[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 07/13/09

Mon Jul 13 14:49:26 EDT 2009

Format Note:  If you cannot easily read the text below, or you prefer to
receive Secrecy News in another format, please reply to this email to let
us know.

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2009, Issue No. 60
July 13, 2009

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**      AL QAIDA: WESTERN SPIES MULTIPLY "LIKE LOCUSTS"
**      NRO RELEASES PORTION OF 2009 BUDGET JUSTIFICATION
**      CURRENT SPREADING & THE CTR FOR SECURITY EVALUATION

AL QAIDA: WESTERN SPIES MULTIPLY "LIKE LOCUSTS"

>From the point of view of an al Qaida military leader, Western
intelligence agents are now ubiquitous in the lands of Islam, and their
operations have been extraordinarily effective.  The Western spies are
unfailingly lethal, leaving a trail of dead Islamist fighters behind them.
 Worst of all, they have managed to recruit innumerable Muslims to assist
their war efforts.

"The spies... were sent to penetrate the ranks of the Muslims generally,
and the mujahidin specifically, and [they] spread all over the lands like
locusts," wrote Abu Yahya al-Libi, an al Qaida field commander in
Afghanistan, in a new book called "Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim
Spy."

"The spies are busy day and night carrying out their duties in an
organized and secret manner... How many heroic leaders have been kidnapped
at their hands? How many major mujahidin were surprised to be imprisoned or
traced?  Even the military and financial supply roads of the mujahidin,
which are far from the enemy's surveillance, were found by the spies."

Al Qaida operations have been severely impeded by the intelligence war
against them, al-Libi said.  "As soon as the mujahidin get secretly into
an area on a dark night, they are confronted by the Cross forces and their
helpers.  Many are killed or captured."

Western spies are found under every conceivable cover, al-Libi wrote. 
"They have among them old hunchbacked men who cannot even walk, strong
young men, weak women inside their house, young girls, and even children
who did not reach puberty yet.  The spy might be a doctor, nurse,
engineer, student, preacher, scholar, runner, or a taxi driver.  The spy
can be anyone...."

"The occupation armies completely rely on recruiting spies and informants
from the Muslim lands they usurped and conquered... The spy lives among
Muslims, being one of them: living their life, wearing their dress, eating
what they eat... Therefore, he can access what the armed soldiers of the
occupation cannot put hands on."

In the new book, published on jihadist websites on June 30, al-Libi
ruminated at length on the religious and legal problem of the Muslim spy. 
Can there be a Muslim who spies against other Muslims or, since such a
person would by definition be an apostate, is a Muslim spy a contradiction
in terms?  May such a person be killed?  (It depends.)  To convict a spy
nowadays is it necessary to rely on the traditional two witnesses? 
(Again, it depends.)  What about a person who is mistakenly executed as a
spy?  (God will reward him.)

Pervading the book is a sense of the overwhelming impact of U.S. and
Allied intelligence operations on jihadist forces, and the willingness of
indigenous Muslims to act with Western intelligence against those forces.

"Everyone who lives in the jihad battlegrounds... knows well that the
occupation forces could not do one-tenth of what they do now if they did
not recruit spies and informants....  Most of the mujahidin and their
soldiers were killed or captured because of the intelligence information
that the infidel forces have obtained from the secret soldiers whom they
recruit, like swarms of locusts, from the native citizens who talk our
language and pretend they are Muslims."

"Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim Spy" by Abu Yahya al-Libi was
translated, rather clumsily, by the DNI Open Source Center.  A copy was
obtained by Secrecy News and is posted here:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/osc/libi.pdf

The book cited the use of electronic homing devices to guide air-launched
missiles to their targets and images of several such devices were included
in the original Arabic version of the book (at page 146).  The purported
use of the devices was discussed in "CIA Drone Targeting Tech Revealed,
Qaeda Claims" by Adam Rawnsley, Wired Danger Room, July 8, 2009. 
Memri.org also prepared a proprietary translation of the new Al-Libi book,
which was reported by Fox News last week.

NRO RELEASES PORTION OF 2009 BUDGET JUSTIFICATION

The National Reconnaissance Office, which develops, launches and operates
U.S. intelligence satellites, last week released most of the unclassified
portions of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for FY2009.  While
those unclassified portions are only a small fraction of the full budget
document, they still provide a fresh glimpse or two of the agency and its
four directorates (IMINT, SIGINT, Advanced Systems and Technology, and
Communications).

"The U.S. is arguably more reliant on overhead collection that ever
before," the NRO says, while "intelligence problems are becoming more
complex and increasingly require synergistic, multi-INT, multi-source
solutions."  See "National Reconnaissance Program," FY2009 Congressional
Budget Justification, February 2008, released under the Freedom of
Information Act July 2009:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/fy2009cbjb.pdf

The NRO has suffered serious acquisition failures in recent years and it
has been rumored, unconfirmably, that the agency may be broken up or
reorganized.  ("Spy Agency May Face Ax" by Colin Clark, DoD Buzz, July 1,
2009).  Meanwhile, President Obama reportedly issued a directive last
spring -- Presidential Study Directive 2 -- ordering a review of
classified space activities.  ("President Orders Sweeping U.S. Space
Policy Review" by Amy Klamper, Space News, July 6, 2009).

CURRENT SPREADING & THE CTR FOR SECURITY EVALUATION

A newly disclosed report from the JASON defense advisory panel may not
excite the interest of anyone who is not a student of electrical
engineering.  It examines the distribution of electrical current flowing
through a long, narrow conductive object.  See "Current Spreading in Long
Objects," October 2008:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/current.pdf

Somewhat more interesting is the fact that the JASON study was sponsored
by the Center for Security Evaluation.  The Center is a component of the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence that supports the
Department of State in protecting intelligence and other classified
information in U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad.  Its charter was set
forth in "Center for Security Evaluation," Intelligence Community
Directive 707, October 17, 2008:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/icd/icd-707.pdf

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
     http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html

To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html

OR email your request to saftergood at fas.org

Secrecy News is archived at:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html

Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation:
     http://www.fas.org/member/member_contribute.html

_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691