LONDON: From what France calls âeconomic warfareâ 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 Sarkozyâs 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.
By on 16/09/2011
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.
By on 16/09/2011
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) — U.S. supporters of Israel and at least one member of Congress were recorded on FBI wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, a blogger reported.
In an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday, Richard Silverstein provided a motive for the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the prosecution in a Maryland federal court of Shamai Leibowitz.
Leibowitz, an FBI translator, was sentenced to 20 months in prison last year for leaking classified information to Silverstein, who writes a blog called Tikum Olam, named after a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world.”
In his first interview about the case, Silverstein said he received some 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be Israeli Embassy conversations.
In one of the conversations, Israeli officials discussed their concern that they were being monitored.
The U.S. government routinely eavesdrops on some embassies inside the United States but intelligence collection against allies, especially one as close as Israel, is a delicate matter.
Silverstein said Leibowitz gave him the documents because of concern about Israel’s aggressive efforts to influence Congress and fears that Israel might strike nuclear facilities in Iran.
By on 16/09/2011
It’s sure to be a proud day over at the Associated Press. The CIA has launched an internal investigation into whether it broke the law when spying on U.S. Muslims in its close collaboration with the New York City Police Department. The anti-terrorism program was the subject of an 8-month long investigation by the AP, which found that the NYPD “dispatched undercover officers into ethnic communities to monitor daily life and scrutinized more than 250 mosques and Muslim student groups in the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” Today, the CIA’s new director David Petraeus said a CIA adviser at the NYPD wants “to make sure we are doing the right thing.”
Critics of the program, such as police reporter Len Levitt, accused the program of targeting “virtually every level of Muslim life in New York City, from cafes to grammar schools” without always having “specific tips about wrongdoing.” Still, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, says the privacy of Americans was not violated by the CIA-NYPD partnership. Whether the investigation will lead to anything more than an investigation is an open question. Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, for one, isn’t optimistic. “Good to know that the CIA will let us know whether the CIA broke the law.”
By on 16/09/2011
“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.
By on 16/09/2011
