JONATHAN POLLARD IS WHERE HE BELONGS ~~ IN PRISON!

March 18, 2013 at 17:31 (Espionage, Israel)

 Finally a zionist speaks the truth about the situation …
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Pollard is not a prisoner of Zion, but a man who committed a serious crime for financial gain and glory.
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Jonathan Pollard is no Prisoner of Zion

The ‘Free Pollard’ campaign ahead of Obama’s visit is a disgrace to American Zionists and U.S.-Israel relations. The bare truth is that he committed espionage for financial gain and glory.

By Barbara Opall-Rome *
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Israeli supporters hold a banner calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard from a U.S. prison

Israeli supporters hold a banner calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard from a U.S. prison. Jerusalem, March 15, 2013. Photo by Reuters
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It was galling enough, during the last U.S. presidential visit here in May 2008, to see Rafi Eitan, the mastermind of the Jonathan Pollard spy fiasco, sitting smugly in the Knesset alongside other government ministers as George W. Bush paid tribute to the unbreakable alliance and even deeper friendship binding the two nations.

But the concerted government clemency campaign targeting U.S. President Barack Obama during his long-awaited visit here is disgraceful, and potentially damaging to those unshakable, unbreakable bonds that American Zionists like me hold dear.

As Obama made abundantly clear in his March 14 interview with Channel 2’s Yonit Levy, the American justice system offers periodic review for felons like Pollard seeking early release. Yet the self-confessed spy has never exercised his right to seek parole.

Rightly or wrongly, Pollard’s attorneys advised him to forgo this route when it first became available in 1995, 10 years after his arrest outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. At the time, they feared a rejection would set aside the issue for 15 years and jeopardize Pollard’s chances for political clemency.

But since then, the former U.S. Naval Intelligence analyst who sold secrets to Israel has squandered numerous such opportunities. He becomes automatically eligible for parole after 30 years; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons projects his release date for November 21, 2015.

With Obama now on record as having no intention of authorizing Pollard’s immediate release, it’s time to seek judicial rather than political remedy for this blight on U.S.-Israel relations.

At such a critical point in strategic cooperation, when clarity must govern how our two countries move forward on the Iranian nuclear threat and other key issues, the bilateral agenda should not be clouded with misrepresentations of prisoner 09185-016 doing time in North Carolina.

So let’s be clear:

Pollard is not a prisoner of Zion, but a man who committed a serious crime for financial gain and glory.

Pollard was not sentenced for unauthorized transfer of classified information to Israel, but for espionage, pure and simple. U.S. law does not distinguish idealistic from nefarious motivations, nor does it matter whether classified documents were stolen on behalf of friend or foe.

Pollard has not spent the past 9,976 days “in captivity,” as the Justice for Jonathan Pollard website claims, but as a ward of the U.S. Federal justice system. Captivity connotes a hostage or prisoner-of-war scenario. Jonathan Pollard is no Gilad Shalit; he’s serving his time under U.S. law.

From the very beginning, Pollard has painted himself as a protector of Israel forced to choose between the law and his conscience. This narrative obviously resonates in Israel, but patriotic and law-abiding, yet passionately pro-Israel Americans at the highest levels of Democratic and Republican administrations over 28 years find it repulsive.

Israel violated the sanctity of its “brit” [alliance] with Washington when it decided to play Pollard and it continued its insult over more than a decade of vacuous denial. The relentless harassment of U.S. presidents keeps this issue alive and adds further insult to injury.

The very real prospect of being released on parole would oblige Pollard to check in regularly with an officer of the state. While that may deny Pollard’s dream of a hero’s welcome in Israel, and perhaps a cushy chair at a local think tank, it would effectively close this invidious chapter in an otherwise inspiring and hopefully eternal saga of U.S.-Israel friendship.

 

*Barbara Opall-Rome is Israel bureau chief for Defense News. 

 

 

Source

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JONATHAN POLLARD; GUILTY AS CHARGED!

December 15, 2012 at 16:02 (Espionage, Israel)

Despite constant cries from the zionists of injustice in the case, here’s why the man will never be released!
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Pollard’s detailed confession, verified by polygraph tests, was published on Friday by the National Security Archive in Washington, a private research and documentation institute associated with George Washington University in the American capital.
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Newly revealed CIA document shows Jonathan Pollard was asked to get intel on Israel

The convicted Israeli-American spy’s statements under questioning after his imprisonment in the U.S. have been published by the National Security Archive in Washington.

By Amir Oren
Jonathan Pollard during an interview, May 15, 1998.
Jonathan Pollard during an interview at the Federal Correction Institution in Butner, North Carolina, May 15, 1998. Photo by AP

In the first half of the 1980′s, Rafi Eitan, the head of “Lekem” (The Bureau of Scientific Relations in the Defense Ministry), and a former Shin Bet Security Services and Mossad man who would later become a government minister, asked an agent of the bureau, Jonathan Pollard, to provide him with “dirt” on Israeli politicians, according to the convicted Israeli-American spy’s statements under questioning after his imprisonment in the United States.

Pollard has been imprisoned in a U.S. jail for the past 27 years, after receiving a life sentence in 1987 for spying on behalf of Israel. Before that, he worked as a civilian analyst for U.S. Navy intelligence.

Pollard’s detailed confession, verified by polygraph tests, was published on Friday by the National Security Archive in Washington, a private research and documentation institute associated with George Washington University in the American capital.

Pollard’s confession was included in a damage-control document, 160 pages long, that was compiled by the Pentagon after he was found guilty and sentenced to life.

Until now, only a highly censored version of this document has been published, but the National Security Archive succeeded in its battle to lift censorship on many of the sections.

The newly released information reveals Pollard told his interrogators that Eitan asked him to provide information that would help identify Israelis who provide information to the United States. The investigators concluded that his collaboration with them was sincere and complete.

In their opinion, Pollard agreed to the requests of his handlers in Israel, but went even further and provided additional material on his own initiative. He passed Israel thousands of documents, including ones attributed the highest levels of classification – higher even than “top secret.”

Eitan asked Pollard for psychological analyses of Israeli figures that were written by CIA experts and other dirt on senior Israeli officials, as well as information that could help locate Israeli molesn other words, Israelis that Eitan believes leaked information to Americans. In the accepted jargon of the security establishment, “disreputables” or “dirt-throwers” which Pollard reconstructed from his conversation with Eitan, is better known as “black material.”

Pollard says – and the report highlights the corroboration of his story with the polygraph test – that Yossi Yagur, his operator on behalf of the Bureau of Scientific Relations, under the guise of his official position as Consul of Sciences in New York, stood behind Eitan during a meeting in Paris and shook his head emphatically in response to the requests. Afterwards, while Eitan was not present, Yagur told Pollard the operation would stop if he acceded to Eitan’s requests.


Yagur was a state employee, while Eitan, whose hopes of becoming the head of the Mossad were shattered, and who served as an adviser on counterterrorism under Begin and Shamir – while at the same time serving as head of the Bureau of Scientific Relations – was close to Ariel Sharon. The paragraph that summarizes the affair determines whether Pollard did in fact transfer “dirt” or avoided it, was censored so that the question remains unanswered.

The authors of the damage control document determined that Pollard had endangered sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence community, as well as intelligence cooperation and state interests. Another risk was inherent in the passing of classified intelligence from Israel to other countries. Among other things, information from Pollard helped Israel in planning a 1985 attack on the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunis (Operation Wooden Leg).

The findings of the document included the following:

• Since he was a youth, Pollard suffered from problems of emotional and mental stability. He often suffered from hallucinations (he boasted, as a student, that he was a Mossad agent, waving a gun) and was not accepted to a CIA program because of his use of soft drugs.

• Eitan advised him to resign from naval intelligence, so he would not have to take a polygraph test.

• Joseph Yagur, his handler at Lekem under the guise of the scientific consul in New York, told Pollard that the highest-ranking officials in the Israeli government knew and appreciated his material.

• Pollard told his interrogators that if he had not been captured he would have tried to be accepted to the research unit of the State Department, where no polygraph test was required for entry. In his new role, he would have been exposed to classified material and maybe also have served as an agent of influence.

• A top priority for his handlers was intelligence on nuclear weapons in Arab states and Pakistan. Following that were the following tasks, in descending order of priority: special weapons capability, such as chemical and biological weapons, of those states; Soviet warplanes; the Soviet air defense system (ground-to-air missiles); Soviet air-to-air missiles and ground-to-air missiles; and the military organization, forces, deployment and readiness of Arab states.

Pollard rationalized his motivation saying he was trying to help Israel win its next war. U.S. intelligence plainly commented that the Israel Defense Forces would have easily achieved victory without Pollard’s help.

The ongoing negligence in supervising Pollard is clear in light of his behavior, which often raised cause for concern but not sufficiently to lead to the termination of his service. He used cannabis and cocaine, got involved in a bar brawl in which he identified himself as an intelligence agent, and became entangled in financial problems on the eve of his encounter with Israeli agents that offered him a generous monthly wage in return for information.

Among the falsehoods Pollard told his coworkers over the years was that he was stationed in Syria by the CIA, captured, and tortured. He claimed to have extensive connections in South Africa as his father was the head of the CIA delegation in that African nation. His colleagues ignored his eccentricities because he was an intelligent and creative research officer. Despite the fact that he was diagnosed as a compulsive liar by a navy psychologist who recommended he be transferred to work in unclassified fields, he was promoted again and again, gaining access to classified material outside his field of expertise.

Later on, a psychiatrist deemed him fit for duty despite that he ran the risk of divulging classified information, but not of espionage. He recommended Pollard undergo psychiatric treatment but Pollard ignored this. Pollard was sent to South Africa to receive information from the military attaché stationed there at the time. He provided the attaché with classified information, violating explicit orders. This led to an investigation into his conduct codenamed “Swan Song,” but the file was closed and no disciplinary action was taken.

Becoming an Israeli agent

Pollard’s debriefing file describes how he became an Israeli agent, starting with his meetings – held in Hebrew – with Colonel Aviam Sela, one of the Israeli Air Force’s top officers and described as a commander “groomed to become commander of the air force.” Sela instructed Pollard to provide him with a list of payphones around his home. Each of these payphones was assigned a Hebrew letter, with which Pollard was instructed which payphone he was to wait at to be contacted.

Among the first documents Pollard provided Sela, in addition to information about the Syrian military, was a satellite image of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, bombed by the Israeli Air Force in 1981 according to a mission plan written by Sela himself as head of the Air Force’s Operations Department. Unlike the rest of the document acquired by Pollard, the satellite image wasn’t returned from whence it was taken but was kept by Sela as a souvenir.

In order to explain the source of funding for a trip to Paris, Pollard took an order to meet with an Israeli agent, a fictitious uncle that was conjured up for Pollard: Joe Fisher. Pollard’s trip to Paris together with his partner Ann Anderson was explained as an engagement gift from the fictitious “Uncle Fisher”. During this trip Pollard was asked to provide his pay stub so that his salary from Israel may be determined. His monthly salary was set at $1,500 at first and then raised to $2,500 in recognition of the “quantity and quality” of the information he provided. This salary corresponded roughly with his American salary.

At the meeting in Paris, Pollard was asked to provide “dirt” on Israeli politicians, information on Israelis reporting to the Americans, as well as, ongoing American intelligence operations on Israel. He was also asked to provide a guide on American signet – signal intelligence and material on Yassar Arafat’s Force 17. The Israeli agent gave Pollard a stark assessment on the balance of power between Israel and Syria. At the end of this Paris trip, Pollard was sworn in as an Israeli and was promised a passport under the name “Danny Cohen” would be issued for him.

At another meeting with an Israeli agent, this time at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. At this meeting, Pollard was promised that in addition to his salary he would receive an annual $30,000, which would be deposited into a Swiss bank account, and that after ten years of spying for Israel he and his family would be able to immigrate to Israel and start a new life with the funds accumulated in the Swiss bank account. Pollard told his investigators he was shocked to find out that Israel was planning to use him for an entire decade.

The investigation concluded, among other things, that using polygraph tests is efficient, even as a deterrent; that it is important to suspend exposure of officials to classified material until background security checks are complete; and that superiors must pay close attention to strange and unusual behavior among their staff.

Source

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JONATHAN POLLARD ~~ ALL FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY, NOT ISRAEL

June 12, 2012 at 07:51 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel, zionism)

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“What was motivating Jonathan Pollard was the number one thing that has motivated people to turn traitors and betray their country for decades and centuries: greed, money. And now though, now he pretends that it was for the love of Israel only, and now he has tens of thousands of supporters trying to get him out of jail.”
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For love of money, not Israel: Will Obama cave in to Israel’s demands to free spy Jonathan Pollard?

Submitted by Ali Abunimah 
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Israeli President Shimon Peres has arrived in Washington, where President Barack Obama will pin the Medal of Freedom on him. But that’s not the only trophy Peres will be seeking from Obama.

Haaretz reports that Peres will arrive “equipped with a signed petition calling for the release of Israeli convicted spy Jonathan Pollard,” and that “Peres said the matter will be discussed with Obama in private.”

It was 27 years ago, when Peres was prime minister of Israel and Obama was a community organizer in Chicago, that Pollard, a US Naval intelligence officer was caught spying on the United States for Israel.

“It was the worst case that I have ever seen out of all the spy cases and the reason it was, and the reason it was so devastating is that this man is the only man I know who committed espionage who could have been stopped from the very beginning,” said Ron Olive, the Navy counterintelligence officer who cracked the case, speaking on the BBC World Service’s program Witness on 7 June.

“Jonathan Pollard stole so many documents, so highly classified, more so than any other spy in the history of this country in such a short time,” Olive said.

Over 18 months, Pollard spirited highly classified US government documents to an apartment, where a secretary from the Israeli embassy would copy them before Pollard checked them back in.

Pollard was formally arrested in November 1985, after he and his wife unsuccessfully tried to gain asylum at the Israeli embassy. He pleaded guilty to spying for Israel and was sentenced to life in prison in March 1987. Pollard’s wife Ann served three years in prison as an accomplice.

Zionist hero

The Israeli government and Zionist groups have campaigned for Pollard’s release, marketing him as a man who did what he did out of concern for Israel and putting pressure on Obama and his predecessors to free him.

Olive doesn’t buy that: “Pollard is an extremely intelligent person. He was the type of guy who could talk your shirt off your back and make you believe anything he said.

An example of that, is that even after US government investigators found piles of secret documents hidden around Pollard’s apartment, FBI agents at first bought his story that he had brought the documents home to work on them and absent-mindedly forgotten about them.

For love of money, not Israel

What motivated Pollard who received tens of thousands of dollars from Israel? In Olive’s mind the answer is clear: “What was motivating Jonathan Pollard was the number one thing that has motivated people to turn traitors and betray their country for decades and centuries: greed, money. And now though, now he pretends that it was for the love of Israel only, and now he has tens of thousands of supporters trying to get him out of jail.”

One of those supporters will be at the White House receiving the highest civilian honor from the US president. The question is whether Obama – who is desperate to ingratiate himself with Israel and its US chorus – will become one too.

Writing at Antiwar, Grant Smith thinks Obama will cave, and do so even though all the evidence is that despite the embarrassment of Pollard, Israel continues to spy on the United States, and get away with it.

 

Written FOR

4 Comments

NYPD: FROM RACIAL PROFILING TO DOWNRIGHT INTERNAL ESPIONAGE

March 25, 2012 at 09:35 (Espionage, Guest Post, International Solidarity, Palestine)

NYPD surveillance document reveals spying on Palestine solidarity movement

Alex Kane

 

(Photo: Getty Images/Newsday)

The Associated Press reveals today that New York Police Department (NYPD) intelligence agents traveled around the country and spied on a number of social justice groups and individuals, including those in the Palestine solidarity movement.

The revelation, based on a 2008 police document the AP obtained, is the latest in their months-long investigationinto New York Police Department spying. The AP series has exposed the NYPD’s massive surveillance of Muslims communities in the Northeast. (Read more Mondoweisscoverage of the NYPD spying operation here.)

From the AP:

In April 2008, an undercover NYPD officer traveled to New Orleans to attend the People’s Summit, a gathering of liberal groups organized around their shared opposition to U.S. economic policy and the effect of trade agreements between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

When the undercover effort was summarized for supervisors, it identified groups opposed to U.S. immigration policy, labor laws and racial profiling. Two activists — Jordan Flaherty, a journalist, and Marisa Franco, a labor organizer for housekeepers and nannies — were mentioned by name in one of the police intelligence reports obtained by the AP.

“One workshop was led by Jordan Flaherty, former member of the International Solidarity Movement Chapter in New York City,” officers wrote in an April 25, 2008, memo to David Cohen, the NYPD’s top intelligence officer. “Mr. Flaherty is an editor and journalist of the Left Turn Magazine and was one of the main organizers of the conference. Mr. Flaherty held a discussion calling for the increase of the divestment campaign of Israel and mentioned two events related to Palestine.”

Flaherty is a long-time journalist and community organizer who was the first writer to break the story of the Jena 6. He has also reported from Gaza for theElectronic Intifada.

The document detailing the surveillance activities can bedownloaded here. Flaherty wasn’t the only activist involved in Palestine-related work that caught the attention of the NYPD. The police memo also reads:

There may be a counter demonstration by a Palestinian organization held near Washington Square Park on May 8,2008 against the 60 year independence of Israel…

The second counter demonstration pertains to the celebration of the Nakba (destruction) being held at the Civic Center of San Francisco. The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (AL-A WDA) is sponsoring the event to be held on May 10, 2008.

These revelations could also be further proof that the NYPD is operating outside federal guidelines on counter-terrorism operations, as weak as they are. These guidelines allowed the NYPD to “attend any public event or gathering on the same basis as another member of the public,” according to Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center at NYU School of Law. But the guidelines also “say that the NYPD can’t retain the information it gathers from such public events unless it is connected to suspected criminal or terrorist activity.”

Source 

2 Comments

WAITING FOR THE LIGHTS TO DIM…

June 19, 2011 at 11:09 (DesertPeace Editorial, Espionage, Nostalgia)

LOOKING BACK AT THE ROSENBERG EXECUTION
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Sketches of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg presented to their sons by the artist Pablo Picasso
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It was a Friday evening, 58 years ago today, that I sat in my bedroom waiting for the lights to dim. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were about to be electrocuted in Sing Sing Prison and I imagined the powerful surge of power causing a brown out in our own home. When that didn’t happen, I thought to myself that perhaps there was a stay of execution …. but I was wrong. Despite the protests, despite the appeals from world leaders, the couple was put to death just one minute before the Sabbath entered, as not to violate the sanctity of the day. It was a reminder of Christ’s execution, also rushed as not to violate the Sabbath.
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Many of us were told that they were innocent of the charges of espionage. We were told that they were the ‘first victims of American fascism’. We were told decades later that this might not have been the case.
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They left behind two young sons, Michael and Robert, one my age and the other two years older. I could not imagine what these two were going through and could not comprehend how the government rendered them orphans with the flick of a switch.
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From a Guardian report of two years ago we can get a glimpse of their reactions that day which changed their lives forever….
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It’s early evening on Friday 19 June 1953, and in a garden in New Jersey two little boys, brothers aged six and 10, are playing baseball. The light starts to fade, but the boys play on. Strangely, because this isn’t normally how it is, no adults come to call them in. The children continue. Eventually it gets so dark that they can’t see the ball any more. But still they go on playing.

Deep in their hearts, these little boys know that something appalling, something devastating, something almost too terrible to contemplate, is happening. Deep in their hearts, they know that as soon as they step back into the house, their lives will be changed horribly, and for ever.

Eventually, reluctantly, the boys head inside. Robert, the younger of the two, is a bit hazy about what happens next. He remembers Michael, his brother, becoming distraught, and he remembers the adults trying to console him. He remembers realising, with the black-and-white clarity of a child’s take on the world, that his six-year-old brain simply isn’t equipped to deal with the awfulness of the evening’s events. He remembers going to bed, and trying to shut everything out. He remembers feeling that if he just feigns ignorance the grown-ups will leave him alone and then he can start to deal with the nightmare as best he can.

What has just happened is that Robert and Michael’s parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been executed. At one minute before sundown, while the children were in the garden, their parents – one aged 35, the other 37 – were strapped into an electric chair in Sing Sing prison, near New York. Julius first, then Ethel. In the time that elapsed between the boys going out to play and coming inside again, their country has made them orphans.

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 At a meeting held in New York last week, the younger son, Robert Meerapol, shared the following with the audience;  He said he hasn’t gone to one of these commemorations in decades because they presented his parents as poor, innocent victims.  They weren’t – they knew what they were doing and they made the decisions with deliberation.  He disagreed with their decisions but he does so with 60 years of hindsight.  He knew why they did what they did and as parents of 2 little kids, he would have done otherwise.  That being said, he is glad to be their son and he much rather be their child than the child of Greenglass.  He said much more but that was the essence.   He wants the case reopened because his parents were not guilty of what they were executed for – they knew no atomic secrets and couldn’t/didn’t pass them on to anyone.  Evidence against them was a total creation.
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Greenglass was the brother of Ethel, the man who pointed his finger at the Rosenbergs in order to save his own skin for the guilt on his part. The ‘buck stopped there’, Julius and Ethel refused to point fingers or name names…. for that the maximum penalty had to be paid. Again, their sons reflected on this in a Los Angeles Times report from two years ago. It is definitely worth reading and can be done so HERE.*

The Rosenberg case, like so many others that followed, leaves us all with many unanswered questions. Hopefully, at least in this particular one, the Meerapols will be successful in their endeavors to reopen the files. It could possibly lead to many other cases finally coming to light and ending the decades of silence on the part of the US government, which in itself is a great crime.

1 Comment

DESPITE BIBI’S ‘AKS’, POLLARD DEVESTATED

May 28, 2011 at 17:10 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel)

Seems like all the ass kissing sessions in the world will not release Jonathan Pollard from prison.
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Esther Pollard described herself as “heartbroken, deeply shocked, and genuinely distressed.” She said her husband was in “an excruciating state” and that it was “torture” for Jonathan to be kept in the dark.
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He should have thought of these consequences before he agreed to spy on the United States. Bibi claims that Israel is America’s best friend …. YOU DON’T DO THAT TO FRIENDS!
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Jonathan Pollard Devastated By No Update From Bibi

Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard is upset that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not updated him via his wife Esther since his meeting last Friday with US President Barack Obama, Pollard told The Jerusalem Post through Esther Thursday night.

Esther Pollard said officials in the Prime Minister’s Office had promised her that she would be updated soon after the meeting in the White House and that Netanyahu would meet with her soon after his return to Jerusalem. An official response from the Prime Minister’s Office denied that such a promise had been made.

“Jonathan told me that every day that passes without any word from the prime minister is another day that he feels he is being thrown out of the Embassy in Washington all over again,” Esther Pollard said. “I am devastated by the sadness and disappointment I hear in Jonathan’s voice every time he calls and asks me if we have had any word from the PM or the PMO yet. I know that it breaks his heart all over again every time that I have to tell him that no one has been in touch with us at all.”

Esther Pollard described herself as “heartbroken, deeply shocked, and genuinely distressed.” She said her husband was in “an excruciating state” and that it was “torture” for Jonathan to be kept in the dark.

“Jonathan urgently requires a status update,” she said. “Information is his oxygen. It is what keeps him alive and gives him the strength to hold on one more day. Even a negative report from Netanyahu or his office would be preferable to the anguish that Jonathan is experiencing, being cut off and rejected once again.”

 

Reported AT

11 Comments

BLACK HAT BLACKMAIL

April 18, 2011 at 07:52 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel)

The Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, told congregants in a Sabbath sermon that if U.S. President Barack Obama seeks reelection, he must release Jonathan Pollard, Israel Radio reported on Sunday

Israel chief rabbi says Obama must free Pollard if he wants another term

Yona Metzger tells congregants in a Shabbat sermon that Jews who voted for Obama are disappointed, and U.S. president should release Pollard as mark of good faith.

The Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, told congregants in a Sabbath sermon that if U.S. President Barack Obama seeks reelection, he must release Jonathan Pollard, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

In the sermon delivered at Yeshurun Synagogue in Jerusalem on Saturday, Metzger told said there was a feeling that many American Jews that had supported Obama in the last election were disappointed in him, in no small part because of Obama’s indifference to Pollard.

A civilian employee for the United States Navy, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying for Israel. He is incarcerated at a federal jail in North Carolina.

“If Obama wishes to dictate Israeli policy, he must show that he has mutual interests with Israel,” Israel Radio quoted Metzger as saying. The rabbi reportedly added that these “mutual interests” should be shown through releasing Pollard.

Pollard’s release has long been a bone of contention between Isael and its chief ally. In January, the Prime Minister’s Office sent a letter to Obama requesting the convicted spy’s release on humanitarian grounds. This marked the first formal request by Israel for the release of Pollard.

“Even though Israel was in no way directing its intelligence efforts against the United States, its actions were wrong and wholly unacceptable,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in the letter. “Both Mr. Pollard and the Government of Israel have repeatedly expressed remorse for these actions, and Israel will continue to abide by its commitment that such wrongful actions will never be repeated.”

Pollard’s health has reportedly been in decline, and he has been hospitalized on several occasions. Last month, he cancelled a meeting with Israel Social Affairs Minister Moshe Kahlon because he was feeling ill.

The United States responded to Netanyahu’s announcement of his decision to send the letter by saying only that Pollard at present is still incarcerated.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has raised this from time to time, both in his current incarnation and in his previous incarnation,” State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said.  “All I can tell you is Jonathan Pollard remains in prison.”

Source

Is this where the ‘Chutztpah’ comes from?

7 Comments

JONATHAN POLLARD; THE SPY THAT WON’T BE COMING IN FROM THE COLD

January 7, 2011 at 10:33 (Chutzpah, DesertPeace Editorial, Espionage, Israel)


Never in my political life have I seen an ‘episode’ such as the Pollard Affair. When he was arrested almost three decades ago for spying on the United States for Israel it made headline news. But…. it was ‘news’ that apparently not too many folks were interested in reading about so it was kept pretty quiet.

From the beginning it reminded me of the opening lines of a TV drama called ‘Mission Impossible’ which were “the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions”. That is basically what happened, Israel disavowed any knowledge of his actions. The price of telling the truth was too high a risk to lose 3 BILLION dollars a year.

But the chutzpah of it all…. Israel spying on it’s best friend, the very source that literally keeps them on the map. The United States has every right to carry out and continue the life sentence that Pollard received. Israel thinks otherwise at this point and has lately pressured the US government for his release, even ‘promising’ a settlement freeze in exchange. The most recent round of chutzpah emerged this past week as can be seen in THIS report.

It is quickly forgotten by too many that Pollard is not the first, and certainly won’t be the last who was caught spying for Israel. I see his incarceration as the example of why not to do these things… simple and to the point! You just don’t treat ‘friends’ as if they were your enemy. It is not just Pollard that must learn this lesson, it’s the entire state of Israel.

Needless to say, our resident ‘Psycho Gal’ disagrees with me and emotionally presents the following….

 

With her illogical ‘logic’, Bernard Madoff should also be released because he is Jewish. BTW, the two are in the same Federal Prison.

Pollard’s wife also tries to pull at our heartstrings in this interview….


Ms. Pollard claims that ’26 years is enough’ ….. ummmmm what about the 63 years that the entire nation of Palestine has been imprisoned by Israel? Was there justice for Palestine before Pollard? Will there be if he’s released??
Was there Peace before Pollard? Will there be if he’s released??
CAN DONKEYS FLY???

C’mon guys, lets get real!  It would be in the best interest of Israel to drop this and concentrate on reality… that being the creation of Justice and Peace in the region ….. Pollard will and should rot where he is, and justifiably so.

A satirical essay on the Pollard affair can be seen HERE.

6 Comments

ISRAEL/USA ~~ SPY Vs SPY

November 29, 2010 at 09:13 (Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel)

Good for the goose, but not for the gander?

It’s OK for Israel to spy on the United States but the reverse is forbidden? Assuming the following allegations are true, for once, the United States is justified in its actions… 


U.S. spied on Israel’s Washington embassy, claims ex-envoy

Wire-tapping began at some point after 1996 and took a number of years for embassy officials to discover, says Itamar Rabinovich.

The United States broke an Israeli code and tapped the secure phone line in the Israeli Embassy in Washington without Jerusalem’s knowledge.

That revelation about Israeli-American relations did not come from WikiLeaks, but rather from former ambassador to Washington Itamar Rabinovich, in a radio interview yesterday.

rabinovich - Alon Ron - November 29 2010  

Former ambassador to Washington Itamar Rabinovich.
Photo by: Alon Ron

Rabinovich did not say exactly when the code was broken and when Israel found out about it, but it was understood from his remarks that the tap started after his 1993-1996 tenure in the U.S. capital and was discovered only years later.

The former envoy said that every staffer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington is warned about possible leaks of conversations held in the building and on ordinary phone lines, but also on the secure phone line.

After the Americans broke the code, Israel’s deepest policy secrets were apparently exposed.

“Every ‘juicy’ telegram was in danger of being leaked,” Rabinovich told Army Radio’s Razi Barkai. “We sent very few of them. Sometimes I came to Israel to deliver reports orally. The Americans were certainly tapping the regular phone lines, and it became clear that in later years they were also listening to the secure line.”

Wiretapping, code-breaking and intercepting of messages is the province of the National Security Agency. It is no secret that despite intelligence cooperation and an understanding between the two countries that they will not spy on each other, both Israel and the United States have been involved in such actions.

For example, Israel has had involvements with agents like Jonathan Pollard, and stolen sensitive information and technological secrets for its security industries.

No spies caught

As far as is known, American spies have not been caught by Israel’s intelligence services, although there have been instances when U.S. intelligence operatives contacted Israeli citizens and explored the possibility of recruiting them.

The Americans have also used their military attaches to gather information.

Israel believes that over the years, U.S. intelligence services have been listening – or at least attempting to listen – to conversations between key people in Israel and staff at its missions around the world.

For that reason, diplomats going abroad are instructed by the Shin Bet security service to treat every conversation as if it is being tapped and to make sure not to reveal secret information.

However, the assumption was still that the secure phone line could not being tapped.

 

Source

5 Comments

SEX, DIRT AND AIPAC

November 20, 2010 at 10:16 (AIPAC, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel)

AIPAC claims that Rosen, who was director of foreign policy issues at the lobby and one of its most senior and well-known employees, had engaged in viewing pornography on AIPAC computers at the lobby’s Washington offices. Partial transcripts of the lengthy videotaped deposition of Rosen, which were made public as part of AIPAC’s motion, show Rosen admitted to surfing pornographic websites from work.

AIPAC Gets Down and Dirty in Pushback vs. Defamation Suit

At War: Steve Rosen (left), the former policy director at AIPAC, is embroiled in a bitter legal fight with the pro-Israel lobbying group. Recent AIPAC filings in the case have taken a salacious turn.  

GETTY IMAGES
At War: Steve Rosen (left), the former policy director at AIPAC, is embroiled in a bitter legal fight with the pro-Israel lobbying group. Recent AIPAC filings in the case have taken a salacious turn.

Washington — The espionage case against two senior officials of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington was dropped last year. But it has not been forgotten, and it’s now threatening to draw the lobby into new depths of mudslinging.

Papers filed in the civil lawsuit of former lobbyist Steve Rosen against his previous employers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee include mutual accusations of using pornographic material at the lobby headquarters, among other allegations. The papers, based on depositions taken from Rosen and from AIPAC principals, dig into the private lives of the involved parties. They also reveal in detail the close ties AIPAC officials held with Israeli diplomats based in Washington.

“After reading this stuff, you feel like you need to wash your hands,” one pro-Israel activist said after skimming through the 260-page document, which is laced with graphic descriptions and invasive personal details.

At issue is Rosen’s $20 million defamation lawsuit against his previous employers at AIPAC, who fired him and his colleague Keith Weissman in 2005 — several months after both had been indicted under a rarely used espionage statute because they allegedly received and passed on classified information. AIPAC, in a move that could be seen as meant to embarrass Rosen, revealed in its court filings extensive parts of the depositions, many of them dealing directly with Rosen’s personal life.

In an interview with the Forward after the court documents had been made public, Rosen said he was not deterred, and promised that when he files his own motion in December, the information in it will put AIPAC in the hot seat. “Any embarrassment I suffered as a result of what they filed will be insignificant compared to the embarrassment they’ll suffer after we file our motion,” Rosen said.

Rosen’s civil lawsuit seeks compensation and damages from AIPAC and from its outside public relations adviser, Patrick Dorton, for defamation. Rosen said he suffered severe damage to his reputation when

Dorton issued a statement on AIPAC’s behalf announcing that he and Weissman were fired because their actions did not comport with AIPAC standards. This statement was initially understood as being related to the allegations of Rosen receiving classified information and communicating it to others against AIPAC’s policy. But in its motion for summary judgment, filed November 5 with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, AIPAC cites a wider array of alleged points of misconduct that the pro-Israel lobby now says led to the decision to terminate him.

AIPAC claims that Rosen, who was director of foreign policy issues at the lobby and one of its most senior and well-known employees, had engaged in viewing pornography on AIPAC computers at the lobby’s Washington offices. Partial transcripts of the lengthy videotaped deposition of Rosen, which were made public as part of AIPAC’s motion, show Rosen admitted to surfing pornographic websites from work. But AIPAC’s lawyers insisted on more details:

Q: What type of pornography?

A: Sexual pornography.

Q: What type? Man on man, man on woman?

A: Anything. Anything that occurred to me.

Rosen also added more details than, perhaps, the attorney for AIPAC had bargained for.

“I witnessed [AIPAC executive director] Howard Kohr viewing pornographic material, [Kohr’s secretary] Annette Franzen viewing pornographic material, probably a dozen other members of the staff,” Rosen said in his deposition. He added that, according to a Nielsen survey, more than a quarter of Americans regularly view pornographic websites at their workplace.

Later in his deposition, the former lobbyist also said he had heard from directors at AIPAC about their visits to prostitutes and he claimed Kohr had routinely used “locker room language” at the AIPAC offices.

AIPAC did not seem deterred from getting dragged into a dirty debate. It also chose to include in its court filing an issue relating to Rosen’s personal life with only a vague connection to the lobby’s claim regarding Rosen’s actions being below AIPAC’s standards. AIPAC’s lawyers questioned Rosen in detail about his attempts to find male sexual companions through the online classifieds site Craigslist, an act Rosen referred to as “sexual experimentations.” This information came up in one of Rosen’s divorce cases — he has been married five times — and was supposed to remain under court seal.

The court documents also shed light on Rosen’s attempts to support himself and his family after being fired from AIPAC. The former lobbyist, as the depositions indicate, received cash gifts from several prominent Jewish philanthropists, among them some who are also major donors to AIPAC. The list includes Hollywood mogul Haim Saban, one of AIPAC’s key funders, who gave Rosen a total of $100,000; Daniel Abraham, founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, who gave Rosen, his wife and three children gifts of $5,000 to $10,000; and philanthropist Lynn Schusterman, who paid off a college loan for Rosen’s daughter. The list includes several other backers, including two described as “bundlers” who raised up to $200,000 for Rosen from other donors.

The rationale for introducing this issue is AIPAC’s claim that Rosen did not suffer any financial difficulty following his dismissal or due to Dorton’s claim in AIPAC’s public statement regarding Rosen’s supposed misconduct. Rosen believes that by supporting him these donors, many of them still active AIPAC members, demonstrated their displeasure with the manner in which the lobby treated its two former employees.

The personal and financial details that take up much of the deposition seemed to be tense at times, with flare ups between the attorneys of both sides. But the court papers also shed light on the events surrounding the FBI visit to Rosen’s home on August 27, 2004 that led to the indictment in the espionage case.

The FBI has alleged that Larry Franklin, a Pentagon analyst at the time, passed on national security information to Weissman, who in turn shared it with Rosen. The two former defendants did not know then that Franklin was cooperating with the FBI and that the information he provided them was part of a sting operation.

Rosen and Weissman learned from Franklin that Iranian forces were allegedly operating in northern Iraq and that they were plotting to kidnap Israeli operatives. They then disclosed this information to a senior Israeli diplomat, Naor Gilon, and to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler. The depositions reveal that after being confronted by the FBI at his home, in what he described as a “very intense exchange of words” Rosen made a phone call to AIPAC’s legal counsel, who was shaken by the news and asked Rosen to come immediately to the lobby’s headquarters.

Rosen then called Rafi Barak, at the time the deputy chief of mission at Israel’s Washington embassy. Rosen convinced Barak to cancel other appointments and meet immediately at a coffee shop. He described to the Israeli diplomat the encounter he had just had with the FBI and the allegations they made about Israelis receiving classified information. “I probably made some reference to Pollard,” Rosen recalled, and Barak, according to the deposition, “got very upset too.”

AIPAC raises this episode in an attempt to prove that Rosen did not follow directly the instructions of the lobby’s lawyer to come immediately to the office. This could demonstrate how Rosen did not live up to AIPAC’s standards.

But former AIPAC staffer and now liberal columnist M.J. Rosenberg sees more to it. According to Rosenberg, if Rosen proves that his operations, including going to a foreign official to warn him about the investigation, were all part of AIPAC’s standard operating procedures, “that would mean that AIPAC is not a domestic lobbying organization at all, but something very, very different.”

In a statement released by AIPAC from Dorton, the lobbying group said, “As is demonstrated in detail in the pleadings that AIPAC has filed, this is a frivolous lawsuit with no merit. … Rosen’s claims are wildly inaccurate, are undermined by Rosen’s own admissions under oath in his deposition, and constitute a blatant attempt to detract attention from the true and relevant facts.”

The next round in this battle is expected with Rosen’s counter filing on December 2. Both sides can decide to settle the case outside the court before that, or at any phase before it reaches a jury trial.

Source

Also see THIS related post at Sabbah’s Blog…

AIPAC Bares All to Quash Lawsuit

 

 

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THE EPITOME OF CHUTZPAH ~~ POLLARD FOR SETTLEMENT FREEZE

September 22, 2010 at 08:59 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Illegal Settlements, Israel)

Israel has reached a new low in international diplomacy. They are basically saying to the US; ‘You release the man that spied against you for us and we will extend the settlement freeze for three more months’.

If that isn’t the epitome of chutzpah, I don’t know what it is…..

Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlers, condemned any proposal to swap Pollard for an extension of the settlement freeze: “The very idea is an ugly form of blackmail. Should we also agree to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for Gilad Shalit [an Israeli soldier held by Hamas in Gaza]?”

Israel seeks release of spy in exchange for extending settlement freeze

Binyamin Netanyahu hopes release of spy will appease right wing but US intelligence likely to oppose the deal

Israelis demonstrating in 2004 for release of Jonathan Pollard, pictured in the poster,
jailed by the US for spying for Israel. Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

Israel is seeking the release of an American jailed for life for spying for the Jewish state in return for concessions in the renewed peace process with the Palestinians, including the extension of a partial freeze on the expansion of settlements in the occupied territories.

According to Israel’s army radio, the prime minister’s office has approached Washington with a deal to continue the moratorium for another three months in return for the release of Jonathan Pollard, a former navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying in 1987. Binyamin Netanyahu, has long pressed for Pollard to be freed, but winning his release would help him sell concessions to rightwing members of his cabinet and the settlers.

Army radio said that Netanyahu had asked an unnamed intermediary to sound out the Obama administration on the proposal, but it is not known what response was received. Other Israeli media reported that the prime minister dispatched the intermediary to approach the Americans “discreetly, and unofficially”.

Netanyahu’s office initially said: “We know of no query to the Americans on this matter”, but later was more equivocal. Israeli officials dismissed the prospect of a deal for Pollard’s release over such a short time frame but, given that Netanyahu has attempted to attach the convicted spy’s freedom to earlier peace talks, it is likely that the issue is being broached.

Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlers, condemned any proposal to swap Pollard for an extension of the settlement freeze: “The very idea is an ugly form of blackmail. Should we also agree to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for Gilad Shalit [an Israeli soldier held by Hamas in Gaza]?”

However, any deal is likely to meet stiff resistance from US intelligence which has previously scuppered plans to free Pollard. Netanyahu has said Israel does not plan to extend the moratorium on settlement building, and officials are not commenting on how the issue might be resolved, saying only that Israel “does not want people leaving the table”.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told a French news agency that peace talks would be over if Israel abandoned the settlement freeze. “The negotiations will continue as long as the settlement remains frozen,” he said. “I am not prepared to negotiate an agreement for a single day more.”

Pollard’s supporters in Israel and the US have tried to portray his actions as motivated by loyalty to the Jewish state. However, that position has been undermined because he was paid for the information and the FBI has claimed he also sold secrets to apartheid South Africa and attempted to pass them to Pakistan.

Pollard began passing US secrets to Aviem Sella, an Israeli military officer, in 1984 in return for cash and jewellery. He was caught the following year having passed tens of thousands of pages of documents. The full extent of the damage done by Pollard to US intelligence interests has not been made public but he is known to have given Israel comprehensive details of the US’s global electronic surveillance network. Pollard was jailed for life under a plea agreement and his wife sentenced to five years in prison.

For more than a decade after Pollard was jailed, Israel denied that he was on its payroll, saying he was part of a rogue operation, even though it granted him citizenship in 1995.

Israeli leaders have persistently pressed for Pollard’s release. At peace talks in 1998, Netanyahu told President Bill Clinton that “if we signed an agreement with Arafat, I expected a pardon for Pollard”. Clinton later said he was minded to free Pollard but US intelligence, including George Tenet, director of the CIA, was strongly against it. However, another former CIA director, James Woolsey, has endorsed Pollard’s release.

American intelligence was also angered by Israel’s lack of co-operation in recovering the material passed on by Pollard and by its promotion of Sella to head an air force base – they saw this as a deliberate snub. Sella was eventually removed from that position after the US Congress threatened to cut funds to Israel.

Source via Uruknet

9 Comments

PAYING ISRAEL TO SPY ON YOU…

September 17, 2010 at 20:28 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Deception, Espionage, Israel)

Massive Israel spy base exposed

A French periodical has revealed the location of a secret Israeli espionage center, which ranks among the world’s largest and most significant.

The base, which intercepts information for the Israeli Spy Agency (Mossad) and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is placed near Kibbutz Urim not far from Beersheba, the largest city in the Negev desert, which is in the south of Israel, Israeli website Ynetnews said on Sunday, detailing the report by the monthly newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique.

The French publication said the Israel Army’s intelligence Unit 8200, which is accommodated in the base, cracks into email boxes and taps the phone conversations of “governments, international organizations, foreign companies, political groups and individuals” in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Israeli daily Ha’aretz said the unit had intercepted a call between Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and King Hussein of Jordan during the first day of the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel captured vast expanses of Arab lands including the Palestinian territories during the war.

The expository account was the work of Nick Hager, New Zealand investigative reporter and writer on issues involving intelligence networks, environmental matters and politics, Ha’aretz wrote.

Desert base listens to the world talking — Israel’s omniscient ears

Israel’s Urim base in the Negev desert is among the most important and powerful intelligence gathering sites in the world. Yet, until now, its eavesdropping has gone entirely unmentioned

by Nicky Hager
Le Monde Diplomatique

Israel’s most important intelligence-gathering installation is only a 30km drive into the Negev desert from Beersheba prison – where those taking part in the Gaza aid flotilla were briefly detained this June. The base, hidden until now, has rows of satellite dishes that covertly intercept phone calls, emails and other communications from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. Its antennas monitor shipping and would have spied on the aid ships in the days before they were seized.

Israel’s powerful position in the Middle East is often associated with its armed forces, nuclear weapons arsenal or covert (Mossad) operatives. But just as important is its intelligence gathering – monitoring governments, international organisations, foreign companies, political organisations and individuals. Most of this happens at the installation in the Negev a couple of kilometres to the north of the kibbutz of Urim. Our sources, close to Israeli intelligence, know the base first-hand. They describe lines of satellite dishes of different sizes, and barracks and operations buildings on both sides of the road (the 2333) that leads to the base. High security gates, fences and dogs protect the facility. As you can see on the internet, the satellite images of the base are quite clear. A practised eye easily discerns the signs of an electronic surveillance base. A large circle in the farmland shows the site of a direction-finding antenna (HF/DF) for monitoring shipping.

The Urim base was established decades ago to monitor Intelsat satellites that relay phone calls between countries. It expanded to cover maritime communications (Inmarsat), then rapidly targeted ever more numerous regional satellites. As such, says intelligence specialist Duncan Campbell, it is “akin to the UK-USA pact’s Echelon satellite interception ground stations”. The Echelon system is a network of interception stations around the world, set up in 1996 by the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Satellite phones used by the Gaza-bound aid ships were easy targets for this hi-tech equipment.

Our Israeli sources described how the computers are “programmed to detect words and phone numbers of interest” from intercepted phone calls, emails etc, then transferred to Unit 8200 – the headquarters of Israeli signals intelligence – in the city of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. There they are translated and passed on to other agencies, including the army and Mossad.

Unit 8200 and its counterparts – the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the American National Security Agency (NSA) – are less famous than their foreign intelligence and special operations agencies (MI6, the CIA and Mossad). Yet the signals agencies are far bigger.

The Urim base targets many nations, friend and foe. A former analyst at Unit 8200, a military service conscript, said she worked full time translating intercepted calls and emails from English and French into Hebrew. It was “interesting” work, studying routine communications to find the nuggets. Her section listened mostly to “diplomatic traffic and other off-shore [international] signals”. They also searched public internet sites.

The Urim base, said our sources, is the centre of a spying network that taps undersea cables (notably Mediterranean cables linking Israel to Europe via Sicily) and has covert listening posts in Israeli embassy buildings abroad. Unit 8200, which is officially part of the Israeli army, also has secret monitoring units within the Palestinian territories and uses Gulfstream jets fitted out as signals intelligence aircraft.

Excluding television satellites, most satellites, in an arc stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, are probable targets: European, Arab, Russian and Asian, as well as the Intelsat and Inmarsat satellites. Images of the base show 30 listening antennas, making Urim one of the largest signals intelligence bases in the world. The only comparable-sized station is a US facility at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, UK.

Other stations have been known about since the 1980s. There is a large NSA base near the German city of Bad Aibling, and another US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, just northwest of an airbase with a runway full of B-52 bombers. The main UK base, at Morwenstow, Cornwall, can be spotted through its 20 listening antennas above the cliffs. France has its own network, known as Frenchelon, under the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), which includes several bases in France and its overseas territories.

But unlike these, Israel’s spy facility at Urim remained invisible for decades.

Source: http://mondediplo.com/2010/09/04israelbase


Source
~~~
Also see this report AT

Caught! Mossad Paid By U.S. To Spy On “Dissidents,” Tea Party, Environmentalists

8 Comments

WHO SAYS MUSLIMS ARE GOOD FOR NOTHING?

September 8, 2010 at 13:26 (Corrupt Politics, Espionage, Israel)

Not the Mossad…. that’s for sure….

“Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious.”

But of course, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, which routinely denies accounts of Mossad operations on U.S. soil, could not be immediately reached for comment.


Israeli spies wooing U.S. Muslims, sources say

The CIA took an internal poll not long ago about friendly foreign intelligence agencies.

The question, mostly directed to employees of the clandestine service branch, was: Which are the best allies among friendly spy services, in terms of liaison with the CIA, and which are the worst? In other words, who acts like, well, friends?

“Israel came in dead last,” a recently retired CIA official told me the other day.

Not only that, he added, throwing up his hands and rising from his chair, “the Israelis are number three, with China number one and Russia number two,” in terms of how aggressive they are in their operations on U.S. soil.

Israel’s undercover operations here, including missions to steal U.S. secrets, are hardly a secret at the FBI, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. From time to time, in fact, the FBI has called Israeli officials on the carpet to complain about a particularly brazen effort to collect classified or other sensitive information, in particular U.S. technical and industrial secrets.

The most notorious operation employed Jonathan Pollard, the naval intelligence analyst convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison for stealing tens of thousands of classified documents for Israel.

One of Israel’s major interests, of course, is keeping track of Muslims who might be allied with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, or Iran-backed Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.

As tensions with Iran escalate, according to former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, “Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics.”

“There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as ‘U.S. intelligence,’ ” Giraldi wrote recently in American Conservative magazine.

“Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a ‘false flag’ operation.”

Giraldi’s piece continued, “Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious.”

“These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation,” Giraldi added,”and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.”

“Oh, sure, they do that,” the other former CIA official said, waving a dismissing hand, when I asked about Giraldi’s story. “They’re all over the place.”

The FBI did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

But a retired senior FBI counterintelligence official told SpyTalk, “They have always been extremely aggressive, and seem to feel they can operate whenever and wherever they want, in spite of being called on the carpet more than any other country by probably a factor of three times as often.”

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, which routinely denies accounts of Mossad operations on U.S. soil, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The former CIA official, who discussed such sensitive matters only on the condition of anonymity, echoed the views of other U.S. intelligence sources I’ve talked to over the years about Israeli operations in the United States.

They don’t begrudge the Jewish state’s interest in keeping track of its potential or real enemies, including here — indeed, they often say Israel is America’s best friend in the Middle East.

Which, they say, makes Mossad’s impersonation of U.S. intelligence agents all the more galling.

Source

1 Comment

NO ISRAELI SPYS IN US SINCE POLLARD’S ARREST

July 13, 2010 at 19:06 (Chutzpah, Corrupt Politics, Cover Up, Deceit, Deception, Espionage, Israel)

Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Pollard speaking during a 1998 interview.

Photo by: AP

According to the official version of events, Israel immediately apologized to the U.S. after Pollard was arrested and claimed that a “rogue agency” had been behind the espionage activity. Since then, a decision was made in Israel that no espionage activities will be undertaken on U.S. soil.


Except for the following…..

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: “Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won’t be Explored in Detail by Panels”

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc’s top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, is serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 “The Samson Option,” by Seymour M. Hersh reports, “Illicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: “Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts.”

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo warning US military contractors that “Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology.” The report stated that Israel obtains information using “ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties” of US citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report “Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors” found that according to intelligence sources “Country A” (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.” The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, “Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country.” The report described “An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents.” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was “a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel’s LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information.”

The GAO report also noted that “Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes.”

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, “Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare” reported that “US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology.” Jane’s Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that “until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China.” The report noted that this “represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation.” (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, “inadvertently” gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as “Dov”, had commented that they may get the letter from “Mega”, the code name for Israel’s top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky’s phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI’s hunt for “Mega” is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents’ communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL’s Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to “deliver furniture.” The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were “false positived” by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

The above is taken from a WRH Report…. it can be read HERE

Jerusalem honors convicted spy Pollard on 9,000th day of incarceration

A message urging Obama to free Pollard will be projected onto Jerusalem city walls; Dozens of protesters call for Pollard’s immediate release.

The Jerusalem municipality will dim lights that illuminate the walls surrounding the old city on Tuesday evening, as a gesture of solidarity with convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, who has been incarcerated in the United States for almost a quarter-century.

Pollard was arrested in 1986 as he tried to seek asylum in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He was convicted of espionage for Israel and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

As part of Tuesday’s event, a special message calling upon U.S. President Barack Obama to release Pollard will be projected onto the darkened city walls.

Dozens of Pollard supporters demonstrated earlier Tuesday under the Metarim Bridge for the second consecutive day, calling for his immediate release.

Since Pollard’s conviction, the U.S. has steadfastly refused to shorten his sentence or grant him a pardon, despite requests by Israeli prime ministers, ministers, and MKs.

According to the official version of events, Israel immediately apologized to the U.S. after Pollard was arrested and claimed that a “rogue agency” had been behind the espionage activity. Since then, a decision was made in Israel that no espionage activities will be undertaken on U.S. soil.

Source

10 Comments

VANUNU ~~ THEY JUST WON’T LEAVE HIM ALONE

December 29, 2009 at 10:28 (Corrupt Politics, Espionage, From The Media, Israel)

He done the crime….. he served his time!

Why won’t they leave him alone already? Does Israel still have something to hide?

Vanunu arrested for parole violations – again

Former atom spy detained for breaching parole stipulation prohibiting him from meeting foreign nationals

Read the short report HERE

5 Comments

ISRAEL BUSTED AGAIN ~~ ANOTHER SPY ARRESTED IN AMERICA

October 20, 2009 at 07:58 (Espionage, Guest Blog, Israel)

israeli spy

Jonathan Pollard wants out…… but it looks like he will be joined by an entire ‘minyan‘ (quorum) in his cell before that happens….
Here’s the latest Israeli spy scandal….. compliments of Irish 4 Palestine…

BUSTED~ANOTHER ISRAELI SPY ARRESTED IN AMERICA


This would be funny if it were not so pathetic. Talk about a “Glutton for Punishment” America, the stupidest country in the world, Honestly, when will Americans Wake the Flook Up? You people need to clean out your Country of all the Zionist spies working for Israel. This is what you get for letting them have dual citizenship. They are not “loyal Americans” they are LOYAL to only Israel, the sooner you realize that the better off your country will be. How many is that now? Stealing all your secrets from the Pentagon, “Star Wars Missile Defense Systems, nuclear weapons systems,and NASA you name it and this guy had accesss to it! Read it and weap for what America “used” to be, free and strong, now it’s just part of Israel. Oh and one more thing, get ready for the “screams of Anti-semitism”: TWO REPORTS:

A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and Nasa was arrested on Monday night, accused of trying to spy for Israel.

Stewart Nozette, 52, developed an experiment that fueled the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon, and held a special security clearance at the United States Department of Energy on atomic materials.

He has been charged with “attempted espionage for knowingly and willfully attempting to communicate, deliver, and transmit classified information relating to the national defense of the United States to an individual that Nozette believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer,” the US Department of Justice said

The 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a US civilian intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, and his subsequent conviction for spying for Israel seriously strained US-Israeli relations. After his conviction, he was granted Israeli citizenship and his release is a perennial Israeli demand.

The Justice Department said: “From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense.”

Mr Nozette “discussed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence” and offered to “answer questions about this information in exchange for money”.

He was then given envelopes of money in exchange for answers to lists of questions about American satellite technology.

The FBI retrieved a manila envelope left by Mr Nozette in a post office box this month. It “contained information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy”. . LINK

AND IT GETS EVEN BETTER KEEP READING:

The FBI today arrested an eminent space scientist, Stewart David Nozette, and charged him with espionage. He allegedly agreed to sell information about American nuclear weapons to an operative of Israel’s Mossad – only the agent turned out to be an uncover FBI agent. Nozette was the principal investigator on the NASA team that discovered water on the moon. But he spent years as a top scientist at the Department of Energy, where he specialized in satellite technology. From the FBI release, it’s hard to figure out what he might have given the Israelis and what he tried to sell to the undercover agent. But his resume provides a clue.

Take it as a given that Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile and its half dozen nuclear facilities in the country are targets for U.S. espionage — be it from the the SIGINT satellites tasked by the National Security Agency to the imagery satelittes run by the National Reconaissance Office. At the Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defense Agency, Nozette ran a program that focused on dual-use nuclear compliance monitoring satellites. The Clementine satellite that discovered water on the moon was, before it was used by civilian scientists, a platform for a sohpisticated nuclear compliance sensor. Among the technologies that Clementine validated was a capacity to peer beneath the ground — one of the ways that hidden water was discovered.

No doubt that Nozette would be in a good position to know how easily it is for U.S. technologies to pierce the veil of Israel’s secret nuke program.

Nozette had a “Q” clearance from the Department of Energy, which gave him access to data about nuclear weapons themselves, which might have been of interest to the Israelis. More generally, though, since Israel has nuclear weapons, its espionage efforts are probably more directed towards figuring out what the U.S. knows about them, how the U.S. monitors, say, Israeli launch preparation sites, and who the U.S. shares this data with.

During the Reagan administration, Nozette was a special assistant to the Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars” program’s Office of Survivability, Lethality and Key Technologies.

SOURCE

1 Comment

THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF THE ROSENBERG CASE

October 5, 2008 at 21:33 (Cold War, Conspiracy Theories, Espionage, History)

Sketches of the Rosenbergs by Pablo Picasso
Fifty five years after the execution of their parents as convicted nuclear spies, the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg share their views on that dark period in American history known as the Cold War… a must read.
Also see The New McCarthyism….

The essential lessons of the Rosenberg case


The couple’s sons say those in power manufactured evidence and targeted their parents, making them the focus of the public’s Cold War fear and anger.
By Michael Meeropol and Robert Meeropol
October 5, 2008
We are the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. We were young children — 10 and 6 years old, respectively — when our parents were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing for passing the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

For many years after that, we believed our parents to be wholly innocent of the charges against them. But over the years, and especially as further evidence became available at the end of the Cold War, we began to question that belief.

Now, 55 years after their execution, two recent revelations in our parents’ case have again rekindled fierce debate about their culpability. But in our opinion, these disclosures — the release of our aunt’s sworn statements to a grand jury and a surprise new admission by our parents’ codefendant — have obscured both the essence and the essential lessons of the Rosenberg case.

Many Americans now living were not born when our parents stood trial in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage, so they may not understand why this case remains one of our nation’s most sensational courtroom dramas. The reason is that, at the height of the Cold War, two people were executed for allegedly giving the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Viewed through the lens of 1950s America, it appeared to many that the Rosenbergs had given our archenemy the means to destroy our nation. The trial judge justified the death sentences by pronouncing that our parents made it possible for the Soviets to build their bomb earlier than expected, causing the Korean War and the deaths of thousands of American soldiers. “I consider your crime worse than murder,” said the judge as he sentenced our parents to death. “Plain deliberate contemplated murder is dwarfed in magnitude by comparison with the crime you have committed.”

But was that true? Had they in fact passed the so-called secret of the atomic bomb to the Russians? We have acknowledged for a long time the possibility that our father may have engaged in non-atomic espionage. The recent statement by our parents’ codefendant, Morton Sobell, confirms exactly that, and several weeks ago we stated publicly for the first time that we now believe that our father did, in fact, participate in passing along military information.

But Sobell’s recent admission sheds no light on whether our father in fact stole the secret of the atomic bomb, the crime for which he was executed. To this day, there is no credible evidence that he participated in obtaining or passing on any such secret.

In contrast, the newly released grand jury transcript does provide interesting new information about the case.

At the start of the investigation against our parents, David and Ruth Greenglass, our mother’s brother and sister-in-law, confessed to being part of an atomic spy ring and cooperated with the prosecution in exchange for no charges being brought against Ruth and a comparatively light sentence for David.

Ruth’s trial testimony provided the one key piece of evidence that led to our mother’s conviction and subsequent execution. She testified at trial that our mother typed up notes that contained the “secret” of the atomic bomb, provided, supposedly, by David, a U.S. Army sergeant with only a high school education, who was assigned as a machinist to the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

However, the newly released transcript reveals that Ruth Greenglass’ grand jury testimony included nothing about our mother typing any espionage notes. The only notes mentioned in Ruth’s testimony were ones she wrote herself, which described the buildings at Los Alamos, not the atomic bomb.

It was not until February 1951, months after her grand jury testimony, that Ruth gave a new statement in which she reported (we would say “invented”), for the first time, the allegation that our mother had typed David’s handwritten notes describing the atomic bomb. Confronted with Ruth’s revisions, David Greenglass then contradicted his earlier statement to the FBI in which he had denied our mother’s participation in espionage activities. Subsequently, David and Ruth both testified at the trial that our mother had typed notes about the secret of the atomic bomb.

In another stunning discrepancy, there is no mention in Ruth’s grand jury testimony of an alleged meeting described by David and Ruth at the trial, during which David supposedly handed over the “secret of the atom bomb sketch” — trial Exhibit 8 — to Julius. Exhibit 8 was the main evidence for the government’s contention that Julius successfully stole such a secret. If there is no mention of the meeting in David’s grand jury testimony (which has yet to be released but which is essential to obtain), the core of the government’s case against both of our parents will be dealt a crippling blow.

Some commentators have, in essence, said that neither this lack of evidence nor these inconsistencies matter. “The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies, and not minor ones either,” wrote Ronald Radosh in these pages on Sept. 17.

Evidently, in Radosh’s eyes, our mother remains a spy even though the new information indicates that the evidence against her was fabricated, and our father succeeded in passing vitally important data even though there is no clear proof to this day of the value of the military/industrial information that he, Sobell or others transmitted.

Radosh’s arguments also divert attention from the most important problem of all: The U.S. government executed two people for stealing the secret of the atomic bomb — a crime it knew they did not commit.

The central lesson of this episode is that our government abused its power in dangerous ways that remain relevant today. Those in power targeted our parents, making them the focus of the public’s Cold War-era fear and anger. They manufactured testimony and evidence. They arrested our mother simply as leverage to get our father to cooperate.

They used the ultimate weapon — the threat of death — to try to extort a confession. They created the myth that there was a key “secret” of the atomic bomb, and then devised a strategy to make it appear that our father had sought and passed on that “secret.” They executed our father when he refused to collaborate in this lie. They executed our mother as well, even though they knew that she was not an active participant in any espionage activities.

This case provides a crucial warning about the tendencies of our government to manufacture and exploit public fear, to trample civil rights and to manipulate judicial proceedings. In our current political climate, the targets being vilified have changed, but the tactics of those in power remain much the same.

Michael Meeropol is chairman of the economics department at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. Robert Meeropol is the founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (

www.rfc.org).

Source

16 Comments

A NEW LOOK AT THE ROSENBERG SPY CASE

July 26, 2008 at 07:12 (Conspiracy Theories, Corrupt Politics, Espionage, History)

Sketches of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg presented to their sons by the artist Pablo Picasso
The Cold War/ McCarthy Era of the 50′s has got to have been one the darkest and ugliest periods of modern American history. A decade of fear perpetuated by the government…. not much different than the fear that exists today.


As the years go by, much evidence has come to light proving that many of the fears were unjustified, based only on the lies put forth by various government bodies. The Rosenberg case is one of those in question. A case that has literally been hidden from the public eye for over fifty years. New evidence from that particular case might actually shed light on the truth…. in this case a truth that can no longer free Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but might free many others.

Local Philanthropist Reacts to Judges Ruling in Rosenberg Spying Case
By Elizabeth Corridan

EASTHAMPTON, Mass. (abc40) — A local philanthropist is reacting to news that a U.S. District Judge in New York is allowing the release of testimony from witnesses who were part of one of the most controversial cases of the Cold War era.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were Americans, who were convicted of giving secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets and executed in the electric chair in 1953. The Rosebergs brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass were two key witnesses in the case. Ruth Greenglass recently passed away. Her testimony is one that will be made public. The ruling judge said he would not authorize the release of David Greenglass’ testimony at this time.

Both of Rosenbergs’ sons live in Western Massachusetts. Younger son, Robert Meeropol runs the Rosenberg Fund for Children. The agency helps the children of political prisoners. Upon hearing the news that Ruth Greenglass’ testimony is being released, Robert Meeropol said he was pleased to learn more information about his parents’ case is being made public. He anticipates being able to read the testimony by the fall. Meeropol says he hopes one day David Greenglass’ testimony will also be released. The Meeropol brothers believe their parents’ trial was grossly unfair and hope to one day sift through decades of history to get to the truth.

Click HERE to see the Source including a video

8 Comments

IT’S DANGEROUS TO TALK AND EAT AT THE SAME TIME

May 9, 2008 at 07:32 (Corrupt Politics, Espionage)

You used to be asked if you want ketchup with your fries…. these days you get a spy with your burger instead of fries… frightening!!

Burger With a Side of Spies

By ERIC SCHLOSSER
Monterey, Calif.

Francesco Bongiorni

WHILE the Patriot Act has raised fears about government spying on ordinary citizens, the growing threat to civil liberties posed by corporate spying has received much less attention. During the late 1990s, a private security firm spied on Greenpeace and other environmental groups, examining activists’ phone records and even sending undercover agents to infiltrate the groups, according to an article in Mother Jones. In 2006 Hewlett-Packard was caught spying on journalists. Last year Wal-Mart apologized for improperly recording conversations with a New York Times reporter.

And now it turns out that the Burger King Corporation, home of the Whopper, hired a private security firm to spy on the Student/Farmworker Alliance, a group of idealistic college students trying to improve the lives of migrants in Florida.

The Student/Farmworker Alliance and an affiliated nonprofit, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, have for years been urging the fast-food industry to accept some responsibility for the plight of Florida migrants who harvest the tomatoes for its hamburgers and tacos. I am a longtime supporter of their work. The wages of these farm workers, adjusted for inflation, have declined by as much as 70 percent since the late 1970s. And hundreds, perhaps thousands, of migrants have been enslaved by labor contractors and forced to work without pay. The McDonald’s Corporation and Yum Brands (which owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC) have agreed to subsidize a modest pay raise for their tomato pickers and work closely with the coalition to eliminate slavery from the fields. Burger King, however, has pursued a different strategy.

In March, a woman named Cara Schaffer contacted the Student/Farmworker Alliance, saying she was a student at Broward Community College. Her eagerness aroused suspicions, but she was allowed to join two of the group’s planning sessions. Internet searches by the alliance revealed that she was not a college student.

Ms. Schaffer is the 25-year-old owner of a private security firm. Her company, Diplomatic Tactical Services, seems like the kind of security firm you’d find in one of Carl Hiaasen’s crime thrillers. Last year Ms. Schaffer was denied a private investigator’s license; she had failed to supply the Florida licensing division with proof of “lawfully gained, verifiable experience or training.” Even more unsettling, one of her former subcontractors, Guillermo Zarabozo, is now facing murder charges in United States District Court in Miami for his role in allegedly executing four crew members of a charter fishing boat, then dumping their bodies at sea.

In an interview, a Burger King executive told me that the company had worked with Diplomatic Tactical Services for years on “security-related matters” and had used it to obtain information about the Student/Farmworker Alliance’s plans — in order to prevent acts of violence. “It is both the corporation’s right and duty,” a company spokesman later wrote in an e-mail message to me, “to protect its employees and assets from potential harm.”

But the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are not dangerous, extremist groups. Both are pacifist, mainstream nonprofits inspired by the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The coalition is supported by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Pax Christi, the Catholic peace movement.

The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect Americans from the abusive power of their government. I’ve come to believe that we now need a similar set of restrictions to defend against irresponsible corporate power. Today companies like Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil have annual revenues larger than the entire budgets of some states, and they employ former agents from the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Secret Service to do security work. Unlike government agencies, whose surveillance activities are supposed to be conducted according to strict guidelines and court orders, these private firms operate with a remarkable degree of freedom. At the moment, federal laws against the practice of “pretexting” — using a false identity to obtain personal information — apply only to financial and telephone records.

Congressional hearings on corporate espionage would be a good place to start figuring out how to regulate the practice. A Senate inquiry during the 1930s prompted companies to disband their private armies and stop spying on labor unions. Burger King’s use of an unlicensed private investigator to spy on the Student/Farmworker Alliance may have been illegal under Florida law. John Chidsey, the chief executive of Burger King, knew about the use of Diplomatic Tactical Services. Mr. Chidsey should get a chance to raise his right hand and tell members of Congress why he thinks this sort of behavior is acceptable.

Eric Schlosser is the author of “Fast Food Nation” and “Reefer Madness.”

1 Comment

KOSHER SPIES

May 5, 2008 at 15:18 (Espionage)

NO….. this is NOT a continuation of the Pollard-Kadesh spy sagas….nor is it the discovery of the rest of the ring they were/are a part of….

This is a tale about an investigation on behalf of PETA concerning cruelty in the slaughterhouse business… specifically the kosher slaughterhouses.

I live for the day when people will be as concerned about the slaughtering of humans as much as they are about animals…. but that’s a different post. In the meantime, read the report below….

Activists Who Exposed Meat Industry Reveal Their Own (Kosher) Identity
By Marissa Brostoff

When AgriProcessors, America’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, was caught on tape conducting what a federal agency later called “acts of inhumane slaughter,” officials at the plant knew they had been infiltrated by undercover investigators. What the company didn’t know was that two of those infiltrators were a married couple who keep kosher themselves.

Meet Hannah and Philip Schein, undercover investigators for the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Now, for the first time, they are going public with their identities.

Since 2002, the Scheins have taken on about 20 undercover cases, as well as others they have conducted publicly. The targets of their stings have run the gamut from an egg farm managed by Trappist monks, to a Canadian bear-baiting operation that has supplied fur to the British Royal Guards, to songstress Beyoncé Knowles, once an enthusiastic wearer of fur.

But thanks to their background and their knowledge of the laws of kashrut, Hannah, 33, and Philip, 43, have come to specialize in investigating kosher slaughterhouses. Indeed, PETA had not investigated kosher operations until the Scheins came on board; since then, the group has been involved in about eight such cases. Philip in particular has been credited with becoming an expert on kosher slaughter.

“If it weren’t for Philip and his interest and pursuit of this issue, I’m not sure that we would have been able to do those investigations,” said Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA’s vice president of cruelty investigations. “They were Philip’s brainchild.”

The Scheins’ — and PETA’s — first investigation of a kosher slaughterhouse took place in 2004, when the organization obtained footage of cows walking around with their throats cut at AgriProcessors’ plant in Postville, Iowa. Hannah had trained the investigators who went undercover for the exposé, and Philip analyzed the video footage that PETA subsequently received.

Under pressure from rabbis as well as animal rights groups and government agencies, the company promised to change its slaughtering procedures, though AgriProcessors has been the subject of several more of the Scheins’ investigations.

An AgriProcessors representative declined to comment for this article. But Norman Schlaff, the owner of the Musicon Farm in Gosha, N.Y., was willing to discuss his experience with the Scheins, who paid an undercover visit to his kosher deer slaughterhouse last year.

Schlaff said that two young people who appeared to be a Modern Orthodox couple toured the farm and, like many of his visitors who wish to ensure that their meat is kosher, took videos and photographs of the slaughtering process.

“The next day, PETA called and said, ‘Go on the Internet,’” Schlaff said.

He found a page on the group’s Web site that accused slaughterers at the farm of sitting on the deer to hold them down while their throats are slit, an allegation that Schlaff denies. “It was really very disturbing,” Schlaff said of the unwelcome attention he received after the PETA article. “I got thousands of e-mails, including some death threats from people saying, ‘We’re going to do to you what you do to the deer.’”

The Scheins maintain that they want only for kosher slaughter to live up to what they consider its original purpose: to minimize the suffering of the animals. Orthodox Jewish standards of kashrut have “gotten so focused on the letter of the law that they’ve lost sight of the fact that [kashrut] is about reducing suffering,” Hannah said.

But according to Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the Orthodox Union’s kashrut division, liberal Jews such as the Scheins are using the term “kosher” as a “generic phrase” to denote practices they consider morally acceptable, thus missing the “fundamental issue” of kashrut: obedience to Jewish law.

Hannah and Philip are currently working (openly) on a project to reform what they say are animal abuses committed in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in the course of observing the pre-Yom Kippur absolution ritual known as kapparot.

The kapparot crackdown may cause a stir in such Orthodox enclaves as Brooklyn’s Boro Park, but it probably will not get as much attention on celebrity gossip blogs as Hannah’s encounter last year with Beyoncé. After PETA won a dinner with the singer in an auction, Hannah and a second PETA employee, armed with a hidden camera, sat down with her — and accused the star of being complicit in the abuse of animals by using fur in her wardrobe and in her clothing line, House of Deréon.

“I can’t tell you how quickly they escorted us out of there,” Hannah said. She added that Beyoncé has not been seen in fur since.

Though a glimpse at the Scheins’ career makes them sound like Erin Brockovich-style crusaders, their partnership started out far more innocuously. Hannah and Philip met at a 1998 orientation for new professionals in the Jewish campus organization Hillel. They married a year later in New Jersey, right after Hillel’s 1999 conference ended.

In 2002, Hannah took a job in PETA’s investigations department, and the Scheins moved from upstate New York, where both had been working on graduate degrees, to a town near Norfolk, Va., where PETA is headquartered. Shortly thereafter, Philip, a longtime vegan and animal rights advocate, joined Hannah at the organization.

The Scheins have decided to go public as part of a publicity bid for PETA. Despite the sensitive nature of their undercover work, they say they are not worried about the media attention.

Their confidence in their ability to carry on undercover investigations — and to have carried out so many in the first place — appears to be rooted in the techniques they use when they go undercover, which they will not divulge.

“We’re still active investigators, so we don’t really share our methods,” Hannah said.

But she added, “Everything we do is legal.”

3 Comments

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