BANDERA — Concerns that municipal offices were bugged by police led to an emergency City Council meeting Wednesday, where Police Chief Jim Eigner denied the claim and said he welcomes an inquiry.
A motion to suspend the entire force with pay pending an investigation was defeated on a 3-2 vote.
Councilwoman Maggie Schumacher said the alleged bugging was mentioned by an officer upset that a computer technician was told Wednesday — without advance notice to Eigner or others — to copy police computer hard drives.
Eigner said the officer’s comment was misinterpreted by Schumacher, who joined Councilwoman Binky Archer in voting for the suspensions.
Council critics at the meeting praised the force, blasted the council for micromanaging it, and said they don’t want to rely on Bandera County deputies for law enforcement.
LONDON: From what France calls “economic warfare” as it probes a Chinese link to industrial espionage at Renault to currency confrontation and commodity rivalry, economic conflict is increasingly impacting businesses. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office has asked French intelligence to probe suspected industrial espionage at the car giant with a possible Chinese link, a government source told Reuters Friday.
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Contending that corruption is rampant throughout media giant News Corp., a group of shareholders have added allegations of corporate spying to a complaint against the company’s chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch and other board members.
Tuesday’s action amended a lawsuit filed in March in a Delaware court by the New York-based Amalgamated Bank, which manages several investment funds that have stock in News Corp.
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MI5 building on London’s Millbank (Pic: PA)
MI5 is recruiting “telephone spies” to listen in on plots against the 2012 Olympics.
The Security Service hopes to find candidates able to eavesdrop on potential terrorists by getting foreign language speakers to play an interactive “game” online.
To apply, just log on to the official MI5 website. Under “current jobs” find the Foreign Language Unit Language Analyst job section, with a starter salary of £24,750. Wannabe spooks can then tune into an audio tape of a conversation in a foreign language and are later quizzed about it.Pass the test and you go through a selection process to be a spy – although if you’ve told anyone you are applying, forget it.
You then need a secret ID log-in for further screening. Six months later you are told if you are in.
The only qualifications are an understanding of various Middle Eastern and North African Arabic dialects. Top of the wish list are people fluent in Yemeni, Algerian, Lebanese, Syrian and Kuwaiti.
A source said: “The Security Service needs people to make an application so phone interceptions can be understood fully.”
All MI5 phone tapping operations are legal, requiring a Home Office warrant.
“Foreign powers will continue to attempt to acquire sensitive political, commercial, military and other information” … ASIO Chief David Irvine. Photo: Phil Carrick
THE advent of cyber espionage is serving only to reinvigorate the craft of espionage, making such spying easier than ever, the ASIO chief, David Irvine, said.
Mr Irvine told a national security conference in Canberra last night that espionage, which has taken a back seat to terrorism since the attacks of September 11, 2001, was alive and well.
”Foreign powers will continue to attempt to acquire sensitive political, commercial, military and other information from a variety of sources and means,” he said.
Mr Irvine has been increasingly vocal on the subject of the cyber threat.
The declaration by Mr Irvine also comes as the government releases a public discussion paper designed to inform next year’s cyber white paper – Australia’s first attempt at an overarching cyber security strategy.
Recent incidents such as the leaking of more than 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks and the intrusion into the parliamentary email system – believed to be by Chinese spies – have underscored the threat.
The issue will also be a priority at AUSMIN, an annual strategic conversation between Australia and the US, in San Francisco today (US time).
The Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, will spend the day talking to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and the former head of the CIA and now Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta.
