Edward Snowden papers unmask close technical cooperation and loose alliance between British, German, French, Spanish and Swedish spy agencies

The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency.

The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. A loose but growing eavesdropping alliance has allowed intelligence agencies from one country to cultivate ties with corporations from another to facilitate the trawling of the web, according to GCHQ documents leaked by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies.

The German, French and Spanish governments have reacted angrily to reports based on National Security Agency (NSA) files leaked by Snowden since June, revealing the interception of communications by tens of millions of their citizens each month. US intelligence officials have insisted the mass monitoring was carried out by the security agencies in the countries involved and shared with the US.

The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, suggested to Congress on Tuesday that European governments’ professed outrage at the reports was at least partly hypocritical. “Some of this reminds me of the classic movie Casablanca: ‘My God, there’s gambling going on here,’ ” he said.

Sweden, which passed a law in 2008 allowing its intelligence agency to monitor cross-border email and phone communications without a court order, has been relatively muted in its response.

The German government, however, has expressed disbelief and fury at the revelations from the Snowden documents, including the fact that the NSA monitored Angela Merkel’s mobile phone calls.

After the Guardian revealed the existence of GCHQ’s Tempora programme, in which the electronic intelligence agency tapped directly into the transatlantic fibre optic cables to carry out bulk surveillance, the German justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said it sounded “like a Hollywood nightmare”, and warned the UK government that free and democratic societies could not flourish when states shielded their actions in “a veil of secrecy”.

‘Huge potential’

However, in a country-by-country survey of its European partners, GCHQ officials expressed admiration for the technical capabilities of German intelligence to do the same thing. The survey in 2008, when Tempora was being tested, said the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), had “huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the internet – they are already seeing some bearers running at 40Gbps and 100Gbps”.

Bearers is the GCHQ term for the fibre optic cables, and gigabits per second (Gbps) measures the speed at which data runs through them. Four years after that report, GCHQ was still only able to monitor 10 Gbps cables, but looked forward to tap new 100 Gbps bearers eventually. Hence the admiration for the BND.

The document also makes clear that British intelligence agencies were helping their German counterparts change or bypass laws that restricted their ability to use their advanced surveillance technology. “We have been assisting the BND (along with SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] and Security Service) in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany,” it says.

The country-by-country survey, which in places reads somewhat like a school report, also hands out high marks to the GCHQ’s French partner, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE). But in this case it is suggested that the DGSE’s comparative advantage is its relationship with an unnamed telecommunications company, a relationship GCHQ hoped to leverage for its own operations.

“DGSE are a highly motivated, technically competent partner, who have shown great willingness to engage on IP [internet protocol] issues, and to work with GCHQ on a “cooperate and share” basis.”

Noting that the Cheltenham-based electronic intelligence agency had trained DGSE technicians on “multi-disciplinary internet operations”, the document says: “We have made contact with the DGSE’s main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena.”

GCHQ went on to host a major conference with its French partner on joint internet-monitoring initiatives in March 2009 and four months later reported on shared efforts on what had become by then GCHQ’s biggest challenge – continuing to carry out bulk surveillance, despite the spread of commercial online encryption, by breaking that encryption.

“Very friendly crypt meeting with DGSE in July,” British officials reported. The French were “clearly very keen to provide presentations on their work which included cipher detection in high-speed bearers. [GCHQ’s] challenge is to ensure that we have enough UK capability to support a longer term crypt relationship.”

Fresh opportunities

In the case of the Spanish intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the key to mass internet surveillance, at least back in 2008, was the Spaniards’ ties to a British telecommunications company (again unnamed. Corporate relations are among the most strictly guarded secrets in the intelligence community). That was giving them “fresh opportunities and uncovering some surprising results.

“GCHQ has not yet engaged with CNI formally on IP exploitation, but the CNI have been making great strides through their relationship with a UK commercial partner. GCHQ and the commercial partner have been able to coordinate their approach. The commercial partner has provided the CNI some equipment whilst keeping us informed, enabling us to invite the CNI across for IP-focused discussions this autumn,” the report said. It concluded that GCHQ “have found a very capable counterpart in CNI, particularly in the field of Covert Internet Ops”.

GCHQ was clearly delighted in 2008 when the Swedish parliament passed a bitterly contested law allowing the country’s National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to conduct Tempora-like operations on fibre optic cables. The British agency also claimed some credit for the success.

“FRA have obtained a … probe to use as a test-bed and we expect them to make rapid progress in IP exploitation following the law change,” the country assessment said. “GCHQ has already provided a lot of advice and guidance on these issues and we are standing by to assist the FRA further once they have developed a plan for taking the work forwards.”

The following year, GCHQ held a conference with its Swedish counterpart “for discussions on the implications of the new legislation being rolled out” and hailed as “a success in Sweden” the news that FRA “have finally found a pragmatic solution to enable release of intelligence to SAEPO [the internal Swedish security service.]”

GCHQ also maintains strong relations with the two main Dutch intelligence agencies, the external MIVD and the internal security service, the AIVD.

“Both agencies are small, by UK standards, but are technically competent and highly motivated,” British officials reported. Once again, GCHQ was on hand in 2008 for help in dealing with legal constraints. “The AIVD have just completed a review of how they intend to tackle the challenges posed by the internet – GCHQ has provided input and advice to this report,” the country assessment said.

“The Dutch have some legislative issues that they need to work through before their legal environment would allow them to operate in the way that GCHQ does. We are providing legal advice on how we have tackled some of these issues to Dutch lawyers.”

European allies

In the score-card of European allies, it appears to be the Italians who come off the worse. GCHQ expresses frustration with the internal friction between Italian agencies and the legal limits on their activities.

“GCHQ has had some CT [counter-terrorism] and internet-focused discussions with both the foreign intelligence agency (AISE) and the security service (AISI), but has found the Italian intelligence community to be fractured and unable/unwilling to cooperate with one another,” the report said.

A follow-up bulletin six months later noted that GCHQ was “awaiting a response from AISI on a recent proposal for cooperation – the Italians had seemed keen, but legal obstacles may have been hindering their ability to commit.”

It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe’s intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain’s location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe’s spies.

Julian Borger
The Guardian, Friday 1 November 2013 17.02 GMT

Find this story at 1 November 2013

© 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Spain and France’s intelligence agencies carried out collection of phone records and shared them with NSA, agency says

European intelligence agencies and not American spies were responsible for the mass collection of phone records which sparked outrage in France and Spain, the US has claimed.
General Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, said reports that the US had collected millions of Spanish and French phone records were “absolutely false”.
“To be perfectly clear, this is not information that we collected on European citizens,” Gen Alexander said when asked about the reports, which were based on classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor.
Shortly before the NSA chief appeared before a Congressional committee, US officials briefed the Wall Street Journal that in fact Spain and France’s own intelligence agencies had carried out the surveillance and then shared their findings with the NSA.
The anonymous officials claimed that the monitored calls were not even made within Spanish and French borders and could be surveillance carried on outside of Europe.

In an aggressive rebuttal of the reports in the French paper Le Monde and the Spanish El Mundo, Gen Alexander said “they and the person who stole the classified data [Mr Snowden] do not understand what they were looking at” when they published slides from an NSA document.
The US push back came as President Barack Obama was said to be on the verge of ordering a halt to spying on the heads of allied governments.
The White House said it was looking at all US spy activities in the wake of leaks by Mr Snowden but was putting a “special emphasis on whether we have the appropriate posture when it comes to heads of state”.
Mr Obama was reported to have already halted eavesdropping at UN’s headquarters in New York.
German officials said that while the White House’s public statements had become more conciliatory there remained deep wariness and that little progress had been made behind closed doors in formalising an American commitment to curb spying.
“An agreement that you feel might be broken at any time is not worth very much,” one diplomat told The Telegraph.
“We need to re-establish trust and then come to some kind of understanding comparable to the [no spy agreement] the US has with other English speaking countries.”
Despite the relatively close US-German relations, the White House is reluctant to be drawn into any formal agreement and especially resistant to demands that a no-spy deal be expanded to cover all 28 EU member states.
Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European Commission and EU justice commissioner, warned that the spying row could spill over and damage talks on a free-trade agreement between the EU and US.
“Friends and partners do not spy on each other,” she said in a speech in Washington. “For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners. It is urgent and essential that our US partners take clear action to rebuild trust.”
A spokesman for the US trade negotiators said it would be “unfortunate to let these issues – however important – distract us” from reaching a deal vital to freeing up transatlantic trade worth $3.3 billion dollars (£2bn) a day.
James Clapper, America’s top national intelligence, told a Congressional hearing yesterday the US does not “spy indiscriminately on the citizens of any country”.
“We do not spy on anyone except for valid foreign intelligence purposes, and we only work within the law,” Mr Clapper said. “To be sure on occasions we’ve made mistakes, some quite significant, but these are usually caused by human error or technical problems.”
Pressure from European leaders was added to as some of the US intelligence community’s key Congressional allies balked at the scale of surveillance on friendly governments.
Dianne Feinstein, the chair of powerful Senate intelligence committee, said she was “totally opposed” to tapping allied leaders and called for a wide-ranging Senate review of the activities of US spy agencies.
“I do not believe the United States should be collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers,” she said.
John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house and a traditional hawk on national security, said US spy policy was “imbalanced” and backed calls for a review.
Mr Boehner has previously been a staunch advocate of the NSA and faced down a July rebellion by libertarian Republicans who tried to pass a law significantly curbing the agency’s power.

By Raf Sanchez, Peter Foster in Washington8:35PM GMT 29 Oct 2013 Comments15 Comments

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U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.

Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of military intelligence documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.

The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.

The notifications come as the Obama administration is scrambling to placate allies after allegations that the NSA has spied on foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The reports have forced the administration to play down operations targeting friends while also attempting to preserve other programs that depend on provisional partners. In either case, trust in the United States may be compromised.

“It is certainly a concern, just as much as the U.S. collection [of information on European allies] being put in the news, if not more, because not only does it mean we have the potential of losing collection, but also of harming relationships,” a congressional aide said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is handling the job of informing the other intelligence services, the officials said. ODNI declined to comment.

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.

“If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn’t be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,” the official said.

Snowden lifted the documents from a top-secret network run by the Defense Intelligence Agency and used by intelligence arms of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Snowden took 30,000 documents that involve the intelligence work of one of the services, the official said. He gained access to the documents through the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS, for top-secret/sensitive compartmented information, the sources said.

The material in question does not deal with NSA surveillance but primarily with standard intelligence about other countries’ military capabilities, including weapons systems — missiles, ships and jets, the officials say.

Although Snowden obtained a large volume of documents, he is not believed to have shared all of them with journalists, sources say. Moreover, he has stressed to those he has given documents that he does not want harm to result.

“He’s made it quite clear that he was not going to compromise legitimate national intelligence and national security operations,” said Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who visited Snowden in Moscow this month. Snowden separately told Drake and a New York Times reporter that he did not take any documents with him to Russia. “There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” Snowden told the Times in an online interview last week.

Indeed, Drake said, Snowden made clear in their conversation that he had learned the lessons of prior disclosures, including those by an Army private who passed hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to the anti-
secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which posted them in bulk online. “It’s telling,” Drake said, “that he did not give anything to WikiLeaks.”

Nonetheless, the military intelligence agencies remain fearful, officials said. The NSA in recent months has provided them with an accounting of the documents it believes Snowden obtained.

Intelligence officials said that they could discern no pattern to the military intelligence documents taken and that Snowden appeared to have harvested them at random. “It didn’t seem like he was targeting something specific,” the U.S. official said.

The notifications are reminiscent of what the State Department had to do in late 2010 in anticipation of the release of hundreds of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. The department feared that embarrassing details in some of the cables would lead to tension in relations between the United States and other countries.

In the case of WikiLeaks, the State Department had a number of months to assess the potential impact of the cables’ release and devise a strategy, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

“I’m not sure there were that many startling surprises in the cables,” he said. But there was damage on a country-by-country basis, he said.

For instance, some of the cables reflected unfavorably on ­then-Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, alleging that he feared flying over water and almost never traveled without his “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse. “All of a sudden we found there were some unsavory guys following” then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, Crowley said. “We brought him home for consultations and did not send him back.”

“But broadly speaking,” Crowley said, “relationships are guided by interests, rather than personalities, and, over time, interests carry the day.”

The fundamental issue is one of trust, officials said. “We depend to a very great extent on intelligence-sharing relationships with foreign partners, mostly governments — or, in some cases, organizations within governments,” a second U.S. official said. “If they tell us something, we will keep it secret. We expect the same of them. [If that trust is undermined,] these countries, at a minimum, will be thinking twice if they’re going to share something with us or not.”

Snowden has instructed the reporters with whom he has shared records to use their judgment to avoid publishing anything that would cause harm. “I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he told the Guardian newspaper. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”

It is those documents that may not be subject to journalistic vetting or may be breached by hackers that worry some intelligence officials. Snowden is known to have given documents in any quantity to only three journalists: The Post’s Barton Gellman, independent filmmaker Laura Poitras and former Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald.

So far, Drake said, no such documents have been released. Snowden’s disclosures about the NSA have prompted a global debate about the proper scope and purpose of U.S. espionage — against its own and other countries’ citizens.

“I consider that a good thing,” Drake said.

By Ellen Nakashima, Published: October 24

Find this story at 24 October 2013

© The Washington Post Company

Espionage by the US on France has already strained relations between the two countries, threatening a trans-Atlantic trade agreement. Now a document seen by SPIEGEL reveals that the NSA also spied on the French Foreign Ministry.

America’s National Security Agency (NSA) targeted France’s Foreign Ministry for surveillance, according to an internal document seen by SPIEGEL.

Dated June 2010, the “top secret” NSA document reveals that the intelligence agency was particularly interested in the diplomats’ computer network. All of the country’s embassies and consulates are connected with the Paris headquarters via a virtual private network (VPN), technology that is generally considered to be secure.

Accessing the Foreign Ministry’s network was considered a “success story,” and there were a number of incidents of “sensitive access,” the document states.

An overview lists different web addresses tapped into by the NSA, among them “diplomatie.gouv.fr,” which was run from the Foreign Ministry’s server. A list from September 2010 says that French diplomatic offices in Washington and at the United Nations in New York were also targeted, and given the codenames “Wabash” and “Blackfoot,” respectively. NSA technicians installed bugs in both locations and conducted a “collection of computer screens” at the one at the UN.

A priority list also names France as an official target for the intelligence agency. In particular, the NSA was interested in the country’s foreign policy objectives, especially the weapons trade, and economic stability.

US-French relations are being strained by such espionage activities. In early July, French President François Hollande threatened to suspend negotiations for a trans-Atlantic free trade agreement, demanding a guarantee from the US that it would cease spying after it was revealed that the French embassy in Washington had been targeted by the NSA.

“There can be no negotiations or transactions in all areas until we have obtained these guarantees, for France but also for all of the European Union, for all partners of the United States,” he said at the time.

The NSA declined to comment to SPIEGEL on the matter. As details about the scope of the agency’s international spying operations continue to emerge, Washington has come under increasing pressure from its trans-Atlantic partners. Officials in Europe have expressed concern that negotiations for the trade agreement would be poisoned by a lack of trust.

09/01/2013 09:32 AM

Find this story at 1 September 2013

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2013

The company that runs Paris’s electric car sharing scheme has filed an industrial espionage complaint against BMW, after employees alleged the German car giant sent “spies” to check out their electric cars.

Another Franco-German automobile row appears to have kicked off this week.
As the bust-up between between Mercedes and the French government rumbles on, another Franco-German automobile row appears to have kicked off this week with French company Autolib accusing BMW of “spying”.

The affair began on August 21st, when Autolib maintenance staff spotted two men they said were German, at a recharging station in Paris, fiddling with computer equipment in one of the electric vehicles, called “Blue cars”.

Later that day, the same men reportedly passed themselves off as “maintenance staff” and pretended to carry out work on one of the cars in the city’s 9th arrondissement, before slipping away.
Their suspicions raised, one of the Autolib ambassadors made a note of the license plate of one of the cars rented by the German men, cross-referenced it with rental times, and discovered that a “P3-group.com” email suffix was used to sign up online for the Autolib scheme.

P3 is an engineering firm contracted by none other than BMW to lay the groundwork for its upcoming I3 electric car model.

The following day, the alleged spies were once again seen at an Autolib station, this time in the city’s second arrondissement.

According to reports in French daily Le Figaro, when questioned by staff, the two men said they worked for BMW, before quickly leaving the scene.

This time, management at Autolib, which is run by French company Bolloré, notified the DCRI, France’s intelligence services, and told its entire staff to be on the look-out for phoney “maintenance staff”.
They were not seen again until September 5th, when they were spotted on Rue Jouffroy-d’Abbans in the seventh arrondissement.

Staff immediately called in the police, who came and arrested the two suspects.
They were questioned by BEFTI, the police’s electronic fraud division, before being released the next day.

Autolib management promptly filed a police complaint, accusing the two men of “abuse of trust,” “intrusion into a system of automated data,” and property damage, according to Le Figaro.
BMW reportedly took the step of writing to Bolloré’s CEO, Vincent Bolloré, reportedly recognizing it had dispatched staff to conduct “compatibility tests,” and apologizing for not seeking advanced permission from Bolloré.

However, in a statement released on Tuesday, BMW France denied all allegations of industrial espionage.
“In the context of the upcoming launch of the BMW I3, BMW Group is conducting routine tests across Europe, to check the compatibility of charging stations on public streets,” said the statement.
“The sole purpose of these tests is to identify networks of charging stations that electric BMW vehicles could use.”
The company confirmed it had conducted tests of this kind on August 21st, 22nd and 26th in Paris, but significantly denied it had done so on September 5th, the day the two alleged spies were arrested.
A representative from the P3 Group was not immediately available for comment when contacted by The Local on Tuesday.
Autolib, an all-electric car-sharing scheme based on the French capital’s successful bike-sharing project Velib, launched in October 2011.
Users can rent and return one of the more than 4,000 Bluecars for as little as €9 for half an hour, or as much as €120 for an annual subscription of unlimited journeys of up to 30 minutes.
Since launching in Paris, the scheme has come to the eastern city of Lyon, and is slated to arrive in Bordeaux, south-western France in November.
After that, plans are afoot to bring the all-electric car-sharing scheme to the US city of Indianapolis in 2014.

Published: 10 Sep 2013 14:25 GMT+02:00

Find this story at 10 September 2013

Copyright The Local Europe GmbH

Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin on Jan. 14 began an inquiry into allegations of commercial espionage carried out against French carmaker Renault. The allegations first became public when Renault suspended three of its employees on Jan. 3 after an internal investigation that began in August 2010. Within days, citing an anonymous French government source, Reuters reported that French intelligence services were looking into the possibility that China played a role in the Renault espionage case. While the French government refused to officially confirm this accusation, speculation has run wild that Chinese state-sponsored spies were stealing electric-vehicle technology from Renault.

The Chinese are well-known perpetrators of industrial espionage and have been caught before in France, but the details that have emerged so far about the Renault operation differ from the usual Chinese method of operation. And much has been learned about this MO just in the last two years across the Atlantic, where the United States has been increasingly aggressive in investigating and prosecuting cases of Chinese espionage. If Chinese intelligence services were indeed responsible for espionage at Renault it would be one of only a few known cases involving non-Chinese nationals and would have involved the largest amount of money since the case of the legendary Larry Wu-Tai Chin, China’s most successful spy.

STRATFOR has previously detailed the Chinese intelligence services and the workings of espionage with Chinese characteristics. A look back at Chinese espionage activities uncovered in the United States in 2010, since our latest report was compiled, can provide more context and detail about current Chinese intelligence operations.

Chinese Espionage in the U.S.

We chose to focus on operations in the United States for two reasons. First, the United States is a major target for Chinese industrial espionage. This is because it is a leader in technology development, particularly in military hardware desired by China’s expanding military, and a potential adversary at the forefront of Chinese defense thinking. Second, while it is not the only country developing major new technologies in which China would be interested, the United States has been the most aggressive in prosecuting espionage cases against Chinese agents, thereby producing available data for us to work with. Since 2008, at least seven cases have been prosecuted each year in the United States against individuals spying for China. Five were prosecuted in 2007. Going back to about 2000, from one to three cases were prosecuted annually, and before that, less than one was prosecuted per year.

Most of the cases involved charges of violating export restrictions or stealing trade secrets rather than the capital crime of stealing state secrets. As the premier agency leading such investigations, the FBI has clearly made a policy decision to refocus on counterintelligence after an overwhelming focus on counterterrorism following 9/11, and its capability to conduct such investigations has grown. In 2010, 11 Chinese espionage cases were prosecuted in the United States, the highest number yet, and they featured a wide range of espionage targets.

Ten of the 11 cases involved technology acquisition, and five were overt attempts to purchase and illegally export encryption devices, mobile-phone components, high-end analog-to-digital converters, microchips designed for aerospace applications and radiation-hardened semiconductors. These technologies can be used in a wide range of Chinese industries. While the mobile-phone technology would be limited to Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as China Mobile, the aerospace-related microchips could be used in anything from rockets to fighter jets. Xian Hongwei and someone known as “Li Li” were arrested in September 2010 for allegedly attempting to purchase those aerospace-related microchips from BAE Systems, which is one of the companies involved in the development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Similar espionage may have played a role in China’s development of the new J-20 fifth-generation fighter, but that is only speculation.

(click here to enlarge image)

Five other cases in 2010 involved stealing trade secrets. These included organic light-emitting diode processes from Dupont, hybrid vehicle technology from GM, insecticide formulas from the Dow Chemical Co., paint formulas from Valspar and various vehicle design specifications from Ford. These types of Chinese cases, while often encouraged by state officials, are more similar to industrial espionage conducted by corporations. Since many of the major car companies in China are state-run, these technologies benefit both industry and the state.

But that does not mean these efforts are directed from Beijing. History shows that such espionage activities are not well coordinated. Various Chinese company executives (who are also Communist Party officials) have different requirements for their industrial espionage. In cases where two SOEs are competing to sell similar products, they may both try to recruit agents to steal the same technology. There are also a growing number of private Chinese companies getting involved in espionage. One notable example was when Du Shanshan and Qin Yu passed on technology from GM to Chery Automobile, a private, rather than state-run, manufacturer. In the five trade-secret cases in 2010, most of the suspects were caught because of poor tradecraft. They stored data on their hard drives, sent e-mails on company computers and had obvious communications with companies in China. This is not the kind of tradecraft we would expect from trained intelligence officers. Most of these cases probably involved ad hoc agents, some of whom were likely recruited while working in the United States and offered jobs back in China when they were found to have access to important technology.

These cases show how Chinese state-run companies can have an interest in espionage in order to improve their own products, both for the success of their companies and in the national interest of China. The U.S. Department of Justice has not provided specific details on how the stolen defense-related technologies were intended to be used in China, so it is hard to tell whether they would have enhanced China’s military capability.

First-generation Chinese carried out 10 of the 11 publicized cases in the United States last year. Some were living or working temporarily in the United States, others had become naturalized American citizens (with the exception of Xian and Li, who were caught in Hungary). The Chinese intelligence services rely on ethnic Chinese agents because the services do not generally trust outsiders. When recruiting, they also use threats against family members or the individuals themselves. Second- and third-generation Chinese who have assimilated in a new culture are rarely willing to spy, and the Chinese government has much less leverage over this segment of the ethnic-Chinese population living overseas.

In the 11 cases in 2010, it is not clear what payments, if any, the agents might have received. In some cases, such as those involving the trade secrets from Valspar and Ford, the information likely helped the agents land better jobs and/or receive promotions back in China. Cash does not typically rule the effectiveness of newly recruited Chinese spies, as it might with Western recruits. Instead, new Chinese agents are usually motivated by intelligence-service coercion or ideological affinity for China.

The outlier in 2010 was Glenn Duffie Shriver, an American student with no Chinese heritage who applied to work at both the U.S. State Department and the CIA. His was the first publicized case of the Chinese trying to develop an agent in place in the United States since Larry Chin. Shriver studied in China in 2002 and 2003. The recruitment process began when he returned to China in 2004 to seek employment and improve his language capabilities. After responding to an ad for someone with an English-language background to write a political paper, Shriver was paid $120 for producing an article on U.S.-Chinese relations regarding Taiwan and North Korea.

The woman who hired him then introduced him to two Chinese intelligence officers named Wu and Tang. They paid Shriver a total of $70,000 in three payments while he tried to land a job with the U.S. government. Shriver failed the exams to become a foreign service officer and began pursuing a career with the CIA. He was accused of lying on his CIA application by not mentioning at least one trip to China and at least 20 meetings with Chinese intelligence officers. It is not clear how he was exposed, but customs records and passport stamps would have easily revealed any trips to China that he did not report in his CIA application. On Oct. 22, 2010, Shriver pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide national defense information to intelligence officers of the People’s Republic of China and was sentenced to 48 months in prison in accordance with his plea agreement.

A few Americans have been accused of being Chinese agents before, such as former Defense Department official James Fondren, who was caught and convicted in 2009. These cases are rare, though they may increase as Beijing tries to reach higher levels of infiltration. It is also possible that the FBI has been reaching only for low-hanging fruit and that Chinese espionage involving Americans at higher levels is going undetected. If this were the case, it would not be consistent with the general Chinese espionage MO.

China takes a mosaic approach to intelligence, which is a wholly different paradigm than that of the West. Instead of recruiting a few high-level sources, the Chinese recruit as many low-level operatives as possible who are charged with vacuuming up all available open-source information and compiling and analyzing the innumerable bits of intelligence to assemble a complete picture. This method fits well with Chinese demographics, which are characterized by countless thousands of capable and industrious people working overseas as well as thousands more analyzing various pieces of the mosaic back home.

Another case in 2010 was an alleged China-based cyberattack against Google, in which servers were hacked and customer account information was accessed. Last year, more than 30 other major companies reported similar infiltration attempts occurring in 2009, though we do not know how widespread the effort really is. China’s cyber-espionage capabilities are well known and no doubt will continue to provide more valuable information for China’s intelligence services.

The Renault Case

Few details have been released about the Renault case, which will likely remain confidential until French prosecutors finish their investigation. But enough information has trickled in to give us some idea of the kind of operation that would have targeted Renault’s electric-vehicle program. Three Renault managers were accused: Matthieu Tenenbaum, who was deputy director of Renault’s electric-vehicle program; Michel Balthazard, who was a member of the Renault management board; and Bertrand Rochette, a subordinate of Balthazard who was responsible for pilot projects. Various media reports — mostly from Le Figaro — claim that the State Grid Corporation of China opened bank accounts for two of the three managers (it is unknown which two). Money was allegedly wired through Malta, and Renault’s investigators found deposits of 500,000 euros (about $665,000) and 130,000 euros (about $175,000) respectively in Swiss and Liechtenstein bank accounts.

Assuming this is true, it is still unclear what the money was for. Given that the three executives had positions close to the electric-vehicle program, it seems that some related technology was the target. Patrick Pelata, Renault’s chief operating officer, said that “not the smallest nugget of technical or strategic information on the innovation plan has filtered out of the enterprise.” In other words, Renault uncovered the operation before any technology was leaked — or it is intentionally trying to downplay the damage done in order to reassure investors and protect stock prices. But Pelata also called the operation “a system organized to collect economic, technological and strategic information to serve interests abroad.”

Renault is convinced a foreign entity was involved in a sophisticated intelligence operation against the company. The question is, what foreign entity? On Jan. 13, Renault filed an official complaint with French authorities, saying it was the victim of organized industrial espionage, among other things, committed by “persons unknown.” French Industry Minister Eric Besson clarified Jan. 14 that there was no information to suggest Chinese involvement in the case, though he previously said France was facing “economic war,” presuming that the culprits came from outside France. The source for the original rumors of Chinese involvement is unclear, but the French clearly backed away from the accusation, especially after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called the accusation “baseless and irresponsible” on Jan. 11 (of course, even if the Chinese were the culprits they would certainly not admit it).

The Chinese have definitely targeted energy-efficient motor vehicle technology in the past, in addition to the Ford and GM cases, and Renault itself is no stranger to industrial espionage activities. In 2007, Li Li Whuang was charged with breach of trust and fraudulent access to a computer system while working as a trainee at Valeo, a French automotive components manufacturer, in 2005. The 24-year-old was studying in Paris when she was offered the trainee position at Valeo. Investigators found files on her computer related to a project with BMW and another with Renault.

The new Renault case, however, is very different from most Chinese espionage cases. First, it involved recruiting three French nationals with no ethnic ties to China, rather than first-generation Chinese. Second, the alleged payments to two of three Renault employees were much larger than Chinese agents usually receive, even those who are not ethnic Chinese. The one notable exception is the case of Larry Chin, who is believed to have received more than $1 million in the 30 years he spied for China as a translator for U.S. intelligence services. Renault executives would also be paid as much or more in salaries than what was found in these bank accounts, though we don’t know if more money was transferred in and out of the accounts. This may not be unprecedented, however; STRATFOR sources have reported being offered many millions of dollars to work for the Chinese government.

Another problem is the alleged use of a Chinese state-owned company to funnel payments to the Renault executives. Using a company traceable not only to China but to the government itself is a huge error in tradecraft. This is not likely a mistake that the Chinese intelligence services would make. In Chin’s case, all payments were made in cash and were exchanged in careful meetings outside the United States, in places where there was no surveillance.

Thus, STRATFOR doubts that the Renault theft was perpetrated by the Chinese. The leak suggesting otherwise was likely an assumption based on China’s frequent involvement in industrial espionage. Still, it could be a sign of new methods in Chinese spycraft.

Higher-level Recruitment?

The Shriver and Renault cases could suggest that some Chinese intelligence operations are so sophisticated that counterintelligence officers are unaware of their activities. They could mean that the Chinese are recruiting higher-level sources and offering them large sums of money. Chin, who got his start working for the U.S. Army during the Korean War, remained undetected until 1985, when a defector exposed him. There may be others who are just as well hidden. However, according to STRATFOR sources, including current and former counterintelligence officers, the vast majority of Chinese espionage operations are perpetrated at low levels by untrained agents.

There is little indication that the Chinese have switched from the high-quantity, low-quality mosaic intelligence method, and cyber-espionage activities such as hacking Google demonstrate that the mosaic method is only growing. The Internet allows China to recruit from its large base of capable computer users to find valuable information in the national interest. It provides even more opportunities to vacuum up information for intelligence analysis. Indeed, cyber-espionage is being used as another form of “insurance,” a way to ensure that the information collected by the intelligence services from other sources is accurate.

If China is responsible for the Renault penetration, the case would represent a change in the Chinese espionage MO, one aiming at a higher level and willing to spend more money, even though most of the cases prosecuted in the United States pointed to a continuation of the mosaic paradigm. Nevertheless, counterintelligence officers are likely watching carefully for higher-level recruits, fearing that others like Chin and Shriver may have remained undetected for years. These cases may be an indication of new resources made available to Western counterintelligence agencies and not new efforts by the Chinese.

One thing is certain: Chinese espionage activities will continue apace in 2011, and it will be interesting to see what targets are picked.

Security Weekly
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2011 – 03:53 Print Text Size
By Sean Noonan

Find this story at 20 January 2011

Copyright © 2014 Stratfor

The French president has asked the intelligence service to investigate suspected industrial spying at Renault.

The French carmaker has suspended three senior managers after an investigation into the possible leaking of electric vehicle secrets to rivals.

The firm has said industrial espionage poses a serious threat to its “strategic assets”.

The French industry minister has described the case of Renault, which is 15% state-owned, as “economic warfare”.

The right-leaning Le Figaro newspaper reported that, according to several sources, the information passed on relates to the technology in the battery and the engine of electrical vehicles that will be rolled out after 2012.

Advanced technology

The three executives suspended are alleged to have sold new patents not yet registered to one or several intermediaries specialising in economic intelligence.

One of the three – who have all been given the opportunity to respond to the charges made against them, before any sanctions are imposed – is a member of the carmaker’s management committee.

Continue reading the main story
Analysis

image of Mark Gregory
Mark Gregory
BBC News
The incident comes at a time of rising concern in Europe and America about protecting intellectual property rights.

The picture emerging from French media reports is that the three suspended executives may have leaked details of battery and engine technologies developed for Renault’s new generation of electric cars.

Whether or not the allegations are true, they have touched a raw nerve. Western firms are worried about rivals in emerging economies grabbing their best ideas without paying for them.

The issue is becoming more serious as China and other new industrial powers become more sophisticated in what they produce.

Stories about stolen industrial secrets will probably become more frequent as competition between old industrial powers and new ones intensifies.

The BBC’s Christian Fraser, in Paris, says that it is a mark of how seriously the French government is taking this breach of trust that it has asked the intelligence service to investigate.

Car manufacturing is an important part of the French economy, and a major employer, our correspondent says.

One of the biggest advantages that Western carmakers have is their advanced technology, which enables them to compete against cheaper labour costs outside Europe.

According to sources within Renault it is suspected the final recipient of this information was likely to have been a Chinese rival.

“We cannot accept that an innovation financed by the French taxpayer ends up in the hands of the Chinese,” one, anonymous industry ministry source told Agence France Presse.

The carmaker, alongside its partner Nissan, has invested heavily in electric vehicle technology.

Both plan to launch a number of new electric vehicles over the next two years.

7 January 2011

Find this story at 7 January 2011

BBC © 2014

(Reuters) – As Western states enter a new era of potential confrontation with Moscow, they face an awkward reality.

A quarter-century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the level of expertise on Russia in intelligence agencies, armed forces and governments has diminished drastically.

Rising concern over Russian government espionage – including increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks and computer spyware – had sparked some modest renewed interest in recent years, primarily in counterintelligence.

But the way Washington and its allies were so blindsided by President Vladimir Putin’s military seizure and annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, is seen demonstrating a dramatic need for renewed focus.

The bottom line, current and former officials say, is that with the post-September 11, 2001 focus on Islamist militancy and the Middle East and later the rise of China, the former Soviet Union was simply not seen a career enhancing speciality.

Compared to the Cold War era, when most of Russian territory was off-limits to Westerners, regional specialists say there is no shortage of expertise among academics and in the business community today. But it has so far gone untapped.

“There is a good supply of Russia experts out there – people who have lived there with lots of good experience – but the demand has just not been there from government,” says Fiona Hill, U.S. national intelligence officer for Russia in 2006-9 and now director for the Centre for the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.

“The Pentagon in particular has lost a lot of its Russia expertise, as has the White House.”

More of those outside experts are now likely to find work in defence ministries and intelligence agencies, current and former officials say. But in an era of constrained budgets, focusing on Russia is likely to mean redeploying resources from elsewhere.

Until the Ukraine crisis that did not seem a natural choice, people with knowledge of internal discussions say.

“The main problem is one of capacity at a time when counterterrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Arab awakening have taken up so much energy,” said one former Western intelligence officer on condition of anonymity.

Russia is primarily a threat to its immediate neighbourhood only, officials and analysts say, but still one requiring greater vigilance that over the last two decades.

“THOSE WHO KNOW MOST WORRY”

Capacity alone is far from everything. The West’s legions of Soviet specialists, with few exceptions, missed the warning signs of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Still, officials and analysts say there is a growing feeling that the West should have done more to increase its Russia focus particularly as Moscow’s defence spending rose some 30 percent after its 2008 war with Georgia.

“The people who know the most about Russia’s defence capability have tended to take it the most seriously,” says former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, now a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security.

Some central and east European and Nordic states have long focused much if not all of their intelligence and defence resources on Russia. Poland and Sweden in particular are seen leading the pack. Others are now catching up.

One reason Washington and its allies were so surprised by events in Crimea was that during Russia’s military build-up in the region, there was little or no signals chatter indicating an imminent takeover, intelligence sources say.

Still, Moscow had very publicly mobilised its forces several days earlier ostensibly for an exercise. That such obvious clues were missed, some say, suggests analysts had lost their edge in assessing and predicting the actions of the Russian leadership.

While U.S. officials are now monitoring closely a Russian troop build-up along Ukraine’s eastern border, Western experts differ over whether Putin plans to invade the region.

SPY RING, SPYWARE

For the United States, two espionage incidents in the last decade helped draw counterintelligence attention back to Moscow’s suspected activities.

The first was the 2008 discovery of sophisticated spy software dubbed Agent BTZ that infected Department of Defence computers after apparently entering from a USB drive later found in the car park of a U.S. military base in the Middle East.

Pentagon officials spent months cleaning systems and the attack is still seen one of the most serious breaches of U.S. government IT security. Although Washington never officially laid blame for the intrusion, several US officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Moscow was the prime suspect.

Much higher profile was the 2010 arrest and expulsion of 10 “deep cover” spies in the United States including Anna Chapman, who became a Russian television presenter and celebrity. That followed information from a Russian defector and a major FBI investigation. There is little evidence the spies were hugely successful.

In Britain, security agencies began paying more attention to Russia after the 2007 death of Putin opponent Alexander Litvinenko from radioactive poisoning.

Until recently, however, military intelligence specialists were simply too busy with operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Russia’s Crimea annexation may revive military specialisms such as tank and submarine warfare neglected during the decade-long campaign in mountainous, landlocked Afghanistan.

“Antisubmarine warfare is something that has been far too sidelined for the simple reason that the Taliban do not have submarines,” said one former senior European officer.

Some of the problems in understanding Russia, however, may be societal rather than military.

“For a country that is so patriotic, we can be highly intolerant of others’ patriotism,” former Pentagon official Colby said of the United States. “We just don’t see their patriotism as particularly legitimate.”

BY PETER APPS
LONDON Mon Apr 7, 2014 1:35pm BST
(Reporting by Peter Apps; Editing by Paul Taylor)

Find this story at 7 April 2014

Copyright Thomson Reuters

One afternoon in September 1987, Secretary of State George Shultz settled in a chair across the table from Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in a New York conference room. Both were in the city for the United Nations General Assembly.

As he habitually did at the start of such meetings , Shultz handed Shevardnadze a list of reported human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. Shevardnadze’s predecessor, Andrei Gromyko, had always received such lists grudgingly and would lecture us for interfering in Soviet internal affairs.

This time, though, Shevardnadze looked Shultz in the eye and said through his interpreter: “George, I will check this out, and if your information is correct, I will do what I can to correct the problem. But I want you to know one thing: I am not doing this because you ask me to; I am doing it because it is what my country needs to do.”

Shultz replied: “Eduard, that’s the only reason either of us should do something. Let me assure you that I will never ask you to do something that I believe is not in your country’s interest.”

They stood and shook hands. As I watched the scene, with as much emotion as amazement, it dawned on me that the Cold War was over. The job of American ambassador in Moscow was going to be a lot easier for me than it had been for my predecessors.

I thought back to that moment as talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s top diplomat this past week failed to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. It’s striking that the language being used publicly now is so much more strident than our language, public or private, was then. “It can get ugly fast if the wrong choices are made,” Kerry declared Wednesday, threatening sanctions.

I don’t believe that we are witnessing a renewal of the Cold War. The tensions between Russia and the West are based more on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and posturing for domestic audiences than on any real clash of ideologies or national interests. And the issues are far fewer and much less dangerous than those we dealt with during the Cold War.

But a failure to appreciate how the Cold War ended has had a profound impact on Russian and Western attitudes — and helps explain what we are seeing now.

The common assumption that the West forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus won the Cold War is wrong . The fact is that the Cold War ended by negotiation to the advantage of both sides.

At the December 1989 Malta summit, Mikhail Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush confirmed that the ideological basis for the war was gone, stating that the two nations no longer regarded each other as enemies . Over the next two years, we worked more closely with the Soviets than with even some of our allies. Together, we halted the arms race, banned chemical weapons and agreed to drastically reduce nuclear weapons. I also witnessed the raising of the Iron Curtain, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the voluntary abandonment of communist ideology by the Soviet leader. Without an arms race ruining the Soviet economy and perpetuating totalitarianism, Gorbachev was freed to focus on internal reforms.

Because the collapse of the Soviet Union happened so soon afterward, people often confuse it with the end of the Cold War. But they were separate events, and the former was not an inevitable outcome of the latter.

Moreover, the breakup of the U.S.S.R. into 15 separate countries was not something the United States caused or wanted. We hoped that Gorbachev would forge a voluntary union of Soviet republics, minus the three Baltic countries. Bush made this clear in August 1991 when he urged the non-Russian Soviet republics to adopt the union treaty Gorbachev had proposed and warned against “suicidal nationalism.” Russians who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union should remember that it was the elected leader of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who conspired with his Ukrainian and Belarusian counterparts to replace the U.S.S.R. with a loose and powerless “commonwealth.”

Even after the U.S.S.R. ceased to exist, Gorbachev maintained that “the end of the Cold War is our common victory.” Yet the United States insisted on treating Russia as the loser.

“By the grace of God, America won the Cold War,” Bush said during his 1992 State of the Union address. That rhetoric would not have been particularly damaging on its own. But it was reinforced by actions taken under the next three presidents.

President Bill Clinton supported NATO’s bombing of Serbia without U.N. Security Council approval and the expansion of NATO to include former Warsaw Pact countries. Those moves seemed to violate the understanding that the United States would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat from Eastern Europe. The effect on Russians’ trust in the United States was devastating. In 1991, polls indicated that about 80 percent of Russian citizens had a favorable view of the United States; in 1999, nearly the same percentage had an unfavorable view.

Vladi­mir Putin was elected in 2000 and initially followed a pro-Western orientation. When terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, he was the first foreign leader to call and offer support. He cooperated with the United States when it invaded Afghanistan, and he voluntarily removed Russian bases from Cuba and Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

What did he get in return? Some meaningless praise from President George W. Bush, who then delivered the diplomatic equivalent of swift kicks to the groin: further expansion of NATO in the Baltics and the Balkans, and plans for American bases there; withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; invasion of Iraq without U.N. Security Council approval; overt participation in the “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan; and then, probing some of the firmest red lines any Russian leader would draw, talk of taking Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Americans, heritors of the Monroe Doctrine, should have understood that Russia would be hypersensitive to foreign-dominated military alliances approaching or touching its borders.

President Obama famously attempted a “reset” of relations with Russia, with some success: The New START treaty was an important achievement, and there was increased quiet cooperation on a number of regional issues. But then Congress’s penchant for minding other people’s business when it cannot cope with its own began to take its toll. The Magnitsky Act , which singled out Russia for human rights violations as if there were none of comparable gravity elsewhere, infuriated Russia’s rulers and confirmed with the broader public the image of the United States as an implacable enemy.

The sad fact is that the cycle of dismissive actions by the United States met by overreactions by Russia has so poisoned the relationship that the sort of quiet diplomacy used to end the Cold War was impossible when the crisis in Ukraine burst upon the world’s consciousness. It’s why 43 percent of Russians are ready to believe that Western actions are behind the crisis and that Russia is under siege.

Putin’s military occupation of Crimea has exacerbated the situation. If it leads to the incorporation of Crimea in the Russian Federation , it may well result in a period of mutual recrimination and economic sanctions reminiscent of the Cold War. In that scenario, there would be no winners, only losers: most of all Ukraine itself, which may not survive in its present form, and Russia, which would become more isolated. Russia may also see a rise in terrorist acts from anti-Russian extremists on its periphery and more resistance from neighboring governments to membership in the economic union it is promoting.

Meanwhile, the United States and Europe would lose to the extent that a resentful Russia would make it even more difficult to address global and regional issues such as the Iranian nuclear program, North Korea and the Syrian civil war, to name a few. Russian policy in these areas has not always been all the United States desired, but it has been more helpful than many Americans realize. And encouraging a more obstructive Russia is not in anyone’s interest.

By Jack F. Matlock Jr.,

Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1991, is the author of “Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.”

Find this story at 14 March 2014

© The Washington Post Company

The standoff over Ukraine and the fate of Crimea has sparked the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on top Russian officials while announcing new military exercises in Baltic states. Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian government says it is considering changing its stance on Iran’s nuclear talks in response to newly imposed U.S. sanctions. As tensions rise, we are joined by Jack Matlock, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. Matlock argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting in response to years of perceived hostility from the U.S., from the eastward expansion of NATO to the bombing of Serbia to the expansion of American military bases in eastern Europe.

TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Ukrainian government has announced plans to abandon its military bases in Crimea and evacuate its forces following Russia’s decision to annex the region. Earlier today, Russian forces reportedly released the commander of the Ukrainian Navy, who has been seized in his own headquarters in Crimea. At the United Nations, ambassadors sparred over the situation in Crimea. Yuriy Sergeyev is the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.N.

YURIY SERGEYEV: The declaration of independence by the Crimean Republic is a direct consequence of the application of the use of force and threats against Ukraine by the Russian Federation, and, in view of Russian nuclear power status, has a particularly dangerous character for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity, as well as for international peace and security in general. Accordingly, I assert that on the basis of customary norms and international law, that the international community is obliged not to recognize Crimea as a subject of international law or any situation, treaty or agreement that may be arise or be achieved by this territory.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, defended Moscow’s move to annex Crimea.

VITALY CHURKIN: [translated] A historic injustice has been righted, which resulted from the arbitrary actions of the leader of the U.S.S.R. at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, who, with the stroke of a pen in 1954, in violation of the constitutional norms, transferred the Russian region of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was part of the same state then. And he did this without informing the population of Crimea and, of course, without their consent. And nobody cared about the views of the Crimeans.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the U.S. Navy warship, the Truxtun, a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, conducted a one-day military exercise in the Black Sea with the Bulgarian and Romanian navies. And Vice President Joe Biden has been meeting this week with the heads of states of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, promising Washington would protect them from any Russian aggression. On Wednesday, President Obama addressed the crisis during an interview with NBC 7 San Diego.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine. What we are going to do is mobilize all of our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international coalition that sends a clear message, which is: The Ukraine should decide their own destiny. Russia, right now, is violating international law and the sovereignty of another country. You know, might doesn’t make right. And, you know, we are going to continue to ratchet up the pressure on Russia as it continues down its current course.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the growing crisis in Ukraine, we’re joined by Ambassador Jack Matlock. He served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow from 1987 to 1991. He’s the author of several books, including Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended. He recently wrote a column for The Washington Post headlined “The U.S. Has Treated Russia Like a Loser Since the End of the Cold War.”

Ambassador Matlock, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about the situation right now, what has just taken place, Ukraine now pulling out of Crimea.

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Well, I think that what we have seen is a reaction, in many respects, to a long history of what the Russian government, the Russian president and many of the Russian people—most of them—feel has been a pattern of American activity that has been hostile to Russia and has simply disregarded their national interests. They feel that having thrown off communism, having dispensed with the Soviet Empire, that the U.S. systematically, from the time it started expanding NATO to the east, without them, and then using NATO to carry out what they consider offensive actions about an—against another country—in this case, Serbia—a country which had not attacked any NATO member, and then detached territory from it—this is very relevant now to what we’re seeing happening in Crimea—and then continued to place bases in these countries, to move closer and closer to borders, and then to talk of taking Ukraine, most of whose people didn’t want to be a member of NATO, into NATO, and Georgia. Now, this began an intrusion into an area which the Russians are very sensitive. Now, how would Americans feel if some Russian or Chinese or even West European started putting bases in Mexico or in the Caribbean, or trying to form governments that were hostile to us? You know, we saw how we virtually went ballistic over Cuba. And I think that we have not been very attentive to what it takes to have a harmonious relationship with Russia.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Ambassador Matlock, Americans often look at these crises in isolation, and some of the press coverage deals with them that way. But from your perspective, you argued that we should see the continuum of events that have happened from the Russian point of view—for instance, the Orange Revolution, the pronouncements of some of our leaders several years back, the crisis in Georgia a few years ago, and how the Russians are seeing the original good feeling that most Russians had toward the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union compared to now.

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Yes, that’s absolutely true. You see, in the Orange Revolution in Kiev, foreigners, including Americans, were very active in organizing people and inspiring them. Now, you know, I have to ask Americans: How would Occupy Wall Street have looked if you had foreigners out there leading them? Do you think that would have helped them get their point across? I don’t think so. And I think we have to understand that when we start directly interfering, particularly our government officials, in the internal makeup of other governments, we’re really asking for trouble.

And, you know, we were pretty careful not to do that in my day. And I recall, for example, when I was being consulted by the newly elected leaders of what was still Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. They were still in the Soviet Union, and they would come to us. We were, of course, sympathetic to their independence; we had never even recognized that they were legally part of the Soviet Union. But I had to tell them, “Keep it peaceful. If you are suppressed, there’s nothing we can do about it. We cannot come and help you. We’re not going to start a nuclear war.” Well, they kept it peaceful, despite provocations.

Now, what have we been telling the Ukrainians, the Georgians—at least some of us, officials? “Just hold on. You can join NATO, and that will solve your problems for you.” You know, and yet, it is that very prospect, that the United States and its European allies were trying to surround Russia with hostile bases, that has raised the emotional temperature of all these things. And that was a huge mistake. As George Kennan wrote back in the ’90s when this question came up, the decision to expand NATO the way it was done was one of the most fateful and bad decisions of the late 20th century.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Vice President Joe Biden, who criticized Russia recently during his trip to Lithuania Wednesday.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I want to make it clear: We stand resolutely with our Baltic allies in support of Ukrainian people and against Russian aggression. As long as Russia continues on this dark path, they will face increasing political and economic isolation. There are those who say that this action shows the old rules still apply. But Russia cannot escape the fact that the world is changing and rejecting outright their behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: And in a speech Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted what he called Western hypocrisy on Crimea, saying that the U.S. selectively applies international law according to its political interests.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] Our Western partners, headed by the United States of America, prefer in their practical policy to be guided not by international law, but by the right of the strong. They started to believe that they have been chosen and they are unique, that they are allowed to decide the fate of the world, that only they could always be right. They do whatever they want
AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Jack Matlock, if you could respond to both Biden and Putin?

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Well, I think that this rhetoric on both sides is being very unhelpful. The fact is, Russia now has returned Crimea to Russia. It has been, most of its recent history, in the last couple of centuries, been Russian. The majority of the people are Russian. They clearly would prefer to be in Russia. And the bottom line is, we can argue ’til doomsday over who did what and why and who was the legal and who was not—I’m sure historians generations from now will still be arguing it—but the fact is, Russia now is not going to give up Crimea. The fact also is, if you really look at it dispassionately, Ukraine is better off without Crimea, because Ukraine is divided enough as it is. Their big problem is internal, in putting together disparate people who have been put together in that country. The distraction of Crimea, where most of the people did not want to be in Ukraine and ended up in Ukraine as a result of really almost a bureaucratic whim, is—was, I think, a real liability for Ukraine.

Now, the—we should be concentrating now on how we put Ukraine back together—not we, but the Ukrainians, with the help of the Europeans, with the help of the Russians, and with at least a benign view from the United States. Now, the American president and vice president directly challenging the Russian president and threatening them with isolation is going to bring the opposite effect. All of this has actually increased President Putin’s popularity among Russians. Now, you know, most politicians, they like to do things that make them more popular at home. And, you know, the idea that we are acting, you know, contrary to what Russians would consider their very natural interests—that is, in bringing an area which had been Russian and traditionally Russian for a long time back into Russia—they look at that as a good thing. It’s going to be very costly to Russia, they’re going to find out, in many ways. But to continue all of this rhetoric, I would ask, well, how is it going to end? What is your objective? Because it isn’t going to free up Crimea again or give it back to Ukraine.

I think it would be most helpful to encourage the Ukrainians to form a united government that can begin reforms. The proposals before, both by the EU and by Russia, would not have solved their problems. And they are not going to solve the problems by taking a government that basically represents one half of the country and making it work on the whole country. And all of this interference, both by Russia and by the West, including the United States, has tended to split Ukraine. Now, that is the big issue there. And we need to turn our attention more to it. And I just hope everyone can calm down and look at realities and stop trying to start sort of a new Cold War over this. As compared to the issues of the Cold War, this is quite minor. It has many of the characteristics of a family dispute. And when outsiders get into a family dispute, they’re usually not very helpful.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Ambassador Matlock, what would you, if you were counseling the president, urge him to do at this stage? Because obviously there are these pretty weak sanctions that have so far been announced. What would your advice be?

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Well, I think, first of all, we should start keeping our voice down and sort of let things work out. You know, to ship in military equipment and so on is just going to be a further provocation. Obviously, this is not something that’s going to be solved by military confrontations. So, I think if we can find a way to speak less in public, to use more quiet diplomacy—and right now, frankly, the relationships between our presidents are so poisonous, they really should have representatives who can quietly go and, you know, work with counterparts elsewhere.

But fundamentally, it’s going to be the Ukrainians who have to put their society back together. It is seriously broken now. And it seems to me they could take a leaf from the Finns, who have been very successful ever since World War II in putting together a country with both Finns and Swedes, by treating them equally, by being very respectful and careful about their relations with Russia, never getting into—anymore into military struggles or allowing foreign bases on their land. And they’ve been extremely successful. Why can’t the Ukrainians follow a policy of that sort? I think, for them, it would work, too. But first, they have to find a way to unite the disparate elements in Ukraine; otherwise, these pressures from Russia, on the one hand, and the West, on the other, is going to simply tear them apart. Now—

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador, on Wednesday—

JACK MATLOCK JR.: —in the final analysis, if the—

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, the head of Ukraine’s First National TV was attacked in his office by members of the far-right Svoboda party, including at least one member of Parliament who serves on the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech. The attackers accused the station of working for the Russian authorities, after it aired a live broadcast of the signing of the agreement between President Putin and the de facto Crimean authorities. In a video posted online, the attackers are seen forcing the head of the channel to write a resignation letter. Heather McGill of Amnesty International condemned the attack, saying, quote, “The acting Ukrainian authorities must waste no time in demonstrating that basic human rights are protected in Ukraine and that nobody will face discrimination because of their political views or ethnic origin.” Ambassador Matlock, can you talk about this attack and the role of these far-right-wing parties in the new Ukrainian government?

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Well, I’m not intimately informed about all of the details, but—and I would say that I think Russian media have exaggerated that right-wing threat. On the other hand, those who have ignored it, I think, are making a big mistake. We do have to understand that a significant part of the violence at the Maidan, the demonstrations in Kiev, were done by these extreme right-wing, sort of neo-fascist groups. And they do—some of their leaders do occupy prominent positions in the security forces of the new government. And I think—I think the Russians and others are quite legitimately concerned about that. Therefore, you know, many of these things are not nearly as black and white, when we begin to look at them, as is implied in much of the rhetoric that we’re hearing. And I do think that everybody needs now to take a quiet breath to really look at where we are and to see if we can’t find ways, by keeping our voices down, to help the Ukrainians in present-day Ukraine to get to a road to greater unity and reform that will make them a viable state.

AMY GOODMAN: Jack Matlock, we want to thank—

JACK MATLOCK JR.: And I would argue that—

AMY GOODMAN: We want to—

JACK MATLOCK JR.: —they are better off without Crimea.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us. Ambassador Matlock served as the U.S. ambassador—

JACK MATLOCK JR.: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: —to Moscow from 1987 to 1991 under both President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, and he’s the author of a number of books, including Superpower Illusions and Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.

When we come back, we’ll be joined by Raphael Warnock, the minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s church. He was among 39 people arrested this week in Atlanta. Stay with us.

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THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014

Find this story at 20 March 2014

Washington’s role in the fascist putsch against an elected government in Ukraine will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore the historical record. Since 1945, dozens of governments, many of them democracies, have met a similar fate, usually with bloodshed.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries on earth with fewer people than Wales, yet under the reformist Sandinistas in the 1980s it was regarded in Washington as a “strategic threat”. The logic was simple; if the weakest slipped the leash, setting an example, who else would try their luck?

The great game of dominance offers no immunity for even the most loyal US “ally”. This is demonstrated by perhaps the least known of Washington’s coups – in Australia. The story of this forgotten coup is a salutary lesson for those governments that believe a “Ukraine” or a “Chile” could never happen to them.

Australia’s deference to the United States makes Britain, by comparison, seem a renegade. During the American invasion of Vietnam – which Australia had pleaded to join – an official in Canberra voiced a rare complaint to Washington that the British knew more about US objectives in that war than its antipodean comrade-in-arms. The response was swift: “We have to keep the Brits informed to keep them happy. You are with us come what may.”

This dictum was rudely set aside in 1972 with the election of the reformist Labor government of Gough Whitlam. Although not regarded as of the left, Whitlam – now in his 98th year – was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride, propriety and extraordinary political imagination. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm” and speak as a voice independent of London and Washington.

On the day after his election, Whitlam ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, ASIO – then, as now, beholden to Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the Nixon/Kissinger administration as “corrupt and barbaric”, Frank Snepp, a CIA officer stationed in Saigon at the time, said later: “We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.”

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, ostensibly a joint Australian/US “facility”. Pine Gap is a giant vacuum cleaner which, as the whistleblower Edward Snowden recently revealed, allows the US to spy on everyone. In the 1970s, most Australians had no idea that this secretive foreign enclave placed their country on the front line of a potential nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  Whitlam clearly knew the personal risk he was taking – as the minutes of a meeting with the US ambassador demonstrate. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” he warned, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention”.

Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House. Consequences were inevitable… a kind of Chile was set in motion.”

The CIA had just helped General Pinochet to crush the democratic government of another reformer, Salvador Allende, in Chile.

In 1974, the White House sent the Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, very senior and sinister figure in the State Department who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state”. Known as the “coupmaster”, he had played a played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia – which cost up to a million lives. One of his first speeches in Australia was to the Australian Institute of Directors – described by an alarmed member of the audience as “an incitement to the country’s business leaders to  rise against the government”.

Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were de-coded in California by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the de-coders was a young Christopher Boyce, an idealist who, troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”, became a whistleblower. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.

In his black top hat and medal-laden mourning suit, Kerr was the embodiment of imperium. He was the Queen of England’s Australian viceroy in a country that still recognised her as head of state. His duties were ceremonial; yet Whitlam – who appointed him – was unaware of or chose to ignore Kerr’s long-standing ties to Anglo-American intelligence.

The Governor-General was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by the Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, ‘The Crimes of Patriots’, as, “an elite, invitation-only group… exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige… Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.

In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 had long been operating against his government. “The Brits were actually de-coding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In interviews in the 1980s with the American investigative journalist Joseph Trento, executive officers of the CIA disclosed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, and that “arrangements” were made. A deputy director of the CIA told Trento: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”

In 1975, Whitlam learned of a secret list of CIA personnel in Australia held by the Permanent Head of the Australian Defence Department, Sir Arthur Tange – a deeply conservative mandarin with unprecedented territorial power in Canberra. Whitlam demanded to see the list. On it was the name, Richard Stallings who, under cover, had set up Pine Gap as a provocative CIA installation. Whitlam now had the proof he was looking for.

On 10 November, 1975, he was shown a top secret telex message sent by ASIO in Washington. This was later sourced to Theodore Shackley, head of the CIA’s East Asia Division and one of the most notorious figures spawned by the Agency. Shackley had been head of the CIA’s Miami-based operation to assassinate Fidel Castro and Station Chief in Laos and Vietnam. He had recently worked on the “Allende problem”.

Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. Incredibly, it said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country.

The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA whose ties to Washington were, and reman binding. He was briefed on the “security crisis”. He had then asked for a secure line and spent 20 minutes in hushed conversation.

On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The problem was solved.

John Pilger
16 March 2014

Find this story at 16 March 2014

© John Pilger 2010 – 2014

Since 2010 there have been revelations about police infiltration of protest groups. For over 40 years the state sanctioned the use of undercover police to gain intelligence on political activists, including animal rights campaigners.

Though it was widely assumed that groups were under surveillance, no-one would have imagined the extent to which the secret state burrowed deep into organisations, established close friendships and sexual relationships with activists, and broke the law to further its objectives. This article will explain how it happened and what can be learnt from it.

The Special Demonstrations Squad

The story begins in 1968, when tens of thousands of people marched against the Vietnam War. In March there was rioting as protesters fought with police outside the American Embassy in London and the government was so alarmed that it set up of the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS).

Although the police had used undercover officers before to catch criminals, this was as Rob Evans and Paul Lewis say in their book ‘Undercover’, ‘a new concept in policing.’ Special Branch officers transformed themselves into activists and lived amongst their targets for several years. They changed their appearance and used fake identities to penetrate political groups to the highest levels to gain intelligence and to enable the police to maintain public order. The nickname for the SDS was ‘the hairies’ because – in the early days at least – their operatives had to grow their hair long in order in order to blend into the milieu of radical politics.

The job of the SDS was to infiltrate groups considered subversive which meant those that ‘threatened the safety or well-being of the state or undermined parliamentary democracy’. Initially this meant mainly Marxist or Trotskyist groups, as well as the anti-apartheid movement in the seventies.

The eighties: Robert Lambert

By the early eighties, however, the animal rights movement had become established. It was attracting thousands of people on protest marches against vivisection and groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) were rescuing animals and damaging property. To the state this was a dangerous and subversive threat.

Evans and Lewis say Special Branch first became involved when one of its operatives was deployed at the World Day for Lab Animals march in April 1983. Shortly afterwards a second spy was sent in. His name was Robert Lambert and he became an almost legendary figure amongst his colleagues. For the activists who knew him he was equally unforgettable, though nowadays it is for all the wrong reasons.

Lambert called himself Bob Robinson. Like all SDS agents he stole the identity of a dead child. Mark Robert Robinson died aged seven in 1959, only to be quietly resurrected 24 years later by Lambert who would have found his birth and death certificates. He was then given a forged driving licence, passport and other documents. This procedure was known in SDS circles as the ‘Jackal Run’ because it was based on the book, ‘The Day of the Jackal’.

Lambert quickly immersed himself in the world of animal rights by going to protests and meetings. At a demo outside Hackney Town Hall he met Jackie, 12 years younger than him, and they soon started a relationship and their son was born in 1985. Lambert was already married with two children but knew an activist girlfriend would give his cover an added dimension, making him appear a fully rounded, genuine person.

London Greenpeace and the ALF

In 1984 Lambert became involved in London Greenpeace (LG). This wasn’t an AR group as such but a radical organisation (not to be confused with the much larger Greenpeace International) that embraced anarchism and direct action. Up to then it had been mainly concerned with anti-nuclear and environmental issues but in the mid-eighties it adopted much more of an animal liberation stance.

The first LG meeting I attended was a public meeting with a speaker from the ALF in 1985. Lambert chaired the discussion and obviously had a prominent role in the group. He soon became a close friend. Like all the spies that followed him, Lambert had a van that was used to take people to demos. He said he was a gardener and needed a vehicle for his job.

Lambert’s mission was to infiltrate the ALF and he made it clear he was a strong supporter of illegal actions. In 1986 he organised a benefit gig for the ALF Supporters Group but kept back some of the takings to buy glass etching fluid, used to damage windows. Soon afterwards he confided to friends that he had dressed as a jogger and thrown paint stripper over a car belonging to the director of an animal laboratory.

He also wrote two notable publications. One was a simple A5 leaflet titled ‘You are the ALF!’ which exhorted people to do direct action themselves, not ask others to do so on their behalf. The other was a booklet called ‘London ALF News’ which had articles on the ALF and a diary of actions, including attacks he had carried out.

Debenhams

In July 1987 the ALF targeted three Debenhams’ department stores with incendiary devices because they sold fur. In two, water from the sprinklers caused hundreds of thousands of pounds in losses, but at the Luton branch they had been switched off and fire gutted the store, causing over £6m in damage.

Two months later, Andrew Clarke and Geoff Sheppard were caught at the latter’s bedsit in Tottenham in the act of making incendiary devices as the police burst in. In June 1988 at the Old Bailey Sheppard received 4 years and 4 months and Clarke 3 ½ years. Obviously the police had been tipped off but neither activist knew who it was until nearly 24 years later when Lambert was uncovered as a spy.

Lambert, according to Sheppard, was the third member of this cell. Neither activist suspected him but then they had good reason not to – as far as they were concerned he had planted the device in the Harrow store that caused £340,000 in damage.
The last time I saw Lambert was in a pub near the LG office in Kings Cross in November 1988. He was unusually downbeat as he told me his father who had dementia had just died and the values he fought for in World War II were dying too under Thatcherism. He also said Jackie had started a relationship with a fascist and he was no longer allowed to see his son. Both stories were lies and I now know he was preparing for his exit.

All undercover spies have an exit strategy, usually prepared months if not years in advance. Lamberts would have been devised around the time of the Debenhams action but departing too soon would have appeared suspicious. He waited for over a year, until he left allegedly on the run from Special Branch, which was in fact his employer. They even staged a fake raid at the flat where he was staying.

John Dines

By the beginning of 1989 Bob Robinson was just a memory but LG already had another spy in its ranks. John Dines, using the surname Barker, had joined the group in October 1987. During the next year as he rose to prominence, Lambert was on the wane – going to fewer meetings and demos. This was a pattern that would be repeated time and time again.

Like his mentor, Lambert, Dines had van which he used for demos. He twice drove activists all the way to Yorkshire to sab grouse shoots and he also took them to a protest against Sun Valley Chickens in Herefordshire. While there he was apparently arrested but released without charge. He too produced an anonymous publication called ‘Business as Usual’, which comprised a diary of actions, and he also organised two benefit gigs for London Greenpeace in late 1989.

John Dines and McLibel

While LG was well known in activist circles – mainly for the anti-McDonald’s campaign it had started several years earlier – it hardly registered to the outside world. Most people confused it with Greenpeace International. All that began to change, however, when five of its supporters were sued for libel by McDonald’s in September 1990.

None of the defendants had written the pamphlet that was the subject of the writ; in fact three of them weren’t even part of the group at that time. Ironically Lambert had been one of the architects of the ‘What’s Wrong with McDonald’s’ factsheet but he was long gone.

McDonald’s placed several infiltrators of its own in the group from the autumn of 1989 onwards with the result that it became infested with spies. At some meetings there were more of them than genuine activists. These new corporate spies aroused suspicion – they didn’t quite fit in – and some of them were followed. One of those doing the following was Dines, together with Helen Steel, who would later be sued and become Dines’ girlfriend..

In January 1991 I and two others decided to cut our losses and apologise. Helen and Dave Morris carried on fighting the case as the McLibel 2. By their side was Dines who was the group’s treasurer and a key player. He relayed the legal advice they received and the tactical discussions they had with other group members back to his bosses in the SDS who then passed it on to McDonald’s. Several years later the McLibel trial revealed that Special Branch and McDonald’s had exchanged information about London Greenpeace. Morris and Steel sued the Metropolitan Police over this and received £10,000 in an out of court settlement and an apology.

London Boots Action Group: Andy Davey and Matt Rayner

By the early nineties the animal rights movement was on a roll again and three activists decided to set up a new London-wide organisation called London Boots Action Group (LBAG), to target Boots plc, which at that time did animal testing. LBAG was unashamedly pro-direct action so it is no surprise that it became a target for the SDS. The group was launched in November 1991 with a public meeting that attracted nearly 100 people, two of whom were spies.

Andy Davey and Matt Rayner were two of the many new people to join the fledgling group. But they were slightly different – they had vans, which made them both unusual and useful, and they got quickly involved. Both also had jobs (quite rare in those days as many activists were either unemployed or students). Davey was a ‘man with a van’ removal service – his nickname was ‘Andy Van’ – while Rayner said he worked for a company that delivered musical instruments.

Each lived in a bedsit, Davey in Streatham, south London, Rayner in north London. They even looked similar – tall, dark haired and with glasses, and spoke with Home Counties accents. What set Davey apart from other agents was his dog, named Lucy who came from an animal rescue person that lived locally. His bosses probably decided he would appear a more authentic activist if he had a companion animal.

Personality-wise they differed though. While Rayner was easy going and friendly, enjoying social situations, Davey had a somewhat hesitant and nervous manner and could at times appear too eager to please. Initially there were suspicions about both but they quickly assimilated into the protest scene. They would have known who each other were, as their unit had only about a dozen operatives at any time, but they weren’t close. This meant that if one spy was uncovered, the other wouldn’t fall under suspicion.

It was not common practice for two spies to be placed in the same group. In the book Undercover, the whistleblower Peter Francis says the SDS had two animal rights spies when he joined it in January 1993. This was indicative of the threat posed by animal rights in general and LBAG in particular.

Davey was so well entrenched that he begun to produce the group’s newsletter. Shortly afterwards he also transferred the mailing list onto a computer. We were in the era when some organisations still did not have their own PC or internet access and his IT expertise was considered invaluable. Spies are trained to exploit skills shortages like this, to ensure they become trusted and above suspicion.

Rayner, too, was a fixture in the London scene. He would usually be the one to drive activists to demos outside London. A notable example was the 1993 Grand National when he took a vanload of people to Aintree. This was the year the race had to be abandoned because the course was invaded, costing the betting industry over £60m.

In 1995 – following former spy Dines’ example – he drove a carload of saboteurs to the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ to sab a grouse shoot. While there he was arrested and taken into police custody, only to be released a few hours later. He wasn’t charged but this brush with the law only served to improve his standing.

London Animal Action: Davey’s exit

Rayner had a long term relationship with a female activist. Davey never managed this though it wasn’t for want of trying and he gained a reputation as a lecher. This no doubt undermined his status – some saw him as a bit sad, others didn’t really take to him – and it probably played a part in the decision to take him out of the group. This happened quickly as he announced he was ‘stressed’ and was going to Eastern Europe. The double life he was leading was probably taking its toll as well. He left in February 1995 with a farewell social to which only a few people came. Shortly afterwards a hunt sab whom he knew received a couple of letters postmarked abroad.

As Davey’s exit was hasty, the spy who replaced him joined London Animal Action – as LBAG was now called – around the same time he left. Unusually the new agent was female and her name was Christine Green. As she set about inveigling herself into the group, Rayner’s deployment was reaching its climax. In May 1995 Geoff Sheppard’s flat was raided again by the police where they found materials for making an incendiary device and a sawn-off shotgun. In October he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

After Geoff’s release we speculated on why the police had chosen him. Devices were being placed in various targets and it appeared to have been simply a chance raid due to his arrest in the eighties. However, it is now clear that Rayner set Geoff up just as Lambert had done years earlier. No-one suspected him of the sting because he was, like his boss had been, an established and trusted of the group: by 1995 he was LAA treasurer.

Lambert the spymaster

By the mid-nineties Lambert was the operational manager of the SDS thanks to his ‘legendary tour of duty’ a decade earlier. According to Evans and Lewis he was ‘the gaffer…pulling the strings like a puppet-master’ and he used his experience to guide a new generation of infiltrators who were in some cases spying on the same activists as he had. Geoff was one of those and he describes Rayner as being ‘up to his neck’ in direct action. The final proof came in April 2013 when it was discovered the real Matthew Rayner died aged four in 1972. We still don’t know his true identity.

One of Lambert’s first duties when he re-joined the SDS was to write a report on a spy who had ‘gone rogue’ named Mike Chitty. Chitty – known as Mike Blake – had penetrated the animal rights movement in London at the same time as Lambert but in comparison his deployment had been a failure. It resulted in no high-profile ALF arrests and it seems he enjoyed socialising more than targeting subversives. Even worse, when his deployment finished he returned to his activist comrades, leading a double life unbeknownst to his employers or his wife. He was eventually pensioned off after he began legal action against the Met for the stress he suffered due to his covert role.

Rayner’s exit strategy

Clearly not everybody could cope with the demands of undercover work. Davey may have been one of those but Rayner made of different stuff. His exit strategy was masterly in execution, bearing the hallmark of his mentor and manager, Lambert, who had written a report highlighting the importance of ‘carefully crafted withdrawal plans’ to convince ‘increasingly security-conscious target groups of the authenticity of a manufactured departure…inevitably this entails travel to a foreign country.’

In November1996 Rayner apparently went to work in France for a wine company. He had always liked France and could speak the language fluently. To a few close friends he mentioned his unease with activism after being raided by the police and the breakdown of the relationship with his girlfriend. Very well liked, he was given a big going away party, presented with a camera from the group and a speech wishing him well in his new life.

The next day he drove to France in his van and with him were two activist friends. At the port they were questioned by a police officer who said he was from Special Branch before letting them go on their way. This plan was concocted for the activists’ benefit in the knowledge they would tell others about it, lending further credibility to Rayner’s exit. A few weeks later he briefly came back to London and met up with friends before supposedly returning to France for good. Then over a period of about a year letters were sent and phone messages were left saying he had moved to Argentina, and after that he was never heard from again.

Christine Green

By 1997 Green was occupying a key part of the group, driving activists to demos, going to meetings and mailouts and taking part in protests, as her predecessors had done. She had even taken over Rayner’s role of group treasurer. The same pattern repeating itself but no-one was aware of it. For the next two years Green appears to have been the only spy in LAA. Perhaps there was another who remains unexposed – though this seems unlikely – or the SDS may have deployed another spy elsewhere.

To enhance her cover, Green began a relationship with a well-known hunt saboteur whose job was a coach driver and they took coach loads of protesters to some of the high profile demos of the time, for example at Hillgrove Farm. There is no suggestion that the sab was a spy. There was speculation surrounding her, however: she was not always easy to get along with – though she did make some friends -and she always carried the same bag around with her, which inevitably drew suspicion.

Towards the end of 1999 Green let it be known she was tired with activism. Early in 2000 she said she was departing to Australia for a relative’s funeral and would stay there travelling. About a year later, though, she reappeared and made contact with a few activist friends. Several years later in 2010 she cropped up once more, this time in Cornwall where she was spotted with the same boyfriend in a veggie café. Someone who knew them from LAA tried to have a chat and was all but ignored.

Dave Evans

Green’s replacement in and the last known SDS spy was Dave Evans. Like Dines he appeared to be from New Zealand and he had the same rugged appearance. He had a van and was a gardener too, so very much in the Lambert mould, except his personality couldn’t have been more different. While his boss was amiable, even charming, Evans could be a bit peevish and erratic: once he turned up at a demo then left after only a few minutes saying his flatmate was locked out. Typically spies spent five or six days in the field, only returning to their families for one night per week, but on one occasion he went missing for so long that people became concerned and went round to his flat.

A lot of the time he gave the impression of not being very committed and more interested in the social side of the group. LAA had a big drinking culture which he took to like a duck to water and he often took part in fundraising at festivals by working in bars. In SDS parlance he was a ‘shallow paddler’, not a ‘deep swimmer’.

In the last year or so of his deployment, Evans’ involvement in animal rights tapered off somewhat and it was recently revealed that his flatmate was Jason Bishop, a spy active in anti-capitalist groups. The pair drove minibuses to the G8 protests in Scotland in 2005. Both were arrested with other activists for conspiracy to commit a breach of the peace but the charges were dropped.

Evans’ exit and the end of the SDS

Evans was last seen at the AR Gathering in 2005. While sitting around a bonfire he began asking other activists questions about LAA, which had just folded after its bank account containing thousands of pounds was seized by Huntingdon Life Sciences. The mask slipped and it became obvious that he was a cop. He must have realised this because he left the next morning and was never seen again. Evans was the last known SDS spy in London animal rights circles. There were also at least two corporate infiltrators during this period, one of whom worked her way up to be group treasurer before she was uncovered.

In 2008 the SDS was disbanded, its functions supplanted by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) set up a few years earlier. This was one of three pillars of a new secret state established by the Labour government to combat ‘domestic extremism’, a term which encompassed anyone who wanted to ‘prevent something happening or to change legislation or domestic policy outside of the normal democratic process.’ The others were the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) and the National Domestic Extremism Team.

There is no reason to believe that intelligence gathering has diminished in the last few years. The animal rights movement has been perceived as less of a threat, mainly due to the imprisonment of certain activists, but the emergence of the anti-badger cull campaign will undoubtedly lead to an increase in surveillance and spying. The ‘Undercover’ book also mentions a recent spy in the Welsh animal rights scene but does not go into detail.

Conclusion: (1) How were we duped?

With the benefit of hindsight it appears obvious that animal rights groups in London were targeted by undercover police who followed the same pattern over a period of at least two decades. In that case why did no-one find out what was going on?

The answer lies in Lambert, the spymaster, who established the template the rest followed. For 23 years ‘Bob’ as he was known was held in such high esteem and affection that his authenticity wasn’t doubted. He was one of us, an anarchist and animal liberationist, who had fled overseas to build a new life. Nobody guessed he was working just a few miles away at Scotland Yard.

The agents that followed – Dines, Davey, Rayner, Green and Evans – did attract suspicion but only individually, not as a sequence. The people they spied upon were activists fighting for animal rights and a better world, welcoming of outsiders into their groups, not spycatchers. Moreover the suspicions were usually no more than of the ‘they are a bit dodgy’ variety, with little or no concrete evidence. Many people have been falsely accused in this way over the years.

The whole thing finally fell apart thanks to the determination of two women: Helen Steel and Laura, the girlfriend of a spy called Jim Boyling, whom she met in Reclaim the Streets in 1999. She managed to track him down after he left her and he confessed about Lambert and Dines. Helen had spent years searching for the latter after he supposedly ran off abroad in 1992. By 2010 she knew he had been a cop but it was Laura who confirmed that he was also a spy. At the same time Mark Kennedy, who worked for the NPOIU, was unmasked.

Conclusion: (2) What difference does it make?

The next important question is what difference does it make? Isn’t this just history? While a lot of this happened a long time ago it does stretch up almost to the present. Those who experienced this also have to show what the state is capable of doing to other, newer activists. Should we should trust politicians and believe the promises made by political parties or is the state fundamentally a force for repression? Can we cooperate with a system that tries to disrupt and undermine groups and individuals in this way?

What went on still matters because when we sweep away all the intrigue and scandal, we are left with a very simple fact: the spies were there to prevent animals being saved. This article has concentrated on what occurred in London because that’s where the writer has mainly been active but there is no question that infiltration went on elsewhere. We know, for instance, that there was a spy active inside SHAC before the mass arrests of 2007.

Many people have been arrested, convicted and even imprisoned during the struggle for animal rights and if it can be proved that a spy was involved, then those convictions are possibly unsafe. Even if their role was only driving activists to a demo where they were arrested, then there could be good grounds for an appeal. This is especially true if those nicked discussed their case with the spy, because this information would have been passed on to the police.

So far a total of 56 convictions or attempted prosecutions of environmental protesters have been overturned, abandoned or called into question over the past two years following disclosures surrounding the activities of undercover police officers. Most of these relate to Mark Kennedy and two climate change actions against power stations in 2008 and 2009.

Most defendants are being represented by Mike Schwarz from Bindmans and he has said he is keen to act for animal rights campaigners who want to try to overturn their convictions. But in order to do that we first have to find out who the spies were.

Conclusion: (3) Learning the lessons

There are no fewer than 15 investigations taking police into the role of undercover police. The main one is Operation Herne which is an internal Metropolitan Police enquiry This will last up to three years and cost millions of pounds but many of the victims of the SDS, including women who had relationships with spies, are boycotting it. They have instead called for an independent public enquiry as when the police investigate themselves the result is inevitably a whitewash.

What can activists themselves learn? Well firstly we should not succumb to paranoia. This may sound strange after what we know now but it is important to realise that the spies were in a small minority. Yes there were several in LBAG/LAA over the years but the group was large and regularly attracted over 50 people to its meetings.

There are, however, commonsense precautions that can be taken. The modus operandi of Special Branch agents – such as using dead children’s’ identities and driving vans – will not be replicated by current spies but if there are certain aspects of a person’s behaviour that don’t make sense or appear suspicious , then it is entirely reasonable to find out the truth. If that means questioning the person to ascertain whether they are a bone fide activist, then so be it. A genuine person would not object to this line of enquiry if the reason for it were explained to them.

Finally the lesson to take from all this is that we are making a difference. The state would not have invested such huge resources in trying to undermine the animal rights movement if it did not fear what we stand for. This is something we should be proud of.

If you have any further information or would like to join an email distribution list called ARspycatcher please contact: ARspycatcher@riseup.net

AR Spycatcher

Find this story at 26 February 2014

artikel als pdf

Dat studenten actie voeren tegen aangekondigde bezuinigingen op het onderwijs is van alle tijden. Daar is niets staatsondermijnend aan. Des te meer opmerkelijk dat diverse actieve studenten gedurende de acties en betogingen door de Regionale Inlichtingendienst en geheime dienst AIVD benaderd zijn met de vraag informant te worden.

Eind 2009 stak er langzaam een storm van protest op tegen de bezuinigingen in het onderwijs. Al jaren wordt er zowel binnen de politiek als vanuit wetenschappelijke hoek geroepen dat er geïnvesteerd moet worden om het Nederlandse onderwijs op peil te houden. De regering van CDA en VVD met gedoogpartner PVV vindt echter dat ook het onderwijs moet korten in verband met de algemene economische malaise. De studentenbonden, maar ook docenten keerden zich tegen het beleid van staatssecretaris Zijlstra van het ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (OCW).

Naast de ‘officiële’ organen van studenten (LSVB en IOS) en de jongerenorganisaties van enkele politieke partijen (Dwars en Rood) ontstond er een keur aan actiegroepen. Verspreid over het land richtten studenten clubs op als de Kritische Studenten Utrecht (KSU), Kritische Studenten Nijmegen Arnhem (KSNA), Kritische Studenten Twente (KST), Professor Protest (Amsterdam), SACU (Studenten Actie Comité Utrecht), Onderwijs is een Recht (OIER, Landelijk) en de comités SOS Nijmegen en SOS Amsterdam.

Actiegolf

Vanaf april 2010 tot de zomer van 2011 spoelde een golf aan acties over het land. Ludieke acties op straat of in universiteiten, bezettingen van hogescholen en faculteiten en demonstraties in verschillende steden. In het najaar van 2010 nam het protest in omvang toe en in januari 2011 demonstreerden ruim 10.000 studenten tegen de bezuinigingen.

Doel van de acties was van meet af aan duidelijk: geen kortingen op het onderwijs, zeker in een tijd dat de werkloosheid toeneemt. Ook al leefde er groot ongenoegen over het kabinet en gedoogpartner PVV, de regering omverwerpen was nooit een doelstelling. Oppositiepartijen en universiteits- en schoolbesturen verzetten zich samen met de studenten.

Nu lopen ludieke acties, bezettingen en demonstraties wel eens uit de hand, maar zoals onderzoek van Buro Jansen & Janssen naar demonstratierecht in Den Haag heeft uitgewezen, gebeurt dit zelden. Als er al ongeregeldheden plaats vinden, zijn lang niet altijd de actievoerders de schuldigen. Veelal is het ook te wijten aan het optreden van de politie. Bij grote demonstraties is vaak ook een overmacht aan mobiele eenheid aanwezig. De laatste jaren blijven ernstige rellen dan ook uit.

Begin 2011, op het hoogtepunt van de protestgolf, deed zich echter iets geks voor. Op de ochtend van vrijdag 21 januari meldde VVD-burgemeester Van Aartsen aan de NOS dat ‘de gemeente Den Haag aanwijzingen had dat radicalen de studentendemonstratie van vandaag willen verstoren’. Van Aartsen zei dat de politie die aanwijzingen baseerde op informatie afkomstig van ‘open en gesloten bronnen’.

Tijdens die demonstratie vonden er enkele schermutselingen plaats, maar of daar de ‘radicalen’ bij betrokken waren waar Van Aartsen eerder die dag op doelde, bleef onduidelijk. De open bronnen zouden websites, pamfletten en allerlei bladen zijn. Bij gesloten bronnen kan het gaan om telefoon en internet taps, observaties, maar ook informanten en infiltranten.

Zoals verwacht vond er een relletje plaats op het Plein voor het Tweede Kamergebouw en op het Malieveld. De politie meldde dat een deel van de aangehouden jongeren deel uit zou maken van radicale groeperingen. Volgens burgemeester Van Aartsen waren de arrestanten leden van de linkse groep Anti-Fascistische Aktie, zo meldde de NOS die avond.

Radicalen

Volgens de demonstranten liepen er tijdens de betoging veel agenten in burger mee en was de ME dreigend aanwezig. Dit kan het gevolg zijn geweest van de dreigende taal van de burgemeester. De ‘radicalen’ moesten per slot van rekening in de gaten worden gehouden. Van de 27 verdachten (cijfers van de politie) werden er nog op dezelfde dag 22 vrijgelaten.

Vijf verdachten werden maandag 24 januari voorgeleid. Volgens het openbaar ministerie bevonden zich hieronder ‘enkele niet-studenten’. Het zou gaan om een 27-jarige man uit Spanje, een 22-jarige man uit Haarlem, een 21-jarige Amsterdammer, een 26-jarige inwoner van Wassenaar en een 18-jarige Delftenaar.

Het OM maakte niet duidelijk wie nu wel of niet student was. Een HBO-student Arts and Sciences kreeg 8 weken onvoorwaardelijk opgelegd, een student politicologie en geschiedenis 80 uur werkstraf, een bouwkundestudent 40 uur werkstraf en een student toerisme een boete van 500 euro.

Alle verdachten en advocaten spraken van excessief politiegeweld. “De ME mishandelde vrouwen en kinderen” en “ik smeet vrijdag een aantal stenen, nee, geen bakstenen, naar de ME, omdat het geweld dat de politie gebruikte me diep schokte.” De rechter moest toegeven dat het optreden van de politie “niet de schoonheidsprijs verdiende.”

De veroordeelden waren allemaal studenten, zelfs de Spanjaard. Waarom logen burgemeester, politie en OM zowel voor als na de demonstratie over ‘radicalen’? Bespeelden zij de media om zo studenten in een verkeerd daglicht te plaatsen? En waar kwamen die radicalen plotseling vandaan? Na de demonstratie waren de radicalen volgens de burgemeester deelnemers aan de actiegroep AFA. Welke kennis had de politie en vanwaar werd die ingezet?

De gebeurtenissen rondom de demonstratie van 21 januari richtte de aandacht op iets dat al maanden aan de gang was. Vanaf het begin van de studentenprotesten is de overheid bezig geweest om het verzet in kaart te brengen, studenten te benaderen, informanten te werven, te infiltreren en zicht te krijgen op verschillende groepen. Niet de Landelijke Studenten Vakbond (LSVb) of het Interstedelijk Studenten Overleg (IOS) zouden een gevaar vormen, maar andere ‘radicalere’ studentikoze actiegroepen.

Benadering

In april en mei 2010 werd ‘Marcel’ gebeld door een man die zei dat hij van de recherche was en zichzelf Veerkamp noemde. Van welke afdeling en in welke hoedanigheid de beambte contact opnam, vertelde hij niet. Veerkamp werkt echter voor de Regionale Inlichtingendienst Utrecht, zoals uit een andere benadering blijkt. (zie Observant 58, Voor de RID is Griekenland ook een gevaar). De ‘rechercheur’ wilde graag geregeld contact met Marcel.

Marcel is student en actief voor het Studenten Actie Comité Utrecht (SACU) dat nauw samenwerkt met de Kritische Studenten Utrecht (KSU). Beide actiegroepen richten zich op de bezuinigingen op het onderwijs, maar plaatsen die tevens in maatschappelijk perspectief. Naast bezettingen, demonstraties en acties organiseerden ze ook debatten, lezingen en discussies. De kritische studentengroepen hielden een weblog bij met verslagen, agenda en discussie, een open structuur.

De man van de ‘recherche’ wilde van Marcel uit eerste hand weten wat de Utrechtse studenten de komende tijd gingen doen. “Zij wilden graag weten wat ze van ons konden verwachten”, vat Marcel het telefonische onderhoud samen. Marcel vond het nogal vreemd dat de man hem benaderde. Voor demonstraties werd openlijk opgeroepen en de groep meldde deze zelfs bij de politie aan. Waarom zou hij dan achter de rug om van andere studenten met deze man gaan praten?

Al snel werd duidelijk waar het de man om te doen was. Tijdens een van de twee gesprekken vroeg hij Marcel of ze van plan waren om stenen te gaan gooien tijdens studentendemonstraties. Marcel was nogal overrompeld door deze vraag, het leek of de politie er op zat te wachten. Alsof er een behoefte bestond van de zijde van de overheid om de studenten te criminaliseren.

AFA

Waarom wordt een student in Utrecht benaderd met de vraag of de studenten stenen zouden gaan gooien? Als Marcel de enige benaderde actievoerder was geweest dan is de conclusie simpel. De man die hem belde is wellicht werkzaam voor de Regionale Inlichtingendienst (RID) en was op zoek naar een contact binnen de kritische studentengroepen met het oog op mogelijke toekomstige ongeregeldheden. RID’ers hebben zo ook contacten met voetbalsupporters, zoals die van FC Utrecht.

Hoewel het personeel van de RID professionals zijn in het misleiden van mensen, kan de opmerking betreffende ‘stenen gooien’ een verspreking zijn geweest. De benaderde Marcel is echter geen uitzondering. ‘Peter’ werd in een eerder stadium gebeld door iemand van de overheid. Hij is student in Amsterdam en was actief voor de actiegroep Professor Protest. Het is niet duidelijk of de man die hem benaderde dezelfde persoon is geweest die Marcel heeft gebeld. Peter werd gevraagd om als informant te gaan werken. Hij voelde daar niets voor en verbrak de verbinding.

De combinatie van verschillende benaderingen, het bestempelen van elementen bij een studentendemonstratie als zijnde ‘radicaal’ en het benoemen van de ‘linkse groep Anti-Fascistische Aktie’ is te toevallig. In het deelrapport Ideologische Misdaad uit 2005 en 2007 van de KLPD worden deelnemers van AFA expliciet genoemd als ideologische misdadigers, mensen die worden verdacht van het plegen van een misdaad uit ideologische, politieke motieven.

Zodra activisten van AFA door politie worden gezien als ideologische misdadigers en door het landelijk parket gelijk worden gesteld aan roof misdadigers (Strategienota aandachtsgebieden 2005 – 2010) dan is een inlichtingenoperatie gericht op studenten een logisch uitvloeisel indien AFA-activisten ook student zijn en actief binnen die groepen. Daarbij passen benaderingen, infiltratie, aftappen, observaties en andere geheime methoden. Kritische studentengroepen plaatsen de strijd tegen de bezuinigingen van het kabinet in een breder perspectief.

Actieve studenten zijn soms ook politiek actief of strijden voor bijvoorbeeld dierenrechten, ondemocratisch Europa of bijeenkomsten van de G8 of G20. Het optreden van de overheid in deze doet sterk denken aan de inlichtingenoperatie van de BVD rond de Amsterdamse studentenbond ASVA in de jaren ’60 en ’70. Het verschil leek dat Marcel en Peter niet door de inlichtingendienst (de AIVD) zijn benaderd, maar door de ‘recherche’. De recherche zou dan misschien de Nationale Recherche zijn geweest vanwege de ‘ideologische misdaad’.

Geheime dienst

Nu is de wijze waarop prioriteiten gesteld worden aan het werk van politie en parket onderhevig aan politieke druk. Prioriteiten veranderen jaarlijks, afhankelijk van gevoerde discussies in de Tweede Kamer en de doelstellingen van een individuele minister. Het is echter moeilijk voor te stellen dat studentenprotesten plotseling als een belangrijk strategiepunt zijn benoemd voor de Nationale Recherche. Beleid verandert meestal traag, het duurt een tijd voordat het opsporingsapparaat zich gaat richten op een andere prioriteit.

Niet de Nationale Recherche zat dan ook achter de studenten aan, maar de geheime dienst. De benadering van ‘Karin’ onderstreept dit. Zij werd benaderd door iemand van het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, het ministerie dat verantwoordelijk is voor het functioneren van de AIVD. Marcel en Peter zijn waarschijnlijk benaderd door functionarissen van de Regionale Inlichtingendiensten van Amsterdam en Utrecht.

Probleem is dat inlichtingenfunctionarissen meestal niet te koop lopen met hun naam en het werk dat ze verrichten. Indien je als burger zelf niet vraagt met wie je van doen hebt, kunnen zij niet de beleefdheid opbrengen om duidelijk aan te geven dat zij voor een inlichtingendienst werken.

Karin is student aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA). Zij is sinds eind 2010 betrokken bij het studentenverzet. In februari 2011 bezette zij samen met andere studenten het Bungehuis van de UvA. Aan de actiegroep waar zij deel van uitmaakte, Professor Protest, nam ook Peter deel.

Op 20 april 2011 werd Karin gebeld door een man die zich voorstelde als ‘Ivo Kersting’ (of Kertjens of Kerstman of Kerstland) van het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijkrelaties. Haar mobiele nummer was niet gebruikt als perstelefoon dus Ivo moet haar nummer via het Centraal Informatiepunt Onderzoek Telecommunicatie (CIOT) hebben verkregen.

Ivo belde vanuit Amsterdam met nummerherkenning en sprak Karin met haar voornaam aan. Zij was nogal overrompeld door het telefoontje. Hij vroeg of hij op een gelegen tijdstip belde waarop zij ontkennend antwoordde. Hij kon haar over een uur terugbellen, maar zei niet waarover. Karin vroeg het nog, maar Ivo zei, “nee, over een uur hoor je dat wel”.

Een uur later hing hij weer aan de lijn, nu zonder achternaam. “Hallo, weer met Ivo, van Binnenlandse Zaken. Wij zijn de studentenbeweging in kaart aan het brengen. Jij bent toch woordvoerder geweest van de Bungehuis bezetting? Je bent ons positief opgevallen, en je zou ons erg helpen als je met ons rond de tafel komt zitten om wat te debatteren over de studentenbeweging.”

Ivo heeft gedurende de telefoongesprekken op geen enkele manier uitgelegd wat voor functie hij op het ‘ministerie’ vervulde. Karin antwoordde dat ze geen tijd had en niet meer actief betrokken ws bij de studentenprotesten. Ivo leek een beetje van zijn stuk gebracht door haar resolute antwoord. “Oh, dat is jammer je zou ons echt enorm kunnen helpen, kan ik je niet overhalen?”, probeerde hij nog. Toen Karin ontkennend antwoordde, gooide hij zonder gedag te zeggen de hoorn op de haak.

Intimiderend

Medewerkers van de inlichtingendienst hebben de neiging zich boven de burger, de samenleving te plaatsen. Ze hebben toegang tot allerlei persoonlijke informatie waardoor mensen die benaderd worden zich erg geïntimideerd voelen. Karin vond de gesprekken met Ivo Kersting vervelend en intimiderend. Hij bleef aandringen, draaien, geveinsd vriendelijk doen en doordrammen terwijl zij toch duidelijk was met haar ontkenning.

Ivo belde namelijk na een paar minuten weer terug. Hij verontschuldigde zich niet dat hij zo onbeschoft de hoorn op de haak had gegooid, maar zei meteen dat ze geld kreeg voor deelname aan het gesprek. Hoewel Karin opnieuw zei niet mee te willen werken, bleef de functionaris aanhouden. “We kunnen ook in Amsterdam afspreken. Ben je in Amsterdam? Je woont toch in Amsterdam? Ik ben nu met een collega in de buurt dus dan zouden we even kunnen spreken?”

Blijkbaar wisten ze meer van haar dan ze hadden laten doorschemeren. Karin wees de agenten opnieuw af, maar op het drammerige af bleef Ivo aanhouden. “Anders spreken we af dat jij bepaalt waar en wanneer je af wilt spreken. Je zou ons echt enorm kunnen helpen.” De druk werd opgevoerd. Karin moest zich schuldig gaan voelen. Zij wilde niet meewerken terwijl Ivo en zijn collega zo redelijk waren.

Dat waren ze echter niet. Ze intimideerden haar en toonden geen respect voor haar standpunt. “Weet je wat, ik overval je nu natuurlijk. Misschien kan ik je anders volgende week bellen”, zei Ivo alsof hij haar ontkenning helemaal niet had gehoord. Opnieuw voor de tiende keer antwoordde Karin dat ze niet wilde afspreken, geen tijd en zin had.

Karin was overrompeld, maar was nee blijven zeggen. Achteraf realiseert zij zich dat ze blij was dat ze wist dat ze het volste recht had om te weigeren mee te werken. Na een spervuur aan vragen te hebben overleefd en geschrokken te zijn van de behandeling, bleef er alleen maar boosheid bij haar hangen. “Het is eigenlijk politie van de ergste soort omdat ze zich niet eens voordoen als politie, en het laten lijken alsof je gewoon een gezellig kopje koffie gaat drinken”, vat ze het maanden later samen.

“Veel studenten die benaderd worden zullen dusdanig geïntimideerd zijn dat ze gaan praten omdat ze niet durven te weigeren. Anderen zullen denken dat het om een gezellige discussie of om een debat gaat”, concludeert Karin. De geheim agenten gaven haar ook die indruk. “Ze deden alsof het heel erg zou helpen als ik met ze zou gaan debatteren over de studentenbeweging, alsof zij invloed hadden op de besluitvorming rondom de bezuinigingen”, voegt ze nog toe. Karin is er van overtuigd dat er zeker studenten zijn geweest die op het aanbod zijn ingegaan en met Ivo en zijn collega of andere functionarissen hebben gesproken.

Persoonsdossiers

Naast Marcel, Peter en Karin zijn er ook andere mensen benaderd vanaf het najaar van 2010 tot en met de zomer van 2011. Waarom wordt een inlichtingendienst ingezet tegen een groep studenten die protesteert tegen de bezuinigingen op het onderwijs? Niet om rellen te voorkomen, zoals bij voetbalsupporters. Bij risicowedstrijden communiceert de RID vooral met de burgemeester en met de driehoek over mogelijke ongeregeldheden, niet met de inlichtingendienst.

Dat er een uitgebreidere inlichtingenoperatie rondom de studentenprotesten op touw is gezet, maken de eerste stukken duidelijk die via de Wet openbaarheid van Bestuur (WoB) en de Wet op de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (WIV) zijn verkregen. De RID van de regiopolitie Haaglanden heeft op 27 januari 2011 een nabeschouwing van de studentendemonstratie opgesteld voor het Algemeen Commandant van de Staf grootschalig en bijzonder optreden (AC SGBO).

Of dit rapport alleen naar de algemeen commandant is gegaan, valt te betwijfelen. Op 21 maart 2011 schrijft rapporteur ‘R: 15:’ van de RID Haaglanden het verstrekkingrapport 1414/11 aan de AIVD. Het rapport gaat over een studentendemonstratie van 25 maart 2011. Er wordt in gemeld wie de organisator was van de betoging, de route en het aantal te verwachten demonstranten. Onduidelijk is of er delen van het rapport zijn achtergehouden.

Evenmin duidelijk is hoelang de overheid studenten al in kaart aan het brengen is. Duidelijk is wel dat er persoonsdossiers zijn samengesteld van individuele actievoerders. Op basis van die dossiers is de claim van burgemeester Van Aartsen, de politie en het Openbaar Ministerie rond de demonstratie van 21 januari 2011 te begrijpen. Of er provocateurs van politie of inlichtingendienst, mensen die aanzetten tot geweld, tussen de demonstrerende studenten rond hebben gelopen, is niet duidelijk. Wel waren er veel agenten in burger op de been en de ME trad onnodig hard op.

Marcel, Peter en Karin zijn fictieve namen.

Find this story at 26 March 2012

Force defends use of covert tactics against campaigners

Police and anti-fascist protesters clash in Cambridge before a speech at the university by the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen in 2013. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty
A young anti-racism protester abandoned her campaigning work because she felt intimidated by a covert police officer who tried to persuade her to spy on her political colleagues, she has said.

The 23-year-old said the officer, working for a secretive police unit, threatened to prosecute her if she told anyone about the attempt to enlist her as an informer.

The woman, who is a single mother, said the threat had left her feeling “vulnerable and intimidated”, worried that a prosecution would jeopardise her young son, her university place and her chances of working in the future. “If I was charged, I could lose everything,” she said.

The Guardian in November published a secretly recorded video revealing how police had tried to recruit an environmental protester, also in his twenties, to spy on politically active Cambridge students.

Now, three more campaigners have come forward. They have described how police from the covert unit tried to convince them to become informants, and to spy on political groups, such as environmentalists and anti-fascists, in return for cash.

The allegations come two weeks after Theresa May, the home secretary, ordered a public inquiry into the undercover infiltration of political groups after revelations that the police had spied on the family of Stephen Lawrence.

Another of the campaigners said an officer had appeared to follow him and his young daughter to a supermarket where, he said, the officer thrust an envelope containing cash into his hand to induce him to secretly pass on information about environmentalists in Cambridge.

He said he had angrily rejected the envelope, warning that he would get a legal order to stop the police pursuing him, as the officer had previously made two unannounced visits to his home to try to turn him into an informant.

A third campaigner said a police officer had also offered him cash for details about the political activities of leftwing students in Cambridge. He said the same police officer was recorded in the secret video published in November.

All four attempts were made since late 2010 by Cambridgeshire police officers. The force, which accepts that it tried to recruit the four, refused to name or give any details about the unit, but denied its officers would carry out some of the behaviour alleged by the activists.

A spokesperson said : “Officers use covert tactics to gather intelligence, in accordance with the law, to assist in the prevention and detection of criminal activity.”

They added: “In the application of these tactics we wouldn’t engage in behaviour which has been described by the individuals.”

The Cambridge MP, Julian Huppert, said he was “alarmed” by the allegations, and demanded an explanation from the Cambridgeshire chief constable, Simon Parr, of “what has happened here, particularly if people are feeling threatened by the police”.

He added: “The police clearly have a role to keep us safe and to try and understand what is happening. But the sort of methods that are described here seem to me to be simply inappropriate. I do not believe that the sort of steps that are being taken here are proportionate to the actual risks there are.”

The allegations may shed light on how far police may be prepared to go in their efforts to recruit informers, said to number in the hundreds across the country, from inside what activists say are legitimate protest campaigns.

None of the four activists was willing to be named, as they said they feared repercussions from the police.

The single mother has described how her first political action was to join the Cambridge branch of Unite Against Fascism (UAF) in late 2012. She attended two meetings held to mount a counter-demonstration to a march that was being organised by the far-right English Defence League.

She volunteered to help the group’s Facebook page and other social media. Soon after, an officer rang her on her mobile to ask her to come to a local police station as he wanted her opinion on antisocial behaviour in her neighbourhood.

But it was a ruse, she said: at station the officer instead asked her if she would become an informant and tell “everything” she knew about UAF in return for expenses, including trawling Facebook for information about the group.

The officer, whose name is not being disclosed by the Guardian and has been given the pseudonym Peter Smith, saidhe worked for a covert unit whose activities were not known to the rest of the station.

She said that twice during the meeting Smith had warned her that she could be prosecuted if she told anyone, including her mother, about the attempt to recruit her. “He said, if you tell anybody about it at all, we can charge you for getting in our way or compromising our investigation,” she added.

“I felt at the time a bit of blind panic. It took me off my guard. It knocked me for six. You kind of feel like your back is against the wall, and you did not even know that you were going to be there, or why.”

She went home worried “about what I had got myself into here. I felt completely exposed. The problem was that I could not tell anybody”.

She had felt it would be “immoral” not to tell the UAF; but if she did, that could compromise other people in the group.

She said she had also been worried that police would find out if she told anyone, as she suspected that someone at the group’s meetings had passed on her contact details to the police in the first place.

Faced with the quandary, and unable to “look the group in the eye”, she withdrew from UAF. She had felt “pressured” into another meeting with Smith, but after further phone calls from him she had rejected his offer.

She and two others are speaking out after the publication of the secret video, which was recorded by the young protester using a concealed camera. It appeared to show Smith asking the protester to spy on Cambridge students, Unite Against Fascism, UK Uncut and environmentalists.

One of the campaigners who has now come forward said he, too, had been lured to a police station under a pretext by Smith in late 2012.

The campaigner, a student at Cambridge University, had called the police to report two suspicious men on his street who looked as if they were looking for houses to burgle.

A few days later, he said, he had received a call from Smith inviting him to the station to discuss the suspicious men in more detail.

But when he went to the meeting, Smith showed little interest in burglary, and instead asked if he would become an informant, supplying him with information about protests being organised by leftwing students in Cambridge.

Smith allegedly said the campaigner would be paid for his work, but he refused, and heard nothing more.

In the other case, the environmental and social justice campaigner said a police officer had twice come to his house without an appointment and suggested that one of the campaigns he wanted information about was an environmental group, Cambridge Action Network.

He said that even though he had rejected the attempt after a third encounter, the police officer had seemed to follow him and his young daughter a month later to a supermarket, and had pushed an envelope of cash notes into his hand one afternoon in 2011.

“It seemed very random that he should cross our paths there and then, at that moment,” the campaigner said. “Just as we were getting on our bikes, he kind of swooped around the corner on his bicycle and tried to push the money into my hand.”

Rob Evans and Matthew Taylor
The Guardian, Monday 17 March 2014 16.53 GMT

Find this story at 17 March 2014

© 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Lawyer Elkan Abrahamson has demanded allegations form part of enquiry
He says family members have picked up phone and heard other campaigners
Met Police have not confirmed or denied they put families under surveillance

Hillsborough campaigners may have been spied on by police through a centralised ‘tapping unit’, a leading lawyer has claimed.
Elkan Abrahamson has lodged a series of complaints with the police watchdog over the claims.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) confirmed it has received three referrals about officers spying on campaigners following the 1989 tragedy in which 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives.
Mr Abrahamson, of Broudie Jackson and Canter, said the firm has received strikingly similar accounts of family members picking up the phone to make a call, only to hear an ongoing conversation between other Hillsborough campaigners in a different part of the country.

He said: ‘We’ve had a few separate complaints of phone tapping.
‘It involved a family member picking up the phone only to hear two other family members speaking elsewhere.’

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He demanded that allegations of police officers spying on Hillsborough families was included in the public inquiry announced by Home Secretary Theresa May on Thursday after a report found Scotland Yard had spied on murder victim Stephen Lawrence’s family.

Mrs May told the Commons that conclusions that the Metropolitan Police planted ‘a spy in the Lawrence family camp’ were ‘deeply troubling’.
Mr Abrahamson said: ‘It is essential that the enquiry announced by the Home Secretary includes the concerns about surveillance in the Hillsborough case.
‘It will, of course, focus on Lawrence, but the Hillsborough tragedy should equally be subjected to the same scrutiny on this subject of spying.’

The inquiry will be led by Mark Ellison who fronted the independent report into the Lawrence surveillance concerns which sparked this week’s government decision.
The latest Hillsborough complaint echoes the story of Hilda Hammond, who lost her 14-year-old son Philip, and who was on the phone to a friend in 1990 when she could suddenly hear another chat of fellow campaigner Jenni Hicks who was in conversation at her home in Middlesex.
Broudie, Jackson and Canter has also documented a further complaint of a relative believing they were followed by police in Sheffield at the time of the inquests into the tragedy, between 1990 and 1991.
The IPCC also said one of the surveillance complaints related to property being stolen.

The Metropolitan Police, and other forces, has refused to deny or confirm they took part in surveillance of Hillsborough families.
Home Secretary Teresa May has now volunteered to write to every chief constable in the UK to demand they hand over any documents on Hillsborough to the new inquiry.
The move was welcomed, but Mr Abrahamson added: ‘She should ask police forces to provide information on all relevant areas, like surveillance.
‘To hide behind reasons of national security seems particularly unfair when we’re talking about bereaved families.’

It also emerged that some retired cops who had refused to give evidence were now ‘reconsidering’, the IPCC said.
Of the 243 officers whose statements were suspected of being doctored, just 12 of them remain to be questioned.
Rachel Cerfontyne, deputy chairwoman of the IPCC, said: “Concerns have been raised been raised by families about alleged surveillance from police.
‘We believe the Home Secretary’s letter may also assist in identifying whether any documentation relating to surveillance exists.’

By SAM WEBB
PUBLISHED: 20:21 GMT, 9 March 2014 | UPDATED: 09:52 GMT, 10 March 2014

Find this story at 9 March 2014

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