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Feckless and lazy, but the Russian spy ring was real
The network of low-profile spies set up by Russia would have been useful - if only the agents hadn‘t enjoyed American suburbia so much
There's been ripe chortling about the spy network run in the US by the Russian SVR – the successor to the KGB in the area of foreign intelligence. The 11 accused were supposedly a bunch of bumblers so deficient in remitting secrets to Moscow across nearly a decade that the FBI can't even muster the evidence to charge them with espionage.
The ten who have been arrested are charged with conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the US attorney general, which is what lobbyists here do if they are working for, say, Georgia or China. Their filings are available for public review at the Commerce Department. If the Russians are convicted, they could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
All of the defendants who appeared in the New York court except one, the fetching Anna Chapman (above), are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Assuming their lawyers don't get them off, a doubtful proposition, we can assume the Russians will round up 11 Americans, charge them with spying and then do a trade. Then both sides will start again, the Russians training fresh sets of agents to spout American baseball records, burn hamburgers over the backyard grill, jog and do other all-American things like have negative equity on their houses and owe the IRS money, and the Americans forcing their agents to read Dostoevsky.
The network wasn't so dumb in conception. Anna Chapman, her photo now being ogled across the net, listed herself as the chief executive officer of PropertyFinder Ltd, a Manhattan real estate firm. This would have been a good springboard into intimate contacts and possibly productive blackmail, with Wall Street tycoons, and the vast espionage target known as the UN HQ in midtown.
The couple in Boston were nicely located to consort with the hundreds of US government consultants, active advisors and retired officials, roosting at Harvard and MIT. Secrets to steal? There are plenty in the greater Boston/Cambridge area. In the mid-1990s the director of Central Intelligence was John Deutch, formerly a prof at MIT who came under heavy investigation after his retirement for having kept top secret intelligence files on his home computers. Deutch, born in Brussels with a Russian Jewish father, was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his last day in office.
It's not a demerit for a spy to live in suburbia in a home secluded behind hydrangeas. "Agents of influence" live the high life and consort with the mighty. Intelligence work needs low profile people too, who chase up confidential data from the pharmaceutical companies and other industrial and high tech outfits with which New Jersey is filled.
But are there any secrets left to steal in this post-Cold War era of the internet? Of course. There are always codes, reports of secret advanced military projects, bio-tech and computer hard and software to be acquired or at least invigilated. In the dawn of the Republic Alexander Hamilton, the first US secretary of the treasury, treated it as his first order of business to persuade president George Washington to launch a major, successful spy program to steal British industrial patents.
In this case the members of the Russian ring seem, at least to judge from the FBI indictment, to have been timid and without much inventive energy, merely happy to be living in reasonable comfort in America, rather than struggling in Russia's difficult current environment. It was a situation that did not require a denouement. The FBI had a budget-enhancing job requiring thousands of person-hours monitoring the suspected spies. The spies had their pleasant lives. The SVR had its budget-enhancing spy ring. Why upset the apple cart by rushing in to arrest everyone except Christopher Metsos who jumped bail in Cyprus?
The Russians say darkly that it was an effort by neoconservative forces to mar the pleasant encounter between presidents Medvedev and Obama. Maybe. But if it was a right-wing conspiracy to bring back the Cold War it was pretty pathetic. The Obama administration made haste to discount any serious diplomatic backwash from the arrests. Maybe the Russians were about to roll up the ring and the FBI wanted to grab a few headlines and justify their next budget request. Maybe it was part of some internecine feud between US intelligence agencies. If there is - as seems likely - a back story, it will be years, if ever, before it comes out.
The FBI is probably thrilled to come up with some spies who aren't Israelis or Americans working for the Israelis who are routinely spared the inconvenience of any trial by the intervention of Israeli-backed US politicians and speedily released.
A retired intelligence officer in Washington DC did raise some intriguing questions on a Washington Post discussion site, particularly about steganography - embedding secret messages in internet communications - a technique the Russians allegedly used.
"The document from the FBI has some curious anomalies: (1) after the steganography images were processed, why did they remain posted?; (2) why were the agents not trained in radiograms and steganography prior to coming to the US?; (3) why did the agents keep the paper record of the 27 character password for the steganography software, when it should have been memorized or burned immediately?; (4) why would the UN diplomat meet directly with the agent in Brooklyn, instead of using a cut-out?; (5) why were the meetings in the South American country including the hand-over of cash conducted in broad daylight in a public park? Illegals are expensive long-term investments, but this batch didn't seem to have been managed well, at least that is the impression from reading the FBI documents."
The answer is surely that the Russians need to tighten up their act.
Remember that when Graham Greene joined MI6 it seemed so appallingly inefficient that he concluded that this was a false front operation, masking the real MI6 from novices such as himself. ·
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Luigi Sasso, it is you who is sprouting nonsense. Besides Jonathan Pollard issue that happened vin the 1980's, there is not an iota of proof that Israel has spied on the USA or that Jewish Americans have done so either. The assertioon that 5 Israeli spies were dancing in the streets as a result of the the towers also has no proof but I did see the videos of thousands of Arabs including Palestinians dancing in the streetsat the time. The suggestion that Israel had anything to do with the twin tower attack is the same kind of conspiracy theory which states that the American government had done it. Again one must ask, where is the proof. Why didn't the press report it. I watched the tbe videos that you suggest and I ask all readers to have a look at it and the video of the 5 Israelis. Full of perhapses and may and maybe words. The communication company 'Amdocs limited 'company which the video purports is suspect is a highly respectable company and is still operating in the USA. The video presents no proof of anything at all. It is obvious that your assertions are simply nonsense.
What rubbish Normtrub!! Israelis have been doing the dirty work against the United States since 1947, not to mention the Jewish Americans who have betrayed the USA for their masters in Israel.
EXAMPLE: Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish American, born in Galveston Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. Pollard decided to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state. Pollard stole classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to the USSR and sent them to Israel. According to sources in the US State Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from the USSR to Israel.
Other information that found its way from the US to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents operating inside the USSR.
Israel waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship.
This is just the tip of the Iceberg.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpWc_suPWo - In November, 2001, Fox News aired this four part series, which shows that Israeli intelligence has total control over the information networks in the USA. Also, 60 Israeli spies, with explosives training, were arrested in connection with the 9/11 attack, not to mention the 5 Israelis spys who were caught dancing and celebrating as the Twin Towers fell.
Ah yes, what a surprise!! I was wondering, even before reading this piece, how Alexander Cockburn would somehow negatively involve Israel and i haven't been disappointed. So, the FBI are probably thrilled to find a spy ring not connected with Israel or Jews working (I presume he meant spying) for Israel since he is talking about the FBI. Where do you get that information from Mr Cockburn? Who are these people? How do you know about the apparent FBI glee? Perhaps you might be able to come up with another disgusting imaginary story about Prime minister Netanyahu as you did in the piece titled 'Barack Obama the wimp: unable to act like a President on BP or Israel'. You are supposed to be a journalist. What a joke!
Mr. Cockburn, it appears that in one case in particular, it looks like a set up.
The whole article, and all articles on this in the British press, have taken what is an accusation, and turned it into a proven fact. No judge or jury has ruled on this, so where is the word 'alleged'?
This is typical of the press. US officials' statements are taken as gospel. In other words cheap propaganda.
The other point here is, and of course the press never ever make the connection for some strange reason, is that "It's a strange accusation coming from a country that is practically open about paying for subversive activities in countries that do not kneel before Yankee hegemony... In Cuba, for example, agents of the U.S. secret services working at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana have been shown a number of times on national television 'giving' packets full of money to their employees. Recently, the U.S. government, the same that now accuses Vicky Pelaez of being a spy 'for receiving money' has publicly admitted that in the next few months, it will distribute $15 million dollars to the so-called opposition (in reality, mercenaries) in Cuba."
"Last week a document published with financing from a U.S. agency, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) revealed that between $40 and $50 million dollars in financing went to political groups in Venezuela who oppose the government of President Hugo Chavez. According to reports declassified since 2002, various U.S. and European agencies such as USAID, NED, Freedom House, the State Department, the European Commission and others, have financed political parties and groups in Venezuela to 'end the Chavez government' including an attempted coup d'etat in April, 2002.
Nevertheless, when the Venezuelan government has accused (not arrested) groups and individuals receiving these funds of being 'foreign agents' the U.S. government and international human rights 'defenders'accuse it of being 'dictatorial' 'repressive' and a 'violator' of basic rights.
Last week, Bolivia's President Evo Morales also accused USAID of financing destabilization activities in his country, alerting Washington that its embassy could be expelled from the Andean nation.
In Cuba, Alan Gross, an employee of a USAID contractor, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), was arrested in December 2009 and accused of espionage and subversion. He brought satellite and other high technology equipment to the Caribbean country to be delivered to counter-revolutionary groups.
In Venezuela, international agencies appear to be involved in huge money laundering networks, along with their Venezuelan 'associates'. Millions of dollars in cash are brought into the country without being reported, in order to avoid Venezuelan controls on foreign currency exchange which exist to prevent illegal activities and capital flight.
Venezuela's electoral laws prohibit the external financing of political campaigns in the country. Nevertheless, Washington violates the same laws that it insists be respected on its own territory."