MAJOR 2002 STORY ABOUT ISRAELI
SPYING KILLED OFF AND COVERED UP
MER -
Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10 Sept 04:
A
little more than a year after 9/11, starting on 16 November 2002, FOX
News broke an exclusive story about Israeli spying in and on the U.S. and possible Israeli
knowledge in advance that a 9/11-type attack of one kind or another was
being planned against the U.S.
The four-part series created quite a stir at
first in Washington but then the story was spiked and in fact
'disappeared' from the FOX News website, not to be mentioned
again. Suspicions at the time were that the Israelis,
using their extensive list of allies, lobbyists, and major money and
media agents-of-influence, had pulled out all stops and gotten the
story quickly stopped in its tracks.
Now that there are more media groups
involved, that FBI investigations have already been publicly exposed,
that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) itself is
involved, and that the Jewish neocons are so fingered for having
instigated the Iraqi War and the false 'intelligence' that led to it,
the situation is much more complicated in Washington.
But AIPAC and
Israel's many official and unofficial lobbyists are now mounting a
major campaign to bring the FBI investigation to an end with only minor
charges involving 'mishandling' of classified documents.
The pressures on everyone in Washington are no doubt intense;
especially in this election
year. And so what happened in November 2002 should be
especially instructive; and in view of the most recent charges and
investigations should be
resurrected:
Fox News Series On
Israeli Spying
In America
Fox News Special
Report - Part One -
- BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16
years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing
secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit
espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders
claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took
responsibility for his work.
-
- Now Fox News has learned some U.S.
investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged
in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't
tell us before Sept. 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has
details in the first of a four-part series.
-
- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
-
- CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since
Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either
under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration
violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those
detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees
also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance
activities against and in the United States.
-
- There is no indication that the Israelis
were involved in the 9/11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they
Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance,
and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are
"tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe
them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I
cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified
information."
-
- Fox News has learned that one group of
Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping
an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United
States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous
classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to
Sept. 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested
in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by
Israelis in the United States.
-
- Investigators from numerous government
agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence
since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in
cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well
be an organized intelligence gathering activity."
-
- The first part of the investigation focuses
on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of
Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S.
government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell
cheap art or handiwork.
-
- Documents say they, "targeted and
penetrated military bases." The DEA, FBI and dozens of government
facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law
enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those
questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic
surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units."
-
- Another part of the investigation has
resulted in the detention and arrests of dozens of Israelis at American
mall kiosks, where they've been selling toys called Puzzle Car and Zoom
Copter. Investigators suspect a front.
-
- Shortly after The New York Times and
Washington Post reported the Israeli detentions last months, the carts
began vanishing. Zoom Copter's Web page says, "We are aware of the
situation caused by thousands of mall carts being closed at the last
minute. This in no way reflects the quality of the toy or its
salability. The problem lies in the operators' business policies."
-
- Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.?
A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as country
A and said, "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of
country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the
U.S. of any U.S. ally."
-
- A defense intelligence report said Israel
has a voracious appetite for information and said, "the Israelis are
motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every possible
facet of their political and economical policies. It aggressively
collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high
priority target."
-
- The document concludes: "Israel possesses
the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection
objectives."
-
- (END VIDEO CLIP)
-
- A spokesman for the Israeli embassy here in
Washington issued a denial saying that any suggestion that Israelis are
spying in or on the U.S. is "simply not true." There are other things
to consider. And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone
system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation
that both have been compromised by our friends overseas.
-
- HUME: Carl, what about this question of
advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9/11? How clear are
investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?
-
- CAMERON: It's very explosive information,
obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have
collected - none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put
it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not
have know? Almost a direct quote.
-
- HUME: Going into the fact that they were
spying on some Arabs, right?
-
- CAMERON: Correct.
-
HUME: All right, Carl, thanks very much.
- Part 2
-
- BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on
the approximately 60 Israelis who had been detained in connection with
the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation. Carl Cameron reported that U.S.
investigators suspect that some of these Israelis were spying on Arabs
in this country, and may have turned up information on the planned
terrorist attacks back in September that was not passed on.
-
- Tonight, in the second of four reports on
spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an Israeli-based private
communications company, for whom a half-dozen of those 60 detained
suspects worked. American investigators fear information generated by
this firm may have fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect of
impeded the Sept. 11 terror inquiry. Here's Carl Cameron's second
report.
-
- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
-
- CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): Fox News has learned that some American terrorist
investigators fear certain suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks may have
managed to stay ahead of them, by knowing who and when investigators
are calling on the telephone. How?
- By obtaining and analyzing data that's
generated every time someone in the U.S. makes a call.
-
- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What city and state,
please?
-
- CAMERON: Here's how the system works. Most
directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing
in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an
Israeli-based private elecommunications company.
-
- Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest
phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and
other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually
impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs
record of it.
-
- In recent years, the FBI and other
government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm
has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or
wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret
national security agency, headquartered in northern Maryland, issued
what's called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information
report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were
getting into foreign hands - in Israel, in particular.
-
- Investigators don't believe calls are being
listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty
valuable in itself. An internal Amdocs memo to senior company
executives suggests just how Amdocs generated call records could be
used. "Widespread data mining techniques and algorithms.... combining
both the properties of the customer (e.g., credit rating) and
properties of the specific 'behavior.'" Specific behavior, such as who
the customers are calling.
-
- The Amdocs memo says the system should be
used to prevent phone fraud. But U.S. counterintelligence analysts say
it could also be used to spy through the phone system. Fox News has
learned that the N.S.A has held numerous classified conferences to warn
the F.B.I. and C.I.A. how Amdocs records could be used. At one NSA
briefing, a diagram by the Argon national lab was used to show that if
the phone records are not secure, major security breaches are possible.
-
- Another briefing document said, "It has
become increasingly apparent that systems and networks are
vulnerable.Such crimes always involve unauthorized persons, or persons
who exceed their authorization...citing on exploitable vulnerabilities."
-
- Those vulnerabilities are growing, because
according to another briefing, the U.S. relies too much on foreign
companies like Amdocs for high-tech equipment and software. "Many
factors have led to increased dependence on code developed overseas....
We buy rather than train or develop solutions."
-
- U.S. intelligence does not believe the
Israeli government is involved in a misuse of information, and Amdocs
insists that its data is secure. What U.S. government officials are
worried about, however, is the possibility that Amdocs data could get
into the wrong hands, particularly organized crime. And that would not
be the first thing that such a thing has happened. Fox News has
documents of a 1997 drug trafficking case in Los Angeles, in which
telephone information, the type that Amdocs collects, was used to
"completely compromise the communications of the FBI, the Secret
Service, the DEO and the LAPD."
-
- We'll have that and a lot more in the days
ahead - Brit.
-
- HUME: Carl, I want to take you back to your
report last night on those 60 Israelis who were detained in the
anti-terror investigation, and the suspicion that some investigators
have that they may have picked up information on the 9/11 attacks ahead
of time and not passed it on.
- There was a report, you'll recall, that the
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, did indeed send
representatives to the U.S. to warn, just before 9/11, that a major
terrorist attack was imminent. How does that leave room for the lack of
a warning?
-
- CAMERON: I remember the report, Brit. We
did it first internationally right here on your show on the 14th. What
investigators are saying is that that warning from the Mossad was
nonspecific and general, and they believe that it may have had
something to do with the desire to protect what are called sources and
methods in the intelligence community. The suspicion being, perhaps
those sources and methods were taking place right here in the United
States.
-
- The question came up in select intelligence
committee on Capitol Hill today. They intend to look into what we
reported last night, and specifically that possibility - Brit.
-
- HUME: So in other words, the problem wasn't
lack of a warning, the problem was lack of useful details?
-
- CAMERON: Quantity of information.
-
- HUME: All right, Carl, thank you very much.
-
- Part 3
-
- BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on
an Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the
computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made
in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into
the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off
to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.
-
- In tonight's report, we learn that the
concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in
Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for
electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
-
- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
-
- CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an
Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout
the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's
how wiretapping works in the U.S.
-
- Every time you make a call, it passes
through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by
the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies
like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and
store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to
investigators.
-
- The manufacturers have continuing access to
the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches.
This process was authorized by the 1994 Communications Assistance for
Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now
told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a
system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have
undermined the whole wiretapping system.
-
- Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney
General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned
Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law
enforcement officials, who complained that "law enforcement's current
electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they
were at the time CALEA was enacted."
-
- Congress insists the equipment it installs
is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap
computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through
which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.
-
- Adding to the suspicions is the fact that
in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and
under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its
research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and
Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox
News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is
considered career suicide.
-
- And sources say that while various F.B.I.
inquiries into Comverse have been conducted over the years, they've
been halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly tested
for leaks. A 1999 F.C.C. document indicates several government agencies
expressed deep concerns that too many unauthorized non-law enforcement
personnel can access the wiretap system. And the FBI's own nondescript
office in Chantilly, Virginia that actually oversees the CALEA
wiretapping program, is among the most agitated about the threat.
-
- But there is a bitter turf war internally
at F.B.I. It is the FBI's office in Quantico, Virginia, that has
jurisdiction over awarding contracts and buying intercept equipment.
And for years, they've thrown much of the business to Comverse. A
handful of former U.S. law enforcement officials involved in awarding
Comverse government contracts over the years now work for the company.
-
- Numerous sources say some of those
individuals were asked to leave government service under what
knowledgeable sources call "troublesome circumstances" that remain
under administrative review within the Justice Department.
-
- (END VIDEOTAPE)
-
- And what troubles investigators most,
particularly in New York, in the counter terrorism investigation of the
World Trade Center attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that
they had sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their
telecommunications processes. They started acting much differently as
soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps went into place - Brit.
-
- HUME: Carl, is there any reason to suspect
in this instance that the Israeli government is involved?
-
- CAMERON: No, there's not. But there are
growing instincts in an awful lot of law enforcement officials in a
variety of agencies who suspect that it had begun compiling evidence,
and a highly classified investigation into that possibility - Brit.
-
- HUME: All right, Carl. Thanks very much.
-
- Part 4
-
- This week, senior correspondent Carl
Cameron has reported on a longstanding government espionage
investigation. Federal officials this year have arrested or detained
nearly 200 Israeli citizens suspected of belonging to an "organized
intelligence-gathering operation." The Bush administration has deported
most of those arrested after Sept. 11, although some are in custody
under the new anti-terrorism law.
- Cameron also investigates the possibility
that an Israeli firm generated billing data that could be used for
intelligence purpose, and describes concerns that the federal
government's own wiretapping system may be vulnerable. Tonight, in part
four of the series, we'll learn about the probable roots of the probe:
a drug case that went bad four years ago in L.A.
-
- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
-
- CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): Los Angeles, 1997, a major local, state and federal drug
investigating sours. The suspects: Israeli organized crime with
operations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Canada, Israel and Egypt. The
allegations: cocaine and ecstasy trafficking, and sophisticated
white-collar credit card and computer fraud.
-
- The problem: according to classified law
enforcement documents obtained by Fox News, the bad guys had the cops'
beepers, cell phones, even home phones under surveillance. Some who did
get caught admitted to having hundreds of numbers and using them to
avoid arrest.
-
- "This compromised law enforcement
communications between LAPD detectives and other assigned law
enforcement officers working various aspects of the case. The
organization discovered communications between organized crime
intelligence division detectives, the FBI and the Secret Service."
-
- Shock spread from the DEA to the FBI in
Washington, and then the CIA. An investigation of the problem,
according to law enforcement documents, concluded, "The organization
has apparent extensive access to database systems to identify pertinent
personal and biographical information."
-
- When investigators tried to find out where
the information might have come from, they looked at Amdocs, a publicly
traded firm based in Israel. Amdocs generates billing data for
virtually every call in America, and they do credit checks. The company
denies any leaks, but investigators still fear that the firm's data is
getting into the wrong hands.
-
- When investigators checked their own
wiretapping system for leaks, they grew concerned about potential
vulnerabilities in the computers that intercept, record and store the
wiretapped calls. A main contractor is Comverse Infosys, which works
closely with the Israeli government, and under a special grant program,
is reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development
costs by Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade.
-
- Asked this week about another sprawling
investigation and the detention of 60 Israeli since Sept. 11, the Bush
administration treated the questions like hot potatoes.
-
- ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY:
I would just refer you to the Department of Justice with that. I'm not
familiar with the report.
-
- COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm aware
that some Israeli citizens have been detained. With respect to why
they're being detained and the other aspects of your question - whether
it's because they're in intelligence services, or what they were doing
- I will defer to the Department of Justice and the FBI to answer that.
-
- (END VIDEOTAPE)
-
- CAMERON: Beyond the 60 apprehended or
detained, and many deported since Sept. 11, another group of 140
Israeli individuals have been arrested and detained in this year in
what government documents describe as "an organized intelligence
gathering operation," designed to "penetrate government facilities."
Most of those individuals said they had served in the Israeli military,
which is compulsory there.
-
- But they also had, most of them,
intelligence expertise, and either worked for Amdocs or other companies
in Israel that specialize in wiretapping. Earlier this week, the
Israeli embassy in Washington denied any spying against or in the
United States - Tony.
-
- SNOW: Carl, we've heard the comments from
Ari Fleischer and Colin Powell. What are officials saying behind the
scenes?
-
- CAMERON: Well, there's real pandemonium
described at the FBI, the DEA and the INS. A lot of these problems have
been well known to some investigators, many of who have contributed to
the reporting on this story. And what they say is happening is
supervisors and management are now going back and collecting much of
the information, because there's tremendous pressure from the top
levels of all of those agencies to find out exactly what's going on.
-
- At the DEA and the FBI already a variety of
administration reviews are under way, in addition to the investigation
of the phenomenon. They want to find out how it is all this has come
out, as well as be very careful because of the explosive nature and
very political ramifications of the story itself - Tony.
-
SNOW: All right, Carl, thanks.
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