FBI Sniff

[John Young]

On December 6 Cryptome published a list of some 2600 names
of alleged "CIA sources," provided by a person named Gregory
Douglas, who claims to have received the list from Robert Crowley,
once Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA:

   http://cryptome.org/coa-2619.htm  (167KB)

There are a number of names on the list of persons well-known
to be associated with the CIA, such as all the ex-DCIs, Aldrich
Ames, and other public personages such as Ted Koppel, Mark
Zaid and several notable journalists. Most, though, are not
well-known persons.

Daniel Brandt, who runs Public Information Research and NameBase,
has done an analysis of the list and concludes that it is primarily a
membership list of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers
(www.AFIO.org) dating from about 1996. He has several such lists
and has used them to evaluate the Crowley list:

   http://cryptome.org/cia-namebase.htm

We have had several readers complain about being named on the
list although they deny having any association with the CIA,
others who find names of neighbors they've long suspected, and
one freelance journalist who now fears he is in grave danger and
intends to sue:

   http://cryptome.org/cia-2619-rc.htm

Daniel Brandt has said that he had a dustup with AFIO in 1997
about his offering of its membership list, and has provided that
correspondence:

   http://cryptome.org/cia-afio-names.htm

Today we learned from Gregory Douglas that he has discussed the
list with the FBI, and, according to Douglas, the Bureau does not know 
what to make of it. Douglas said he explained how he got the list
and plans to show the original hardcopy of the list to FBI in
DC today or shortly. The FBI asked how it came to be published
on the Internet, and Douglas told them.

We have not been contacted by any official about the list.

Gregory Douglas (which could be a pseudonym) has published 
several books on controversial matters, including a series about 
the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Muller, working for the OSS and 
CIA for years after WW2, and living in America under an assumed 
identity. The official story is that Muller died at the end of WW2. 
Douglas claims his books on Muller are banned in Germany. 

Is any of this Douglas stuff true? We don't know. Nor do we know 
that the Crowley list is authentic despite being salted with well-known
names. Daniel Brandt thinks it is a ploy to fuck Cryptome, by whom 
he's not sure. We hope he's right.