July 2009 Archives

Secret Service Took Psychic's Advice on Bush Assassination Plot

By Jeff Stein | July 31, 2009 2:20 PM | | Comments (4)

The Secret Service changed a motorcade route for the first President George Bush based on a psychic's vision that he would be assassinated, according to a new book about the presidential protective agency.
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Army Spy Posed as Anarchist

By Jeff Stein | July 30, 2009 5:58 PM | | Comments (4)

An Army civilian from a Fort Lewis, Wash., "force protection division" infiltrated a Seattle-area antiwar group posing as an anarchist who could steal classified information for the organization, according to little-noticed news reports.

A member of the antiwar group said documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that his friend and fellow activist "John Jacob" was actually military spy John Towery.

A Fort Lewis spokesman confirmed that Towery was employed on the base but would offer no additional information because he "performs sensitive law enforcement work with the installation law enforcement community." 
Continue reading Army Spy Posed as Anarchist.

Incongruities in NC Terrorism Case

By Jeff Stein | July 29, 2009 7:55 PM | | Comments (0)

The feds have been hyping their domestic terrorism cases for several years now, and the arrest of seven North Carolina men this week appears to be no exception.

The headliners in the case, of course, are ordinary folks Daniel Patrick Boyd and his two sons, who prosecutors say led three lives: good family men, likeable neighbors and secret terrorists.
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'Terrorist' on TV Show a U.S. Double Agent?

By Jeff Stein | July 28, 2009 6:42 PM | | Comments (0)

The second installment of NBC's faux-reality, terrorist-tracking TV program, "The Wanted," focused Monday on a Syrian German whom U.S. authorities have long labeled a key al Qaeda operative.

But some intelligence insiders who have studied Mamoun Darkazanli's mysterious ability to stay out of jail wonder if he's really a double agent working for the West, perhaps the CIA.
Continue reading 'Terrorist' on TV Show a U.S. Double Agent?.

Spy Agencies Bump Heads Over Interrogations

By Jeff Stein | July 27, 2009 4:55 PM | | Comments (3)

The White House beat a strategic retreat last week on its ideas for a new multiagency interrogation unit, giving its task force another two months to come up with a plan everybody can live with.

But if initial reactions are any guide, the White House faces an uphill fight in creating an organization that can satisfy military, intelligence and law enforcement needs at once.
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Spy Agencies Hid True Number of Employees

By Jeff Stein | July 22, 2009 9:55 PM | | Comments (0)

It took only a couple months and about 100 CIA operatives and Special Forces troops, supported by U.S. air power, to chase the Taliban out of Kabul in 2001.

In contrast, the only thing the four-year-old Directorate of National Intelligence seems to be accomplishing is hiring more Washington bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee has found that at least some of the spy agencies under DNI's purview have not been reporting their true numbers of employees.
Continue reading Spy Agencies Hid True Number of Employees.

Human Face of Terror in Mumbai Trial

By Jeff Stein | July 21, 2009 2:49 PM | | Comments (0)

Most people probably think of terrorists as natural born killers.

But in the confession of Ajmal Lasab, the only Pakistani gunman to survive the terror attack on Mumbai last November, a more complex picture emerges.
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NBC's 'The Wanted' Producer Suing CIA

By Jeff Stein | July 20, 2009 10:18 PM | | Comments (0)

NBC has earned a lot of ridicule for its faux-reality catch-a-terrorist show, "The Wanted," which debuted Monday night on NBC.

Most of the spotlight has fallen on the show's star, a former Green Beret colonel with leading man looks, Roger Carstens.  In the show's first installment, Carstens confronted the onetime leader of a Kurdistan-based, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group now living in Norway.

As fascinating a figure as Carstens is, the real curiosity in the show is Adam Ciralsky, a former CIA lawyer who has been an investigative producer at NBC for several years now and takes on that role in "The Wanted."
Continue reading NBC's 'The Wanted' Producer Suing CIA .

Captured U.S. Soldier's Rescue Unlikely Without Spies on the Ground

By Jeff Stein | July 20, 2009 3:02 PM | | Comments (0)

Anyone who thinks that Predator drones and NSA intercepts have made the old-fashioned recruiting of human spies a waste of time - as many U.S. commanders in Afghanistan seem to think - should talk to the family of Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl.

According to an exclusive report from ABC News reporter Matthew Cole moments ago, Bergdahl, who disappeared June 30 from his base in Afghanistan, has been moved to South Waziristan, in Pakistan, where U.S. forces are officially prohibited from operating.
Continue reading Captured U.S. Soldier's Rescue Unlikely Without Spies on the Ground.

Taking a Hike

By Jeff Stein | July 9, 2009 1:39 AM | | Comments (1)

SpyTalk will resume publishing July 20.

Lawyer in CIA Kidnapping Case Urges Obama to Press for Immunity in Italy

By Jeff Stein | July 7, 2009 6:53 PM | | Comments (3)

The lawyer for a defendant in the trial of more than two dozen CIA operatives charged with kidnapping in Italy is trying to stir up interest in his client's plight just as President Obama arrives in Rome for a G8 summit meeting of the world's industrialized nations.

Mark Zaid represents Sabrina Desousa, who was listed as a diplomat at the American embassy in Rome and U.S. consulate in Milan at the time of the 2003 kidnapping of an al Qaeda suspect known as Abu Omar.
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Dispute Flares Over Accounts of CIA Chief's Stay at Saudi Envoy's Palace

By Jeff Stein | July 7, 2009 12:02 PM | | Comments (0)

Several days ago I wrote a column that included a colorful anecdote about a drunken George Tenet railing against Bush administration officials, howling that they weren't going to get away with pinning lousy pre-war intelligence on Iraq on him and the CIA.

That prompted a note a few days later from Bill Harlow, still a spokesman for the former CIA Director, five years after both left the spy agency.

Harlow said virtually everyone involved in the incident denied it happened.
Continue reading Dispute Flares Over Accounts of CIA Chief's Stay at Saudi Envoy's Palace.

AIPAC Spy Figure Larry Franklin Describes Mafia-Style Murder Threat

By Jeff Stein | July 1, 2009 9:47 PM | | Comments (0)

Somebody wanted Larry Franklin out of the way. 

In court documents filed last week, a sketchy tale surfaced suggesting that someone wanted Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst who had agreed to testify against two pro-Israel activists on charges of espionage, dead.

In a Tuesday, June 30 interview, Franklin and his attorney Plato Cacheris, the famed criminal defense lawyer, elaborated on the shadowy incident.

"Somebody approached Larry and suggested it would be good if Larry could disappear and fake a suicide," Cacheris said, "and this person would assist him in doing that."
 
Franklin didn't take it that way: It was more like a page out of The Sopranos, which would end with him disappearing -- forever.
Continue reading AIPAC Spy Figure Larry Franklin Describes Mafia-Style Murder Threat.

Israel 'Spy Scandal' Figure Larry Franklin Breaks Silence

By Jeff Stein | July 1, 2009 7:24 PM | | Comments (2)

He insists he did it for his country, to head off a disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq. 

But instead, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin found himself charged with giving classified information to suspected agents of Israel. In 2006 he was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, later reduced to probation and 10 months house arrest for cooperating with the feds. 

Today, the former Iran specialist is mopping floors at a Roy Rogers near his home in West Virginia and serving a 100 hour community service sentence at a halfway house for abused children

Now, breaking silence for the first time since he became entangled in the Israel-spy-ring-that wasn't, Franklin says he gave sensitive information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in hopes that it would be passed on to the White House.
Continue reading Israel 'Spy Scandal' Figure Larry Franklin Breaks Silence.
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