Dan Gordon Spy Club

Pentagon Pushes For Greater Spy Powers

Agent Zero — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:44:50 +0000

Picture this spy: A Syrian soldier, wearing mufti, dressed in a suit, fluent in Syrian and Iraqi Arabic. He’s in a rattletrap taxi in Syria going to meet an agent who says he can offer rebels the Syrian government’s order of battle. The spy, from Army intelligence, has spent 18 months cultivating this connection. The source is a senior official in the telecommunications company owned by the Syrian president’s brother. Ravaged by two years of civil war, he wants to help his country, and his information could help the rebels break the regime’s back. The Pentagon wants to obtain the authority to facilitate cases like this one. It would substantially increase the Defense Intelligence Agency’s authority to build covers, create businesses, and to run them for long periods. “Expansion of this authority is necessary to permit the DOD to conduct revenue-generating commercial activities to protect such operations and would provide an important safeguard for U.S. military forces conducting hazardous operations abroad,” their request to Congress states.

Highly Secret SEAL Mission in N. Vietnam Declassified After 36 Years

Agent Zero — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:33:40 +0000

Operation Thunderhead was so highly classified it took 36 years to release the story of a SEAL mission on the North Vietnamese coast on June 3, 1972. Several 4-man SEAL teams were sent to facilitate the escape of American POWs from a prison in Hanoi. One team, led by Philip “Moki” Martin and Lt. Dry, two members of the SEAL’s Underwater Demolition Team, left the USS Grayback submarine in a 20-foot mini-sub, known as a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle, to rendezvous with the POWs. They encountered strong surface and tidal currents, ran out of battery, and could not reach the shore or their Grayback. The team swam the SDV out to sea to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Seven hours later, a Navy helicopter rescued them and sank the SDV. Martin and his team felt compelled to inform their fellow SEAL teams of the dangers. Finding one team in the waters out at sea, Lt. Dray jumped from the helicopter and was killed upon impact. Martin jumped and survived, but was severely injured. On the SDV, he found two of the men severely injured. Three decades later, Martin was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a combat “V” for valor honoring his part in the rescue of his two injured SEAL team members and for preserving the body of Lt. Dry until recovery.

CIA’s Secret Fear: High-Tech Border Checks Will Blow its Spies’ Cover

Agent Zero — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:59:05 +0000

The CIA fears that high-tech border checks will blow its spies’ cover. Iris scanners and biometric passports at worldwide airports, hotels, and business headquarters, designed to catch terrorists and criminals, are playing havoc with operations that require CIA spies to travel under false identities. “If you go to one of those countries under an alias, you can’t go again under another name,” explains a career spook. The biometric data on your passport, and maybe your iris, too, has been linked forever to whatever name was on your passport the first time. You can’t show up again under a different name with the same data.” This is a significant issue with great implications for the safety and security of our people, so I recommend you not publish anything on this. You can do a lot of harm and no good.”

M16 Officer Inquest Hears Claim of Third Party Role

Agent Zero — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:11:59 +0000

The body of Mr. Williams, from Anglesey, London, was dead a week before he was found in his flat in 2010, padlocked inside a holdall duffel bag in his bathtub. His inquest is now weighing the evidence that a third party was involved in the death. The inquest was shown footage of two experts’ struggling unsuccessfully to lock themselves in a bag. Neither expert completely ruled out the possibility. These tests have addressed the crucial question of whether Mr. Williams, 31, could have locked himself in the holdall in his bath or if another person must have been involved.
Expert Peter Faulding told Mr. Williams’s inquest that he had tried and failed to lock the bag from inside 300 times. He told the court that Mr. Williams could not have gotten into the bag unaided without leaving marks and footprints, none of which were found at the scene. “I couldn’t say it’s impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one,” he said. “My conclusion is that Mr. Williams was either placed in the bag unconscious, or he was dead before he was in the bag.”
Second expert William MacKay, who said his military career made him adept at working in confined spaces, told the inquest that locking the bag was a skill that would have required training but that once a person had done it, they could not get out. Mr. MacKay and an assistant failed 100 times to lock the bag from the inside and caused damage to the zip. Like Faulding, he did not claim that it was impossible, saying, “There are people around who can do amazing things and Mr. Williams may well have been one of those persons.”
Mr. Williams has been described as a “world class intelligence officer” by his former boss at the government listening agency GCHQ. It was stated at the inquest that at the time he was found dead he had been on a three-year secondment with MI6 in London and wanted to return to his role at GCHQ.

Inside the Secret World of America’s Top Eavesdropping Spies

Agent Zero — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:00:55 +0000

Officially, the Special Collection Service, a secret joint program with the CIA codenamed F6, doesn’t exist. Unofficially, its snoops travel the world intercepting private messages and cracking high-tech encryption. SCS is responsible for placing super-high-tech bugs in unbelievably hard-to-reach places. Data collected is then transmitted to the National Security Agency. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, the legal framework for domestic espionage against external threats, doesn’t affect spy activities overseas, but the attention it is generating will shift scrutiny to the National Security Agency and its growing and astonishing capabilities. The NSA, the intelligence arm of the United States responsible for eavesdropping and code-breaking, has been criticized for the controversial methods it employs. John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists put it best: “When you think of NSA, you think satellites. When you think CIA, you think James Bond and microfilm. But you don’t really think of an agency whose sole purpose is to get up real close and use the best technology there is to listen and transmit. That’s SCS.”

Finnish-Born Political Scientist Faces Espionage Charges in Denmark

Agent Zero — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:41:57 +0000

A Finnish-born professor of international politics is being charged by Danish authorities with helping a Russian espionage organization. According to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service PET, the Russian diplomats whom Kivimäki met with were spies. Kivimäki said that the Russians he interacted with behaved like diplomats and not spies.

Russian Spy Agency Linked to Dead Laywer

Agent Zero — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:22:59 +0000

New papers show that Russia’s spy agency authorized a raid on a British investment firm in Moscow that led to a massive tax scam by allegedly corrupt officials and the death of a lawyer who tried to expose the fraud. Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow-based lawyer, died in November 2009 during pre-trial detention after he was arrested by a group of officials who were being investigated for tax fraud. No one has been imprisoned for his death.

RUSSIAN SAILOR SUSPECTED OF SPYING ARRESTED IN NORTH CYPRUS

Agent Zero — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:14:36 +0000

Nanec Hikov, a Russian crew member on the Russian cargo vessel Natali 1, was taken into custody in the North Cyprus port of Famagusta over a purported episode of espionage, as disclosed in Turkish Cypriot media accounts earlier this month. He was allegedly discovered photographing Turkish troopships, and occupation authorities expressly ban any and all photo taking and filming in the vicinity of the port, the site of a pronounced security presence. Following Hikov’s arrest, the Natali 1 was subjected to a going-over by authorities, which did not reveal anything questionable beyond the cargo of cigarettes and wheat. The Russian embassy was advised of the incident, but failed to issue a comment immediately. Hikov continues to be detained, according to the most recent reports.

NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR SENTENCED IN MURDER PLOT AGAINST FELLOW DEFECTOR AMID CLAIMS SOUTH KOREAN INTELLIGENCE IGNORED HIS TIPOFF

Agent Zero — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:13:40 +0000

The North Korean defector designated solely in the Seoul Central District Court by his last name of Ahn, drew a four year prison sentence earlier this month for conspiring to murder Park Sang-hak, another North Korean defector who has become a high profile anti-Pyongyang activist. When arrested in September of 2011, Ahn, known to have served in the North’s special services, was in possession of a number of weapons, including gun with bullet covered in a lethal chemical, and pen in which was hidden a needle dipped in poison. His defection to the South occurred 17 years ago and he held a position in Seoul dealing with international economic projects. According to the Yonhap News account, North Korean intelligence contacted Ahn while he was on business in Mongolia two years ago and subsequently directed him to conduct the hit on Park, leader of the organization Fighters for Free North Korea that routinely launches hot air balloons containing anti-Pyongyang messages and shortwave radios across the border into North Korea. Ahn alleged he apprised the South Korean National Intelligence Service of the assassination conspiracy and proposed he spy on North Korea, but his information and offer were brushed aside and, furthermore, he was threatened with legal proceedings. He asserted as well that his anger over being slighted prompted him to go forward with the plot. An additional penalty imposed by the court was a fine for 11.75 million Won, equivalent to $10,399, and corresponding to the anticipated payment from the North Korean regime for Park’s assassination.

RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE PRESENCE IN BRITAIN APPROACHING OR POSSIBLY EVEN EXCEEDING THAT OF THE COLD WAR ERA

Agent Zero — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:12:37 +0000

A Daily Telegraph report earlier this month claimed that as much as fifty percent of the personnel staffing the Russian embassy in London might be engaged in espionage. A prominent KGB defector, Oleg Gordievsky, cautioned that the mid-1980s norm of 39 intelligence officers operating out of the embassy could have been surpassed. Mr. Gordievsky served as a KGB colonel and chief of station in London, and was an MI6 double agent. Other sources maintain as well that the current number of Russian spies active in the UK is up to 40 at any particular time, a level close to or even higher than that found immediately prior to the conclusion of the Cold War period. Said agents are occupied in the customary state spying, along with the industrial espionage aimed at furthering Russian companies, notably those involved in fuel supply.
Jonathan Eyal, a Russian expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a highly regarded security think tank, stressed the importance of Britain in the Russian intelligence agenda. He attributed the aforementioned interest in part to the longstanding warm British-American relations, viewed as a roundabout means of making inroads against American intelligence. Another factor behind the strong Russian attention is the many prominent Russian figures and critics residing in England, subjects of surveillance on a routine basis. The British spy community now is worried that its focus on security matters regarding the upcoming London Olympics and commemoration of the Queen’s Jubilee will result in greatly increased activity by Russian operatives.