Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
Colombia: 8 Former Israeli Military Men Arrested on Suspicion of Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering and Exploitation of Minors
April 2nd, 2012Via: Ynet News: Eight Israelis were arrested in Colombia on suspicion of drug trafficking, money laundering and exploitation of minors, the country’s chief prosecutor told local media outlets on Tuesday. The suspects, who were described in the reports as “former military men,” reside in the city of Taganga. According to one of the reports, they […]
Drug Lords Targeted by Fast and Furious Were FBI Informants
March 29th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times: When the ATF made alleged gun trafficker Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta its primary target in the ill-fated Fast and Furious investigation, it hoped he would lead the agency to two associates who were Mexican drug cartel members. The ATF even questioned and released him knowing that he was wanted by the Drug […]
FBI Memo: Agents Can ‘Bend or Suspend the Law’
March 29th, 2012Via: Wired: The FBI once taught its agents that they can “bend or suspend the law” as they wiretap suspects. But the bureau says it didn’t really mean it, and has now removed the document from its counterterrorism training curriculum, calling it an “imprecise” instruction. Which is a good thing, national security attorneys say, because […]
Open Thread: JetBlue Incident
March 29th, 2012I know a couple of pilots and, initially, this didn’t surprise me too much. If I was making bum change to sit in an aluminum death capsule all day and/or night, while having to be away from my family most of the time, I might lose my shit too. But… This gets more interesting with […]
The Death of Neil Heywood in China
March 28th, 2012Via: Telegraph: Immaculately dressed, often in cream linen, Neil Heywood was the epitomy of a British gentleman abroad, but his death in a hotel room in China has left those who knew him asking what secrets he may have taken to his grave. The 41-year-old Old Harrovian was a vastly experienced China hand, who advised […]
Call to Examine MI5 Link to Murder of Nuclear Activist
March 20th, 2012Via: Guardian: One of Britain’s leading human rights lawyers has demanded a fresh police inquiry to establish what the British intelligence services knew about the murder of a prominent anti-nuclear campaigner. Michael Mansfield QC said new evidence meant that an independent police force should be appointed to examine enduring concerns and inconsistencies relating to the […]
Latest Attack in France Kills 4 Outside Jewish School
March 19th, 2012[???] Via: ABC: A motorcycle gunman opened fire Monday in front of a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, killing a rabbi, his two young sons and a schoolgirl, the prosecutor’s office said. It was the third deadly motorcycle shooting in the same area in recent days. French prosecutors were studying possible terrorist […]
Former Senior U.S. Intelligence Official and Current Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President Joan A. Dempsey: ‘We’re a Few Years Away from Realizing Real Quantum Processing and Quantum Computing’
March 18th, 2012Bamford lays out a narrative below about the “enormous breakthrough,” but, at the end of the day, it’s conventional computers. There’s no mention quantum computers, or even the far less “out there” photonic systems. Is Bamford’s piece a limited hangout? —Bamford Claims NSA Has Made “An Enormous Breakthrough” in Cryptanalysis And now… Via: CNN: One […]
Open Thread: Kony 2012
March 18th, 2012I haven’t watched this thing, and don’t plan to. From previous experience, when I see mainstream news talking about YouTube videos, and how “the blogosphere” has lost it’s mind over them, I just take a pass. (Also, I’m on limited bandwidth, so I wasn’t about to blow it on 30 minutes of video that looked […]
Bamford Claims NSA Has Made “An Enormous Breakthrough” in Cryptanalysis
March 16th, 2012Well, it has been the $64,000 question for a couple of decades: Can NSA break something like PGP? While there might be other black world technologies that could be up to the task (there’s no way to know), what we do know is that a practical quantum computing capability would be, for all intents and […]
