America’s Israeli Spying Problems

A recent article by Christopher Ketcham from AlterNet details how Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks that targets the U.S. — Israel is no friend of the U.S. — and how the illegal Israeli spying is oft-ignored by the media and the U.S. government.

American politicians fear the Isreali lobby. So much so that U.S. citizens are usually on the receiving end of egregious ‘legislation,’ and repeatedly end up getting shafted by their representatives in Congress. Congressional lobbying has plaqued ‘we the people’ for years.

Isreal’s spying on the U.S. has been well documented. Isreal maintains an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States, oftentimes by computer intrusions.

According to AlterNet, in 1996, the Defense Intelligence Service, a branch of the Pentagon, issued a warning that “the collection of scientific intelligence in the United States is the third highest priority of Isreali Intelligence after information on its Arab neighbors and information on secret U.S. policies or decisions relating to Isreal.” Isreali wiretaps of U.S. missions and embassies in the Middle East were part of a “standard operating procedure.”

After discovering several covert operations used to obtain intelligence in the 1960’s and 1970’s — several of which are detailed in AlterNet’s report — including the infamous case of Jonathan Pollard, an analyst with the U.S. Navy who purloined protected documents from inside the C.I.A. and numerous other U.S. agencies, the Isreali government vowed to never again pursue espionage against its ally and chief benefactor. Obviously, that was an empty promise that has been repeatedly broken.

Isreal Spying On The U.S. and Running Clandestine Operations

In 2004, Jane’s Intelligence Group reportedly noted that Israel’s intelligence organizations “have been spying on the U.S. and running clandestine operations since Isreal was established.” Israeli’s are as interested in commercial secrets as they are in military secrets, and have effectively joined partnerships with U.S. companies to supply software and other technological products to U.S. government agencies.

James Bamford, best-selling author of “The Shadow Factory,” is regarded as the nation’s expert on the workings of the National Security Agency (NSA). Bamford wrote that the NSA has become the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has ever known. The NSA now has the capacity, he writes, to make tyranny total because of the NSA’s tentacular reach into the private lives of Americans.

A lot less has been reported on the high-tech Israeli wiretapping firms who service U.S. telecommunications companies, primarily AT&T and Verizon, whose networks are the chief conduits for NSA surveillance. Less is known about the links between those Israeli companies and the Isreali intelligence services.

Bamford suggests that through joint partnerships with U.S. telecoms, Israel may be a shadow arm of surveillance among, as AlterNet put it, the tentacles of the NSA. In other words, the illegal wiretapping conducted by the NSA may also be gathered up by the Israeli intelligence services — effectively resulting in a two-government-in-one violation.

Congress Opened The Door For Illegal Wiretapping

Israeli telecom equipment and services are among Israel’s prime exports. Voicemail and voice recognition software, instant messaging, phone bill software and “communications interception solutions” are among Israel’s prime exports. Israel’s telecom interception hardware and software has been appraised as some of the best in the world.

The 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement (CALEA) — the Congressional solution for wiretapping in the digital age — mandated that telephonic surveillance operate through computers that were directly linked into routers and hubs of telecom companies. Without CALEA, the illegal wiretapping conducted by the NSA would have been unsuccessful.

AT&T and Verizon, who together manage approximately 90 percent of the nation’s communications traffic, contracted with Israeli firms in order to comply with CALEA. Narus Inc., founded in Israel in 1997, worked with AT&T.

According to whistleblower Mark Klein, a 22-year technician with AT&T who unveiled AT&T’s secret wiretapping room at one of its San Francisco facilities in 2006, the Narus STA 6400 supercomputer was known to be used by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets and it provided a real-time mirror image of all streaming data through AT&T routers, an image that was rerouted into NSA computers.

According to Bamford, Verizon’s eavesdropping program is run by an Israeli firm called Verint, a subsidiary of Comverse Technology. Comverse is effectively an arm of the Israeli Government.

Verint technology deployed throughout Verizon’s network — known as STAR-GATE — is capable of performing numerous Orwellian capabilities on virtually any type of network, transparently without alerting subscribers or disrupting service.

PerSay, a Verint spinoff, deploys ‘advanced voice mining’ that singles out ‘a target’s voice within a large volume of intercepted calls, regardless of the conversation content or method of communication.’

According to AlterNet’s report, more than 5,000 organizations — mostly intelligence services and police units — in at least 100 countries today use Verint technology.

Close Connections Maintained With Israeli Intelligence Services

Executives and directors at companies like Narus and Verint formerly worked at or maintain close connections with the Israeli intelligence services, including Mossad, Shin Bet and Unit 8200. That troubles Bamford, who notes that the implications for U.S. national security are unnerving because virtually the entire American telecommunications system is bugged by Israeli-formed companies with possible ties to Israel’s eavesdropping agency.

Bamford says that Congress maintains no oversight — no surprise there — of these companies’ operations and even their contracts with U.S. telecoms, contracts that are pivotal to NSA surveillance, are considered trade secrets and are undisclosed by the telecoms.

U.S. intelligence officers have reportedly voiced their concerns about Verint, who claims that it has to be ‘hands on’ with its equipment to maintain the system, increasing the likelihood of embedding a ‘trojan’ in their wiretapping software. Ketcham reported last September on an Israeli Trojan Horse and how Israeli backdoor technology penetrated the U.S. government’s telecom system and compromised national security. The Israeli business community has been rocked with allegations of widespread spying in recent years.

Fox News — in one of their few actual journalistic moments — conducted an investigation in 2001 that reported on possible trojans cached in Verint technology. Various inquiries into Verint have been conducted over the years, but they always end up being halted before the actual equipment is thoroughly tested for leaks, despite concerns from several government agencies that many unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the wiretap system, much of which can be facilitated remotely.

Bamford also detailed the operations of a third Israeli wiretap company, NICE systems, that he describes as a major eavesdropper in the U.S. that keeps its government and commercial client list very secret. NICE software captures voice, email, chat, screen activity and essential call details while offering audio compression technology that continuously records up to thousands of analog and digital telephone lines and radio channels.

Many Governments Concerned About Verint

Many governments have had concerns about Israeli wiretapping companies, particularly Verint. It seems the U.S. isn’t the only country being illegally spied on by the Israeli’s. Many countries accused Verint of misusing remote access, only to have Verint say they won’t do it again, implying that they were doing it in the past. It appears that there is a backdoor in Verint’s system that can be accessed any time from any where. Still the U.S. continues turning the other cheek and allowing it to happen.

Congress is responsible for overseeing the intelligence community and for looking into the companies that the intelligence community contracts with. In keeping with their tradition these past eight years, Congress doesn’t appear to be too concerned with their oversight responsibility or with taking care of their constituents.

Equipment used by our telecom industry is dangerously vulnerable to being illegally misused, not only by our government, but also by the Israeli government. How it happened, why nothing has been done and who has done what are questions that need to be answered. Wiretap technologies implemented by Verint, Narus and other Israeli companies are fully in place and there is no alternative on the horizon. That’s not the only problem. Other issues, such as the sensitivity of U.S.-Israel relationships compound the problem.

Many in Congress — and numerous others in Washington politics — have been bought off and corrupted by the Israeli lobby. Until America realizes how much control Israel has over the U.S. because of our corrupted political system, nothing will change and nothing will be done about it. More information on America’s Israeli spying problem can be found in the article from AlterNet. To this day Congress continues covering up Israeli wiretapping crimes.

Of course, that would explain why President Obama is so intent on keeping crimes committed by the Bush administration — especially the wiretapping crimes — covered up. Claims of jeopardizing national security are misleading since national security has already been repeatedly jeopardized by the illegal Israeli wiretapping. Our government’s version of national security in this case means covering their butts. Exposing this would be harmful to Washington’s security since they’ve been so complicit in allowing this to repeatedly happen.

I’ve said in the past that if you follow the 9/11 dots, it leads back to Israel. It would also partially explain why the U.S. government is so intent on keeping the facts of the 9/11 attacks covered up.

Once people find out the truth about that, it could end up damaging a lot more people than originally thought since Israeli’s have all the dirt on U.S. politicians. It’s time for the deceptive governmental tactics to end and it’s time for the American people to learn the truth.

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