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HavenWorks.com/intelligence/archive/2002 |
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- "Iraq
welcomes 'American intelligence' to weapons hunt:
Denies 'material omissions' in declaration." ... "Iraq's top government
scientist Sunday said his country would welcome "someone from American
intelligence" to show U.N. weapons inspectors where President Bush believes
Iraq is hiding its weapons programs." ... "Gen. Amir Al-Saadi said U.S.
and British claims that Iraq is hiding nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons programs are "old rehashed reports," some from as far back as 1990,
that Iraq has already disproved." ... ""We even wouldn't mind if someone
from the American intelligence were to accompany the inspection teams to
show them the places in which they allege there is something," he said."
-CNN /World
-
- "U.S.
Said to Ready Kurd Areas in Iraq for Possible War."
... "American intelligence officials have been working alongside Kurdish
officials in recent weeks, and recruiters for an American-sponsored opposition
group have been selecting candidates for a program to train scouts and
translators that one day may help American forces inside Iraq, according
to Kurdish and Western officials." ... "American military planners have
visited secluded corners of the country to examine potential basing sites
for use in a war, according to a Western expert familiar with the activity."
... "No American military forces are based here yet, Kurdish officials
say, and recent Turkish and Arabic news reports of sizable military deployments
appear unfounded." (1, 2)
-By C. J. Chivers -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
-
- "US
agrees to share Iraq intelligence." ... "The United
States says it will share intelligence data about Iraq with United Nations
weapons inspectors following a request from chief inspector Hans Blix."
... "The agreement comes while the US is preparing for a rapid increase
in its military strength in the Middle East, almost doubling the number
of troops near Iraq." ... "Mr Blix told the BBC on Friday that, if US officials
knew where they thought Iraq was storing banned materials, he could send
his inspection teams to check." -BBC/News
- 
-
- "Blair tells
his forces to prepare for war, but Blix seeks data."
... "The United States and Britain should give United Nations weapons inspectors
more intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, chief
inspector Hans Blix said Friday." ... "Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile,
told British troops he was making "all the preparations necessary" for
war." ... ""If the U.K. and the U.S. ... have evidence, then one would
expect that they would be able to tell us where this stuff is," Blix told
the British Broadcasting Corp. radio." -By Jill Lawless
-AP via -IHT.com
TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Federal
database spy site fading away." ... "Call it the
incredibly shrinking government Web site." ... "As controversy grows over
the Defense Department's shadowy Total Information Awareness (TIA) project,
the project's virtual presence is steadily decreasing. If fully implemented,
TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical
insurers, and motor vehicle databases for police convenience in hopes of
snaring terrorists." ... "First, biographical information about the TIA
project leaders, including retired Adm. John Poindexter, disappeared from
the Defense Department's site last month. A mirror
that one activist created from Google's cache shows the deleted information
included four resumes listing past work experience but no addresses or
contact information." -By Declan McCullagh-CNET
/News
-
- "U.S.
officials: Saddam ready to target his own country, blame U.S."
... "Iraq is preparing to destroy its own oil fields, food supplies and
power plants and blame the destruction on U.S. bombs during a war, U.S.
intelligence officials said Wednesday." ... "The officials, briefing reporters
at the Pentagon, said they have evidence Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
has plans to wreck his own infrastructure to foster a humanitarian crisis
and turn international opinion against any U.S. and British advance into
his territory." ... "Citing the need to protect intelligence sources, the
officials declined to describe that evidence. They spoke on condition of
anonymity." -By John J. Lumpkin
-AP via -SFGate.com
OPINION
- 
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Snooping
in All the Wrong Places: Not only would the
Administration's plan to centralize every American's records destroy privacy,
the security payoff would be minimal." ... "The 2002 elections proved one
thing: The promise of security wins votes. The GOP campaigned on a pledge
to make the country safer, and it brought home one of the biggest midterm
victories in decades. That huge win may have emboldened the Bush Administration
to ignore widespread criticism of the Defense Dept.'s $240 million effort
to develop a Total Information Awareness system (TIA)." ... "The outrage
over TIA doesn't seem to have reached the President's ear, but it should.
It's not too late for him to realize the folly of such a plan. Funded by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project would
combine every American's bank records, tax filings, driver's license information,
credit-card purchases, medical data, and phone and e-mail records into
one giant centralized database. This would then be combed through for evidence
of suspicious activity." -By Jane Black
-BusinessWeek/Daily
- 
- "C.I.A.
Chief Prospers From Bond With Bush." ... "When George
W. Bush was president-elect, he got some fateful advice about his daily
C.I.A. briefing from a man who would know." ... "Mr. Bush's father, the
only president to have served as C.I.A. director, was in the unique position
of having both given and received the secret morning updates, and often
told friends that his time in the 1970's at the C.I.A. headquarters in
Langley, Va., was one of the best jobs he ever had." ... "He unequivocally
instructed his son, said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff,
to develop a close relationship with the person who ran the spy organization
and oversaw the other intelligence agencies that make up America's covert
empire." (1, 2)
-By Elisabeth Bumiller
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "The
web bites back." ... "Protesters are turning the
tables on government officials and businessmen who they say are making
the web less pleasant to use." ... "The web activists have found the personal
details of the man behind a federal surveillance system [John Poindexter]
and an e-mail spammer [Alan Ralsky] and are giving them a dose of their
own medicine." -BBC/News
- "Iraqi
jet tried to trap U.S. jets." ... "An Iraqi fighter
jet attempted to lead two U.S. fighter planes over a battery of surface-to-air
missiles Friday in the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, Pentagon officials
told CNN." ... "Aware of the missiles' location, the U.S. planes turned
south to avoid the potential trap, a Defense Department spokesman said.
The pilots knew the location of the missiles because of training and coalition
surveillance capabilities, the spokesman said." -By
Kris Osborn -CNN
/World
- "Report: Al
Qaeda deal for nerve gas: U.S. suspects nerve
agent VX was smuggled through Turkey." ... "The Bush administration has
received a credible report that Islamic extremists affiliated with al Qaeda
took possession of a chemical weapon in Iraq last month or late in October,
according to two officials with firsthand knowledge of the report and its
source. They said government analysts suspect that the transaction involved
the nerve agent VX and that a courier managed to smuggle it overland through
Turkey." ... "Even authorized spokesmen, with one exception, addressed
the report on the condition of anonymity. They said the principal source
on the chemical transfer was uncorroborated, and that indications it involved
a nerve agent were open to interpretation." -By Barton
Gellman -WashingtonPost
via -MSNBC
-
- "Key
factor: Iraqi scientists: US dampens expectations
of 'smoking gun' on Iraq weapons and urges access to scientists." ... "...
increasingly, experts are pointing to only one sure way to reveal the true
scale of Iraq's weapons programs: talking to the Iraqi scientists who built
the programs." ... "The UN's ability to talk with Iraqi scientists may
turn on chief UN inspector Hans Blix's willingness to use a robust new
plank in the UN disarmament mandate that permits the UN to spirit out of
Iraq specialists and their families. The scientists could then speak freely
without fear of reprisal from Saddam Hussein's regime." -By
Scott Peterson -CSMonitor
- "Soldier
Pleads in Classified Photo Case: Soldier Pleads
Guilty in Attempted Sale of Photos of Top-Secret Military Facility." ...
"A soldier has pleaded guilty to trying to sell a newspaper photographs
of a top-secret bunker where U.S. government leaders would be taken in
a nuclear attack." -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
- 
- "Military’s
use of satellites probed: Investigation launched
amid complaints of unfair advantages." ... "The General Accounting Office
is investigating the Defense Department’s use of commercial satellites,
after competitors complained that Washington-based Intelsat Ltd. has an
unfair advantage in a growing market." ... "Intelsat, incorporated in Bermuda,
is owned by companies and governments in 148 nations, including Iraq and
Iran. Its satellites help the U.S. military communicate with soldiers in
far-flung outposts." ... "The GAO investigation coincides with the Pentagon’s
increasing dependence on commercial satellite providers to provide extra
bandwidth, industry experts say. Government satellite programs have faced
delays and cost overruns even as information has become a key part of battlefield
strategy, they said." -By Renae Merle-WashingtonPost
via -MSNBC
Law
Enforcement News
- "Feds
Raid Software Firm." ... "Federal agents who raided
a Quincy, Mass., software firm Thursday night continue to look for monetary
connections to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, but sources say the firm's
software appears safe." ... "Ptech Inc., a developer of business-process
modeling software, was raided late Thursday night by U.S. Customs Service
agents, according to law enforcement officials. But initial concerns that
the company's technology may have compromised the security of its customers,
which include the FBI, the Department of Energy, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, the Navy, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration
and the U.S. House of Representatives, now appear unfounded, according
to authorities." (1, 2)
-By Renee Boucher Ferguson, Dennis Fisher and Chris
Gonsalves -eWEEK
-
- "Iraq
inspectors hit back at criticism." ... "UN weapons
inspectors in Iraq have defended themselves after accusations by Baghdad
of spying and suggestions by Washington that searches are not "aggressive"
enough." ... ""We believe we are doing the job we need to be doing. We
have been unannounced and thorough," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman
for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors are
helping with the search." ... "Ms Fleming rejected allegations of espionage,
but added that if any inspector were found to be a spy, he would be immediately
dismissed." -BBC/News
- 
-
- "U.S.
Criticizes North Korea for Rejecting Inspections."
... "The White House issued a muted criticism of North Korea today, saying
it was "disappointing" that North Korea had rejected a demand for inspections
of its newly revealed program to develop nuclear weapons from highly enriched
uranium." ... "The demand came from the International Atomic Energy Agency,
the nuclear inspection and regulatory organization linked to the United
Nations." ... "The White House comments appeared to be part of a strategy
to defuse any sense of imminent confrontation with North Korea, which the
Central Intelligence Agency believes is still a few years away from producing
a nuclear weapon from its uranium program." -David
E. Sanger -NYTimes
via -Moreover
-
- 
- "Iraq
criticizes surprise search at palace: U.N.
field chief defends team's work." ... "After a week of uneventful inspections,
U.N. weapons experts on Wedneday came under furious Iraqi attack for having
insisted on a no-notice search of one of President Saddam Hussein's palaces."
... "The harshest criticism came from Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan,
who asserted -- in language reminiscent of clashes with inspectors in the
1990s -- that the new teams of U.N. monitors are gathering intelligence
for Washington and Israel." ... "Ramadan, known for his fiery statements,
offered no evidence for his claim about the current inspectors, only citing
U.S. agents within the inspection agency of the 1990s."
-SHNS/Wire
via -Miami/Herald
-
-
- "Iraq
accuses inspectors of spying for U.S. and Israel."
... "Iraq on Wednesday accused U.N. arms inspectors of being U.S. and Israeli
spies and helping Washington prepare for possible war on Baghdad, but the
United States cooled any talk of imminent military action." ... ""The inspectors
have come to provide better circumstances and more precise information
for a coming aggression," Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said,
speaking just after Baghdad promised to carry on cooperating with the United
Nations." ... ""This is not an accusation, because the inspectors, from
day one, their foremost work was spying. Their work was spying for the
CIA and Mossad together," he said, referring to the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency and Israel's secret service." -By Nadim Ladki
and Carol Giacomo -Reuters
- 
- "CIA
Target: Americans: Officials: U.S. Citizens
Working for Al Qaeda Can Be Killed in CIA Actions." ... "American citizens
working for al Qaeda overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the
CIA under President Bush's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials
say." ... "The authority to kill U.S. citizens is granted under a secret
finding signed by the president after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that
directs the CIA to covertly attack al Qaeda anywhere in the world. The
authority makes no exception for Americans, so permission to strike them
is understood rather than specifically described, officials said." ...
"Previously, the government's authority to kill a citizen outside of the
judicial process has been generally restricted to when the American is
directly threatening the lives of other Americans or their allies." -By
John J. Lumpkin -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
TIA:
Total Information Awareness
-
- Law
Enforcement News
- "Why
the Pentagon will watch where you shop: New
Total Information Awareness project will sniff company databases for terrorists."
... "Should Uncle Sam know as much about you as MasterCard does?" ... "In
essence, that may be the key question posed by the Pentagon's new Total
Information Awareness (TIA) project." ... "This effort - whose Latin motto
[Scientia Est Potentia] translates as "knowledge is power" - aims to create
huge databases that sift through the purchases, travel, immigration status,
income, and other data of hundreds of millions of Americans. Its purpose:
to sniff out the terrorists among us." ... ""There are three parts to the
TIA project," says Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition,
technology, and logistics." ... "The first part of the technology is voice
recognition, which would include sifting through electronically recorded
transmissions and provide rapid translations of foreign languages." ...
"The second part is to develop a tool that would discover connections between
transactions, such as passports, airline tickets, rental cars, gun or chemical
purchases, as well as arrests and other suspicious activities." ... "And
the third part is collaborative - a mechanism to allow information-and
analysis-sharing among agencies." ... ""If [the testing] proves useful,"
Mr. Aldridge says, "TIA will then be turned over to the intelligence, counterintelligence,
and law enforcement communities as a tool to help them in their battle
against domestic terrorism."" -By Faye Bowers and
Peter Grier
-CSMonitor/buy
- "Saddam’s sons
wield ample power: Both are brutal, but youngest
being groomed to lead Iraq." ... "According to U.S. intelligence officials
and Iraqi dissidents, Uday [the older brother at 36] has used his position
as head of Iraqi TV and Babel, the country’s biggest newspaper, to sell
advertising that local businessmen are “encouraged” to buy if they want
to remain in business." ... "Uday is also the head of Fedayeen, the paramilitary
group to which more than one-third of all government workers now belong."
... "At 34, Qasay [also: Qusai Saddam Hussein] is increasingly seen as
the second most powerful man in Iraq after his father." ... "He is a member
of the nation’s highest body, the Revolutionary Command Council; commander
of the Special Security Organization and the Republican Guard; and deputy
commander of the Baath Party’s Military Bureau." ... "Qasay’s key role,
though, is head of the Special Security Organization, which controls all
security and intelligence operations of the regime, monitoring the myriad
organizations assigned to both domestic and overseas spying. It is also
the innermost of the concentric rings of security around Saddam." -By
Robert Windrem -MSNBC
- "Military space
programs face delays: Officials say defense
programs are over budget, ‘in trouble’" ... "Senior military and defense-industry
officials are acknowledging that most of the nation’s largest military-space
programs —including the satellites needed to construct an elaborate missile-defense
shield over the U.S. —are behind schedule and over budget." ... "Among
the space programs experiencing problems are the two satellite systems
needed to deploy a ground-based missile-defense system: both have been
restructured this year after delays related to design and integration issues.
The National Reconnaissance Office’s next-generation spy satellites, known
as Future Imagery Architecture, are more than a year delayed and almost
$3 billion over cost, spurring an internal Pentagon debate about whether
to proceed with the program at all, say people familiar with the discussions."
-By Anne Marie Squeo -WSJ.com
via -MSNBC
- "Two
freed in Kenya attack probe." ... "On Friday, police
found two launchers and two unused surface-to-air missiles less than a
quarter mile from the end of the runway where the Arkia Boeing 757 narrowly
escaped being shot down as it took off." ... "Israeli intelligence sources
said the missiles used in the attack were "almost certainly SA-7s, or Strela
missiles."" ... "Israel's Mossad spy agency, which has a long record of
hunting terror suspects, is leading the investigation into the twin attacks
on Israeli tourists in Kenya." -CNN
/World
/Asia
- "Al
Qaeda blamed as attack on Israelis in Kenya kills 15."
... "Suicide bombers blew up a hotel in Kenya on Thursday, killing 15 people,
minutes after missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off nearby,
in apparently synchronised attacks on Israeli tourists." ... "Israeli and
Kenyan officials swiftly blamed the al Qaeda network but Washington said
it was premature to point the finger at the group it holds responsible
for the September 11 attacks on the United States." ... "A Kenyan security
source said it was believed attackers who targeted the Israeli airliner
used shoulder-borne missile launchers. German intelligence sources described
the weapons as Soviet produced SA 7 ground-to-air missiles." -By
Noel Mwakughu -Reuters/Asia
- "U.N.
inspectors complete surprise visits at two sites in Iraq."
... "International arms monitors searched a military missile-testing range
and a state factory outside Baghdad Wednesday, starting a new round of
inspections that could determine the future of peace in the Middle East."
... "Inspectors did not immediately disclose their findings." ... "On the
basis of satellite photos, U.S. intelligence analysts have suggested that
a new, square, steel-girder stand for holding and testing missile engines
at al-Rafah might be used for missiles larger than allowed under U.N. resolutions.
Iraq is forbidden to develop missiles over 90 miles in range."
-AP via -USATODAY
- "Security
overhaul OK'd: Reorganization to be the largest
in 50 years." ... "The Senate overwhelming approved the creation of a new
Department of Homeland Security yesterday, paving the way for the biggest
federal government reorganization in a half century and putting to rest
a contentious political issue." ... "By a 90-to-9 vote during the final
hours of an unusual lame-duck session, senators agreed to move 170,000
employees from 22 existing government agencies into a single department
dedicated to domestic security." ... "It will be the largest governmental
reorganization since 1947, when the United States realigned its military
under the Department of Defense and created the National Security Council
and the CIA." -By Susan Milligan
-Boston/Globe
- "Court
Overturns Limits on Wiretaps to Combat Terror." ...
"A special federal appeals court ruled today [20021118]
that the Justice Department has broad new powers under the antiterrorism
bill enacted last year to use wiretaps obtained for intelligence operations
to prosecute terrorists." ... "The immediate effect of the ruling by the
three-member panel is that criminal prosecutors may now take an active
role in deciding how to use wiretaps authorized by a special intelligence
court and should have greater access to information obtained from them.
For more than 20 years, prosecutors have been prohibited from making decisions
on which intelligence wiretaps to apply for because the standards of proof
are widely believed to be lower than for regular criminal wiretaps." ...
"But the judges today said that the passage of the legislation, the USA
Patriot Act, ensured that there is no wall between officials from the intelligence
and criminal arms of the Justice Department. In fact, the judges asserted
that the 20-year-old practice of keeping the two largely separate was never
required and was never intended by Congress." (1, 2)
-By
Neil A. Lewis -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
Osama
bin Laden
- "Bin
Laden Tape Authentic, U.S. Intelligence Officials Say."
... "Linguists at the National Security Agency who have been assigned for
many years to study bin Laden's voice and analyze tape recordings and intercepts
of his suspected conversations have no doubt it is the voice of al Qaeda's
leader. But the quality of the tape, in which bin Laden is believed to
be speaking into a telephone that is near a tape recorder's microphone,
is not good enough to allow a 100 percent certainty that it is him, a U.S.
intelligence official said." -By Dana Priest and Susan
Schmidt -WashingtonPost
- "U.S.
Turns Horn of Africa Into a Military Hub." ... "For
the first time since American troops withdrew from Somalia after a bloody
firefight in the streets of Mogadishu, the United States military is rebuilding
its combat power in the Horn of Africa." ... "The main goal this time is
to put American forces in position to strike cells of Al Qaeda in Yemen
or East Africa. But the Pentagon has also begun to use Djibouti to train
its forces in desert warfare — skills that could be applied in Washington's
campaign against terrorist groups or on the battlefields of Iraq." ...
"France, which had colonized Djibouti (pronounced ji-BOOT-e) before it
became independent in 1977, still maintains a force of 2,800 strong here.
Djibouti, in fact, is France's largest foreign military base." ... "The
Central Intelligence Agency is flying classified missions from an airfield
in Djibouti using the Predator, an pilotless drone equipped with Hellfire
missiles, according to Western officers." (1, 2,
3)
-By Michael R. Gordon
-NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
Law
Enforcement News
- "FBI
warns of risk of al-Qaida attack." ... "Two days
after intelligence experts said an audiotaped threat indicated terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden was still alive, the FBI has warned that al-Qaida is likely
to attempt a “spectacular” attack intended to inflict large-scale casualties
and damage the U.S. economy. The warning was unusual because of its dire
language, but NBC’s Pete Williams reported that the alert was not based
on any new alarming information, and officials described it as the latest
in a regular series of warnings it sends out to local law enforcement officers."
... "The FBI law enforcement bulletin circulated Thursday to officials
nationwide contains no information about the timing, location or method
of a possible attack." -MSNBC
Osama
bin Laden -
"As
New Tape Is Evaluated, Bush Calls Qaeda Threat Real."
... "The White House has been told that government linguistics experts
believe the voice on a new audiotape praising recent terror attacks and
broadcast on Arab television is Osama bin Laden's, administration officials
said today [20021113]."
... "Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency
were carefully scrutinizing the tape, which was first broadcast on Al Jazeera,
the satellite television channel based in Qatar, on Tuesday. Officials
said that although it was being subjected to digital analysis, it was of
such poor quality that experts would probably be unable to determine its
authenticity conclusively. Even so, specialists were conducting still more
comprehensive tests." -By
James Risen with Judith Miller -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
Osama
bin Laden -
"Experts
scrutinize bin Laden message." ... "U.S. intelligence
experts scrutinized a recorded message reportedly from terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden on Wednesday, the first evidence in a year that the elusive
leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network is still alive. Although CIA analysis
was not yet complete, U.S. officials told NBC News that the voice on the
audiotape, which praises recent attacks, is that of bin Laden. “It’s him,”
a senior official said." ... "Steve Emerson, a terrorism expert, told NBC’s
“Today” show Wednesday that “the voice is very similar.” Emerson described
the detailed tests CIA voice analysts are conducting on the recording as
“sort of like a DNA check of somebody’s tissue. They’re going to determine
with 100 percent certainty whether it’s his (voice), and I think it is.”"
-MS-NBC
- Law
Enforcement News
- Bali
bombings - "Bali
Suspect Said Student of Cleric Prime Suspect in Bali:
Bombings Studied Under Militant Muslim Cleric, Investigator Says." ...
"A top investigator on Monday said the prime suspect in the Bali bombings
studied under a detained Muslim cleric who heads the group that foreign
intelligence services blame for the attack." ... "Police have been trying
to establish a link between Amrozi and Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual
leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah organization, since they arrested Amrozi
last week." ... "Bashir is currently detained for a series of church bombings
in 2000. He has not been named a suspect in the Bali blasts."
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- Law
Enforcement News
- Bali
bombings - "10
now sought in Bali probe." ... "Bali bombing suspect,
Amrozi, has given police several names of others linked to the attack,
including his brothers, friends and co-workers, police sources said Sunday."
... "Several of those wanted by police include foreigners, according to
intelligence sources." ... "Police spokesman Edward Aritonang said, while
Amrozi has admitted to knowing Ba'asyir and another JI leader, Riduan Isamuddin
-- also known as Hambali -- he has not mentioned their involvement in the
Bali attack." -Report contributed to by Atika Shubert
-CNN /World
/Asia
TIA:
Total Information Awareness - 
- "Pentagon
Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans."
... "As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described
the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence
analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information
from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions
and travel documents, without a search warrant." ... "Historically, military
and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without
extraordinary legal authorization." ... "In order to deploy such a system,
known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed,
some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland
Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend
the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies
could do with private information." (1, 2)
-By John Markoff -NYTimes
via -LawMeme
-
- "Clock
Ticks for Hussein After Security Council Vote." ...
"By all accounts, United Nations inspectors will do very little inspecting
and will base their appraisal of Iraqi cooperation on the accuracy of the
"confession" that Mr. Hussein will have to make about the weapons projects
whose existence he had denied and which administration officials have said
he has been hiding in secret bunkers, underground caves and mobile laboratories."
... "But if Mr. Hussein fails to meet the detailed demands of the United
Nations inspection force, or if his disclosures do not tally with information
supplied to inspectors by American and other Western intelligence agencies,
Mr. Bush made clear today that the United States would declare him in "material
breach" of the Security Council resolution." (1, 2)
-By Patrick E. Tyler -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
- Law
Enforcement News
- Bali
bombings - "Americans
were the target of Bali bombings, investigator says, citing key suspect."
... "The reported confession of an Indonesian man identified as Amrozi
has prompted more arrests and linked the blasts to a fugitive, Riduan Isamudin,
also known as Hambali, who has been tied to the Sept. 11 hijackers." ...
"Blame for the attack is increasingly turning to Jemaah Islamiyah the al-Qaida
linked terror group said to be seeking a pan-Islamic state in Southeast
Asia." ... "Two security experts citing militant and intelligence sources
said Friday that Jemaah Islamiyah leaders met in southern Thailand earlier
this year and agreed to target tourist venues like the Bali nightclubs.""
-By Steven Gutkin -AP
via -Boston/Globe
- "US
hits Qaeda in Yemen: Fires missile from spy
plane, killing 6 in car." ... "A US missile fired from a [Predator] spy
plane destroyed a car in a lawless stretch of northern Yemen Sunday, killing
a senior Al Qaeda leader and five other members in the first American military
strike against the terrorist group outside Afghanistan since the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks." ... "The Hellfire missile was fired from a CIA-controlled,
unmanned plane, according to US officials quoted by news agencies. The
Yemeni news agency SABA said initial information indicated the dead included
Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harithi, also known as Abu Ali." -By
Anthony Shadid -Boston/Globe
- Law
Enforcement
- "Interior
Department Struggles to Upgrade Its Police Forces."
... "The Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Hoover Dam and
half of the Alaska pipeline are all protected against terrorist attack
and other threats by police forces that auditors have long described as
ill trained, poorly managed, dysfunctional and, in some instances, corrupt."
... "The department has more than 4,300 officers in seven agencies, including
the United States Park Police, the National Park Service and the Bureau
of Land Management. They are responsible for protecting most of the nation's
historic icons, like Mount Rushmore and the Washington Monument, some of
which have been the target of terrorist threats in the last year. But few
of the agencies have intelligence or terrorism offices, or the ability
to gather crime and enforcement statistics." (1, 2)
-By Joel Brinkley -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- "Indonesian
police send team to see militant Bashir." ... "Foreign
intelligence officials believe [Abu Bakar] Bashir is a leader in the al
Qaeda-linked regional Jemaah Islamiah network, blamed for planning terrorism
acts throughout Southeast Asia. Some have linked it to last weekend's Bali
bombings that killed more than 180 people. Bashir has denied any links
to terrorism or knowledge of Jemaah Islamiah." -Reuters
-AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
-
- "Australia
says it fears bomb attacks in Jakarta." ... "The
Australian government said on Saturday it had received intelligence that
parts of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta may be bombed in attacks aimed
at Westerners and urged its citizens to leave."
-Reuters -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
-
- "U.S.
Says Pakistan Gave Technology to North Korea." ...
"American intelligence officials have concluded that Pakistan, a vital
ally since last year's terrorist attacks, was a major supplier of critical
equipment for North Korea's newly revealed clandestine nuclear weapons
program, current and former senior American officials said today [20021017]."
... "The trade between Pakistan and North Korea appears to have occurred
around 1997, roughly two years before Gen. Pervez Musharraf took power
in a bloodless coup. However, the relationship appears to have continued
after General Musharraf became president, and there is some evidence that
a commercial relationship between the two country's extended beyond Sept.
11 of last year.." (1, 2)
-By
David E. Sanger and James Dao -NYTimes
via -AltaVista-News
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "DARPA
developing info awareness." ... "The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency is developing a total information awareness system
to enable national security analysts to detect, classify, track, understand
and pre-empt terrorist attacks against the United States." ... "Total information
awareness incorporates transactional data systems, biometric authentication
technologies, intelligence data and automated virtual data repositories,
with the goal of creating an "end-to-end, closed-loop system," Popp said."
... "The office's budget for fiscal 2003 is about $150 million, up from
about $96 million last year, and a "significant amount" of that funding
is being spent on the total information awareness system, Popp said." -Dan
Caterinicchia
-FCW.com
- "U.S.
Not Certain if Pyongyang [North Korea] Has the Bomb."
... "Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted
that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development
program for the past several years, the Bush administration said tonight.
Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it has now
"nullified" its 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all nuclear
weapons development activity." ... "Administration officials refused to
say tonight [20021016]
whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear
weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would
administration officials who briefed reporters say whether they think North
Korea has produced such a weapon." (1, 2)
-By
David E. Sanger -NYTimes via
-AltaVista-News
- "Jakarta links
Bali bombing to Al Qaeda: Security boosted
at plants of U.S. energy companies." ... "In the government's most explicit
acknowledgment that Al Qaeda is operating in Indonesia, the defense minister
linked the terrorist group Monday to a nightclub explosion Saturday that
killed and wounded hundreds of people on the resort island of Bali." ...
"President George W. Bush, linking the bombing of a French oil tanker off
Yemen and the shooting of two U.S. Marines in Kuwait, said Monday that
the Bali explosion appeared to be part of "a pattern of attack" by Al Qaeda."
... "Australia said Monday it had information linking Al Qaeda to the Bali
bomb blasts, Reuters reported from Bali." -By Seth
Mydans -NYTimes
-IHT.com
- "Clues
Suggest Iraq Has Smallpox: Some Clues, Including
Camel Virus Experiment, Suggest Iraq Has Smallpox, Experts Say." ... "Clues
include U.N. weapons inspectors' discovery of a machine labeled "smallpox"
and Iraq's experimenting with a related virus that infects camels. The
official U.S. position, shared by some experts, is that the evidence is
inconclusive." ... ""I don't believe the intelligence community has a smoking
gun that Iraq possesses the virus," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N.
biological weapons inspector. "My impression is they're erring on the side
of caution on these bits of circumstantial evidence that are troubling
but not conclusive."" -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
- "Experts
skeptical of reports on al-Qaeda-Baghdad link." ...
"A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the new
assertions an "exaggeration." Other intelligence experts said some of the
charges appeared to be based on old information and that there was still
no "smoking gun" connecting Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States." ... "Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism chief," ....
"... accused the Bush administration of overstating uncorroborated information
from al-Qaeda detainees. "They're cooking the books," Cannistraro said."
-By Barbara Slavin and John Diamond
-USATODAY
- "U.S.
Has 'Solid Evidence' of Al Qaeda Operating in Iraq."
... "The United States has "solid evidence" senior al Qaeda operatives
have been in Baghdad, Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.
He could not confirm whether such individuals are still in Iraq." ... "The
secretary said intelligence shared among Coalition members about the al
Qaeda relationship with Iraq is "evolving" and of "varying degrees of reliability."
Some intelligence was culled from interviews with high-ranking al Qaeda
detainees in U.S. custody, Rumsfeld said during an afternoon Pentagon media
briefing." ... "Intelligence agencies have confirmed contacts between Iraq
and al Qaeda's leaders. Rumsfeld said the two entities have discussed "safe-
haven opportunities in Iraq (and) reciprocal nonaggression" agreements,
among other issues." ... ""The reports of these contacts have been increasing
since 1998," Rumsfeld said, and have expanded to include "credible evidence"
that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq for assistance in acquiring
weapons of mass destruction capabilities." ... "One report, in particular,
indicates that Iraq provided training in chemical and biological weapons
to al Qaeda." ... "Rumsfeld again reminded that the U.S. goal in dealing
with Iraq isn't finding absolute proof, but preventing attacks on America
and her allies." ... ""It is a puzzle," he said about drawing conclusions
from scraps of intelligence from various sources. "It is the task of taking
these disparate pieces and putting them together so that people can make
their own judgment."" ... -By Kathleen T. Rhem
-DefenseLINK.mil/news
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "DARPA
seeks ‘total information awareness’." ... "Biometric,
language processing, predictive modeling and database technologies are
all key areas of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s revamped
strategy to assist homeland security." -By Patricia
Daukantas
-GCN.com
- "IAEA
Says Can't Prove Iraq Making Nuclear Weapons." ...
"The United Nations nuclear watchdog said Monday it had information [satellite
images] that could indicate Iraq was attempting to revive its nuclear weapons
program, but on-site inspections were needed to draw clear conclusions."
-Reuters via -ABCNEWS.com
- "Key
9/11 plotter seized in Pakistan." ... "U.S. officials
say Pakistan is holding one of America's most wanted al Qaeda operatives
-- a man who by his own recorded admission played a key role in the September
11 attacks." ... "Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni national, was arrested by
Pakistani officials in the city of Karachi last Wednesday, a year to the
day after the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington." -By
Kelli
Arena, et. al. -CNN
- "U.S.,
Pakistan Officials Question Key 9/11 Suspect." ...
"A U.S. official said Binalshibh was captured in Karachi by Pakistani authorities
with help from the FBI and CIA." ... "[Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin]
Haider said Pakistan was ready to hand the suspects over to the U.S. authorities
if there was evidence they were involved in terrorist activities. But the
German government said it also wanted to try Binalshibh." ... "Pakistani
police said U.S. agents had traced Binalshibh to a three-story building
in an upmarket district of the sprawling port city of Karachi thanks to
a satellite phone call." -By Aamir Ashraf -Reuters
via /World
- "Ramzi
Binalshibh: al-Qaeda suspect." ... "Western intelligence
officials believe he is the missing link - the one person who can put all
the pieces of the al-Qaeda strategy into context." ... "Mr Binalshibh is
the only person believed to have attended both of the crucial meetings
held to plan the operation, one in Malaysia and the other in Spain." -BBC
/News
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "Terrorist-tracking
tools." ... "A controversial Defense Department counterterrorism
office created this year is moving ahead with plans to create terrorist-catching
technologies, amid concerns raised by civil-liberties groups about the
office's mission and its leader." ... "The Information Awareness Office—within
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's high-tech
idea factory—was created in February to develop technologies that can mine
private communications and commercial transactions looking for patterns
of behavior that might reveal terrorist activity, and to determine options
for dealing with it. The IAO's director is John Poindexter, a former national
security adviser to President Reagan." ... "Both the office's activities
and Poindexter's past have put civil-liberties advocates on edge. Poindexter,
who declined National Journal's request for an interview, was convicted
in 1990 of misleading and obstructing Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation,
a decision later overturned on appeal because immunized testimony had been
used to win the conviction. Also, during the 1980s Poindexter authored
a plan to put information about commercial computer security under military
jurisdiction and out of the public's reach." -By William
New, NationalJournal via
-GovExec.com
- "Sharon
appoints Meir Dagan as new Mossad chief." ... "[Pending
authorization] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Tuesday announced the appointment
of Major General (res.) Meir Dagan as head of the Mossad to replace outgoing
chief Ephraim Halevy who will serve as the new national securtity adviser."
-By Amir Oren, Yossi Verter, and Amnon Barzilai -Ha'aretzDaily
- Press Release on: - "Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment:
An IISS Strategic Dossier." ... "Had the Gulf War not intervened,
Iraq could have accumulated a nuclear stockpile of a dozen or so weapons
by the end of the decade." ... "After its invasion of Kuwait, Baghdad
stepped up large scale BW agent production and assembled rudimentary BW
[biological weapons] munitions. These weapons were distributed to military
units, who were delegated to use them if coalition forces advanced on Baghdad
or used nuclear weapons." ... "This Strategic Dossier does not attempt
to make a case, either way, as to whether Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal
is a casus belli per se. Wait and the threat will grow; strike and
the threat may be used." [bold in original] -Press
Statement By Dr. John Chipman, IISS Director. -IISS.org
- ANTHRAX
NEWS
- "Uncertain
Ability to Deliver a Blow: Iraq Cobbles Together
Weapons Systems With Mixed Results, Analysts Say." ... "In the waning hours
of Operation Desert Fox in 1998, a British missile sheared off the top
of a military hangar in southern Iraq and exposed a closely guarded secret.
Plainly visible in the rubble was a new breed of Iraqi drone aircraft --
one that defense analysts now believe was specially modified to spread
deadly chemicals and germs." ... "Up to a dozen of the unmanned airplanes
were spotted inside the hangar, each fitted with spray nozzles and wing-mounted
tanks that could carry up to 80 gallons of liquid anthrax. If flown at
low altitudes under the right conditions, a single drone could unleash
a toxic cloud engulfing several city blocks, a top British defense official
concluded. He dubbed them "drones of death."" -By
Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost
- "U.S.
may offer more Iraq evidence." ... "The Bush administration
has secret information supporting its claims that Saddam Hussein poses
an unacceptable threat to the world and is close to developing nuclear
weapons, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. President
Bush could disclose the information through upcoming congressional hearings
on Iraq, Rumsfeld hinted at a Pentagon press conference." ... "In London,
Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government hoped to publish in the next
few weeks a dossier of evidence on Saddam's efforts to develop weapons
of mass destruction." -AP
via -USATODAY
- "Colombia
Turns to Citizen Spies as Newest Weapon of War."
... "Unveiled here by Uribe the day after his inauguration, Colombia's
emerging informant network is a key component of the new president's "democratic
security" initiative, which in a civil war with many players seeks more
specifically than ever to enlist civilians on the government's side." ...
"The informant network, 3,000 volunteers in Colombia's three northeastern
provinces, is part of a security strategy that includes arming 15,000 peasant
recruits as rural auxiliaries to the army. How those soldiers will be trained,
monitored and protected, as well as how the civilian informants' identities
will be kept secret, are questions that have preoccupied human rights advocates
here." -By Scott Wilson
-WashingtonPost
- "Al
Qaeda Deputies Harbored by Iran: Pair Are Plotting
Attacks, Sources Say." ... "Two figures who have assumed critical roles
in the al Qaeda hierarchy in recent months, including one reported dead
by the Pentagon, are being sheltered in Iran along with dozens of other
al Qaeda fighters in hotels and guesthouses in the border cities of Mashhad
and Zabol, according to Arab intelligence sources." ... "The two -- Saif
al-Adel, an Egyptian on the FBI's most-wanted list, and Mahfouz Ould Walid,
also known as Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, whom U.S. officials reported had
been killed near the eastern Afghan city of Khost in January -- are directly
involved in planning al Qaeda terrorist operations, according to the intelligence
sources, who are outside Saudi Arabia and did not want their names or countries
disclosed." -By Peter Finn-WashingtonPost
Operation_TIPS
- "CNN
Wolf Blitzer Reports: Will the Government Turn Civilians Into Spies?..."
... "REP. BOB BARR (R-GA), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Why do we need to have
a government pushing and pushing and pushing people and now funding a program
to encourage people to snoop and to report? I think that's a very slippery
slope." -CNN/Transcripts
Osama
bin Laden
- "German
intelligence chief: Bin Laden alive." ... "August
Hanning, the head of the Federal Intelligence Service, also estimated that
more than 5,000 supporters of al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban
militia remain in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, while many others
have returned to their homelands." -AP
via -USATODAY
- Osama
bin Laden - "Feds
Zero In on 9-11 Mastermind." ... "Investigators believe
they have identified a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden as the likely
mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a senior U.S. counterterrorism
official said Tuesday." ... "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, designated one of
the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, is at large in Afghanistan or nearby,
the law enforcement official told The Associated Press."
-By John J. Lumpkin -AP
via -WashingtonPost
- "High-alert
ahead of World Cup kick-off." ... "On the eve of
the World Cup finals, security in Seoul [South Korea] is paramount, with
army helicopters, patrol boats and paramilitary soldiers on high alert
guarding the sky, sea and land." ... ""We are operating round-the-clock
communication channels with 80 intelligence agencies in 55 nations to exchange
intelligence on terrorism," South Korea's Justice Minister Song Jeong-ho
told reporters." ... "Song said that stockpiles of vaccines and other materials
to deal with contagious diseases were close at hand to cope with any biological
attack." -By Andrew Demaria
-CNN
Osama
bin Laden - "Pre-Attack
Memo Cited Bin Laden." ... "The classified memorandum
written by an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix last summer urging bureau headquarters
to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools also
cited Osama bin Laden by name and suggested that his followers could use
the schools to train for terror operations, government officials said for
the first time today." -By David Johnston
-NYTimes via -Moreover
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "Data
mining aims at national security." ... "In addition
to funding programs that will improve security in the open-source community,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also in the midst of an
internal makeover." ... "The Information Awareness Office was formally
established in mid-January. Its mission is to develop and demonstrate information
technologies, such as data-mining tools, designed to counter "asymmetric
threats," such as terrorist attacks." ... "Another DARPA office created
in the aftermath of Sept. 11 is the Information Exploitation Office. Walker
said the office's mission is to develop sensors and systems with "application
to battle space awareness, targeting, command and control, and the supporting
infrastructure required to address land-based threats in a dynamic, closed-loop
process."" -By Dan Caterinicchia
-FCW.com
- "China
Finds Bugs on Jet Equipped in U.S.: Devices
Taken Off Presidential Plane Could Become Issue at Summit."
-By John Pomfret-WashingtonPost
