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WikiLeaks cables reveal a disturbing picture of India-U.S. relationship: Prakash Karat
“They are a sad commentary of where Manmohan Singh and Congress leadership have landed the country”
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Thursday that the WikiLeaks exposé laid bare the nature of India-U.S. relationship during the UPA and NDA regimes and revealed a disturbing picture.
“The publication and analysis of the U.S. embassy cables accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks is ongoing; but what has been made available so far reveals a disturbing picture… the cables are a sad and revealing commentary of where Manmohan Singh and the Congress leadership have landed the country,” general secretary Prakash Karat said an article in the latest edition of the party organ, People’s Democracy.
Washington’s reach
Commenting on the influential reach of Washington in India’s strategic affairs and foreign and economic policies, he said the U.S. had access to the bureaucracy, military, security and the intelligence system and successfully penetrated them at various levels.
Mr. Karat marks out specific areas — foreign policy, defence cooperation, security and intelligence cooperation, penetration and espionage, political influence and political corruption — where American Read more…
FBI center takes on $1 billion ID project
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Clarksburg FBI complex is taking part in a $1 billion project that will enable law enforcement agencies to identify criminals and terrorists by physical characteristics more quickly and accurately, an FBI official said Monday in Charleston.
Earlier this month, the FBI center unveiled its “Next Generation Identification System,” which will slowly replace an older system that can no longer handle the volume of fingerprints sent to Clarksburg.
“It’s bigger, better, faster,” said Stephen Morris, a deputy assistant director at the FBI Center. “It increases capacity and accuracy.”
Morris spoke Monday at a Charleston Rotary Club luncheon at the Civic Center.
The NGI system, built by Lockheed Martin, allows FBI employees to Read more…
DHS to gain real-time access to DoD biometrics
The Homeland Security Department hopes to soon have real-time access to the military’s biometrics database letting them better sort out who’s who at U.S. points of entry.
The capability will be similar to what DHS is already doing with the FBI, and through it, local law enforcement agencies around the country, said Bob Mocny, director of the Homeland Security Department’s U.S. VISIT program. U.S. VISIT, the office responsible for screening foreign visitors to the U.S.-is the main repository for DHS’ biometric data. That information, mainly fingerprint data, can be shared between DHS and the criminal record system that the FBI holds at its Criminal Justice Information Services division in West Virginia.
Mocny said DHS had already proven the value of biometric information sharing through the Secure Communities program, which lets participating local law enforcement see data Read more…
FBI: 100 Percent Chance of WMD Attack
By Ronald Kessler
Newsmax
The probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction attack at some point is 100 percent, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.
Such an attack could be launched by foreign terrorists, lone wolves who are terrorists, or even by criminal elements, Majidi says. It would most likely employ chemical, biological, or radiological weapons rather than a nuclear device.
CIA Director Leon Panetta Warns of Possible Cyber-Pearl Harbor
Top Intelligence-Security Officials Say Computer Attacks Increasing
By JASON RYAN
Top U.S. intelligence officials have raised concerns about the growing vulnerability the United States faces from cyberwarfare threats and malicious computer activity that CIA Director Leon Panetta said “represents the battleground for the future.”
“The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack,” he testified on Capitol Hill Thursday before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also appeared, telling the committee, “This threat is increasing in scope and scale, and its impact is difficult to overstate.”
There are roughly 60,000 new malicious computer programs identified each day, Clapper said, citing industry estimates.
“Some of these are what we define as advanced, persistent threats, which are Read more…
FBI can obtain phone records without oversight, Justice Dept memo claims
Without court oversight, the nation’s top law enforcement agency can obtain domestic records of telephone conversations made to international receivers, the Justice Department claimed recently.
“[The Office of Legal Counsel] agreed with the FBI that under certain circumstances (word or words redacted) allows the FBI to ask for and obtain these records on a voluntary basis from the providers, without legal process or a qualifying emergency,” the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a recent report by McClatchy Newspapers.
The claim put forth in the document released to McClatchy seemed to indicate that the Obama administration has continued the previous administration’s policies.
The Bush administration maintained that the FBI needed such policing powers in order to stop possible terrorism. Critics of the FBI’s surveillance program stated that the tactic was frequently applied in abusive manners.
Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told McClatchy that the OLC’s disclosure that Read more…
Yes, Islamists Are Coming Through Mexico
Said Jaziri was seen getting in the trunk of a smuggler’s car by bystanders, captured only by luck and their patriotism.
When chaos reigns supreme in a nation that shares an almost two-thousand mile border with the United States, and that border is not protected to the extent it should be, undesirable elements sneaking their way from Mexico into the U.S. becomes the rule instead of the exception. We have all been made aware of the drug shipments that come into the U.S. through the porous and undermanned Mexican border, and we all know of the steady stream of Mexicans that for decades have snuck through looking for a better life in the U.S. for themselves and their families back in Mexico. However, it is next to impossible to tell who else comes across the U.S./Mexico border until they are apprehended, or worse.
On January 11, U.S. Border Patrol agents pulled over a BMW near the Golden Acorn Casino, 50 miles east of San Diego, California. The vehicle was driven by Kenneth R. Lawler. Border Patrol agents found Lawler had tucked away in the trunk of his car a souvenir of sorts from Mexico: a radical Muslim cleric by the name of Said Jaziri.
Lawler was arrested and is being held on charges of alien smuggling, while Jaziri is being held for Read more…
40,000 FBI Intelligence Violations from 2001 – 2008
Executive Summary
In a review of nearly 2,500 pages of documents released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, EFF uncovered alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices. The documents consist of reports made by the FBI to the Intelligence Oversight Board of violations committed during intelligence investigations from 2001 to 2008. The documents suggest that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. In particular, EFF’s analysis provides new insight into:
Number of Violations Committed by the FBI
- From 2001 to 2008, the FBI reported to the IOB approximately 800 violations of laws, Executive Orders, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations, although this number likely significantly under-represents the number of violations that actually occurred.
- From 2001 to 2008, the FBI investigated, at minimum, 7000 potential violations of laws, Executive Orders, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations.
- Based on the proportion of violations reported to the IOB and the FBI’s own statements regarding the number of NSL violations that occurred, the actual number of violations that may have occurred from 2001 to 2008 could approach 40,000 possible violations of law, Executive Order, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations.1
Substantial Delays in the Intelligence Oversight Process Read more…
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