Wall Street Journal, 17 Dec 09: Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter. . . .
. . . . U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem late last year when they apprehended a Shiite militant whose laptop contained files of intercepted drone video feeds. In July, the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops, leading some officials to conclude that militant groups trained and funded by Iran were regularly intercepting feeds.
In the summer 2009 incident, the military found “days and days and hours and hours of proof” that the feeds were being intercepted and shared with multiple extremist groups, the person said. “It is part of their kit now.”. . . .
. . . . Last December, U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered copies of Predator drone feeds on a laptop belonging to a Shiite militant, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter. “There was evidence this was not a one-time deal,” this person said. The U.S. accuses Iran of providing weapons, money and training to Shiite fighters in Iraq, a charge that Tehran has long denied.
The militants use programs such as SkyGrabber, from Russian company SkySoftware. Andrew Solonikov, one of the software’s developers, said he was unaware that his software could be used to intercept drone feeds. “It was developed to intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that other users download from the Internet — no military data or other commercial data, only free legal content,” he said by email from Russia. . . . .
Wired/Danger Room, 17 Dec 09: Tapping into drones’ video feeds was just the start. The U.S. military’s primary system for bringing overhead surveillance down to soldiers and Marines on the ground is also vulnerable to electronic interception, multiple military sources tell Danger Room. That means militants have the ability to see through the eyes of all kinds of combat aircraft — from traditional fighters and bombers to unmanned spy planes. The problem is in the process of being addressed. But for now, an enormous security breach is even larger than previously thought. . . . .
Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach
Wired, 17 Dec 09: In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military depends on an array of drones to snoop on and stalk insurgents. Now it looks as if insurgents are tapping into those same drones’ broadcasts, to see what the flying robot spies see. If true — and widespread — it’s potentially one of the most serious military security breaches in years.
“U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem late last year when they apprehended a Shiite militant whose laptop contained files of intercepted drone video feeds,” Wall Street Journal reports. “In July, the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops, leading some officials to conclude that militant groups trained and funded by Iran were regularly intercepting feeds.”
How’d the militants manage to get access to such secret data? Basically by pointing satellite dishes up, and waiting for the drone feeds to pour in. According to the Journal, militants have exploited a weakness: The data links between the drone and the ground control station were never encrypted. Which meant that pretty much anyone could tap into the overhead surveillance that many commanders feel is America’s most important advantage in its two wars. Pretty much anyone could intercept the feeds of the drones that are the focal point for the secret U.S. war in Pakistan.
Using cheap, downloadable programs like SkyGrabber, militants were apparently able to watch and record the video feed — and potentially be tipped off when U.S. and coalition forces are stalking them. The $26 software was originally designed to let users download movies and songs off of the internet. Turns out, the program lets you nab Predator drone feeds just as easily as pirated copies of The Hangover. . . . .
CBS News, 17 Dec 09: . . . . .America is having a European moment; the harrowing recognition that terrorists are among us. As in France in 1995 – when a second generation French Algerian tried to bomb its trains, or in Britain in 2004 – when a group of British Pakistanis were stopped before bombing a London mall, or in Spain that same year – when legal Moroccan residents detonated bombs blew up Madrid trains -, or in Germany in 2007 — when converts and second generation Turkish Germans targeted a U.S. military base.
But does this mean we should abandon the conventional wisdom that the U.S. is safer from homegrown terror than Europe? Not so fast — there are some important and comforting differences.
None of these American plotters knew each other. These were isolated small groups, even solitary individuals. The Brits who blew up the London subway had conspired with the mall plotters, and those planning to explode transatlantic airliners in 2006 were friendly with the men who a year earlier tried to copy the London bombings.
In England, to take by far the most glaring European case, jihad is a social movement that has thrived in the “Londonistan” milieu of itinerant hate preachers, radical newspapers, bookstores, transplanted jihadi groups, and extremist public venues. British intelligence has estimated there are 200 terrorist cells in Britain with as many as 4,000 plotters. . . . .
DOJ, 17 Dec 09: A former FBI contract linguist pleaded guilty today to unlawfully providing classified documents to the host of an Internet blog who then published information derived from those documents on the blog.
Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, aka Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Md., pleaded guilty in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., to a one-count information charging him with knowingly and willfully disclosing to an unauthorized person five FBI documents classified at the “secret” level that contained classified information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States.
Under the plea agreement, the government and Leibowitz have agreed that a term of 20 months in prison is the appropriate sentence in this case. The court may accept or reject the plea agreement between the government and Leibowitz. In addition, the court retains discretion to impose any lawful term of supervised release or fine, and to set any lawful conditions of supervised release.
“The willful disclosure of classified information to those not entitled to receive it is a serious crime,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “Today’s guilty plea should serve as a warning to anyone in government who would consider compromising our nation’s secrets.”
“Government employees who are given access to classified information are prohibited from disclosing the information without permission,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.
“As a trusted member of the FBI ranks, Leibowitz abused the trust of the FBI and the American public by using his access to classified information for his own purposes,” said Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely.
According to the plea agreement, from January 2009 through August 2009, Leibowitz was employed by the FBI as a contract linguist in an office in Calverton, Md. As part of his official duties, Leibowitz held a top secret security clearance and had lawful access to classified documents and information relating to the communication intelligence activities of the United States.
In April 2009, according to the plea agreement, Leibowitz knowingly and willfully caused five documents that were classified at the secret level and which contained classified information relating to the communication intelligence activities of the United States, to be furnished to a person not entitled to receive such information.
The recipient was the host of a public blog available to anyone with access to the Internet. The recipient then published on the blog information derived from the classified documents provided by Leibowitz.
This investigation was conducted by the FBI Baltimore Field Office. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dunne, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, and Trial Attorney Kathleen M. Kedian, of the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
FrontPage/Paul Sperry, 17 Dec 09:
Paul Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow, is the author of Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington.
You’ve heard the narrative from the Beltway punditry: Our Muslims are better assimilated than Muslims in Europe. Our Muslims are more Westernized, less radicalized. Well, it’s a false narrative. We are seeing the horns of a Muslim insurgency in this country. We are being Europeanized. And we need a counterinsurgency plan not just in Afghanistan but right here at home. . . .
. . . . Consider that:
- A new Gallup poll finds American Muslims are most likely to report feeling anger compared with the overall population — making even more of them ripe for radicalization.
- 2009 is shaping up to be most dangerous year in domestic terror since 9/11, a grave national security issue overlooked by a national media obsessed with boys trapped (or not) in balloons and golfers trapped in bimbo bunkers.
- In the past 12 months alone, there have been more than 75 arrests in the U.S. and abroad of homegrown terrorists including the Fort Hood shooter — all of them Muslim, almost all U.S. citizens.
- The FBI says Muslim groups have declared war on law enforcement over mosque surveillance and undercover informants — and we just saw the first mosques seized and the first shootout between a Muslim cleric and agents in Detroit.
- USA Today reports six Muslim “honor killings” in America over the past two years.
“Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.,” said NYPD intelligence unit chief Mitch Silber. “In years past, you couldn’t say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe.”
The secularity of the American Muslim community is a myth. In fact, a larger share of American Muslims (80%) say their religion is an important part of their daily lives than British Muslims (70%), according to a recent Gallup poll. And our Muslims are nearly as militant in their faith as Iranians.
The same survey finds a disturbing percentage of American Muslim youth — 26% — are seething with anger compared with the national average among respondents aged 18 to 29.
These findings dovetail with a 2007 Pew Research poll finding an alarming 26% — or roughly 100,000 — of U.S. Muslims aged 18 to 29 condone suicide bombings against non-Muslim “civilian targets.” That roughly tracks the 35% of young Muslim Brits who told Pew the same thing after some of them bombed the London subway.
Clearly, young Muslim Americans are as prone to radicalization as their European counterparts. . . .
. . . . How do Muslims raised in America become so radicalized?
They’re steeped in the anti-American hate of mosques and national front groups (like CAIR, ISNA and the Muslim Students Association) controlled by the radical Muslim Brotherhood and funded by the Saudis. Through sermons and Saudi literature and the media, they teach them that America is the enemy.
This is the jihad factory, fueled by jihadi websites, churning out homegrown terrorists. And the FBI is only now trying to dismantle it.
Arrests of homegrown Muslim terrorists are averaging more than six a month. They are threatening both hard targets, such as military bases, and soft targets, such as hotels and shopping malls. That’s an alarming up-tempo in terrorist activity, belying official spin the problem is confined to a small minority of the Muslim community. The home-based jihad threat is much larger than the administration suggests.
“There are people living among us, in our communities around the U.S., that are honing their skills to carry out acts of murder and mayhem,” warned senior FBI official Owen Harris. He like other government officials can’t publicly say what kind of “people” would be doing such treacherous things.
But make no mistake, he’s referring to Islamic fanatics. While they may be spread out over different cities — Raleigh, N.C., Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Denver, Washington, Chicago, even sleepy Killeen, Texas — and while they may have different ethnicities — Arab, South Asian, Eastern European, Hispanic, white — they all share a common bond in jihad. While we may call them Americans, they do not. They hate their country and want to destroy it. . . . .
. . . . . He needs to get out more. He can start by driving across the Potomac to Alexandria and Falls Church, Va. FBI agents and detectives who have worked counterterror cases and entered Muslim homes in those Washington suburbs, know better.
Inside, they’ve seen home computers with Osama bin Laden screen savers. They’ve seen refrigerators with children’s drawings depicting Jews and Christians as pigs and apes and hateful anti-Jewish and anti-Christian poems.
They’ve seen the throngs of Muslims rallying around terrorist defendants at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, even after they’ve confessed to crimes. They’ve heard respect Muslim leaders bash U.S. prosecutors as “Zionists.”
They also know that the Skyline Towers, a luxury apartment complex housing thousands of Muslims in Falls Church, erupted into cheers after the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. We’re not talking about Gaza or the West Bank. This was just minutes from the Pentagon.
Authorities have made so many trips to the high-rise complex to investigate tenants that they’ve dubbed it “Taliban Towers.”
Just up the street is the still-bustling 9/11 mosque, Dar al-Hijrah, where the hijackers, the Fort Hood shooter and a shockingly long rap sheet of other terrorists have worshipped.
The vast majority of Americans have no idea, but the very capital of our nation is a breeding ground for terrorists. In fact, the Washington area is Ground Zero of the anti-American insurgency being carried out by radicalized American Muslims in plain view of our government.
Yet it’s doing next to nothing about it, still deluded by the notion it can win “hearts and minds” by cow-towing to ISNA and other radical Brotherhood fronts, who simply use outreach events as an opportunity to gather intelligence and tip off targets of terror probes. . . . .
