Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
U.S. State Department Had 48 Hours Notice That Attacks Were Coming
September 14th, 2012I have absolutely no idea what this thing is about. Via: Independent: The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal. American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been […]
House Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers
September 13th, 2012Via: Wired: The House on Wednesday reauthorized for five years broad electronic eavesdropping powers that legalized and expanded the George W. Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The FISA Amendments Act, (.pdf) which is expiring at year’s end, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long […]
Some ‘Fast and Furious’ Guns Ended Up in Colombia
September 13th, 2012Via: Colombia Reports: U.S. weapons that were exported to Mexico as part of the controversial “Fast and Furious” program ended up in the hands of Colombia crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado, reported newspaper El Tiempo Monday. According to the newspaper, investigations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have established that some […]
Shooting in French Alps
September 6th, 2012Update: Ex-Policeman Arrested in Village Near Scene of al-Hilli Shootings Via: Guardian: French police on Tuesday arrested a 48-year-old former policeman in a French Alpine village close to the layby where the Iraqi-born British engineer Saad al-Hilli, two members of his family and a French cyclist were murdered. The arrest came after police issued an […]
Anonymous Claims FBI Hack Yielded 12 Million iPhone and iPad IDs
September 4th, 2012Update: Florida Firm Is Source of Apple Data in Breach Via: AP: A Florida company said Monday that the database of Apple device information that hackers stole and posted on the Internet last week came from a file the firm had in its computer system. The disclosure comes nearly a week after a hacker group, […]
FinFisher Spyware for Smartphones
September 3rd, 2012Via: Bloomberg: FinFisher spyware made by U.K.-based Gamma Group can take control of a range of mobile devices, including Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry, an analysis of presumed samples of the software shows. The program can secretly turn on a device’s microphone, track its location and monitor e-mails, text […]
William Binney Talks About NSA Creating Dossiers on All Americans
September 2nd, 2012Via: New York Times / YouTube: The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. Related: The Program Research Credit: alvinroasting
Software Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents
August 31st, 2012Via: New York Times: Morgan Marquis-Boire works as a Google engineer and Bill Marczak is earning a Ph.D. in computer science. But this summer, the two men have been moonlighting as detectives, chasing an elusive surveillance tool from Bahrain across five continents. What they found was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer espionage software […]
‘Americans Shot in Mexico Were CIA Operatives Aiding in Drug War’
August 30th, 2012Aiding in drug war… *cough* *wink* Via: New York Times: The two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on an American Embassy vehicle last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers, officials said on Tuesday. The two operatives, who were […]
Did Gwenyth Todd Delay Start of U.S.-Iran War?
August 29th, 2012Via: Washington Post: Todd feared that the Iranians would respond, possibly by launching fast-attack missile boats into the gulf or unleashing Hezbollah on Israel. Then anything could happen: a collision, a jittery exchange of gunfire — bad enough on its own, but also an incident that Washington hawks could seize on to justify an all-out […]
