Flame Out

As Eric Holder assures the American people that leaks of top secret information are being investigated by two competent employees working for Eric Holder, out comes another major story spilling national security secrets:

The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected critical intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage attacks aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials with knowledge of the effort.

So who dumped this one? Notice they attribute it to 'western officials', which doesn't narrow it down to the US officials of any kind.  Later in the story they mention that spokespersons for several major alphabet agencies here and in Israel 'declined to comment'. That simply means they aren't going on record, not that one of their personnel didn't leak. Perhaps this latest Flame story will renew calls for an Independent Counsel to investigate. Perhaps pigs will fly across the moon.

It's amazing to see what the press will do to keep their man in office. Just yesterday MSNBC fraudulently cropped a story to make Mitt Romney look like a clueless clown, allowing premier NBC journalist Andrea 'everyone knew Plame was in CIA' Mitchell to suggest it may be Romney's 'supermarket scanner moment'.  Talk about blaming Bush, it's a generational slam!  This would be more believable coming from Maddow or Schultz, but Mitchell is just a step or two away from Brian Williams and the Peacock.  Oh well, we await the next round of media hijinks, probably to do with Obama's reset with the Rooskies at the G20.  Maybe they can blame the more recent Bush somehow.

MORE  6/20/12

The Times covers the main argument used by the Obama folks regarding their refusal to appoint an IC for the leak investigations--their zeal in prosecuting them to this point:

Under fire from Republicans who claim that the White House has leaked classified information to make him look tough, President Obama has pointed to his administration’s unmatched record in prosecuting leaks. The statistics are certainly on his side: six leak-related prosecutions in Mr. Obama’s first term, compared with three under all previous presidents combined.

The key question is how many of those investigations involved Obama administration figures? The answer is zero.  Had Bush prosecuted 60 bureaucrats for leaks before the Plame affair it wouldn't have mattered one hill of beans to the press because the leak was supposedly coming from the inside.  Such a simple concept.  Such a laughable alibi.

Uh Oh..

Wow, look what Big Sis is up to now..

Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group. The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'.

The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'. The DHS outlined plans to scans blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency.

Ha ha, now the Daily Mail is on the spy list for repeating the key words! Wait, er.. Oh well, I guess we can't be too careful when dealing with bloggers and tweeters yakking about illegal immigrants and recovery and strains. Dang, did it again! Hey wait, 'recovery'?  'Strain'?  That implicates the White House itself.  Fishy!

When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information. It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with.

Why Dick Cheney, who else? Let's see now, what's that quip about voting for McCain and such?

Double Barrel Assault  12/30/11 

While stories float around about the DHS snooping on regular peeps we have to worry about hackers with noble intent using their skills not to become the next Steve Jobs but to provide our credit card numbers to various geeks and Russian criminals:

“It’s time to dump the full 75,000 names, addresses, CCs and md5 hashed passwords to every customer that has ever paid Stratfor. But that’s not all: we’re also dumping ~860,000 usernames, email addresses, and md5 hashed passwords for everyone who’s ever registered on Stratfor’s site… Did you notice 50,000 of these email addresses are .mil and .gov?”

Sorry boys and gals, but if that's your MO it ain't noble, it's damn stupid. All you're doing is making it easier for politicians to declare the web is that much more dangerous and therefore must have tighter controls, while setting yourself up for an orange jump suit. 

More from Across the Pond

Long story today in the UK Daily Mail about the life and mysterious death of an MI6/GCHQ spy who was also on loan to the NSA as an expert on computer security. Consider this:

It was on August 23 that police were called to Gareth’s flat in Pimlico, Central London, an MI6-owned safe house. He had been missing for more than a week. They found his decomposed body locked in a large red North Face sports bag.

Wouldn't the definition of a 'safe house' mean it was safe to some extent? Such as video surveillance or something similar? Or have we been fed too many Bond movies?

In an original story from the London Telegraph, now unavailable, it said a couple with "Mediterranean appearance" had visited him at the safe house in the months before his death without being 'buzzed in' by anyone, meaning he was familiar with them. It also said they were using 'facial recognition' technology in US airports to see whether he'd been here with them, which strongly suggests they know what these people look like (otherwise why use the technology).

At any rate, previous leaks and the story today paint the picture of a kind of a super genius prodigy who couldn't connect well with the ladies, which frustrated him, so it's not hard to envision a domestic, non-espionage explanation for his demise in a place like London. Indeed, this Metro UK story from September claimed:

It is thought that investigators on both sides of the Atlantic have concluded that Mr Williams's death had nothing to do with espionage.

But that seems to leave the following scenario: valuable and patriotic near-genius spy (head of GCHQ attended his funeral and a plaque was erected there memorializing his service) was murdered (they seem to have ruled out suicide) and padlocked into his own sports bag--in his own MI6 safe house apartment--one that apparently had surveillance (since they seem to know the faces of two persons of interest of Mediterranean descent), who had been recently given a new identity while being detailed to US spy agencies as a counter cyber terrorism expert in the midst of Climategate, Wiki Leaks, Chinese hackers, and the Stuxnet worm--but they ruled out espionage almost immediately. Where is Angela Lansbury when you need her?

From Across the Pond

Here's a very interesting but troubling story that will likely receive very little attention from the US media. In a nutshell, a British MI6 intelligence agent was recently found dead inside his apartment in a sack with a padlock on the outside. Thought to be a math/computer prodigy, he had been on loan to our NSA working to defeat cyber terrorism and was making trips back and forth before he died. Autopsies did not confirm cause of death:

The bureau has employed face recognition technology at US airports in a bid to establish whether Gareth Williams travelled in and out of the US any stage with a couple answering the description of two people Scotland Yard have appealed to come forward in connection with his death.

The couple, of 'Mediterranean' appearance, were thought to have visited Mr Williams's flat in Pimlico sometime in June or July. Scotland Yard believes the pair, in their thirties, were known to Mr Williams since neighbours do not recall buzzing them into the address.

Not exactly sure what "Mediterranean" appearance means in this case (as in which side of that water body) but can't help thinking this might be a revenge hit for the weird Israeli takeout of the Hamas leader in Dubai last year.

Whatever the case, this doesn't sound good considering the amount of top secret information this guy possessed--in his brain alone.

Why was Vicky Pelaez Working with Russians?

The Peruvian-born Spanish language journalist was among the eleven nabbed by the FBI's unfortunately-timed raid on the Russian spy ring. She's married to another guy with a Latino-sounding name, a former college professor (of course) who expressed an Abraham-like devotion to his apparent lord and savior, the Russian spy service.

"Juan Lazaro" evidently isn't his real name (is he from Uruguay or Siberia?) but it's interesting--his indictment says he was passing information to his spy masters. Just what was this CUNY professor passing that would have been worth a flip? Who was he connected to?

As to his wife, why would a South American-American sympathetic to Castro, Chavez and some Maoists be working in tandem with the Russians? The modern Russians. The ones who tossed away communism? Or does she know something we don't?

And why would the 15th bestest president of all time be furtively pursuing a "reset" with these same non-communists right now after having known they were running radical agents via money transfers in Venezuela? What's to be gained from such a relationship, and if anything, why have the FBI to bust this 10 year old ring in the middle of the reset? Doesn't Holder get a briefing? Still not getting it.