Sleepless in Midland

Adolf Tolkachev -- the billion dollar spy

My summer reading list last year included a number of books about cold war spies. While I may have written at this blog about some of those books, this one got neglected.

It's fact based story of Adolf Tolkachev, "The Billion Dollar Spy," by David Hoffman. Tolkachev was a Soviet scientist who undertook the dangerous task of supplying the CIA with secrets about Soviet research and accomplishments in weapon development.

Beginning in the late 1970s, he sneaked documents out of his top secret working area, took them home, photographed them, and got them back in place during his lunch time. It was a very risky project. And he eluded capture for a number of years.

But a traitor in the CIA named Edward Lee Howard ratted him out. Tolkachev was apprehended by the KGB and ultimately executed, presumably after they had extracted all the information they could out of him. A portrait of Tolkachev photographing documents hangs in CIA headquarters.

The billion dollars in the book title refers to the estimated amount of money he saved the U.S. from research made unnecessary by the materials he was able to share.

Related:
Author's website: David E. Hoffman;
Book Review | The Billion Dollar Spy;
The Billion Dollar Spy.

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3:04 PM 3/8/2020

I question the timing of this NYT piece on Bernie Sanders' usefulness to the Soviet Union

Why now? The timing of this article about Sanders is curious. Titled, As Bernie Sanders Pushed for Closer Ties, Soviet Union Spotted Opportunity.

I've been wondering for a while now whether Bernie Sanders had a KGB code name like the British friend to the Soviets, Michael Foote -- KGB code named Agent Boot.

Sanders probably didn't reveal any secrets, but like Agent Boot, he could pass along information that would help the Soviets -- information that was in the public domain or that might not have been made public but which the Soviets might find useful.

As mayor of Burlington, Vt., Sanders sought and got "sister city" status with Yaroslavl, Russia. From the article:

“One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact,” a Soviet Foreign Ministry document provided to Yaroslavl officials said.

It certainly doesn't makes Sanders look like a flag waving American -- it makes him look more like a Soviet useful idiot.

But why is the New York Times telling its readers this now? Joe Biden had a big day on Super Tuesday, and Sanders was left licking his wounds. To publish this piece about Sanders now hints that the New York Times is casting its lot to Joe Biden.

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3:22 PM 3/6/2020

Journalists use spy tactics -- A Swallow got intel from government official

This reads like something out of cold war spy history. Henry Kyle Frese was a Defense Intelligence Agency who had a top secret clearance. And his girl friend got him to share some of those secrets with her. From Intelligence agent arrested for spilling secrets to journalists:

Frese and the journalist had the same residential address for a year starting in August 2017 and, based on Frese’s social media pages, “it appears that they were involved in a romantic relationship for some or all of that period of time,” the feds said in a statement.

The release of the unspecified secrets could be “expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States,” they said, adding that foreign countries could use the information against their rivals, possibly placing US lives at risk.

The main stream media apparently uses honey traps and swallows to get secrets that can be turned into headlines. Never mind who gets hurt. And apparently in this case, the journalists got off scot free.

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1:18 PM 2/22/2020

Busy bears -- Russians are hacking Burisma

News sources are making this into a political event, and they could be right. But the bottom line is that Russian actors have been actively trying to hack into places where they don't belong.

Thepatrioteagle.com describes how it was done in Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment:

The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.

Then, as now, the Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company.

The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area1 said.

So why would Russia want to hack Burisma? For information harmful to Joe Biden? If so, it's doubtful they wanted to help Trump. As one of the Democrat star impeachment witnesses said, Russians wasn't really trying to get Trump elected. They wanted to sow discord among our citizens and generate disgust with our governmental system. Whatever role Russia played, they got what they sought.

Any information they obtained that could hurt Biden would more likely be used against him should he become president.

Meanwhile, this sort of thing happens so frequently it seems negligent for any company not to have built in protection from phishing emails.

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Topic originally found at POLITICO Playbook: The Democratic primary just got real.

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1:45 PM 1/14/2020

Dusko Popov and the Pearl Harbor warning J. Edgar Hoover ignored

There was a lot of hand wringing after the terrorist attack on the twin towers about the failure of intelligence agencies to connect the dots prior to the attack.

Dots weren't connected prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor either. The dots that weren't connected were actually microdots -- a spy technique involving tiny dots containing microscopic print hidden on an innocent looking piece of typed paper.

There's a fascinating book with the intriguing title "Into the lion's mouth: the true story of Dusko Popov : World War II spy, patriot, and the real-life inspiration for James Bond" by Larry Loftis. Popov was a spy -- actually a double agent ostensibly working for the Germans during World War II but helping the The U.S. and Britain.

Popov had been given a questionnaire for information the Germans wanted him to retrieve from the Americans, and parts of it concerned a British attack on a naval base in Italy and how the Americans defended Pearl Harbor. It's obvious now that the Germans were gathering this information for Japan.

This information was made available to J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover sat on it. Hoover's disgust of Popov's playboy lifestyle may have clouded Hoover's judgment. Hoover either deliberately withheld crucial intelligence or didn't comprehend the significance.

In any event, with that forewarning Pearl Harbor could have been better defended.

References: Scandal of the Century – New Book Claims USA Knew Of Pearl Harbor Plans For Months
The Tricycle Affair
FBI Skullduggery: Was J. Edgar Hoover Criminally Negligent or Treasonous?

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1:35 PM 12/7/2019

FBI warns us about our spying TV sets

Interesting press release from the FBI field office in Portland -- Oregon FBI Tech Tuesday: Securing Smart TVs. It reads like a blog post, but it contains some useful tips on how to prevent our TV sets from spying on us. The bullet points:

Know exactly what features your TV has and how to control those features. Do a basic Internet search with your model number and the words “microphone,” “camera,” and “privacy.”

Don’t depend on the default security settings. Change passwords if you can – and know how to turn off the microphones, cameras, and collection of personal information if possible. If you can’t turn them off, consider whether you are willing to take the risk of buying that model or using that service.

If you can’t turn off a camera but want to, a simple piece of black tape over the camera eye is a back-to-basics option.

Check the manufacturer’s ability to update your device with security patches. Can they do this? Have they done it in the past?

Check the privacy policy for the TV manufacturer and the streaming services you use. Confirm what data they collect, how they store that data, and what they do with it.

Maybe painting an eyeball over the camera eye would serve as a reminder of who's watching whom.

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1:49 PM 11/29/2019

Does anyone trust Facebook's face recognition app?

For someone having trouble remembering a person's name this Facebook app might be a real benefit. But does anyone still trust Facebook?

Kate O'Flaherty tells us this in Forbes -- Facebook Tested A Terrifying Facial Recognition App On Employees And Their Friends. Excerpt:

Facebook is under fire again, and this time over a terrifying facial recognition app that was tested on its employees. According to Business Insider, the tool used real-time facial recognition to identify a person by simply pointing a smartphone’s camera at them.

Business Insider said the app was developed between 2015 and 2016 but has since been discontinued. Citing anonymous sources, it reported that one version of the tool could even bring up someone’s Facebook profile using facial recognition capabilities. It was allegedly tested on Facebook’s employees and their friends who had enabled facial recognition on their profiles. 

Facebook has confirmed that it did develop the app, but denied that it could identify users of the social network. CNET published a statement, which read: "As a way to learn about new technologies, our teams regularly build apps to use internally.

The program could have some benefit to individual users. But social media companies are less caring about their users than their customers -- companies and governments wanting to compile dossiers on each us. China and it's social credit scorecard comes to mind.

Americans who grew up during the cyber revolution are much more at ease sharing personal information then those who grew up without it. And some people are more tolerant of snoops than others.

It's still an open question why China purloined U.S. government employee files a few years back. But it's not out of the question that they could be compiling dossiers on each and every one of us.

In any event, it's disturbing to read how cavalier many tech companies are about developing snooping software which will undoubtedly end up in the hands of foreign government agencies.

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3:22 PM 11/26/2019

Did Bernie Sanders have a Soviet KGB code name?

I recently read an enthralling book titled "The Spy and The Traitor" by Ben McIntyre which is the amazing story about KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Britain during the cold war and passed Soviet secrets to MI6.

Gordievsky brought to light information about a big league British Labour Party politician named Michael Foot. Turns out Foot was chummy with the Soviets who even had a code name for him: Agent Boot.

Agent Boot fed information to the Soviets and was paid well for it. But to be fair, he most likely didn't pass on any security secrets -- he didn't have access to British security secrets.

Back to the topic of this post, Bernie Sanders who, as it is well known, took his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. At the time, Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and any information he may have had for the Soviets probably would not have advanced the Soviet goals very much. He may have been a mere useful idiot, to use Lenin's phrase.

In any event, the KGB was always trying to hook up with western politicians. And they probably had a file on Sanders. One has to wonder whether they gave him his own code name. Agent Beach, perhaps?

Further reading on the subject:
Bernie Sanders’s Soviet Honeymoon;
How Britain’s prize double agent PROVED Michael Foot took cash from the KGB: Cold War 'super spy' Oleg Gordievsky reveals a bombshell disclosure about the ex Labour leader hidden deep in the Moscow archives; and
How A KGB Double Agent Saved Britain And Won The Cold War For The West.

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3:53 PM 7/16/2019

Spy tip of the week -- never ask for confirmation of something you already believe

I've been reading a book titled "The Spy and The Traitor" by Ben McIntyre, and it's a fascinating story about a KGB officer who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Britain in the cold war and passed top secret info to the Brits. A shocking block of information was about *Operation Ryan.

The short hand version of the tip is this: Never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. And it has application in a many areas. However, in this context, here's the entire paragraph and its application to the story told in the book:

In launching Operation RYAN, Andropov broke the first rule of intelligence: never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. Hitler had been certain that the D-day invasion force would land at Calais, so that is what his spies (with help from Allied double agents) told him, ensuring the success of the Normandy landings. Tony Blair and George W. Bush were convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that is what their intelligence services duly concluded. Yuri Andropov, pedantic and autocratic, was utterly convinced that his KGB minions would find evidence of a looming nuclear assault. So that is what they did.

McIntyre tells readers of the book that Andropov believed it, and his spies sought to prove it.

*Operation RYAN was the code name for raketno-yadernoya napadeniye which represented the erroneous belief by Yuri Andropov that the U.S. intended to launch a preemptive nuclear strike to obliterate the Soviet Union.

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4:04 PM 7/8/2019

Will China apply its social credit system to the Americans in their database

It's a well known secret that China is snooping on us. Just the other day we learned that Chinese hackers had pilfered metadata from cell phone networks in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Were they not hacking networks serving the U.S., or had those breaches just not yet been discovered or made public?

We go back a few years ago and recall the huge breach of the U.S. OPM data on thousands of current and retired federal workers. What became of that stolen private data?

At some point we need to reconcile the fact that the government of China has access to information on millions of U.S. citizens with China's new social credit system they are setting up for their own citizens. If they haven't done so already, they will surely be tempted to apply such a system to American citizens so they will know who is their friend, who is their foe, and who is persuadable.

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2:47 PM 7/6/2019

Cheollima Civil Defense raided Nor-Kor embassy in Spain

It seems like a conspiracy in search of a theory.

Allegedly, the Cheollima Civil Defense raided the North Korean embassy in Madrid, Spain, on February 22. The story says the group took documents and computers and tied up the staff before leaving. Source: Cheollima Civil Defense: Group claims raid on North Korea's embassy.

Spanish police say the intruders were CIA agents.. So there's the conspiracy. Whatever information was purloined is anybody's guess. Just seems like the CIA would have utilized a higher tech way of accomplishing that.

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3:12 PM 3/27/2019

Jonah Goldberg wonders if Saudi Crown Prince floated a trial balloon with version of journalist's death

The always astute Goldberg made an interesting observation in What If I Told You . . . ?

He noted the story being floated about which says the Saudi Crown Prince might issue a statement which would explain that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in "an interrogation gone wrong."

Here's Goldberg:

Some minor strategic-communications advice for the Saudis: Either say that’s what happened or don’t say it. Floating a trial balloon that you might say it telegraphs the impression that you’re just fishing for a cover story. And it’s a pretty crappy cover story. What kind of “interrogation” ends with the subject’s death? Not the kind with very pointed questions and a bit too much shouting. That’s not to say that it can’t be true. But framing it in an almost Monty Python–esque “Would you believe . . . ?” way is almost the perfect way to get people not to believe it.

Excellent point, Jonah.

Post Script. Here's a minor observation on a local level. The library in our little village of Midland, Texas, for some reason has removed all of Jonah Goldberg's books from its card catalog. Why would they do that?

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9:42 AM 10/16/2018

Khashoggi’s disappearance and the mysterious recording -- where did that recording come from?

As everyone knows by now, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never walked out. The common wisdom tells he was murdered, and there appears to be some evidence in the form of vocal recordings. See Turks tell U.S. officials they have audio and video recordings that support conclusion Khashoggi was killed:

“The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence.

“You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,” this person said. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”

A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi.

In the spy novels, sensitive areas are frequently swept for bugs. So if such a recording exists, how did it come about? WaPo is silent about the source of their information leading one to believe it came by way of a leak from a protected source.

Here's a conspiracy theory: a Laser Doppler vibrometer aimed at some flat surface through a window captured the sound either for the Turks or some other entity. And they sought to gain favor by leaking the information.

Here's another conspiracy theory: the noisy business aimed at the U.S. embassy in Cuba was an incompetent effort on the part of Cubans to use sophisticated spy equipment that was a little bit too sophisticated for their abilities.

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2:49 PM 10/12/2018

Our vehicles will soon be spying on us

It's bad enough that our phones and TVs are spying on us, it turns out that our vehicles have that capability, too. Or if they don't have it now, they soon will have.

Does that worry car owners? It should, but people seem to have gotten very complacent about all those devices watching and listening to us.

Anyway, for a rundown on what's in the pipeline, see What Your Car Knows About You. Alternate link. Excerpt:

Already, some car makers are gathering this data to provide feedback to help improve a car’s performance, refine features and alert them to any potential quality problems early on. They’re also using it to create new and more personalized services for drivers.

But many car makers have bigger plans, including using the data to craft targeted in-car advertisements or selling it to mapping firms looking to provide more accurate traffic information.

General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. and other major car makers are hoping these connected-car services will generate new revenue streams that can help them diversify beyond their core business of building and selling cars. While it is still early days, McKinsey & Co. estimates monetizing data from connected cars will be worth up to $750 billion by 2030 as more cars are shipped with pre-installed modems and other internet-connected devices. ...

Car companies stress that they get the owner’s consent first before gathering any data. In cases where it is collected and provided to third parties, the data is anonymized, meaning it is scrubbed of all personal information and batched together with data from other vehicles to provide a more generalized picture of a car’s operations or consumer driving habits.

You did click "Accept," didn't you?

Still, privacy experts say it is not always clear to consumers when they are giving consent. As with other electronic devices, the data disclosures are often buried in the terms and service agreement and described in ways that aren’t always easy for customers to understand.

“That’s not going to give consumers a full sense of how their data is being used and collected any more than it is online,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, who specializes in digital privacy.

This is all the more reason for drivers to hang on to those clunkers as long as possible.

The company rushing to get your data moving out of the vehicle is Otonomo of Israel.

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1:20 PM 8/19/2018

Brennan's security clearance pulled -- it's about time

This was long overdue. Brennan was not just a critic. He was on the other side.

John Brennan orchestrated an operation against Trump while Brennan was with the government. Then once out, he continually rebuked the president. So why in the world was Brennan still holding the security clearance?

From Fox News: Trump revokes security clearance for former CIA director John Brennan:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement on behalf of the president during the start of the press briefing, saying Brennan “has a history that calls his credibility into question.” The statement also said that Brennan had been "leveraging" the clearance to make "wild outbursts" and claims against the Trump administration.

It's a start. Under review: James Comey; Andrew McCabe; James Clapper; Susan Rice; Michael Hayden; Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

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2:46 PM 8/15/2018

Rand Paul explains how at least one former official monetized his security clearance -- spoiler, it's John Brennan

It concerned John Brennan's call to former officials -- turned talking heads -- in which he divulged information about an underwear bomber in 2012. Those talking heads went on to divulge this to the networks. And in so doing, they compromised an operation. See Rand Paul: John Brennan’s Security Clearance Is a Danger:

Clear evidence concerning the bias of multiple, high-ranking current and former intelligence community officials should make us think twice about letting retired intelligence officials keep access to classified information, especially if they become talking heads on television after leaving public service. ...

John Brennan’s careless leak to former intelligence officials turned television commentators helped compromise an operation and risk the life of a double agent, and who knows what other objectives it also hindered or outright prevented. This is exactly why former intelligence officials who are now talking heads on television should not continue to have a security clearance.

John Brennan, now a network talking head, is the poster child for the partisan deep state bureaucracy more loyal to party than country.

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12:49 PM 7/28/2018

Foldering -- spy tactic now widely known

The spy trick of creating an email account, writing text in an email, then saving it to the draft folder to be opened by another spy has been around a while. But now it has a name. "Foldering." Here's the Wall Street Journal with ‘Foldering’: In the Manafort Case, an Old Spy Trick Enters the Digital Age. Excerpt:

While digital dead-dropping has been reported to be a favored tactic in terrorist cells (as depicted on screen in the 2008 spy thriller “Traitor”), the most famous example prior to Mr. Manafort came to light in 2012, when F.B.I. agents uncovered secret messages shared between David Petraeus, then the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and his biographer Paula Broadwell. As The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell were discovered to be using “the draft-email trick.”

The introduction of a single word, “foldering,” to label this practice is handy shorthand. Whether the technique will offer refuge from the digital police is another question.

Alternate link.

I would have called it a "Draft Dodge." That could cause some confusion, but isn't that one of a spy's objectives?

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3:21 PM 6/26/2018

NYT reporters tactics mirror Russian spy tactics

It's amazing how similar reporters' tactics are to Russian spy tactics.

I've been watching the final season of "The Americans." That's the series in which Russian spies inveigle themselves into the lives of individuals employed in sensitive capacities in the U.S. government for the purpose of obtaining intelligence. Hot sex and feigned love are tools of the trade.

I'm struck by the similarity of the Russian spies and reporters. It happened to General Petraeus. He was shtupping a writer all the while sharing sensitive information with her.

The most recent publicized case is the romance between the young, attractive, New York Times reporter, Ali Watkins, and the former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, who is roughly twice her age.

The New York Times hired her knowing she had a relationship with the guy, and a previous employer knew about it too. Heck, it was probably a resume enhancer.

Anyway, the Russians want to cause discord in the U.S. and ultimately the destruction of the U.S. system of government. It often seems as if many Progressives want that, too. In any event, they use similar tactics to achieve their goals.

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5:43 AM 6/9/2018

Fairly or unfairly, Kaspersky Lab is hobbled by work of Russian spies

Reading this article -- Local governments keep using this software — but it might be a back door for Russia -- one comes away with a heavy suspicion that the Kaspersky Lab could be a participant in all this Russian spying that is supposed to be going on.

Maybe the company is being judged guilty by association. And maybe they are as independent from the Russian government as they claim to be.

But from the article, there's this:

The federal agency in charge of purchasing, the General Services Administration, this month removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from its list of approved vendors. In doing so, the agency’s statement suggested a vulnerability exists in Kaspersky that could give the Russian government backdoor access to the systems it protects, though they offered no explanation or evidence of it. Kaspersky has strongly denied coordinating with the Russian government and has offered to cooperate with federal investigators.

Lack of evidence certainly hasn't diminished the claims that President Trump colluded with Russians to win the election. Maybe those making that claim are seeking consistency by applying the same standard to Kaspersky.

However, this seems relevant:

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said “it's difficult, if not impossible” for a company like Kaspersky to be headquartered in Moscow “if you don't cooperate with the government and the intelligence services.”

In any event, for those of us out here in flyover country who are sufficiently frightened by the almost weekly headline about huge data breaches, it's better to be safe than sorry.

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1:23 PM 7/24/2017

old-school spycraft may be dead at the CIA but apparently it still works for Israel

Alex Finley bemoans the loss of human intel at U.S. spy agencies in How the CIA Forgot the Art of Spying at Politico.com.

Back in the heyday of spycraft -- the cold war -- both the Soviets and the U.S. were busying themselves with lots of clandestine activities. Watch a few episodes of "The Americans" on FX to get a flavor of what that might have been like, although those of us who weren't in on it have no idea how realistic that fictional TV show is. But one has to imagine that disguises, drop boxes, and blackmail were ordinary tools of the trade. Here are some excerpts from Finley's article:

Over the past 15 years, this “global war on terror” mindset has become the default at the CIA. After accusations that it was stuck in the Cold War, the agency began to trade concealment devices and human sources for military hardware. Under a directive from President George W. Bush, it expanded its ranks to fight terror. It bulked up its abilities to track and target a dispersed enemy fighting an asymmetrical war. Gone were the days, it seemed, of risky brush passes in a heart-pounding, adrenaline-filled four-second period when an officer was “black”—meaning free, just for a moment, from hostile surveillance and able to pass a message to an asset. The Cold War was over; we had a new enemy to defeat. ...

The end of the Cold War left the agency untethered. Without a well-defined enemy, the CIA couldn’t figure out its mission. ...

The attacks of September 11 gave the agency a clear new mission—but one that pulled officers even further from traditional tradecraft. The new enemy operated in the rough terrain of failed states scarred by years of war; the old way of doing things—hobnobbing with the international community to get information on a state actor—was no longer adequate. As a colleague once said to me, “Terrorists don’t go to cocktail parties.” The agency set about reforming itself.

The counter-terrorism game was afoot. And the tools of the trade consisted of satellites, drones and the communication intercepts. Meanwhile, the Russians are still spying on us the old way andthe new way.

But what's this? Apparently, old fashioned spycraft is alive after all -- practiced by the Israelis:

The spy provided intelligence involving an active ISIS plot to bring down a passenger jet en route to the United States, with a bomb hidden in a laptop that U.S. officials believe can get through airport screening machines undetected. The information was reliable enough that the U.S. is considering a ban on laptops on all flights from Europe to the United States.

Donald Trump is being accused by the msm of outing this human intel product. However, the msm itself is as much to blame if not more.

So if Russia's goal is to generate discontent and disrupt the foundation of America, they don't hold a candle to the Democrats and the msm.

One more thing: Watch an interview with Alex Finley on C-Span here

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2:58 PM 5/17/2017

Why Russia is trolling the Alaskan borders, probably to gather electronic information about our defense systems

The news sites tell us that Russian planes are getting very close to our boundaries at Alaska. See Russia Sends Its Most Advanced Fighters to U.S. Coast. Are they testing testing our nerve with a game of chicken?

More likely they're testing our electronic countermeasures and their counter-counter measures. We did it in the 60s to the Russians in Cuba and probably continue to do it wherever appropriate.

I'm reading Annie Jabosen's book, "Area 51, An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base." It's probably not one the UFO fanatics might think from the title. But it contains a lot of history about the spy work that came out of the Nevada Test and Training Range of which Area 51 is a small part. One project occurred during the cold war and involved a bomber flight with a missile in the hull toward Cuba but just shy of Cuba's airspace. Here's an excerpt:

"'We had the nose cone off and part of the skin off too. The missile was loaded on a stand inside the plane. It was my job to watch the electronics respond," [Thornton "T.D."] Barnes explains. The airplane and its crew took off from the airbase and headed for Cuba. The plan was for the airplane to fly right up to the edge of Cuban airspace but not into it. Moments before the airplane crossed into Cuban airspace, the pilot would quickly turn around and head home. By then the Russian radar experts working the Cuban radar sites would have turned on their systems to track the U.S. airplane. Russian MiG fighter jets would be sent aloft to respond. The job of Project Palladium was to gather the electronic intelligence being sent out by the radar stations and the MiGs. That was the first step in figuring out how to create a jamming system for the A-12 at Area 51.

The Cubans and their Russian patrons could not have had any idea whether the Americans were playing another game of chicken or if this act meant war. "Soviet MiGs would scramble toward us," Barnes recalls. "At the time, ECM [electronic countermeasure] and ECCM [electronic counter-countermeasure] technology were still new to both the plane and the missile. We'd transmit a Doppler signal from a radar simulator which told their MiG pilots that a missile had locked on them. When the Soviet pilots engaged their ECM against us, my job was to sit there and watch how our missile's ECCM responded. If the Soviet signal jammed our missile and made it drift off target, I'd tweak my missile's ECCM electronics to determine what would override a Soviet ECM signal." Though primitive by today's standards, what Barnes and the NSA agents with him inside the aircraft did laid the early groundwork for electronic warfare today. "Inside the airplane, we'd record the frequencies to be replayed back at Fort Bliss for training and design. Once we got what we wanted we hauled ass out of the area to avoid actual contact with Soviet planes."

I picture Vlad Putin saying, "Annie Jacobsen, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!"

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3:46 PM 5/7/2017

surveillance on citizens -- Sharyl Attkisson tells us how it's done

Freelancing sleuth Sharyl Attkisson penned an insightful article based on interviews with "formerly high-placed intelligence officials" titled When “incidental” intel collection—isn’t incidental in which she detailed the various ways intel agencies can spy on someone without a FISA order.

And there's this example of how "Incidental collection of a U.S. citizen target may be “orchestrated” for political reasons by those who have tools and tradecraft available to them because of their positions of power. There are ways to do it with no fingerprints." To wit:

1. Locate a foreign target already under CIA surveillance.
2. Have a government agent use the foreign target’s phone and/or computer to make it look like the foreigner contacted the U.S. citizen whose communications are sought. The contacts can be benign, but they establish a record that falsely implies a relationship exists between the U.S. citizen and the foreign target.
3. The government agent can also mimic a communication back from the U.S. citizen to the foreign target, creating an appearance that the U.S. citizen initiated contacts. This could be favorable to justifying a warrant on the U.S. citizen later.
4. The U.S. citizen is now tied to the foreign entity and is now an “incidental” collection target that can be surveilled in a “masked” format. Although “masked,” the surveilling agency knows the U.S. citizen’s identity.
5. If the U.S. citizen does anything that can be construed as illegal or suspicious, it’s possible the intel agency can then receive approval to surveil him directly rather than only “incidentally.”

Before the names are unmasked a plausible cover story might be developed from the communications to justify the unmasking.

Meanwhile, the raw number won't mean much, but Microsoft's biannual report ending last year shows that the company received 25,837 Law Enforcement Requests covering 44,876 accounts.

3:12 PM 4/15/2017

How do we know it was Assad who gassed those babies? Just wondering.

Are the intelligence sources who proclaimed Assad responsible for the gas attack the same ones who have provided all that fake news in the past?

Remember Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin? Remember how Putin conspired with Trump to win him the election?

It's hard to know who to believe these days. After all, there's at least the possibility ISIS could have planted some sarin containers on the ground hoping Syria would bomb them and release the gas.

Is it too much to ask for the source of the information placing blame?

They may be 100% correct. But these days it's difficult for the average news consumer to give credibility to everything we are told.

Addendum: I began reading Annie Jacobsen's "Phenomena" during lunch Friday. And in the first few pages she described how a famous astrologist named Louis de Wohl wrote columns for American newspapers in the early 40s. Remarkably, he made some predictions that proved true. But they weren't true, they were fake news stories planted by the British. For you see, the astrologist was actually working for British intelligence assigned to help "organize American public opinion in favor to aid Britain." Once the U.S. entered the war, he went back home to England where he directed his propaganda work at the Nazis.

Anyone who wonders what would have happened if Nixon had been a Democrat may be about to find out

Initially, Republicans tried gamely to defend Richard Nixon when the leaks about the Watergate break-in were appearing in the Washington Post. But eventually it became obvious that some dastardly deeds had been done and that Nixon was probably behind it. Then Republicans joined the mob, and Nixon resigned.

Many have wondered if things would have been different had Nixon been a Democrat. Of course they would. We are seeing it play out right before our eyes.

The bombshell news is that Susan Rice was the surrogate who ordered the results from surveillance on Trump to be put together in detailed spreadsheets, presumably for easy dissemination.

But Obama was the kingpin, and he had to have condoned that spy op. So far Democrats and the MSM have circled the wagons to protect Obama. Rice, however, may end up taking the fall for the boss. She'll probably continue to be a good soldier -- like the mobster who does his time and keeps his mouth shut.

1:09 PM 4/4/2017

Russians use April fools gag to poke fun at the way we've politicized our intelligence apparatus

Should we be offended at this? ‘Press 2 if hackers needed’: Russian FM April Fools voicemail leaves US media unamused. Link goes to RT.com, the Russian propaganda website, and it tells how the Russian embassy's phone tree was rejiggered with amusing messages for incoming calls.

By now most of us believe that the Russians tried to interfere with our election, but whether they wanted one or the other candidates to win isn't yet known. Nonetheless, it's nice to know they have a good sense of humor. And if they felt like lashing back at all the finger pointing, this method is a lot more pleasant than poison umbrella tips.

Meanwhile, it's starting to look like our own intelligence agencies did more to try to influence the election than the Russians. Clarice Feldman breaks it down in Russia? No, the Pony in the Manure Is the Corruption of our Intelligence Officials. Spoiler alert: Obama people in the intelligence agencies were trying to help Hillary and hurt Trump.

Who is worse for America, Russian spies or U.S. spies? As George Smiley used to say in the Le Carre novels, there are angels and devils on both sides.

6:45 AM 4/2/2017

This latest Wiki-dump on the CIA has Karla's thumbprints all over it

Monica Showalter makes a convincing case that it was the Russians. Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory, but theories are all we can go on in the midst of all this business about moles, espionage, and spy craft. Her article is titled Wikileaks CIA Dump Has Some Peculiar Timing, and there she suggests the Russians are responsible.

A Wikileak of this sort is not only rare and specialized (when was the last time you saw a CIA secret splattered all over the Internet?) it was probably the work of Russian cyberspies, given that only the Russians are likely to have such capacity, as well as potential human penetrations on the inside. If so, it means a Russian power game is now in play, with just the right timing to support it.

She notes that Julian Assange's Wikileaks to date has only released information that supports Russian objectives and that if the Russians do take things personally, this could be blow back for all the accusations that Russians were conspiring with Trump's people to swing the election.

Binge on John Le Carre movies like I've been doing and you'll wish we had a George Smiley on our team.

Irony alert -- in trying to hurt Trump the MSM exposed Obama to the spying charge

Mark Levin might be the Bob Woodward of this particular scandal. There's no deep throat here, yet. But Levin is getting the credit, at least in his own circles.

Watch Levin lay it out in this Youtube video. The incriminating information (too early to call it evidence) comes from Obama friendly MSM sources themselves, in particular, the New York Times and Washington Post. The irony is that the tone of the MSM suggested they were trying to damage Trump, when in fact, they exposed Obama's vulnerability to charges his team took advantage of a FISA court order to spy on the Trump campaign.

Bob Woodward, it's time to play catch up.

Expert explains why the 2 woman alleged to have killed Kim Jong-nam weren't harmed by the chemical

The nerve agent used to kill Kim Jong-nam is lethal to touch — but the suspects in his killing are alive. Here's the key part:

It's possible that the North Koreans who fled the country coated the women's hands with protective chemicals first. An antidote, atropine, can be administered after exposure, but there is also the question of how everyone else in the crowded airport avoided exposure.

The most logical answer so far comes from Vipin Narang at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has suggested the attack required two people for one good reason — with the VX, he says, used in a "binary form."

Narang says one of the accused may have had a sulphur-containing liquid on her hands. The other then perhaps wielded a "complex but nontoxic compound called QL."

Combined, they create VX.

Makes sense to this non-chemist.

If only our spies loved our country as much as they hate Trump

Are our nation's spies really conducting an operation on Trump? The theory that our spy agencies are out to get Trump is really disconcerting. To believe it means believing that the agencies hate Trump more than they love the country they are sworn to serve. Very troubling.

The Wall Street Journal has an article titled "Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump on Leak Concerns" (behind paywall) which is addressed by Ed Morrissey with a somewhat different take: Top intel chief: We’re not withholding intel from POTUS.

Apparently, it's standard operating procedure to withhold the really, really secret stuff, like the sources and methods of spying on other governments. That's understandable, especially when there are people looking for any way to make the administration look bad even if it could hurt someone, e.g., Diane Feinstein's outing of the CIA contractor who oversaw enhanced interrogation of terrorists.

But Morissey makes a pertinent observation:

So they’re doing the same thing as in the past, but … they just don’t like this president? Bottom line question: this any different than past presidencies, or is this the same policy being followed for different motives? It looks a lot more like the latter than the former:

The officials emphasized that they know of no instance in which crucial information about security threats or potential plotting has been omitted. Still, the misgivings that have emerged among intelligence officials point to the fissures spreading between the White House and the U.S. spy agencies.

So federal bureaucrats don't like Donald Trump. That's not exactly earth shattering news, but let's all hope they can put that aside and do their jobs without sabotaging Trump and especially without hurting the United States or its friends. If they can't then hopefully the bad apples will get discovered and drained with the swamp.

Flynn's firing -- surely there's more to it than what we've heard so far

The most serious claim against Michael Flynn seems to be that he lied to the boss. That's pretty bad. But the prospect of his having spoken to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions isn't that impressive, at least to this outsider, considering all the things Democrats have done.

Conspiracy theorist are in full battle mode. But the one thing no one is talking about is whether there may be a lot more to what Flynn was into than what we've heard. Maybe he's a mole. Or maybe the KGB has some genuine blackmail grade dirt on him.

Mitch McConnell is threatening to investigate. Maybe he can get to the bottom of it. Then maybe someone who wasn't in Obama's pocket can justify the witch hunt against Flynn.