Prosecutors: CIA agents left trail

[Tyler Durden]

Reverse Rendition?

Here's where Liberals can take a stand...let's round up some of these 
fuckers and stuff 'em in a shipping container on a Chinese barge to Italy.

I've done a quick google search and I've only found a couple of the names. 
Is the complete list available?

-TD

>From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
>To: cypherpunks at jfet.org
>Subject: Prosecutors: CIA agents left trail
>Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 15:22:04 +0200
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/28/cia.phonetrail.ap/index.html
>
>Prosecutors: CIA agents left trail
>Cellphone calls blew their cover
>
>Thursday, July 28, 2005; Posted: 8:05 p.m. EDT (00:05 GMT)
>
>ROME, Italy (AP) -- It wasn't their lavish spending in luxury hotels, their
>use of credit cards or even frequent-flier miles that drew attention. 
>Instead
>it was a trail of casual cellphone use that tripped up the 19 purported CIA
>operatives wanted by Italian authorities in the alleged kidnapping of a
>radical Muslim cleric.
>
>Italian prosecutors who have obtained arrest warrants for the 19 -- none of
>whom are believed to be in Italy -- presented evidence that the suspects 
>used
>at least 40 Italian cell phones, some in their own names.
>
>Experts say that either they were bumbling spies, or they acted with 
>impunity
>because Italian officials had been informed of their plan -- a claim the
>government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi has publicly denied on several
>occasions. (Full story)
>
>"If these were really CIA agents they've made a disaster," said Andrea 
>Nativi,
>research director for the Rome-based Military Center for Strategic Studies.
>"They strained relations between Italy and the U.S. and between the CIA and
>Italian intelligence agencies."
>
>Italian judges issued a first batch of warrants last month for 13 Americans
>accused of abducting Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on a 
>Milan
>street on February 17, 2003.
>
>Another court this week issued another six warrants for a group the
>prosecution claims planned the abduction. (Full story)
>Vulnerable cellphones
>
>The Egyptian cleric was flown from Aviano, a joint U.S.-Italian air base 
>north
>of Venice, to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and then to Egypt, where he was
>reportedly tortured. The operation purportedly was part of the CIA's
>"extraordinary rendition" program, in which terror suspects are transferred 
>to
>third countries without court approval.
>
>In his request for the latest warrants, prosecutor Armando Spataro wrote 
>that
>an analysis of mobile phone traffic showed that most of them were present 
>on
>the route that Abu Omar habitually took from his home to a Milan mosque,
>"including in the days before" the kidnapping.
>
>A track of their cell phones also showed them on those streets "nearly 100
>times" during the month before Abu Omar's disappearance, the prosecutor 
>said.
>He concluded that the six were part "of a single group of Americans who 
>came
>to Milan to carry out the operation."
>
>Why they would use their cell phones so openly has baffled experts,
>particularly since prosecutors are certain that not all the names of the 19
>suspects are aliases.
>
>One has been identified by prosecutors as the former CIA station chief in
>Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, who owns a retirement home in wine country in 
>Asti,
>near Turin. Though police didn't find Lady there when they raided the 
>house,
>they did discover a list of hotels where U.S. government employees received
>discounts, including hotels where prosecutors contend the suspects stayed.
>
>Another person on the list has the same name as a man who now works at the
>U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.
>
>Unless the power or the wireless antenna is turned off, a mobile phone 
>remains
>in constant contact with the nearest cell towers even when it's not being 
>used
>for a call. Information processed by the cells can be used to precisely 
>locate
>or track the movements of a phone user.
>
>Nativi, the military expert, called the use of regular cell phone accounts 
>"a
>huge weakness in the operation."
>
>It would have been more difficult to track anonymous prepaid cards, 
>satellite
>phones or radios, he said.
>
>The wireless system used in Italy and most of the rest of Europe relies on 
>a
>stamp-sized smart card that is inserted in the back of every handset. This
>removable "SIM" card stores an individual's phone number and other account
>data.
>
>A unique numerical identifier is assigned to every phone and every SIM, 
>said
>Bruno Errico, director of consulting for Openwave Global Services, a 
>company
>that provides tracking applications and other software to wireless 
>companies
>worldwide.
>
>Wireless companies are obliged by law to keep records of the unique data 
>that
>each phone exchanges with the cell network as well as the numbers to which
>calls are placed, he said.
>
>Since a phone is served by several cells at any given time, investigators 
>can
>easily triangulate the location of a device, Errico said. In an urban area,
>where the network of cells is dense and overlapping, such tracking can have 
>a
>margin of error of just a few yards.
>Going uncovered
>
>Had the agents used non-Italian phones and SIMs, the local network would 
>still
>have tracked them, but magistrates might have had a tougher time linking 
>the
>phones to each of the suspects since not all countries require wireless 
>users
>to provide identification, said Errico. To avoid tracking, the agents would
>have had to use other systems not available to the general public, such as
>radios, Errico said.
>
>"As long as you use public communication systems, there is no way you can
>avoid being tracked," he said.
>
>Or, as Nativi put it: "When you go on this kind of operation, you need to 
>turn
>off your damn phone."
>
>Yoram Schweitzer, a researcher for the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies 
>in
>Tel Aviv, said he wasn't surprised the operatives stayed in five-star 
>hotels,
>which provide excellent cover for those posing as businessmen or
>businesswomen. But analysts did question whether using of credit cards was
>advisable.
>
>Chris Aaron, a former editor of Jane's Intelligence Review magazine, said 
>the
>team must have known that local cells phones put them at risk of being
>exposed.
>
>"A CIA team would have been aware of the Italian ability to log calls and
>track their location, so they clearly weren't worried about that," he said.
>
>The CIA in Washington has declined to comment on the case.
>
>Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may 
>not
>be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
>
>--
>Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
>______________________________________________________________
>ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.leitl.org
>8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
>
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