Western Intel

Australian spies participating in global deal to tap undersea cables

"The British Government Communications Headquarters is collecting all data transmitted to and from the UK and Northern Europe via the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable that runs from Japan, via Singapore, Djibouti, Suez and the Straits of Gibraltar to Northern Germany. Singaporean intelligence co-operates with Australia in accessing and sharing communications carried by the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable which lands at Tuas on the western side of Singapore Island. Access to this major international telecommunications channel via Singapore's government-owned operator SingTel and the country's Defence Ministry has been a key element in an expansion of Australian-Singaporean intelligence and defence ties." Continue reading →

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Hacker: US government tricked Anonymous into attacking foreign targets

"Just as a former member of Anonymous accuses the United States government of coercing hackers to do their dirty work in America’s cyberwars, the sentencing hearing for the group’s alleged ex-ringleader has been mysteriously delayed yet again. News has surfaced that the hacker-turned-informant who compromised the underground movement for the FBI and helped facilitate Hammond’s arrest will remain free for now. Hector Xavier Monsegur, a single father from New York involved with a number of high-profile hacks carried out by Anonymous and its offshoots, pleaded guilty to a dozen criminal counts two years prior and stands to face more a maximum sentence of more than 124 years." Continue reading →

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Snowden reveals US intelligence’s black budget: $52.6 billion on secret programs

"Despite the hefty cost of operating the secret operations amid sequestration, excerpts from the summary leaked by Snowden show that the US still has significant setbacks keeping it from achieving its intelligence goals. For one, the disclosure in and of itself demonstrates the intelligence community’s inability to prevent sensitive information from being leaked. For those nations of upmost interest, the intelligence community is investing heavily on 'offensive cyber operations' launched by the CIA and NSA to hack foreign competitors, steal data and sabotage servers, at a time when, domestically, so-called cybercriminals are prosecuted at an alarming rate for comparably less harsh crimes." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden reveals US intelligence’s black budget: $52.6 billion on secret programs

Snowden Leak: U.S. Paying Contractors Ten Times as Much as Bureaucrats

"While contractors represent fewer than 20 percent of the workforce, 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to them, according to a figure from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Agency (DNI) at a Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). That rare peek behind the veil is likely still relatively accurate. Traditionally the lion's share of this money has gone to Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC), Honeywell Int'l Inc. (HON) (via is Science Applications Int'l Corp. subsidiary), Raytheon Comp. (RTN), Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), and Edward Snowden's former firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Comp. (BAH)." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden Leak: U.S. Paying Contractors Ten Times as Much as Bureaucrats

U.S. spying still under shadow of Iraq intelligence failures

"In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, the CIA and other intelligence services confidently asserted that Saddam Hussein’s regime had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But it turned out the intelligence community was 'dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,' according to an official inquiry, the Silberman-Robb report. The spy services failed to collect solid information, botched their analysis and reached conclusions based on flawed assumptions instead of evidence, making it 'one of the most public — and most damaging — intelligence failures in recent American history,' the 2005 report said." Continue reading →

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Leaked documents show massive expansion of CIA budget

"The CIA has mushroomed into the largest US spy agency with a nearly $15 billion budget as it expands intelligence, cyber sabotage and overseas covert operations, secret leaked documents showed Thursday. It shows a dramatic resurgence of the Central Intelligence Agency, once thought to be on the decline after it acknowledged intelligence failures prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It now is the dominant colossus within the national intelligence community, expanding its workforce by more than 25 percent from a decade ago, to 21,575 this year." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLeaked documents show massive expansion of CIA budget

Washington Post: U.S. $53 billion ‘Black budget’ details leaked by Snowden

"U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget. The $52.6 billion 'black budget' for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. The Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWashington Post: U.S. $53 billion ‘Black budget’ details leaked by Snowden

Julian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

"Google started out as part of Californian graduate student culture around San Francisco’s Bay Area. But as Google grew it encountered the big bad world. It encountered barriers to its expansion in the form of complex political networks and foreign regulations, it started leaning heavily on the State Department for support, and by doing so it entered into the Washington DC system. A recently released statistic shows that Google now spends even more money than Lockheed Martin on paid lobbyists in Washington. That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJulian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

Has The CIA’s Phoenix Program Been Resurrected In Syria?

"Phoenix went far beyond aspirations of 'winning' in Vietnam. The program utilized a 'by any means necessary' strategy to warfare that included the use of random assassination and the FABRICATION of enemy atrocities in order to rally the civilian population around U.S. forces. PRU operators routinely targeted the backwater villages of Vietnam, killing at least 20,000 civilians as later admitted by CIA Director William Colby. The slaughter of villages was frequently blamed on the Vietcong, while PRU's ran rampant in the jungles, physically mutilating victims in order to draw greater emotional reactions from Southern citizens as well as oblivious Americans back home." Continue reading →

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Israeli intelligence ‘intercepted Syrian regime talk about chemical attack’

"The bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime's deployment of chemical weapons – which would provide legal grounds essential to justify any western military action – has been provided by Israeli military intelligence. The 8200 unit of the Israeli Defence Forces, which specialises in electronic surveillance, intercepted a conversation between Syrian officials regarding the use of chemical weapons, an unnamed former Mossad official told Focus. The content of the conversation was relayed to the US, the ex-official said. Israel and the US had a 'close and co-operative relationship in the intelligence field', he added, but declined to comment specifically on the Focus report." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIsraeli intelligence ‘intercepted Syrian regime talk about chemical attack’