Iran official: German firm planted bombs in parts meant for nuclear program

Haaretz

An Iranian technician works at the uranium conversion facility just outside
the city of Isfahan 410 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2007.

Iranian lawmaker says security experts discovered the explosives in components supplied by Siemens and removed them before detonation; firm denies claims.

Iran accused Germany's Siemens on Saturday of implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program, a charge the technology giant denied.

Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts.

"The equipment was supposed to explode after being put to work, in order to dismantle all our systems," he said. "But the wisdom of our experts thwarted the enemy conspiracy."

Siemens denied the charge and said its nuclear division has had no business with Iran since the 1979 revolution that led to its current clerical state.

"Siemens rejects the allegations and stresses that we have no business ties to the Iranian nuclear program," spokesman for the Munich-based company Alexander Machowetz said.

Boroujerdi, who heads the parliamentary security committee, alleged that the explosives were implanted at a Siemens factory and demanded the company take responsibility.

Any sale of nuclear equipment to Iran is banned under U.N. sanctions, raising the possibility that if it indeed has some, it may have been acquired through third parties. Boroujerdi did not say when or how Iran obtained Siemens equipment. Despite a wide array of international sanctions, Germany remains one of Iran's most important trading partners.

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran's nuclear work is aimed at producing weapons. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and asserts it has been the target of a concerted campaign by Israel, the U.S. and their allies to undermine its nuclear efforts through covert operations.

Some Iranian officials have also suggested in the past that specific European companies may have sold faulty equipment to Iran with the knowledge of American intelligence agencies and their own governments, since the sales would have harmed, rather than helped, the country's nuclear program.

According to Iran, the alleged campaign has included the abduction of scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of a destructive computer worm known as Stuxnet, which briefly brought Iran's uranium enrichment activity to a halt in 2010.

Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, said Monday that separate attacks on Iran's centrifuges — through tiny explosives meant to disable key parts of the machines — were discovered before the blasts could go off on timers.

Abbasi also told the UN nuclear agency in Vienna that "terrorists and saboteurs" might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the watchdog's inspectors arrived at the Fordo underground enrichment facility shortly after power lines were blown up through sabotage on Aug. 17.

Iran has repeatedly accused the IAEA of sending spies in the guise of inspectors to collect information about its nuclear activities, pointing to alleged leaks of information by inspectors to U.S. and other officials.

Five nuclear scientists and researchers have been killed in Iran since 2010. Tehran blames the deaths on Israel's Mossad spy agency as well as the CIA and Britain's MI-6. Washington and London have denied any roles. Israel has not commented.

Boroujerdi said the alleged leaks of nuclear information to its adversaries by the IAEA may finally push Tehran to end all cooperation with the agency.

"Iran has the right to cut its cooperation with the IAEA should such violations continue," he said.

MI5 spied on Charlie Chaplin after FBI asked for help to banish him from US

Editor's Note: The most popular man in the silent film era made one of the most memorable spoken word speeches in film history:





Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor

British agency concluded that actor – described by US counterparts as 'parlour Bolshevik' – was no security risk

Charlie Chaplin with his son Michael on the terrace at their home in Switzerland circa 1957.

MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.

The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the US. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives.

"Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.

MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad."

Papers have been withheld from Chaplin's MI5 file to protect the names of informants though there are unexplained, probably inconsequential, references to Jimmy Reid, the communist Scottish trade unionist; Larry Adler, the harmonica virtuoso who left his native US where he was branded a communist and blacklisted; and Humphrey Lyttelton, the Eton-educated jazz musician who once described himself a "romantic socialist".

MI5 intercepted a telegram from Ivor Montagu, a film critic, producer and one-time Soviet spy, telling Chaplin how sorry he was to miss him in London when the star visited London in 1952.

The file also contains cuttings from newspapers and magazines. Noting that Chaplin had not taken American citizenship though he had lived in the US for more than 30 years, the Daily Worker welcomed him to London. "His films have lampooned the great and the dictators, raised up the common man against the rich," the paper said. "Now the world's bully threatens the world's clown."
The FBI, which amassed more than 2,000 pages on Chaplin, asked MI5 if he was going to meet any "highly placed persons" in London, and to establish any links he had with the Communist party there.
In particular, it wanted MI5 to find out where Chaplin was born and pursue suggestions that his real name was Israel Thornstein.

MI5 searched but to no avail. There was "'no evidence that Chaplin's name is or ever has been Israel Thornstein", it told the FBI. A suggestion that he "may have been born in France" came to nothing.
MI5 found no record of his birth in Somerset House, then the home of the register of British births. "It would seem that Chaplin was either not born in this country or that his name at birth was other than those mentioned," an MI5 report concluded. It told the US that there was "no trace in our records of Charlie Chaplin".

It had always been assumed that Chaplin was born in Walworth, south London, on 16 April 1889. Recently, however, a letter was discovered in family papers from Jack Hill, who told Chaplin in the 1970s that he had come into the world "in a caravan [that] belonged to the Gypsy Queen, who was my auntie. You were born on the Black Patch in Smethwick near Birmingham."

The newly released file shows that while communist sympathies were the determining factor for the FBI, for MI5 the issue was whether Chaplin ever presented a security risk. And in its view, it makes clear, he was not.

"We have no trace in our records of this man, nor are we satisfied that there are any reliable grounds for regarding him as a security risk," Sir Percy Sillitoe, then head of MI5, told the chief police commissioner in South Africa, where Chaplin was planning a visit.

MI5 suggested his name had been exploited in the interests of communism as "one of the victims of McCarthyism".

Files previously released at the National Archives reveal that shortly before his death in 1950, George Orwell handed a female friend working for an anti-communist propaganda unit in the Foreign Office a list of 35 names of people, including Chaplin, whom he considered "crypto-communists and fellow-travellers".

Chaplin's MI5 file, number PF710549, concludes: "It may be that Chaplin is a communist sympathiser but on the information before us he would appear to be no more than a 'progressive', or radical."
In 1953 the US prevented Chaplin from returning to America. He denied ever being a communist but decided not to contest the US ban and instead live in Switzerland. "I am a victim of lies and vicious propaganda," he said.

Chaplin died in his sleep in Vevey, Switzerland, on Christmas Day in 1977.

Centuries of open justice threatened by secret courts

The Independent
Andy McSmith and Kim Sengupta

Government rewrites judicial principles after lobbying by CIA

Secret justice looks set to be a regular feature of British courts and tribunals when the intelligence services want to protect their sources of information.

Civil courts, immigration panels and even coroner's inquests would go into secret session if the Government rules that hearing evidence in public could be a threat to national security.

The proposals, which run counter to a centuries-old British tradition of open justice, were introduced to a sparsely attended House of Commons yesterday by the Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke – and met almost no opposition. The planned changes to the British justice system follow lobbying of the Government by the CIA.

Civil rights groups warned a serious potential threat to individual liberty lurked behind the all-party consensus.

Mr Clarke is seeking to protect the Government from a repeat of a fiasco which has cost tens of millions of pounds and led to a breakdown in co-operation between British intelligence and an enraged CIA.

The best-known case involved Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in Guantanamo Bay for five years, and started a claim for damages from the UK Government, which he accused of complicity in torture.

The Court of Appeal released a summary of CIA intelligence which supported Mr Mohamed's claim that British intelligence officers knew about the torture of suspected terrorists.

The CIA was furious and halted the flow of information from its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and other US agencies apart from in the most serious cases. MI6 and the Foreign Office also received complaints from a number of other allied states anxious that information provided on a confidential basis would leak into the public domain.

Faced with irate colleagues at Langley, the British Government paid out to 16 terrorist suspects, to prevent further damage to US-UK relations. Yesterday, Mr Clarke let slip that the cases had already cost around £20m. Another 30 are in prospect because, he told MPs, "it is becoming fashionable" to challenge the Government in court.

Officials have privately complained that they cannot defend these cases without compromising sensitive intelligence, which means suspected terrorists have been able to use the civil courts as a "cashpoint".

If Mr Clarke's proposals are agreed, the power of the courts to order the intelligence services to disclose sensitive material will be curtailed. The Government is also planning to pass a law giving itself much more latitude to use what are called "closed material proceedings" in civil court cases and immigration tribunals, meaning the people at the centre of such cases would not be allowed to hear any evidence that MI5 or MI6 did not want them to hear. The material would, however, be examined by special advocates with security clearance.

There is also the prospect of grieving relatives being security vetted before they are allowed into inquests in cases which might involve sensitive material, such as the death of a terrorist suspect. If they refuse to be vetted, they would be barred.

Mr Clarke went out of his way to avoid a clash with Labour by reminding them that he was dealing with a problem they had to face in government, and emphasising that his Green Paper was "very green".

Mr Clarke told MPs: "The Government is clear that under the current system, justice is not being served and our national security is being put at risk. For justice to be done and the rule of law to be upheld, courts should be able to consider all the facts of the case. At the moment, we are not always getting at the truth because some evidence is too sensitive to disclose in open court."

Former MI5 Boss: Pre-War Iraq 'Was No Threat To U.K.'

Guardian

Operation "Shock and Awe" in Bagdad

Iraq posed no threat to the UK when then prime minister Tony Blair took Britain to war there, former MI5 boss Dame Eliza Manningham Buller has said.

The one-time security service boss has spoken out about the conflict previously, revealing the reservations she had about it at the time.

But in a new interview, she told the Radio Times: "Iraq did not present a threat to the UK. The service advised that it was likely to increase the domestic threat and that it was a distraction from the pursuit of al Qaida. I understood the need to focus on Afghanistan. Iraq was a distraction."

Ms Manningham-Buller, whose three Reith Lectures begin this week on BBC Radio 4, said it was "for others to decide" whether the war was a mistake.

But she added: "Intelligence isn't complete without the full picture and the full picture is all about doubt. Otherwise, you go the way of George Bush."

She also described Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as "a horror" but appeared torn about military interventions like the current Nato foray into Libya.

"It's very difficult - do you just stand by and watch people being murdered?" she said.

Asked about Britain's friendlier approach to Col Gaddafi in the recent past, she replied: "There was a point to cosying up to him, to get him to forfeit his stockpiles of WMD (weapons of mass destruction). It was the right thing to do. But yes, you do have to be aware of who you're dealing with."

Defending MI5 against suggestions that it could have prevented the July 7 terror attacks on London, she said: "In intelligence, you can know of someone, without knowing exactly what they are going to do. The next time there is an attack, the same could be true - though I hope it won't be."

And in a bleak warning about future British bombings, she said: "I assume there will be. This isn't a 'war' you win in a military sense, and you can't anticipate everything."

Murdoch's ex-CEO arrested: 'Case proves UK's endemic corruption'

RussiaToday

The former CEO of Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper operation has been arrested by police investigating allegations of phone hacking and bribery. Rebekah Brooks is the tenth person to be detained in connection with the scandal that's engulfed the now-defunct News of the World. For more on these latest developments, RT talks to Annie Mashon, a former intelligence officer for MI-5.

Forget Radiation: Food supply at risk of attack by terrorist groups

Telegraph
Richard Gray

Food and drink sold in Britain face a growing threat from groups who might try to poison supplies, MI5 has warned. 

Industry chiefs have been told that their sector is vulnerable to attacks by ideologically and politically motivated groups, intended to cause widespread casualties and disruption.

The warning comes from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), which operates as part of the Security Service to provide advice to energy, water, food and transport suppliers in the UK.

In the past the main threat of deliberate contamination has been from criminals attempting extortion or from individuals with a grudge, but security officials now fear there is an emerging threat from extremists such as al-Qaeda, dissident Northern Ireland republicans and animal rights fanatics.

The CPNI has now issued guidance to food and drinks producers and major supermarkets asking them to identify their vulnerabilities and to protect their plants and depots against potential attacks.

Steve Barrass, from the CPNI, spoke about the threat at a meeting of food safety experts.

Addressing the spring conference of the Society for General Microbiology, he said: "The UK suffers from a low level of malicious contamination of food by the bad, the mad and the sad.

"Now it has to consider the possibility of food supplies being disrupted by politically motivated groups."

Although there is extensive food testing carried out in the UK, a document sent to producers warns of a number of threats to the supply chain.

Attackers could contaminate prepared food or drink with bacteria such as E. coli or chemicals, causing consumers to fall sick and even die.

Alternatively, by targeting the basic ingredients that are used in large numbers of popular foods, they could cause even wider panic and disruption.

Experts in the US have warned that the dairy industry is particularly vulnerable as adding just a few grams of botulinum toxin or ricin to a tanker load of milk could kill or hospitalise thousands of consumers.

Milk is also wildly used by food manufacturers and the contaminated milk could end up in thousands of products.

With imported food accounting for much of what Britons eat, the report warns that it is harder to guarantee the security of produce grown abroad and transported to the UK.

The report warns that such attacks could also gravely damage consumer confidence in brands, while causing severe economic harm.

In one example, a major UK producer of pastries was targeted by a malicious attack where peanuts were introduced into the production of a nut-free product.

The factory was shut down for five days and products were removed from sale due to the risk of anaphylactic reactions from allergy sufferers.

A police investigation ruled out accidental causes and the company lost five per cent of its annual sales.

In February, a South African farmer was arrested after allegedly threatening to unleash foot and mouth disease in Britain, causing widespread devastation to the livestock industry.

He was said to have been motivated by a belief that Britain was responsible for allowing Robert Mugabe to inflict losses on the farming industry in Zimbabwe.

The CPNI report warns: "The food and drink industry in the UK – the food sector of the national infrastructure – could be under threat from ideologically motivated groups.

"The threat extends that from criminals who use extortion and from individuals with a grudge. It is different in nature from the (natural) hazards which the industry is well versed in handling. The threat is unlikely to decline in the foreseeable future.

"This could cause mass casualties, economic disruption and widespread panic. In many ways the diversity of the food operations may seem to make the food supply highly vulnerable to attack."
The report singles out farms as vulnerable because they often employ casual workers from abroad, and urges all businesses to make comprehensive checks on new employees and visiting contractors.
Production facilities should have security and perimeter controls, while unscheduled deliveries should not be accepted, it says.

In the United States, food "bioterrorism" has become a major concern after documents were found in Afghanistan apparently referring to plans by terrorists to contaminate food supplies.

An al-Qaeda group in Yemen that built toner cartridge bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to blow up aircraft last October were also thought to be planning to poison salad bars and buffets in restaurants.
The US now also has special agents stationed in countries that export food to America to monitor vulnerable points where the food supply could be attacked.

Dr Richard Byrne of the Centre for Rural Security at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire, who has carried out research on the threats posed by terrorism to agriculture, said: "The US and Australia are much more publicly aware of the threat from terrorism to the food supply compared to here in the UK.

"Groups could go after consumer health in a short term way by using something like E. coli, or longer term by contaminating with cadmium or radioactive caesium, but the economic impact of an attack on food can have the greatest impact.

"Look at the resources we had to put into tackling foot and mouth – it tied up the police, army, fire service, private contractors and sapped huge amounts of money."

Professor Tim Lang, a food policy expert at City University, London, added: "Only 60 per cent of our food comes from Britain. That reliance on imported food is a huge vulnerability in the country's food supply chain."

Terry Donahoe, head of the chemical safety division at the Food Standards Agency, said: "We have a very robust set of procedures to detect threats and an emerging risks programme to identify risks that might be coming up so we can act at an earlier stage to prevent them from happening."

Complaining About TSA Molestation Will Get You Profiled as a Terrorist

Information Liberation
Kurt Nimmo

According to CNN, the government considers "arrogant complaining" about TSA Gestapo tactics at the nation's airports to be an indication of terrorist behavior.





Objecting to TSA goons molesting your six year old daughter is characterized as "contempt against airport passenger procedures" and will likely get you profiled as a "high risk" passenger and probably a terrorist.


According to CNN, the government considers "arrogant complaining" about TSA Gestapo tactics at the nation's airports to be an indication of terrorist behavior.

Objecting to TSA goons molesting your six year old daughter is characterized as "contempt against airport passenger procedures" and will likely get you profiled as a "high risk" passenger and probably a terrorist.

Race, religion or ethnicity are not considered a "behavioral indicator," according to the government, even though terrorists supposedly acting on September 11, 2011, were Muslims, or so the government concluded after conducting a shoddy investigation, even though several members of the 9/11 Commission suspected deception on part of the Pentagon and consider its final report highly flawed.

"Expressing your contempt about airport procedures -- that's a First Amendment-protected right," Michael German, a former FBI agent who now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNN. "We all have the right to express our views, and particularly in a situation where the government is demanding the ability to search you."

TSA procedures also violate the Fourth Amendment and the sexual molestation laws of a number of states, but that has not stopped the feds from treating airline passengers as criminals to be searched at random or after they complain.

"The TSA says its security programs are informed by real-world situations and intelligence. Indeed, the immigration agent who refused to let the alleged '20th hijacker' into the United States in 2001 later testified that the man's arrogant behavior contributed to his suspicions," notes CNN.

CNN describes Mohammed al-Qahtani as the 2oth hijacker. Zacarias Moussaoui is also pegged as the 20th hijacker.

The FBI actively blocked an investigation of Moussaoui a month before the September 11, 2001, attacks. FBI agent Harry Samit blamed FBI headquarters for having "obstructed" the Moussaoui probe, which the government later portrayed as a lost opportunity to uncover information about the attacks.

Moussaoui was a member of the Finsbury mosque in London. The mosque's imam, Abu Hamza al-Masri, worked with two branches of the British security services, the Special Branch of the British police and MI5, the domestic counterintelligence service.