U.S. & FOREIGN SPY AGENCY HAPPENINGS- 8/10/2015

These items were obtained using OSINT research of domestic and foreign newspapers and journals.

The CIA and FBI investigating the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin.  They want to know more about a letter, over his signature, in which he appeared to dictate to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who should be in his government? A Washington, D.C.-based reporter for Russian outlet RIA Novosti wanted to know- discovery of the letter appeared to be a huge propaganda coup for Moscow and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, who have argued that the government in Kiev is Washington’s puppet.

The Islamic State terrorist group is increasingly using encrypted communications to recruit troubled Americans and urge them to carry out attacks, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress on Wednesday.

Argentina's new spy agency, the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) will target captains of industry and be tasked with unique roles, such as preventing "economic coups," bank runs, and currency offloads. It will function as a "doctrinaire body aimed at laying the foundations for a process of profound reform and modernization of the National Intelligence System. The  former Secretariat of Intelligence was too prone to political manipulation, so the AFI will not to "spy" on Argentinean citizens. The Argentina government will handle future authorizations for wiretaps on intelligence targets, shifting responsibility from the judiciary to the Public Ministry.

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Cyprus' Intelligence Chief Andreas Pentaras resigns after spy tech revelations. The head of the island's secret service, the KYP, has resigned following revelations that it had been using phone surveillance technology. A published copy of a December 2014 invoice made out to KYP for the purchase of such technology showed that KYP had paid €35,000 for items as “Android Platform,” “No.5 Agents Software License,” Physical Infection Vectors,” and “Remote Mobile Infections.”   The KYP purchase of such phone surveillance tech was from a manufacturer with a poor reputation among privacy advocates.

Moxie Marlinspike: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts. In the past decade, Moxie Marlinspike has squatted on an abandoned island, toured the US by hopping trains, he says, and earned the enmity of government officials for writing software.

Meet Moxie Marlinspike, the guy who created an encryption program that scrambles messages until they reach the intended reader. The FBI, CIA and NSA say his program will enable terrorists to remain below their radar. His program is  so simple that Facebook Inc.'s WhatsApp made it a standard feature for many of the app's 800 million users. The software is effective enough to alarm governments. Earlier this year, shortly after WhatsApp adopted it, British Prime Minister David Cameron called protected-messaging apps a "safe space" for terrorists. The following week, President Barack Obama called them "a problem."

CIA Spymaster Tyler Drumheller dies, warned the Bush administration that "Curveball" was an unreliable source. The notion that Iraq had WMD was based mainly on Curveball's testimony, which proved false.

Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association Of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He is author of the spy series "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean."