high-level discussions among Israeli government officials on ways to obtain Pollard's release.

Nevertheless, obstacles stand in the way of Pollard's freedom. Some analysts say that with the midterm elections near, Obama may be reluctant to enter discussions on the issue with the defense and intelligence establishments, which may fear that a release would suggest U.S. leniency toward convicted spies.

Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not wish to push an issue that could stir diplomatic tensions.

Pollard's supporters insist that he acted out of loyalty to Israel. But that argument has been undermined by allegations that Israel provided him with cash, jewelry and expensive travel in return for the documents, and later funded some of his legal fees.

Pollard's wife, Esther, wrote in the Jerusalem Post newspaper on Monday that the statements by Korb and Eitan "provide Israel with the golden key to open Jonathan's jail cell." She also lambasted the behavior of successive Israeli governments toward her husband as "morally bereft" and condemned the Netanyahu government for failing to act to free Pollard.

It was in 1998, during Netanyahu's first premiership, that Israel officially acknowledged that Pollard was one of its spies. Until then, he had been described as part of an operation not sanctioned by the government. When Pollard was on the run from U.S. authorities in 1985 and sought refuge at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he was denied entry.

Through the years, the Pollard case has come up during diplomatic negotiations and election campaigns.

"Pollard is not different from any other one of our soldiers," said Uri Ariel, a right-wing legislator who leads the parliamentary group lobbying for Pollard's release. "We don't neglect soldiers anywhere, not in this field either." [Bekker/LATimes/21October2010]

CIA and FBI Sent on Museum Course to "Refresh Sense of Inquiry."  CIA and FBI agents have been sent on a course at a New York museum to "refresh their sense of inquiry" by analysing paintings. 

They are among groups of law enforcement officials, also including New York police officers and members of the US Secret Service, who have attended classes at the city's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The course, titled The Art of Perception, is aimed at improving officers' ability to describe what they see in the course of their inquiries.

Amy Herman, the course leader, said: "We're getting them off the streets and out of the precincts, and it refreshes their sense of inquiry.

"They're thinking, 'Oh, how am I doing my job,' and it forces them to think about how they communicate, and how they see the world around them." Ms Herman, an art historian, originally developed the course for medical students, but successfully pitched it as a training course to the New York Police Academy.

Inspector Kenneth Mekeel, of the New York Police Department, said the course helped the city's officers with their usual line of work.

"We always teach them step back, look at what you have, the crime scene, make observations," he said. "There's more to a picture than meets the eye." Ms Herman said that law enforcement officers made "terrific" art critics.

"They're so smart, they're so observant, they do it every day," she said.

"Often, they see things that art historians don't always notice." Bill Reiner, an FBI special agent, said Ms Herman's classes had helped one of his officers crack a fraud scheme worth up to $100 million (�64 million).

"Amy taught us that to be successful, you have to think outside the box," Mr. Reiner said. "Don't just look at a picture and see a picture. See what's happening." [Swaine/Telegraph/25October2010] 

In Wake of CIA Suicide Bomber, What Went Wrong Depends on Who You Ask. In the wake of the deadly attack at one of its bases in Afghanistan, there is disagreement among CIA veterans about what went wrong.

Intelligence officials, both current and former, all agree that mistakes were made. But what that says about the broader problems in the CIA is a matter of debate. Ask some and it is a matter of communication. Others, a problem of a lack of experience.

In a report finalized this week, CIA Director Leon Panetta concluded it was a systemic failure within the agency and not the actions of one person or group that enabled a Jordanian informant to blow himself up along with nine other people at the remote CIA post.

The internal agency review indicated poor communications in the field and at headquarters, insufficient security measures at the base and lax management oversight all contributed to the circumstances that culminated with Humam Khalil Abi-Mulal Balawi detonating the bomb last December at the CIA forward operating base in Khost, near the border with Pakistan. Killed were seven CIA employees, an Afghan driver and a Jordanian intelligence officer. Six CIA officers were seriously injured.

The CIA and other government agencies were heavily criticized after 9/11 for not sharing information with each other, which might have prevented the deadly terrorist attacks. The agency has made a number of changes over the years to correct the problems. But following the failed attempt to blow up an airliner last Christmas, a Senate Intelligence Committee review faulted the CIA for failing to disseminate relevant intelligence about the suspected bomber to all offices and individuals who needed to know.

In the Khost case, CIA officers both in the field and at headquarters did not pass on pertinent information or did so through informal channels such as texting and e-mails. U.S. intelligence officials say the officers at the Khost base were not aware of all of the reporting on the informant which might have made them more cautious in dealing with the man they thought was a valuable asset.

A former senior intelligence officer familiar with the report said it appears to be more of a failure to appreciate the information than it was a failure to share it.

"I think it's less the impediments to moving information as it was to the judgment that this didn't deserve to be moved," said the former official.

A current U.S. intelligence official disputed any contention that the CIA continues to have an information-sharing problem. He said the situation with the Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound aircraft was very different from what happened leading up to Khost. The airliner incident pointed to a problem with putting the bits and pieces of information together - connecting the dots - to prevent a potential attack.

The official said the issue with Khost was with vetting the asset.

"Concerns were raised in Washington and overseas that Balawi might be a double agent, but they weren't properly communicated," said the official, and added, "No one - even those who expressed skepticism - thought he was a possible suicide bomber."

However, a former intelligence officer who served mostly overseas in various hotspots, said the real problem was a failure of leadership in the field, and blamed bosses at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for putting a person not qualified in charge of the base.

The CIA post was lead by Jennifer Matthews, one of the CIA's top al Qaeda analysts, who had spent very little time in overseas assignments and had been in charge of Khost for only a few months.

The current and former officials that CNN talked to never questioned the decision to meet with the informant - there was reason to believe he had critical information - but some wondered how he could get so close to so many CIA employees before anyone attempted to search him.

The former spy said all informants in that region have to be considered a threat no matter how much they have been vetted.

"Any time you're 10 miles from the federally administered tribal areas in Pakistan, you have to believe every asset is a danger and that everything you do could get you killed," said the officer.

Even the current U.S. intelligence official indicated, "someone was probably going to die that day, even if Balawi had been searched further out."

But the former operative did not believe Matthews, who was among those killed in the attack, had the necessary experience in the field to understand the full scope of the perils.

This officer as well as others that CNN spoke to did not place the blame directly on Matthews.

"She was a fine al Qaeda analyst, but she wasn't prepared for the field and the people who sent her out there are ultimately responsible for what happened," said the former operative.

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA bin Laden unit who hired Matthews, said she was equipped to handle the job.

"She had more experience, more training than a great number of people we send overseas to go into harm's way," said Scheuer. He believes there was probably less rigorous security with the informant because he had been recruited by the Jordanian spy service, a trusted ally.

Most of the current and former intelligence officers would not speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the issue within the agency.

CIA spokesman George Little took exception to those who he felt spoke ill of fallen colleagues, saying, "Criticizing them is bad enough, but doing so anonymously is even more shameful."

But it does raise the question of whether the CIA has a sufficient number of skilled operatives - people with language proficiency, cultural awareness and war-zone training - to work in the terrorist mine fields overseas.

One of the recommendations in the CIA Khost review called for "expanding our training effort for both managers and officers on hostile environments and counterintelligence challenges."

According to the CIA, more than 50 percent of the current workforce came on board following the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. intelligence official said there is a very seasoned group of younger officers who are more experienced to deal with today's high-risk assets than their counterparts during the Cold War days.

The new generation has served in war zones - in Iraq, in Afghanistan - and has been trained to deal with deadly terrorists, said the official, who added, "Cold War officers generally did not fear for their lives."

The former senior intelligence official agreed that the quality of covert officers is really good, but acknowledged there are a lot of junior people in senior roles. "There is an expanded force, expanded mission which is going to be stretched and extended, but you have to play with the team you got," said the former official.

A former overseas operative said the bench is thin. "There are not enough trained operatives and certainly there are not enough with the skill sets for the region," the officer said, referring to the Middle East and southwest Asia. The officer worried about a young workforce and the potential for lethal mistakes in the field.

Scheuer said the officers at Khost were "emblematic" of the problems faced by the CIA in the current international environment. "The agency and military are stretched to the breaking point in terms of people. You don't have three, four, five years to train people before they go overseas. It's just the nature of the game," he said.

There could also be a cultural aspect that influences the actions of covert officers. The U.S. intelligence official said, "CIA officers are trained to protect their sources, who risk their freedom or lives to provide us information that helps protect our country. One lesson learned is that the agency needs to step up its evaluation of assets in dangerous areas, especially the war zones."

What really bugs Scheuer about all of the finger-pointing surrounding the Khost incident is that people seem to forget there is a "talented, patient, clever opponent" out there.

"The enemy beat us. The British intelligence service, the American service, any service would have been proud to conduct the operation they conducted against us. This was a heck of an operation and they got us even though we've torn the guts out them for 14 years," said Scheuer. [Benson/CNN/25October2010] 

CIA Renegade Agee's Files Surface at NYU. The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring.

Agee, who worked undercover in Latin America from 1960 to 1968 and died in Cuba two years ago, once said he resigned because the values of his Catholic upbringing clashed with his CIA assignments to destroy movements to overthrow U.S.-backed military regimes. CIA defenders said he was on the verge of being fired.

Agee's first book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," published in 1975, included a 22-page appendix with the real names of some 250 undercover agency operatives and accused a handful of Latin American heads of state of being CIA assets.

The CIA's classified in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, called it "a severe body blow" to the agency.

"As complete an account of spy work as is likely to be published anywhere," wrote Miles Copeland, a former CIA station chief, "an authentic account of how an ordinary American or British 'case officer' operates... All of it... presented with deadly accuracy."

Two subsequent books by Agee and his co-author Louis Wolf revealed the names of about 2,000 more alleged CIA operatives in Western Europe and Africa.

Wolf, co-editor with Agee of Covert Action Information Bulletin, said he was principally responsible for digging up the names, not Agee.

"I did all the research for that book, from public sources," Wolf said in a brief telephone interview, "not from classified government information. I had no such access to that information."

President George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director, blamed Agee for contributing to the murder of a CIA station chief in Athens, Richard Welch, and Congress soon passed legislation making it a crime to publish intentionally the names of undercover CIA personnel. But when Bush's wife Barbara repeated his claim about Agee in a 1994 memoir, his libel suit forced her to delete the accusation from the paperback version of the book.

In contrast to Agee, WikiLeaks withheld the names of hundreds of informants from the nearly 400,000 Iraq war documents it released over the weekend, according to news reports. And its previous surfacing of Afghan war documents, which an Army specialist is suspected of leaking, did not reveal "any sensitive intelligence sources and methods," according to a letter from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Agee portrayed himself as an independent whistleblower, but while on the run from U.S. authorities in 1973 he offered CIA documents to the Soviet KGB - which, suspecting a ruse, turned him down, one of its top former officials said years later - after which he openly enlisted the help of Cuban intelligence.

NYU's Tamiment Library, which acquired Agee's papers from his widow, makes no mention of the renegade agent's KGB and Cuban intelligence connections in its Monday press release.

But it did maintain that "[f]or the rest of his life Agee was a target of CIA assassination threats."

In response to a query, Michael Nash, the library's associate curator, said, "this information came from the Agee book, 'On the Run,' and it is supported by some CIA documents that Agee received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request."

Nash added, "I would not say we have a smoking gun, you rarely get that, but there are reports that came from the FOIA requests and some Agee correspondence that led me to this conclusion."

A CIA spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the allegation as "not only wrong, but ludicrous."

NYU said the Agee collection, which "spans some 20 linear feet, and is currently being catalogued," will be celebrated in a Nov. 9 reception, but not available until April.

The papers include "legal records, correspondence with left-wing activists, mainly in Latin America, and others opposed to CIA practices and covert operations; papers relating to his life as an exile living and working in Cuba, Western and Eastern Europe; lecture notes, photographs, and posters," the library said.

"Mrs. Agee donated the collection to Tamiment because we have an international reputation as a repository documenting the history of left politics and the movement for progressive social change," the library said. [Stein/WashingtonPost/25October2010]

Section III - COMMENTARY

The FBI Wiretap Plan: Upsetting the Security Equation, by Susan Landau. Some time ago I was on an American Bar Association panel with an FBI Associate Deputy Director when he asked the audience if they knew that Skype puts "other people's data on your machine." He looked appalled. I responded, "Yes, that's what peer-to-peer applications do." Skype encrypts conversations from the moment they leave the sender's machine til they arrive at the recipients, which means that no information about these conversations is revealed. Nor do they impact any of the machines they travel through. The FBI didn't seem to understand that.

This is not the only thing that the FBI doesn't understand. The bureau fought a battle against cryptography in the 1990s, arguing that the use of encryption would impede its ability to wiretap. It lost that fight in 2000 when the NSA - the nation's premier communications surveillance agency - and the US government decided that the nation was better off with encrypting private communications even if that would make law enforcement's job harder.

The decade-long fight on encryption delayed securing communications, and we're only routinely beginning to do so now. The result of the delay: easier ways for the bad guys to break into U.S. computers.

Now the FBI has a new plan: the bureau wants to pre-approve new communications technologies before they can be deployed. Think of it - before instant messaging or Facebook goes public, the engineers must work with the FBI and architect their systems according to law-enforcement specifications.

If granted, the FBI's efforts will push innovation overseas. That's bad for the US economy - and for US national security. Right now the NSA often gets an early view into new communications technologies - but only if they are developed here. The agency won't have the same privileges if the technologies are designed in Estonia or India.

Allowing encryption into US products means that US private communications are better protected. Spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks get the newspaper headlines, but the real threats to national security comes from the cyberthefts from US corporations and military sites. Whether Google search algorithms or flight-planning software used by the Army and Air Force - those are the items we need to secure. And building back doors into communications for the FBI is the worst thing we can do. It's the fastest way to ensure that we're building in back doors for the Chinese, the Russians, the French (who openly admit to government spying on US industry) - and anyone else. It is a really dumb idea.

Because the FBI has been finding it difficult to wiretap in some cases, the bureau is also considering making the carriers pay for eavesdropping when the tapping gets complicated. And this is really the issue. The FBI desire to rewrite wiretapping law isn't about wiretapping being too hard for its agents. It's about who foots the bill. With more advanced communications technologies making wiretapping more complicated, the FBI doesn't want pay for doing so; it wants the communications companies to instead. In other words, if companies develop innovative communications technologies that complicate law-enforcement wiretapping, they should pay for the increased costs for wiretapping communications using these technologies. The dangers in the FBI proposal are thus three-fold: higher costs for communications, a decrease in US innovation (and loss of innovation to overseas), and a likely massive increase in wiretapping - because cost would no longer be an issue for law enforcement.

Some new forms of communications are harder to wiretap than the old Public Switched Telephone Network. At the same time new communications technologies have made so much data readily available that law enforcement's job has simplified in a large number of ways. The Department of Homeland Security has instructions on how to use social-networking sites (MySpace, Facebook) to conduct investigations, while cell phone location tracking has cut investigation time in many cases. This is data undreamed of even a decade ago, and the FBI is awash in it. One hand takes away, but the other hand gives.

The FBI is trying to makes its job easier and cheaper. But its current proposed rewrite of wiretap law creates serious security risks. Though on its surface the bureau's wiretapping proposals may seem reasonable, in fact, the dangers they create mean they should not be implemented. [Susan Landau is co-author, "Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption."] [Landau/HuffingtonPost/26October2010] 

Iran is Buying Political Influence in Afghanistan, by Massoumeh Torfeh. It must have been embarrassing for President Karzai of Afghanistan to have to admit in front of a fellow president, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan - that he receives "bags of money" in donations from Iran. "This is a relationship between neighbors," he said, making it sound as though it is customary for neighbors to walk around carrying bags of handouts.

A few aspects are intriguing. First, President Karzai claimed that "this is transparent". He said once or twice a year Iran provided as much as �700,000 (�615,000) and that money was handled by Omar Daudzai, his powerful chief of staff, who is known for his anti-western views.

However, transparency should surely be for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan and the funds thus received should be declared and registered at the Afghan treasury. Yet that was not what the president said. Instead he explained the transparency vis-�-vis some distant meeting at Camp David with the former US president, George Bush.

Karzai confirmed "cash payments", which he described as usual. However, official bank transfers would be the norm for transparency. It is true that in previous years, when Afghanistan lacked a functioning banking system, cash was the main means of exchange. However, banks are now fully functional. Iran is one of the main reconstruction donors to Afghanistan and we cannot expect that all $700m-plus of Iran's donations has been given in bags of money.

The New York Times, which originated the story, claimed that Daudzai was given the Euros in bags by Iran's ambassador to Afghanistan, Feda Hussein Maliki. The Iranian embassy in Kabul denied this and Mehr news agency in Iran said the report was fabricated. "How could a diplomat do such things in public view?" Mehr news agency said.

Daudzai has been President Karzai's chief of staff since 2003, apart from a couple of years as ambassador to Iran. During the Afghan civil war he is believed to have supported the notorious Hezb-e-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, funded by the Pakistani military intelligence, ISI. Hekmatyar who was given refuge in Iran after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, is one of the mediators in talks with the Taliban. All these elements make Daudzai an unusual ally for Iran - but, then, they all share Iran's anti-American sentiment.

Iran's interest in Afghanistan should be seen in the context of its ambitions as a major regional power and as part of Iran's ongoing regional competition with the US. Iran's main aim is to undermine American interest in the region. Its alleged anti-US operations in Iraq were described in documents recently published by WikiLeaks.

We have also seen over the past two weeks how Iran has influenced the formation of a government in Iraq through persuading its allies, the Sadrists, to form a coalition with Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister.

In its efforts to compete with the US, Iran uses state and non-state actors as proxies for manipulating a range of political, economic, and military outcomes to gain influence.

In Afghanistan the aim is political influence through the Shia, Hazara and Tajik population, sometimes referred to as the Persian-speaking population who account for more than 58% of the country's inhabitants. They have close bonds with Iranians through language, history and culture. Iran keeps a close eye on the political progress of these groups and donates money to their political campaigns.

Parliamentary elections held in Afghanistan in September were marred by fraud and the results may not be known for a while. However, among more than 100 Hazara and Shia candidates who took part, 25-30 are expected to win seats in the 249-seat lower house of parliament. Journalist Vahid Mojdeh says most of these candidates "are believed to be supported by Iran". He says: "Shias have never before had so much power as they do now."

The Tajik success is even more significant. Dr Abdullah, one of the main leaders of Afghanistan's Tajiks, says his supporters are likely to have won 88 seats. While Tajiks form 27% of the population, this result would indicate a significant shift in their favour from around 40-50 seats in the previous parliament.

Thus, if the estimated 125 seats are occupied by potential allies of Iran in the 249-seat parliament this could give them the edge, and significantly increase Iran's power in influencing politics in Afghanistan.

True, it is not just Iran that uses cash payments to buy political and military support. The US has done the same in Iraq and Afghanistan to encourage insurgents to switch sides. Yet, that was announced as a military strategy. Whatever the excuses, and whoever enters into these backhand methods of buying political support, they are all guilty of deceiving the public.

President Karzai's explanation makes a mockery of transparency, and Iran's method of passing bags of money between its ambassador and the president's chief of staff flouts all diplomatic norms. [Guardian/26October2010]

Section IV - BOOKS, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Books

The Defense Rests: A Longtime Champion of the Rosenbergs Tries to Confront the Evidence. Attending a 1983 debate in New York City on the Rosenberg spy case, a correspondent for the New Republic - as it happens, the distinguished Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick - commented that he had "never before seen anyone exude such absolute self-righteousness, or any adult exhibit such petulance." He was watching the journalist Walter Schneir defend, in the face of mounting contrary evidence, the atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - and denounce a recondite government conspiracy to frame them - 30 years after their execution. Presenting the opposite case, for the Rosenbergs' guilt, were Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, who had recently published "The Rosenberg File." In the atmosphere of the evening - to judge by Mr. Nozick's account - Mr. Radosh and Ms. Milton were made to play the role of villain, McCarthyites masquerading as historians, to be mau-maued by New York's beau monde.

Mr. Schneir at the time was known, along with his wife, Miriam, as one of the Rosenbergs' most dogged defenders. Together they had written "Invitation to an Inquest" (1965), a book positing a massive government conspiracy to frame the Rosenbergs. The only problem with their position was that it proved to be wrong. Starting in the 1990s, with the release of intelligence decrypts and the testimony of ex-KGB employees, historians firmly established that Julius Rosenberg was a Soviet agent and that his wife, Ethel, helped the network to courier documents and recruit pro-Moscow leftists.

Now, almost a half-century after the publication of "Invitation to an Inquest" we have "Final Verdict," again revisiting the Rosenberg case. Mr. Schneir, who died in 2009, is the author; Mrs. Schneir provides a preface and afterword. The book does grudgingly admit that Julius Rosenberg was a Stalinist agent (Ethel remains, in the Schneirs' view, an innocent bystander). But "Final Verdict," a slim volume purporting to tell "what really had happened" in 200 pages and two-dozen footnotes, makes no serious attempt at reaching historical truth, instead offering a selective and ultimately unconvincing attempt at personal vindication.

It is evident that the Schneirs were never unbiased, truth-seeking historians. Upon discovering yet another piece of evidence suggesting that Julius Rosenberg labored on behalf of the Kremlin, Mr. Schneir sighs that the new information is "not what we would have hoped." The couple "had to admit" that new, contradictory evidence was damaging to the case for innocence. The revelations of the past two decades, he writes, were "painful news for many people, as it is for us."

It is advisable to discount the judgments of those who, when attempting to solve a historical riddle, declare archival revelations "painful" or contrary to the investigator's "hopes." But after decades of impugning the integrity of scholars with whom they disagreed, Mr. Schneir declares grandly that he has "no regrets, no apologies." (Before her execution, Ethel Rosenberg wrote that she had "no fear and no regrets.")

Mr. Radosh and Ms. Milton, who were right, barely merit a mention in "Final Verdict," much less an apology. The work of America's two most prolific historians of Soviet espionage, Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes - whose most recent book, "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America," closes the books on both the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss spy cases - is haughtily dismissed, as are their revelations that Ethel Rosenberg was involved in the recruiting of agents.

Readers are told instead that the Rosenbergs engaged in mere "prevarications," while prosecutors offered "concocted evidence," "hyperbole" and "perjurious testimony," spinning a "monstrous web of lies" that provoked baying "lynch mobs" in the media. "Faced with an impossible predicament," Mr. Schneir explains, "the Rosenbergs merely denied everything."

And they lied with good reason, he theorizes, because "disclosing [Soviet espionage networks in the U.S.] would have fuelled the hysteria of the times and perhaps resulted in mass pickups and incarceration in concentration camps of tens of thousands of Communists and other leftists." Really? American intelligence agencies were aware of many Soviet networks and yet never submitted to the instinct - of which the Stalinist Julius Rosenberg would surely have approved - to construct gulags for political dissidents. Indeed, while Moscow was terrorizing anyone who stood against the glorious Soviet future, the U.S. government was sentencing Alger Hiss, a State Department employee working for Soviet military intelligence, to a mere five years on a perjury charge.

Despite its acknowledgment of Julius's guilt, "Final Verdict" is still leavened with arguments that espionage on behalf of a contemporaneous ally wasn't such a big deal. In her afterword, Miriam Schneir writes that the Rosenbergs' orphaned son Michael works as director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization assisting those whose parents "suffered some form of injury as a consequence of activities in progressive causes." Among those causes, apparently, is performing espionage on behalf of a communist government.

Ms. Schneir explains that her late husband was "in the era of 9/11...more certain than ever that the Rosenberg case provided an instructive example of how easily the justice system can be corrupted by fear of dissident ideas." Julius Rosenberg's "dissident ideas" aren't addressed at any length, lest the reader get a glimpse at the grotesque ideology that allowed for defending Soviet totalitarianism.

Ms. Schnier cites the Czech dissident writer Milan Kundera, who described the "men and women who were falsely charged with crimes against the state, convicted in sham trials, and hanged." But Mr. Kundera was thinking of those in occupied Czechoslovakia accused by communist apparatchiks of phantom crimes, not communist apparatchiks in America convicted of real crimes. [Mr. Moynihan is a senior editor of Reason magazine.] [Moynihan/WSJ/21October2010] 

Obituaries

Vadim W. Sounitza. Vadim W. Sounitza, 92, an intelligence officer for the CIA's Directorate of Operations from 1947 to 1973, died Sept. 29 at Brighton Gardens retirement community in North Bethesda. He had congestive heart failure.

Vadim Wladimir Sounitza, a Russian native, moved to California with his family as a boy. He received a bachelor's degree in 1940 and a master's degree in 1943, both in history from the University of California at Los Angeles.

He served in the Army during World War II and retired from the reserves in 1953 at the rank of captain. He moved to Washington in 1947 and had lived in Bethesda since 1963.

His wife of 32 years, Louise Sounitza, died in 2007. He had no immediate survivors. [Wiseman/WashingtonPost/18October2010] 

George W. Steitz II. George W. Steitz II, 83, died Tuesday, October 5, 2010. Born (1927) and raised in upstate Rochester, Syracuse area of N.Y., George enlisted in the Army (1944) upon graduation from Nottingham High School (Syracuse). Following specialized training programs at Princeton (engineering), Minnesota and Yale (Japanese), George served with the First Calvary Division (Sergeant) in Occupied Japan and later became Captain in the Army Reserve.

Upon discharge from the Army, George re-entered Yale in 1947 with the class of 1949. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa with degree in political science, George joined the Central Intelligence Agency. Steitz then obtained a Masters in Far East studies at Michigan (1955) and obtained his fluency of the Japanese language at the Foreign Service Institute in Japan. George served in Vietnam from 1969-71 and facilitated in the successful restoration of Okinawa to Japan.

Retiring from the Foreign Service (1977), Steitz conducted training seminars for clients of the SAI (Illinois) in human relations and communication skills.

The Steitz's retired to Melbourne, Fl in 1979 where he continued an active life encompassing family, friendships, participation in various groups, golf, computer classes and physical therapy. As a resident of Suntree, he was instrumental and successful in arousing public awareness and opposition to the proposed building of the felony courthouse in a residential area which then resulted in the new location at the Viera government complex.

George is survived by his wife of 60 years, Jane (nee) Odell; daughter, Linda Noble (James); and various grandchildren. [FloridaObituariesToday/24October2010] 

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in November with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are in detail below and online.

Thursday, 28 October 2010, 0930- 1715 - Newport News, VA - AFIO Hampton Roads Chapter hosts 2nd Annual Workshop on National Security and Intelligence

Workshop focuses on "Maritime and Port Security: Addressing 21st Century Challenges" CNU's David Student Union Ballroom Co-sponsored by the Norman Forde Hampton Roads Chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers and Christopher Newport University's Center for American Studies and
This all-day workshop features four speaker sessions on topics relating to the security of U.S. strategic interests at sea and in ports. Panel sessions are free and open to the public. Attendees may come and go throughout the day. The keynote luncheon requires a $35 advance ticket purchase. To register for the luncheon and for additional details, visit: cas.cnu.edu/portsecurity.htm Please forward this announcement to others who may be interested. Questions: AFIOhamptonroads@cox.net

Workshop Schedule
9:30-9:35 - Opening Comments "Dr. Nathan E. Busch, Co-Director of the Center for American Studies, CNU
9:35-10:45 - Session 1: Maritime Security and U.S. Strategic Interests "Rear Admiral (ret) Ben Wachendorf, former Chief of Staff, JFCOM, and Director of Navy Strategy and Policy, U.S. Navy
11:00-12:20 - Session 2: Combating Piracy and Maritime Terrorism "Scott Alwine, Prevailance Antiterrorism Consultant to Commander, Naval Air Forces Atlantic "LT Mark Barnes, Counter-piracy Support to Plans, Navy Information Operations Command, U.S. Navy "Owen Doherty, Director, Office of Security, Maritime Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation
12:30-2:00 - Business Executives for National Security Luncheon: Port Security and Homeland Security "Keynote Speaker: Admiral James Loy, former Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, (Advance ticket purchase required: cas.cnu.edu/portsecurity.htm )
2:30-3:45 - Session 3: Port Security "Rear Admiral Dean Lee, Commander, 5th District, U.S. Coast Guard "Ted Langhoff, Director of Cargo and Port Security Practice, Unisys Federal Systems
4:00-5:15 - Session 4: Technological Innovation and Port Security "Michael Zirkle, Manager of Business Strategy, U.S. Government, Verizon Wireless "Jeffrey Schweitzer, Principal Architect for Public Sector Solutions, Verizon Business "Bob Mckisson, President, Hampton Roads Chapter of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

29 October 2010, 11 a.m. - Tysons Corner, VA - Naval Intelligence Professionals (NIP) Fall Luncheon. To be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Tyson's Corner, VA Event ends at 2 p.m. Keynote speaker TBD.

29-31 October 2010 - Middletown, RI - The New England Chapter of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association (NCVA-NE) will hold a Fall Mini-Reunion. Event takes place at the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites. The registration cut-off date is September 29, 2010. For additional information, call (518) 664-8032 or visit http://web.meganet.net/kman/mr2010b.htm.

1-4 November 2010 - New Orleans, LA - USGIF GEOINT Symposium: A New Era of GEOINT

The U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation event will feature the following speakers: DNI Jim Clapper; VCJCS GEN Hoss Cartwright; USec DHS I&A Caryn Wagner; D/NGA Tish Long; D/NRO Gen (Ret) Bruce Carlson; D/DIA LTG Ron Burgess; DD/NSA Chris Inglis; DUSD(I) Lt Gen Craig Koziol;
DUSD(I) Kevin Meiners; ADDNI Dawn Meyerriecks; J5 USCYBERCOM Maj Gen Suzanne Vautrinot
Over 3,000 attendees and 220 exhibitors are expected, with 100,000 sq ft of exhibit space. The Intelligence Event of the year.
For full information and to register: http://geoint2010.com/

Tuesday, 2 November 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - Attack on Mumbai: A New Paradigm for Terrorism? - a program at the International Spy Museum.

"One of the gunmen seemed to be talking on a mobile phone even as he used his other hand to fire off rounds." — Nisar Suttar, eyewitness, November 2008
On 26 November 2008, ten highly trained and disciplined men used covert intelligence and off-the-shelf technology to terrorize and immobilize the city of Mumbai, killing 166 people and wounding over 300. The attackers were able to effectively overwhelm the Mumbai police and Indian security forces utilizing integrated tactics, superior weaponry, and sophisticated covert communications that provided their Pakistani handlers with "real time" command and control as events unfolded. This change in tactics has presented a challenge for the West: how can we find ways to defend against similar attacks in the future? H. Keith Melton, renowned intelligence historian, technical advisor to American intelligence agencies, author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, and International Spy Museum board member, has thoroughly researched the planning and technology behind the attack. Using videotape of the surviving attacker's confession and intercepts of terrorist voice communications during the assault, he will offer a strategic overview of the attacks and explore the tactical phases, and the use by the terrorists of "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS) technologies and the Internet. Tickets: $12.50 per person. Seating is limited. Register at www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 4 November 2010, Noon - 2 pm - Washington, DC - John Bessette on "Diggers, Doughboys, & Brits: The US 27th Division in the First World War" at the Returned Services League of Australia, Washington Chapter.
John Bessette is a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, having flown as a navigator and served as an intelligence officer in the Pentagon and in NATO assignments. He also had a civilian career as an intelligence analyst, retiring from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1996. His hometown New York National Guard company was at the heart of the battles described in this talk.
Where - Amenities Room, Embassy of Australia, 1601 Massachusetts Ave NW.
NOTE: Valid ID required.
Charge - $15.00, including buffet lunch and sodas. Alcoholic beverages- $2.00 each.
RSVP NLT noon on Wednesday November 3, to David Ward on 202-352-8550 or via e-mail at dmpward@wwdb.org
Attire : Business casual
Parking: There is no parking at the Embassy. There is paid public parking behind and under the Airline Pilots Association (17th and Mass) and at 1500 Mass Ave NW.

Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 5:30 - 7 pm - Norfolk, VA - AFIO Hampton Roads Speaker's Forum "The Role of an Intelligence Analyst in Busting Colombian Drug Trade"

Guest Speaker: Victor Rosello Army Capabilities Integration Center, TRADOC, Fort Monroe Retired US Army Colonel 06, Military Intelligence.
Location: Tabb Library in York County, Main Meeting Room. Directions or Questions: AFIOhamptonroads@cox.net

10 November 2010, 11:30 am - Scottsdale, AZ -"Islamic Fundamentalism and Extremism" is topic at AFIO Arizona Luncheon Meeting

Special Agent Kim Jensen of the Phoenix FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force will discuss "Islamic Fundamentalism and Extremism" at this special luncheon being held by the Arizona Chapter. The event runs from 11:30 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m. The event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260) Our meeting fees will be as follows: • $20.00 for AFIO members• $22.00 for guests. For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.

Saturday, 13 November 2010, 11am - 3pm - Orange Park, FL - North Florida Chapter meets to discuss Iran and Nuclear Power in the late 1970s. Mr. Roger C. Nichols, discusses his observations of Iran during its turbulent time in the late 1970s where he served on behalf of Westinghouse Atomic Power Division. In 1978 he was in Iran as the country manager for
Power Systems to implement sales and construction of nuclear power plants for the Government of Iran. However, the program was terminated in late 1988 due to the departure of the Shah and the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran and to power.
Chapter Event takes place at the Country Club at Orange Park, Florida.
RSVP to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or call 904-545-9549. before the 1st of November

13 - 20 November 2010 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - SPYCRUISE to Grand Turks, Turks & Caicos; San Juan, PR; St. Thomas, USVI; and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - with National Security Speakers Discussing "Current & Future Threats: Policies, Problems and Prescriptions."

SPYCRUISE�: A National Security Educational Lecture/Seminar Series. The CI Centre and Henley-Putnam University are sponsoring a new SpyCruise�, November 13-20, 2010. Join them on the Holland American MS Eurodam as they set sail from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to the Grand Turks, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay in the Caribbean. Speakers include former DCI’s Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden plus many others. AFIO member and retired CIA operations officer Bart Bechtel continues his role as the “SpySkipper.” For more information about this year’s SpyCruise�, go to: http://spytrek.com/spycruise.html. RESERVATIONS: www.DFunTravel.com or call 1-888-670-0008.
Fees for an eight day cruise: $1,199 inside cabin; $1269 Ocean View Cabin; $1449 Verandahs; $1979 Suites. Price includes program, taxes, port charges and gratuities. Colorful brochure here.

Wednesday, 17 November 2010, 5 pm - by voice conference - The Miami-Dade Chapter of AFIO hosts their Annual Meeting and Elections by telephone conference. These Elections will be for Officers and Directors. The Elective Officers are President, President-Elect, Secretary and Treasurer. All officers and directors must be members of the National organization and be current in dues. All officers must also be directors. There will be no less than 9 directors. We are giving this notice in advance for the 2011 year ( starting January 1, 2011), so that you can be thinking about your role in the leadership for next year. Current President Tom Spencer will not be standing for election either as an officer or a director, since it is time for a change. Please consider becoming an active member of the chapter for a few years, starting 2011. To participate, contact Tom Spencer at trsmiami@aol.com or at 305-790-4715 for details.

18 November 2010, 12:30-2:30pm - Los Angeles, CA - AFIO L.A. Area Chapter Meeting features Deputy Sheriff Jerry Shultz on "CIA and the Phoenix Program"

Guest speaker retired Deputy Sheriff Jerry L. Shultz, will speak to us about his nine years in Vietnam and his current responsibilities as a recruiter for the California State Military Reserve. Jerry served four combat tours in Vietnam in the Army and remained in Vietnam for five more years. He was on loan to the CIA for the Phoenix program run by MACV/CORDS and will share with us his experiences in that highly controversial and highly classified project. Meeting will take place on November 18, 12:30-2:30 PM at the LMU campus, refreshments will be served, please RSVP via email AFIO_LA@yahoo.com by no later than November 12, 2010.

Thursday, 18 November 2010, 11:30 am Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Vice President William D. Kappel, Applied Weather Associates, Monument, CO who will speak on Global Warming. Both science and intelligence have to work with incomplete and sometimes contradicting data. How can a valid conclusion be reached with reasonable confidence? The sample topic we will examine is global warming, specifically if it is human induced. A topic, that is controversial, has lots of scientific data and opinion, is either very important for future world stability and security if true but not perceived as true now, or for unnecessary large economic disruption if not true but perceived as true now. To be held at the new location AFA... Eisenhower Golf Course Club House. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

Thursday, 18 November 2010, 6:30 pm - "Uneasy Alliance: The CIA and ISI in Pakistan" at the International Spy Museum

"CIA and ISI operatives depend on each other for their lives…" - so says an anonymous senior ISI official, December 2009
As the U.S. hunts down Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, the CIA appears to be working closely with the Pakistan Intelligence Service (ISI). But the two services have a long and rocky history with frequent betrayal by ISI members saying one thing, and aiding the Taliban behind-the-scenes. While the ISI has helped with the capture of Afghan Taliban leaders, some they have released Taliban figures they caught on their own. What is the future of this relationship? Are the CIA and ISI endgames compatible? Join this panel of experts as they explore what's opinions of what's happening on the ground in Pakistan and a few predictions for the future: Farhana Ali, senior lecturer, AFPAK Team, Booz, Allen & Hamilton; Seth Jones, RAND analyst and author of Counterinsurgency in Pakistan; and Shuja Nawaz, director, South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Fee: Tickets: $12.50 To register, visit www.spymuseum.org

20 November 2010, 2 pm - Kennebunk, ME - The Maine Chapter of AFIO hosts Dr. Ali Ahmida of the Political Science Department, University of New England, speaking on what it means -- to him --to be a practicing Muslim, the significance of the Quran and the practice of Shari'a law. Dr. Ahmida was born in Waddan, Libya. He received a B. A. from Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt and an M. A. and Ph. D. in political science from the University of Seattle, in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Ahmida is an internationally recognized scholar of North African history and politics with a specialty in political theory, comparative politics, and historical sociology. He has authored a number of books as well as many articles and book reviews and has lectured in various U.S., Canadian, European, Middle Eastern and African colleges and universities. Dr. Ahmida lives in Saco, Maine, with his wife and two children. The meeting is open to the public and will be held on November 20, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. at the Community Center, 9 Temple Street, Kennebunkport, ME. For information call 207-967-4298.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities" the topic covered by Dr. John Alexander at AFIO Las Vegas Event. The Roger E. McCarthy, Las Vegas Chapter Meeting will feature John B. Alexander, Ph.D. speaking on "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities." The event takes place at the Nellis Air Force Base Officers' Club
(Guest names must be submitted to Mary Bentley along with their birth date by 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 23rd
For over half a century the intelligence community frequently has been linked to UFOs. This presentation will provide an insider's look at the myths and realities that abound. For many years, Dr. Alexander directed an ad hoc, multiagency study of the subject. Participants, all of whom held TS/SCI clearances, included military officers, IC members, and defense aerospace industry engineers. The investigation led him to many of the most senior officials in the IC as well as the director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Dr. Edward Teller, Skunk Works president Ben Rich and many others. What they learned was not what they expected. This presentation includes hard and compelling evidence that supports some cases while equally eviscerating many of the popular myths of the true believers and fallacious arguments of skeptics/debunkers. The presentation is based on his book of the same title with foreword by Jacques Vallee, and introduction by aerospace legend Burt Rutan scheduled for release in February, 2011. For further information or to make reservations, email BentleyM@nv.doe.gov or call me anytime at 702-295-1024. We look forward to seeing you!

2 December 2010 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts W. Michael Susong, on Global Electronic Crime.
Michael Susong is Director of Information Security Intelligence at Pacific Gas & Electric Company and former CIA Operations officer on the State of the Art of Electronic Crime and Cyber Warfare. The presentation will give a non-technical overview of the global electronic crime players, their tools, techniques and tactics. RSVP and pre-payment required. The meeting will be held at UICC, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat/Wawona): 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate pot roast or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

Monday 13 December 2010, 5:30 pm - New York, NY - "Status of US Intelligence Capabilities" by former CIA Officer Aris Pappas, is theme of NY Metro Chapter Meeting
Speaker: Aris Pappas, CIA 32 years - Over this period he was an Analyst, Managed Operations, and held other Senior Positions. Now a Senior Director with Microsoft Corporation. Topic: "Status of Our Intelligence Capabilities"
Registration 5:30 PM Meeting 6:00 PM.
Cost $40. Includes three course buffet dinner, cash bar.
Location: Manhattan "3 West Club" 3 West 51st Street
Advance Reservations Required: Email afiometro@yahoo.com or telephone Jerry Goodwin 347-334-1503.

For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events

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