Who will replace Petraeus atop the CIA?

Security Clearence
By CNN Senior National Security Producer Pam Benson

So who might be the replacement for David Petraeus? The rumor mill was in full swing Friday after the CIA director stepped down, saying he had an extramarital affair.

One person being discussed is Michael Morell, the now acting CIA director, who could be named to the position permanently.

President Barack Obama thinks highly of Morell, several U.S. officials told CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin.

In his statement on the resignation of Petraeus, Obama expressed the "utmost confidence" in Morell continuing the work of the CIA.

Also: Petraeus stand-in has been through this before

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein also expressed support of Morell, saying "the agency is in very good hands until the president selects a replacement."

But at the top could very well be John Brennan, the president's powerful adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security.

 

Brennan has shaped the White House's strategy to aggressively pursue suspected terrorists, dramatically escalating the use of armed unmanned aircraft to kill them in the ungoverned territories of Pakistan and in Yemen. Small teams of special operations forces have been deployed to critical locations. And Brennan is said to have the complete trust of Obama.

What could hold him back is exactly why he pulled out of contention for the CIA director's position in 2008 when the newly elected Obama was putting together his administration. Liberal bloggers accused Brennan of supporting outgoing President George W. Bush's policy of harsh interrogation techniques.

Brennan withdrew his name from consideration in an angry letter to Obama.

"It has been immaterial to the critics that I have a been strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics," Brennan wrote.

In the end, Brennan wound up with a more powerful position in the administration.

More recently, the White House has been criticized by some Republicans for leaks of sensitive information on counterterrorism operations. Brennan has called the leaks devastating and vehemently denied administration officials were involved. But the controversy could make for a difficult confirmation hearing if he is nominated.

Although many people say they think Brennan is ready to leave the administration after four years in an extremely demanding job, some who are close to him believe he still has his eyes set on the CIA job.

Another possibility for the position: Jane Harman, the former congresswoman from California who is well-respected within intelligence circles.

 

While in Congress she served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, chaired the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, and was a member of the Armed Services Committee. Although a social liberal, Harman was seen as a moderate on intelligence and defense issues. She voted for the war in Iraq and initially supported the controversial domestic surveillance program run by the Bush administration.

Harman left Congress to run the Woodrow Wilson International Center, but still speaks out often on intelligence and foreign policy issues.

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers is another name being bandied about.

 

Vickers has spent most of his career in the military and the intelligence community. Early on, he served as an Army Green Beret and a CIA operations officer. He helped arm the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in their battle against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. His role in that operation was depicted in the 2007 movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," based on a book written by George Crile. Vickers later was named Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations.

In his current position, Vickers simultaneously serves as the director of defense intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as the primary military liaison to the CIA. His extensive experience working with the intelligence community and special operations forces is particularly noteworthy at a time when both services are a key component of counterterrorism strategy.

Another potential candidate is Mike Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The Harvard Law School graduate spent six years in the Navy flying missions over Bosnia and Iraq. After a stint as a federal prosecutor, Leiter served as the assistant director of a presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction, and was later named deputy chief of staff for the director of National Intelligence.

 

President George W. Bush appointed him director of NCTC, a position he continued in during the Obama administration. As director, Leiter oversaw more than 1,000 analysts charged with sifting through information gathered throughout the intelligence community in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.

Although well-respected with strong support on Capitol Hill, Leiter did face criticism for the NCTC's failure to connect the dots when a Nigerian man tried unsuccessfully to blow up a Detroit bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009.

Panetta makes first comments on Petraeus' affair

Security Clearance

The network pool traveling to Australia with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reports that Panetta commented for the first time about the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus. The comments were given during a mid-flight press conference:

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA:  “First, obviously, it was a very sad situation to have a distinguished career like that end in this manner. And my heart obviously goes out to him and his family, but I think he took the right step and I think its important when you’re director of the CIA with all the challenges that face you in that position, that personal integrity comes first and foremost.”

“With regards to the future, you know, having served there the first 2 years of this administration, I think its really important to continue to have the CIA stay on track doing the job that is absolutely essential to our national security. They have very important mission focused on intelligence and intelligence operations and I think it’s very important to get someone strong and capable and dedicated to be able to continue that effort. This is a critical time to make sure that with all the threats that we’re dealing with in the world, that we maintain a strong intelligence operation.”

REPORTER QUESTION:  Any indications the Petraeus affair started while he was on active duty? Could he be prosecuted? Would that be your call? (NOTE:  CNN has learned that the affair started after Petraeus was already serving as CIA director)

PANETTA:  “You know, I don’t know the answer to that. I guess, I’m reading the papers like you are to determine just what the committees finds out, what the ultimate investigation determines on that issue. We obviously are going to watch this closely to determine just exactly when that took place. But I think right now my view is lets see what the investigation turns up and what the congress, these committees are able to determine just exactly what took place.”

REPORTER QUESTION:  As a former member of congress – do you think Capitol Hill should have been briefed sooner?

PANETTA:  “That’s another issue I think we ought to look at, because as a former director of the CIA and having working very closely with the intelligence committees, you know I believe there is a responsibility to make sure that the intelligence committees are informed of issues that could affect, you know the security of those intelligence operations.”

Assessing security implications of Petraeus' infidelity

Security Clearance 

With reporting from Suzanne Kelly and Pam Benson/ By CNN's Adam Levine

While affairs may be commonplace in Washington, when they involve the director of the CIA, things can take on a different tone.

Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus/
dailymail.co.uk

A U.S. official has said there was no breach of national security as a result of David Petraeus' affair, but that hasn't stopped discussion that Paula Broadwell could have gained access to classified information as a result of what she has routinely described as "unprecedented access" to Petraeus.

That discussion seemed to gain momentum Monday thanks to comments Broadwell made in a speech last month at the University of Denver.

"I don't know if a lot of you have heard this, but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to get these prisoners back," Broadwell said.

A senior intelligence official told CNN on Monday, "These detention claims are categorically not true. Nobody was ever held at the annex before, during, or after the attacks."

Broadwell's source for that previously unpublished bit of information remains unclear, and there's no evidence so far that it came from Petraeus. Administration officials have said the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack.

The New York Times also reported Sunday that investigators found classified documents on Broadwell's laptop computer. The newspaper cited investigators as saying Petraeus denied he had given them to her.

Retired Gen. James "Spider" Marks, for whom Broadwell once worked and who knows Petraeus, said he doubts security protocols were breached despite what seems an unlikely indiscretion on the part of Petraeus.

"There's almost zero percent chance that national security was compromised or at risk," he said Monday.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said an extramarital affair by a CIA officer is not automatically considered a security violation.

"It depends on the circumstances," the official said.

The official also said Broadwell did not have a security clearance from the CIA.

Another official said Broadwell, who is a reserve Army officer, did have some kind of security clearance and that there are no issues with Broadwell having unauthorized access to classified information.

Petraeus' resignation also presents challenges to the congressional inquiry into the Benghazi attack.

CNN has confirmed that Petraeus recently traveled to Libya to meet the CIA station chief to discuss the attack. He was scheduled to testify before a congressional committee this week on the assault and the U.S. government response to it.

That will now not happen, but it is possible that he could be summoned by Congress to testify later.

Some Republicans have criticized the administration's response to the Benghazi attack and have speculated that Petraeus' departure was linked to the congressional inquiry.

Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said elements of the story "don't add up." He called Petraeus "an absolutely essential witness, maybe more than anybody else."

However, a senior U.S. official said Petraeus' departure wasn't connected to the Benghazi hearing.

"Director Petraeus' frank and forthright letter of resignation stands on its own," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Any suggestion that his departure has anything to do with criticism about Benghazi is completely baseless."

Conspiracy or coincidence? Petraeus scandal scrutinized

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Chair of the Senate Intelligence: "We need to talk to Gen. Petraeus"

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CIA spymaster, hello this is my email!

hard to believe that someone has access to CIA Director's personal e-mail account
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CIA Director David Petraeus speaks during a high-level meeting in the White House Situation Room. (Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)

Why David Petraeus's Gmail account is a national security issue
Washington Post/ Max Fisher 

The beginning of the end came for CIA Director David Petraeus when Paula Broadwell, a younger married woman with whom he was having an affair, “or someone close to her had sought access to his email,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s description of an FBI probe. Associates of Petraeus had received “anonymous harassing emails” that were then traced to Broadwell, ABC’s Martha Raddatz reported, suggesting she may have found their names or addresses in his e-mail.

The e-mail account was apparently Petraeus’s personal Gmail, not his official CIA e-mail, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s a big deal: Some of the most powerful foreign spy agencies in the world would love to have an opening, however small, into the personal e-mail account of the man who runs the United States’ spy service. The information could have proved of enormous value to foreign hackers, who already maintain a near-constant effort to access sensitive U.S. data.

If Petraeus allowed his Gmail security to be compromised even slightly, by widening access, sharing passwords or logging in from multiple addresses, it would have brought foreign spy agencies that much closer to a treasure trove of information. As the Wall Street Journal hints, investigators were concerned about Petraeus’s Gmail access precisely because of the history of foreign attempts to access just such accounts:

Security officials are sensitive to misuse of personal email accounts—not only official accounts—because there have been multiple instances of foreign hackers targeting personal emails.

A personal e-mail account like Petraeus’s almost certainly would not have contained any high-level intelligence; he probably didn’t keep a list of secret drone-base coordinates on his Google docs account. But access to the account could have provided telling information on, for example, Petraeus’s travel schedule, his foreign contacts, even personal information about himself or other senior U.S. officials.

Private e-mail services like Google’s, though considered significantly more secure than most, still have susceptibilities to foreign intrusion. And it happens. Technology writers have sometimes discussed what one writer called the “password fallacy,” the false sense of safety created by access systems such as Google’s that balance security against ease of use. Even with Google’s extra security features, the company must also avoid making security so onerous as to drive away customers, making it an easier target for foreign hackers even before Petraeus possibly started sharing access and thus diluting the account’s integrity. And, as a Wired magazine investigation demonstrated in August, personal e-mail accounts often allow hackers access to other personal accounts, worsening both the infiltration and the damage.

All of this might sound a little overly apprehensive – really, U.S. national security is compromised because the CIA director’s personal Gmail account might have been a little easier to hack? – until you start looking at the scale and sophistication of foreign attempts to infiltrate U.S. data sources. Chinese hacking efforts, perhaps the best-known but nowhere near the only threat to U.S. networks and computers, suggest the enormous scope and ferocious drive of foreign government hackers.

Some Americans who have access to sensitive information and who travel to China describe going to tremendous lengths to minimize government efforts to seize their data. Some copy and paste their passwords from USB thumb drives rather than type them out, for fear of key-logging software. They carry “loaner” laptops and cellphones and pull out cellphone batteries during sensitive meetings, worried that the microphone could be switched on remotely. The New York Times called such extreme measures, which also apply in other countries, “standard operating procedure for officials at American government agencies.”

Even still, the publicly reported incidents of successful Chinese hacking – such as a March intrusion that stole a $1 billion, 10-year research project overnight – suggest that the efforts might be near-continuous and the successes rampant. A 2010 Chinese infiltration of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ended up funneling weeks of corporate data; even after the chamber thought it had reestablished security, it discovered that an office printer and a corporate apartment thermostat were still sending data – who knows what kind? – back to China. You have to wonder what a similar infiltration into the private e-mail account of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency might have turned up.

Of course, the CIA director is not the Chamber of Commerce, which may explain why the FBI’s counter-intelligence monitoring is so sensitive that just Broadwell’s access to his Gmail account triggered an investigation. But the fact that the FBI looked so hard and so carefully – and that Petraeus lost his directorship of the CIA over an intrusion that many of us might consider minor or even routine – underscores the potential risk to U.S. intelligence entailed in Petraeus’s, or Broadwell’s, alleged misuse of his personal account.

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FBI probe of Petraeus triggered by e-mail threats from biographer, officials say

Paula Broadwell with Gen. David Petraeus [CSM Marvin L. Hill]

The collapse of the career of CIA Director David Petraeus was triggered when a woman with whom he was having an affair sent threatening e-mails to another woman close to him, according to three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the episode.

The recipient of the e-mails was so frightened that she went to the FBI for protection and help tracking down the sender, according to the officials. The FBI investigation traced the threats to Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and Petraeus biographer, and uncovered explicit e-mails between Broadwell and Petraeus, the officials said. Read more on  Washington Post >>

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CIA Director David Petraeus resigns, cites extramarital affair

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Read >>

Anomalies of the Air Defense on 9/11-Paul Schreyer

corbettreport

The systematic failure of every level of the US air defense on the morning of September 11th provides one of the clearest "smoking guns" in the full complicity of key elements of the US government and defense department in those attacks. In his new peer-reviewed article published at the Journal of 9/11 Studies, author and researcher Paul Schreyer outlines many of these key anomalies and the way they have been carefully covered up by the so-called 9/11 investigations. Find out more in this week's GRTV Feature Interview.

U.S. officials: Iran is behind recent cyberattacks

Security Clearance

Read >>

Panetta: Cyber intruders have already infiltrated US systems

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a call to arms against cyber attacks on U.S. targets and said the Pentagon must be prepared to launch preemptive attacks in cyberspace against potential attackers. He warned that a cyber attack by a nation state or terrorists on the U.S. could be America's "cyber Pearl Harbor" and "be just as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11."

In a speech before business executives in New York, Panetta revealed that cyber intruders have already gained access to some of America's critical control systems that run chemical, electric and water systems with the intent to "cause panic, destruction and loss of life."

With a current annual budget of $3 billion for cybersecurity, Panetta urged that more needs to be done to create an army of "skilled cyber warriors" to confront the immediate and growing threat. The Defense Department is already hammering out new "rules of engagement" for a potential cyber war.  More >>

US Warns Two Chinese Companies Pose Security Risk

Eurasia Review

By Cindy Saine

U.S. companies considering doing business with Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE are being warned to find another vendor. A U.S. House of Representatives report said the companies pose a long-term corporate and national security threat.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, said the committee began investigating concerns about the telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE a year ago, interviewing former Huawei employees, industry experts and intelligence officials.

China – US Relations

Rogers said the panel was disappointed by the incomplete, contradictory and evasive answers provided by Huawei and ZTE during the investigation.

“The investigation concluded that the risks associated with these companies providing equipment and services to U.S. critical infrastructure undermines the core U.S. national security interests,” Rogers said.

An Intelligence Committee report recommends U.S. government systems, especially sensitive systems, exclude Huawei and ZTE equipment and component parts. The report pointed out critical infrastructure, everything from electric-power grids to banking and finance systems to water systems, is extremely inter-connected, and said the risk is high that a failure or disruption in one system could have a devastating ripple effect.

Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat from Maryland, warned of a heightened risk of cyber-espionage or cyber-attack from the two firms that he said clearly have ties with the Chinese government.

“We already know the Chinese are aggressively hacking into our nation’s networks, threatening our critical infrastructure, and stealing millions of dollars worth of trade secrets and other sensitive information from American companies,” he said.

Ruppersberger said $300 billion worth of U.S. trade secrets are stolen every year, and that most of the cases prosecuted involve China.

Huawei Vice President for External Affairs William Plummer attended the news conference and spoke to reporters afterwards. Plummer strongly rejected the conclusions of the investigation, and said it was motivated by political suspicions of China during an election year in the United States.

“There are politics and then there are facts,” said Plummer. “The facts are that this company is globally-trusted, and that our product is world-proven in terms of its security and integrity.”

Plummer said Huawei has too much to lose to collaborate with Chinese cyber-espionage. He said it is an independently-owned company that has been operating in the United States for years.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei also rejected the report, saying Chinese companies do not pose a national security threat to the United States. He said he hopes the U.S. Congress will, in his words, “set aside prejudices and respect the facts.”

U.S. national security policy officials say Huawei works closely with the Chinese military on research and development projects. Huawei is looking to expand in the U.S. telecommunications market, and its cellphones and 4G networks are popular worldwide.

Canada: "Enemies of the State"

Online spying threatens Canada's national security

OpenMedia.ca/ Lindsey Pinto

huffingtonpost.ca

An access-to-information request from The Globe and Mail has revealed that Canada’s Communications Security Establishment has concerns about our nation’s network security. Specifically, the documents show that Huawei Technologies—a Chinese company that has become the world’s leading maker of telecom equipment—has been the subject of national security concerns.

With all these security worries in the air, it seems strange that Ottawa should continue to consider a bill that could leave Canadians’ personal data less secure. Online spying bill C-30—a contentious piece of legislation that has provoked the ire of Canada’s privacy commissioners, legal experts, and wider public—could, if passed, lead to the creation of giant, unsecure registries of every Internet user’s personal data.

Introduced in the House of Commons earlier this year, Bill C-30 would require telecom providers in Canada to monitor user data, and be prepared to hand over personal information to authorities without a warrant or judicial oversight.

This on its own creates security risks: for C-30 to work, ISPs must implement and maintain both the technology and the personnel required to give authorities real-time, simultaneous access to transmissions in the form specified by law enforcement. This could also mean that telecom companies would be responsible for breaking data encryptions to facilitate use of the gathered information. This would be both expensive (note: the costs will be passed down to Canadians) and would create a security risk, as our personal data would pass through more and more people and systems vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other breaches.

With the advent of increased foreign control over Canada’s networks (i.e. one of the briefing notes uncovered by The Globe urges caution and asserts that Canada “can’t feasibly block foreign technology”) it seems reckless to consider a bill that would weaken Canadians’ control over private data. Huawei is already doing business with Canadian wireless providers, including big telecom companies Bell and Telus.

Would you feel safer under the online spying bill?

10 aspectos por que Chavez es una amenaza a la seguridad de EEUU

Fausta's Blog/

Venezuela and Chavez: President Obama Should Read His Intelligence Brief

• Iran. Venezuela’s military and security relations with Iran show no sign of diminishing; drones, military exchanges, preparation for asymmetric warfare are a few milestones of the anti-American Axis of Unity. In May 2011, the U.S. sanctioned Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA. Many believe that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
• Syria. Chavez backs Syria’s murderous Bashar al-Assad to the hilt.
• Cuba. Chavez’s aid to Cuba’s Castro regime (nominally in exchange for doctors and intelligence personnel) exceeds $5 billion annually—more than double the U.S. assistance budget for all of Latin America—and enables the communist regime to survive and to repress the Cuban people.
• A terrorist haven. Chavez has rolled out the welcome mat to a host of terrorist organizations, includingHezbollah and the Basque ETA.
• A mafia state. Moises Naim writes that “senior Venezuelan government officials double as the heads of important transnational criminal gangs.” The U.S. described Chavez’s defense minister, General Henry Rangel Silva, as a drug kingpin in 2008.
• Higher gas prices. In OPEC, Chavez is a price hawk; he is mismanaging PDVSA—reducing global supply—and expropriates billions from U.S. companies, raising costs to U.S. consumers.
• Narco-terrorism in Colombia. Chavez identifies with and supports the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, whose leader, Timochenko, is believed to operate from a safe haven in Venezuela. Since 1999, the U.S. has invested $7 billion in Colombian democracy and security; Chavez prefers a Colombia ruled by narco-terrorists.
• Militarizing Venezuela. From Russian arms purchases to arming militias, Chavez militarizes Venezuelan society, threatens civil war, and endangers regional security.
• Corruption. With aid packages, oil deals, and cash-filled suitcases, Chavez corrupts freely and widely.
• Destabilization. Chavez backs left-wing leaders and destabilizes weak democracies, as he did inHonduras in 2009 and in Paraguay in 2012.

And let’s not forget that Chavez gave Iran the Astinave port (in Venezuela’s geographic point nearest to the USA and the Panama Canal), and an F-16 so Iran could test its antiaircraft radar systems and become familiar with its capabilities, in preparation for a possible strike.

More >>

More from DHS Insider

Canadian Free Press/ By Doug Hagmann

Northeast Intelligence Network

It was not one contact, but a series of contacts over the last month from which the following information was developed from my source within the Department of Homeland Security. My initial article citing this specific source was published on May 8, 2012.

This article details my subsequent contacts with my source beginning after May 14, 2012. Actual dates, times and locations have been omitted at the request of my source.

More >>

Loose lips and the Obama national security ship

Read >>

Kissinger's Date with the TSA

TheAlexJonesChannel/ By Kurt Nimmo

The TSA is not looking for al-Qaeda miscreants who want to blow up airplanes because they hate us for our freedom, as we are repeatedly told.

Beyond turbans and dark skin, its ill-trained employees know nothing about Arabs or Muslims. It does not use that predicate to initiate searches. That would be racial and religious profiling, which is forbidden under the hallowed tenets of political correctness.

Like some kind of lame predatory animal, it prefers instead to harass and molest the elderly, the very young, those in wheelchairs or hobbling along on crutches. It especially prefers to pat-down and run through naked body porno scanners attractive women.

On Friday, the TSA revealed that it not only does not know anything about terrorism, it also does not know who our rulers and their prized minions are.

Notorious war criminal and globalist Henry Kissinger was searched at LaGuardia Airport in New York. A TSA agent told the elderly wheelchair-bound Kissinger he needed to undergo a sexual molestation pat-down.

"He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders," freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Washington Post. "They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was."

Considering past trickery by the government, it is also entirely possible this is a scheme designed to get the plebs to back off their growing criticism of the agency and eventually love their servitude, as Aldous Huxley suggested they likely would. How better to indoctrinate the masses than have a big player like Kissinger willingly subject himself to a "full Monty" pat-down, thus sending the message that none of us are free to come and go without government agents molesting us?

Thanks ‘Liberals’ For All You’ve Done to Protect Us From Terrorists Like This One

FrontPage Magazine/ By Daniel Ashton

Also there are thousand of cases like this one:

Security Specialist Exposes TSA Body Scanners as "Giant Fraud"

Uploaded by TheAlexJonesChannel 

On the Friday, April 6 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex talks with cryptographer, computer security specialist, and author Bruce Schneier. Mr. Schneier is a vocal critic of "security measures" used by the Transportation Security Administration. He was invited to testify before Congress about TSA abuses but was "formally uninvited" after the TSA complained. He is the author of numerous books, including Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive, Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, and Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.