‘Einstein’ replaces ‘Big Brother’ in Internet surveillance: Wayne Madsen

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Sep 19, 2008, 00:22

(WMR) -- WMR has learned from government sources that the Bush administration has authorized massive surveillance of the Internet using as cover a cyber-security multi-billion dollar project called the “Einstein” program.

Billed as a cyber-security intrusion detection system for federal computer systems and networks, WMR has been told that the actual intent of Einstein is to initially monitor the email and web surfing activities of federal employees and contractors and not in protecting government computer systems from intrusion by outsiders.

In February 2008, President Bush signed a directive that designated the National Security Agency (NSA) as the central administrator for the federal government’s computer and network security.

Although Einstein is primarily a program under the aegis of the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) of the National Cyber Security Division of the Homeland Security Department, WMR has learned that it has the personal support of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell, a former NSA director. Einstein is advertised as merely conducting traffic analysis within the dot (.) gov and dot (.) mil domains, including data packet lengths, protocols, source and destination IP addresses, source and destination ports, time stamp information, and autonomous system numbers. However, WMR has learned that Einstein will also bore down into the text of email and analyze message content. In fact, most of the classified budget allotted to Einstein is being used for collecting information from the text of messages and not the header data.

In fact, WMR has learned that most of the classified technology being used for Einstein was developed for the NSA in conducting signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations on email networks in Russia. Code-named PINWHEEL, the NSA email surveillance system targets Russian government, military, diplomatic, and commercial email traffic and burrows into the text portions of the email to search for particular words and phrases of interest to NSA eavesdroppers. According to NSA documents obtained by WMR, there is an NSA system code-named ”PINWALE.”

The DNI and NSA also plan to move Einstein into the private sector by claiming the nation’s critical infrastructure, by nature, overlaps into the commercial sector. There are classified plans, already budgeted in so-called “black” projects, to extend Einstein surveillance into the dot (.) com, dot (.) edu, dot (.) int, and dot (.) org, as well as other Internet domains. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has budgeted $5.4 billion for Einstein in his department’s FY2009 information technology budget. However, this amount does not take into account the “black” budgets for Einstein proliferation throughout the U.S. telecommunications network contained in the budgets for NSA and DNI.

In anticipation of the regulatory problems inherent in domestic email surveillance by the NSA, the Bush administration has ensured that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and industry associations have been stacked with pro-surveillance loyalists to ensure that Einstein is widely accepted and implemented.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

Archie

Einstein

Internet communications are protected in many countries from evesdropping without a warrant. If the US persists in evesdropping on internet communications in foreign countries then they should be charged under the laws of those countries with breaking the confidentiality laws. If all countries did it the US could be tried by the International court and if all other countries co-operated the US could be ostracized from the NET. They deserve no less. It would be a great way of keeping their wonderful exceptionalism and other American garbage within their own borders away from civilized nations of the world.

Roland Carnaby story with updates

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

April 30, 2008 -- BREAKING NEWS. UPDATED 4X. CIA agent gunned down
by Houston police

Houston police shot and killed Roland Vincent Carnaby, 52, the local
Houston chapter president of the Association for Intelligence
Officers (AFIO). AFIO is a membership organization of current and
former U.S. intelligence officers, primarily those who work or
worked for the CIA and military intelligence agencies. AFIO's
national board includes President George H. W. Bush who is honorary
chairman. The honorary board also includes Shirley Temple Black,
Frank Carlucci, former National Security Agency (NSA) director Gen.
Lincoln Faurer, former NSA director and CIA deputy director Bobby
Ray Inman, former CIA and FBI director William Webster, and former
CIA director James Woolsey. The chairman of the active board is M.
E. "Spike" Bowman, the former head of the FBI's National Security
Law Unit and the person who denied the Minneapolis FBI office a
special warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings prior to
the 9/11 attacks.

Details about the shooting remain cloudy, but local Houston veterans
of AFIO are discounting the Houston police's portrayal of the events
that led to Carnaby's shooting death. Although Carnaby described
himself as a federal intelligence but was never specific about his
actual employer. According to the Houston Chronicle, Carnaby mentioned
in the past the CIA and Department of Homeland Security. The CIA
denied any connection to Carnaby.

Fred Platt, the Vice President of the Houston AFIO chapter, said
Carnaby's job was so classified, Houston police homicide detectives
will come up blank when they run his name. Platt said Carnaby's job
involved homeland security and it involved Houston's airports and
the port of Houston.

In what is being described as a case worthy of an episode of the
"X Files" television show, the FBI in Houston, the Harris County
Sheriff, and the Houston Police Chief are all denying knowing
Carnaby. The denials are absurd considering Carnaby led the premier
organization that brought together Houston's intelligence and law
enforcement communities for professional and social events. In fact,
Carnaby would have been presiding over the Spring 2008 dinner of
Houston's AFIO chapter in a few weeks. Scheduled to speak are Michael
Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's "Alex Station" that targeted
Osama Bin Laden; Arthur R. Bland III, the Special Agent in Charge
of the FBI's Houston Division, who spent nineteen months in Iraq
prior to his arrival in Houston; and Carlos J. Barron, FBI Assistant
Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Counter Terrorism Intelligence
Group, (CTIG) Houston Division, an FBI Joint Task Force (JTIF)
initiative with the CIA. For the FBI and CIA to deny they knew
Carnaby is laughable on its face.

Carnaby was said to have traveled frequently for his job. Carnaby
used two different UPS Store mailboxes as addresses for his driver's
license and his Jeep registration. Houston police reported that
Carnaby was shot by two Houston police officers Tuesday morning
around 11:30 am after a high-speed chase by the Houston police. The
Chronicle reported that Carnaby sped off after being stopped for a
routine traffic stop and after officers learned that Carnaby has a
concealed weapons permit. The Houston police officers said they
fired after seeing Carnaby reach under his seat. They said they
feared for their lives.

Platt said Carnaby was engaged to be married and had no reason to
run from the police. Police said they initially found no weapons
in Carnaby's Jeep but said later they found two pistols and a shot
gun and one was within reach of the subject. WMR has learned from
US intelligence sources in Houston that the weapons were planted
in Carnaby's Jeep after the vehicle was impounded by Houston police.

WMR has also learned that Carnaby possessed knowledge of something
the Bush administration or Israel did not want made public and that
the "hit" on Carnaby involved Israeli Mossad agents operating in
Houston.

Story developing.

Background on AFIO from its website:

"During the 1970s the Intelligence Community was buffeted by a
number of leaks and revelations, culminating in the Church and Pike
Congressional investigations. CIA officer David Atlee Phillips took
early retirement in 1975 to respond to the growing sentiment that
the CIA was a 'rogue elephant.' As part of this effort, Phillips
founded this organization, known then as the Association of Retired
Intelligence Officers (ARIO). Although much attacked at the time
when many people called for the dismantlement of the CIA, Phillips
toured the world to speak out in favor of the need for a strong
intelligence community. He was subsequently personally accused of
being a participant in the Kennedy and Letelier assassinations. He
successfully sued several publications for libel, retractions were
issued and monetary damages awarded. Phillips donated some of these
proceeds to ARIO for the purpose of creating a legal defense fund
for American intelligence officers who felt they were the victims
of libel.

In 1978 the name of the organization was changed to Association of
Former Intelligence Officers to reflect a pool of members who were
not necessarily retired, which widened the pool of eligible members,
and in 2006 the acronym AFIO was changed to stand for Association
For Intelligence Officers to reflect the current dynamic membership.
From its inception in Dave Phillips living room and a few hundred
members in 1975, AFIO has grown to over 5000 members, with 24 active
chapters across the United States."

UPDATE 1: WMR has learned from a reliable source that Houston has
become a major station for Mossad activities, especially in
warehousing, retail sales, aviation, and shipping. Carnaby was
looking at the security for the Port of Houston and the area's
airports. Local Houston news reports indicate Carnaby was trying
to call the Houston FBI on his cell phone to have them verify his
identity with the police when the police shot him to death.

UPDATE 2: Houston-based CIA agent Roland Carnaby was shot and killed
by Houston police less than six blocks away from the home of former
President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush.

UPDATE 3: KPRC-TV Houston is now reporting that Roland Carnaby's
credentials discovered by Houston police investigators show that
he was a CIA intelligence officer. Carnaby apparently used more
than one CIA-issued alias, including "Tom." A top CIA official is
reportedly on his way to Houston to verify Carnaby's CIA credentials.
Houston police are now saying that Carnaby was reaching for his
cell phone, not a weapon, was he was shot by the police.

UPDATE 4: WMR's earlier report that Carnaby's death involved Mossad
assets in Houston is now gaining additional credence as some
well-known blogs, linked to right-wing Jewish political and
intelligence operations in the United States and Israel, are now
beginning the predictable character assassination of Carnaby as a
"fraud" and a "former" U.S. intelligence agent. WMR has learned
that Carnaby was targeted by Mossad in a high-stakes game of
tit-for-tat since the CIA and FBI went after long-time Israeli agent
Ben-Ami Kadish last week in New Jersey and vowed to identify, expose,
and prosecute other Israeli moles in high positions inside the Bush
administration.

May 5, 2008 -- Carnaby CIA status confirmed

Although two CIA spokesmen have stated that Roland Carnaby, the
retired CIA agent who ran a private intelligence firm in Houston
contracted to the CIA, was not an employee of the the agency, a
Middle East source with close connections to the CIA's clandestine
service has told WMR that Carnaby was, in fact, a longtime CIA agent
with an extensive network in the Middle East and Europe.

It is apparent that CIA director Michael Hayden, a longtime parrot
for the neocons while serving as director of the National Security
Agency (NSA) and deputy Director of National Intelligence under
John Negroponte, is now pressuring his agency to distance itself
from a former clandestine services officer who served in the same
capacity as a contractor. Two CIA spokesmen who have denied any
connections to Carnaby are George Little and Paul Gimigliano.

In addition, WMR has learned that Carnaby may have been silenced
partly because of his knowledge of a major CIA intelligence source
inside Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office. WMR has previously
reported that there is an intense street war now raging between the
CIA and FBI on one hand and the Mossad and their assets in
Russian-Israeli organized crime on the other.

There is a possibility that one or more Israeli intelligence moles
inside the CIA are responsible for the trashing of Carnaby's status
and bona fides.

May 6, 2008 -- The Middle East firestorm was to have started on
April 25

WMR has learned from its Middle East intelligence sources that a
leak from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office
resulted in the last minute scuttling of an Israeli intelligence
operation in Beirut that would have started a series of events that
would have likely resulted in the outbreak of warfare between Israel
and Lebanon, Syria, and possibly, between Iran and the United States.

Israel's Mossad planned an April 25 assassination, likely by its
favorite method, a massive car bomb, of Lebanese Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah. Because the assassination would have triggered
the "perfect storm" for the outbreak of war in Lebanon, with the
involvement of Israel, the United States, Syria, and Iran, an
official in Olmert's office leaked the assassination plan. When it
became apparent that there was a leak, Mossad scuttled the entire
operation.

The plan was immediately known by the CIA and Hezbollah. It is known
that retired CIA officer and contractor Roland Carnaby, a
Lebanese-American, had close contact with all of Lebanon's various
factions. On April 29, four days after the planned assassination
of Nasrallah by Mossad, Carnaby was killed in broad daylight by
Houston police. WMR previously reported that Carnaby had successfully
penetrated a Mossad ring active in the Houston area.

It is clear that Israel would not have carried out the Nasrallah
assassination without the knowledge and approval of the neocon cell
operating from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and extending
to elements of the U.S. Air Force, CIA, and other federal agencies.

Nasrallah's assassination by Israel would have resulted in a massive
Hezbollah strike on Israel and, possibly, through Moqtada al Sadr's
forces in Iraq, on U.S. troops in that country. The outbreak of
massive violence between U.S. and Sh'ia forces in Iraq may have
laid the groundwork for a U.S. strike on alleged training camps in
Iran and other targets of opportunity.

WMR has also obtained a copy of the civil suit filed by Carnaby's
widow, Susan Carnaby, against the City of Houston for the wrongful
death of her husband.

May 13, 2008 -- Carnaby subjected to character assassination campaign

WMR has discovered that CIA officer Roland Carnaby, gunned down in
an assassination by Houston police on April 29, has been the subject
of a concerted character assassination campaign carried out by
Israeli agents of influence in the Houston Police Department; the
Houston Chronicle, a Hearst-owned newspaper; and NBC News in New
York.

Individuals linked to a major Israeli intelligence operation that
was targeted by Carnaby and his team of contract investigators have
falsely claimed to have had a close relationship with Carnaby in
an effort to discredit him. One individual involved in establishing
the bona fides of a Carnaby "close associate" was fired by the CIA
after being accused of passing classified information to Israeli
intelligence agents in Washington, DC.

It is apparent that the Israeli espionage ring targeted by Carnaby
extended into the CIA itself. Israeli moles have flourished within
the agency under the directorships of Porter Goss and retiring Air
Force General Michael Hayden, who will stay on as director after
hanging up his uniform in July.

WMR has also learned that the two pistols and a shotgun allegedly
found by Houston police in Carnaby's Jeep Commander after it was
impounded were "drop guns." Drop guns are a hallmark of the Houston
police, which often plants hard-to-trace weapons on the victims of
police shootings.

WMR has also learned of unprecedented secrecy involving the official
Houston police report on carnaby's shooting. Even the basic police
blotter information normally released to the media is being treated
as "secret" in the Carnaby killing.

May 14, 2008 -- SPECIAL REPORT. CIA agent kept Mossad "close"

WMR has obtained a copy of the Houston Police Offense Report on the
April 29 shooting death by two Houston police officers of Roland
Carnaby, a retired CIA officer who was contracted to the agency.

The police report lists Carnaby's address as 1302 Waugh Drive,
Number 475, Houston. The address is a UPS Store and 475 is a mail
box number. WMR discovered the address was for Carnaby's non-official
cover (NOC) firm, Carnaby Shipping Company, Ltd. Carnaby's security
work with the CIA and Houston's Joint Terrorism Task Force involved
the Port of Houston and Houston area airports. Carnaby maintained
two mail boxes at the UPS Store and, according to knowledgeable
sources, Carnaby's widow has requested that they be kept open.

Carnaby's company used a mail box at UPS Store also the location
of a real estate development and management firm named Braun
Enterprises.

WMR has also discovered that Carnaby, also known as "Tony," was not
only close to former CIA director George Tenet but had cultivated
close ties to members of Israel's Mossad. According to a colleague,
Carnaby said he maintained contact with Mossad agents because he
believed in "keeping one's friends close, but one's enemies even
closer."

A copy of Tenet's book contained an inscription by Tenet to "Tony"
that was verified as Tenet's signature and handwriting.

According to a US intelligence source, there was also a concerted
effort by Carnaby's enemies to tarnish his image and bona fides in
a "carefully orchestrated effort" to create a false CIA persona in
order to damage Carnaby's own actual record as an agent.

WMR has learned that the discrediting of Carnaby involves a Kingwood,
Texas resident named Alan Premel who claimed to have served as a
CIA agent in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans where he claimed
to have fought "Chechens." WMR has been told by an associate of
Carnaby that the murdered agent never knew Premel.

However, there are references to an interview, not confirmed as
authentic, between Premel and NBC News' investigative reporter Adam
Ciralsky, a former employee of the CIA's General Counsel's office
who was terminated by the agency in October 1997 for flunking two
polygraph examinations, failing to report a trip to Israel, and,
as claimed by Ciralsky, for his involvement with Jewish causes and
relationships with dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. In May 2004, the FBI
wiretapped a phone conversation in May 2004 between convicted Israeli
Pentagon spy Larry Franklin, who was found guilty of passing
classified information to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) officials, Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen. Ciralsky told
Salon.com that he felt he was caught up in a US government sting
designed to ferret out an Israeli agent code-named "Mega" discovered
in an intercepted Israeli diplomatic cable.

The Ciralsky lawsuit eventually resulted in sensitivity training
being administered to CIA counter-intelligence personnel. The
training was administered by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
implicated in the past in targeting innocent Arab-Americans with
illegal intelligence gathering and surveillance. The surveillance
included Lebanese-Americans. Carnaby was a Lebanese-American.

Ciralsky eventually sued the CIA and FBI for wrongful termination
and Tenet was named as a defendant. Ciralsky retained Neal Sher, a
former federal prosecutor and executive director of AIPAC, as his
attorney. Ciralsky later became an investigative reporter for CBS
60 Minutes and NBC News' Dateline.

Carnaby's widow has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for
Southern Texas in Houston against the City of Houston and Houston
police officers Cecil Foster and Andrew J. Washington for the
shooting death of Carnaby. The complaint states that Carnaby "died
of a gunshot would to the back which caused fatal loss of blood."

May 15, 2008 -- CIA agent was monitoring Israeli finances

WMR has learned that Roland V. Carnaby, the longtime CIA veteran
and President of the Houston chapter of the Association for
Intelligence Officers (AFIO), was involved in monitoring Israeli
firms moving money and goods in and out of Israel.

Carnaby was gunned down in an April 29 "hit" by Houston police
officers. WMR has also learned that the Houston Police Department
originally misidentified one of the policemen involved in Carnaby's
slaying as "Charles Foster." It was later discovered that Charles
Foster was actually Cecil Foster. A Charles Foster had previously
retired from the Houston police force.

Carnaby was also working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in
Houston, as well as the CIA's Counter-terrorism Center (CTC) in
attempting to beef up security for the Port of Houston. Carnaby,
WMR has learned, was involved in conducting security surveys of the
port and discovered that the Department of Homeland Security had
tolerated gaping holes in port security.

Carnaby and Houston intelligence and law enforcement personnel were
also investigating the presence of "Middle Easterners" who were
conducting surveillance of the Port of Houston. The "Middle Eastern"
designator is the term used by the FBI for Israelis in order to
avoid "political" problems with superiors.

The word from the federal agents who were involved in identifying
weaknesses in Houston port security is they did not want to see
"another 9/11-type part false flag."

WMR has also learned that Carnaby was a longtime player in Houston
area intelligence matters and had established a close relationship
with former President George H. W. Bush. However, WMR has also
learned that the elder Bush's mental acuity is being affected by
the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.

WMR has also learned that Carnaby's Lebanese family, which used the
original spelling of Karnabe, is very well-respected by different
political and religious factions in the country. WMR has also learned
that Carnaby had stumbled across some significant intelligence
impacting the overall situation in the Middle East and that at the
time of his death Carnaby wanted the intelligence to personally
reach CIA director Michael Hayden without delay. WMR has been asked
for assistance by US intelligence sources in Lebanon to assist in
conveying the critical intelligence to Hayden. WMR has been told
that the CIA and FBI have been infiltrated by gatekeepers that are
ensuring that critical intelligence does not reach top U.S. policy
makers in intelligence and law enforcement.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

May 16-18 --Was CIA agent's computer compromised?

WMR has discovered that the story proffered by the Houston Police
Department that the CIA was sending someone from Virginia to Houston
to check on the validity of CIA contract agent Roland Carnaby's CIA
identification card was a ruse to cover up the fact that the police
had impounded Carnaby's lap top computer and cell phone along with
his Jeep Commander. Carnaby's ID card was already known to be
authentic by CIA Headquarters in Virginia.

The CIA was concerned that details of Carnaby's classified and
covert work for the CIA in the Port of Houston, as well as his
non-official cover Carnaby Shipping Company Ltd. and American Global
Enterprise contacts in the United States and Lebanon may have been
compromised to Israeli Mossad agents who have infiltrated the Houston
Police Department primarily through blackmail techniques. The Israeli
Consulate General in Houston is reportedly at the center of the
Israeli influence and intelligence ring in the fourth largest city
in America and the home to the largest port for imports in the
United States.

WMR has also been informed that Carnaby worked out of one the CIA's
offices in Houston. A physical examination of the building also
revealed that the entire ninth floor is occupied by the "Office of
George Bush," the former President. The office building was once
the headquarters of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity
tasked with cleaning up the Savings and Loan fraud of the 1980s, a
scandal that involved Bush's sons, particularly Neil and Jeb.

Carnaby was gunned down by Houston police on the 610 feeder road
in the West/Hidden Oak neighborhood of Houston. The location is
around the corner from the building housing George H. W. Bush's
office. WMR has also learned that Carnaby was trying to call the
local CIA office before he was shot by the police.

WMR has been told by individuals familiar with Houston Police
practices that after a police shooting the practice of the police
is to "demonize the victim." Carnaby has not only faced such a
barrage from the police but a concerted effort by Israeli-influenced
media to paint Carnaby as a fraud.

The chief purveyor of the disinformation campaign has been the
Houston Chronicle and particularly one of its senior reporters,
Mike Tolson who even referred to a known fraud by the name of Alan
Premel. WMR previously reported that CIA sources have told us that
Carnaby never knew Premel and that media references to their past
"association" are forgeries designed to harm Carnaby's image and
reputation. Tolson refers to "conspiracy blogs" reporting that
Carnaby had infiltrated a local Mossad ring. In fact, it is the
Chronicle, a Hearst paper that is living up to its corporate parent's
long tradition of offering up yellow journalism, a history that
began with the fake stories used by founder William Randolph Hearst
to push the United States into war with Spain.

Carnaby's exact time of death is expected to be released in the
next few days when the full autopsy report is completed. Carnaby
was carrying between $7,000 and $10,000 in cash on him when he was
shot by the police. Reliable sources told WMR that the money was
often used to pay off contacts and sources. We have also learned
that Carnaby's concealed permit weapons were spotted earlier in the
morning of April 29, but it has not been determined if these are
the same weapons later "discovered" by police after Carnaby's vehicle
was impounded.

Wayne Madsen/white people wake up to fascism

Special Reports
It is definitely fascism when it happens to you
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

May 14, 2008, 00:20

WMR -- In Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's world of an
"Israelized" America, the terms SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation
Technique) and BDO (Behavior Detection Officer) are the new acronyms
of Stasi-like control of the American citizenry by a government that
treats anyone as a suspicious person in the same manner that Israel
mistreats its own Arab citizens and Palestinians.
Sunday, this editor and his colleague faced the Chertoffian menace at
Washington's Reagan National Airport while heading to the gate to board
a flight to Houston.
It is now clear from a review of the events that unfolded that I was
pre-selected for an intensive search and battery of questions even before
arriving in line for the security screening. A Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) screener was overheard saying, "the guy with the
beard." Since I was the only person in line who also had a beard, it
was evident that a red flag had earlier been raised.
What followed, was worse than anything I had previously encountered
while leaving Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, itself a revolting display of
ingratitude to citizens of the country that bankrolls Israel, or the
Israeli-run screening process at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport.
First, I was instructed to enter a glass isolation chamber and point
out my belongings that were exiting the X-ray machine. Anyone with
claustrophobia would really enjoy being placed in such a chamber and have to
speak to the screener through small holes in the glass.
I was then led to an area where all my carry-on bags were emptied. I
was also forced to empty my pockets of everything. A bevy of screeners
then proceeded to go through my wallet examining everything: cash, credit
cards, VA medical benefits card, National Press Club card, voter's
registration card, and driver's license. Then came an examination of my
press credentials and related IDs: Investigative Reporters and Editors
(IRE) card, Society of Professional Journalists card, National Archives
research card, Library of Congress card, three press credentials, and
membership card in Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO).
In a blatant violation of the First and Fourth Amendments, my
reporter's notebooks, containing names of contacts in Houston and around the
world were paged through by the screeners. Another screener asked if I
minded being probed in "certain private areas." He then asked if I'd like
the examination to be conducted in private. I replied, "No, let
everyone see this." He then proceeded to examine my groin area.
Then came the battery of questions.
1. Are you feeling okay?
2. Where are you going today?
3. How long will you be there?
4. Why are you going there?
5. What story are you covering/
6. Who do you write for?
7. When did you move to Washington?
8. Where did you live before that?
9. What did you do for a living before?
10. Who was the most famous person you ever met?
11. What was the most famous event you ever covered?
12. What type of things do you write about?
13. What type of politics do you cover?
14. What is your place of birth?
My colleague, who had successfully passed through screening and was
waiting for me, was then asked to step into the holding area so she "could
see and hear what was going on." It was a ruse. She was also subjected
to a full carry-on bag examination, frisking, and a series of personal
questions:
1, Are you with him?
2. Where are you going?
3. What is the purpose of your visit?
4. What story are you investigating?
5. How long were you in the US Air Force?
6. Where were you stationed overseas?
7. Why were you not overseas in the military?
8. When are you returning?
9. Who do you work for?
10. What is an independent journalist?
11. How long have you been working with him?
12. Do you find your job fulfilling?
13. What is your place of birth?
After this Gestapo-like of questioning, I was told that a TSA screener
was writing details in a notebook for the "paperwork." My colleague was
told TSA was going to file an "incident report."
The nature of WMR's coverage is that our sources are our lifeblood and
anything done to compromise them is a direct attack on the freedom of
the press and our rights as journalists. The notion of press freedom
does not exist in Chertoff's worldview of police state tactics and total
surveillance but his worldview is a distinctly un-American one,
something that is more properly relegated to the history books of his ancestral
Czarist Russia.
When our investigations take us beyond the Washington Beltway, it
is not within Chertoff's purview to find out details about the purpose of
the trip, even though it may shed an unwelcome light on his network of
Mossad operatives and Russian-Israeli gangsters and scam artists who are
now running rampant in these United States of America.
The antics at Washington Reagan National are not unique. Foreign
journalists have been subjected to similar invasive screening either at US
embassies when applying for the required journalist visas to visit the
United States or at immigration screening at US entry points.
The corporate media will not report on these cases as they are part of
the problem in allowing Chertoff and his American Gestapo to continue
to turn the United States into one big West Bank-style checkpoint.
One other note. This editor visited the USSR and draconian nations such
as Paul Kagame's Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni's Uganda, Hun Sen's Cambodia,
the former military junta's Thailand, surveillance society Singapore,
and Muslim monarchy Brunei Darussalam. Nothing compares to what
occurred at Washington National Airport. It is yet another sign of the fact
that the United States has entered a phase of fascist control. There's
only one question that remains: Is the slide reversible?

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

B-52 Nukes Headed for Iran, Not For Decommissioning: Airforce Refused

-- SPECIAL REPORT --
Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater
By Wayne Madsen
Sept. 24, 2007
Author's website

WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Yesterday, the Washington Post attempted to explain away the fact that America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional
weapons.

The Washington Post story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an effort in damage control by the Bush administration. WMR has been informed by a knowledgeable source that one of the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles was, and may still be, unaccounted for. In that case, the nuclear reporting incident would have gone far beyond BENT SPEAR to a National Command Authority alert known as EMPTY QUIVER, with the special classification of PINNACLE.

Just as this report was being prepared, Newsweek reported that Vice President Dick Cheney's recently-departed Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney had considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to launch its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to attack Iran directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.

WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel's September 6 air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr az-Zwar, near the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. Israel's attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to provide a reason for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo-conservative propaganda onslaught was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush's three remaining "Axis of Evil" states -- Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- to justify a sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive U.S. military attack on Iran.

WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic that there was a definite connection between Israel's OPERATION ORCHARD and BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale. There is also a connection between these two events as the Pentagon's highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S. Air Force program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran since June 2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the joint Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.

PROJECT CHECKMATE was leaked in an article by military analyst Eric Margolis in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, the /Times of London/, is a program that involves over two dozen Air Force officers and is headed by Brig. Gen. Lawrence Stutzriem and his chief civilian adviser, Dr. Lani Kass, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who, astoundingly, is now involved in planning a joint U.S.-Israeli massive military attack on Iran that involves a "decapitating" blow on Iran by hitting between three to four thousand targets in the country. Stutzriem and Kass report directly to the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Michael Moseley, who has also been charged with preparing a report on the B-52/nuclear weapons incident.

Kass' area of speciality is cyber-warfare, which includes ensuring "information blockades," such as that imposed by the Israeli government on the Israeli media regarding the Syrian air attack on the alleged Syrian "nuclear installation." British intelligence sources have reported that the Israeli attack on Syria was a "true flag" attack originally designed to foreshadow a U.S. attack on Iran. After the U.S. Air Force push back against transporting the six cruise nuclear-armed AGM-129s to the Middle East, Israel went ahead with its attack on Syria in order to help ratchet up tensions between Washington on one side and Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang on the other.

The other part of CHECKMATE's brief is to ensure that a media "perception management" is waged against Syria, Iran, and North Korea. This involves articles such as that which appeared with Joby Warrick's and Walter Pincus' bylines in yesterdays /Washington Post/. The article, titled "The Saga of a Bent Spear," quotes a number of seasoned Air Force nuclear weapons experts as saying that such an incident is unprecedented in the history of the Air Force. For example, Retired Air Force General Eugene Habiger, the former chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, said he has been in the "nuclear business" since 1966 and has never been aware of an incident "more disturbing."

Command and control breakdowns involving U.S. nuclear weapons are unprecedented, except for that fact that the U.S. military is now waging an internal war against neo-cons who are embedded in the U.S. government and military chain of command who are intent on using nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive war with Iran.

CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD would have provided the cover for a pre-emptive U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran had it not been for BENT SPEAR involving the B-52. In on the plan to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran involving nuclear weapons were, according to our sources, Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; members of the CHECKMATE team at the Pentagon, who have close connections to Israeli intelligence and pro-Israeli think tanks in Washington, including the Hudson Institute; British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a political adviser to Tony Blair prior to becoming a Member of Parliament; Israeli political leaders like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu; and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who did his part last week to ratchet up tensions with Iran by suggesting that war with Iran was a probability. Kouchner retracted his statement after the U.S. plans for Iran were delayed.

Although the Air Force tried to keep the B-52 nuclear incident from the media, anonymous Air Force personnel leaked the story to /Military Times/ on September 5, the day before the Israelis attacked the alleged nuclear installation in Syria and the day planned for the simultaneous U.S. attack on Iran. The leaking of classified information on U.S. nuclear weapons disposition or movement to the media, is, itself, unprecedented. Air Force regulations require the sending of classified BEELINE reports to higher Air Force authorities on the disclosure of classified Air Force information to the media.

In another highly unusual move, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked an outside inquiry board to look into BENT SPEAR, even before the Air Force has completed its own investigation, a virtual vote of no confidence in the official investigation being conducted by Major General Douglas Raaberg, chief of air and space operations at the Air Combat Command.

Gates asked former Air Force Chief of Staff, retired General Larry Welch, to lead a Defense Science Board task force that will also look into the BENT SPEAR incident. The official Air Force investigation has reportedly been delayed for unknown reasons. Welch is President and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), a federally-funded research contractor that operates three research centers, including one for Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and another for the National Security Agency. One of the board members of IDA is Dr. Suzanne H. Woolsey of the Paladin Capital Group and wife of former CIA director and arch-neocon James Woolsey.

WMR has learned that neither the upper echelons of the State Department nor the British Foreign Office were privy to OPERATION ORCHARD, although Hadley briefed President Bush on Israeli spy satellite intelligence that showed the Syrian installation was a joint nuclear facility built with North Korean and Iranian assistance. However, it is puzzling why Hadley would rely on Israeli imagery intelligence (IMINT) from its OFEK (Horizon) 7 satellite when considering that U.S. IMINT satellites have greater capabilities.

The Air Force's "information warfare" campaign against media reports on CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD also affected international reporting of the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution asking Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under IAEA controls, similar to those that the United States wants imposed on Iran and North Korea. The resolution also called for a nuclear-free zone throughout the Middle East. The IAEA's resolution, titled "Application of IAEA Safeguards in the Middle East," was passed by the 144-member IAEA General Meeting on September 20 by a vote of 53 to 2, with 47 abstentions. The only two countries to vote against were Israel and the United States. However, the story carried from the IAEA meeting in Vienna by Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France Press, was that it was Arab and Islamic nations that voted for the resolution.

This was yet more perception management carried out by CHECKMATE, the White House, and their allies in Europe and Israel with the connivance of the media. In fact, among the 53 nations that voted for the resolution were China, Russia, India, Ireland, and Japan. The 47 abstentions were described as votes "against" the resolution even though an abstention is neither a vote for nor against a measure. America's close allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and Georgia, all abstained.

Suspiciously, the IAEA carried only a brief item on the resolution concerning Israel's nuclear program and a roll call vote was not available either at the IAEA's web site -- www.iaea.org -- or in the media.

The perception management campaign by the neocon operational cells in the Bush administration, Israel and Europe was designed to keep a focus on Iran's nuclear program, not on Israel's. Any international examination of Israel's nuclear weapons program would likely bring up Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, a covert from Judaism to Christianity, who was kidnapped in Rome by a Mossad "honey trap" named Cheryl Bentov (aka, Cindy) and a Mossad team in 1986 and held against his will in Israel ever since.

Vanunu's knowledge of the Israeli nuclear weapons program would focus on the country's own role in nuclear proliferation, including its program to share nuclear weapons technology with apartheid South Africa and Taiwan in the late 1970s and 1980s. The role of Ronald Reagan's Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Ken Adelman in Israeli's nuclear proliferation during the time frame 1983-1987 would also come under scrutiny. Adelman, a member of the Reagan-Bush transition State Department team from November 1980 to January 1981, voiced his understanding for the nuclear weapons programs of Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan in a June 28, 1981 /New York Times/ article titled, "3 Nations Widening Nuclear Contacts." The journalist who wrote the article was Judith Miller. Adelman felt that the three countries wanted nuclear weapons because of their ostracism from the West, the third world, and the hostility from the Communist countries. Of course, today, the same argument can be used by Iran, North Korea, and other "Axis of Evil" nations so designated by the neocons in the Bush administration and other governments.

There are also news reports that suggest an intelligence relationship between Israel and North Korea. On July 21, 2004, New Zealand's /Dominion Post/ reported that three Mossad agents were involved in espionage in New Zealand. Two of the Mossad agents, Uriel Kelman and Elisha Cara (aka Kra), were arrested and imprisoned by New Zealand police (an Israeli diplomat in Canberra, Amir Lati, was expelled by Australia and New Zealand intelligence identified a fourth Mossad agent involved in the New Zealand espionage operation in Singapore). The third Mossad agent in New Zealand, Zev William Barkan (aka Lev Bruckenstein), fled New Zealand -- for North Korea.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff revealed that Barkan, a former Israeli Navy diver, had previously worked at the Israeli embassy in Vienna, which is also the headquarters of the IAEA. He was cited by the /Sydney Morning Herald/ as trafficking in passports stolen from foreign tourists in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. New Zealand's One News reported that Barkan was in North Korea to help the nation build a wall to keep its citizens from leaving.

The nuclear brinkmanship involving the United States and Israel and the breakdown in America's command and control systems have every major capital around the world wondering about the Bush administration's true intentions.

NOTE: WMR understands the risks to informed individuals in reporting the events of August 29/30, to the present time, that concern the discord within the U.S. Air Force, U.S. intelligence agencies, and other military services. Any source with relevant information and who wishes to contact us anonymously may drop off sealed correspondence at or send mail via the Postal Service to: Wayne Madsen, c/o The Front Desk, National Press Club, 13th Floor, 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC, 20045.