Tag Archives: CIA

Trump’s CIA nominee includes Russia in list of global challenges

guy to be head of CIA under Trump

By David Alexander and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CIA portrayed multiple challenges facing the United States on Thursday, from an aggressive Russia to a “disruptive” Iran to a China that he said is creating “real tensions.”

Diverging from Trump’s stated aim of seeking closer ties with Russia, Pompeo said that Russia is “asserting itself aggressively” by invading and occupying Ukraine, threatening Europe, and “doing nearly nothing” to destroy Islamic State.

Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and a former U.S. Army officer, was speaking at the start of his confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate.

In his prepared opening statement, Pompeo noted that the CIA does not make policy on any country, adding, “it is a policy decision as to what to do with Russia, but it will be essential that the Agency provide policymakers with accurate intelligence and clear-eyed analysis of Russian activities.”

His testimony came at a time when Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20, has openly feuded with U.S. intelligence agencies.

For weeks, the president-elect questioned the intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia used hacking and other tactics to try to tilt the 2016 presidential election in his favor. Trump said on Wednesday that Russia was behind the hacking but that other countries were hacking the United States as well.

This week, Trump furiously denounced intelligence officials for what he said were leaks to the media by intelligence agencies of a dossier that makes unverified, salacious allegations about his contacts in Russia.

Pompeo, a conservative lawmaker from Kansas who is on the House Intelligence Committee, listed challenges facing the United States, saying “this is the most complicated threat environment the United States has faced in recent memory.”

This included what he called a “resilient” Islamic State and the fallout from Syria’s long civil war.

Pompeo also included North Korea, which he said had “dangerously accelerated its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.” He said China was creating “real tensions” with its activities in the South China Sea and in cyberspace as it flexed its muscles and expanded its military and economic reach.

He called Iran an “emboldened, disruptive player in the Middle East, fueling tensions” with Sunni Muslim allies of the United States.

(Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Howard Goller)

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking – sources

Padlock with the word hack, a representation of cyber attacks

By Mark Hosenball and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.

While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

The position of the ODNI, which oversees the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks.

Trump’s rejection of the CIA’s judgment marks the latest in a string of disputes over Russia’s international conduct that have erupted between the president-elect and the intelligence community he will soon command.

An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. officials. “Of course they can’t, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA’s analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said.

The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the attacks. The commission, which identified major intelligence failures, recommended the office’s creation to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies.

In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Democratic President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.

Reports of the assessment by the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings, have prompted congressional leaders to call for an investigation.

Obama last week ordered intelligence agencies to review the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns power over to Trump on Jan. 20.

The CIA assessed after the election that the attacks on political organizations were aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday.

Moreover, only materials filched from Democratic groups – such as emails stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman – were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said.

“THIN REED”

The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday.

“(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election.

“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.

McCain questioned an assertion made on Sunday by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, tapped by Trump to be his White House chief of staff, that there were no hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations.

“Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that doesn’t mean it’s true,” said McCain. “We need a thorough investigation of it, whether both (Democratic and Republican organizations) were hacked into, what the Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a conclusion yet. That’s why we need a thorough investigation.”

In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment.

Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Oatis)

CIA weapons for Syrian rebels sold to arms black market

A rebel fighter sits near a weapon in Al-Lataminah village, northern Hama countryside, Syria

(Reuters) – Weapons shipped into Jordan for Syrian rebels by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia were stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, the New York Times reported, citing American and Jordanian officials.

Some of the stolen weapons were used in a shooting in November that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, according to a joint investigation by the New York Times and Al Jazeera. (http://nyti.ms/292MmdH)

A Jordanian officer shot dead two U.S. government security contractors, a South African trainer and two Jordanians at a U.S.-funded police training facility near Amman before being killed in a shootout, Jordanian authorities had said in November.

The training facility was set up on the outskirts of the capital, Amman, after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq to help rebuild the shattered country’s postwar security forces and to train Palestinian Authority police officers.

The weapons used in the shooting had originally arrived in Jordan for the Syrian rebel training program, the paper reported, citing American and Jordanian officials.

Theft of the weapons, which ended months ago after complaints by the American and Saudi governments, has led to a flood of new weapons available on the arms black market, the New York Times said.

Jordanian officers who were part of the plan “reaped a windfall” from sale of weapons, using the money to buy iPhones, SUVs and other luxury items, according to the paper, which cited Jordanian officials.

The CIA could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese)

Islamic State to change tactics in coming months: CIA’s Brennan

CIA speaks against Islamic State

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, said on Thursday that the United States and its allies have made gains against Islamic State, but he expects the group to change its tactics to make up for lost territory.

“To compensate for territorial losses, ISIL (Islamic State) will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profile attacks outside territory it holds,” Brennan testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Paul Simao)

CIA Helped Program Spying On U.S. Cellphones

A new report shows the CIA gave vital help in the Justice Department’s development of technology that would scan and steal data from the cellphones of Americans.

The CIA and the U.S. Marshals Service created a device that attaches to a plane or helicopter and mimics a cellphone tower.  This will cause phones within the range of the device to send all its identifying information to the unit.

The program flies planes around the country to cover almost the entire population.  The units not only collect data from large numbers of citizens not involved in any kind of illegal activity, it can also interrupt actual cellphone service.

The reason the CIA is working with the Marshals is because the CIA is banned from doing domestic spy work.  Even if the CIA provides the equipment, the actual gathering of data is done by a domestic law enforcement organization.

The system works by identifying a target’s cell phone and then having the aircraft circle the area until they pinpoint the target within three yards of his actual position.  The technology has been used in the middle east to track terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There’s a lot of privacy concerns in something this widespread, and those concerns only increase if we have an intelligence agency coordinating with them,” Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Wall Street Journal.  The EFF has filed a lawsuit seeing more information on the program and its funding.

None of the major cell companies would comment to the Journal about the operation or their customer’s information being collected without a warrant.

Over 20,000 ISIS Supporters Worldwide Have Joined Terrorist Group

A report before the House Homeland Security Commission says that a estimates show over 20,000 foreign fighters sympathetic to ISIS have gone to the middle east to join the group or attempt to join them.

Nick Rasmussen, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center said that fighters are joining at a rate never seen in previous conflicts of similar nature like Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Supporters from 80 countries are believed to be in Syria.

The report says that approximately 150 Americans have attempted to travel to the war zone to join ISIS.  Officials say that while some have been caught, a majority were able to make it to ISIS territory.

The new estimate is double the previous and experts say it could top 30,000 in the next few months.

“This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence,” an unidentified CIA official told CNN this week.

The chairman of the Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, said the report brings him serious concerns.

“I am worried about our ability to combat this threat abroad, but also here at home,” he said. “I wrote to the president recently as part of my ongoing investigation and raised concerns that we have no lead agency in charge of countering domestic radicalization and no line item for it in the budgets of key departments and agencies. I am also concerned that the few programs we do have in place are far too small to confront a challenge that has grown so quickly.”

Kurdish Fighters Stop ISIS Advance

Kurdish fighters were able to stop an advance by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS into the town of Kobani but could not stop suicide bombers from launching homicide bomber attacks in another Iraqi province.

The bombings happned in the Qara Tappah district in Diyala province.  One bomber blew himself up at the gateway to the offices of the main Kurdish political party and two others blew themselves up in cars loaded with explosives minutes later.

The terrorists involved were reportedly foreigners who came to Iraq to fight with ISIS.

The CIA now reports ISIS has a total strength of 31,500 terrorists in Iraq and Syria.  The attacks in Diyala follow 45 people being killed in similar attacks around Baghdad the prior day.

Kurdish fighters were able to top the advance into Kobani but ISIS has taken over at least 350 villages close to the main city.  At least 150,000 people in the region have fled across the Turkish border.

China and Russia Top Governments For Destroying Churches

A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that China and Russia are the top countries in the world for destruction of churches by government organizations.

Pew collected information on “demolition of houses of worship, and the seizure of religious groups’ property and government raids of houses of worship that result in property damage.”

China, which has been conducting very high profile crackdowns on Christian congregations in their country, only has 5 percent of the population calling themselves Christians according to the CIA World Factbook.  Russia shows 15-20% of the population as Russian Orthodox and only 2% as just Christian.

The two nations were joined in third by Tajikistan, a 90 percent Muslim country, as having more than 100 documented cases of churches being destroyed by government groups.

The next tier (from 10 to 99 incidents) included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

The only two nations in the Americas that were on the list of 10 or more churches destroyed was Cuba and Venezuela.

Task Force Member Calls For MORE NSA Surveillance

While most people were focusing on a part of a report from President Obama’s task force on surveillance calling for the NSA to scale back operations, one member of the force wants people to know he thinks more surveillance of citizens is necessary.

Michael Morell, a former acting director of the CIA, said that not only is the NSA’s telephone-data collection program necessary to avoid another 9/11 situation, that the program needs to be expanded to include e-mail surveillance.

“I would argue actually that the email data is probably more valuable than the telephony data,” Morell told te National Journal. “You can bet that the last thing a smart terrorist is going to do right now is call someone in the United States.”

Morell even claimed that had e-mail surveillance been part of the “215 program” and if it had been in place on 2000 and 2001, “I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened.”

The task force report did recommend and praise a program used to monitor e-mails sent and received outside the borders of the U.S.

Americans Personal Information Shared With NSA; CIA

In an attempt to find federal workers who were cheating the government, U.S. agencies ended up examining people who had no direct connection to the U.S. government and had only purchased books on an alert list.

Federal investigators reportedly gathered a list of 4,904 people from the records of two men who were being examined for teaching people how to pass lie detector tests. The officials then gave the list to 30 federal agencies including the IRS, CIA, NSA and Food & Drug Administration. The government hoped to find employees or applicants who tried to use techniques to beat lie detector tests required for security clearances.

McClatchy News Service reports that many of the people investigated by the government agencies after the release of the list had only bought books or DVDs from one of the men being investigated and received no one-on-one training from the suspects.

A source says that federal agencies are under increasing pressure from the White House to find “insider threats” in the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA scandal.