FAS | Intelligence | News | 2000 ||||

June 2000 Intelligence News

• SENATE / COLOMBIA Voice of America 30 June 2000 -- A package of more than one-billion dollars in anti-drug aid for Colombia has cleared its final hurdles in the U-S Congress.
• Congress Gives Final Approval to Plan Colombia Funds By Berta Gomez Washington File 30 June 2000 -- The U.S. Congress gave final passage June 30 to an $11,200 million spending bill that includes $1,300 million in emergency aid designed to help the government of Colombia battle the illegal drug trade.
• PHILIPPINES / LOVE BUG INDICTMENT Voice of America 29 June 2000 -- Philippines authorities have filed criminal charges against the computer programming student suspected of unleashing the "I LOVE YOU" computer virus on the world last month.
• CONGRESS/COLOMBIA-KOSOVO Voice of America 29 June 2000 -- After months of political wrangling, the U-S House of Representatives has approved legislation that provides billions of dollars to fight drugs in Colombia and support peacekeeping in Kosovo.
• State Department Delivers Annual Report on Anti-Bribery Convention, June 29, 2000 -- Assistant Secretary of State E. Anthony Wayne says the United States will continue attacking international bribery both on the supply and demand sides.
• JAPAN CULT, Voice of America, 29 June 2000 -- A Japanese court on Thursday issued its second death sentence to a member of the Aum Shinrikyo (ohm shinleekyo) so-called Doomsday Cult - responsible for the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subways.
• Text: State Dept's Wayne on Anti-Bribery Report to Congress 27 June 2000 -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs E. Anthony Wayne says the United States will continue attacking international bribery both on the supply and demand sides.
• Text: U.S. Announces New Life-Saving Measures for Southwest Border 26 June 2000 -- The new training builds on the 2-year-old U.S. Border Safety Initiative, which seeks to educate migrants on the dangers of illegal border crossings and to ensure the safety of those who disregard the warnings.
• U.S. Intelligence Analyst Outlines AIDS Threat in Africa By Jim Fisher-Thompson Washington File 26 June 2000 -- Gordon, a former congressional staff member who is now a U.S. national intelligence officer for economic and global issues, helped work on a "National Intelligence Estimate" of global infectious diseases and their impact on the United States.
• Text: Intelligence Records on Nazi War Crimes Declassified 26 June 2000 -- Approximately 400,000 pages of previously classified documents covering U.S. intelligence operations during World War II, including Allied knowledge of the Holocaust, were made available to researchers June 26, according to a National Archives press release.
• Text: Clinton Statement on Proposals to Bring Government Online , USIS Washington File, 24 June 2000 -- Citizens will have greater accessibility to government documents and services with enactment of proposals outlined by President Clinton in a June 24 statement.
• SENATE-FOREIGN AID Voice of America 22 June 2000 -- A long-delayed package of U-S aid may soon be en route to Colombia to help that country battle the narcotic trade. The Senate has approved the plan (Thursday) as part of a larger foreign aid bill.
• CLINTON-COLOMBIA Voice of America 22 June 2000 -- The Senate, which had earlier resisted White House appeals to deal with aid to Colombia on an expedited basis, Wednesday approved most of the funds Mr. Clinton had proposed.
• CHINA PENTAGON BUILDING Voice of America 22 June 2000 -- The United States is accusing the Chinese government of ignoring American law by failing to disclose plans to purchase a building close to the Pentagon. The building would house offices of China's state-run Xinhua news agency.
• Los Alamos Director testifies on security incident, Los Alamos National Laborarory Public Affairs, 21 June 2000 -- In testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director John Browne described a number of additional actions he has taken in response to the recent security incident involving mishandling of two computer hard drives containing classified information.
• DND's $50M secret Military hush-hush about high-tech project to gain information from U.S. spy satellites, Ottawa Citizen , 19 June 2000 -- The Canadian military has quietly spent $50 million on a project to link up with and receive information from a system of secret U.S. spy satellites and sensors, the Citizen has learned.
• WACO TRIAL, Voice of America, 19 June 2000 -- A jury in the U-S city of Waco, Texas hears testimony this week in a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the federal government.
• Transcript: Reno Address on Cybercrime 19 June 2000 -- Cooperation between government and the information technology industry is necessary to fight cybercrime, said Attorney General Janet Reno at the June 19 Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) Cybercrime Summit.
• What Was on Discovered Hard Drives and Who Might Want the Information CNN WORLDVIEW June 17, 2000; Saturday 6:00 PM Eastern Time -- JOHN PIKE, FED. OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: This would information would disclose how the United States, might hope to detect a covertly in-place nuclear weapons somewhere here in United States.
• Secrets Not Monitored Since '92 By Ian Hoffman Albuquerque Journal Friday, June 16, 2000 -- "They said this is such an extraordinary amount of effort," explained the Federation of American Scientists' Steve Aftergood, head of the Project on Government Secrecy and a leading proponent for limiting classification to the truly valuable secrets, then protecting those well. "Given the expanding volume of secret level material, it was almost an inevitable decision."
• Shielding Secrets In A Cyber Age By Francine Kiefer Christian Science Monitor June 16, 2000 -- Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project for Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says: "The DOE has not been entirely derelict. They realize that there are some things that need to be protected with greater vigor and that effort has been frustrated, largely by the Pentagon."
• HARD DRIVES Voice of America 16 June 2000 -- The U-S Energy Department says two missing computer hard drives filled with nuclear weapons secrets have been found.
• NUKE DISKS FOUND Voice of America 16 June 2000 -- U-S officials say two missing computer hard drives containing nuclear secrets have been found at the laboratory where they disappeared six weeks ago.
• NUCLEAR SECRETS MISSING AT LOS ALAMOS Voice of America 15 June 2000 -- For the second time in a year, important information on United States nuclear weapons is missing from one of the nation's top secret laboratories.
• Secrets proving more difficult to safeguard as data is shifted from paper to electronic files BY SETH BORENSTEIN AND THERESE POLETTI San Jose Mercury News Thursday, June 15, 2000 -- ``Our security procedures are still predicated on protecting hard copy documents,'' said Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Security at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.``They don't seem to be adequate to ensure the protection of electronic information."
• Six Suspended in Wake of Missing Secrets at Los Alamos Weapons Lab By Michael Y. Park FoxNews June 14, 2000 The information on the disks likely provided details the NEST team could use to disarm warheads, according to Charles Ferguson, director of the Nuclear Policy Project of the Federation of American Scientists.
• Senate Bill Aims To Curb News Leaks By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Wednesday, June 14, 2000 -- Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said criminalizing leaks would be premature "as long as over-classification is rampant."
• Cracking a Carroll enigma Brenda J. Buote The Baltimore Sun June 14, 2000, Wednesday -- "Spies sitting in a van across the street may try to monitor what NSA is doing. A great way to shield the facility is to put it in the basement," said John Pike, an intelligence watcher at the Federation of American Scientists.
• U-S / SOVIET SPY Voice of America 14 June 2000 -- A retired U-S Army colonel has been charged with spying for the former-Soviet Union. Colonel George Trofimoff sold U-S military secrets for 25 years before retiring in 1995.
• SENATE-NUCLEAR SECRETS Voice of America 14 June 2000 -- The case has given Republicans another chance to attack what they call a shameful record of security breaches.
• AGCA / TURKEY Voice of America 14 June 2000 -- Turkey's Prime Minister says the return of the gunman who attempted to kill Pope John Paul the Second could help shed light on several political murders that have remained unsolved for 20-years.
• CONGRESS / NUCLEAR SECRETS Voice of America 13 June 2000 -- The Energy Department's security chief left the search at Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory to testify on Capitol Hill.
• Baker And Hamilton To Investigate And Assess Los Alamos Security Incident June 13, 2000 -- Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson today announced that former Senator Howard Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton will do a thorough investigation and assessment into the circumstances surrounding the security incident at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• Nuclear Danger or Embarrassing Boo-Boo? By Michael Y. Park FoxNews Tuesday, June 13, 2000 - "If some terrorist group might feel a simple bomb is all they need, they don't need to steal these disks," said Charles Ferguson, director of the Nuclear Policy Project of the Federation of American Scientists.
• Lab director orders actions in response to security incident, Los Alamos National Laborarory Public Affairs, 13 June 2000 -- Los Alamos National Laboratory Director John Browne is taking a wide range of actions in response to the two hard drives containing classified information missing from the Department of Energy laboratory.
• Security incident reported at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laborarory Public Affair, 12 June 2000 -- Los Alamos National Laboratory Director John Browne today announced that a joint Department of Energy/Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry has been underway into missing classified information at the Department of Energy laboratory.
• U-S - IRAN DEFECTOR Voice of America 12 June 2000 -- U-S intelligence agencies have rejected the story told by an Iranian defector who said he ran terrorist operations for the Tehran government.
• MISSING NUCLEAR MATERIALS Voice of America 12 June 2000 -- U-S officials say a search is underway for nuclear secrets stored on computer devices at a U-S weapons laboratory.
• WEN HO LEE PROTESTS Voice of America 08 June 2000 -- Asian-American activists staged protests Thursday in a number U-S cities over the treatment of Wen Ho Lee, a former U-S scientist charged with mishandling nuclear secrets.
• International Meeting to Support Colombia Being Held July 7 in Spain By Eric Green Washington File 07 June 2000 -- An international meeting to support peace in Colombia will be held July 7 in Madrid, Spain, say officials from the United States and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
• U-S SECURITY BREACHED IN CONGRESSIONAL TEST Voice of America 07 June 2000 -- Several investigators pointed out that if they had been terrorists, they would have had a good opportunity to assassinate several key government officials.
• IRAN DEFECTOR Voice of America 06 June 2000 -- A U-S official says American intelligence experts are interviewing an Iranian defector who says Iran was behind the bomb that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland in 1988.
• CLINTON-COLOMBIA Voice of America 06 June 2000 -- President Clinton is warning that democracy in the Andean region could unravel if Congress does not deliver on emergency anti-drug assistance his administration has promised to Colombia.
• TERRORISM REPORT Voice of America 6 June 2000 - A special U-S government commission has warned of a growing menace from terrorism and has called for a more aggressive response. But some of the group's ideas are facing criticism at home and abroad.
• Text: Drug Czar McCaffrey on the Designation of Foreign Drug "Kingpins" 02 June 2000 -- Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), says that the new U.S. law imposing sanctions on major foreign drug traffickers will complement the Clinton Administration's efforts to coordinate with other countries in the war against illegal drugs.
• Implementation of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act June 2, 2000 -- The Kingpin Act establishes a sanctions program targeting the activities of significant foreign narcotics traffickers and their organizations on a worldwide basis.