Headley’s attacks are not the only ones cited by Feinstein and Clapper. Feinstein also cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant to the U.S. who plotted to blow up the New York subway in 2009. --- of course she's going to use muzzy terrorists to defend data collection. she wouldn't use this:
New documents presented in federal court in Washington, D.C. reveal deep ties between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Dr. Stewart David Nozette, an American astronomer accused of spying for Israel. Two attorneys in the counterespionage unit of the U.S. Department's of Justice National Security division, Deborah Curtis and Heather Schmidt, presented documents found on the scientist's computer. One document, titled "Proposed Operations for 2005-2006," referred to the need to carry out "a penetration of NASA," the U.S. space agency. Another document, according to the prosecution, shows Nozette attempted to obtain highly confidential material by using his high- level security clearance and infiltrating other people's computers. Other documents mention the names of Yossi Weiss and Yossi Fishman. Weiss is a former project manager and today the deputy CEO of IAI and head of the company's missile and space division. Fishman was the IAI's representative in the U.S. and is today the CEO of ODF Optronics. Fishman told Haaretz he knew Nozette the way he knew other Americans employed by the IAI at the time as consultants. "We did not engage in any kind of spying activity or information gathering, perish the thought. The relationship was business as usual." The IAI is not mentioned specifically by name in the documents. It is referred to as a foreign company or as a space company owned by the Israeli government." Background talks with administration officials indicate the references are indeed to IAI. Unreported visits The indictment and the documents indicate that Nozette was employed for nine years as an IAI consultant. Versions vary as to how much he was paid, from $170,000 to $225,000. His direct superior was Israel Aircraft Industries International, a U.S.-registered company. The FBI searched Nozette's home and computer and found additional proof of his connection to Israel. He visited here several times, but did not report this - as is required by his high security clearance. The FBI confiscated letters he wrote to Israelis, reports he forwarded to the IAI, a map of Israel, photos of assorted places in Israel, a Hebrew-language catalog of archaeological artifacts and other items. Nozette, 52, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was arrested after FBI surveillance that included wiretapping and undercover photography. The operation followed the former astronomer's interrogation on suspicion of tax evasion and defrauding the U.S. government. Nozette worked out plea bargain with the Justice Department; he admitted to fraud and accepted a sentence of up to three years in jail, plus a fine of $265,000. His jail term would have started in November, but he was arrested on the new and more serious charge of espionage. Nozette, who was born in Chicago, has Jewish parents but there is no evidence he ever went to synagogue or Jewish community centers. His neighbors said he was "a Zionist" but without evidence attesting to this. From a young age, his interest was science. He studied at the University of Arizona and earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Immediately, in 1983, he went to work for U.S. agencies, including NASA, the Pentagon and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco, which focuses on nuclear weapons. By virtue of these positions, he enjoyed a very high security clearance. One of the important studies he participated in found water at the Moon's southern pole. Nozette subsequently left government work and set up a private company as a consultant to firms in India and the IAI. The latter continues to refuse, vehemently, to address this embarrassing episode, which apparently has not done damage to the company. Nozette was not the only person employed by the company as a consultant. Over the years, the IAI as well as other Israeli defense- related industries operating in the U.S., such as Elbit and Rafael, hired as consultants dozens of Americans, mainly retired former army officers and senior officials. Today as well, the IAI and its subsidiaries in the U.S. continue to do business there and to cultivate ties. It is rather clear to them, and this is indeed fairly routine business practice, that to obtain contracts and win grants from the U.S. administration, doors must be opened. For that, people with connections are needed to open those doors. This was one of Nozette's assignments. Against this backdrop he apparently tried (among other things) to help the "penetration" of NASA. IAI, which produces space missile launchers, satellites and other space technologies, hoped to win contracts and development grants and enter joint ventures. While he was being investigated for fraud, Nozette told a friend he would be willing to work for the Mossad. This information, along with the fact that he was a consultant to the IAI, led the FBI to suspect Nozette of being a Mossad agent, or at least psychologically ready to be one. So a sting operation was set up. An FBI agent pretending to be a Mossad agent met with Nozette and asked him for information. Nozette reportedly agreed, supplied information and received $11,000. These contacts were documented. The indictment does not mention Israel nor has the administration made any complaints. Nevertheless Israel since its establishment systematically conducted spying missions on U.S. soil - for around a quarter of a century. Primarily, it was nuclear and technological- military spying. On Jun 11, 6:34 am, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > Monday, Jun 10, 2013What spying apologists don’t tell you about “thwarted > plots”Defenders of the government's spying programs claim they're stopping > massive attacks. Here's the real storyBy Marcy Wheeler > Listen to defenders of the U.S. government’s recentlyrevealeddata collection > practices, and you’re likely to hear claims about terrorist plots these > sweeping activities have purportedly stopped. > Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., > explained onABC’s “This Week”Sunday that in one of the signature uses of the > dragnet collection of every American’s phone records, the NSA managed to > track one of our own informants, David Headley, as he helped Islamic > terrorists plan attacks. She did not mention that it did nothing to prevent > the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, which killed 166 and in which Headley > had a role in planning. > Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the effort to track > Headley – which did manage to thwart Headley’s 2009 plans to attack a Danish > newspaper – a success, in aninterview with Andrea Mitchell. Such is the value > of these programs, it appears, that top proponents of the program celebrate > the tracking of a DEA informant gone bad as their main talking point. > “U.S. officials say Headley simply slipped through the cracks,”ProPublica > reportedearlier this year in a blockbuster story on Headley. ProPublica > describes competing claims about when the Drug Enforcement Agency, which > first recruited Headley in 1997, stopped using him as an informant; DEA > insists he was deactivated in 2002, while other sources say he remained a > U.S. informant through 2005. What’s clear is that Headley spent the > subsequent years leading up to the 2008 Mumbai attack traveling form Pakistan > to India, casing out the terror plot. > Multiple warnings to the Indian government perhaps based on the intelligence > now being touted failed to prevent the attack. “U.S. officials learned enough > about his activities to become concerned, monitor him intermittently and pick > up fragments of intelligence that contributed to the warnings to India,” > reported ProPublica. At the time of the attack, Headley had returned safely > to Lahore, Pakistan, and he even traveled between there, Chicago and Europe > thereafter, planning another plot. In October 2009, the FBI arrested Headley > in Chicago as he traveled to Pakistan to hand off intelligence for an attack > on Denmark. > Before we start celebrating our finding an informant-turned-terrorist we lost > as one of the successes that makes massive spying worthwhile, shouldn’t we > first get an explanation for how our intelligence agencies lost track of > Headley in the first place? > The flood of missed warnings about Headley’s increasing ties with Islamic > terroristsdid lead to an investigationled by DNI Clapper’s office in 2010, > but the results of it have not been made public. Yet the embarrassment of > having a former American informant play a key role in one of the biggest > attacks since 9/11 doesn’t seem to have prevented Clapper and Feinstein from > boasting of NSA’s success in his case. > Headley’s attacks are not the only ones cited by Feinstein and Clapper. > Feinstein also cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant to the > U.S. who plotted to blow up the New York subway in 2009. FBI’s success in > thwarting Zazi’s attack is probably the most serious publicly known example > of a thwarted attack. To the extent the NSA’s programs played a key role, > then, it is a significant success. > But even there, the claims appear fuzzy or overblown. Feinstein, for example, > describes the success this way (emphasis added): “[Zazi] made the decision > that he was going to blow up a New York subway, who went to a beauty > wholesale supply place, bought enough hydrogen peroxide to make bombs,was > surveilled by the FBI for six months, traveled to go to New York, to meet > with a number of other people who were going to carry out this attack with > him, and were arrested by the FBI, who has pled guilty and in federal prison.” > It’s an interesting use of the word “surveilled,” because according tosworn > court testimonythe lead that identified Zazi was an email account identified > in a British terrorism case, which the NSA tracked. That account, not Zazi, > was surveilled. Days, not months, before Zazi’s planned attack, he sent an > email to the account asking for help making explosives, which led the FBI to > uncover his plot. > PRISM the direct accessto Internet companies’ data,which Clapper’s > officedescribesas a “computer system used to facilitate the government’s > statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from > electronic communication service providers” appears to have been the means by > which FBI conducted this surveillance. A New York Times source explains PRISM > was the only meansto access the email: “It was through an e-mail > correspondence that we had access to only through Prism.” But tracking the > email account would have been legal under the FISA laws in place prior to > 9/11. As such, PRISM seems to have made it easier to capture Zazi, but may > not have been pivotal. > The claim PRISM helped to nab Zazi is new since these revelations. But > Feinstein haslong insistedthat Section 215 the dragnet collection program had > a role, too (she made that claim, in part, to support the reauthorization of > the language used to conduct the dragnet collection in 2009). > That makes the Zazi case troubling too, because there is a good deal > ofcircumstantial evidencethat the government used Section 215 to identify > people in Aurora, Colo., who had, like Zazi, purchased hydrogen peroxide and > acetone, which (in addition to being common household chemicals) are > precursors for the explosives Zazi used. The governmentdescribedthree people > associated with Zazi in an affidavit justifying his detention, implying they > were accomplices. Yet, these three unnamed people never appeared in the legal > case again. They appear to have been completely innocent of any tie to Zazi’s > plot. If so, then, in addition to being a success story, the Zazi case would > also be a perfect example of how these tools can implicate perfectly innocent > people as terrorists for something as innocent as buying hair care supplies. > At the very least, the fuzzy cases Feinstein and Clapper are boasting about > demonstrate the need for far more transparency on these tools. If they’re > justifying a gross incursion on American privacy, in part because they helped > track down an informant our intelligence services lost track of and created > false positives based on hair bleach purchases then we need to seriously > reconsider their > use.http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/what_spying_apologists_dont_want_you_to_know/?source=newsletter -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. 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