The first and only time I met Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., he was still undercover and in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency’s all-powerful operations directorate. The agency had summoned me to its Langley headquarters and his mission was to talk me out of running an article I had just finished reporting about CIA secret prisons — the “black sites” abroad where the agency put al-Qaeda terrorists so they could be interrogated in isolation, beyond the reach and protections of U.S. law.

The scene I walked into in November 2005 struck me as incongruous. The man sitting in the middle of the navy blue colonial-style sofa looked like a big-city police detective stuffed uncomfortably into a tailored suit. His face was pockmarked, his dark mustache too big to be stylish. He was not one of the polished career bureaucrats who populate the halls of power in Washington.

In fact, he fit perfectly the description given by my sources: hardworking but not smooth, loyal to the institution and now, probably, beyond his depth. He was as surprised as anyone that he had risen so quickly to the senior ranks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the account of his decades-long spy career in “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.” The book is due out Monday, after an exclusive interview Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” The Washington Post obtained a copy this week.

Shortly after the 2001 attacks, the CIA set up the secret prisons in Afghanistan, Thailand and several Eastern European countries for the explicit purpose of keeping detainees picked up on the battlefield or in other countries away from the U.S. justice system, which would grant them some protections against, among other things, torture or otherwise harsh treatment. In an effort to force these detainees to give their handlers information about terrorist plots, CIA interrogators subjected some of them to sleep and food deprivation, incessant loud noise and waterboarding.

By the time we met, those techniques were no longer in use. Rodriguez had not dealt with American reporters, he writes, but then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss had asked him to meet with me “to see if I could convince her that such a story would harm U.S. national security, put some of our allies around the world in a very difficult position, and potentially disrupt a program that was providing intelligence that was producing real results and helping to keep the country safe.”

What Rodriguez remembers from our conversation, according to his book, is that I brought him a copy of a book I had written about the U.S. military in an effort to butter him up. “That failed to soften my stance on the lack of wisdom of her proceeding with her article as planned,” he wrote, and “I could see I was not winning her over.” I remember bringing the book because I figured he didn’t know one reporter from the next, and I wanted him to know that I did in-depth work and didn’t want to just hear the talking points.

A blunt explanation

It became clear immediately that Rodriguez never even got the talking points, which was refreshing and surprising. Right away he began divulging awkward truths that other senior officers had tried to obfuscate in our conversations about the secret prisons: “In many cases they are violating their own laws by helping us,” he offered, according to notes I took at the time.

Why not bring the detainees to trial?

“Because they would get lawyered up, and our job, first and foremost, is to obtain information.”

(Shortly after our conversation, The Post’s senior editors were called to the White House to discuss the article with President George W. Bush and his national security team. Days later, the newspaper published the story, without naming the countries where the prisons were located.)

Rodriguez may have never felt the need to even reveal himself publicly or to write a book, complete with family photos, giving his version of many of the unconventional — and eventually repudiated — practices that the CIA engaged in after Sept. 11 had it not been for what happened shortly after our conversation.

Concerned that the location of one of the prisons was about to be revealed, Rodriguez writes that he ordered the facility closed immediately and the detainees moved to a new site. While dismantling the site, the base chief asked Rodriguez if she could throw a pile of old videotapes, made during the early days of terrorist Abu Zubaida’s interrogation and waterboarding, and now a couple of years old, onto a nearby bonfire that was set to destroy papers and other evidence of the agency’s presence.

Just at that moment, according to his account, a cable from headquarters came in saying: “Hold up on the tapes. We think they should be retained for a little while longer.”

“Had that message been delayed by even a few minutes,” Rodriguez writes, “my life in the years following would have been considerably easier.”

Those actions led to a lengthy and still ongoing investigation of the agency that produced no charges. Rodriguez retired in January 2008 and now works in the private sector.

A tough CIA veteran

Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, the son of two teachers. He was educated at the University of Florida, where he also received a law degree before being recruited by the CIA. He once gained the confidence of a dictator in a Latin American country because of his gutsy horseback riding skills. He worked as the chief of station in several countries he does not name, and was sent to El Salvador during its bloody civil war (which he glosses over completely) and to Panama, where he pitched the idea of recruiting Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega’s witch doctor and putting him on the CIA payroll to persuade the dictator to retire to Spain. The CIA director at the time wasn’t impressed and instead, in 1989, “the United States followed a more traditional path: a military invasion.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, he did what legions of CIA officers not at work that day did: He rushed into headquarters, even as people were being evacuated, and pitched in. Rodriguez ended up in the Counterterrorism Center, which quickly went from a backwater posting to the center of the universe at the agency.

As CIA operations officers and analysts scrambled to figure out more about al-Qaeda and to plan a counterattack, Rodriguez was in the eye of the storm. “Hard Measures” takes readers through a highly sanitized — censored by the CIA, actually — version of events.

Although many details are left out and most of the outlines of what Rodriguez writes will not come as news to close readers of newspapers, he does not shy away from addressing the most controversial parts of what became the largest covert action program in U.S. history: the secret decisions to capture suspected terrorists on the battlefield or on the streets and make them disappear from the face of the Earth. Using a fleet of airplanes, the CIA bundled its captives into a netherworld no one else had access to, flew them around the world, deposited them in secret underground prisons where it could control their every move and use especially harsh interrogation methods on some of the most senior prisoners.

Many CIA officers had misgivings about these practices and what they might mean for America’s reputation around the world. Not Rodriguez. He is unabashedly confident that he and the agency did the right thing and saved lives in the process.

“I am certain, beyond any doubt, that these techniques, approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified by the Department of Justice, and briefed to and supported by bipartisan leadership of congressional intelligence oversight committees, shielded the people of the United States from harm and led to the capture of killing of Usama bin Ladin.”

Of course, it is impossible to know this for certain, and many people inside and outside government — some of them involved in interrogations — have argued that with better-trained interrogators and more patience, the same information could have been obtained without such harsh methods.

The most newsworthy part of the book is a chapter in which Rodriguez explains how he came to order the destruction of 92 videotapes of the interrogation of Abu Zubaida.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has nearly completed a four-year-long review of the CIA’s post-Sept. 11 detention and interrogation practices.

Shredding the tapes

Rodriguez writes that he ordered the tapes’ destruction because he got tired of waiting for his superiors to make a decision. They had at least twice given him the go-ahead, then backed off. In the meantime, a senior agency attorney cited “grave national security reasons” for destroying the material and said the tapes presented ‘“grave risk” to the personal safety of our officers” whose identities could be seen on the recordings.

In late April 2004, another event forced his hand, he writes. Photos of the abuse of prisoners by Army soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ignited the Arab world and risked being confused with the CIA’s program, which was run very differently.

“We knew that if the photos of CIA officers conducting authorized EIT [enhanced interrogation techniques] ever got out, the difference between a legal, authorized, necessary, and safe program and the mindless actions of some MPs [military police] would be buried by the impact of the images.

“The propaganda damage to the image of America would be immense. But the main concern then, and always, was for the safety of my officers.”

Readers may disagree with much of what Rodriguez writes and with the importance of some of the facts he omits from his book, but the above sentence speaks volumes about why this book is important. In this case, a loyal civil servant — and the decision-makers above him who blessed these programs — were not thinking about the larger, longer-lasting damage to the core values of the United States that disclosure of these secrets might cause. They were thinking about the near term. About efficiency. About the safety of friends and colleagues. In their minds, they were thinking, too, about the safety of the country.

…

Find this story at 25 April 2012

By Dana Priest, Published: April 25

© The Washington Post Company

Did spies posing as Microsofties write malware in Redmond? How do you spell ‘phooey’ in C#?

June 18, 2012, 2:46 PM — A leading security researcher has suggested Microsoft’s core Windows and application development programming teams have been infiltrated by covert programmer/operatives from U.S. intelligence agencies.

If it were true it would be another exciting twist to the stories of international espionage, sabotage and murder that surround Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, the most successful cyberwar weapons deployed so far, with the possible exception of Windows itself.

Nevertheless, according to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of antivirus and security software vendor F-Secure, the scenario that would make it simplest for programmers employed by U.S. intelligence agencies to create the Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame viruses and compromise Microsoft protocols to the extent they could disguise downloads to Flame as patches through Windows Update is that Microsoft has been infiltrated by members of the U.S. intelligence community.

[ FREE DOWNLOAD: 68 great ideas for running a security department ]

Having programmers, spies and spy-supervisors from the NSA, CIA or other secret government agencies infiltrate Microsoft in order to turn its technology to their own evil uses (rather than Microsoft’s) is the kind of premise that would get any writer thrown out of a movie producer’s office for pitching an idea that would put the audience to sleep halfway through the first act.

Not only is it unlikely, the “action” most likely to take place on the Microsoft campus would be the kind with lots of tense, acronymically dense debates in beige conference rooms and bland corporate offices.

The three remarkable bits of malware that attacked Iranian nuclear-fuel development facilities and stole data from its top-secret computer systems – Flame Duqu and Stuxnet – show clear signs of having been built by the same teams of developers, over a long period of time, Hypponen told PC Pro in the U.K.

Flame used a counterfeit Microsoft security certificates to verify its trustworthiness to Iranian users, primarily because Microsoft is among the most widely recognized and trusted computer companies in the world, Hypponen said.

Faking credentials from Microsoft would give the malware far more credibility than using certificates from other vendors, as would hiding updates in Windows Update, Hypponen said.

The damage to Microsoft’s reputation and suspicion from international customers that it is a puppet of the CIA would be enough to keep Microsoft itself from participating in the operation, even if it were asked.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

“It’s plausible that if there is an operation under way and being run by a US intelligence agency it would make perfect sense for them to plant moles inside Microsoft to assist in pulling it off, just as they would in any other undercover operation,” Hypponen told PC Pro. “It’s not certain, but it would be common sense to expect they would do that.”

The suggestion piqued the imaginations of conspiracy theorists, but doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support it.

It does have a common-sense appeal, however. Planting operatives inside Microsoft would probably be illegal, would certainly be unethical and could have a long-range disadvantage by making Microsofties look like tools of the CIA rather than simply tools.

“No-one has broken into Microsoft, but by repurposing the certificate and modifying it with unknown hash collision technologies, and with the power of a supercomputer, they were able to start signing any program they wanted as if it was from Microsoft,” Hypponen said. “If you combine that with the mechanism they were using to spoof MS Update server they had the crown jewels.”

Hypponen is one of a number of security experts who have said Stuxnet and Duqu have the hallmarks of software written by traditionally minded software engineers accustomed to working in large, well-coordinated teams.

After studying the code for Duqu, security researchers at Kaspersky Labs said the malware was most similar to the kind of work done by old-school programmers able to write code for more than one platform at a time, do good quality control to make sure the modules were able to install themselves and update in real time, and that the command-and-control components ahd been re-used from previous editions.

“All the conclusions indicate a rather professional team of developers, which appear to be reusing older code written by top “old school” developers,” according to Kaspersky’s analysis. “Such techniques are normally seen in professional software and almost never in today’s malware. Once again, these indicate that Duqu, just like Stuxnet, is a ‘one of a kind’ piece of malware which stands out like a gem from the large mass of “dumb” malicious program we normally see.”

Earlier this month the NYT ran a story detailing two years worth of investigations during which a range of U.S. officials, including, eventually, President Obama, confirmed the U.S. had been involved in writing the Stuxnet and Flame malware and siccing them on Iran.

That’s far from conclusive proof that the NSA has moved its nonexistent offices to Redmond, Wash. It doesn’t rule it out either, however.

Very few malware writers are able to write such clean code that can install on a variety of hardware systems, assess their new environments and download the modules they need to successfully compromise a new network, Kaspersky researchers said.

Stuxnet and Flame are able to do all these things and to get their own updates through Windows Update using a faked Windows Update security certificate.

No other malware writer, hacker or end user has been able to do that before. Knowing it happened this time makes it more apparent that the malware writers know what they are doing and know Microsoft code inside and out.

That’s still no evidence that Microsoft could be or has been infiltrated by spies from the U.S. or from other countries.

It does make sense, but so do a lot of conspiracy theories.

Until there’s some solid indication Flame came from inside Microsoft, not outside, it’s probably safer to write off this string of associative evidence.

Even in his own blog, Hypponen makes fun of those who make fun of Flame as ineffective and unremarkable, but doesn’t actually suggest moles at Microsoft are to blame.

…

Find this story at 18 June 2012

By Kevin Fogarty

© 1994 – 2012 ITworld. All rights reserved.

A partially signed agreement between Poland’s intelligence service and CIA provides central evidence in the ongoing investigation into alleged ‘black sites’ in Poland.

According to a source at the Krakow Prosecutor’s Office that is handling the investigation, the document was prepared in late 2001, early 2002, in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US.

The Americans “did not want to leave traces [of evidence]” the source told Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, commenting on the fact that the document was only signed by former head of Poland’s Intelligence Agency (ABW), Zbigniew Siemiatkowski.

When queried about the document, Siemiatkowski stated that if his signature is present, it means that the document is classified, and that he is unable to talk about it. He did not confirm the existence of such an agreement.

Meanwhile, Adam Bodnar of the Helsinki Foundation – a human rights body that is monitoring the case – told that the paper that lack of an American signature does not invalidate the document as key evidence.

“The simple fact that the document was prepared attests to the fact that it there was a will [to create the CIA prisons], and that people who were aware of it, also knew about its contents.”

Accusations and denials

In 2011, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, made an unequivocal statement on the matter.

“It is clear that Poland hosted secret CIA prisons between December 2002 and September 2003. We know who was held there and what interrogation methods were used. They can be described as torture.”

Leszek Miller was prime minister of Poland at that time, at the head of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) government.

He has repeatedly denied knowledge of such a site, which is alleged to have been located in a villa near the Stare Kiejkuty military base in north east Poland.

…

Find this story at 19 June 2012 

19.06.2012 10:58

Copyright © Polskie Radio S.A

’Inzet burgerinfiltranten in Nederland strikt verboden’

De Amerikaanse drugsbestrijdingsorganisatie DEA heeft een criminele burgerinfiltrant ingezet in Nederland. Het AD heeft de hand weten te leggen op geheime rapporten van de DEA.

De burgerinfiltrant speelde een hoofdrol bij de gecontroleerde doorvoer van een grote hoeveelheid drugs in Europa. Doel was het in de val lokken van drugscriminelen. Op de partij kwamen meerdere Nederlanders af. Infiltrant ‘Mono’ werkte maandenlang vanuit Amsterdam.

De rol van de DEA-infiltrant ligt gevoelig, omdat het een bom kan leggen onder het proces tegen de potentiële kopers die momenteel in Haarlem terechtstaan. De verdachten vermoeden dat de DEA in Nederland buiten haar boekje is gegaan en eisen inzage in de operatie. De Amerikanen weigeren dat.

Justitie claimt dat ze eind 2009 voor het eerst hoorde dat Mono voor de DEA werkte. Een artikel uit de Poolse krant Gazeta Wyborcza zet vraagtekens bij die verklaring. Nederland zou namelijk al op 11 februari 2009 een bemiddelende rol hebben gespeeld tussen de DEA en de Poolse geheime dienst ABW.

…

Vindt dit verhaal op 16 juni 2012

Bewerkt door: Leonie Francien Sellies

16-6-12 – 08:23  bron: ANP

De infiltrant was maandenlang actief in Amsterdam. © ANP.

De Persgroep Digital. Alle rechten voorbehouden.

Washington, D.C., June 19, 2012 – The National Security Archive today is posting over 100 recently released CIA documents relating to September 11, Osama bin Laden, and U.S. counterterrorism operations. The newly-declassified records, which the Archive obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, are referred to in footnotes to the 9/11 Commission Report and present an unprecedented public resource for information about September 11.

The collection includes rarely released CIA emails, raw intelligence cables, analytical summaries, high-level briefing materials, and comprehensive counterterrorism reports that are usually withheld from the public because of their sensitivity. Today’s posting covers a variety of topics of major public interest, including background to al-Qaeda’s planning for the attacks; the origins of the Predator program now in heavy use over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran; al-Qaeda’s relationship with Pakistan; CIA attempts to warn about the impending threat; and the impact of budget constraints on the U.S. government’s hunt for bin Laden.

Today’s posting is the result of a series of FOIA requests by National Security Archive staff based on a painstaking review of references in the 9/11 Commission Report.
DOCUMENT HIGHLIGHTS

The documents released by CIA detail the meticulousness of al-Qaeda’s plot against the United States and CIA attempts to counter the rising terrorist threat. A previously undisclosed raw intelligence report that became the basis for the December 4, 1998, President’s Daily Brief notes that five years before the actual attack, al-Qaeda operatives had successfully evaded security at a New York airport in a test-run for bin Laden’s plan to hijack a U.S. airplane. [1998-12-03]. CIA analytical reports also provide interesting insights into al-Qaeda’s evolving political strategies. “In our view, the hijackers were carefully selected with an eye to their operational and political value. For instance, the large number of Saudi nationals was most likely chosen not only because of the ease with which Saudi nationals could get US visas but also because Bin Ladin could send a message to the Saudi Royal family.” [2003-06-01]

Reports on early attempts to apprehend bin Laden detail the beginning of the U.S. Predator drone program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “First Predator mission over Afghanistan [excised] September 7, 2000.” [1] “Twice in the fall of 2000, the Predator observed an individual most likely to be Bin Ladin; however we had no way at the time to react to this information.” [2004-03-19] American UAVs did not have sufficient weapons capabilities at the time the CIA likely spotted bin Laden in 2000 to fire on the suspect using the UAV.

Al-Qaeda’s ties to Pakistan before September 11 are also noted in several documents. “Usama ((Bin Ladin))’s Islamic Army considered the Pakistan/Afghanistan area one region. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan serve as a regional base and training center for Islamic Army activities supporting Islamic insurgencies in Tajikistan, the Kashmir region and Chechnya. [Excised] The Islamic Army had a camp in Pakistan [Excised] purpose of the camp was to train and recruit new members, mostly from Pakistan.” [1997-07-14] While, “UBL elements in Pakistan reportedly plan to attack POTUS [U.S. President Clinton’s] plane with [excised] missiles if he visits Pakistan.” [2000-02-18]

Similar to the 9/11 Commission Report, the document collection details repeated CIA warnings of the bin Laden terrorist threat prior to September 11. According to a January 2000 Top Secret briefing to the Director of Central Intelligence, disruption operations against the Millennium plot “bought time… weeks… months… but no more than one year” before al-Qaeda would strike. [2000-01-07] “A UBL attack against U.S. interests could occur at any time or any place. It is unlikely that the CIA will have prior warning about the time or place.” [1999-08-03] By September 2001, CIA counterterrorism officials knew a plot was developing but couldn’t provide policymakers with details. “As of Late August 2001, there were indications that an individual associated with al-Qa’ida was considering mounting terrorist operations in the United States, [Excised]. No further information is currently available in the timing of possible attacks or on the alleged targets in the United States.” [2001-08-24]

Despite mounting warnings about al-Qaeda, the documents released today illustrate how prior to September 11, CIA counterterrorism units were lacking the funds to aggressively pursue bin Laden. “Budget concerns… CT [counterterrorism] supplemental still at NSC-OMB [National Security Council – Office of Management and Budget] level. Need forward movement on supplemental soonest due to expected early recess due to conventions, campaigning and elections. Due to budgetary constraints… CTC/UBL [Counterterrorism Center/Osama bin Laden Unit] will move from offensive to defensive posture.” [2000-04-05]

Although the collection is part of a laudable effort by the CIA to provide documents on events related to September 11, many of these materials are heavily redacted, and still only represent one-quarter of the CIA materials cited in the 9/11 Commission Report. Hundreds of cited reports and cables remain classified, including all interrogation materials such as the 47 reports from CIA interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from March 24, 2003 – June 15, 2004, which are referenced in detail in the 9/11 Report.

Highlights of the CIA September 11 Document Collection Include:
The 1998 Raw Intelligence Report on UBL’s Plans to Hijack an Airplane that Became an Item in the December 4, 1998 President’s Daily Brief [1998-12-03].
The report details how bin Laden was planning “new operations against the United States (U.S.) targets in the near future. Plans to hijack a U.S. aircraft were proceeding well. Two individuals from the relevant operational team in the U.S. had successfully evaded security checks during a trial run at “New York airport [excised].”
Internal CIA E-mails on Osama bin Laden
1998-05-05 – “[Title Excised]” “Planning for the UBL Rendition is Going Very Well,” To: Michael F. Scheuer, From: [Excised], Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Capture Op,” “[Gary] Schroen to Mike.” [Chapter 4, Endnote 22 9/11 Commission Report]
1998-12-20 – “Re: urgent re ubl,” Note For: Michael F. Scheuer, From: [Excised], Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “[Gary] Schroen to Mike” [Chapter 4, Endnotes 117, 119 9/11 Commission Report]
1998-12-21 – “your note,” Note For: [Excised], From: Michael F. Scheuer, Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Mike to [Gary] Schroen,” [Chapter 4, Endnote 119 9/11 Commission Report]
1999-05-17 – “your note,” From Michael F. Scheuer, To [Excised], Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Mike to [Gary] Schroen” [Chapter 4, Endnote 174 9/11 Commission Report]
2001-05-15 – “[Excised] Query [Excised].” Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Dave to John.” [Chapter 8, Endnote 72 9/11 Commission Report]
2001-05-24 – [Title Excised] “Agee (sic) we need to compare notes,” Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Dave to John.” [Chapter 8, Endnote 64 9/11 Commission Report]
2001-07-13 – “[Excised] Khalad [Excised],” Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Richard to Alan” [Chapter 8, Endnote 64 9/11 Commission Report]
2001-08-21 – “Re: Khalid Al-Mihdhar,” Memorandum, Central Intelligence Agency Email. Cited in 9/11 Commission Report as “Mary to John.” [Chapter 8, Endnote 106 9/11 Commission Report]
Two Definitive CIA Reports on the September 11, 2001 Attacks
2003-06-01 – “11 September: The Plot and the Plotters,” CTC 2003-40044HC, Central Intelligence Agency Intelligence Report.
[Chapter 5, Endnotes 42, 60, 61, 64, 70, 105, Chapter 7, Endnotes 45, 52, 60, 83, 86, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 105 9/11 Commission Report]
This document is a comprehensive CIA history of the 9/11 attack. Analysis includes notes on al-Qaeda, the evolution of the plot, terrorist techniques, timelines and detailed hijacker profiles.
2004-03-19 – “DCI Report: The Rise of UBL and Al-Qa’ida and the Intelligence Community Response,” Draft, Central Intelligence Agency Analytic Report. [Chapter 2, Endnote 67]
This document is a detailed summary of CIA efforts to apprehend Osama bin Laden from 1989-2004. Highlights include:
Agency notes on bin Laden’s evolution from “terrorist financier” in the early 1990s to a significant threat to U.S. interests by mid-1990.
Discussions and debates regarding the use of Predator drones as early as 2000. [2]
Critiques of FBI information systems as impediments to counterterrorism efforts – “A major, ongoing concern is FBI’s own internal dissemination system. CIA officers still often find it necessary to hand-deliver messages to the intended recipient within the FBI. In additional FBI has not perfected its FI reporting system and headquarters-field communications so dissemination of intelligence outside of FBI is still spotty.” And the report confirms suggestions by the 9/11 Commission Report that “the different organizational culture and goals of the FBI and CIA sometimes get in the way of desired results.” (p. 22)
A group of Afghan trial leaders worked with the CIA on the UBL issue, but “[Excised] judged to be unlikely to successfully attack a heavily guarded Bin Ladin.” “Masood has to be engaged to help in the attempt to capture Bin Ladin, but with the understanding that he would be his own man, never an agent of surrogate of the US government… Even if he agreed to do so, his chances of success against the Taliban were judged to be less than five percent.” (p. 58)

Note “DIF” written on multiple pages stands for “Denied in Full”
A Series of CIA Senior Executive Intelligence Briefs (SEIBS) from June-September 2001 Warning of “Imminent” Al-Qaeda Attacks:
2001-06-23 – “International: Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent [Excised]” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 14, See also p. 257 9/11 Commission Report]
2001-06-25 – “Terrorism: Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats,” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnotes 12, 14]
2001-06-30 – “Terrorism: Bin Laden Planning High Profile Attacks [Excised],” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 12]
2001-07-02 – “Terrorism: Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delay [Excised],” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 18]
2001-07-13 – “Terrorism: Bin Ladin Plans Delayed but Not Abandoned [Excised],” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 28]
2001-07-25 – “Terrorism: One Bin Ladin Operation Delayed, Others Ongoing [Excised],” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 28]
2001-08-07 – “Terrorism: Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the US,” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. [Chapter 8, Endnote 38. Chapter 11, Endnote 5. Page 342]
Detailed Reports on Al-Qaeda Organization
“The spike in the network’s activity stems in part from changes in Bin Ladin’s practices. To avoid implicating himself and his Taliban hosts, Bin Ladin over the past two years has allowed cells in his network, al-Qa’ida, to plan attacks more independently of the central leadership and has tried to gain support for his agenda outside the group. – The network also has benefited from a sharp increase in mujahidin recruitment since the resumption of the conflict in Chechnya in 1999, which exposed a new generation of militants to terrorist techniques and extremist ideology through training at al-Qai’da-run camps in Afghanistan. – Violence between Israelis and the Palestinians, moreover is making Sunni extremists more willing to participate in attacks against US or Israeli interests.” 2001-02-06 – “Sunni Terrorist Threat Growing,” Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, The Central Intelligence Agency. [Chapter 8, Endnote 4 9/11 Commission Report]
Bin Laden’s Attempts to Acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction
“Bin Ladin and his associates have experimented by crude means to make and deploy biological agents… Bin Ladin has sought to acquire military-grade biological agents or weapons.” 2001-02-14 –”Afghanistan: Bin Ladin’s Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons,” Central Intelligence Agency Analytical Report [Chapter 11, Endnote 5. 9/11 Commission Report Page 342]
A Positive CIA Assessment of CIA Counterterrorism Capabilities in August 2001
In contrast to the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report and a 2004 CIA Office of Inspector General’s review of its pre-9/11 counterterrorism practices, a report completed in August 2001 by the CIA Inspector General gives very positively reviews to CIA counterterrorism practices, the management of information and interagency cooperation. “CTC fulfills inter-agency responsibilities for the DCI by coordinating national intelligence, providing warning, and promoting the effective use of Intelligence Community resources on terrorism issues. The Center has made progress on problems identified at the time of the last inspection in 1994 – specifically its professional relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Find this story at 19 June 2012

The Central Intelligence Agency’s 9/11 File

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 381

Posted – June 19, 2012

Edited by Barbara Elias-Sanborn with Thanks to Archive Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson

For more information contact:
Barbara Elias-Sanborn – 202/994-7000
belias@gwu.edu

(Reuters) – A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

The backers of such techniques, which include “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders.

One official said investigators found “no evidence” such enhanced interrogations played “any significant role” in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.

President Barack Obama and his aides have largely sought to avoid revisiting Bush administration controversies. But the debate over the effectiveness of enhanced interrogations, which human rights advocates condemn as torture, is resurfacing, in part thanks to a new book by a former top CIA official.

In the book, “Hard Measures,” due to be published on Monday, April 30, the former chief of CIA clandestine operations Jose Rodriguez defends the use of interrogation practices including water-boarding, which involves pouring water on a subject’s face, which is covered with a cloth, to simulate drowning.

“We made some al-Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days,” Rodriguez says in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that will air on Sunday, April 29. “I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives.”

For nearly three years, the Senate intelligence committee’s majority Democrats have been conducting what is described as the first systematic investigation of the effectiveness of such extreme interrogation techniques.

NO SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT

The CIA gave the committee access to millions of pages of written records charting daily operations of the interrogation program, including graphic descriptions of how and when controversial techniques were employed.

Sources agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finalized.

The committee members’ objective is to conduct a methodical assessment of whether enhanced interrogation techniques led to genuine intelligence breakthroughs or whether they produced more false leads than good ones.

U.S.intelligence officials have acknowledged that while the harshest elements of the interrogation program, including water-boarding and other tactics which cause severe physical stress, were in use, the CIA never carried out a scientific assessment of the program’s effectiveness.

The Bush Administration only used water-boarding on three captured suspects. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Other coercive techniques included sleep deprivation, making people crouch or stretch in stressful positions and slamming detainees against a flexible wall.

The CIA started backing away from such techniques in 2004. Obama banned them shortly after taking office.

One source cautioned there could still be lengthy delays before any information or conclusions from the Senate committee’s report are made public.

One reason the inquiry has taken so long is that in 2009, committee Republicans withdrew their participation, saying the panel would be unable to interview witnesses to ensure documentary material was reported in appropriate context due to ongoing criminal investigations.

People familiar with the inquiry said it consisted of as much as 2,000 pages in narrative accounts of how the CIA interrogation program worked, including specific case histories in which enhanced interrogation tactics were used.

‘PROCEDURES’ UNJUSTIFIED: FEINSTEIN

The Intelligence committee has not issued any official statements about what its inquiry has found or when it expects to wrap up. But committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein has made relatively strong statements about the lack of evidence that enhanced interrogations played any material role in generating information leading to bin Laden’s killing.

Only days after the commando raid in which bin Laden was killed, Feinstein told journalists: “I happen to know a good deal about how those interrogations were conducted, and, in my view, nothing justifies the kind of procedures that were used.”

Current and formerU.S.officials have said one key source for information about the existence of the al Qaeda “courier” who ultimately ledU.S.intelligence to bin Laden was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

KSM, as he was known toU.S.officials, was subjected to water-boarding 183 times, theU.S.government has acknowledged.

Officials said, however, that it was not until sometime after he was water-boarded that KSM told interrogators about the courier’s existence. Therefore a direct link between the physically coercive techniques and critical information is unproven, Bush administration critics say.

Supporters of the CIA program, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have portrayed it as a necessary, if distasteful, step that may have stopped extremist plots and saved lives.

…

Find this story at 27 April 2012

Fri, Apr 27 2012

By Mark Hosenball

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Bij het toezichtsrapport inzake de inzet van de afluisterbevoegdheid
en de bevoegdheid tot de selectie van Sigint door de AIVD
Het onderzoek van de Commissie heeft zich gericht op de rechtmatigheid van de inzet van
de afluisterbevoegdheid en de bevoegdheid tot de selectie van Sigint door de AIVD in de
periode van september 2010 tot en met augustus 2011. Deze bevoegdheden zijn neergelegd
in de artikelen 25 en 27 van de Wiv 2002 en mogen enkel worden ingezet indien dit
noodzakelijk is in het kader van de veiligheidstaak of de inlichtingentaak buitenland van de
AIVD. Ook is wettelijk vereist dat de inzet van deze bevoegdheden proportioneel en
subsidiair is en voldoet aan in de Wiv 2002 neergelegde zorgvuldigheidsvereisten.
De Commissie constateert dat de AIVD bij de inzet van de afluisterbevoegdheid doordacht
te werk gaat. Zij heeft in de door haar onderzochte operaties geen onrechtmatigheden
geconstateerd. Dit is gezien het grote aantal onderzochte operaties een compliment waard.
Op enkele punten constateert de Commissie evenwel dat er sprake is van
onzorgvuldigheden, vooral ten aanzien van de motivering van operaties.
Voor een deugdelijke motivering is van belang dat de AIVD hierin alle beschikbare relevante
informatie betrekt. Alleen dan kan zorgvuldig worden afgewogen of de privacyinbreuk die
gepaard gaat met de inzet van de afluisterbevoegdheid inderdaad noodzakelijk,
proportioneel en subsidiair is. De Commissie heeft in één geval geconstateerd dat contraindicaties
inzake de dreiging die van een target uitging, niet waren opgenomen in de
motivering. De Commissie signaleert ook dat de AIVD incidenteel omwille van de efficiëntie
van het inlichtingenwerk parallelle, verschillend gerubriceerde motiveringen aanwendt.
Naar het oordeel van de Commissie staat dit op gespannen voet met het belang van een
zorgvuldige en eenduidige motivering.

De Commissie constateert dat het in het onderzoek van de AIVD naar
radicaliseringstendensen niet altijd evident is dat de personen of organisaties jegens wie de
afluisterbevoegdheid wordt ingezet, ook daadwerkelijk aanleiding geven tot het ernstige
vermoeden een gevaar te zijn voor de nationale veiligheid. De Commissie onderkent het
belang van dit onderzoek maar benadrukt dat dan wel voortdurend de inzet van bijzondere
bevoegdheden jegens deze personen of organisaties kritisch geëvalueerd dient te worden. Zij
heeft in één geval geconstateerd dat de AIVD gedurende enkele jaren bijzondere
bevoegdheden heeft ingezet zonder duidelijkheid te hebben verkregen over de dreiging die
van de betrokken personen uitging. De Commissie is van oordeel dat de inzet van de
afluisterbevoegdheid met name in de laatste periode van dit onderzoek zich op het
grensgebied bevond van wat wettelijk is toegestaan. In één geval zijn door de AIVD
bijzondere bevoegdheden ingezet tegen een persoon die een bepaalde boodschap wilde
publiceren waarvan volgens de AIVD niet uit te sluiten was dat deze opgevat kon worden
als een oproep tot activisme of geweld. De Commissie vindt deze formulering te ruim. Voor
ii
de inzet van een bijzondere bevoegdheid moet immers gemotiveerd worden dat er een
ernstig vermoeden van een gevaar is.
In één geval constateert de Commissie dat de AIVD de afluisterbevoegdheid heeft ingezet
terwijl er belangrijke redenen waren om voorafgaande hieraan de MIVD de consulteren.
Hierdoor had de AIVD niet alleen mogelijk operationeel relevante informatie kunnen
verkrijgen, ook kan zo voorkomen worden dat beide diensten zich los van elkaar met
dezelfde operationele aangelegenheden bezighouden.
De Commissie onthoudt zich, net als in twee eerdere rapporten waarin dit onderwerp ter
sprake kwam, van een oordeel over de rechtmatigheid van de selectie van Sigint door de
AIVD. Bij de inzet van deze bevoegdheid licht de AIVD vaak niet toe aan wie de nummers
en technische kenmerken toebehoren en waarom deze telecommunicatie dient te worden
geselecteerd. Deze problematiek lijkt eigen aan de selectie van Sigint, de Commissie heeft dit
onlangs ook ten aanzien van de MIVD geconstateerd. De motiveringsvereisten van de Wiv
2002 zijn evenwel strikt, aangezien bij de selectie van Sigint kennis wordt genomen van de
inhoud van communicatie van personen en organisaties. In het eind 2011 uitgebrachte
toezichtsrapport 28 inzake de inzet van Sigint door de MIVD heeft de Commissie het
juridisch kader voor het gehele proces van de inzet van Sigint uiteengezet en
aanknopingspunten gegeven voor een betere motivering. De Commissie zal dan ook in het
volgende diepteonderzoek naar de inzet van de afluisterbevoegdheid en de bevoegdheid tot
de selectie van Sigint door de AIVD nagaan in hoeverre de motivering van de selectie van
Sigint is verbeterd.

Het rapport is te vinden bij CTIVD

Reactie van de minister

Persbericht

Private companies will be running large parts of the police service within five years, according to security firm head

David Taylor-Smith, the head of G4S for the UK and Africa, said he expected most UK police forces to sign up to privatisation deals. Photograph: Guardian

Private companies will be running large parts of the UK’s police service within five years, according to the world’s biggest security firm.

David Taylor-Smith, the head of G4S for the UK and Africa, said he expected police forces across the country to sign up to similar deals to those on the table in the West Midlands and Surrey, which could result in private companies taking responsibility for duties ranging from investigating crimes to transporting suspects and managing intelligence.

The prediction comes as it emerged that 10 more police forces were considering outsourcing deals that would see services, such as running police cells and operating IT, run by private firms.

Taylor-Smith, whose company is in the running for the £1.5bn contract with West Midlands and Surrey police, said he expected forces across the country to have taken similar steps within five years . “For most members of the public what they will see is the same or better policing and they really don’t care who is running the fleet, the payroll or the firearms licensing – they don’t really care,” he said.

G4S, which is providing security for the Olympics, has 657,000 staff operating in more than 125 countries and is one of the world’s biggest private employers. It already runs six prisons in the UK and in April started work on a £200m police contract in Lincolnshire, where it will design, build and run a police station. Under the terms of the deal, 575 public sector police staff transferred to the company.

Taylor-Smith said core policing would remain a public-sector preserve but added: “We have been long-term optimistic about the police and short-to-medium-term pessimistic about the police for many years. Our view was, look, we would never try to take away core policing functions from the police but for a number of years it has been absolutely clear as day to us – and to others – that the configuration of the police in the UK is just simply not as effective and as efficient as it could be.”

Concern has grown about the involvement of private firms in policing. In May more than 20,000 officers took to the streets to outline their fears about pay, conditions and police privatisation. The Police Federation has warned that the service is being undermined by creeping privatisation.

Unite, the union that represents many police staff, said the potential scale of private-sector involvement in policing was “a frightening prospect”. Peter Allenson, national officer, said: “This is not the back office – we are talking about the privatisation of core parts of the police service right across the country, including crime investigation, forensics, 999 call-handling, custody and detention and a wide range of police services.”

Taylor-Smith said “budgetary pressure and political will” were driving the private-sector involvement in policing but insisted that the “public sector ethos” had not been lost.

“I have always found it somewhere between patronising and insulting the notion that the public sector has an exclusive franchise on some ethos, spirit, morality – it is just nonsense,” he said. “The thought that everyone in the private sector is primarily motivated by profit and that is why they come to work is just simply not accurate … we employ 675,000 people and they are primarily motivated by pretty much the same as would motivate someone in the public sector.”

In the £1.5bn deal being discussed by West Midlands and Surrey police, the list of policing activities up for grabs includes investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, managing intelligence, managing engagement with the public, as well as more traditional back-office functions such as managing forensics, providing legal services, managing the vehicle fleet, finance and human resources.

Chris Sims, West Midlands chief constable, has said his force is a good testing ground for fundamental change as he battled to find £126m of savings. He said the armed forces had embraced a greater role for the private sector more fully than the police without sparking uproar.

But a home affairs select committee report said many of the policing contracts being put up for tender amounted to a “fishing expedition”. MPs added that they were not convinced the forces understood what they were doing. The committee chair, Keith Vaz, said: “The Home Office must ensure it knows what services local forces wish to contract out before agreeing to allow expenditure of £5m on what is little more than a fishing expedition.”

Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire police announced this month that they were considering privatising some services in an attempt to tackle a £73m funding shortfall created by government cuts. Police authority members in the three counties will be asked to consider how services including HR, finance and IT could be outsourced in line with the G4S contract in Lincolnshire as part of a joint recommendation made by the three chief constables.

…

Find this story at 20 June 2012

Matthew Taylor and Alan Travis
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 June 2012 19.31 BST

• This article was amended on 21 June to add a quote from a Home Office spokesperson.
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Jury sees footage tracing newspaper vendor’s movements through City of London during G20 protests in 2009
Simon Harwood, charged with the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson, arrives at Southwark crown court with his wife, Helen. Photograph: Rex Features

A court has seen video footage of the minutes leading to the death of Ian Tomlinson, the man prosecutors allege was killed on the fringes of the G20 protests in London by a riot police officer who struck him with a baton before shoving him to the ground.

The jury at Southwark crown court also heard from friends of Tomlinson, who said he had been calm and happy on the evening of 1 April 2009, although clearly under the influence of drink. The court was shown another compilation of images, tracking the movements of the police constable involved, Simon Harwood, before his encounter with Tomlinson.

Tomlinson’s family looked on grim-faced as the prosecution showed dozens of video clips giving a chronological rundown of Tomlinson’s movements as he tried to return home, having spent time with a newspaper vendor friend by Monument station in the City.

They also saw several video angles of the moment when Harwood, a member of the Metropolitan police’s Territorial Support Group unit, struck Tomlinson on the leg with a baton as the 47-year-old walked away from police lines, his hands in his pockets. Harwood then shoved Tomlinson to the ground causing, the prosecution alleges, internal bleeding which killed him within little more than half an hour.

In his attempt to reach the hostel where he lived when not with his family at weekends, Tomlinson, a long-term alcoholic, headed towards Bank tube station, where he was turned back at a police cordon set up following clashes involving protesters marking the G20 meeting of world leaders. He then wandered through alleyways towards the pedestrian passageway by the Royal Exchange building, where he encountered Harwood.

This slow progress was followed by dozens of cameras, mainly CCTV but also shaky, handheld amateur video, and footage from TV crews. The montage, some of it only brief glimpses as Tomlinson walked past internal cameras in shops, was compiled by investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which initially investigated his death.

While there were still occasional skirmishes between police and protesters by this time, throughout his walk Tomlinson appeared calm, walking mainly with his hands in the pockets of his tracksuit trousers. The final footage, chronologically, showed Tomlinson briefly walking away after he was pushed to the ground and then, after a cut in the filming, lying prone on the pavement, where a medical student was trying to assist him.

Harwood, 45, was first shown standing by the police van he had been designated to drive, then dragging away a man who wrote graffiti on the vehicle, only to lose him when the man slipped out of his jacket. Wearing a riot helmet and balaclava but easily identifiable by a waist-length fluorescent jacket, Harwood then joined a line of other riot officers who began clearing the passageway.

Amid initial chaos, Harwood shoved a man who blew a plastic vuvuzela in his face before pushing over a cameraman filming an arrest.

Another piece of footage showed Harwood pushing a third man, who had stopped seemingly to help someone sitting on the pavement. It is shortly after this that the line of police reaches Tomlinson.

The court later heard from several of Tomlinson’s friends, including Barry Smith, a newspaper vendor who had known him for more than 25 years. Smith said his friend had been very happy that day, having cashed his giro and used some of the money to travel to the Millwall FC club shop in south-east London to buy a replica shirt and other clothes.

Tomlinson had left the stall only because the papers sold out early, Smith said: “If I’d phoned up and got some more papers he might have been alive. I’m gutted.”

…

Find this story at 19 June 2012

Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 June 2012 18.08 BST

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Bij de sturing van op georganiseerde criminaliteit gerichte opsporingsonderzoeken, ontbreekt het aan voldoende inzichten: – in het opsporingsproces, – in de factoren die hierop van invloed zijn en – in de resultaten die ermee worden bereikt. Dit rapport gaat over de wijze waarop het concept ‘intelligence’-gestuurde opsporing in de praktijk uitwerkt bij de aanpak van georganiseerde misdaad. Hiertoe is ondermeer onderzocht hoe de voorbereiding van een opsporingsonderzoek naar georganiseerde misdaad in de praktijk verloopt, in hoeverre voorstellen voor onderzoeken daadwerkelijk tot opsporingsonderzoeken hebben geleid en wat daarvan de resultaten zijn geweeest. De eerste voorlopige resultaten werden reeds in 2007 in hoofdstuk 5 van het rapport “Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland” (Onderzoek en Beleid, nr. 252) gepubliceerd (zie link bij: Meer informatie).

Inhoudsopgave:
Voorwoord
Samenvatting
Inleiding
Het selectieproces van zaken
Weegdocumenten van de Nationale Recherche
Van preweegdocumenten tot tactisch onderzoek
Conclusies
Summary
Literatuur
Bijlagen

Auteur(s): Bokhorst, R.J., Steeg, M. van der, Poot, C.J. de
Organisatie: WODC
Plaats uitgave: Den Haag
Uitgever: WODC
Jaar van uitgave: 2011
Reeks: Cahiers 2011-11
Type rapport: Eindrapport

Document te vinden bij

Samenvatting te vinden bij

Summary at

Die EU-Polizeiagentur Europol soll mehr Kompetenzen für eigene Ermittlungen erhalten. Im November will die EU-Kommission einen Vorschlag über die zukünftige Aufgaben, Struktur und Arbeitsweise vorlegen

Früher galt die EU-Grenzschutzagentur Frontex als die “Kleine Schwester” Europols: Die Polizeiagentur wurde offiziell 1999 gegründet, während die EU-Migrationsabwehr erst seit 2004 am Start ist. Doch was die Kompetenzen angeht, ist Frontex längst vorgeprescht. Jetzt soll Europol aufholen: Zur Debatte steht der Ausbau von Datensammlungen, das Einleiten von Ermittlungen und ein stärkeres Vorgehen auch gegen unerwünschte Migration. Die gleichzeitig anvisierte Ausweitung der parlamentarischen Kontrolle bleibt wohl marginal.

Bis zum Lissabon-Vertrag galt Europol als zwischenstaatliche Einrichtung der sogenannten “Dritten Säule” zur polizeilichen und justiziellen Zusammenarbeit in Strafsachen, in der die EU keine eigenen Beschlüsse fassen konnte. Mit dem seit 1. Januar 2010 gültigen neuen Europol-Beschluss[1] ist die Behörde in den Rechtsrahmen der EU überführt worden und wird aus dem Gesamtbudget der EU finanziert (Europol in der dritten Generation[2]). Die Aufgabenbereiche wurden im Vertrag von Lissabon als Bekämpfung der “schweren Kriminalität, des Terrorismus und der Kriminalitätsformen, die ein gemeinsames Interesse verletzen” sehr weitgehend definiert[3]. Voraussetzung ist immer, dass zwei oder mehr Mitgliedstaaten betroffen sind. Jedoch dürfen polizeiliche Zwangsmaßnahmen ausschließlich von den Behörden der Mitgliedstaaten vorgenommen werden.

Derzeit arbeitet Europol mit 17 Nicht-EU-Staaten, neun EU-Organen und -Agenturen sowie drei weiteren internationalen Organisationen, darunter Interpol, zusammen. Rechtlich problematisch sind die unterschiedlichen Datenschutzstandards der beteiligten Länder. Europol verhandelt beispielsweise auch mit Israel, Albanien, Bosnien, Kolumbien und Russland über eine Partnerschaft (Europol will mehr Datentausch mit Israel[4]). Im Falle Israels würde beim Abschluss eines Abkommens formal auch die Siedlungspolitik der Regierung in Tel Aviv anerkannt[5] – und damit die bislang vertretene, ablehnende Position des Rates der Europäischen Union untergraben.

Unterstützung bei der Aufrechterhaltung der “öffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung”?

Im Arbeitsprogramm für 2012[6] werden ehrgeizige Pläne artikuliert: Europol will “polizeilicher Hauptansprechpartner” für Strafverfolgungsbehörden der EU und “Drehscheibe für polizeiliche Informationen” werden. Dennoch ist die Behörde vergleichsweise klein: Vor zwei Jahren waren dort 662 Mitarbeiter angestellt. Die Bundesregierung erläutert[7], dass sich die Zahl nicht nur auf das Vertragspersonal der Agentur bezieht. Einbezogen seien demnach auch Personen in den Verbindungsbüros der EU-Mitgliedstaaten bei Europol (ca. 125) sowie aus den EU-Mitgliedstaaten entsandte Sachverständige. Deutschland stellt 39 Mitarbeiter, darunter 13 aus dem Bundeskriminalamt. Im deutschen Verbindungsbüro bei Europol arbeiten weitere acht Mitarbeiter und vier Sachverständige.

Laut dem Jahresabschluss von 2010[8] hat Europol die zuständigen Behörden in den Mitgliedstaaten in 11.738 grenzüberschreitenden Fällen unterstützt. Dies entspräche gegenüber 2009 einer Steigerung von 12%. In über 150 “bedeutenden grenzüberschreitenden Ermittlungen” habe das Amt “analytische und operative Unterstützung” geleistet. 35% der Operationen betrafen “Drogenvergehen”.

Doch die Polizeiagentur hat weitaus Größeres vor: Zukünftig könnte Europol den Mitgliedstaaten sogar bei der Aufrechterhaltung der “öffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung” assistieren. So jedenfalls ist es in einem Debattenbeitrag der derzeitigen dänischen Ratspräsidentschaft[9] niedergelegt. Gleichzeitig soll die Zusammenarbeit mit den anderen zehn EU-Agenturen im Bereich Justiz und Inneres intensiviert[10] werden: Die Grenzschutzagentur wünscht, dass Europol beim Erstellen der sogenannten “Risikoanalysen” zu unerwünschter Migration aushilft.

Auch mit der Agentur zur Betrugsbekämpfung (OLAF), der Europäischen Polizeiakademie (CEPOL), der Grundrechteagentur (FRA) und dem EU-Geheimdienst (SitCen) soll Europol stärker kooperieren. Das Gleiche gilt für die Europäische Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik (ESDP): Die Mitgliedstaaten sollen erörtern, inwieweit “Synergien” erzielt werden können. Hierbei hilft die inzwischen institutionalisierte Zusammenarbeit der Leiter der Agenturen[11]: 2010 hatte Europol den Vorsitz dieser informellen Vereinigung inne.

Europol gegen “Migrationsdruck”

Was unter “Synergien” verstanden wird, macht eine weitere Initiative der dänischen Ratspräsidentschaft deutlich: Die Regierung in Kopenhagen überraschte Ende letzten Monats mit einer “EU-Aktion gegen Migrationsdruck”[12]. Gefordert werden als “strategische Antwort” mehr Anstrengungen auch von Europol bei der Bekämpfung unerwünschter Einwanderung. Sofern es das Mandat erlaubt, könnte die EU-Kriminalisten sogar gegen Scheinehen vorgehen, die laut der dänischen Ratspräsidentschaft durch “organisierte kriminelle Gruppierungen” inszeniert würden.

Die Polizeiagentur soll in die Zusammenarbeit mit Herkunfts- und Transitländern eingebunden werden, um unentdeckte Einwanderungsrouten aufzuspüren. Auch im Rahmen des zur Zeit verhandelten Rückübernahmeabkommens zwischen der EU und der Türkei soll Europol demnach eine besondere Rolle spielen. Angestrebt wird der Ausbau der Zusammenarbeit mit türkischen Polizeikräften und der Abschluss einer hierzu notwendigen Arbeitsvereinbarung.

Laut dem Papier der dänischen Regierung könnte die Migrationsabwehr im Dreiländereck von Griechenland, Bulgarien und der Türkei in der Einrichtung eines “trilateralen gemeinsamen Kontaktzentrums für Polizei-, Grenzschutz- und Zollzusammenarbeit” münden. 38 solcher Kooperationsprojekte entstehen zur Zeit in zahlreichen EU-Mitgliedstaaten. Ihr Vorbild sind die “Zentren für Zusammenarbeit von Polizei und Zoll” (PCCC), die als Pilotprojekte an den Grenzen Deutschlands mit Frankreich (Kehl), Polen (Swiecko) und Luxemburg aufgebaut wurden. Europol ist gehalten, sich verstärkt in die Kooperation mit diesen Zentren von Polizei und Zoll einzubringen. 2010 hatte die Agentur ein entsprechendes Seminar organisiert.

Bereits jetzt ist Europol verstärkt in den Balkanstaaten[13] aktiv. Nach Vorbild Europols errichten 13 Länder unter dem Namen Southeast European Law Enforcement Center[14] (SELEC) eine neue Polizeibehörde, in der Europol eine “Schlüsselrolle” spielen soll. . Das Vorhaben wird von der EU-Kommission gefördert[15] (Wer kontrolliert Europol?[16]).

“Poweruser” Deutschland

Zu den offenen Fragen einer neuen Europol-Rechtsgrundlage gehört vor allem die Erleichterung des Informationsaustausches mit der Agentur. Dabei geht es um das Europol-Informationssystem (EIS) und die Nutzung der sogenannten “Dataloader” durch die EU-Mitgliedstaaten. Diese automatisierte Übermittlung von Informationen über Personen, Sachen oder Vorgänge wird bereits für 81% aller Einspeisungen in das EIS in Anspruch genommen.

Die Mitgliedstaaten nehmen jährlich rund 10.000 Suchabfragen vor. Laut Europol verkraftet das Informationssystem ohne Probleme die doppelte Menge. Schon jetzt gehört Deutschland zu den vier Hauptlieferanten und Datenstaubsaugern bei Europol: Rund ein Drittel aller Daten im EIS stammen vom Bundeskriminalamt, etwa die gleiche Zahl an Abfragen kam über Wiesbaden. Zur “Spitzengruppe” gehören außerdem Frankreich, Belgien und Spanien. 70% der per “Dataloader” gelieferten Datensätze werden von den vier Ländern herangeschafft.

Einige Mitgliedstaaten begründen ihre Zurückhaltung bei der automatisierten Befüllung mittels “Dataloader” damit, dass dadurch qualitativ schlechte und damit für die anderen Mitgliedstaaten unbrauchbare Daten generiert würden. Trotzdem will der Rat der Europäischen Union Schlussfolgerungen verabschieden, um auch die weniger aktiven Mitgliedstaaten unter Druck zu setzen: Die nationalen Europol-Kontaktstellen sollen dann eine feste Quote an übermitteln Datensätzen erfüllen. In der Diskussion sind zudem “finanzielle Anreize”. Der Vorschlag wird unter anderem von Polen und den Niederlanden unterstützt.

Doch der Datenhunger Europols ist damit längst nicht gestillt: Erörtert wird beispielsweise, inwiefern die Nutzung von “Daten aus dem Privatsektor” intensiviert werden könnte. Fraglich ist aber, auf welche Art und Weise diese Informationen überhaupt verwertet werden dürfen. Auch ist unbestimmt, wie Provider, Firmen oder Institute auf entsprechende Anfragen zur Herausgabe von Daten reagieren müssen. Da Europol bislang über keine operativen Kompetenzen in den Mitgliedstaaten verfügt, können entsprechende Anfragen zunächst getrost ignoriert werden. Weitaus delikater ist aber die Frage, inwiefern die privaten Stellen mit Daten von Europol beliefert werden dürfen.

Einleitung von “Ermittlungsinitiativen” anvisiert

Im Rahmen der Kompetenzerweiterung wird darüber diskutiert, ob Europol zukünftig selbst Ermittlungen anstoßen darf (sogenannte “Ermittlungsinitiativen”). Die wesentlich jüngere Agentur Frontex ist dazu im Rahmen ihrer “Gemeinsamen Operationen”[17] bereits ermächtigt. Mit derartigen “Ermittlungsinitiativen” würde Europol aber tief in die Souveränität der Mitgliedstaaten eingreifen. Im Gespräch ist deshalb eine “Subsidiaritätsprüfung”, also die Festlegung einer Schwelle, bis zu der die nationalen Polizeibehörden zuständig bleiben sollen. Gleichzeitig sollen die Zurückweisungsgründe für die Maßnahmen eingeschränkt werden: Wenn die Mitgliedstaaten also eine entsprechende Forderung ablehnen, muss dies gut begründet werden.

Die neuen Ambitionen Europols werden jetzt im “Ständigen Ausschuss für die operative Zusammenarbeit im Bereich der inneren Sicherheit” debattiert. Im November sollen die Verhandlungen in einen Verordnungsvorschlag der EU-Kommission münden, der sowohl zukünftige Aufgaben, Aufbau, Arbeitsweise und den Tätigkeitsbereich definiert.

Parallel zum Upgrade der Polizeiagentur wird auch über eine erweiterte parlamentarische Kontrolle verhandelt. Hierzu hatte die Kommission im April Vertreter nationaler Parlamente und des Europäischen Parlaments eingeladen. Doch das zweistündige Treffen kann kaum als ernsthafte Debatte gelten: Auch der neue Rechtsrahmen von Europol wurde in der kurzen Zeit behandelt.

Die Kommission bietet den Abgeordneten an, sich zukünftig durch jährliche Rechenschaftsberichte und interparlamentarische Aussprachen mit dem Direktor von Europol zu informieren. Dies beträfe aber nur die Strategie von Europol, die Beratungen über Mehrjahresprogramme oder die “Sicherheitslage in der EU”. Es soll sich dabei aber lediglich um einen Gedankenaustausch handeln. Jegliche “Ko-Administration” wird von Europol abgelehnt.

…

Anhang

Links
[1]

http://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/council_decision.pdf
[2]

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/31/31792/1.html
[3]

http://dejure.org/gesetze/AEUV/88.html
[4]

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/36/36540/1.html
[5]

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/36/36540/1.html
[6]

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st13/st13516.en11.pdf
[7]

http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/031/1703143.pdf
[8]

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:366:0179:01:DE:HTML
[9]

http://euro-police.noblogs.org/files/2012/04/Debate_on_possible_future_user_requirements_for_Europol.pdf
[10]

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/feb/eu-council-cosi-jha-agency-heads-24-11-11-18075-11.pdf
[11]

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/feb/eu-cooperation-between-agencies-5816-10.pdf
[12]

http://euro-police.noblogs.org/files/2012/05/eu-aktion-gegen-migrationsdruck.pdf
[13]

http://www.andrej-hunko.de/register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/10/st18/st18148.en10.pdf
[14]

http://www.secicenter.org/m485/SELEC
[15]

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2011/mar/eu-council-draft-conclusions-seci-6504-rev1-11.pdf
[16]

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/34/34337/1.html
[17]

http://www.frontex.eu.int/structure/operations_division/joint_operations
[18]

http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/082/1708277.pdf

Find this story at & Mai 2012

Matthias Monroy 07.05.2012

Copyright © Telepolis, Heise Zeitschriften Verlag

Met Police Commissioner slammed for his public support of the Government’s Communications Data Bill
Tory MP Dominic Raab accuses him of being ‘deeply unprofessional’ and jeopardising principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’
Bill would force communications companies to store data on every website visit, email, text message and social network use for 12 months

Britain’s most senior police officer was accused of playing politics yesterday after he gave his full backing to Government plans to monitor the public’s every internet click.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe endorsed a draft law that critics claim amounts to a snoopers’ charter, saying that in some cases it could be a matter of ‘life or death’.

His actions were branded ‘deeply unprofessional’ and prompted calls for official censure.

Mr Hogan-Howe’s intervention in the Communications Data Bill was compared to that of former Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who was accused of lobbying for a Labour plan to allow terrorism suspects to be detained for up to 90 days and also backed controversial ID cards.

Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘Just as it was wrong for Sir Ian Blair to lobby for the flawed ID card scheme, it is deeply unprofessional for Commissioner Hogan-Howe to lobby for Big Brother surveillance.

‘It politicises our police and undermines public trust. It’s also shocking that he wants more surveillance powers to “eliminate innocent people from an investigation”.

‘In this country, we’re innocent until proven guilty – not the other way round.’

Former shadow home secretary David Davis, one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed law, said: ‘He will have done his reputation no end of harm by getting involved in this process.’

He said that after Sir Ian spoke out on 90 days detention he was seen as a Government spokesman and, if not careful, the same would be said of Mr Hogan-Howe.

He added: ‘The truth of the matter is this is a highly political issue and the police should stay out of it.’

Mr Hogan-Howe made the comments yesterday in an article for The Times, in which he brought the 2005 Soham murder investigation into his argument, saying police were able to disprove Ian Huntley’s alibi that he did not kill schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by looking at his phone and text records.

He also appeared alongside Home Secretary Theresa May at a press conference to promote the draft Communications Data Bill.

If made law, it will give ministers powers to demand that internet companies store data on every website visit, email, text message and visit to social networking sites for a minimum of 12 months.

Police and security services would not have access to the content of messages, but would know who was contacted, when and by what method.

The Bill is expected to face fierce criticism from Lib Dem and Tory backbenchers when it is scrutinised by Parliament.

Currently, police can access information that is stored automatically by internet companies, but they say that 25 per cent of the data is not logged, leaving a loophole for determined criminals.

Mrs May said that without the new powers, offenders would go free. ‘We will see people walking the streets who should be behind bars,’ she said.

Sitting alongside her, Mr Hogan-Howe claimed the proposals were no more intrusive than current laws.

But in facing repeated questions over whether he was right to intervene so publicly, the Commissioner accepted there was a risk of the police becoming politicised over the issue.

‘You could say there is a risk [of politicisation], but the thing I’m passionate about is making sure criminals can’t get away with crime,’ he said.

‘If that’s regarded as political, it’s a sorry state of affairs.’

…

Find this story at 14 June 2012

By Jack Doyle

PUBLISHED: 23:14 GMT, 14 June 2012 | UPDATED: 23:14 GMT, 14 June 2012

Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd

Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group
© Associated Newspapers Ltd

SHANNON, Ireland — An ocean away from the United States, travelers flying out of the international airport here on the west coast of Ireland are confronting one of the newest lines of defense in the war on terrorism: the United States border.

In a section of this airport carved out for the Department of Homeland Security, passengers are screened for explosives and cleared to enter the United States by American Customs and Border Protection officers before boarding. When they land, the passengers walk straight off the plane into the terminal without going through border checks.

At other foreign airports, including those in Madrid, Panama City and Tokyo, American officers advise the local authorities. American programs in other cities expedite travel for passengers regarded as low-risk.

The programs reflect the Obama administration’s ambitious effort to tighten security in the face of repeated attempts by Al Qaeda and other terrorists to blow up planes headed to the United States from foreign airports.

The thinking is simple: By placing officers in foreign countries and effectively pushing the United States border thousands of miles beyond the country’s shores, Americans have more control over screening and security. And it is far better to sort out who is on a flight before it takes off than after a catastrophe occurs.

“It’s a really big deal — it would be like us saying you can have foreign law enforcement operating in a U.S. facility with all the privileges given to law enforcement, but we are going to do it on your territory and on our rules,” the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said on a flight back to the United States from the Middle East, where she negotiated with leaders in Israel and Jordan about joint airport security programs. “So you flip it around, and you realize it is a big deal for a country to agree to that. It is also an expensive proposition.”

Airports in 14 countries are participating in the programs, which have been expanded over the last several years and have required substantial concessions from foreign leaders. In many cases they have agreed to allow American officers to be placed in the heart of their airports and to give them the authority to carry weapons, detain passengers and pull them off flights.

Last December, the government of Abu Dhabi signed a letter of intent to build a terminal where American officers will clear passengers to enter the United States, the most ambitious agreement the United States has struck so far with an Arab country. On her recent trip to Jordan, Ms. Napolitano began negotiations with the ruling family there about similar efforts.

Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, endorsed the overseas security efforts and said he hoped the department would expand them. “A lot of these attempts are coming from the Middle East,” he said, referring to terrorism plots, “and that drives home that we have an immediate problem and that we need to push for these programs there as hard as we can.”

The Obama administration sped up expansion of the programs, which cost about $115 million a year, after a Qaeda operative tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009. The security at foreign airports drew more public attention last month after new reports that intelligence agencies had thwarted another plot by Al Qaeda to detonate an underwear bomb on an American-bound airliner. After that news emerged, Ms. Napolitano said the new measures being put in place in foreign airports for flights to the United States would have stopped a terrorist from boarding a plane with such a bomb.

But critics of the department on Capitol Hill — particularly two Republican committee chairmen in the House, Darrell Issa of California and John L. Mica of Florida — questioned her claims and said that security in foreign airports is not robust enough.

Ms. Napolitano and other Obama administration officials praise the programs as essential to help protect the 80 million passengers a year who fly to the United States from 300 foreign airports, and as a boon for travelers, who save time after landing,

Still, as with many other counterterrorism measures, it is hard to gauge the programs’ success or their impact on Al Qaeda and other terrorists. They have not foiled any major plots so far, and it is hard to imagine terrorists unaware of which airports had a robust American security presence and which were more vulnerable.

Homeland Security officials acknowledge that the United States cannot control security in every airport in the world. The focus, they said, was on expanding an American presence at airports with a significant number of United States-bound flights.

The officials said that of the roughly 30 million travelers who passed through foreign airports with American Customs and Border Protection officers over the past two years, about 500 were deemed national security risks and were turned away or pulled aside for further questioning. Over the same period, about 18,000 air travelers were denied admission to the United States for reasons like having a criminal record or lacking a proper visa.

At Shannon, where American officers have checked passports since 1986, passengers bound for the United States first pass through the Irish government’s airport security and then through three levels of American security: one to check for explosives in shoes and carry-on luggage, then to get clearance to enter the United States, and finally to ensure that checked baggage does not contain contraband.

The biggest problem for the United States is that it cannot compel foreign governments to strengthen security at their airports. But the United States limits flights from foreign airports that do not meet minimum security standards and screen passengers using procedures modeled after those of the Transportation Security Administration.

American officers at foreign airports constitute the next level of security, and the “gold standard” is an arrangement like the one at Shannon, with comprehensive preboarding clearance.

…

Find this story at 13 June 2012

June 13, 2012

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

© 2012 The New York Times Company

CBP-onderzoek naar periodieke controle politiegegevens omtrent zware criminaliteit

Persbericht, 12 juni 2012
Het College bescherming persoonsgegevens (CBP) heeft na onderzoek geconcludeerd dat de Criminele Inlichtingeneenheden (CIE’s) bij twee regionale politiekorpsen, de Koninklijke Marechaussee en een bijzondere opsporingsdienst onvoldoende maatregelen hebben getroffen om de wettelijke eisen omtrent bewaartermijnen van politiegegevens na te leven. Daarmee handelen zij in strijd met de wet. Het CBP deed onderzoek bij de twee regionale politiekorpsen Flevoland en Brabant Zuid-Oost, de Koninklijke Marechaussee en de Inlichtingen en -Opsporingsdienst van de Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport. De CIE’s verwerken politiegegevens om inzicht te krijgen in de betrokkenheid van personen bij ernstige en georganiseerde misdrijven. Voor de verwerking van deze gevoelige (politie)gegevens omtrent zware criminaliteit gelden strenge wettelijke eisen, mede omdat de informatie niet altijd betrouwbaar is terwijl de risico’s en gevolgen van de verwerking groot kunnen zijn voor de personen die het betreft. De Wet politiegegevens (Wpg) bepaalt dan ook dat dergelijke politiegegevens moeten worden verwijderd zodra zij niet langer noodzakelijk zijn. Daarbij geldt dat uiterlijk vijf jaar nadat voor het laatst gegevens zijn toegevoegd, de gegevens moeten worden verwijderd. De wet eist bovendien een periodieke (jaarlijkse) toets om vast te stellen in hoeverre de gegevens nog noodzakelijk zijn voor het doel waarvoor ze werden verwerkt. Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat geen van de vier onderzochte partijen deze bij wet verplichte periodieke toets uitvoert dan wel niet concreet genoeg toetst of de opgenomen politiegegevens nog noodzakelijk zijn. Ook constateert het CBP dat het verplichte interne toezicht door de privacyfunctionarissen op de naleving van de bewaartermijnen van de gegevens inclusief het toezicht op de periodieke controle van de noodzaak om ze te bewaren, tekort is geschoten.

Lees het rapport van definitieve bevindingen Regionaal politiekorps BZO (528 KB)

Lees het rapport van definitieve bevindingen Regionaal politiekorps Flevoland (528 KB)

Lees het rapport van definitieve bevindingen Koninklijke Marechaussee (502 KB)

Lees het rapport van definitieve bevindingen Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport – Inlichtingen en Opsporingsdienst (492 KB)
Periodieke controle
De wetgever verplicht tot een periodieke, jaarlijks uit te voeren, interne controle waarna gegevens die niet langer noodzakelijk zijn moeten worden verwijderd. De politie moet daarbij het belang van de registratie van de gegevens voor de uitvoering van de politietaak afwegen tegen de belangen van de betrokkene bij verwijdering. Deze belangenafweging kan leiden tot verwijdering van de gegevens voordat de uiterste bewaartermijn van vijf jaar is verlopen.

Controle door de privacyfunctionaris
De Wpg verplicht de politiekorpsen om een privacyfunctionaris aan te stellen die als taak heeft gegevensverwerkingen intern te controleren, onder meer op de naleving van de bewaartermijnen. Het CBP constateert dat geen van de privacyfunctionarissen de afgelopen jaren een onderzoek heeft uitgevoerd naar (de naleving van de bewaartermijnen van) gegevensverwerkingen door de CIE. Daarmee schiet de verplichte interne controle om de grenzen van de Wpg te bewaken, tekort.

ENTEBBE, Uganda — Four small, white passenger planes sit outside a hangar here under a blazing sun, with no exterior markings save for U.S. registration numbers painted on the tails. A few burly men wearing aviator sunglasses and short haircuts poke silently around the wing flaps and landing gear.

The aircraft are Pilatus PC-12s, turboprops favored by the U.S. Special Operations forces for stealth missions precisely because of their nondescript appearance. There is no hint that they are carrying high-tech sensors and cameras that can film man-size targets from 10 miles away.

To further disguise the mission, the U.S. military has taken another unusual step: It has largely outsourced the spying operation to private contractors. The contractors supply the aircraft as well as the pilots, mechanics and other personnel to help process electronic intelligence collected from the airspace over Uganda, Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

In October, President Obama sent about 100 elite U.S. troops to central Africa to scour the terrain for Joseph Kony, the messianic and brutal leader of a Ugandan rebel group. But American contractors have been secretly searching for Kony from the skies long before that, at least since 2009, under a project code-named Tusker Sand, according to documents and people familiar with the operation.

The previously unreported practice of hiring private companies to spy on huge expanses of African territory — in this region and in North Africa, where a similar surveillance program is aimed at an al-Qaeda affiliate — has been a cornerstone of the U.S. military’s secret activities on the continent. Unlike uniformed troops, plainclothes contractors are less likely to draw attention.

But because the arms-length arrangement exists outside traditional channels, there is virtually no public scrutiny or oversight. And if something goes wrong, the U.S. government and its partners acknowledge that the contractors are largely on their own.

U.S. Africa Command, which oversees military operations on the continent, declined to discuss specific missions or its reasons for outsourcing the gathering of intelligence.

In response to written questions from The Washington Post, the command stated that contractors would not get special treatment in case of a mishap. Instead, they “would be provided the same assistance that any U.S. citizen would be provided by the U.S. Government should they be in danger.”

Perils of the job

There is precedent for the use of contractors in spying operations. The military hired private firms to conduct airborne surveillance in Latin America in the 1990s and early 2000s, with sometimes-disastrous results.

In 2003, for instance, one American was killed and three others were taken hostage by Colombian insurgents after their plane crashed in the jungle. The contractors, who were working for Northrop Grumman on a Defense Department counter-narcotics program, endured five years of captivity before they were freed in a raid by Colombian police.

Peter W. Singer, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and an expert on military contracting, said the Pentagon typically turns to the private sector for “deniability,” but he added that “it rarely turns out that way.”

“When things go bad, you can have two scenarios,” he said. “Either the contractors are left holding the bag, complaining about abandonment, or else some kind of abuse happens and they’re not held accountable because of a mix of unclear legal accountability and a lack of political will to do something about it.”

Indeed, contractors knowledgeable about the central Africa mission appear to be aware that the downing of one of their planes could have far-reaching implications.

“From a purely political standpoint it is obvious the fallout of such an incident would be immense, especially if hostile forces reached the crash site first,” Commuter Air Technology, an Oklahoma defense firm, wrote in May 2010 in response to a U.S. Africa Command solicitation to expand operations. “This could turn into a prisoner/hostage situation at worst, or at the least a serious foreign relations incident highly damaging to both AFRICOM and the U.S.”

The warning was prescient. That summer, a PC-12 surveillance aircraft operated by a New Jersey contractor as part of Tusker Sand was forced to make an emergency landing in Obo, an isolated town in the Central African Republic where Kony’s forces had terrorized the population.

On board were a handful of Americans working for the firm R-4 Inc., as well as a Ugandan military officer and a Congolese officer.

The unexpected appearance of two foreign soldiers and some Americans aroused the suspicions of tribal leaders, who had been kept in the dark about Tusker Sand by their national government. They detained the crew for several hours as they debated what to do.

“We felt like we were going to prison,” said one of the American contractors involved, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive operation.

The contractor said that his group contacted State Department and United Nations officials but that they declined to intervene. It was even harder to track down Africa Command officials, whose headquarters are in Stuttgart, Germany.

“Eventually, we were able to talk our way out of it,” the contractor said. “That’s all we did over there, pay people off and talk our way out of situations.”

Dwight Turner, vice president of overseas operations for R-4, said he was not personally familiar with the incident. He confirmed that his company had been involved in Tusker Sand but declined to comment further.

A growing appetite

When Tusker Sand began in late 2009, it consisted of a single PC-12, operating out of a Ugandan military hangar at Entebbe airport. The hangar also housed a Gulfstream aircraft for the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni.

According to the contractor who worked for R-4, the presidential palace was so protective of Museveni’s plane that the Americans were required to push their PC-12 out of the hangar by hand, instead of with a tractor, to avoid inadvertent scrapes.

The U.S. military’s appetite for surveillance quickly grew. On June 11, 2010, the Africa Command participated in an “Industry Day” to drum up interest. More than 50 private contractors were invited to develop proposals to expand Tusker Sand and Creek Sand, the program aimed at al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates mainly in Mali.

Unclassified documents prepared for the event show that the military wanted contractors to provide at least a combined 44 personnel for the programs, with double that number if the Africa Command decided to “surge” either one of them. At a minimum, contractors were told that they would have to keep planes flying for 150 hours a month.

Among the jobs to be outsourced: pilots, sensor operators, intelligence analysts, mechanics and linguists. The expectation was that the personnel would be veterans; most needed to certify that they had passed the military’s survival, resistance and escape training course, because of the possibility of aircrews being downed behind enemy lines.

Contractors would have to supply the surveillance gear, including electro-optical and infrared sensors that work in the dark, and a laser-emitting sensor that can peer under the jungle canopy. All had to be concealed within the body of the plane with retractable mounting to avoid attracting suspicion.

Another document stipulated that prospective firms fly “innocuous” aircraft that would “blend into the local operating area.” In a PowerPoint presentation posted on a federal government Web site for contractors, the Africa Command warned firms bidding for the work that African countries would be “uncomfortable” with activities that might look suspicious, adding: “Don’t want covert aircraft, just friendly looking aircraft.”

In addition to expanding Tusker Sand and Creek Sand, the Africa Command said it wanted to start a drone-based program, dubbed Tusker Wing, to search for members of Kony’s militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army.

That plan envisioned contractors using blimps equipped with cameras as well as ScanEagles, small and unmanned aircraft that can be launched with a catapult but stay aloft for 22 hours at a time, according to Gene Healey, a contractor who helped prepare a study for the Africa Command.

Healey said the Africa Command was initially enthusiastic about Tusker Wing but canceled the program, without explanation, before it got off the ground. Africa Command officials declined to comment.

Nonetheless, the number of manned surveillance flights for Tusker Sand has gradually increased. A new contractor, Sierra Nevada Corp., began operating PC-12 flights out of Entebbe in August.

Michelle Erlach, a spokeswoman for Sierra Nevada Corp., based in Sparks, Nev., declined to answer questions about Tusker Sand or the firm’s activities in Africa. “I cannot give any details on that,” she said.

The Africa Command declined to answer questions about the contract for Tusker Sand, saying it was “proprietary in nature.”

Allies on the Hill

Tusker Sand could soon receive another boost.

In March, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), one of Congress’s leading voices on Africa, issued a statement expressing concern that the U.S. military was being hindered in its efforts to track the Lord’s Resistance Army.

He called on the Obama administration to give the Africa Command “the full availability” of surveillance aircraft and equipment necessary to catch Kony and conduct other counterterrorism missions.

In an interview a month later, however, Inhofe said Africa Command officials told him that things had improved and that they were no longer being shortchanged. “I have been reassured,” he said. “I think they right now have the assets they need.”

Asked whether he had any qualms about private contractors operating spy missions on behalf of the U.S. military, Inhofe said he’d “rather not get into that.”

“They are working with contractors on these things, and I know there are a lot of people involved,” he added. “I’m just not going to elaborate on where they are or what they’re doing.”

Late last month, however, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a measure authorizing $50 million for the Defense Department to “enhance and expand” surveillance operations to help Ugandan and other regional militaries search for Kony.

A congressional staff member said the legislators’ priority was to increase and improve the surveillance operations as quickly as possible, adding that Congress was not necessarily opposed to using private companies for the Kony manhunt.

“It’s a concern, but when you’re short on resources, it’s what you have to do,” said the staffer, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations. “It’s a permissive environment. Nobody’s getting shot at, and we’re just collecting intelligence.”

…

Find this story at 15 June 2012

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

By Craig Whitlock, Published: June 15

© The Washington Post Company