Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – 2011 Trailer

An espionage thriller set around the Cold War. Ex MI6 George Smiley is forced out of retirement to unearth a Soviet agent within “The Circus.” It hits theaters on November 11th and I must say after peeping the trailer I’m eagerly anticipating its arrival. Watch this, and See for yourself.

Julian Assange faces arrest in Australia over unredacted WikiLeaks cables

guardian.co.uk



Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week.

WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website's original media partners.

Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland, confirmed in a statement on Friday that the new cable release identified at least one individual within the country's intelligence service. He added it is a criminal offence in the country to publish any information which could lead to the identification of an intelligence officer.

"I am aware of at least one cable in which an ASIO officer is purported to have been identified," he said. "ASIO and other Government agencies officers are working through the material to see the extent of the impact on Australian interests.

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Expert says UK government is too preoccupied with launching cyber attacks

computing.co.uk

A security expert has claimed that the UK is devoting most of its cyber crime fighting efforts to cyber attack, leaving limited resources for defence.

Speaking exclusively to Computing, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the Cambridge University computer laboratory, stated that 90 per cent of the government's recent funding injection into cyber security was going to the UK's offensive capability.

"The spooks - GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, pictured] - are getting 90 per cent of this new £650m for cyber security [they are responsible for cyber attacks]. The rest, about £65m, is going to the police."

Anderson blamed the imbalance on the fact that the UK's cyber defence capabilities are organisationally placed within GCHQ, the body responsible for electronic espionage, or cyber attack.

"Like the US, the UK has unfortunately got the government's offensive and defensive arms linked together.

"CESG [Communications-Electronic Security Group], which is supposedly defending the core functions of government against for example cyber espionage by the Chinese, is a small subsidiary of GCHQ whose job is exploiting those sources abroad.

"This mixed mission is very bad policy, because it means defensive interests are always less important than an offensive approach."

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Raleigh Spy Conference: The Spies Among Us...

raleighspyconference.com



Note: What are you waiting for? Stop by, It should be a blast! JDL

Wednesday August 24-26

5:30 PM - 7:00 PM

Pre-Registration Reception 18 Seaboard restaurant gallery space, 18 Seaboard Avenue off Peace Street near downtown Raleigh. Tel: 919-861-4318 www.18seaboard.com

The Raleigh Spy Conference is known nationally for providing the general public direct access to intelligence officers, operatives and scholars in an informal atmosphere. Attendees have the opportunity to speak with and mix socially with conference speakers during the event.



"In Washington, it's difficult for the public to comprehend important intelligence and terrorism issues since everything is partisan and politically charged. Outside Washington, there are few voices for the public to hear, and those heard are often wrong or media-driven. Few are able to explain to the public what really has happened, and is happening, in intelligence, counterterrorism and national security - important issues, which, throughout history, have spelled the survival or loss of this or other nations. The annual Raleigh Spy Conference is a rare opportunity to hear it straight, with an unusual 'insider's' perspective and knowledge. Each year this conference opens that door to share remarkable insights and stellar speakers with the public. If one claims a scintilla of world-affairs knowledge, it cannot be true unless the annual Raleigh Spy Conference is on your calendar."



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Espionage: Russia's traitor is CIA's mascot

boston.com
The CIA isn’t supposed to brag about its successes, but it can take great pride in a Russian military court’s decision to sentence Aleksandr Poteyev in absentia to 25 years in prison. Poteyev, a former colonel in Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, tipped off the CIA in 1999 about 10 Russian sleeper agents who were planted in Cambridge, New York City, and northern Virginia to imitate plain-vanilla Americans and harvest information about US policy and weapons.

Thanks to the tip from double agent Poteyev, the FBI had the Russian sleeper operatives under surveillance from the start. “As a result,’’ a Russian military judge explained last week, “their work yielded few results.’’ The judge clearly made this observation to castigate a traitor and justify his harsh sentence. But he also made it clear why the 10 Russian agents rounded up last year were not charged with espionage in the United States. As it turns out, their trackers never let them get in position to acquire classified information.

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Tools of Tradecraft: More Spy Gear From the CIA, Others

wired
Every good spy story needs a sequel.

Last month, we published a gallery of CIA spy tools that was so popular, we decided to publish a follow-up with more gear.

We've expanded the rogue's gallery of ingenious spy gadgets with a raft of devious tricks from the former Soviet bloc and other countries, including a lipstick gun, shoe bug and a seriously savage rectal Houdini kit (you'll understand it when you see the pic). We hope you like these as much as you liked the others. All images are courtesy of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

Kiss of Death

For the spy-op gone bad, or simply for any Natscha who found herself out to dinner with the date from hell, this Cold War-era KGB lipstick gun delivered the kiss of death with a single 4.5mm shot.

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Sailor charged with attempted espionage

hamptonroads.com

NORFOLK

A U.S. Navy sailor serving at Fort Bragg was charged Thursday with attempting to sell classified documents.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Bryan Minkyu Martin, 22, of New York, was charged with attempting to forward classified information to a person not authorized to receive such information, a news release from the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic public affairs office said. A court-martial date has not been set, but legal proceedings will take place at the Region Legal Service Office at Norfolk Naval Station.

Martin, an intelligence specialist, was arrested in December while he was assigned to the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story in Virginia Beach. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in support of the Army and had been undergoing training at Fort Bragg in preparation for that deployment.

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House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

wired.com

The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public.

The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to Dec. 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148.

The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.

The three expiring Patriot Act provisions are: More...

Navy intel specialist jailed on classified info allegations

cnn.com
Washington (CNN) -- An espionage sting at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has put a 22-year-old Navy Reserve intelligence specialist behind bars, according to federal authorities.

Agents of the Navy Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI took Navy Reserve Intelligence Specialist 3rd Class Bryan Minkyu Martin into custody Wednesday on suspicion of selling classified information.

According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, Martin met with an FBI undercover agent posing as an intelligence officer of an un-named foreign country three times at a motel in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg Army base. The documents allege he was paid a total of $3,500 in cash. The affidavit says Martin handed over documents marked "Top Secret" and "Secret" and signed receipts for two of the payments.

The application for a search warrant of Martin's apartment and car say he has been working for Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg since September.

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Tracking Baby Jesus: Tucson Company Deploys a New Kind of Star to Help Lead Police

prweb.com
SpyGadgets LLC, an industry leader in covert GPS Tracking technology is known in law enforcement circles as the place to go when difficult situations require extraordinary electronic equipment. From tracking the man who floated across three states in a lawn chair powered by helium balloons to the FBI’s most wanted, SpyGadgets has tracked virtually everything. This Christmas season they are deploying the BlackStar GPS Tracker to Churches with nativity scenes across the Southern Arizona region and beyond.

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4th Amendment Wear– Because everyone loves passive – aggressive protests

cg
f you’ve gone anywhere by plane recently you will no doubt have passed by the dreaded TSA body scanners. If you haven’t been anywhere lately, I’m sure you are still very aware of all the controversy being caused by this invasion of privacy, designed to um, *cough* keep us all safe.

Well, you don’t have to just stand there and take it anymore. A new line of silent protest undergarments are headed your way, allowing you to get your point across, without ever saying a word.

4th Amendment Wear, white undergarments printed with metallic type that shows up on TSA scanners quietly evokes the 4th Amendment. Surely you remember the 4th Amendment, don’t you? It guards against unreasonable search and seizure. The amendment also requires that search warrants be supported by probable cause. Huh. Sounds like a great idea.

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Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts

thesmokinggun.com

AUGUST 23--The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media” The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.

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Past Russian spies have found post-swap life gets a bit sticky

washingtonpost.com

Russia's accused spies could be posing soon for stamp designers in Moscow instead of prison intake photographers here, if a swap deal comes through and the Kremlin follows its tradition of honoring its secret agents.

Ever since the depths of the Cold War, the Kremlin has used postage stamps to showcase operatives who managed to steal some of the West's most guarded secrets, from atomic bomb designs to diplomatic cables to sensitive technical information, before they were arrested.

Their stories are as well known in Russia as the legend of Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale is here.

And while life in Moscow may be duller than New York, Boston, New Jersey, Seattle and Washington, D.C., where the 11 Russians charged last week allegedly lived as long-term, deep-penetration agents, it won't be too bad, either, if their predecessors' experience is any guide.

Their main worry will be keeping their minds.

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US nails Chinese CEO

special.globaltimes.cn
The proud Harvard graduate was once a respected CEO of one of China's top 10 independent electronic component distributors in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

Now Wu Zhenzhou sits in a 6-square-meter cell in a US detention center facing a possible 20-year sentence for conspiracy to violate US export laws and illegally exporting electronic equipment from the US to China between 2004 and 2007. He will be sentenced August 17.

Branded a "Chinese spy" by the American media, his was one of the most high-profile US counterintelligence cases in 2009.

Some 50 FBI officers were involved in the arrest of the three Chinese defendants - originally indicted on 38 counts, including conspiracy to violate the US Arms Export Control Act for allegedly exporting defense weapons and electronics, money laundering and filing false documents with the US Department of Commerce.

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USB Flash Drive Spy Cufflinks

cg

All Spies must have their data with them at all times! We want absolutely everything to be mobile and with us at all times. Which makes these flash drive cufflinks only the obvious next step. This pair of USB drives will let you keep all of your documents directly on your wrist. Plus you can keep two different sets, since you’ll have a drive on each wrist.

It will give you a total of 4GB worth of space to fill up, there’s 2GB on each of the drives. You can even have the shiny drive engraved. Should you not like the shiny look you can also pick up gunmetal and gold finishes. They are small enough that it’s unlikely that another spy will notice them.

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Auction heaven for 007: Rare espionage gadgets

dailymail.co.uk

There's a camera that shoots darts, a lipstick tube containing a dagger and fake monkey dung that explodes.

All were part of the armoury developed at a top-secret British spy camp on the bleak shore of a Canadian lake.

And if it all sounds a bit James Bond, then perhaps that's not surprising. Among the agents who learned their deadly craft at Camp X near Ontario was Bond's creator, Ian Fleming.

The gadgets, which also include a poison gas pen, and hundreds of other artefacts such as photos, fake cash, weapons, radios and uniforms, are part of an intriguing collection left behind after the wartime spy factory closed.

For years they have been housed in a museum, a reminder of the daring of the British special operatives who were trained at the camp before going behind enemy lines.

But now the museum's owner wants to sell up, angering those with links to Camp X. Among the items for sale is a radio used to keep in touch with London. It is expected to fetch £32,000.

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Cambridge exhibition drags spies in from the cold

reuters.com

CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters Life!) - The shadowy world of espionage is dragged into the spotlight at a new exhibition from the British university which gave the world the Cold War double spies Philby, Burgess and Blunt.

Cambridge University Library (www.lib.cam.ac.uk) will use recently declassified documents and "top secret" material from its own archives in its free exhibition "Under Covers: Documenting Spies" to examine the art of espionage from Biblical times to the modern era.

The show draws on personal archives, printed books, official publicity material, popular journals, specialist photographs and maps, mostly from the university library's own collections, to illustrate a few of the ways in which spies have been documented through the centuries.

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Accused scientist spy breached top-secret policy in '02

washingtonexaminer.com

A Maryland scientist accused of giving classified defense information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer was under suspicion of breaching top-secret protocols as early as 2002, court documents said.

Despite the suspicion, Stewart Nozette was allowed to keep his clearance through 2007. It finally was stripped after federal authorities found classified information on his home computers while investigating him for fraud. He has since pleaded guilty to stealing almost $1 million in salary and benefits by lying on invoices for work he did for the Department of Defense and NASA through his nonprofit company, Alliance for Competitive Technology.

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