spook bugs hosed by Hanssen
Blank Frank
bfk at mindspring.com
Wed Feb 28 11:16:58 PST 2001
Spy Suspect May Have Revealed U.S. Bugging
Espionage: Hanssen left
signs that he told Russia where
top-secret overseas
eavesdropping devices are placed,
officials say.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, Times
Staff Writer
WASHINGTON--U.S.
intelligence officials said
Tuesday that they fear
suspected spy Robert Philip
Hanssen may have provided
Russia with top-secret
information about how and
where the United States has
planted its most
sophisticated overseas eavesdropping
devices.
U.S. spy-catchers said
they are trying to determine
whether the former FBI agent
compromised a highly
sensitive "black-budget"
program run jointly by the
Central Intelligence Agency
and the National Security
Agency.
The elite program,
known innocuously as the Special
Collection Service, plays a
critical role in U.S.
intelligence operations by
conducting bugging operations
in or near embassies,
communications centers and other
facilities on foreign soil.
The program's mission
is so sensitive that intelligence
officials never have
acknowledged its existence publicly.
Its funding is hidden within
the federal budget and little is
known about the technologies
and techniques it employs.
Hanssen was arrested on
Feb. 18 after FBI agents said
they saw him leave a cache
of secret documents at a "dead
drop" in a park near his
home in Vienna, Va. He is
accused of having provided
classified material to the
Russians since 1985 in
exchange for $1.4 million in cash
and diamonds.
According to documents
filed in federal court
Tuesday, the package of
material included an encrypted
letter in which Hanssen said
that he feared the FBI
suspected him and that he
needed to "seclude" himself.
"Something has aroused
the sleeping tiger," said a
letter signed by "Ramon
Garcia," one of the aliases
allegedly used by Hanssen.
The letter said that the FBI had
promoted him to "a higher
do-nothing" job without
regular access to
counterintelligence. "It is as if I am
being isolated," the letter
said.
As U.S. officials try
to assess the damage caused by
Hanssen's alleged spying,
the CIA-NSA bugging program
"is going to be a focus,"
confirmed an intelligence official
who asked not to be
identified. "That's certainly going to
be looked at."
Hanssen is believed to
have shared office quarters for
several years at the State
Department with NSA agents
and may have obtained
information about the bugging
program through this and
other means in his role as a
Russian counterintelligence
specialist, U.S. officials said.
If Hanssen did breach
the security of the program, it
could represent one of the
most damaging consequences
of the data he allegedly
sold to the Russians and their
Soviet predecessors over a
15-year period.
An affidavit outlining
the government's case against
Hanssen asserts that he
"compromised an entire technical
program of enormous value,
expense and importance to
the United States." It
suggests obliquely that Hanssen
gave the Russians
information about a "new technique"
developed by the NSA and
described to them a "sensitive
office" where an NSA
employee worked.
Although the affidavit
does not mention the Special
Collection Service by name,
intelligence experts outside
the government said that
these and other references point
to the global eavesdropping
operation.
FBI officials already
have described some of the
information they believe
Hanssen passed to the Russians
over the years. He allegedly
confirmed for Moscow the
identities of three Russian
double agents who were
working for the United
States--leading to the execution of
two of them. And in 1989, he
allegedly let the KGB know
about a secret FBI
investigation into the activities of
Felix Bloch, a high-ranking
U.S. diplomat suspected of
spying for the Soviets. The
investigation was
"compromised," U.S.
officials said, and Bloch was never
charged.
But intelligence
officials said that Hanssen may have
caused far more damage to
U.S. national security, and
they are still trying to
assess the extent of that damage.
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh,
along with Atty. Gen. John
Ashcroft and CIA Director
George J. Tenet, will brief
congressional officials
today in a closed session.
If the bugging program
was seriously compromised by
Hanssen, "that's something
that would be extremely
serious," said a former
intelligence official who requested
anonymity. "You're talking
about very specific, very
pointed information that's
usually the gold nuggets of the
intelligence community."
Said James Bamford, an
author and expert on the
NSA: "Once [the Russians]
find out how this
eavesdropping is done and
where in essence the bugs are,
they could quickly do one of
two things--take them apart,
or worse yet, send
disinformation over them."
Intelligence officials
started the program in the late
1970s in the midst of the
Cold War to devise and plant
sophisticated eavesdropping
devices at overseas sites that
have access to sensitive
data. The aim is to intercept
sensitive information on
espionage, nuclear arms,
terrorist networks, drug
trafficking and a range of other
issues that U.S. officials
say are vital to national security.
The bugging program
"marries the CIA's covert people
who know how to get into
places--by bribing the right
person or whatever is
needed--with the NSA people who
can design the right bug to
go in the right environment so
the information can be
secreted across the border," said
Bamford, who wrote a
landmark study of the NSA and
will soon release a sequel
called "Body of Secrets."
The CIA and the NSA use
the program to bug not only
obvious targets such as
embassies and government
centers, but also computer
facilities, fiber-optic cable
networks and communications
centers carrying sensitive
data, Bamford said.
Bamford said that he
knows Hanssen well, both
personally and
professionally. Hanssen, he said, was in an
ideal position to penetrate
the bugging system because he
was intimately familiar with
Russian counterintelligence,
computers and sophisticated
electronic eavesdropping
techniques. "Those are
exactly the kinds of things that
[Special Collection Service]
is involved in," he said.
<snip>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates2/lat_spy010228.htm
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