West’s deadly N-secrets for sale

[ejaz007]

West’s deadly N-secrets for sale

* Former FBI official says she heard evidence that a US official was being paid by Turkish agents to get information

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: A whistleblower has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets, according to a Sunday Times article.
Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, who had listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office, approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.
The newspaper quoted Edmonds as describing how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
Selling information: “Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan,” the Times said.
The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims, the paper said.
However, the article reported Edmonds as saying: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”
“She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents,” the article read.
“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” the Times reported Edmonds as saying.
“Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology,” the Times said.
“A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology,” the Times said.
“What I found was damning. While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on,” Edmonds was reported as saying.
“The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the ISI, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official,” the paper said.
“I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more,” the Times quoted Edmonds as saying.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan


Does any one have more news about this.
Regards,

 

[MastanKhan]

Folks,

Just for your information---non payment of bills--the phones were disconnected.



Audit: FBI's lapse in paying phone bill snips wiretaps
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Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Telecommunications carriers shut down some covert surveillance lines established by the FBI because the bureau failed to make timely bill payments, a Justice Department review found Thursday.
In five of the bureau's 56 field offices, an audit by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found hundreds of delinquent invoices, potentially threatening the integrity of undercover investigations and resulting in an undisclosed amount of lost evidence.


FBI REPORT:Read the summary of findings here

"Late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI," the audit found.

Evidence once was lost when surveillance established by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order, which typically targets suspected spies and terrorists, was "halted due to untimely payment."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Justice Department | Federal Bureau of Investigation
As part of the audit, investigators also examined the personnel files of employees in 35 field divisions. It found that "nearly half" of those employees who could access funds that support covert investigations had "indications of personal financial problems, such as late loan payments and bankruptcies."

The inspector general's review grew out of a 2006 criminal inquiry in which an FBI employee pleaded guilty to stealing about $25,000 intended to support secret wiretaps.

The eight-page audit summarized the inspector general's full 87-page report, much of which was not made public because it contained "sensitive" law enforcement information, the Justice Department said.

Among the information withheld: how often wiretap lines were shut down due to late payments, the nature of those investigations, the time period involved, how much evidence was lost and how much undercover case money the FBI manages annually.

The document also did not identify the field offices where investigators found evidence of lax oversight.

The audit found that the FBI depended on an "antiquated" system to track undercover case funds. In one of the bureau's field offices, investigators found $66,000 in unpaid "telecommunications costs resulting from surveillance activity."

The FBI said it was working to resolve the problems outlined in the audit.

"While there is widespread agreement that the current financial management system, first introduced in the 1980s, is inadequate, the FBI will not tolerate financial mismanagement, or worse, and is addressing the issues identified in the audit," FBI spokesman John Miller said in a statement.

The bureau's "mismanagement still threatens our national security," said Michael German, national security policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has strongly challenged the government's post-9/11 surveillance programs.

"We're down the constitutional rabbit hole when lack of payment, and not the lack of a warrant, prevents the FBI from wiretapping," German said.