Tag: Intel Gathering

Vlad Gives Intel

The story broke that Russia may be giving intel on US assets to Iran for retaliatory strikes….

Russia has allegedly provided Iran with information that could help it strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, two officials familiar with US intelligence said.

The officials, who were not authorised to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that US intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information as the US and Israel and Iran fires retaliatory salvos at American assets and allies in the Persian Gulf.

Still, it’s the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran a week ago.

(euronews.com)

I have also read the concerns of some about this possibility.

Yes it is a dastardly move to help destruction to rain down on US assets….but think about it…..is not the US giving intel to Ukraine to be used in retaliatory strikes against Russia?

This is why I was not surprised by the news at all….for is that not what allies do in time of need?

But since Iran and Russia are trading partners this Donny war may be a windfall for Russia.

“For our budget, the attack on Iran is a big plus,” a Russian TV host proclaimed Monday. The Guardian digs into the potential truth of that statement. Russia’s oil and gas revenues are a linchpin of its war financing, and they hit a five-year low last year as sanctions squeezed the flow of exports and prices retreated. But disrupted Gulf supplies could push big buyers like India and China toward more Russian barrels, strengthening Moscow’s leverage after months of having to sell at deep discounts. “When a good fifth of global oil supply and roughly a quarter of seaborne trade is effectively locked up, that’s a boon for Russia,” energy expert Sergey Vakulenko tells the paper.

Some oil that had been languishing on tankers “will definitely find buyers” now, Vakulenko says, and likely at better prices. Al Jazeera reports the price of Russia’s Urals crude, battered by Western sanctions, hit a $40-per-barrel low in late February. On Monday, as the price of the international benchmark Brent crude jumped 13% to $82 per barrel, Urals was lifted to $57.

From a financial point of view this war makes good sense for Russia and the longer they can prolong the conflict the more profit can be made.

And is that not what war is all about….profits?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Failed Mission–2019

This is a mission from 6 years….a mission that did not go off as planned…..

That mission was to the shores of North Korea…..

The New York Times is for the first time revealing a secret mission by Navy SEALs in North Korea that unraveled in dramatic fashion back in 2019. It reads like an espionage thriller, though one with fatal consequences for up to three North Korea fishermen. Under a top-secret plan approved by President Trump, SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron—the same unit famous for killing Osama bin Laden—used mini submarines to reach the North Korean shore at nighttime in early winter. Their mission was to sneak ashore and plant a newly developed listening device to pick up on Kim Jong Un’s communications. Some of the SEALs had made it to shore when the trouble came:

  • “A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.”

In the aftermath, the SEALs discovered that those on the boat appeared to be civilians diving for shellfish—they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The divers apparently heard the subs and began to investigate, with one of them actually jumping in the water. The story explains that the SEALs were incommunicado and had to make a split-second decision on what to do. After killing the divers, they aborted the mission to plant the device, returned to their larger submarine, and headed to open sea. The story alleges that the Trump administration did not brief members of Congress before or after the mission, adding that the “lack of notification may have violated the law.”

Read the full story.

It is interesting that this ‘mission was met with utter silence….I recall a failed mission back in 1979 when Carter sent special ops into Iran to free the hostages…..this one met with failure and the GOP never let him live that failure down.

This one is too hush-hush for it to be held against Donny and the idiots.

So that means that the US does not trust South Korea on the intel they provide on NK….

I am sure there is more to this story than we have right now…..I will be watching….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Was That A Mosquito Or A Drone?

I use to be an avid watcher of the TV series ‘Elementary’, a modern day Sherlock Holmes…..one episode was about an assassination of a guy by a drone in NYC and of course Sherlock was pressed into investigating….while he was a miniature drone was sent to keep an eye on his investigation, about the size of a fly….

I thought that was a Hell of an idea a miniature drone and its applications….

“Here in my hand is a mosquito-like type of robot. Miniature bionic robots like this one are especially suited to information reconnaissance and special missions on the battlefield,” Liang Hexiang, a student at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), told CCTV while holding up the drone between his fingers.

We’ve already entered the drone age. Once the stuff of science fiction, drones are now woven into everyday life. They inspect power lines, monitor endangered wildlife, and deliver medical supplies or even just groceries. But in warfare, their impact is most profound.

In conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East, drones have transformed modern warfare — used for everything from precision strikes to real-time surveillance and even psychological operations. Cheap, commercially available quadcopters can be outfitted with explosives or cameras, turning them into weapons or eyes in the sky. Militaries and militias alike have embraced them, shifting the balance of power away from traditional forces. As this technology becomes smaller, smarter, and more autonomous, drones are rewriting the rules of engagement.

It’s designed to mimic the flight of real insects. Two leaf-like wings flap rapidly to keep it airborne, while three hair-thin legs may help it land or perch on surfaces. Though the design is biologically inspired, the engineering is anything but natural. Inside the body, advanced power systems, miniature sensors, and control electronics must all be packed into a space no larger than a coin.

Its biggest advantage is stealth. If the drone escapes undetected, it can offer valuable information in an urban setting. It could also be used in search and rescue missions or even in electronic or mass surveillance.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/mosquito-china-drones/

Obviously this smaller size would be perfect for intel gathering but could it be fitted with a potent quick acting toxin and used to eliminate adversaries?

As the article states China is not the only country in search of smaller and smaller drones.

Fascinating stuff.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

WTF Happened?

By now everyone has heard about the invasion of Southern Israel by Hamas….(if not then return to your lair under that rock)

How did the world’s best intel group miss the signals?

I have heard that said about the intel capabilities of the Israeli groups….so the question needs to be asked….how did these great intel groups miss this invasion?

As war unfolds in the Middle East following the unprecedented surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants, one question is being asked repeatedly: How did Israeli intelligence—and that of its Western allies—have no idea this was coming? Some takes, which in many cases assume the form of further unanswered questions:

  • At CNN, Joshua Berlinger gives historical context: “It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence. How could a terror group from one of the world’s poorest enclaves manage to launch such a devastating attack?”
  • At Politico, Jamie Dettmer cites reports that more than 2,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza during the initial hours of the attack; planning is thought to have taken months or even years. “Hamas would have used its vast network of tunnels that link the enclave to Egypt, but how did it smuggle in the materials needed for such a huge attack without Israel catching wind of the traffic? And how did Israeli intelligence fail to notice Hamas was making and assembling thousands of home-grown Qassam rockets?”
  • Writing for the Times of Israel, Jacob Dallal suspects “the disunity in Israel created by the legislative overhaul weakened Israel’s deterrence and likely played a role in Hamas’ calculation to attack. Separately, talks of peace with Saudi Arabia may also have put pressure on Hamas and the axis of evil led by Iran to launch war in an effort to torpedo normalization that would have left them isolated in the Arab and Muslim world.” (A rep for Hamas told the BBC Iran provided support for the attack.)
  • At the Wall Street Journal, Dion Nissenbaum writes that “recent Israeli intelligence assessments of Hamas” got it wrong, believing “the militant group had shifted its focus to trying to stoke violence in the West Bank and that it was looking to avoid launching major attacks from Gaza in an effort to avoid the kinds of punishing Israeli military responses that have devastated the isolated area in the past.”
  • Nissenbaum spoke with retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who said, “I’m confident we [the US] had no intel.” At the Atlantic, Gal Beckerman digs into that line of thinking, pointing out that just 9 days ago, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. … Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. But the amount of time I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today, compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11, is significantly reduced.”

Somebody has got some explaining to do.   Boy would I love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting.

Stay Tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Does It Take For A Security Clearance?

The major story a few weeks ago was the War Department leak and the arrest of a National Guardsman for that leak.

Apparently the War Department is using its clout with the MSM to have the story slowly die and be replaced with nonsense like the Correspondents Party.

Many have asked just how could this part-time soldier have access to such sensitive info and how did he get a security clearance?

I am glad you asked.

Jack Teixeira, 21, had a top-secret security clearance which gave him access to sensitive and highly classified government documents. The case has prompted questions about the clearance process and the subsequent red flags that seem to have gone unnoticed after it was granted.

In 2018, a year before he joined the Massachusetts Air National Guard, Mr Teixeira was suspended from high school after being overheard making threats and discussing weapons.

The same year, he made an application for a firearms identification card which was denied over police concerns about his remarks.

Neither incident prevented him from passing the background checks needed to get security clearance for his job as an IT specialist in an intelligence unit.

In the US, security clearances are issued by a wide array of government agencies ranging from the CIA to the Department of Energy. The vast majority are issued by the defence department, according to ClearanceJobs.com, a job portal focused on government jobs that require clearances.

Most agencies have four main levels of security clearance: confidential, secret, top-secret, and “sensitive compartmented information”, which has been called “above top secret”, and can include material from intelligence sources.

The process of obtaining a security clearance begins with a suitability check to determine eligibility for the job, and applicants then have to fill in an exhaustive form. Standard Form 86, or SF86, includes personal data such as education and employment history, details of family and associates, and foreign travel and connections. It also asks about criminal history, military service, and financial issues.

…..read on….

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65415971

Personally I think there are too many ‘security consultants’ with access to sensitive info….this will not stop the abuse and as long as there are more ‘consultants’ than military it will continue to be a problem.

And the beat goes on.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–12Apr22

Did the CIA experiment on orphans?

A new report indicates that it is a possibility that they did……some say to perfect torture techniques….

An extraordinary Danish Radio report exposed how scores of children in Denmark, many of them orphans, were subject to CIA-funded experiments for at least two decades.

The purpose of these activities remains unknown, as authorities continue to actively suppress the truth of what happened in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The startling exposé is based on the work of documentarian Per Wennick, who was one of 311 participants in the mysterious trials. The children never learned the objective of the tortuous assessments to which they were exposed, even after they ended.

Such trials are in conflict with the Nuremberg Code, which enforces the vital requirement of obtaining consent from human subjects in all medical research.

According to Wennick, when he was 11 years old, he was asked at an authoritarian orphanage in Copenhagen if he wanted to try something “fun” at the local municipal hospital. It was vaguely described as an examination of how children “feel”. Believing it would be a welcome diversion, he acquiesced and even received a small sum for his participation.

Wennick went on to undergo a series of regular tests, which included being forced to listen to recordings on headphones of loud noises, screams, and statements intended to scare him. Staff strapped him to a chair while electrodes were placed on his arms, legs, and chest, measuring his heart rate, temperature, and sweat levels.

These experiments continued until 1973, when Wennick was 24-years-old. However, a decade later, while in a hospital due to a skin complaint, he learned his visit—in fact, his every contact with healthcare services— was reported to the Danish Psychological Institute for reasons never made clear to him.

Fast forward to 2018. While at a film festival in the United States, he saw the documentary “Three Identical Strangers,” which tells the story of triplets deliberately separated at birth and offered up for adoption to families of differing socioeconomic backgrounds, in a covert and highly unethical scientific “nature versus nurture” study.

https://thedissenter.org/cia-funded-experiments-on-danish-orphans-for-decades/

Would that surprise you if true?

Keep in mind the experiments that the CIA conducted using LSD and the tests on blacks…..and oh so much more.

This is disgraceful but we will just turn as blind eye and claim “national security” (the refuge of the corrupt)…..

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Where’s The Outrage?

Let’s step back from Ukraine for awhile and take up another issue that has lost in the media……

Remember when it was revealed that the NSA was collected mega data on US citizens?

There was endless rants and posts about the affront to our rights to privacy…..and yet the newest report of a massive data collection of US citizens is gone by with few writing of the outrage…..

The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties.

According to a declassified report released yesterday by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the CIA’s surveillance program is reminiscent of the mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA, though the details released thus far paint a disturbing picture of potential wide-scale violations of people’s privacy. To start, the CIA program has apparently been conducted outside the statutory reforms and oversight of the intelligence community instituted after revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013. The newly declassified CIA data collection program is carried out in conjunction with Executive Order 12333 and is therefore subject to even less oversight than the woefully under-supervised NSA surveillance programs subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The whos, whats, whys, and hows of this semi-disclosed CIA program are still unknown, and the public deserves the right to know exactly what damage has been done. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich are already pressing for the release of even more information. In a partially-redacted letter sent to the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director on April 13, 2021, the senators have called for the public release of the full report about the CIA’s surveillance, which remains classified. The senators’ letter also demands answers about how the agency collects the data, what data is being collected, and the rules governing its storage and retention.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/we-need-answers-about-cias-mass-surveillance

Once again the American people show a disturbing indifference to the world around them….as long as their little pathetic sphere is blue skies and unicorns then they could care damn less at the loss of rights.

Collectively the American people could be filed away in the ‘Can’t Fix Stupid’ collection.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–21Oct20

Remember all those horror stories coming out of the old USSR where the KGB was installed in all branches of the government to keep track of it’s people?

Well thank god that does not happen here in the good old US of A, right?

Or does it?

The White House planted two political officials with no public health experience at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep tabs on the agency and its scientists, according to The Associated Press.

Nina Witkofsky was appointed as senior advisor to CDC Director Robert Redfield at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters in June and within weeks had been promoted to CDC acting chief of staff.

The second political arrival, Chester “Trey” Moeller, is Witkofsky’s deputy. 

Witkofsky, the AP said, played a small role in Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Her CDC profile also says she has worked in governmental affairs for 20 years, including at the State Department. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-planted-political-operatives-cdc-control-narrative-ap-2020-10

Has the US now created a KGB like section for spying on governmental officials?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Few Thoughts

These are a couple of stories that I came across and marked for a possible post….they never made it that far…..events moved quickly and made them a moot point…..

First thought is the ever popular NRA…popular with the GOP who gets a regular paycheck from the lobbying group……

It appears as if the NRA knew they were being played by the Russian agent…..

Top officials at the National Rifle Association knew Russians were using their ties to the gun rights group to try to bolster their status with lawmakers or the winner of the 2016 presidential election, a new report from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee shows.

In 2015, Russian national Maria Butina, who last year pleaded guilty to conspiracy as an unregistered foreign agent, tapped her political operative boyfriend Paul Erickson to help her convince a top NRA official to come to Moscow, according to the committee report made public Friday.
“Russia believes that high level contacts with the NRA might be the BEST means of neutral introduction to either the next American President OR to a meaningful re-set in relations with the Congress under a (God forbid) President Clinton,” Erickson, a GOP political operative wrote to Peter Brownell, the chief executive of a firearm accessories company and, at the time, the incoming president of the NRA. “This simple good will trip would have enormous diplomatic consequences for a future U.S. / Russia bilateral relationship to the world.”
 
Second the whole mash up with the Ukraine phone call is what set the whole inquiry in motion…..SecState Pompeo has babbled that he had not seen the complaint and knows nothing about the phone call that started this whole thing….I appears that Pompeo is lying (go figure)…….
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was one of the people listening in on President Trump’s call to Ukraine’s president in July—the call that prompted the House to begin an impeachment inquiry. A senior State Department official confirmed Pompeo’s involvement on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports. Pompeo had said that he opposed releasing the transcript of Trump’s conversation with President Volodymy Zelensky. He has since said the decision is up to the White House.
 
Pompeo had said he hadn’t read the whistleblower complaint in full about the phone call, and not answered specific questions about the conversation. As far as he knew, Pompeo said, per CNN, State Department officials had acted properly. Three House committees have issued subpoenas to Pompeo for documents related to the inquiry. He faces a deadline of Friday to turn them over
Pompeo has stated that ……
the House panels conducting the impeachment inquiry requested that five current and former State Department officials appear this week and next for depositions. On Tuesday, Mike Pompeo made clear that won’t happen, the Washington Post reports. The secretary of state sent a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (Pompeo posted the letter in full on Twitter) outlining a number of “serious substantive and procedural deficiencies” in the request, which he called nothing more than “an attempt to intimidate, bully, and treat improperly, the distinguished professionals of the Department of State.” He faulted the committee for not providing the five enough time to prepare and said the panels are trying to block State Department counsel from coming with them.
 
He also noted the five weren’t issued subpoenas, and “we are not aware of any other authority by which the committee could compel appearance at a depositions”; therefore, the scheduled depositions “could only be read as a request for a voluntary appearance.” The officials requested have all somehow been involved in US-Ukraine relations: Marie Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine; Kurt Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine; Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent; US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland; and State Department Counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl. Later Tuesday, CNN reports, the chairmen of the three committees requesting the depositions issued a statement warning Pompeo that “any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress … is illegal.” The AP reports that Volker, who resigned last week, has agreed to talk to the committees behind closed doors this week and Yovanovitch will appear Oct. 11
No problem…either they answer questions or they are in contempt and should be arrested immediately.
 
Pompeo will say whatever Trump trlls him to say……Im have NO use for people like that…….suck ass cheese eaters…..
A little more than a week after saying he had just been handed “a report about a IC whistle-blower complaint, none of which I’ve seen,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed Wednesday that he was on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that prompted the complaint and is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry. “I was on the call,” Pompeo said from Rome, adding the US policy had been about helping rid Ukraine of corruption, per the New York Times. “We will continue to try to drive those set of outcomes,” he said when asked if he had any concerns about the call, per CNN.
 
Pompeo then elaborated on a Tuesday letter in which he accused Democrats of attempting to intimidate officials asked to appear for depositions. “They contacted State Department employees directly, told them not to contact legal counsel at the State Department,” he said, claiming the demands “deeply violate fundamental principles of separation of powers.” Late Tuesday, however, the chairmen of three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry said Pompeo “appears to have an obvious conflict of interest” and “should immediately cease intimidating Department witnesses in order to protect himself and the president,” per Bloomberg and the Hill.
Nothing about the DC Triumvirate, Trump, Barr, Pompeo is about what is best for the country….it is all about protecting a pertson…not the country or the Constitution.
 
The media is acting all butt hurt that Pompeo is lying to them……in reality Pompeo has been a lying arrogant Neocon since his days in the Congress…..to think that he has changed because he has a position of authority is just STUPID!
 
According to your president there is a “coup”….but then there has been such since he walked into office…..
 
Not for the first time, President Trump is falsely claiming a coup against him. “As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP,” the president tweeted late Tuesday. Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro had suggested the same hours earlier, telling Fox Business that the impeachment inquiry was “nothing less than an attempted coup d’état,” reports the Hill.
 
Trump also claimed a failed coup in April, reports USA Today. “They tried for a coup, it didn’t work out so well,” he said of the Mueller report at the NRA’s annual meeting. Trump is likely to expand on his defense at a Wednesday press conference. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff will jointly hold one of their own, per NBC News, while the State Department’s inspector general will brief congressional committees on documents related to the Ukraine scandal.
As usual the president uses words that he has NO earthly idea what they mean……
 
Thought process recorded.
 
“I Read, I Wrote and now You Know!”
 
“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Trump Said What?

After the deadly nuke explosion in Russia that killed some of their nuclear scientist….the president took to his favorite source of manure spreading Twitter……

In an apparent attempt to “one-up” and embarrass Russia many are wondering if President Donald Trump just tweeted out U.S. national nuclear secrets. Seven people died last week during a “failed test of Russia’s SSC-X-9 Skyfall, a nuclear-powered cruise missile still in development,” as Vox reported. One expert called it a flying nuclear reactor.

President Trump, who has been tweeting up a storm ever since he kicked off his 10-day August vacation at his golf course in Bedminster, NJ, apparently decided late Monday afternoon was a good time to respond – not with condolences for the lives lost, but by gloating.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/casually-tweeting-out-national-secrets-internet-stunned-as-trump-tweets-about-previously-unknown-us-nukes/

This is not the first time that Trump has divulged secrets for public consumption without the declassification process.

Now I wonder what would be said if say Obama or Clinton had thrown secrets out there to gain some sort of political advantage….thoughts?

How long will the American people take this sort of treasonous activity?

Mr. President, please stop giving away our secrets to your bud Vlad.

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

Please VOTE!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”