Who is reading Uncle Sam's email?

Odd coincidence. On a day when I spent the lunch hour brushing up on the Israeli spy scandal -- fake art students casing DEA offices; crooked "furniture mover" scamsters who danced a jig while the Twin Towers fell -- this report by Wayne Madsen bounced into my email:

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: THE DEMISE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY
The Neo-Cons' Unfettered Access to America's Secrets

Now, one must be doubly careful here. First, I'm well aware that Madsen somewhat injured his rep during the course of his Five Star Trust reports. I also happen to be of the opinion that a writer may take up temporary quarters in thdoghousese without having to move there permanently.

Second, I'm also aware that the Israeli spy scandal represents rich territory for the anti-Semites. Sorry, but the ravings of racists should not dissuade us from examining what should be considered a straightforward espionage case. Israel is nothing more or less than one government among others -- and as the ghost of I.F. Stone reminds us, no government is to be trusted.

Madsen correctly targets not a single nation or intelligence service (and certainly not a single ethnic group). Instead, he focuses on a network of individuals bound by an ideology: The neocons.

He also draws our attention to a little-appreciated aspect of the spy scandal: The "outsourcing" of communications intelligence. This was a motif often heard in the background of the Israeli spy scandal reports published a couple of years ago. Madseattemptsts to zoom out and show the wider picture:

For years, the National Security Agency (NSA) maintained highly classified back doors into the encrypted communications of worldwide foreign ministries, military commands, banks, international organizations, and even the Vatican, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the United Nations. In addition, the United States spent billions of dollars to develop highly secure cryptographic systems to protect its military, intelligence, and diplomatic communications from the prying ears and eyes of its enemies.

However, according to U.S. intelligence sources with connections to both the Reagan and Clinton administrations, America's most sensitive communications security and cryptologic secrets have been totally compromised by a Fifth Column embedded within the recent past and current administrations - the group generally identified as "neo-conservatives," political ideologues rooted in a peculiar blend of Trotskyism and fascism -- ideologues who are neither "new" nor "conservative" in ideology but whose intentions are to weaken AmericaÂ’s national security to a degree that ruins the very foundations on which the nation was built.

Madsen goes on to describe how the NSA placed "back doors" into the Crypto AG encryption devices, which were produced by a Swiss company and used were by spy agencies throughout the world. The back door was compromised by Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. For reasons I've never really understood, the government of Israel turned over the data to the Soviet Union.

Hold onto your hats. Here's where the tale gets knotty...

For a while NSA's secret was only known to the Soviets and Israelis. However, in March 1992, after Hans Buehler, Crypto AG's marketing representative in Iran was arrested by Iranian counter-intelligence for spying for the "intelligence services of the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America," NSA's operations were truly out of the bag and thrust into the public limelight. Buehler was jailed in Tehran's infamous Evin prison for nine months. Eventually, Crypto AG paid a $1 million bail for Buehler's release. After returning to Switzerland, Buehler documented his experience and the NSA rigging program in a book titled Verschluesselt.

Although it is undetermined who tipped off the Iranians about the NSA Trojan horse embedded in their Crypto AG machines, U.S. intelligence sources have revealed that Israel gained the most from the disclosure of the Crypto operation...

Yes, this is one of those spy stories that gets everyone into the act. Even Marc Rich.

Y'see, after the dirty little secret of Crypto AG came out, the company's stock began to plummet...

According to U.S. intelligence sources, shortly after the revelations by Buehler and other Crypto engineers about the NSA project, Switzerland-based international billionaire fugitive and suspected Mossad asset Marc Rich stepped in and invested heavily in Crypto AG's to boost its deflated stock values. Rich was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001 in an eleventh hour deal partly negotiated by Rich's attorney (and current Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and CIA "Leakgate" suspect) I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The deal with Rich was a Faustian one for Crypto AG. NSA was forced to abandon its prized signals intelligence operation. Communications currently encoded by Crypto AG machines are now, according to U.S. intelligence sources, routinely read by Rich and his Israeli intelligence contacts. Although the encryption technology graduated from computerized central processing units to surface mounted encryption boards, the security trap doors still exist, according to intelligence sources.

Encrypted cables between oil companies and buyers, including spot market dealers, allegedly allow Rich and his friends to underbid lucrative oil contracts. In addition, compromised "secure" bank networks have permitted fake wire transfers to loot numbered bank accounts, including those held by Saudi and Vatican officials. These revelations apparently resulted in the mysterious murder three years ago of the Crypto AG salesman in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the ability by the Israelis to monitor diplomatic, intelligence, and financial traffic prior to the 911 terrorist attacks permitted international speculators to place "put" options on the stocks of American and United Airlines just prior to September 11, 2001 - an operation that yielded hundreds of millions in profits.

I would note here that a number of published accounts indicate that then-Mossad head Ephraim Halevy did offer a non-specific warning of the 9/11 attacks to the United States. Understandably, Mossad never divulged how they received the information. Some suspect that this warning was simply a CYA affair. I honestly don't know the truth of the matter -- and anyone outside the intelligence community who pretends to know is surely lying.

To continue:

The results were disastrous for U.S. and NATO secure communications. During Operation Desert Storm, the Israelis were able to read all of the encrypted traffic in and out of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. U.S. intelligence sources report the only secured communications to and from the embassy was by diplomatic pouch.

I know what you're thinking: "Will Madsen bring the Larry Franklin AIPAC scandal into this skein?" But of course...!

As for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, after its coded communications were compromised and this became known to NSA, the embassy's encryption devices were rewired and the codes were changed.

The Israelis were then forced to rely on human intelligence assets within the embassy to feed them classified information. Enter Air Force Reserve officer Larry Franklin - a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who was first detailed in 1993 to perform his reserve active duty at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Franklin would serve repeated tours of duty at the embassy. Earlier this year, Franklin and two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were indicted for mishandling highly classified U.S. intelligence. Franklin was discovered to have stashed 83 classified documents, including Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) files at his West Virginia home. Franklin was accused of passing classified documents to the AIPAC officials who had maintained a liaison with an Israeli intelligence official at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Soon, Franklin would have some intelligence assistance at the Tel Aviv embassy. Enter U.S. ambassador Martin Indyk, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Australia. Strangely, Indyk had two tours of duty as U.S. ambassador to Israel - from 1995 to 1997 and from 2000 to 2001. According to U.S. intelligence sources, Indyk was a valued supplier of classified U.S. intelligence to Israel. In 2000, Indyk had his security clearance yanked. Although Secretary of State Madeleine Albright denied that Indyk was suspected of espionage, U.S. intelligence sources tell an entirely different story. State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security agents discovered that Indyk routinely took home classified materials where they were left to be photocopied by his maid who doubled as a Mossad operative. Indyk also reportedly allowed his Israeli dinner guests to read other classified documents. Knowing this, State Diplomatic Security agents planted some "classified" documents on Indyk and waited for them to appear. After they turned up through the suspected channels, Indyk's security clearance was lifted.

Finally:

The FBI also had severe problems with communications compromises during the lead up to 911. FBI agents tailing Israeli agents in the United States (who, in turn, were living and working in close proximity to the Al Qaeda hijackers) were stymied by the compromise of secure FBI and Justice Department communications systems by Israeli contractor telecommunications companies such as AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys. In addition, Israeli software companies had permitted Mossad unfettered access to credit card and telephone records of U.S. counter-intelligence agents.

This last bit, at least, can be verified through any number of previously-published accounts.

What about the rest of Madsen's article? Has he gone off track? Or does his "unified field theory" of neocon spying hold water?

I honestly cannot be sure. But I think he's on to something. And I encourage everyone to read -- and to discuss -- his report.