Tag Archives: espionage

Russian Hackers Hit Agency That Handles US Nukes

Bloomberg News reports: The U.S. nuclear weapons agency and at least three states were hacked as part of a suspected Russian cyber-attack that struck several federal government agencies. The Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains America’s nuclear stockpile, were targeted as part of a larger attack by suspected Russian hackers. In an advisory Thursday that signaled …

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Russian Hackers Also Penetrated Homeland Security

Reuters reports: A team of sophisticated hackers believed to be working for the Russian government won access to internal communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter. The breach was part of the campaign reported Sunday that penetrated the U.S. departments of Treasury and Commerce. DHS is a massive bureaucracy responsible for border …

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Russian Spies Hack Into US Treasury, US Commerce

The Washington Post reports: The Russian government hackers who breached a top cybersecurity firm are behind a global espionage campaign that also compromised the Treasury and Commerce departments and other government agencies, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The FBI is investigating the campaign by a hacking group working …

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Edward Snowden And Wife Seek Russian Citizenship

The Guardian reports: The US whistleblower Edward Snowden and his wife are applying for Russian citizenship in order not to be separated from their future son in an era of pandemics and closed borders, he said on Monday. Snowden’s wife, Lindsay, is expecting a child in late December, the Interfax news agency cited Anatoly Kucherena, his Russian lawyer, as saying. …

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Ex-Green Beret Charged With Conspiring With Russia

Just in from the Department of Justice: According to court documents, from December 1996 to January 2011, Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, a former member of the U.S. Army, allegedly conspired with agents of a Russian intelligence service. During that time, Debbins periodically visited Russia and met with Russian intelligence agents. In 1997, Debbins was assigned a code name by …

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Cheney Warns Trump On Pardon For “Traitor” Snowden

Mediaite reports: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) did not mince words in a tweet about Edward Snowden Sunday evening, calling him a “traitor” and stating that granting him a pardon “would be unconscionable.” Cheney’s tweet almost certainly came in response to a comment by Trump on Saturday that he was apparently willing to consider pardoning Snowden. “I’m going to look at …

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After Saying Many Times That Edward Snowden Is A Spy Who Should Be Executed, Trump May Grant Pardon

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would look at the issue of giving a pardon to whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden disclosed highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013. He revealed the news covertly to the Guardian after he fled to Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow to avoid extradition back to America. He …

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Full Senate Narrowly Approves Trump’s Intel Nominee

The New York Times reports: A divided Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas, a fierce conservative ally of President Trump’s with relatively little intelligence experience, to become the next director of the nation’s spy agencies. Democrats opposed the nomination en masse, but they agreed to dispense with the normal rules and accelerate Mr. Ratcliffe’s confirmation …

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Intel Agencies Have Hired Consultants To Learn How To Keep Trump’s Attention During Nat’l Security Briefings

The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump, who has mounted a yearslong attack on the intelligence agencies, is particularly difficult to brief on critical national security matters, according to interviews with 10 current and former intelligence officials familiar with his intelligence briefings. The president veers off on tangents and getting him back on topic is difficult, they said. He has …

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Pentagon Linguist Charged With Spying For Terrorists

Via press release from the Justice Department: Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was charged today in the District of Columbia with transmitting highly sensitive classified national defense information to a foreign national with apparent connections to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization that has been so designated by the Secretary of State. According to the affidavit filed in …

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Police Busted Two Russian Spy “Plumbers” At Davos

The Daily Beast reports: Police in Switzerland reportedly uncovered a Russian spying operation in Davos, where world leaders are meeting this week for the annual World Economic Forum. Police arrested two Russian men in the Alpine town last August after they were alerted to their suspiciously long stay in the resort. The men had allegedly claimed diplomatic protections, but had …

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Russian Spy Maria Butina Gets State TV Hosting Gig

From the pro-Trump Washington Examiner: Maria Butina wore a “foreign agent” T-shirt to promote her new gig as a Russian state television host. Butina, who was not charged with espionage but pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent by infiltrating a gun rights group and cultivating relationships with conservative politicians, was deported in October after an 18-month …

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Russian Spy Ship Moving “Erratically” Off US Coast

CNN reports: A Russian spy-ship has returned to international waters off the southeastern coast of the United States and is operating in what two US officials told CNN is an “unsafe manner.” The Viktor Leonov, a Russian surveillance ship, has been sailing off the coast of South Carolina and Florida in the last few days, one official told CNN. The …

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Two Twitter Staffers Charged With Spying For Saudis

The Washington Post reports: The DOJ  has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia in a case that raises concerns about the ability of Silicon Valley to protect the private information of dissidents and other users from repressive governments. The charges came a day after the arrest of one of the former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo, a …

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Reuters: Spies Hacked WhatsApp To Snoop On US Allies

Reuters reports: Senior government officials in multiple U.S.-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp to take over users’ phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation. Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims are high-profile government and military officials spread …

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Russian Spy Gets Hero’s Welcome After Deportation

Reuters reports: Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, greeted by her father and Russian journalists who handed her flowers. “Russians never surrender,” an emotional Butina told reporters at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, flanked by her father and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s …

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Russian Spy Maria Butina Released For Deportation

Reuters reports: Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina was released from a Florida prison on Friday after serving most of her 18-month sentence for conspiring to influence U.S. conservative activists and infiltrate a powerful gun rights group, and taken into custody by immigration officials to be deported to her native country. A prison official confirmed she was released on Friday morning …

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Secret Russian Unit Works To Destabilize Europe

The New York Times reports: First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially …

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Israel Planted Spy Devices Near WH, Trump Shrugged

Politico reports: The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying …

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REPORT: US Intel Pulled Spy From Russia Over Fear Trump Would Expose Him During Talks With Russians

CNN reports: In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump …

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