Those fake spying cell towers in Washington DC? Ex-intel staffers claim they're Israeli After months of speculation about who exactly was behind a series of eavesdropping fake cell towers in Washington DC, it appears the answer is Israel. According to three anonymous senior US officials, cited in a report by Politico, the FBI carried out a counterintelligence investigation into who was behind the mobile spying …
A fine question.
I don't know about anywhere else, but in Australia, politicians don't get security clearances, even though the civil servants working with them have to. I don't believe their staffers/advisers need to have one either, unless they're directly involved in secret squirrel stuff.
I believe the lack of clearances for the pollies stemmed from the fact that anyone who might be vaguely leftie had already been the subject of police/security surveillance in the Good Old Days and were already considered a Menace to the State. Therefore they were never going to pass the Clearance.
Security clearance is an executive branch function. Guess who is the head of the executive branch?
The president has the implicit power to declassify any information. The secretaries to declassify anything in their departments.
If you don't approve of the actions of one of the above, the usual remedies apply.
"then he and the ones he's calling could loose their security clearance"
There's nothing worse than a loose security clearance.
But seriously: The one he's calling? I've heard that stated before. But it strikes me as a great way to set someone with a clearance up for blackmail. Sit down and shoot the breeze with them over a drink. Or send them a link to an 'interesting' article. Next thing, the poor guy gets a call. "You were given information for which you are not cleared. Now, deal with us or lose your job."
More likely if there is any evidence presented that you are about to become the recipient of classified material (a manila envelope labeled SECRET or an e-mail from Hillary) and you continue and open it, you are screwed. If you open today's issue of The Guardian and read about Snowden's leaks, that wasn't on you.
But seriously: The one he's calling? I've heard that stated before. But it strikes me as a great way to set someone with a clearance up for blackmail. Sit down and shoot the breeze with them over a drink. Or send them a link to an 'interesting' article. Next thing, the poor guy gets a call. "You were given information for which you are not cleared. Now, deal with us or lose your job."
You're supposed to report contacts like that to your security officer. So if you then get one of those conversations, FBI counter-intelligence types can coach you on what to do, or you won't have to be explaining yourself to those people for not reporting the contact.
I've been in a situation where immediate superiors make demands that would mean breaking the rules of my clearance. I decided my reputation was more important than the job so I stuck to my guns. They decided to go up the chain to force me to comply, several levels, until it reached the level where someone actually knew what they were doing and gave a shit about security.
When the shit came rolling back down it ran out of steam before it got to me and I got a personal thank you from the top honcho. Even though I knew I was in the right, it was still a scary experience, there were people involved who could have made my life *very* uncomfortable.
That did look weird to me when I saw it, yet I did not manage to catch it.
I'm a little more forgiving of these things; as I find that when I type fast, my fingers type what I hear in my head--with absolutely no regard to my understanding of grammar. So, without a grammar checker, I have to go back and carefully look for those homonym and near homonym erroneous substitutions.
And, indeed the near homonyms "loose" and "lose" are ones I have to slow down for. Of course, "their" is the worst of them, even though statistically "they're" is more common in my typing and "there" less common. I guess my fingers are too lazy to type that apostrophe.
It's been a while since one of these has slipped through. But, I'm sure to get complacent at some point, and then some grammar naz...
I had hop[p]ed to get a deliberate error in there someplace as a joke, but somehow a good one just didn't come up... until I typed that second "p". Yes, that really happened. Must be Freudian.
Probably just another case of allies spying on one another and exchanging the info on a nudge, nudge, wink wink basis to avoid breaking their own laws. Isn't amazing how we never seem to catch either other's spies? It's a cool trick to circumvent searching without a warrant - let the other guy do it, then tell you.
Isn't amazing how we never seem to catch either other's spies?
With allies, you don't want to catch their spies. What would you do with them? That's horribly embarrassing.
When the French government planted a bomb in London in the 80s, we covered it up.
This is because they planted it in their own ambassador's garden. Because they were salty that they weren't going to be allowed to be totally in charge of security for a visit by Mitterand - it would be covered by the UK police as normal. So they planted a bomb with the intention of revealing this massive British security failure at the opportune moment and then insisting on being in charge of security. Or it could just be that they still knew they wouldn't get that, but at least they could get some petty revenge.
Sadly I think our police should have moved it to the embassy garden, armed it, and started a game of high stakes hide and seek. But what actually happened is that the Foreign Office decided it was best to cover it up. No formal protest was even issued, because it would be too embarrassing. I think Thatcher was advised that if we protested we'd have to take action, and seeing as we didn't want to take action, it was better to say nothing.
What was said/done unofficially didn't make the public record. So we may never know.
It is the usual-- salt the low level secrecy data with false information, and he feeds that back to anyone spying. Or just bleeding information in a secret meeting with him in the Kremlin (it is really hard to keep a set of secrets in a long conversation with your "buddy"). The guy is a leaker, might as well take advantage of it. He is wrong so often that if he does figure out he is being fed chum, his bleating will just be added to the oeuvre of falsehoods, hurricanes flattening Alabama and stuff like that.
"their ANTI-TRUMP POLITICAL MISBEHAVIOR got them fired"
ie they told him no. Or pointed out that, no, the hurricane isn't going to hit Alabama, even if he draws it in with a pen. Or told him that he couldn't invade Greenland, even if Denmark wouldn't sell it. Or yeah, maybe just changing the TV off of Fox News would be enough.
Perhaps someone tried to tell him he wasn't allowed pudding until he ate all of his greens?
PS, there's no need to shout bob.
Well, his daughter is Jewish, and he enjoys magnificent relations with Israel [ as has America generally since the state was founded ], maybe he's just not worried.
“The reaction was very different than it would have been in the last administration,” they were quoted as saying. “With the current administration, there are a different set of calculations in regard to addressing this.”
The last administration was too busy being engaged in spying on every America, every foreign country and every pirate, and keeping the world data found in massive databanks.
"The last administration was too busy being engaged in spying on every America, every foreign country and every pirate, and keeping the world data found in massive databanks."
And the administration before that (it was massively expanded under Bush after 11/9, although it was still happening on a smaller scale before), and the current one, (although he's probably not realised it's still going on because that would involve listening to something without his name in it every five lines).
That said, Obama was the only one to campaign saying he'd stop that sort of thing, and, well, he didn't. (See also; promising to shut down Guantanamo Bay).
"The last administration was too busy being engaged in spying on every America, every foreign country and every pirate, and keeping the world data found in massive databanks."
And starting perpetual wars in countries like Syria & Libya. Bolton wanted one with his name on it: Iran or North Korea, or even better, both. But that arsewipe nazi, Trump, stopped him.
you're confusing two different things; an ethnic religious minority very often powerless throughout European history, and a nation-state that is the local Great Power in its neighbourhood.
And as such, you're coming across mighty like General Ripper in Dr Strangelove, or How I learned to stop worrying and Love the Bomb.
"[...] an ethnic religious minority [...]"
Which is composed of several different groups of Jews in Israel - who are very critical of each others' ideologies
The Ultra-Orthodox effectively don't recognise the current State of Israel. They lay claim to all biblical land - hence the West Bank expansions. In the coalition governments they tend to hold a right wing balance of power. They also are obeying their biblical directive to have large families of future voters.
Then there are the Western European-descended liberals who wanted a two state settlement with the Palestinians. They object to their children being drafted into an army whose purpose is often to protect the expansionist aims of the Ultra-Orthodox. The latter's children do religious studies instead of army service***.
Then there are the Middle Eastern descended Jews who haven't forgotten being forced out of their Arab countries' homes after many generations.
*** Currently a political hot potato when someone tried to remove the Ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service.
If you want to do something but it is either too embarrassing, or a tad illegal if you get caught. Get one of your friends to do it and share the results with you. They get the juicy bits to do what they want with and a gold star on the back scratching roster, and you get what you wanted done but at a much lower risk.
If there's any truth underlying the outlandish ZOG conspiracy theory in the article - and often such fables have a tiny germ of truth buried under all the bullshit - it would be that it's completely legal for the US to permit foreign operations to be carried out on its soil, and foreign intelligence services are not bound by US laws against surveilling citizens.
When your unnamed sources are simply repeating age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories, perhaps you should be less credulous.
The conspiracy theory explanation is ridiculous, and Occam's razor tells us it's far more likely the 'sources' have lied about the conclusions of an FBI investigation to fit in with ZOG mythology - par for the course for Nazi nutjobs - than that the US government is being controlled by Israel.
This article is in a par with giving credence to Pizzagate. You should all be ashamed to have anything to do with such obvious Nazi nonsense.
And your credible evidence they have no credible evidence is what exactly? The Mossad is one of the best resourced intelligence agencies on the planet and the ramblings of his royal orangeness are especially relevant to them; baselessly claiming that anyone baselessly claiming they are responsible is an anti-Semitic Nazi conspiracy peddler, is as baseless as it is ... claiming.
There is no evidence mentioned here. It's simply a standard conspiracy theory with claims to be topical based on the standard unidentified sources. The overwhelmingly most likely explanation is that the whole thing is the standard conspiracy theory it appears to be, and the sources are the standard fantasies they always are.
If 'unidentified government sources' are cited as evidence of a government conspiracy to suppress UFOs, or cars that run on air, do you also believe that? Or do claims identical to standard conspiracy theories in fact need extra special evidence in order to be believed?
Is it just the conspiracy theories that match your prejudices which you don't question?
Pretty obvious to any seasoned critical eye that this is a manufactured story from anti-Israel Obama holdovers. C'mon, "three anonymous senior US officials" are the source?! Give me a break. This is what happens when we elect a Muslim for president.
1) The reference to "the previous administration" makes it clear that these are Obama people talking--no Republican would put it that way.
2) Given that the last administration was the most anti-Israel we've had (which takes some doing), and the current the most pro-Israel (which also takes some doing), one would expect a different approach with ANYTHING to do with Israel.
3) That's assuming that this report is accurate that "the Jews did it". Certainly, they have the capability. What but the timing (Israeli election with a pro-Israel administration) is wrong. At least as likely to be a false flag. ESPECIALLY since the evidence appears to be operational procedures, which will be known to every competent actor, and are easily faked.
4) Bibi exhibited a rare bit of humor with that quote. OF COURSE everybody spies on everybody. As others have mentioned, sometimes friends spy on each other to circumvent the law. In any event, with popular politics, you need to keep your capabilities up in case a change in administration leads to a grossly deteriorated relationship--you don't want to have to build your apparatus from scratch.
Back in the 70s when I worked for the scientific bit of the MoD our security briefings went along the lines of "Don't talk to people about what you do in case they're a spy. The USSR has the most active spies, and they're looking for military secrets. The Israelis are the second most active spies, and they're looking for anything, military or not, that would be to their advantage."
"claiming that Israel secretly runs the US government"
I've read and re-read the article, and no, I didn't find any evidence for this assertion in the article. All it stated was that the current US Federal regime was not doing anything about the illegal Stingrays.
How are you dealing with reality, yourself? Have you forgot your meds again?
"President Trump has been criticized for using insecure communications..."
Most of his tweets reveal deep insecurity, all right. ;)
Trump's got daddy issues, IMHO -- Daddy Fred always told Donny that he had to be the best, do anything and everything to stay on top. But Donny couldn't let himself be as good as Daddy, because Daddy was the best possible. It would be a betrayal if anybody was better. So Trump had to fail, at least enough to avoid betraying the Daddy that dominated him. Bad decisions on casinos, Trump Airlines, various loser golf courses, etc. He always had to go back to Daddy for money, and when Daddy died he (and his siblings) looted Daddy's deep pockets one last time.
Trump is hypersensitive to being wrong because Daddy said he has to be the best -- always right -- but his subconscious knows he's not the best. He's screwed up quite a lot, and he is forced by his inner baby to keep screwing up. Otherwise he would have to betray Daddy by being better.
And this nugget of freshman psychology, fresh off the bullcrap line, is brought to you by an aging USian with fewer synapses than a squirrel. Take it as an elaborate joke. Which it is.
I can understand the humour in the above comments but not the occasioinal touch of surprise here and the shock and horror expressed in a number of other publications. I would have thought the if the Director of Intelligence for the Israeli Government was not organising spying on the USA he or she would be falling down on the job.
As somebody else once said a while ago "It is generally easier to spy on your friends than your enemies. Further, you generally have a good idea of your enemies positions but you never know when your allies might change their minds."
Chris Cosgrove
I've read in military and defense news sources since I was a kid - I can't remember how many times I read that Israeli access to US secrets has been baked in. Especially since that U.S.S Liberty spy ship incident where they shot up one of our surveillance ships in the Mediterranean during the six day war. They said it was an accident, but I think it was deliberate because Israel knew we were ratting out information to the Egyptians; or at the very least communicating on open frequencies without being coded to keep Israel's enemies from determining sensitive reports on Israeli battle activities. It is not the only incident to happen in the various short wars Israel has been involved in. The US can be a rotten partner at times, and turn on our allies if we think we can prevent escalations from occurring. LBJ was noted as saying he didn't care if all the USS Liberty crew drowned, he was not going to embarrass an ally.
"... even though the target of the surveillance effort was almost certainly the president himself."
Why would anyone bother to target his phone? Any information on his phone will be stuff that he is posting to Twitter, for the world to read.
It seems more likely that the Israelis were providing information to the US administration that their own intelligence agencies could not legally collect. A bit like when Margaret Thatcher had the Canadians use Echelon to spy on some of her cabinet ministers whom she believed were disloyal. The Canadians provided intercepts that showed her suspicions were correct.
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