In a statement issued Saturday night about the Paris terrorism of the previous day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
that he had “instructed Israel’s security and intelligence forces to
assist their French counterparts and their counterparts from other
European countries in any way possible.”
Israel’s minister of intelligence, Yisrael Katz, later clarified
Netanyahu’s statement, telling reporters that intelligence cooperation
among Israel, France and other European countries is “ongoing,” but that
“intelligence material relevant to what happened has been relayed, and
we will also deepen the cooperation.”
Katz added that the information would help the French and
other countries deal with the aftermath of the attack and future
attacks, Reuters reported.
...
Israel’s Army Radio reported
Sunday that some intelligence may have come from Israel’s surveillance
of Syria and Iraq, two strongholds of the Islamic State terrorist group
that claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
Were it not for the fact that it's an Israeli interest to have these people neutralized, I would be inclined to tell the Europeans, 'you made your mess, now go lie in it.' (As my mother a"h would have said).
Over the weekend, the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command announced that it would enter into an intelligence sharing agreement “about ISIS terrorism” with Syria, Russia and Iran.
Exactly what sort of information Iraq agreed to share with Russia, or
has shared already, was a matter of some confusion during Tuesday’s
Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob
Work acknowledged that the Defense Department doesn’t have a firm handle
on the sort of communications going on between the Iraqi government
and Moscow.
“We were caught by surprise that Iraq entered into this agreement
with Syria, Iran and Russia. Obviously, we are not going to share
intelligence with either Syria, or Russia, or Iran. So we are in the
process of working to try and find out exactly what Iraq has said.
Certainly we are not going to provide any classified information that
would help those actors on the battlefield.” Work said in response to a
question from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Russia was in
Syria primarily to bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s claims this week that his forces were in
Syria to defeat the Islamic State was, Clapper said, “a
belated motivation.”
Clapper suggested that mutual mistrust between the parties could
limit the scope of the Iraq’s intelligence sharing agreement. “As far as
the joint intelligence arrangement is concerned. Can’t go into detail
here in this forum … But each of the parties entering into this are a
little bit suspicious of just what is entailed here. We will have to see
how robust a capability that actually provides.”
U.S. Cyber Command commander and NSA
chief Adm. Michael Rogers identified Russia as probably the most
capable adversary the United States faces online. The recent breach of
the Joint Staff civilian email system, for instance, has been attributed
to a Russian affiliated group and affected as many as 4,000
email accounts.
In fiscal 2015, Congress appropriated more than $1.6 billion in train and equip funding
for the Iraqi military, including trucks and small arms but also some
potentially sensitive pieces of equipment related to improvised
explosive device detection. Detailed information about how U.S.
troops detect mines and explosive devices on the battlefield could
represent a vulnerability for the United States if that equipment were
to fall into the wrong hands. And then there are the people, more than
3,550 U.S. troops are in Iraq right now officially serving in train and assist roles. But that’s not all they do. In May, a U.S. Special Forces raid resulted in the death of Abu Sayyaf, an ISIS senior leader in Syria.
It's kind of hard to believe that Israel is not sharing intelligence with the US on an area that's quite close to our eastern and northern borders. Was our information shared too?
If you're looking for Obama, he's on the golf course, trying to find a way to blame Bush.
Report: Obama has cut intelligence cooperation with Israel on Iran
A report from Israel Television's Channel 10 indicates that Barack Hussein Obama has cut intelligence cooperation with Israel on Iran's nuclear program out of fear that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will use what he knows through that intelligence cooperation to keep Obama from endangering Israel (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
A report on Monday night by the Hebrew-language Channel 10,
notes that the cooperation between Israeli and American intelligence
agencies until now has aided the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) in formulating reports on Iran's nuclear program, reports that
advanced the sanctions against the Islamic regime.
At the moment, while Israel is cooperating with various countries in
terms of intelligence on Iran's nuclear program, the cooperation with
the United States has stopped according to the report.
In closed conversations senior sources in the White House
have expressed concerns that Netanyahu will reveal details Obama has
kept secret from the nuclear deal being sealed with Iran, according to
the news channel.
While US Secretary of State John Kerry has claimed Israel isn't
familiar with the details of the plan, that claim was undermined when
Kerry on Monday asked Netanyahu not to reveal certain details in his Congress speech Tuesday.
According to senior Israeli sources cited in the report, Obama has
not only made clear he will not meet with Netanyahu, but is even
refusing to talk with the Israeli prime minister on the telephone during
his visit.
It is fair to point out that there have been other reports that cooperation had been stopped over the past week that have been denied. Still, it's 12 hours since this report was issued and I have not heard of a denial. We will know more after Netanyahu speaks to Congress on Tuesday. But this much can be said for sure. Netanyahu is not a fool and he would not flush Israel's relations with the United States down the drain unless he felt there is no choice. Netanyahu has been holding fire through six years of abuse by Obama. If he's firing now, there has to be a reason.
It's been a wild day at work and I'm going back to work momentarily....
You will recall that last weekend, I reported on the letter written by 43 (hopefully former) members of Unit 8200 in which they decried their unit's 'harming innocent Palestinians.'
Wednesday's New York Times has an op-ed from James Bamford, who spent a considerable amount of time this summer interviewing Edward Snowden for Wired Magazine. Bamford claims that Snowden told him that information about 'Palestinian Americans' was routinely shared with the IDF's Unit 8200.
Among
his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A.
was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a
large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit
8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the
communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.
Typically,
when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it
would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally
identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel,
the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this
way.
Mr.
Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained
the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab-
and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian
territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think
that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve
seen.”
Bamford goes on to tie Snowden's 'revelations' into the 8200 scandal.
It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses.
In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used
information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political
persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media,
they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual
orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions
and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into
becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.
The
veterans of Unit 8200 declared that they had a “moral duty” to no
longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians.” An
Israeli military spokesman disputed the letter’s overall drift but said
the charges would be examined.
The data was transferred pursuant to an agreement between the NSA and the government of Israel.
I'm not in favor of - and I don't believe that the information was used - just to harass people. On the other hand, if it's used to fight terrorism, I don't really have a problem with allies sharing information that way. Obviously, it's not admissible in court. But it can be used to stop terror attacks before they happen.
When you don't share information, the result is that people like the Tsarnaev brothers, about whom the governments of Russia and Saudi Arabia both claimed to have 'warned' the United States, but about whom no one had any solid evidence until after the Boston Marathon terror attack.
43 IDF reservists from 'Unit 8200,' Israel's showcase intelligence unit from which much of the country's high tech has been spawned, have sent a 'letter of insubordination' to the IDF and the media. The letter says that they refuse to 'harm innocents' as part of their IDF service.
The soldiers, who include extremist leftist activists, complained that their service to Israel's security "harms innocents."
"There is an idea that serving in the intelligence corps does not
include moral dilemmas, and only contributes to the lessening of
violence and harm to innocents," wrote the insubordinate soldiers in
their letter. "But during our military service we learned that the
intelligence corps is an inseparable part of the military control of the
territories (Judea and Samaria - ed.)."
According to the soldiers, the Arab residents of the region are
"completely exposed" to Israeli spying and surveillance, adding "as
opposed to Israeli citizens of citizens of other countries, there's no
oversight on methods of (intel) gathering, surveillance and use of
information in regards to Palestinians, whether they're involved in
violence or not."
"The intelligence (corps) allows continued control over millions of
people, a deep and penetrating supervision and invasion of (privacy in)
most aspects of life. All of this does not allow a normal life, fuels
more violence, and distances the end of the conflict," claimed the
signatories.
The IDF responded before the Sabbath started. Most of the other responses have come this evening.
In response to the letter, the IDF Spokesperson Unit noted "Unit 8200
has worked from the day of its formation to gather intel, which allows
the IDF and security sources to fulfill their missions, and on a daily
basis aids in the protection of citizens of the state of Israel."
"The Unit acts through a variety of means and on many fronts, while
using methods and rules aimed solely at the necessities of
intelligence," added the statement, responding to the claims of invading
privacy in numerous aspects of daily life.
The statement added "those serving in the Unit are certified after a
strict identification process, in training that has no equal in the
intelligence community in Israel and abroad, during which contents
learned with a special emphasis on ethics, values and work regulations
are imprinted."
"These are implemented effectively through the military service of
the soldiers and captains in the Unit, and are overseen through constant
inspection by commanders of different rankings," said the statement.
In a particularly low blow, the letter was sent to the media before it was sent to the soldiers' IDF commanders.
After the Sabbath started, Walla reported that a counter letter from current and past members of 8200 was published.
"We are veterans of Unit 8200, soldiers and reserve soldiers, past
and present, who wish to express shock, disgust and total renouncement
of the letter written by our fellow soldiers, who chose political
refusal over our unit," the opposing text said.
"This political refusal has no place in the army in general and
in Unit 8200 in particular," it continued. "In the hour that reserve
soldiers are called to serve their country, we put aside our preferences
and political opinions and go to serve our country."
"We regret that our friends make cynical use of politics in
their legal and moral duty to serve in the reserve unit, which in our
eyes constitutes the highest honor, and seek [instead] to undermine the
activities and achievements in the unit's defense of the country and its
people."
The veterans also rejected the initial letter's outrageous claims
that the IDF was using information on Palestinian Arabs to "stalk" them
and "harass innocent people" instead of defending Israeli civilians.
"As those familiar with the unit for many years, we cannot accept the
allegations of lack of ethical and moral principles of intelligence
work in the unit," it said. "From our first days in the unit, we learned
the importance of monitoring and collecting data in accordance with
high professional standards and regulations."
"Both in regular and reserve services, we have witnessed many cases
where the operation of the unit's intelligence capabilities resulted in
the preservation of human life on both sides," it continued. "Even when
ethical dilemmas arise on the job, and during the war, witnesses [of
crimes] were and still dealt with in a mature and responsible manner, in
line with the principles of international law and the code of ethics
and morals of the army."
Over 150 people have expressed support for the counter-letter so far,
and the initiators are attempting to collect as many signatures as
possible before mailing a physical copy of the document to the leftist
opponents in the next several days.
"Proper disclosure, I am a major in Unit 8200 and have accompanied it for decades,” wrote Herzog on Facebook.
"I love the unit, its soldiers and commanders. Its contribution to the
security of Israel and its citizens, and even beyond that, is immense.
Thousands upon thousands of Israeli citizens owe it their lives.
Fighting terror is meticulous and complex work that requires the best
minds.”
"I oppose refusal to serve and am wholly disgusted by it,” he added.
“This unit and its operations are vital not only for wartime but
especially and mostly for peace.”
"When one speaks of a diplomatic arrangement and the setting of
borders, one is speaking about advance warning stations and intelligence
abilities, in order to locate and block the extremist forces that will
do everything to sabotage peace.”
"I am not saying that there are no mistakes. Certainly, these are
possible, and Israel's military history is full of them, but there are
ways to complain and bring the complaints to an inquiry and discussion. I
also think that there are ways of effecting change, certainly when
there is a feeling that injustice was done somewhere. But not by
encouraging and calling for refusal to serve, or through damaging global
publicity whose price we – the citizens of Israel – will pay.”
"I have been familiar with Unit 8200 and is activities for decades,
and certainly since I was appointed head of the Intelligence Corps and
became aware of the enormous contribution of the men of this unit to the
security of the citizens of Israel," Ya'alon said.
Praising he soldiers of the unit for performing "amazingly well"
under difficult circumstances, he added that "Unit 8200 preserves the
existence of the State of Israel."
"The attempt to harm the unit and its operations via a call for
insubordination, based on allegations which do not represent the actions
of the unit or the values of its personnel is a foolish and obscene
attempt to support the international false delegitimization campaign
against the State of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF."
"The soldiers of Unit 8200 are moral and ethical" he insisted, and
called on people to support "them and their actions which are so
important to the security of the State of Israel and the security of its
citizens."
This ought to do wonders for morale - which was of course the goal of the letter writers. But the bigger problem is that it plays into the hands of Israel haters everywhere. The soldiers will likely be dishonorably discharged - and that cannot happen a moment too soon.
Report: 3 Hamas commanders were in a tunnel 30 meters underground when they were killed
Report: 3 slain #Hamas commanders were in secret meeting inside 30-meter deep tunnel beneath home belonging to Kullab family in Rafah.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) August 22, 2014
If you have any doubts that Thursday's hit of three senior Hamas commanders in Gaza indicates that Israeli intelligence has penetrated to the highest levels of the Hamas command, read the article below in conjunction with the tweet above from Khaled Abu Toameh.
This was not just another strike, not just
another assassination. The killing of the three constituted an
indication that something in the intelligence discipline at the very top
of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades has cracked.
The Shin Bet, as the intelligence behind the
strike, and the IDF, as the operational arm, targeted the trio in a
building in a crowded Rafah neighborhood on one of the heaviest days of
fighting thus far. Thus this was a very different strike from the one at
the start of the Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 when the
Hamas military commander, Ahmed Jabari, was assassinated in a surprise
attack that marked the beginning of that operation. Given that the
fighting had re-escalated since Tuesday, and that Israel was known to be
trying to hit the Hamas military leadership, the three had taken every
possible precaution to evade Israeli intelligence. Those precautions
simply were not good enough.
It can be assumed that whether or not Muhammad
Deif is still alive, those members of the Hamas military leadership who
have survived are now desperately trying to figure out what went wrong.
How could it be that after long weeks in which Israel was unable to get
to any of the heads of the military wing, now, within 48 hours, the
Shin Bet located one of Deif’s hideouts and killed three other members
of the Hamas general staff?
It should be stressed again: Two of the three
were not mere senior commanders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Muhammad Abu Shamala, the “head of the southern command” and Raed
al-Attar, the commander of the Rafah area, were part of the founding
generation of the Hamas military wing — along with Deif and several
others who are no longer with us, including Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh and Emad
Akel. They were among Deif’s closest brothers-in-arms — long-term
veterans with experience and knowledge that cannot be easily replaced.
Abu Shamala and al-Attar are tied to almost
every major attack in and from the Rafah area since 2001. These include
the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit on a tunnel raid into Israel in which two
other soldiers were killed, and even the killing of 16 Egyptian
soldiers on the Gaza-Sinai-Israel border two years ago. Thus the two had
tangled not only with Israel, but also with Egypt, which knew of their
ties to terrorist organizations in the Sinai.
Foxman: State Department 'hypocritical, almost irrational'
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, ADL National Director Abe Foxman decried the State Department's denial of visas to Israelis, and US intelligence agencies' refusal to allow Israel to join the visa waiver program, as 'hypocritical, almost irrational.'
The Anti-Defamation League has reacted harshly to reports that several
members of US Congress and representatives of the country’s
intelligence community have cautioned against admitting Israel into the
State Department’s visa waiver program due to concerns over espionage.
During an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, ADL National
Director Abraham Foxman said he could not square such worries with the
“special relationship” and high level of intelligence cooperation
between the two nations.
“Is there a certain amount of hypocrisy? Sure,” Foxman told the Post,
referring to recent revelations of widespread American spying on close
allies. “Every couple of years something publicly surfaces, focusing
the light on Israelis or Israel spying…. It is inordinate and
inappropriate and inaccurate. This is the most recent example of it.”
...
Foxman said he continued to be “disturbed at the level of
preoccupation, primarily in the American government, not just now but
going back for years” in relation to alleged Israeli spying.
“I have a file of people who applied for [a security] clearance,
American Jews who had difficulty getting it and didn’t get it because
of questions which were inappropriate,” the ADL head stated.
“But none of these people wanted to take the case public because they
were afraid it was going to destroy their employment opportunities.”
Foxman alluded to what he believes is an inbuilt institutional bias
connected to a widespread belief that American Jews hold dual
loyalties.
“One out of three Americans believe that they [US Jews] are not loyal,”
and the current allegation of Israeli spying “enhances the stereotype
and it fuels it,” he said. “This is endemic in our political system out
of Washington.”
A 2013 poll by the ADL found that 30% of Americans believe Jews are
“more loyal to Israel” than to the United States, a number that remains
unchanged from a previous poll taken in 1964.
Such attitudes predate the arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a
Jewish-American intelligence analyst convicted of passing information
to Israel. The Pollard case, Foxman averred, gave those concerned with
Israeli spying “legitimacy” but did not create such worries.
“The exchange of information and data and specific research on
technology is very high, and so at the same time to say we have to be
careful of Israelis who come here on tourist visas because they can spy
on us is almost irrational,” he said. “But if we are talking about
being motivated in part by stereotypes, stereotypes are not rational.
It’s a prejudice.”
That should make all you American Jews feel warm and cozy as you head back to work on the morning after the Passover holiday, no?
Davutoglu says Turkish intelligence agency 'doing its job' by exposing Israeli agents in Iran
In a Friday night interview with a Turkish television station, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlusaid that Turkey's intelligence agency was 'doing its job' by exposing Israeli spies in Iran. This is from the first link.
“When you read these articles, [Turkish intelligence chief] Hakan Fidan is accused of establishing an
independent intelligence structure and not letting other intelligence
agencies operate in Turkey. Therefore, he is being blamed for doing his
job,” Davutoğlu said in a live interview on private broadcaster Kanal 7
aired on the night of Oct. 18.
Davutoğlu’s remarks came a day
after veteran Washington Post columnist David Ignatius claimed that
Turkey blew the cover on a group of Israeli spies, disclosing their
names to Iranian intelligence, while noting that Fidan was considered
“suspect” by Israeli authorities due to his “close” ties to Tehran.
Another
article published in the Wall Street Journal last week claimed that
Fidan championed the idea of sending weapons to the Syrian opposition
without any discrimination.
Referring in particular to Ignatius’
article, Davutoğlu said the accusations against Fidan were
contradictory. “These [claims] are so inconsistent that on the one hand
it is said Fidan is close to Iran, but in the same article, he is
accused of supporting groups who fight against Iran’s influence. This is
a very serious accusation. None of our officials act on behalf of any
other country,” Davutoğlu said, adding that intelligence represented the
state’s “privacy.”
“If this privacy is not used by the state’s
units to serve only that people, your strategy can’t succeed … Turkey is
not a country where other intelligence units can comfortably perform
operations. This is a requirement of independence,” Davutoğlu said.
“I
am not saying that the claims are true, but after all, every
intelligence agency works for the interest of its own country,” he said.
Davutoğlu
also said Fidan had become the head of the National Intelligence
Organization (MİT) after gaining “everyone’s credit” after taking part
in negotiations with Israel and authorities in Gaza.
He
also said there were “open threats” targeting Fidan. “This is the day
to stand for Fidan, who has been the target of these accusations. Fidan
is not doing this work for his personal interests but for Turkey,”
Davutoğlu said.
Turkey is blaming Israel (of course) for what it sees as a coordinated attack on its intelligence agencies.
“We see this media campaign as an attack and there might be an Israeli
effort behind it,” a Turkish intelligence source said on the phone
yesterday. “Especially after the Washington Post story on Oct. 17 and
the follow-ups with Jerusalem bylines.”
...
Sources in Ankara believe that besides trying to defame Turkey in U.S. eyes as a country tolerating terrorists like Iran
– and because of its “independent tack” on Syria, amid an effort to try
and corner it in a possible move in the U.S. Congress – Israel
might have had another motivation. That might be, according to those
sources who asked not to be named, an attempt to avoid paying
compensation for the nine Turks killed by Israeli commandoes on May 31,
2010, on board the Mavi Marmara on its way to carry humanitarian aid to
the Gaza Strip.
After the official apology from Netanyahu (which
was brokered by Obama) on March 24, talks started for compensation to
the families of the victims, albeit with no result, as Israel does not want to make the payments in the form of “compensation,” according to Israeli diplomatic sources talking to HDN.
Also,
Erdoğan’s close relations with Hamas are another source of disturbance
between the two. By coincidence, Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas,
was received by Erdoğan in his office in Ankara on Oct. 9, the same day that the WSJ story published.
...
It is unclear whether an Israeli “plot” is behind the obvious campaign
against Turkey’s intelligence chief and whether it is aimed at Erdoğan’s
foreign policy choices, especially regarding the greater Middle East.
Turkey is criticized at home and abroad for being distanced from the European Union
and getting too involved with the uncertainties of the Middle East.
Both the recent EU Progress Report, which calls for Turkey to foster
higher standards of democracy to keep up with its European venture, and
the Geneva Conference on Syria might be chances to fine-tune Turkish
foreign policy.
The problem with the Mavi Marmara negotiations isn't the word 'compensation'; it's that the Turks want to Israel to 'admit' guilt. That's just not going to happen.
In the meantime, former (and maybe to be again) Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says that Israel should stop deluding itself that relations with Turkey are ever going to improve.
“My opposition to apologizing to Turkey is not new, and I
expressed it clearly before and after it happened,” Liberman wrote on his
Facebook page, referring to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s March 22 apology
for the Israeli takeover of Gaza protest ship Mavi Marmara in 2010.
“I
reasoned and explained that it will not improve relations between the countries
but will only harm Israel’s standing in the region and play into the hands of
extremists in the Middle East, with Turkey under Islamist extremist [President
Recep Tayyip] Erdogan among them,” Liberman continued.
“I am therefore
not surprised by Turkey’s accusation that Israel is behind the report in The
Washington Post about ‘revealing spies to Iran,’ and I don’t even know if there
was such a spy ring.”
...
“I hope we will all stop
deluding ourselves and understand the situation in which we live, and the
difference between what we want and what exists,” Liberman wrote.
Liberman has it right. Israel has to stop deluding itself, stop succumbing to pressure from Obama, and write Turkey off completely. It's long past time.
Report: NSA shares unredacted information about US citizens... with Israel
Take this with a grain of salt, because given that the US extensively spies on Israel, it doesn't really make sense that they would be sharing unredacted intelligence information about US citizens with the Israeli government. But this report in al-Guardian under Glenn Greenwald's byline claims that the United States does in fact share unredacted personal information about US citizens with the government of Israel.
The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA
and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over
intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of
American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the
use of the data by the Israelis.
The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy
of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls
this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes clear that the
information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized
state.
The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.
I wonder how Obama can find a way to blame Bush for that one.
According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA
analysts to remove US communications. "NSA routinely sends ISNU [the
Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection",
it says.
Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the
material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the
Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the
data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.
"This
agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and
shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a
legally binding instrument according to international law," the document
says.
In a statement to the Guardian, an NSA
spokesperson did not deny that personal data about Americans was
included in raw intelligence data shared with the Israelis. But the
agency insisted that the shared intelligence complied with all rules
governing privacy.
"Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA's surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights," the spokesperson said.
The NSA
declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including
whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.
And how did the NSA get this information?
The NSA is required by law to target only non-US persons without an individual warrant, but it can collect the content and metadata
of Americans' emails and calls without a warrant when such
communication is with a foreign target. US persons are defined in
surveillance legislation as US citizens, permanent residents and anyone
located on US soil at the time of the interception, unless it has been
positively established that they are not a citizen or permanent
resident.
Moreover, with much of the world's internet traffic
passing through US networks, large numbers of purely domestic
communications also get scooped up incidentally by the agency's
surveillance programs.
The document mentions only one check carried out by the NSA
on the raw intelligence, saying the agency will "regularly review a
sample of files transferred to ISNU to validate the absence of US
persons' identities". It also requests that the Israelis limit access
only to personnel with a "strict need to know".
I don't know what data is being provided, but my guess is that what interests the Israeli government is information regarding US citizens who come here to assist 'Palestinian' terrorism - like International Solidarity Movement members. I'm fine with that.
But the Israeli government may also be interested in the activities of US citizens who live in Israel while they are in the United States. While I understand that might be necessary for people with security clearances, let's just say that it doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy.
CIA gets lots of job applicants from Hamas, Hezbullah and al-Qaeda
A document turned over to the Washington Post by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden shows that the United States government investigates thousands of employees every year for suspected terror ties, and that Hamas, Hezbullah and al-Qaeda members have repeatedly sought employment with the CIA.
The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds
raised questions, roughly one out of every five had “significant
terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,” according to the document, which was provided to The Washington Post by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The groups cited most often were Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda and
its affiliates, but the nature of the connections was not described in
the document.
So sharp is the fear of threats from within that
last year the NSA planned to launch at least 4,000 probes of potentially
suspicious or abnormal staff activity after scrutinizing trillions of
employee keystrokes at work. The anomalous behavior that sent up red
flags could include staffers downloading multiple documents or accessing
classified databases they do not normally use for their work, said two
people familiar with the software used to monitor employee activity.
This
shrouded, multimillion-dollar hunt for insider threats has suffered
from critical delays in recent years and uneven implementation across
agencies, the budget records show. And the spy agencies’ detection
systems never noticed that Snowden was copying highly classified
documents from different parts of the NSA’s networks.
The hunt is apparently motivated by Wikileaks. But it's not being done efficiently. As noted, Snowden fell through the cracks, because he was a contractor and not an employee.
Fellow Israelis: Aren't you glad we share intelligence information with the United States while they spy on us? What could go wrong?
Video details about 'black budget' for spying on Israel and the Pollard connection
Here's a report from WJLA-TV in Washington about the US intelligence agencies 'black budgets' for spying on foreign countries, a story I covered originally here.
Let's go to the videotape.
A report at The Hill makes what seems to me to be an obvious connection between the black budget and convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence in the United States, after the US government broke a plea bargain (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
The White House and the Israeli Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
The
revelations come as no surprise to Georgetown University's Paul Pillar,
who retired as the national intelligence officer for the Near East in
1995 after a 28-year career in U.S. intelligence. Israeli spying, he
said, has remained a major threat since U.S. citizen Jonathan Pollard
received a life sentence in 1987 in a massive spying case that gravely
strained relations between the two countries.
“Israel should be
assumed to continue to have an aggressive intelligence collection
operations against the United States,” Pillar said. While much
information is collected through traditional political contacts, “I
would personally have no doubt that that is supplemented by whatever
means they can use to find out as much as they can about what we're
doing, thinking, deciding on anything of interest to Israel, which would
include just about any Middle Eastern topic.”
The issues of
continued Israeli settlement construction and Obama's strong interest in
reaching a negotiated settlement to avoid a confrontation with Iran
over its nuclear program, Pillar said, are two issues where U.S. and
Israeli interests “certainly diverge,” he said. Spying, he said, could
give Israel “warning indicators” before any public decisions, and enable
the country to put its “political machine in action” and get the United
States to reconsider.
“If I were in [Prime Minister Benjamin]
Netanyahu's shoes and had his perspective,” Pillar said, “I would spare
no effort to try to collect every bit of intelligence I could, in secret
as well as openly.”
He said the public revelations won't impact U.S.-Israeli relations.
“Everything
is trumped by political realities,” Pillar said. “Don't expect any
statement by the White House press secretary tomorrow that says, 'Oh my
gosh, we are really upset with the Israelis for trying to spy on us'.
You're never going to hear anything like that, because politically it is
hazardous for basically any American politician – and certainly an
incumbent American administration – to underscore ... the divergence of
U.S. and Israeli interests.”
Sounds to me like Pillar should be working the State Department. They have the same sort of Israel-hating perspective on things. Then again, Georgetown probably isn't a bad choice for him either.
I want to point out again that if you look at the list of countries on which the US is spying (China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba), Israel is the only one that is supposedly considered a friend of the United States. No other country on that list would surprise anyone. And you don't see the US spying on Britain or South Korea (to give two non-Arab, non-Muslim countries that are comparable either in terms of a close relationship with the US or in terms of military predicament). You don't think anti-Semitism has anything to do with this attitude, do you? Maybe if the US government was sharing the information it has agreed to share with Israel, and were backing its supposed ally, it wouldn't feel the need to spend billions of dollars spying and counter-spying on Israel.
What a surprise: The United States spies on Israel
The Washington Post reports on the $52.6 billion 'black budget' that the United States has for spying on other countries in fiscal 2013. The Post obtained the budget from Edward Snowden, the former NSA analyst who has currently found temporary asylum in Russia. The Post isn't telling all, but it's telling enough for us to know that Israel is a target.
•U.S. intelligence officials take an active interest in foes as well as
friends. Pakistan is described in detail as an “intractable target,” and
counterintelligence operations “are strategically focused against [the]
priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel.”
Let that sink in. Every one of those countries is (or in Pakistan's case ought to be) an enemy of the United States... except Israel. So why are we a target?
IDF troops operating inside Syrian side of the Golan
If you're an Israeli, you probably suspected this or even heard rumors about it for some time now, but as the person who sent this to me noted, 'how did this get past the censor'? Two reports - here and here - indicate that IDF troops are operating on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. And no, we're not talking about the field hospital that the IDF set up on the border for wounded Syrians last week. This is from the second link, which discusses an operation back in March.
On March 8, while 21 UN observers were being held captive by Syrian
rebels, another group of observers was running for their lives. Caught
up in fighting between the Syrian army and rebels, they fled down a
steep mountain. There, they were helped by Israeli Defense Forces
soldiers who entered the Syrian Golan Heights to rescue them. The
incident marked the most significant instance of Israeli soldiers
crossing into the Syrian Golan Heights since 1974.
...
Syrian rebels had captured the Syrian army’s military post located on
top of a mountain “for a few hours” before the Syrian army went to
reclaim it. A bloody battle followed.
“There were UN troops very close to this battle who had to leave their
posts," [IDF Brig. Gen. Gal] Hirsch said. They escaped by “going down the cliff and climbing
by foot to the Israeli border.”
He said, “They were in a very bad situation,” and that IDF soldiers had
to cross into the buffer zone to rescue the UN soldiers in the Syrian
Golan Heights.
...
“Today, half of the Syrian Golan Heights is captured by the rebels, and
not held by the Syrian army anymore,” said Hirsch, emphasizing Israel’s
extreme concern about the situation on its northern border. Calling the
area “ungoverned,” he described it as controlled “by many
fundamentalists who are just running to this area in order to capture
bases and build their infrastructure to use it later against Israel.”
Israel is now building a high-tech fence system on its border with Syria
to stop infiltrators. Yet everyone agrees that this is not the answer
to all of the potential dangers.
“The main problem in Syria,” Hirsch said, “is its huge, huge store of
weapons.” Syria has become “one of the biggest warehouses for weapons in
the world, including weapons of mass destruction.”
He added, “That’s a huge threat for us because we don’t know who will
capture the WMDs and the advanced weapons that Russia supplied over the
years to Syria, and who will be able to use them against Israel or, via
the terror organizations already here, on the rest of the world in
terror activities.”
Israel and other countries are concerned about the intentions of the
Syrian rebels, some of who are affiliated with al-Qaeda. One group in
particular, Jabat Al Nusra — a Syrian jihadist group following hardline
Salafist ideology working throughout Syria — is operating increasingly
closer to the Israeli border. Their attack in late January 2013 on a
Syrian military intelligence unit was just 15 kilometers (nine miles)
from the Israeli-Syrian border.
From the Israeli-Syrian border looking down into the valley in Syria,
one can see Jabat al-Nusra-occupied villages in the distance. Powerful
binoculars show deserted streets and half-built or dilapidated houses,
vacant for years, which now serve as seats of operations for the Syrian
rebels. Jabat al-Nusra is said to number between 5,000 and 8,000, and
include many foreigners. Facebook and YouTube pages that document the
names and origins of dead Jabat al-Nusra fighters show that the top
three countries being recruited from are Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and
Libya, particularly from the Benghazi area.
Israeli government sources said that despite al-Nusra having set up
just 14 months ago, it has carried out more attacks and inflicted more
damage on the Syrian regime than any other opposition organization.
The article goes on to note that Hezbullah may also want to use the Golan as a base of operations, since Lebanon has had it with the consequences of Hezbullah operating against Israel from its territory.
This is from the first article, which is from this week.
Reports that Israelis may be operating, even in non-combat
capacities, in an enemy state can be compared to information indicating
that American military personnel are operating in North Korea — if North
Korea lay on the American border, and if it was consumed by a civil war
in which extremist elements were involved.
Yet it appears that
Israeli security forces have entered Syrian territory to identify
wounded Syrians and administer basic medical care across the border.
A senior Israeli source told GlobalPost that wounded Syrian rebels who
have received medical care in Israel “are transported across the border
only once they are positively identified and receive initial emergency
medical treatment while still on the other side,” meaning on Syrian
soil.
This indicates a much higher level of activity by Israel in
rebel-held lands than has previously been acknowledged. It also is a
sign that Israel is willing to put some of its own personnel in
significant peril in order to retain some semblance of order at the
national boundary line.
Late
last month, after 11 Syrian citizens were treated in Israeli hospitals,
AFP reported that the Israeli army set up a field hospital on the
Israeli-Syrian border to provide emergency care on-site. The army
spokesman has refused to comment on the report.
Standing
on the northern Golan Heights, a white tent-like structure is visible
within Israeli lines, on the grounds of military base 105.
“I
think behind the scenes there are steps being taken to prepare. We
haven’t set up a field hospital for thousands. But there is some
preparation, more ambulances, more doctors, more medical equipment.
We’re ready. It’s only logical,” Ret. Col. Eshkol Shokron, who commanded
the Golan Division until his retirement last August, told GlobalPost.
...
Whether there is an established base of medical operations on the
border itself, or whether Israelis are operating just across the
frontier, “the State of Israel doesn’t need to take sides in the war,”
Shokron said.
He added that there is reluctance in Israel to
address the matter head on because of concerns that wounded Syrians,
both civilians and combatants, could flood the Israeli border.
“If
we advertise that there’s a hospital here, the whole world will come.
If they understand there’s an option here, and no one will shoot at
them, that the army is moral and will take care of them, of course it is
their best option.”
Ret. Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, an expert on Israeli military strategy,
says the significance of any Israeli presence across the Syrian lines
would be tactical, not strategic, and that he doubts there exists a
“permanent Israeli presence” across the border.
“It may mean there
are ties or communication developing with some of the saner, more
secular rebel groups,” he said. “Dialogue like this is essential to cope
with new security demands. Israelis may go in and out as the situation
demands. But I’d say its farfetched to believe that any Israelis are
sitting there in a permanent capacity.”
I don't believe that Israelis are sitting there in a permanent capacity. But I believe that there is likely an attempt to hook up with elements among the rebels who are non-Islamist and anti-Assad, and that the IDF hopes those elements will provide intelligence information down the road.
Senator Rand Paul filibustering John 'al-Quds' Brennan
John 'al-Quds' Brennan's nomination to be director of the CIA quietly passed the Senate Intelligence Committee the day before yesterday. But to actually get the job, he's going to have to stop Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) from talking. Paul is doing a filibuster the old-fashioned way: He's speaking. And he says he won't stop until Brennan's nomination is defeated or withdrawn (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
This one actually has nothing to do with Israel.
At first the filibuster, staged by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), was greeted
with skepticism. For the first three hours, he railed alone against
Obama’s refusal to rule out drone strikes on American soil.
“I’m here to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination to be director of
CIA,” Paul announced, later vowing: “I will speak for as long as it
takes.”
But as the day went on, one Republican senator after
another pledged support to Paul’s cause and made their way down to the
Senate floor.
“Americans have every reason to be concerned any
time the government wants to intrude on life, liberty or prosperity,”
said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who was the first Republican to join Paul’s
filibuster. “We’re talking here about the sanctity of human life.”
Maybe they don't trust Obama to only go after terrorists? Hmmm.
UPDATE 10:15 AM
Paul ended his filibuster at 12:40 am on Thursday - when the Senate adjourned. The nomination did not come to a vote of the full Senate.
Obama ditches iPad for live intelligence briefings
After coming under heavy criticism for skipping his daily intelligence briefings, President Obama has been attending them... for the last four days.
But now, in an apparent 180-degree reversal, the White House official calendar shows that for the last four days Mr. Obama has ditched his iPad and has instead opted for the live briefings.
That's a good thing. As Mr. Thiessen explains, the live briefings
are far preferred over the written daily intel reports, because they
offer presidents and their advisors an opportunity to drill down into
intelligence threats and to challenge assumptions. "This process cannot be replicated on paper," says Mr. Thiessen.
Still, Mr. Carney owes Mr. Thiessen an apology. Carney said
Thiessen's report was "hilarious" and flippantly dismissed the need for
Mr. Obama to attend live intelligence briefings. Then, after four
Americans were murdered and Mr. Obama's foreign policy approval rating plunged,
Mr. Obama has now decided to actually start showing up for his daily
presidential intelligence briefings, just as Mr. Thiessen urged him to
do.
The Government Accountability Institute, a new conservative investigative research organization, examined President Obama’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.
Read the whole thing. It gets worse. Maybe that's why he's screwed the Middle East up so badly.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reacted today to claims made by author Bob Woodward about the President’s lack of leadership during the debt ceiling crisis, and lack of personal relationships with members of Congress.
Carney suggested that Woodward’s assertion was “a funny conclusion to reach, given how many hours the president spent with members of Congress … including sitting on his patio, including playing golf, including at the residence.”
The video was presented during a debriefing by Brigadier General Hartzi Halevi, Commander of the 91st Division (Galilee Formation), which is responsible for the Lebanese border sector.
Let's go to the videotape.
As you can see, the terror operatives drive right up to the border and look across, knowing that the IDF will not fire at them.
During the debriefing, Halevi said, “The IDF sees the connection between the ongoing events in Syria and the terror activity at the northern border, and is preparing accordingly. The chances of hostile activity in the border region are continuously increasing, and therefore, we are required to be prepared. There is more than just one way to violate the calm at the northern border, but the IDF will know to provide a clear and keen response against any possible scenario.
“The challenges we face are numerous. We will have to see how we face the complex challenge that includes an enemy with multiple capabilities. However, we will be able to operate on Lebanese soil, should it be required, and inflict considerable damage to the terror centers present there.”
Source is an old friend from college who is now a major in IDF intelligence. Had not seen one another in years. Very secretive of what they do; seemed pretty suspicious about what exactly I was doing in Israel. Nothing too groundbreaking, just some interesting observations.
...
- Opsec at IDI (Israel Defense Intelligence) seems pretty extreme. If you try to email this person, you don't hear back for a month, minimum - usually even longer. Reason is because no websites that have passwords are allowed at work. Emails for internal comms only.
- Source is in D.C. frequently for meetings with DIA. When I asked if they are often trained by the Americans, the response was a smirk and, "We like to think we don't need the Americans to train us." IDI, source said, is "more creative" than American counterparts. The way they work sounded similar in philosophy to STRATFOR, actually. For example, there is a specific officer who is referred to as the "Devil's advocate" at the IDI offices. This person is allowed to challenge any random paper on any topic, produced by someone of any rank. If a paper is written that says, hypothetically, that Bashar will fall in three weeks, the Devil's advocate can then say, "Okay, I'm challenging this assertion. Now, I want you to write the exact opposite argument and play out the logic." Source did not deny that they, too, can fall prey to groupthink like any other intelligence body, but was a firm believe that this was a good way to avoid it.
- "Where are the moderates in the Muslim world?" That was the theme of the conversation on source's end. If you listen to this person, you come away with the notion that the Israelis seem extremely unnerved about the future of the region, with the primary focus being on the Iranian threat. (Again, this is not groundbreaking insight.)
- Source openly said that none of this shit would be happening right now had Obama not abandoned Mubarak like he did. When I later criticized Bush for shattering the balance of power in the PG, source shot back, "Well what about Obama?" I said that Obama had maintained the same FP as Bush, a claim with which the source agreed. And yet the source loves Bush's policies and hates Obama's. Israelis are not a fan of Barack.
- Because Obama abandoned Mubarak, source lamented the fact that Egypt was no longer the leader of the Arab world. This does not mean source believes the MB is on the verge of completely taking power in Egypt - (I specifically asked if that was the belief the IDI holds) - but it does mean that there is a steep drop in faith that the SCAF has ability to maintain the status quo. Overall I found the message on Egypt a bit confusing.
Since they don't allow access to websites with passwords, at least the IDI will (hopefully) avoid being hacked by Wikileaks like Stratfor was. I suspect that the IDI would be a lot more interesting.
Elder has an amusing piece on a Maan reporter whom the source calls 'batsh*t insane.'
Here's the inside scoop on Nasser and the key to understanding how Maan remains the only truly independent news source in Palestine: He's a decades long supporter of the Popular Front, was president of the PFLP at Bethlehem Univ. and went to jail six years for it.
As a PFLP supporter, he detests organized religion and its mixing in politics (Hamas) just as much as he hates materialism/capitalism/corruption (Fatah). (On that second point, he's probably the most beloved media personality in the country and has huge influence, yet he never thought to move out of the refugee camp where he was born. Badass.)
The other important thing to know about Nasser, more important than anything else I just mentioned, is that he is batshit insane. Really do love the guy but something is off up there, trust me. He will spout out the craziest theories every once in a while.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
