by Gordon Duff, Veterans Today

Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more.  All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel.  One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and  a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.”  If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen.  Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong.  One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs.  The man in the car is identified as Stan  Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”

What is not initially known is whether this was the first attempt or, as is much more likely, an additional incursion to plant new bugs as the ones in place were missing key conversations.  Also, it is not known how many “black ops” crews are being run by the CIA inside the United States in violation of their charter or if their operations are being limited to spying on Democratic lawmakers or if operations of a more threatening nature have been performed but remain undiscovered.

Additionally, as this was a covert op against  US government investigations of, not only terrorism and terrorism funding but major financial crimes against the United States, it is unclear who the recipient of the “product,” an intelligence industry term for “output” or information put up for “distribution” might be.  Potential buyers could be the Republican Party, Israel, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea or financial institutions involved in massive money laundering schemes being investigated by the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security of which Senator Landireu is a member.

Learn how the Intelliegence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) at Georgetown University and the CIA got involved in this seedy domestic “black ops” group.  In a story broken this week:

Dai’s links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University’s Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C. (note the parallels between the Georgetown program tied to “conservative think tanks” and the GWU program with similar ties and the same characters where we trace Dr. Hasan, Ft Hood mass murderer to)

The university’s president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies.  (a seemingly meaningless statement considering what has happened)

The Trinity program received a “$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community” upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program’s goals are stated:

The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation’s increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America’s national security objectives.

The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai “served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program.”

Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation — as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.

FDD claims that it’s partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures — including former House speakerNewt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Operatives recruited in universities and managed thru conservative think tanks receive paid “vacations” to Israel and elsewhere, places where they are trained in silent killing, use of poisons, explosives and other potentially useful skills whether their career is in intelligence or politics.  As with other terrorist suspects such as those who travel to Afghanistan for their training, these domestic types are funded covertly through the US government but, as we see in New Orleans, rented out to either Israel, India or the Republican party.

This history of this program parallels one from the Nixon administration after the Vietnam War.  CIA recruiters subsidized hundreds, perhaps several thousand veterans, Marines, Special Forces and Army Rangers who served in unofficial and semi-official capacities in and out of the US.  Some serve to this day.  Today’s, if current bio’s are any indication, depend more on ideology than physical bravery or intellectual qualifications.  Perhaps the “purity” test left little room for battle hardened veterans who might choose country over party and loyalty over cash.

In a “clarification” of how Israel is involved and sees their cooperation in this domestic terror organization as part of their support of the United States as a trusted ally, we received the following story:

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD (Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, a conservative Washington based “think tank” with CIA ties) -sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. “All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD,” FDD’s Web site said of its Israel program.

A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes “lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States.”

FDD proclaims that “Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism.” Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:

“Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel’s experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.”

One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group’s bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:

“The access which FDD provided to top government officials–and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels–was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment.”

No explanation was offered as to how this “stimulating environment” managed to foster attacks on high security government offices, filled with vital intelligence.  If Israel and the United States face the same enemy, why is Israel training Americans to attack America?  One can’t help but see parallels between “junkets” to Israel for “intelligence training” and Islamic militants who go to Afghanistan for “terrorist” training.

How few Islamic terrorists would we catch if they were aided by Washington “think tanks,” guided by the Department of Defense or funded by the CIA?

Read the rest by clicking here.

by Dan Kennedy

An antiwar activist has been accused of spying for the US army, raising legal questions the Obama administration must answer

It was an odd little story, tucked well inside the front section of this past Sunday’s New York Times.

An antiwar activist in the state of Washington had been exposed as an undercover informant for the US army, stationed at massive Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma. And in one of those Kafkaesque twists for which our government is renowned, the army is now investigating itself to determine how such an arrangement came to pass.

Although the Times gave no credit, the story had been broken on 28 July by Democracy Now!, a leftwing television programme co-anchored by Amy Goodman, a longtime progressive journalist. For nearly an hour, two former associates of John Towery – a civilian employee of the army – explained how they learned their fellow activist was in fact a military spy.

“We hung out,” said Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, who filed the public-records request that inadvertently outed Towery, who had been going by the name John Jacob. “We gave workshops together on grassroots direct democracy and anarchist struggle. I mean, he was a friend.”

Fellow activist Drew Hendricks offered a weird twist, telling Goodman that, as far back as 2007, Towery identified himself as an army employee and offered to provide Hendricks with “observations and inside knowledge of operations on Fort Lewis”.

The picture that emerges is worthy of a cheap spy novel. If Maslauskas Dunn and Hendricks are correct, then Towery truthfully told antiwar activists that he worked for the army, but lied about his name and real purpose: gathering intelligence on his new associates and what threat they might have posed. (According to the Times, antiwar groups in Washington have attempted to “disrupt military shipments”.)

Moreover, Towery’s alleged activities would almost certainly have been illegal. According to two lawyers whom Goodman interviewed, Larry Hildes of the National Lawyers Guild and Mike German of the American Civil Liberties Union, such spying would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of American military forces for domestic law-enforcement operations. The law was weakened during the Bush years, though Hildes and German told Goodman that operations such as that attributed to Towery remain illegal.

Towery’s alleged spying is yet another sign that Barack Obama‘s reluctance to come to terms with the legacy of George Bush andDick Cheney‘s legacy is simply not tenable. By attempting to move on without accountability, Obama is becoming complicit in the very activities against which he ran.

The Bush-Cheney administration’s obsession with running roughshod over constitutional and legal principles is by now well-established, with torture being just the most infamous example. Only a week ago, the New York Times revealed that Cheney had pushed hard in 2002 to send troops to suburban Buffalo in order to arrest several al-Qaida suspects. It’s difficult to imagine why Cheney would want to do such a thing other than to set a precedent. In any event, Bush said no.

And as we know, Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and their fellow neoconservatives weren’t above casting institutions such as the military and even the CIA as weak and unpatriotic when it suited their purposes.

General Eric Shinseki, after all, was cashiered from his position as army chief of staff after he dared to tell the truth about how many troops would be needed to carry out a successful invasion and occupation of Iraq. (Shinseki is now Obama’s secretary of veterans affairs.)

And when former diplomat Joseph Wilson, on a mission for the CIA, revealed he had found no evidence that Saddam Hussein sought to purchase uranium in Niger, Team Cheney retaliated by exposing his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as an agency operative.

The Towery allegations are not the first time it’s been reported that the goverment has infiltrated the rather impotent antiwar movement. A little more than a year ago, for instance, it was revealed that the Maryland state police had spied on peace activistsin that state. But the alleged misuse of the army places this on a different level, both ethically and legally.

Not to get ahead of the story, but if the Towery story bears out, then it’s difficult to imagine he was alone. In that sense this could prove to be reminiscent of Cointelpro, the FBI’s secret, illegal programme, which kept tabs on dissidents from 1956 to1971. We need to know the truth about what happened during the Bush-Cheney years, and what may still be happening, with or without Obama’s knowledge.

Since his inauguration more than six months ago, Obama has been half-hearted, at best, about exposing his predecessor’s wrongdoing. Maybe he’s right – maybe he can’t investigate the Bush White House and govern the country at the same time.

But if that is the case, then Obama should quietly encourage officials like Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, who has made it clear that he’d like to conduct a no-holds-barred investigation.

Much as Obama would like to put it all behind us, he can’t. And he shouldn’t.

by Shelley Dubois

The Air Force’s geek squad wants the technology to monitor government employees’ deviant online behavior. And they want you to build it.

Today, the Air Force issued a call for proposals from small businesses, with this objective: “Define, develop, and demonstrate innovative approaches for determining ‘good’ (approved) versus ‘bad’ (disallowed/subversive) activities, including insiders and/or malware.”

But taboo activity could span everything from leaking top secret information to spamming contacts with a chain letter to visiting any site that government officials deem dubious. Previously, they’ve said some interesting things about social networking, which may or may not influence what they’d do with new tools.

Now, those tools are a ways away. Current methods to detect insider breaches of cyber security “only address the most blatant violations of policy or the grossest deviations from accepted behavior,” according to the Air Force request. The cyber security system works mostly by rejecting certain predefined digital signatures at the borders of the network. But, as the Air Force request pointed out, people with inside access are more familiar with the security system and best know how to thwart it.

Not everyone who jeopardizes security does it intentionally. The Air Force also wants the algorithm to flag unwitting security breaches like opening an infected site during research.

Get cracking if you want to help root out the deviants. The technology needs to be ready to test nine months from now, and you’ll be compensated up to $100,000 for your troubles.

by Wayne Madsen, Online Journal

(WMR) – Cells of young Israeli intelligence operatives continue to openly solicit relationships with U.S. military personnel from shopping mall kiosks, according to an informed source.

WMR has learned that one such kiosk operates at the MacArthur Center Mall in Norfolk, Virginia, where a number of U.S. Navy personnel from the nearby naval bases are regularly confronted by aggressive young Israelis selling Dead Sea cosmetic products who inquire about where the personnel are stationed and the nature of their jobs. Young Israeli women working at the kiosk also appear to want to strike up a closer relationship with some of the naval personnel.

The use of young Israelis, many of whom continue to serve in a reserve status with the Israel Defense Force, as intelligence agents, has changed somewhat over the past decade. Young Israeli “art students” first conducted unsolicited visits to the homes and offices of federal and military employees trying to sell cheap Chinese-made bogus Israeli artwork while casing neighborhoods and office buildings.

Israeli-operated mall kiosks have transitioned from selling toys to cosmetics.

On August 7, 2005, WMR reported: In November 2001, the INS arrested several Israelis, including some with military backgrounds, selling Puzzle Car and Zoom Copter toys from shopping mall kiosks and vending carts. Many of the malls were located near U.S. government facilities, including the Pentagon and CIA. A majority of the Israelis, arrested for visa violations instead of espionage, worked for a Florida-based company called Quality Sales. A spokesman for the company admitted the company hired vacationing Israeli students but they had the wrong visas. The spokesman also revealed the Israelis were deemed “special interest” cases by INS– a new government designation applied to terrorism suspects in the wake of 911. Federal authorities suspect the Israelis were using the kiosks as intelligence fronts in the same manner that Israelis were using door-to-door art sales as covers. The National Counterintelligence Center (NCIX) stated in a report issued in March 2001 that, “In the past six weeks, employees in federal office buildings located throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities connected with individuals representing themselves as foreign students selling or delivering artwork. Employees have observed both males and females attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings.” The report was temporarily removed from the NCIX web site.

One of the malls where the Israeli”toy sellers” based their operations was the Pentagon City Mall, just across Interstate 395 from the Pentagon. In July 2004, the mall served as the rendezvous point for alleged Israeli Pentagon spy Larry Franklin and Keith Weissman, an AIPAC official. Franklin warned Weissman that Iranian agents were going to start attacking American soldiers and Israeli agents in Iraq. Weissman then went to brief the account of the meeting to Steve Rosen, another senior AIPAC official. They both informed the Israeli embassy in Washington and Glenn Kessler, a reporter for The Washington Post. Those phone calls were being wiretapped by the FBI as part of its investigation of a major Israeli spy ring in the United States, an investigation that had been going on since before the 9/11 attacks. The FBI was also monitoring meetings between Franklin, Weissman, and Rosen, including one held in February 2003 at the Arlington, Virginia, Ritz-Carlton hotel, which adjoins the Pentagon City Mall.

In February 2005, an Israeli man named Ohad Cohen was deported, along with four other Israelis, from Omaha, Nebraska. In what was becoming a common occurrence in the United States, a total of 10 Israelis, who were working at shopping mall kiosks in the Omaha and Lincoln areas, were deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for illegally working in the United States on tourist visas. The Israelis operated out of Omaha’s Oak View Mall and Lincoln’s Gateway Westfield Mall. The Federal government probe was reported to be part of a wider probe of Israeli shopping mall kiosk activity throughout the Midwest. In December 2004, FBI and immigration officers arrested 15 Israelis in Minnesota and three operating from a mall kiosk in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Omaha is also the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC).

On January 13, 2009, WMR reported: WMR has also learned of other Israeli mall kiosks around the country that hired aggressive Israeli young men and women who badger customers and ask personal questions. Israeli mall kiosks engaged in the aggressive sales practices have been set up at the North Shore Mall in Peabody, Massachusetts, and Northeast Mall in Hurst, Texas, a Dallas suburb. The mall kiosks in Peabody sell Israeli hand cream and nail files. The kiosk in Hurst has a male overseer, about 45 years old, who lives in the Bahamas.

Many of the Israeli mall vendors claim ignorance when told by customers that Israeli mall kiosks were identified as Mossad front operations in a Fox News report. More incredibly, some Israelis feign ignorance when the term “9/11” is used. They claim not to know what the term means.

In the same report, WMR reported: Last month, police in New South Wales, Australia, arrested the leader of an Israeli “art student” ring who was selling mass-produced paintings from China as valuable artwork from Israel. The Israeli man arrested, age 23, fit the profile of a number of Israeli “art students” rounded up, detained, and deported by U.S. authorities in the months prior to 9/11. The “art students” were casing federal offices, military installations, and the homes of federal agents and officials.

The Israeli was arrested by police in Wamberal on Australia’s eastern central coast. Fifty Chinese-made oil paintings were found in the Israeli’s Mitsubishi station wagon. He was attempting to sell the paintings for between 500 and 1,000 Australian dollars. The Israelis in Australia visited a number of homes and claimed they were university students from Israel. The Israeli arrested lived in Sydney’s Bondi Beach neighborhood.

Recently, there was yet another story about the use of Israeli mall kiosk operators as intelligence agents. In the most recent case in Perth, Australia, an Australian man was arrested and charged with violation of an Australian hate crime law for exposing the activities of Israeli-run mall kiosks owned by an Israeli firm in Melbourne whose products are called “Seacret — Minerals From The Dead Sea.” The president of the Australian Union of Jewish Students lodged a criminal complaint against the investigator who maintained that Israeli nationals were attempting to obtain classified information on the Royal Australian Navy’s Collins class submarine as well as other defense programs.