Vorsicht heiß und fettig...
Geschrieben von Freddie am 19. Dezember 2001 22:11:15:
Als Antwort auf: Hat überhaupt jemand von euch mitbekommen... geschrieben von Freddie am 18. Dezember 2001 12:11:13:
..frisch aus der Gerüchteküche, noch nicht mal bei Rense erschienen
Kurz zum Inhalt: Im Laufe der 9/11 Ermittlungen wurde der bisher
größte Spionagering aufgedeckt. ca 100 Israelis wurden bisher wegen
Spionageverdacht festgenommen. Die israelische Regierung dementiert
nach wie vor mit der Sache etwas zu tun zu haben.
Möglichwerweise wurden auch Daten an andere Länder wie z. B. Rußland
verkauft.PS: Das habe ich jetzt erst gesehen: Hier gibts Breaking News von Al Dschasira
auf Englischer Sprache.
U.S. Police and Intelligence Hit by Spy Network
In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the FBI has stumbled on the
largest espionage ring ever discovered inside the United States. The U.S.
Justice Department is now holding nearly 100 Israeli citizens with direct ties
to foreign military, criminal and intelligence services.The spy ring reportedly includes employees of two Israeli-owned companies that
currently perform almost all the official wiretaps for U.S. local, state and
federal law enforcement.The U.S. law enforcement wiretaps, authorized by the Communications Assistance
for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), appear to have been breached by organized
crime units working inside Israel and the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.Both Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were warned
on Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from local, state and federal law
enforcement officials. The warning stated, "Law enforcement's current
electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at
the time CALEA was enacted."The spy ring enabled criminals to use reverse wiretaps against U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement operations. The illegal monitoring may have
resulted in the deaths of several informants and reportedly spoiled planned
anti-drug raids on crime syndicates.
Global Spy and Crime Network
The penetration of the U.S. wiretap system has led to a giant spy hunt across
the globe by American intelligence agencies. U.S. intelligence officials now
suspect the spy ring shared and sold information to other nations."Why do you think Putin so nonchalantly and with such great fanfare announced
the shutdown of the Lourdes listening post in Cuba?" noted Douglas Brown,
president of Multilingual Data Solutions Inc. and program director at the
Nathan Hale Institute."Besides the PR benefit right before his visit here, the Russians don't need it
anymore. They've scraped together a cheaper, more effective monitoring system.
Is the Israeli company an element of that system? I don't know," stated Brown."With all the whining and crying about Echelon and Carnivore, critics, domestic
and foreign, of U.S. electronic eavesdropping vastly overestimate our abilities
to process and disseminate the stuff," noted Brown."The critics also underestimated the incompetence and total ineptness of the
people running our intelligence and law enforcement services during the Clinton-
Gore years. One guy uses his home computer for storing top secret documents;
another high-tech guru guy can't figure out how to save and retrieve his e-
mail, and the guy in charge of everything is having phone sex over an open line
with one of his employees," said Brown."On the other hand, the Europeans, including the Russians, have been much more
focused on the nuts and bolts of practical systems to process the information
they scoop up. The stories linking German intelligence and the L&H scandal got
very little play here but were widely noted in the European software
community," said Brown."Except for a few Germans and an occasional Pole, nobody can match the Russians
in designing and developing algorithms. We may have some of the world's
greatest programmers, but the Russians and Europeans do a better job of
matching up linguists and area experts with their programmers," noted Brown.The discovery of a major spy ring inside the United States is straining the
already tense relations with Israel. Although, Israel denied any involvement
with the penetration of the U.S. wiretap system, the CIA and FBI are
investigating the direct government ties to the former Israeli military and
intelligence officials now being held by the Justice Department.
Israeli Company Provides U.S. Wiretaps
One company reported to be under investigation is Comverse Infosys, a
subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm. Comverse provides
almost all the wiretapping equipment and software for U.S. law enforcement.Custom computers and software made by Comverse are tied into the U.S. phone
network in order to intercept, record and store wiretapped calls, and at the
same time transmit them to investigators.The penetration of Comverse reportedly allowed criminals to wiretap law
enforcement communications in reverse and foil authorized wiretaps with advance
warning. One major drug bust operation planned by the Los Angeles police was
foiled by what now appear to be reverse wiretaps placed on law enforcement
phones by the criminal spy ring.
Flawed laws Led to Compromise
Several U.S. privacy and security advocates contend the fault actually lies in
the CALEA legislation passed by Congress that allowed the spy ring to operate
so effectively. Lisa Dean, vice president for technology policy at Free
Congress Foundation, delivered a scathing critique of the breach of the U.S.
law enforcement wiretap system."We are exercising our 'I told you so' rights on this," said Dean.
"From the beginning, both the political right and left warned Congress and the
FBI that they were making a huge mistake by implementing CALEA. That it would
jeopardize the security of private communications, whether it's between a
mother and her son or between government officials. The statement just issued
by law enforcement agencies has confirmed our worst fears," concluded Dean."How many more 9/11s do we have to suffer?" asked Brad Jansen, deputy director
for technology policy at the Free Congress Foundation."The CALEA form of massive surveillance is a poor substitute for real law
enforcement and intelligence work. It is an after-the-fact method of crime
fighting. It is not designed to prevent crime. Massive wiretapping does not
equal security. Instead, we have elected to jeopardize our national security in
exchange for poor law enforcement," said Jansen."For example, FINCEN monitoring of all money transactions did not detect al-
Qaeda, nor did it find Mohamed Atta before he boarded his last flight. It was
an ATM receipt left in his rental car that led the FBI to the bin Laden bank
accounts," noted Jansen.
U.S. National Security Compromised
"The CALEA approach is the same approach law enforcement has been pushing for a
number of years. It's the same approach that was used to push Carnivore, Magic
Lantern, FINCEN and even the failed Clipper project. This approach leads to a
compromise in national security and in personal security for the American
public," said Jansen."In addition, there is always government abuse of these kinds of systems,"
stated Jansen. "Law enforcement on all levels does a very poor job in policing
itself. We need to hold our police and government officials to the highest
standards.""This also hurts the U.S. economy when the whole world knows that our
communication systems are not secure. We cannot compete with inferior products
when other countries are exporting secure software and hardware. New Zealand,
India and Chili already offer security products that actually provide real
security," stated Jansen."The current mentality of law enforcement is what failed to protect us from
9/11. CALEA wiretaps will not protect us from terror attacks in the future. The
system does not provide better intelligence information. It actually leads to
less security and more crime. We get the worst of both worlds," concluded
Jansen.