Autocomplete, Dinosaurs Edition is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Intelligence world will have to settle for only $80 billion dollars this year. Congress has passed their latest spending bills which, while not actually cutting their budget, only keeps the spy world with the same budget as last year.  While this may not sound like such a big deal, the intelligence services are not so happy about having to postpone new hires and new satellite systems they were hoping to put into play this year. Congress left in the budget money allocated for hiring new cybersecurity teams and money to track the finances of terrorists.

While in tough financial times most levels of government spending get cut, and most agencies fight over who will get hit the hardest.  Even now, with Iran pushing forwards to get the Bomb and more conflicts arising throughout the world the Pentagon is seeing its budget cut.  Usually though the Intelligence services are “recession Proof”.  But not so this year.

Also this year, as part of a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to raise the nation’s sovereign debt limit congress prescribed a series of painful cuts to the defense budget if lawmakers could not find $1.5 Trillion dollars to trim from the deficit over the next ten years.  Congress had until thanksgiving to reach a compromise and failed.  These cuts take place in fiscal year 2013.

America currently is running a deficit of over $1.5 trillion dollars a year and has a national debt of over $15 trillion dollars.  Lawmakers from both parties agree this level of debt in unsustainable.  The real question is how much more can be cut from the budget before America becomes less safe?

Still Loaded with Pork, Congress Puts Spy World on a Diet is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Islamic Republic News Agency said on Wednesday that 12 undercover CIA agents have been arrested in Iran.

Parviz Sorouri, a senior Iranian official, was quoted by the agency as saying that the spies were attempting to spy on the nation’s security and military capabilities, and possibly their nuclear program. The US strongly believes that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but the company repeatedly denied those claims.

“The US and Zionist regime’s espionage apparatuses were trying to use regional intelligence services, both inside and outside Iran, in order to deal a strong blow to our country,” he was quoted as saying. “Fortunately, these steps failed due to the quick measures taken by Intelligence Ministry officials.”

The news follows closely behind reports on Monday that Lebanon’s Hezbollah had uncovered several alleged CIA informants. Afterwards, reports started to come in from US officials which backed up the claims, suggesting that the lives of several agents in the region are in danger.

Sorouri did not specify the nationality of the alleged CIA agents arrested in the country, nor did he comment on when or where the arrests were made.

via BBC

[Image: Reuters]

Iran arrests 12 undercover CIA agents, IRNA reports is a post from: The Inquisitr

A new report has surfaced in which more than one dozen CIA spies are said to have been captured by Hezbollah officials operating in Lebanon and Iran.

According to reports the CIA “spies” were paid informants who were operating in two distinct espionage rings that targeted operations in Iran and Beirut.

Speaking to ABC News one U.S. official confirmed the loss of various spied and added:

“Espionage is a risky business” and ”Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks.”

The spies were being used specifically to track the Iranian nuclear program while documenting the intentions of Hezbollah actions against Israel.

Speaking about the importance of tracking Hezbollah a U.S. official told ABC News:

“Remember, this group was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before 9/11.”

In the meantime some officials are pointing the blame for the CIA’s failure to protect their spies on sloppy procedures that allowed identities to be revealed.

News of captured CIA spies is hardly a new revelation, in June Hezbollah leader Sheik Nassah Nasrallah said on national television that two CIA spies had been found within his ranks, although proof of those captures were never broadcast.

In explaining the reach of Hezbollah last year the State Department called the group ”the most technically capable terrorist group in the world.” It’s believed that the terrorist group receives between $100 million and $200 million per year in funding from Iran. According to reports Hezbollah in 2010 began using the best in commercial software to hunt down spies in their ranks digitally. The software searched for anamolies in cellphone data such as devices that were used only for short periods of time or always in the same exact location. The terrorist group has also been steadily picking up the pace when it comes to “old-fashioned detective work.”

Various CIA Spies Caught In Lebanon And Iran is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dr. Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped setup a fake vaccination scheme so the CIA could hunt down and execute terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is currently being held by Pakistani officials and may soon face his own death sentence.

According to reports the doctor is charged with high treason and is being held without access to a lawyer. According to the Guardian allegations have been surfacing that the doctor has also been tortured by Pakistan officials.

In the meantime the doctors arrest is worsening tensions between Pakistan and U.S. Officials with American officers calling Afridi a hero while urging Pakistan officials to release him into US custody so him and his family can settle down to a better life in the United States.

The Pakistani commission only recommended charges against the doctor when the chief of the ISI was interviewed and felt humiliated by the covert American raid.

In the meantime the terrorist friendly nation has recently released restrictions on three of bin Laden’s widows and two daughters who were being held in custody since the Obama compound raid. Obama’s family are said to be returning into Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Do you feel that Pakistan’s stance is going to further the divide between their country, the United States and the rest of the world?

Doctor Who Helped Find Osama bin Laden Might Be Executed is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Senate on Thursday cast a 94-0 vote appointing Gen. David Petraeus at the 20th director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Petraues currently serves as the commanding general for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force.

Nominated by President Obama in April for the position Patraeus will replace outgoing director Leon Panetta.

The four-star general who has served for 37 years is expected to retire from the armed forces before taking on his new role in July, up until his new role begins he will continue his operational efforts in Afghanistan.

When speaking at his confirmation hearing the General said taking on the new role “would be a tremendous honor and a tremendous privilege.”

The role will be no walk in the park for the general who will take over an agency riddled with middle eastern issues in Afghanistan, Iraq and various other regions of the world including China and Yemen. Patraeus will also face vast increases and hurdles in cyber-terrorism and weapons proliferation.

General Patraeus Confirmed As CIA Director is a post from: The Inquisitr

The U.S. and Pakistan’s relations have seen better days since Navy SEALs came in without permission and took out bin Laden. A little over a month after the fact, relations are starting to get even worse.

It was announced Tuesday that Pakistan had captured several CIA informants who played an important role in finding and killing Osama bin Laden. One of the informants, reportedly a Pakistani Army major, owned the safe house the CIA used to spy on bin Laden.

Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, is reported to have captured the informants. The ISI has a rather notorious reputation among intelligence circles, with the agency widely considered to be sinister and having ties with extremists — namely the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The CIA had recently informed Pakistan’s intelligence agency about two compounds used to create and smuggle explosives used to kill American troops in Afghanistan. Before Pakistani soldiers were able to arrive, the militants and explosives had already been evacuated – leading the CIA to believe Pakistan’s ISI tipped off the militants.

U.S. officials told Fox News that the ISI fears CIA presence in Pakistan, worrying that the CIA may uncover the secret service’s ties to extremist groups.

Pakistan Arrests Bin Laden Informants Who Helped Find Him is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hacker group LulzSec has managed to breach more U.S. Security protocols, this time entering the CIA website and taking the portal offline. The group also claims responsibility for taking down a U.S. Senate website and downloading information from the system.

The CIA.Gov website is currently unresponsive to browsing with LulzSec posting the following Tweet:

“Tango down - CIA.gov – for the lulz.”

The LulzSec hacker group has been very active lately, breaching security at the International Monetary Fund, Lockheed Marting, Citigroup, Google and even the less challenging Michael’s craft stores.

Unlike some groups which have been hacked just for the sake of hacking in the past, the team at LulzSec has released various bits of user information all over the internet.

So here’s a question for our readers are you Pro or Con the LulzSec group?

Lulzsec Claims Responsibility For Hacking CIA And Senate Websites is a post from: The Inquisitr

When executing Osama bin Laden U.S. forces were only able to grab what they could carry before quickly evacuating the Pakistani neighborhood they invaded and now Pakistan officials are allowing the CIA to take a closer look at the compound.

The Central Intelligence Agency will be sending in a team of agency forensics specialists in just a few short days who will use high-tech equipment to look for buried objects, items hidden in walls and for other helpful information that may aide in the war on terror.

According to one US Official:

“The assault team was there for only 40 minutes.”

Since Pakistan did not have the necessary equipment to do the sweep they have agreed to allow the CIA into the compound while their own people will be part of the search, helping decipher any materials found that the CIA can not handle with their own means.

Pakistan Gives CIA Permission To Scour Osama bin Laden’s Compound is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Central Intelligence Agency is not surprisingly keeping an eye on Wikileaks, creating a “Wikileaks Task Force.” (Known within the agency simply as “WTF.”)

The WTF’s job is to comb through the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks and assess how the now-publicly available information could cause larger problems. Among US government agencies, the CIA was relatively unscathed by Cablegate, and very little information even namechecking the notoriously tight-lipped CIA was present in the cables. (One notable CIA-related cable was a request for UN diplomats to gather intel.)

Interestingly, it seems from the Washington Post‘s piece that a reticence to commit sensitive information to digital media may have saved the CIA’s ass when it comes to Wikileaks. Per the article, the agency reviewed moving data to shareable digital formats, but opted against such measures due to inherent security risks:

As recently as two years ago, the agency rejected a request to make more of its intelligence reports available on the SIPRNET, the classified network used by the Pentagon to pass information around the world.

“We simply said we weren’t going to do it,” another former CIA official said. “The consensus was there were simply too many people potentially who had access.”

In light of the Wikileaks drama, a former high-ranking CIA official speaking on the condition of anonymity said of the decision:

“It’s just a huge vulnerability… Nobody could carry out enough paper to do what WikiLeaks has done.”

CIA launches WTF- ‘Wikileaks Task Force’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to a story in the Washington Post the CIA was in the process of developing teams of anti-terrorist assassination squads that ended up being shut down when CIA head Leon Panetta found out about them.

While there were apparently plans at the agency to develop these squads for a number of years with the idea of using them to hunt al-Qaeda leaders it wasn’t until recently that the plans were upgraded to a “somewhat more operational phase”.

Once he learned of the plans and shut them down Panetta appeared at Capital Hill to brief lawmakers about the whole deal since they had been kept in the dark about it.

The Obama administration’s top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, yesterday defended Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, which he said had raised serious questions among intelligence officials about its “effectiveness, maturity and the level of control.”

But Blair broke with some Democrats in Congress by asserting that the CIA did not violate the law when it failed to inform lawmakers about the secret program until last month. Blair said agency officials may not have been required to notify Congress about the program, though he believes they should have done so.

Source: The Washington Post

The Democrat lawmakers however feel that the CIA intentionally misled Congress by failing to disclose the program. It was a program that came out of “presidential finding” signed by President George W. Bush shortly after September 11, 2001 that granted the agency broad authority to use deadly force when hunting down bin Laden and other high ranking al-Qaeda members.

CIA head nixed secret plan for assassination squad is a post from: The Inquisitr

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Iranian Ambassador to Mexico Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri implicated the CIA in Neda Agha Soltan’s widely-publicized death.

Via the LA Times, here’s a snippet of the WTF-inducing exchange:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we’re anxious to hear your government’s response to all of these developments which have been very dramatic over the past two weeks. A key question many people around the world are asking is, why did your security forces kill that 26 year-old beautiful student named Nada?

MOHAMMAD HASSAN GHADIRI, IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO: I prefer to answer this in Persian.

BLITZER: Go ahead.

GHADIRI (through translator): This death of Ms. Nada is very suspicious. She was shot from behind. The location was where there was not much demonstration, there was no police presence and the gun that shot and killed her was a smuggled gun. It was not a government-issued gun.

Blitzer is incredulous.

BLITZER:  Are you seriously accusing the CIA of killing Neda?

GHADIRI (through translator): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran.

These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.

BLITZER:  Do you really believe that, Mr. Ambassador?

You’re a distinguished diplomat representing Iran. This is a very serious accusation that you’re making, that the CIA was responsible for killing this beautiful, young woman.

GHADIRI (through translator): I’m not saying that the CIA had done this. There are different groups. Could be intelligence services, could be CIA, could be the terrorists.

Well, it’s nice to know the OMG terrorists don’t just terrorize us poor beleaguered Americans.

CIA spokesman George Little hit back at the allegations, saying:

“Any suggestion that the CIA was responsible for the death of this young woman is wrong, absurd and offensive.”

It should also be noted that Neda was, by most reports, shot in the chest- not the back or the head as Ghadiri seems to think. Ghadiri went on to accuse the international media of digging its propagandist claws into Iran, accusing news outlets of overlooking violent Moussavi supporters and unironically stating:

“Some of the reporters and mass media do not reflect the truth.”

Iranian ambassador implicates CIA in Neda Agha Soltan’s death is a post from: The Inquisitr