Subject: clinton black-bagged
Israeli spies tapped
Clinton e-mail
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
MORE than 20 years of Israeli spying
operations in Washington culminated in the
interception of e-mails from President Bill
Clinton, intelligence sources claimed last
week.
The revelations come at a sensitive time as
Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, is
ex-pected to fly to Washington today for talks
with Clinton about the Middle East peace
process.
The latest spying operation is said to have
taken place in 1998 while Benjamin
Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister.
According to the sources, it entailed hacking
into White House computer systems during
intense speculation about the direction of the
peace process.
Sources in Israel say intelligence agents
infiltrated Telrad, a company that had been
subcontracted by Nortel, America's largest
telecommunications conglomerate, to help
develop a communications system for the
White House.
Company managers were said to have been
unaware that virtually undetectable chips
installed during manufacture made it possible
for outside agents to tap into the flow of data
from the White House.
Information being sent from the president to
his senior staff in the National Security
Council and outside government departments
could be copied into a secret Israeli computer
in Washington, the sources said. It was
transferred to Tel Aviv two or three times a
week.
One opportunity for Israeli agents to mount the
operation arose when Nortel, Telrad and
another firm won a £33m contract to replace
communications equipment for the Israeli air
force. Members of the air force were allowed
access to manufacturing areas as a result.
Company and White House Officials last week
denied any knowledge of the intelligence
operation. "We have no information that our
phone system has been compromised," said
Jake Siewert, the deputy White House press
secretary.
An Israeli government official said that
Mossad, the country's intelligence service,
was banned from conducting illicit
surveillance in America. "Spying on the US is
out of the question," he said.
However, the FBI has conducted a highly
classified investigation into previous claims
that Israeli intelligence has breached White
House security.
The inquiry was revealed earlier this month by
the Washington Times Insight magazine, which
reported that Israeli agents used a software
company in Missouri to intercept telephone
conversations from the White House, State
Department and other departments.
The FBI inquiry began some years ago after an
investigation by the State Department led to
suspicions that Israel might have the
technology to overhear the conversations of
American officials in their offices.
It shifted to the White House in September
1998 when Kenneth Starr, the independent
prosecutor, reported that the Israelis may have
listened to amorous conversations between
Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the White
House trainee with whom he had an affair. The
allegation was denied by both Israel and the
United States.
Both countries have been wary of the harm that
could be caused by Israeli intelligence
operations since Jonathan Pollard, a former
American navy analyst, was jailed for spying
for Israel in 1986.
Sources familiar with past operations,
however, said penetration of the White House
was considered so secret that even some
members of Mossad's hierarchy were not
informed.
They cited at least three occasions on which
Israel had monitored the White House, starting
shortly after Gerald Ford became president in
1974.
A source who participated in the infiltration of
Ford's White House said the Israelis were
interested in American plans to sell the Awacs
early warning aircraft to Saudi Arabia, a
prospect that would have allowed the desert
kingdom to monitor Israeli air force activity
throughout the Middle East.
During the Carter administration, agents
targeted Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national
security adviser, who was considered
anti-Israeli. This operation is said to have
been conducted by a Mossad burglary unit
known as Keshet (Arrow).
A third operation straddled President Ronald
Reagan's second term and the early years of
his successor, George Bush. The target was
James Baker, the former White House chief of
staff and secretary of state who was
considered pro-Arab.
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/20
00/05/21/stifgnusa02003.html
.........
Now if Mossad could do the ol'
exploding phone trick on him too...
