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Googling for CIA Agents
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jul 15, 2005 03:35 PM
from the tomorrow-today dept.
from the tomorrow-today dept.
yali writes "As the heat turns up on the investigation into how an undercover CIA officer's identity was leaked to the press a technology columnist at the SF Chronicle, David Lazarus, shows how easy it is to identify individuals via the Internet. Even with little information, using widely available tools like Google and LexisNexis, it is possible to turn up startlingly relevant details." From the article: "I then went back to Google and got a map of Plame's neighborhood and directions to her home. Google also allowed me to study a high-resolution satellite photo of Plame's house. I could see that the property appears to be in a quiet residential community and looks approachable from all sides. It also offers ready access by car to major thoroughfares."
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And? (Score:5, Insightful)
But if they had access to (Score:5, Funny)
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You're Right: And... Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:You're Right: And... Nothing (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
For those who don't, anything listing her job would have had her working at that CIA front, 'Brewster Jennings & Associates'. Completely unrelated to the government.
Which also means she was DISAVOWED if she got caught, not sent home with a stern note and public complaints like those with diplomatic immunity pretending to work for the state department.
Many times spouses of NOCs don't even know who they really work for. Although presumably hers did, considering who he worked for.
OTOH, you can have great fun outing CIA agents by googling "Brewster Jennings" and seeing who claims to work for them.
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Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
And numerous eastern european spook agencies where Plame worked for all those years have already done this. I'm sure they've also looked through their past records to find who met with who from that company a few years back.
I remember back shortly after this Plame story first broke way back when, a friend of a friend said the rumors going over on the Hill (take with whatever salt you feel necessary) said as many as 70 of our sources had vanished. If that's true, most of them probably went into hiding, the remainder would have gotten quietly "picked up." Either way, they're not talking to our people anymore.
It's dangerous being an informant for a foreign government, especially when that government's spy agencies can be jerked around like this by some half-ass political hack like Karl Rove, the Mayberry Machiavelli.
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Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
OTOH, you can have great fun outing CIA agents by googling "Brewster Jennings" and seeing who claims to work for them.
You should know that there are many, many companies and organizations hire "consultants". Brewster Jennings is a company that was indeed real, but set up as a cover company who may have in fact hired other folks that were not "cover". I am unaware of any specifics that have been published on this. However, you should also know that there are many other real companies that hire consultants. Companies that deal in construction, or real estate, or defense products, or science can all have "consultants" installed and working as cover for other purposes. Many of these companies can be found as customers of Dun & Bradstreet, but I will tell you that there are legitimate companies and cover companies they do business with and they can both do classified work or neither. My point is that just because someone is listed as an employee of such a company, that really means nothing as to their status or identity as a potential NOC. To paraphrase Freud, "A secretary may in fact just be a secretary."
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the problem with this? Well, there's been a lot of talk of oil production having reached its peak and begun its decline. Financial Times recently reported that the Saudis had admitted that OPEC oil production won't be able to meet world demand within 20 years.
I don't know whether petroleum production has yet reached its peak and started to decline, and I don't know when OPEC will not be able to meet world demand. Wouldn't it be nice if at this time of uncertainty, the USA had some kind of asset capable of investigating these things from up close?
Too bad a political vendetta destroyed major intelligence assets that could have helped with just that.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
And the official position of CIA (not just 'someone who supervised her') is that she was a NOC. You can spin that however you like, but I doubt the Special Counsel will listen to you.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know much about the Agency do you? Do you have any idea how many analysts work there? Do you realize that all analysts are not "agents" working in secret as supposed employees of the State Department? Do you realize that agents working under-cover are often analysts? Determining who is actually a "spook" can be difficult and that is the problem with this case. If Ms. Plame was actually an under-cover operative, then an egregious violation of protocol and law has occurred.
As an aside: You should also know that there are a significant number of employees working for the agency that are doing nothing in the way of classified work.
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Re:And? (Score:3, Informative)
She didn't officially work for the US government in any capacity, neither for the CIA or the State Department, where almost all the non-NOCs operatives pretend to work.
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Informative)
> least it had been infiltrated by CIA.
Yeah, or for the slower witted spies, you could just wait for Novak [townhall.com] to publish his second article where he identified Brewer Jennings & Associates as a CIA front company:
> In making her April 22, 1999 [to Gore], contribution, Valerie E.
> Wilson identified herself as an "analyst" with "Brewster-
> Jennings & Associates." No such firm is listed anywhere, but
> the late Brewster Jennings was president of Socony-Vacuum
> oil company a half-century ago. Any CIA employee working
> under "non-official cover" always is listed with a real firm, but
> never an imaginary one.
This was at the beginning of Novak attempting to dismiss Wilson's conclusions about his trip because he was "partisan" (even ignoring the fact that Wilson gave money to Bush and Gore, and he served under both parties' presidents). It's considered to be a logical fallacy, but it hasn't stopped Republicans from trying it in the past two years of this WMD debacle. The fact that they exposed information about the CIA for political gain is unconscionable.
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Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the quote
"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office."
Media repeated false GOP talking point on authorization for Wilson trip to Niger [mediamatters.org]
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You're Not Field Officers (Score:5, Funny)
Her Biggest Mistake (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Her Biggest Mistake (Score:4, Informative)
It's both.
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Next Stop: Mandatroy Information Pollution (Score:5, Insightful)
Information Pollution, one of Arthur C. Clarke's insights pointed out some years back, that a time would come when the amount of noise within that enormous repository of information would become detrimental. In this case, the government might seek to inject as much contradictory information as it can.
Re:Next Stop: Mandatroy Information Pollution (Score:4, Funny)
1990 called, they want their PR bullshit back...
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Did they...? (Score:5, Funny)
Next week's column (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next week's column (Score:3, Funny)
It's worse than that... (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason I didn't... such a sword cuts both ways. If I put his mom in play, all moms became fair game.
But this was 8 or 9 years ago, and the only thing that reporter cited that I wasn't able to do then was examine satellite photos of Spamford's mom's house.
- G
Re:It's worse than that... (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason I didn't... such a sword cuts both ways. If I put his mom in play, all moms became fair game.
But this was 8 or 9 years ago, and the only thing
The three monkeys (Score:3, Insightful)
On Nomenclature: (Score:4, Insightful)
Likewise, I'd go to jail just the same if i was threatening the life of George Bush or the President of the United states.
Re:On Nomenclature: (Score:5, Funny)
Or, Laura Bush's husband.
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Re:On Nomenclature: (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the reason Rove hasn't done anything illegal is because Plame was not a clandestine agent when her name was revealed. In fact she hadn't been a covert agent for several years before her name was revealed. Also, Plame was never a deep cover NOC.
Not true. The Washington Times article is wrong. Wilson said that she was no longer covert the day Novak wrote the article - or rather, Novak's article caused her to lose her cover.
This was made plain by Larry Johnson (who's making the press-rounds this week) who is a former CIA employee who knew Val P, and knew her to be a NOC, and confirms that Novak compromised her identity.
The misinformation that she was not NOC is just a dust-up to provide cover for Rove. Not only did Rove break the law, but he compromised National Security - and clearly broke the rules that EVERY cleared person signs when they get a clearance.
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Can someone please... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! (Score:5, Funny)
A house in a residential area? With easy access by car? And no moats or dragons near by? This must be some sort of top secret CIA house of the future!
Sensationalism at its finest.
-Peter
Technology is a sword .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially it lets me peek at a street address in NYC sitting here in Bangalore. I can plan and co-ordinate my ops to snuff out someone - especially if the operatives are expendable. Recon became a lot easier , especially of the aerial map kind.
<sarcasm> How long before we hear that a terrorist attack was planned using Google Maps ? </sarcasm>$GOOGLE_RM_FUNCTION ( "Sarah Conner" ) (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if the Terminator had access to the net, as it is now. "Taking Out" all Sarah Conners within a given mile radius is a simple matter of mapping software, addressbooks, and a name+area to target.
Now, you could locate and plan "events" around individuals throughout the US/world.
No need for super computers... with a few PCs and access to the various API's on the net, you too can have your own war-room and tactical planning system.
easy to blow the entire CIA front firm too (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course it's not that hard to find out where someone is working (in this case, the existence of Brewster-Jennings wasn't a secret, but the fact that it was a CIA front was).
But the CIA would have had more time to make sure its agents and assets were secure if the company hadn't been listed on her election contribution records [washingtonpost.com]. You can see them at Open Secrets [opensecrets.org]
I'm not saying that campaign contribution disclosure is a bad thing. It's essential to the media and bloggers investigating governmental corruption.
But this is more pathetic evidence that Karl Rove, and everyone else involved at the White House, just didn't care. They were far more interested in retaliation and their own political gain than in the lives that were endangered, and the millions of dollars that were wasted.
In other news, George Bush' wife is named Laura (Score:3, Insightful)
And for what it's worth, it would have been faster to look in "Who's Who in Washington". It list Joseph Wilson, and that he is married to Valerie Wilson. However, nothing this writer looked up told him that she was a covert operative.
THe information he found had nothing to do with her status at the CIA. He knew who someone was and looked up their name. I can see it now:
NEXT ON FOX: covert CIA operatives' cover busted by... COLLEGE FACEBOOKS. COULD IT HAPPEN TO YOU?
Google Me This, Batman (Score:5, Interesting)
The entire point here is that someone *cough*Karl Rove*cough* released the secret association between Valerie Plame's identity, and her job as CIA operative. That is the point in the dataflow that is sensitive. It has nothing to do with Google. Hell, I'd like to see you Google someone's house based on their Slashdot userID, let alone a CIA secret identity, without someone leaking that less than "top secret" association.
Re:Google Me This, Batman (Score:5, Insightful)
So you go ahead apologizing for Rove's selfserving attack on a CIA agent. You go ahead patronizing a guy attacking our WMD intelligence system as cover for lies about Iraqi uranium purchases that never existed. You go ahead running cover for the people we have protecting us, who instead lie to invade countries they prefer, instead of finishing the legitimate invasions they're piggybacking on. Go ahead, because you're a traitor too.
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Philip Agee and Identifying CIA agents (Score:5, Insightful)
The Don't-Out-CIA-Agents law that was passed to bust future Agees is now being used to possibly bust G.W.Bush's henchmen, probably his handler Karl Rove. The law makes it more illegal if you have access to classified information (which Rove does, but may or may not have used) and use that to reveal the identity of covert agents, but also makes it illegal to out them using publicly available information.
The White House has been weasel-wording about "Rove didn't tell Cooper Plame's name, just that she was Wilson's wife", but not only does the law talk about identifying people, not just specifically naming them, but somehow Novak, Cooper, and probably Judith Miller all found out she was an agent, so it wasn't just a "casual remark" intended to "correct mistaken impressions" - it was a well-organized campaign, and Novak apparently talked to two different Administration sources. Not only is Rove guilty, but he's trying to cover it up.
With great power... (Score:3, Interesting)
Better example: The sad story of David Kelly (Score:5, Interesting)
The second part is the more important one. Finding information is easy, most of the time. Deciding what's relevant is the key issue.
Not only that (Score:4, Interesting)
Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)
Damn you're good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Real smart, David Lazarus. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Real smart, David Lazarus. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only confidential information involved in this whole pitch was that Plame was a CIA agent and THAT was probably not in any public records until Bob Novak published it in a newspaper, probably thanks to Karl Rove or his friends in the White House for leaking that fact to him. Whomever was spreading it around that she was a CIA agent was the only one guilty of anything here, and that was a very low tech ancient offense, leaking and smearing.
The Judith Miller case is potentially interesting though. Maybe she is a crusading journalist fighting for a first ammendment right to protect sources which is the angle most media outlets pitch since she is one of their own. But there are two alternate explanations floating around that are plausible, more interesting, but hard to prove:
A. Judith Miller was a key inciter of the WMD charges against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. She made her career frothing up a panic about the dangers of chemical and biological weapons, and she did half the Bush administrations work for them in trying to build a case that Saddam was an imminent danger to the U.S. because he had them so had to be taken down (at GREAT cost to the U.S. in blood, gold and respect). At this point it appears Miller's multiyear WMD crusade against Saddam was totally wrong. In some circles her career as a journalist is in ruin, because she was both wrong, and looks like a patsy for the Bush administration. Some think she went to jail with glee in an attempt to salvage her reputation by playing the martyr.
B. The second alternate is that Miller is hiding more than just her source. There are indications that her source already released her from any need to maintain confidentiality, so there is a question as to why she still is. One hypothesis is that Miller may have been one of the earlier people who found out Plame was a CIA agent and she may have been calling people, like Karl Rove and saying, "Did you know Joe Wilson's wife is a CIA agent specializing in WMD and sent him on the mission", and people like Rove were repeating something Miller told them, not leaking to Miller. If thats the case, though its a bit of a long shot, then she could be charged for blowing Plame's cover and she might refusing to testify to the grand jury not to protect her source but to protect herself, and in a way that is less obvious than pleading the fifth.
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Re:Real smart, David Lazarus. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Real smart, David Lazarus. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, well by all means, then let's just have her thrown to the wolves then eh? Despite her other stories, the fact remains that Judith Miller is willing to take prison time for the sake of her professional ethics. I consider her reporting on the WMDs in Iraq to be incidental to the case - and a whole other bag of proverbial worms.
Re:"How Long Have You Been Beating Your Wife?" (Score:4, Informative)
No he didn't.
"In stating that "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," Wilson was simply noting that Plame's identity was no longer secret after Novak publicly revealed it."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200507150003 [mediamatters.org]
The AP has already run a correction to the story you link to. Nice try though.
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Re:"How Long Have You Been Beating Your Wife?" (Score:3, Informative)
True, which is why he clarified it today.
"In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand."
Privacy was a right, once upon a time (Score:3)
The courts and republican administrations have done everything they can to take away all privacy. Check out the promises the republican national committie and the City of Boston made during the conventions. Boston installed thousands of cameras throught the city, to provide added security for the republican convention. Boston promised to take them d