FBI seizes computer from AIPAC offices

[UpInArms]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1093921795845

FBI agents on Friday copied the computer hard drive of a senior staffer at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who has been questioned in relation to the case of a Pentagon official suspected of turning over a classified document either directly to Israel, or via the pro- Israel lobby group.

Sources in Washington said the hard drive was that of Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues.

It was not clear if FBI agents also seized other materials from Rosen's office. AIPAC says it is cooperating fully with the FBI's investigation.

Government lawyers, according to Tuesday's New York Times, are preparing to make the first arrests in the case by issuing a criminal complaint against one or more figures who are said to be involved. The case is being handled by federal prosecutors in Virginia.

...more...

[KittyWampus]

1. Whoopsie Daisy!

[leesa]

2. I know this is a con job by the Bush Administration because their pet,

the FBI is involved, but I don't know how it serves them. Unless it is just to pin this mess on a couple of small fry and let Perle, Wolfowitz and the rest of the scum off.

[legin]

3. I think I found a good quote by him

"A lobby is like a night flower; It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." So wrote Steven Rosen.....

http://www.google.com/search?q=Steve+Rosen+AIPAC&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

(3rd one down, couldn't find anything in the link though)

Anyway,

AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Naor Gilon, a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

New spy scandal comes as major blow to Israel, AIPAC


WASHINGTON: Washington was rocked late last week by allegations that a Pentagon policy analyst on Iran, Laurence A. Franklin, had passed classified information to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby group in the US. He is also said to have had extensive meetings with Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

.........

Journalist Steven Green, a long-time observer of Israeli espionage efforts in the United States, told the Daily Star that he had spoken extensively with individuals involved in the investigation, and that "I know from personal experience that its scope is much wider in terms of the targets than we have been told so far."

He said that more senior officials than Franklin "should be extremely nervous about this." Green speculated that the scandal might involve exchanges of information between "sophisticates in the intelligence communities of Israel and Iran at the expense of the United States. ... There is a possible quid-pro-quo involved in Iran receiving US intelligence codes through the neocon favorite Ahmed Chalabi and the Israelis getting our latest thinking on Iran's nuclear program. ...You can see how that would benefit both parties, but not the US."

USA Today reported Monday that law enforcement officials said "there may be some crossover" between the Franklin and Chalabi investigations.

............

James Bamford, a leading observer of the US intelligence community and author of the recent book "Pretext for War," said, "These allegations don't surprise me at all, since Franklin works for Feith, who is essentially a pro-Israel extremist. It certainly should encourage another look at the influence of Israel in the motivations for the Iraq war. Sharon was pushing the US very hard to go to war in August, 2002." Bamford added: "The neoconservatives surround themselves with people who are fanatically pro-Israel, and maybe they were too over confident, or felt that no one would notice or no one would care, or that they were running things so it wouldn't matter, but luckily the FBI is independent of the Pentagon." Bamford said it is significant that while the FBI had informed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, it had not told Feith about the investigation.


more
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=7909

[truth2power]

5. Why would the FBI have informed Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz?

They're also part of the cabal and would have had time to purge computers of any incriminating evidence. I don't understand.

[sendero]

6. Real investigations...

... do not involve the "copying" of a hard drive. When you copy a hard drive, you only get the data that is currently on it.

There are forensic techniques on the orignal drive that will let you see not only what is on it, but what has been on it for up to seven generations of erasure.

But, I wouldn't expect a real investigation.

[MrPrax]

11. Seven Generations?

Advice for anyone in this area of 'treason' and 'crime'...

You should encrypt your 'smoking guns'--it's a hassle, but hey, if it falls into the wrong hands...

Also have a good 'scrub' protocol in place for your co-hoots

There are a few utilities you could use to 'wipe' a HD
...BCWipe for instance is pretty foolproof and cheap...

[sendero]

17. Yes....

.... up to seven generations. The actual magnetic platter in a disk drive is an "analog" recording device". A copy of it is merely "digital", all of the low-level information is not present.

Merely erasing or even overwriting sectors of a file doesn't begin to eliminate it from your hard drive.

[LibLabUK]

18. Umm..forensic computing

"When you copy a hard drive, you only get the data that is currently on it.
There are forensic techniques on the orignal drive that will let you see not only what is on it, but what has been on it for up to seven generations of erasure."


A forensic investigator will NEVER work on the original drive. The reason being that it would be too easy for a defence lawyer to claim that the tests and procedures used by the investigator alter or damage evidence.

What is done is that a clone is taken from the original drive, this clone or copy is not your average copy *.* but a bit for bit copy of the drive.

The resulting copy is an exact duplicate of the drive, and contains the remnants of deleted files.

The original drive is then locked away in an evidence vault for safekeeping.

[The Stranger]

21. Fascinating posts regarding the computer forensics.

Keep them coming.

[LibLabUK]

22. If you're interested...

read Traces of Guilt by Neil Barrett, it's a really good primer on the way the computer forensic investigators aid the police in criminal cases (from cases involving paedophiles and fraudsters to serial killers and spies). It's written as a case by case biography of the author and it's hard to put down.

[sendero]

25. You can't...

... go back generations on a copy, unless it is made by special means, period.

[Eloriel]

7. Well I'll be damned

That's way more than I expected after "the leak," which I believe was intended to shut the investigation down, basically.

And we're actually still may have arrests? (I'll believe it when I see it, but kewl!)

[Snazzy]

8. if he has any kiddie porn we'll hear more about this

This is actually a cynical...

:kick:

[whalerider55]

9. big fish little fish

to my thinking, perle and wolfowitz are going anyway.
rove and bush use'em, abuse'em and cut'em lose- don't matter if you are friend or foe. so they'll be happy to sacrifice these two morons, in the rather silly belief that the buck will stop with them... and not at the white house.

whalerider55

[IndianaGreen]

10. I get such a perverse pleasure from seeing AIPAC at the receiving end

of Ashcroft's FBI.

If they spied for Israel against America, like Jonathan Pollard did, they should be prosecuted and punished to the full extend of the law. I will caution my fellow DUers that the FBI, and Ashcroft's Justice Department, have not been models of restraint and respect for the law and civil liberties. I still find ironic that AIPAC is getting a taste of the medicine that Arab-Americans have had to taste since 9/11.

[seemslikeadream]

12. Spy Probe Scans Neo Con-Israel Ties PROMIS INSLAW

Jim Lobe


SEATTLE, Aug 31 (IPS) - The burgeoning scandal over claims that a Pentagon official passed highly classified secrets to a Zionist lobby group appears to be part of a much broader set of FBI and Pentagon investigations of close collaboration between prominent U.S. neo-conservatives and Israel dating back some 30 years.

According to knowledgeable sources, who asked to not be identified, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) has been intensively reviewing a series of past counter-intelligence probes that were started against several high-profile neo-cons but never followed up with prosecutions, to the great frustration of counter-intelligence officers, in some cases.

Some of these past investigations involve top current officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith, whose office appears to be the focus of the most recently disclosed inquiry; and Richard Perle, who resigned as Defence Policy Board (DPB) chairman last year.

All three were the subject of a lengthy investigative story by Stephen Green published by 'Counterpunch' in February. Green is the author of two books on U.S.-Israeli relations, including 'Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel', which relies heavily on interviews with former Pentagon and counter-intelligence officials.

................

The FBI is reportedly also involved in the Pentagon's investigation, which is overseen by Deputy Undersecretary of Defence for International Technology Security John A ”Jack” Shaw with the explicit support of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
more
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25285

[Zan_of_Texas]

13. Whew.

Jim Lobe identified the neocons operating inside the administration MONTHS before anyone else in the media was really tuned in. Over a year ago.

[DBoon]

14. If similar charges were made against a pro-Arab lobby group

THOSE people would have ended up in Guantanamo Bay immediately.

[DeepModem Mom]

15. kick

[Hekate]

16. Fabulous news. Now if only the FBI would round up all the neocons

The day I wake up and read that Rummy himself has been pulled in I will pop a champagne cork for breakfast and do my patented Schadenfreude Dance all around the kitchen.

Hmm -- elsewhere I read that Chalaby managed to dodge an assassin's bullet yesterday. The FBI needs to reach out and get him into protective custody pretty fast if they want to learn what he knows.

I don't know exactly how to say this, but my sense of the neocons in the WH and Pentagon is that while players like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith are loathsome in and of themselves, I want to see the goyim at the top get what's coming to them.

Hekate
getting a :kick: out of this

[Athame]

23. patented Schadenfreude Dance

I'd really like to see that, Hekate. :pals:

[CWebster]

19. While AIPAC welcomed the Repugs to NYCity. nt

[seemslikeadream]

20. How to salute in the presence of AIPAC officials

We shall see, over the course of the next few weeks, whether the Israeli Lobby can intimidate the FBI. The 'Son of Pollard' story is already losing steam. Ashcroft is probably under a lot of pressure to reign in his 'rogue' agents and give them proper instructions on how to salute in the presence of AIPAC officials. Right about now, a few pissed off patriotic FBI investigators are getting real time lessons on Washington hierarchies.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_11401.shtml

[Art_from_Ark]

24. AIPAC made a big effort to get Cynthia McKinney defeated

Another piece in the puzzle, perhaps?