Post by sandi66 on Mar 17, 2011 5:32:36 GMT -5
By Bill Majcher:Most interestingly WikiLeaks seems to target Western governments
The Counter Terrorist
by Security Solutions International Staff
Firsthand: Undercover operations and Wikileaks Wikileaks is a clearinghouse of stolen and unqualified data collected by any means possible
By Bill Majcher
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
Although I am a Canadian, I have frequently worked covertly alongside US agencies, including the FBI.
During one long-term undercover operation, I was required to meet a corrupt South African banker who refused to meet in the United States. This banker facilitated money laundering for weapons traffickers, drug traffickers, and organized crime elements. The meeting was instead set up in a notoriously corrupt country.
Often, when doing covert operations we notify local authorities, but because the local police and government were believed to be corrupt, the FBI decided not to compromise security by notifying officials of this country. Instead, the US ambassador was apprised and gave permission for me to travel, meet, and record my activities. As a result, I was required to provide my actual name and my covert name. This was sent out by cable to the US ambassador. In addition, details of my "business" cover were provided, including names of covert companies. If this cover information were sent out under separate cable, it would look like a harmless US government business initiative to the casual reader.
After three years undercover, I reached the point where I had convinced high-level organized crime figures that I had several tons of cocaine sitting in a Jamaican warehouse. Unfortunately, we had to make arrests prematurely because a junior FBI agent inadvertently provided me with the same covert company bank account used in another FBI sting operation about to be made public. The risk that this covert company name could turn up in the public domain was too great, thus the decision was made to discontinue operations and make arrests.
It is not hard for a sophisticated and motivated criminal or enemy to data mine information available from other investigations to search for names to compromise covert companies and individuals. The South African banker I met with spoke of his secure information technology channels and his ability to defeat the FBI Carnivore computer program. He boasted of his bank's ability to do a "hot swap" so all client data would be fired off to a bank in another country in the event of a police raid and all that would be found in bank files would be false data.
I met this banker after 9/11 and President George Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech. The banker had no qualms about asking me to launder steeply discounted government bonds for Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Most distressingly, he had correspondent banking relationships with many global banks!
Incidentally, this banker introduced me to a lawyer who offered to sell me PayPal for cocaine money. This offer by the lawyer to arrange to sell me PayPal was made just months prior to the purchase of PayPal by eBay. I had stated that my criminal organization was generating $2–3 million dollars per day in street currency. Because of the volume of cash involved, this lawyer, who had been involved with Sicilian banks a decade earlier, advised he could launder $15M/ month through a Swiss banker in Gibraltar. The plan was to fly $10M/ month out in cash and send $5M via wire transfer. It was at this point that the lawyer advised he could arrange for me to purchase PayPal, thus enabling me to launder vast sums electronically and negating the need to charter a plane and fly bulk cash into Gibraltar. As an added bonus, I could also have access to all the information provided by PayPal clients and users for other criminal uses.
WikiLeaks, until recently, was a significant recipient of "anonymous" donations received through PayPal. As an aside, this lawyer did in fact launder cocaine money for me and is now in prison.
WIKILEAKS
WikiLeaks is an international, nonprofit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks. The WikiLeaks website (launched in 2006) and its very public founder, Julian Assange, are vilified and praised for dumping thousands of pieces of secret or classified military and government communications or "cables," as known in diplomatic language, into the public domain.
I appreciate the purity of purpose behind what WikiLeaks claims to stand for. Assange stated in a recent Time magazine article that WikiLeaks is "an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction."1 Well, I too have spent years working for organizations that aim to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations or individuals bent on eroding the freedoms and privileges that many take for granted. While our objectives may be similar, our vision differs in that I make an effort to see the world as it is, but I believe that Assange sees the world as he wishes it to be.
In the Time article, Assange responded to the question of whether WikiLeaks has put lives in jeopardy. "This sort of nonsense is trotted out every time a big military or intelligence organization is exposed by the press. It's nothing new and it's not an exclusively American phenomenon by any means. We get that on nearly every post we do. However, this organization, in its four years of publishing history, has never caused an individual, as far as we can determine, or as far as anyone else can determine, to come to any sort of physical harm or to be wrongly imprisoned," Assange said.
This statement is nonsensical hubris on the part of Assange. It is a disingenuous statement that masks the fact these sanctimonious arbiters of illegally obtained cables have little, if any, experience in the methods and actions that some of the governments involved take daily to save lives and protect society. The vast majority of people employed by covert agencies and governments are unaware of the methodologies, personnel, and tradecraft employed to support and protect personnel in the field, provide payments to informants and agents, or facilitate source and witness protection programs.
There is nothing in the background or practical experience of Assange to support the assertions that the information his organization releases does not jeopardize lives or operations. As such, when WikiLeaks dumps millions of documents with names and locations, these activists have no way of knowing who or what is compromised. Assange is a babe in the woods when it comes to knowing the effect of releasing sensitive data into the public domain.
Those running covert operations and informants have all had to shut down a file or an investigation to protect a source, an operative, or another investigation as the exposure of one can lead to the exposure of another. As governments have not disclosed which investigations or persons have been compromised by WikiLeaks, Assange claims this as a sign that he has done no harm. However, Assange must realize governments are in a catch-22. To acknowledge who or what has been compromised risks exposing more people. Assange counts on our values to protect his moral high horse and self-righteousness.
Meanwhile, PayPal has been the conduit by which WikiLeaks receives funding. Is WikiLeaks aware of the source of its funding? Does it follow a "Know Your Client" rule? I am confident that it does not. I suspect WikiLeaks is willfully blind or naïve to the fact it is very likely an unwitting dupe of repressive and foreign intelligence services working against the very "freedoms" that WikiLeaks claims to fight for. If I could buy PayPal and use it to launder my street drug currency, how difficult would it be for an enemy of Western governments to use it to provide funding to sustain an organization that willingly gathers and distributes information that is useful to interests contrary to our own?
In the same Time article, Assange was asked if there were instances in diplomacy in which secrecy was necessary and an asset. He replied, "Yes, of course. We keep secret the identity of our sources…take great pains to do it. So secrecy is important for many things, but shouldn't be used to cover up abuses." While WikiLeaks protects its sources, it does not worry about venturing into areas where it has little knowledge, and exposing thousands of individuals working covertly for Western governments to potential death, torture, kidnapping, and violence.
Most interestingly, WikiLeaks seems to target Western governments, such as the United States, while inexplicably doing little to illuminate totalitarian and repressive regimes and rogue states.
BACKSTOPPING
Following 9/11, I audited Canada's national backstopping program for all covert ops and rewrote the operational plan with Inspector Brad Desmarais, currently the officer in charge of drug and gang enforcement for Vancouver City Police. This plan was designed to set up a global backstopping regime that would protect covert operators, informants, agents, and witnesses, as well as relocated and protected persons.
There are many myths about undercover work and what makes a good undercover operative. It is fair to say that a successful operation is only in part about the undercover officer. An undercover operation is similar to a NASCAR or Formula 1 race. The undercover agent, like the race car driver, gets most of the glory if they meet the objectives of the investigation or take the checkered flag. But, in the case of the race win, it is not the driver who builds the car, develops the race strategy, or keeps the car in service with the pit crew.
Similarly, an undercover operative is not an investigator, but an investigative aid who uses skills to gather evidence, intelligence, and/or the truth about an event, an individual, or a group. This information is used by others to determine an outcome. Depending on the size and scope of an investigation, a great deal of work and effort are deployed to sustain a long-term operation.
Typically, an operation is supported by a trained and designated cover person, a surveillance team, a cover team (for operator security), a financial person to manage accounts, and the reams of paperwork for tracking expenses (both secret and open). Members of the team will file travel authorities, locate and maintain safe houses, file reports and exhibits, manage files, coordinate and conduct follow-up investigations, liaise with other agencies, provide information to analysts, and conduct ongoing risk assessments, all while conforming with policy, budgets, law, and secrecy.
Since the advent of Internet hackers and researchers trained to search global databases, the risks of protecting identities and infrastructure to support covert operations have increased exponentially and are one of the greatest challenges in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. That WikiLeaks appears to have no one on its editorial board trained or conversant in covert support methodologies indicates a reckless and negligent disregard for human life. Just the date and location of a specific cable is enough for a terrorist group to surmise there is an informant in the area. WikiLeaks only has a few pieces of the puzzle, so when the activists release something without full context, they do not know the extent of the damage they inflict. After all, while Western governments will not convict 10 guilty men to protect one innocent man, terrorists have, in fact, killed10 innocent men to stop one informant.
In drafting Canada's covert operational plan, we felt that creating a secure and competent covert infrastructure required layers of backstopping. We looked at best practices in which sophisticated money launderers placed, layered, and integrated dirty cash. We extrapolated that information to create original identities and layered those identities through a series of companies and bank accounts in a multitude of jurisdictions. As any major criminal knows, "jurisdiction equals freedom" because it is a complicated and timely procedure for any investigator to follow a trail through a myriad of jurisdictions and laws.
To effectively set up such an operation, we had to create the "illusion" of a global commercial enterprise. This required dealing in common and civil law countries, which take very different views on how covert operations are conducted. This, in turn, required the cooperation of different government branches to elicit support and take action. Because of the secret nature of the purpose for setting up these "commercial" links around the world, often diplomats working outside police, military, or intelligence services would communicate with foreign counterparts on our behalf to ask questions, learn local practices, and find out whom to approach to solicit support to make a covert venture actionable. These "commercial" items were in cables that seemed benign or at least not part of a police, intelligence, or covert operation because the premise was to use normal channels to support covert ops, including payments to agents and informants.
CONCLUSION
Even if, hypothetically, no harm has arisen from the release of such information by WikiLeaks, it would be negligent for those in covert organizations to take the risk that they have not been compromised or will not be compromised in the future as a result of Assange's gamesmanship. The cost in terms of time and money resulting from WikiLeaks' disclosures is enormous. More importantly, it has likely created a temporary gap in the ability to fight crime and terrorism as valuable and limited resources are likely diverted to recreate a new covert infrastructure.
Some may view WikiLeaks and its founder, Assange, as some sort of "digital Robin Hood"—stealing secrets from the rich and powerful and sharing them with the masses. I happen to view Assange as a "digital anarchist." I do not see a search for the truth, but rather a clearinghouse of stolen and unqualified data collected by any means possible and shamelessly "reporting" it as news, regardless of its accuracy, context, or consequence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr. Majcher is a decorated Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector now retired from public service and living in Asia. He is a veteran of international undercover operations and continues to live and work internationally as CEO of a global Family of Funds platform.
ENDNOTES
1 Time, Dec.13th, 2010 Vol.176, No.24, Kate Peters.
About the author
The Counter Terrorist is a magazine published by Security Solutions International, which also produces the Counter Terrorist Newsletter, Webinars and interactive learning, as well as the annual Homeland Security Professionals Conference.
www.homeland1.com/IT-security/articles/993357-Firsthand-Undercover-operations-and-Wikileaks/
ty joye
The Counter Terrorist
by Security Solutions International Staff
Firsthand: Undercover operations and Wikileaks Wikileaks is a clearinghouse of stolen and unqualified data collected by any means possible
By Bill Majcher
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
Although I am a Canadian, I have frequently worked covertly alongside US agencies, including the FBI.
During one long-term undercover operation, I was required to meet a corrupt South African banker who refused to meet in the United States. This banker facilitated money laundering for weapons traffickers, drug traffickers, and organized crime elements. The meeting was instead set up in a notoriously corrupt country.
Often, when doing covert operations we notify local authorities, but because the local police and government were believed to be corrupt, the FBI decided not to compromise security by notifying officials of this country. Instead, the US ambassador was apprised and gave permission for me to travel, meet, and record my activities. As a result, I was required to provide my actual name and my covert name. This was sent out by cable to the US ambassador. In addition, details of my "business" cover were provided, including names of covert companies. If this cover information were sent out under separate cable, it would look like a harmless US government business initiative to the casual reader.
After three years undercover, I reached the point where I had convinced high-level organized crime figures that I had several tons of cocaine sitting in a Jamaican warehouse. Unfortunately, we had to make arrests prematurely because a junior FBI agent inadvertently provided me with the same covert company bank account used in another FBI sting operation about to be made public. The risk that this covert company name could turn up in the public domain was too great, thus the decision was made to discontinue operations and make arrests.
It is not hard for a sophisticated and motivated criminal or enemy to data mine information available from other investigations to search for names to compromise covert companies and individuals. The South African banker I met with spoke of his secure information technology channels and his ability to defeat the FBI Carnivore computer program. He boasted of his bank's ability to do a "hot swap" so all client data would be fired off to a bank in another country in the event of a police raid and all that would be found in bank files would be false data.
I met this banker after 9/11 and President George Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech. The banker had no qualms about asking me to launder steeply discounted government bonds for Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Most distressingly, he had correspondent banking relationships with many global banks!
Incidentally, this banker introduced me to a lawyer who offered to sell me PayPal for cocaine money. This offer by the lawyer to arrange to sell me PayPal was made just months prior to the purchase of PayPal by eBay. I had stated that my criminal organization was generating $2–3 million dollars per day in street currency. Because of the volume of cash involved, this lawyer, who had been involved with Sicilian banks a decade earlier, advised he could launder $15M/ month through a Swiss banker in Gibraltar. The plan was to fly $10M/ month out in cash and send $5M via wire transfer. It was at this point that the lawyer advised he could arrange for me to purchase PayPal, thus enabling me to launder vast sums electronically and negating the need to charter a plane and fly bulk cash into Gibraltar. As an added bonus, I could also have access to all the information provided by PayPal clients and users for other criminal uses.
WikiLeaks, until recently, was a significant recipient of "anonymous" donations received through PayPal. As an aside, this lawyer did in fact launder cocaine money for me and is now in prison.
WIKILEAKS
WikiLeaks is an international, nonprofit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks. The WikiLeaks website (launched in 2006) and its very public founder, Julian Assange, are vilified and praised for dumping thousands of pieces of secret or classified military and government communications or "cables," as known in diplomatic language, into the public domain.
I appreciate the purity of purpose behind what WikiLeaks claims to stand for. Assange stated in a recent Time magazine article that WikiLeaks is "an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction."1 Well, I too have spent years working for organizations that aim to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations or individuals bent on eroding the freedoms and privileges that many take for granted. While our objectives may be similar, our vision differs in that I make an effort to see the world as it is, but I believe that Assange sees the world as he wishes it to be.
In the Time article, Assange responded to the question of whether WikiLeaks has put lives in jeopardy. "This sort of nonsense is trotted out every time a big military or intelligence organization is exposed by the press. It's nothing new and it's not an exclusively American phenomenon by any means. We get that on nearly every post we do. However, this organization, in its four years of publishing history, has never caused an individual, as far as we can determine, or as far as anyone else can determine, to come to any sort of physical harm or to be wrongly imprisoned," Assange said.
This statement is nonsensical hubris on the part of Assange. It is a disingenuous statement that masks the fact these sanctimonious arbiters of illegally obtained cables have little, if any, experience in the methods and actions that some of the governments involved take daily to save lives and protect society. The vast majority of people employed by covert agencies and governments are unaware of the methodologies, personnel, and tradecraft employed to support and protect personnel in the field, provide payments to informants and agents, or facilitate source and witness protection programs.
There is nothing in the background or practical experience of Assange to support the assertions that the information his organization releases does not jeopardize lives or operations. As such, when WikiLeaks dumps millions of documents with names and locations, these activists have no way of knowing who or what is compromised. Assange is a babe in the woods when it comes to knowing the effect of releasing sensitive data into the public domain.
Those running covert operations and informants have all had to shut down a file or an investigation to protect a source, an operative, or another investigation as the exposure of one can lead to the exposure of another. As governments have not disclosed which investigations or persons have been compromised by WikiLeaks, Assange claims this as a sign that he has done no harm. However, Assange must realize governments are in a catch-22. To acknowledge who or what has been compromised risks exposing more people. Assange counts on our values to protect his moral high horse and self-righteousness.
Meanwhile, PayPal has been the conduit by which WikiLeaks receives funding. Is WikiLeaks aware of the source of its funding? Does it follow a "Know Your Client" rule? I am confident that it does not. I suspect WikiLeaks is willfully blind or naïve to the fact it is very likely an unwitting dupe of repressive and foreign intelligence services working against the very "freedoms" that WikiLeaks claims to fight for. If I could buy PayPal and use it to launder my street drug currency, how difficult would it be for an enemy of Western governments to use it to provide funding to sustain an organization that willingly gathers and distributes information that is useful to interests contrary to our own?
In the same Time article, Assange was asked if there were instances in diplomacy in which secrecy was necessary and an asset. He replied, "Yes, of course. We keep secret the identity of our sources…take great pains to do it. So secrecy is important for many things, but shouldn't be used to cover up abuses." While WikiLeaks protects its sources, it does not worry about venturing into areas where it has little knowledge, and exposing thousands of individuals working covertly for Western governments to potential death, torture, kidnapping, and violence.
Most interestingly, WikiLeaks seems to target Western governments, such as the United States, while inexplicably doing little to illuminate totalitarian and repressive regimes and rogue states.
BACKSTOPPING
Following 9/11, I audited Canada's national backstopping program for all covert ops and rewrote the operational plan with Inspector Brad Desmarais, currently the officer in charge of drug and gang enforcement for Vancouver City Police. This plan was designed to set up a global backstopping regime that would protect covert operators, informants, agents, and witnesses, as well as relocated and protected persons.
There are many myths about undercover work and what makes a good undercover operative. It is fair to say that a successful operation is only in part about the undercover officer. An undercover operation is similar to a NASCAR or Formula 1 race. The undercover agent, like the race car driver, gets most of the glory if they meet the objectives of the investigation or take the checkered flag. But, in the case of the race win, it is not the driver who builds the car, develops the race strategy, or keeps the car in service with the pit crew.
Similarly, an undercover operative is not an investigator, but an investigative aid who uses skills to gather evidence, intelligence, and/or the truth about an event, an individual, or a group. This information is used by others to determine an outcome. Depending on the size and scope of an investigation, a great deal of work and effort are deployed to sustain a long-term operation.
Typically, an operation is supported by a trained and designated cover person, a surveillance team, a cover team (for operator security), a financial person to manage accounts, and the reams of paperwork for tracking expenses (both secret and open). Members of the team will file travel authorities, locate and maintain safe houses, file reports and exhibits, manage files, coordinate and conduct follow-up investigations, liaise with other agencies, provide information to analysts, and conduct ongoing risk assessments, all while conforming with policy, budgets, law, and secrecy.
Since the advent of Internet hackers and researchers trained to search global databases, the risks of protecting identities and infrastructure to support covert operations have increased exponentially and are one of the greatest challenges in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. That WikiLeaks appears to have no one on its editorial board trained or conversant in covert support methodologies indicates a reckless and negligent disregard for human life. Just the date and location of a specific cable is enough for a terrorist group to surmise there is an informant in the area. WikiLeaks only has a few pieces of the puzzle, so when the activists release something without full context, they do not know the extent of the damage they inflict. After all, while Western governments will not convict 10 guilty men to protect one innocent man, terrorists have, in fact, killed10 innocent men to stop one informant.
In drafting Canada's covert operational plan, we felt that creating a secure and competent covert infrastructure required layers of backstopping. We looked at best practices in which sophisticated money launderers placed, layered, and integrated dirty cash. We extrapolated that information to create original identities and layered those identities through a series of companies and bank accounts in a multitude of jurisdictions. As any major criminal knows, "jurisdiction equals freedom" because it is a complicated and timely procedure for any investigator to follow a trail through a myriad of jurisdictions and laws.
To effectively set up such an operation, we had to create the "illusion" of a global commercial enterprise. This required dealing in common and civil law countries, which take very different views on how covert operations are conducted. This, in turn, required the cooperation of different government branches to elicit support and take action. Because of the secret nature of the purpose for setting up these "commercial" links around the world, often diplomats working outside police, military, or intelligence services would communicate with foreign counterparts on our behalf to ask questions, learn local practices, and find out whom to approach to solicit support to make a covert venture actionable. These "commercial" items were in cables that seemed benign or at least not part of a police, intelligence, or covert operation because the premise was to use normal channels to support covert ops, including payments to agents and informants.
CONCLUSION
Even if, hypothetically, no harm has arisen from the release of such information by WikiLeaks, it would be negligent for those in covert organizations to take the risk that they have not been compromised or will not be compromised in the future as a result of Assange's gamesmanship. The cost in terms of time and money resulting from WikiLeaks' disclosures is enormous. More importantly, it has likely created a temporary gap in the ability to fight crime and terrorism as valuable and limited resources are likely diverted to recreate a new covert infrastructure.
Some may view WikiLeaks and its founder, Assange, as some sort of "digital Robin Hood"—stealing secrets from the rich and powerful and sharing them with the masses. I happen to view Assange as a "digital anarchist." I do not see a search for the truth, but rather a clearinghouse of stolen and unqualified data collected by any means possible and shamelessly "reporting" it as news, regardless of its accuracy, context, or consequence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr. Majcher is a decorated Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector now retired from public service and living in Asia. He is a veteran of international undercover operations and continues to live and work internationally as CEO of a global Family of Funds platform.
ENDNOTES
1 Time, Dec.13th, 2010 Vol.176, No.24, Kate Peters.
About the author
The Counter Terrorist is a magazine published by Security Solutions International, which also produces the Counter Terrorist Newsletter, Webinars and interactive learning, as well as the annual Homeland Security Professionals Conference.
www.homeland1.com/IT-security/articles/993357-Firsthand-Undercover-operations-and-Wikileaks/
ty joye