Israeli Wiretappers, the NSA, and 9/11

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA's wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with "former" Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation's security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman;

(Continued below the fold...)

Along with the mass surveillance being conducted on all U.S. users of AT&T and Verizon by Narus and Verint, (according to Bamford), two other Israeli-owned companies, Amdocs and NICE Systems, have their fingers in the wiretapping pie as well.

Christopher Ketcham preceded Bamford in September, with with the article "Trojan Horse", that focuses on Verint, Amdocs, and CALEA (the legislation which brought all of these problems into existence);

"Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government's domestic intelligence surveillance technology. Both companies are based in Israel – having arisen to prominence from that country's cornering of the information technology market – and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence (both companies have a long history of board memberships dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers). Verint is considered the world leader in "electronic interception" and hence an ideal private sector candidate for wiretap outsourcing. Amdocs is the world's largest billing service for telecommunications, with some $2.8 billion in revenues in 2007, offices worldwide, and clients that include the top 25 phone companies in the United States that together handle 90 percent of all call traffic among US residents. The companies' operations, sources suggest, have been infiltrated by freelance spies exploiting encrypted trapdoors in Verint/Amdocs technology and gathering data on Americans for transfer to Israeli intelligence and other willing customers (particularly organized crime)...

None of US law enforcement's problems with Amdocs and Verint could have come to pass without the changes mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which, as noted, sought to lock spyware into telecom networks. CALEA, to cite the literature, requires that terrestrial carriers, cellular phone services and other telecom entities enable the government to intercept "all wire and oral communications carried by the carrier concurrently with their transmission."

If Ketcham and Bamford are correct, (so far, no lawsuits), then the National "Security" Agency has thrown the "National Security" of the United States under the bus.

Amdocs and NICE

The two companies that should be getting extra scrutiny from 9/11 researchers are Amdocs, and NICE Systems. Both have direct links to 9/11 via the milieu known as the "Israeli DEA Groups". To date, the best report on the DEA Groups was assembled by retired international lawyer, Gerald Shea; you can download the report from Antiwar.com.

I consider Shea's report the best so far, because it is high on content, and low on speculation, and, it names names. The content is damning. Consider the following graph from Shea which places the DEA Groups in the same general vicinity as the alleged 9/11 hijackers, in the time period running up to 9/11;

Shea notes the Amdocs and NICE connections in his report;

"Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources--activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey, adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled “DEA Groups.”

One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas,18 was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a “relative”.

Shea makes a distinction between the DEA Groups, and the New Jersey Group detained on 9/11, where two of the 5 Israelis arrested were later identified as Mossad agents. The Mossad connection was discussed on Democracy Now! in February of 2007;

Shea on the Mossad connection, and some more on Nice systems;

"The vans in the operations of both Israeli Groups were able to move about neighborhoods without raising undue concern. The “art students” in the Israeli DEA Groups were using their vans as sometime door-to-door salesmen. The personnel of Urban Moving Systems, the Mossad front, were ostensibly driving about northeastern New Jersey towns in their van (or vans) to help people move—a familiar suburban sight.

With ample room for personnel and electronic equipment, the vans were ideal vehicles for electronic eavesdropping. The extent to which Nice Systems, the Israeli wiretapping company for which Tomer Ben Dor worked (the Israeli with the reference to “DEA Groups” in his computer files) will be a matter for the public inquiry. Nice Systems was ideally suited to provide equipment and expertise to the Israeli New Jersey Group because its U.S. headquarters were located in Rutherford, New Jersey, near the center of the Group’s operations."

James Bamford was introduced to NICE Systems at the 2006 Intelligence Support System World Conference or informally... the Wiretappers' Ball, held in Crystal City, along the Potomac. Bamford writes;

"The large Israeli firm NICE, like Verint and Narus, is also a major eavesdropper in the U.S., and like the other two, it keeps its government and commercial client list very secret. A key member of the Wiretappers' Ball, it was formed in 1986 by seven veterans of Unit 8200, according to the company's founder, Benny Levin. "We were seven people from the Unit," he said, "we all worked on a project for more than four years, we knew each other very well. We had very good complementary skills." Like a page out of Orwell, all their high-tech bugging systems are called "Nice". Nice Perform, for example, "provides voice content analysis with features such as: word spotting, emotion detection, talk pattern analysis, and state-of-the-art visualization techniques." Nice Universe "captures voice, email, chat, screen activity, and essential call details." Nice Log offers "audio compression technology that performs continuous recordings of up to thousands of analog and digital telephone lines and radio channels." And Nice VoIP "can use both packet sniffing and active recording methods for recording VoIP sessions (both by telephone and internet)."*

"Former" Israeli military intelligence personnel are scattered throughout the high-tech wiretapping industry. And this fact, (along with Bamford's new book), prompted Israeli journalist Yossi Melman to ask this rhetorical question in Haaretz, "Is Israel's booming high-tech industry a branch of the Mossad?".

NSA Domestic Spying Began Before 9/11

The NSA's domestic spying operation began no later than February, 2001;

"Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The center was put into development by ATT following a proposal by the NSA for the construction and development of a network operations center identical to ATT's own network operations center located in Bedminster, New Jersey for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The NSA proposal was accepted by the ATT sales division and referred to ATT Solutions, an ATT project development division situated in Florham Park, New Jersey...

Said data center would enable the NSA to tap into any phone line and to monitor any digital transfer of information on ATT's networks including voice telephone calls, facsimile transmission and all internet traffic."

The NSA's early 2001 involvement with expanded domestic wiretapping is confirmed by the former CEO of Qwest;

"Defendant Joseph P. Nacchio ... respectfully renews his objection to the Court's rulings excluding testimony surrounding his February 27, 2001 meeting at Ft. Meade with representatives from the National Security Agency (NSA) as violative of his constitutional right to mount a defense. Although Mr. Nacchio is allowed to tell the jury that he and James Payne went into that meeting expecting to talk about the "Groundbreaker" project and came out of the meeting with optimism about the prospect for 2001 revenue from NSA, the Court has prohibited Mr. Nacchio from eliciting testimony regarding what also occurred at that meeting. [REDACTED] The Court has also refused to allow Mr. Nacchio to demonstrate that the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest.

By being prevented from telling his full story to the jury or from fully and properly cross-examining any rebuttal witnesses, Mr. Nacchio has been deprived of the ability to explaoin why - after he came out of the February meeting with a reasonable, good faith, expectation that Qwest would be receiving significant contracts from NSA in 2001 ... Qwest was denied significant work...

There was a feeling also, that the NSA acted as agents for other government agencies and if Qwest frustrated the NSA, they would also frustrate other agencies.

As this clip featuring Bamford on Charlie Rose shows (1984), the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community in general would be the "other agencies" in question;

The DEA began to receive reports about the Israelis in January of 2001, with peak activity by the Groups occurring in February and March of 2001;

"In January, 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Office of Security Programs (IS), began to receive reports of Israeli art students attempting to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States. Additionally, there have been reports of Israeli art students visiting the homes of numerous DEA employees. These incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the present. The number of reported incidents increased in November/December 2000, and has continued to date. These incidents have involved several other law enforcement and Department of Defense agencies, with contacts made at other agencies' facilities and the residences of their employees. Geographically, these incidents are very widespread, ranging from California to Florida. The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. Since April 2001, the number of reported incidents has declined, however, the geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Los Angeles.

The activities of these Israeli art students raised the suspicion of IS and other field offices when attempts were made to circumvent the access control systems at DEA offices, and when these individuals began to solicit their paintings at the homes of DEA employees. The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli Organized Crime, leads IS to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity. It is believed by IS that these incidents should not be the basis for any immediate concern for the safety and security of DEA personnel, however, employees should continue to exercise due caution in safeguarding information relating to DEA investigations, or activities...

In general, these individuals appear to be organized in teams of 8 to 10 people, with one person described as the "Team Leader". They are usually encountered in pairs or individually carrying a makeshift art portfolio. Several times, they have, been seen or admitted to being dropped off in an area by the Team Leader, who returns later to pick them up. The females are usually described as very attractive, and all are generally in their early to mid-20s. Most admit to having served in the Israeli Military. This is not surprising given the mandatory military service require in Israel, however, a majority of those questioned has stated they served in military intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordinance units. Some have been linked to high-ranking officials in the Israeli military. One was the son of a two-star general, one served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army, one served in a Patriot missile unit. That these people are now traveling in the U.S. selling art seems not to fit their background.

Their stories are remarkable only in their consistency. At first, they will state that they are art students, either from the University of Jerusalem, or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem. Other times they will purport to be promoting a new art studio in the area. When pressed for details as to the location of the art studio or why they are selling the paintings, they become evasive. Some claim to be the artist who painted the artwork, others claim they promoting the work of others or of Israel. Information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China. When told that they cannot solicit on federal facilities, they will claim that the paintings are not for sale, but that they are soliciting interest in the paintings, either for an art studio or for a future art sale...

When encountered at residences, some of these individuals are persistent in trying to get inside the home. Some have asked to use the telephone when leaving. Some employees have reported that they came only to their house, while others have reported that the students approached the entire neighborhood."

Questions, again...

Why is NONE of this information in the 9/11 Commission Final Report?

Did the NSA sub-contract NICE Systems and other Israeli wiretappers to monitor the alleged 9/11 hijackers? And does this in turn explain why the Israelis were simply deported for "immigration" violations?

How could the Israelis be in such uncanny proximity with the alleged hijackers without MASSIVE foreknowledge of their plans, identities, and locations?

Is possible collusion between NSA and the Israelis only the tip of the iceberg?** And will further digging reveal operational relationships between the Israelis and other U.S. intelligence services or Private Military Contractors (PMCs)?

Is the "Wiretappers" story merely very complex cover for the actual activities of the Israelis, including far more destructive uses of moving vans?

Or, are stories about explosives being linked to the Urban Moving Systems vans clever disinfo to lead away from HUMINT and SIGINT being conducted by the Israelis?

Were the Israelis merely shepherds, keeping an eye on U.S. intel assets, assets that had been tagged for a future activity?

If the Israelis are our friends... why didn't they stop the hijackers?

Perhaps the quote attributed to one of the New Jersey Israelis explains it best (see Shea's memo);

"We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem."


* Bamford, James. 2008. The Shadow Factory. New York: DOUBLEDAY.

** See also: The USS Liberty and U.S./Israeli Covert Cooperation.

Nice...

Write-up.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Off Topic

I guess I shouldn't do this but I came across this video that blew my mind. A Catholic Bishop comes right out and says that 9/11 was an inside job. This is a must watch for all 9/11 truthers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJhfQSspj2Q

Anti-semitic bishop endorses missile -- what else is new

He's also describing basic errors about the Pentagon, "whatever hit the Pentagon" as "only a guided missile hit the Pentagon", etc.

Here's what the public reads about him --

"Williamson has expressed controversial views about Judaism and the Holocaust. He has endorsed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,[2][26] has denied the Holocaust,[27][28][29][30] and praised Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.[27][30][28][31] He states that Jews aim at world dominion,[2][32] and that Jews and Freemasons, whom he also opposes,[17] have contributed to the "changes and corruption" in the Catholic Church.[33][30][28][27] He argues that Jews are the "enemies of Christ", and urges their conversion to Catholicism.[27][31][34] Williamson denies that he is antisemitic,[2] stating that he is following the New Testament,[28] and noting that he also attacks other "enemies" of Christ such as Communists and Freemasons.[27][31]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williamson_(bishop)

Not a great figure to represent us.

Sorry Vic

I don't know much about the Catholics and their Bishops. I thought he was credible so that is why I posted it. There are a lot of Catholics out there. Still he is helping to spread the word that 9/11 was an inside job. As far as the Pentagon hit, have no idea what hit it. I find it hard to believe that it was a 757.

What isn't a mystery about

What isn't a mystery about Catholicism, is its support for mercenary outfits like Blackwater, founded and run by two Opus Dei activists, Eric Prince and Joe Schmidt (Skahill)
According to Robert Hutchison in 'Their Kingdom Come, Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei", the CIA funelled huge amounts of cash to Opus Dei bank accounts early on in its existence when it was fighting communism in Spain. Antonin Scallia and other top US officials are thought to be members of this secret, militant, Catholic organization.

Good Points.

A number of things lead back to the Vatican.
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The CONSTITUTION is NOT going to "collapse" into pulverized dust no matter how much thermate/explosives or planes they throw at it

No problem, just google

Anytime anyone of note supports 9/11 -- especially religious or military -- google their name and see what comes up first. You'll be amazed.

>>As far as the Pentagon hit, have no idea what hit it. I find it hard to believe that it was a 757.

Why? Because select statements by a handful of people that debris wasn't enough or specific enough? That's quite a leap to claim it wasn't there in the face of many dozens of reports of people who did report seeing it, not to mention the fact that what some groups claim is physical evidence against it, has been debunked.

When we throw out data that doesn't fit, we aren't doing real research or real science.

I recommend this paper --

The Pentagon Attack:
What the Physical Evidence Shows

In this essay I look exclusively at the physical evidence of the Pentagon attack -- post-crash photographs and verifiable information about the building, the Boeing 757-200 aircraft, and the physics of aircraft crashes based on case studies. In some cases I mention elements of eyewitness accounts, but only to frame my analysis of what the photographs show about the crash. I show that the physical evidence is consistent with the crash of a 757, noting flaws in popular arguments to the contrary.
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagon/index.html

He was also ex-communicated from the Catholic Church.

So kind of a free-lance Bishop.

BTW

Bamford's position on 9/11 inside job --

"In this hard-hitting expose, investigative journalist Bamford (The Puzzle Palace; Body of Secrets) paints a damning portrait of an incompetent and politicized intelligence community. Before 9/11, he contends, the inadequacy of the CIA’s clandestine service hobbled its fight against Osama bin Laden, forcing it to rely on mercenary Afghan proxies and cruise missile drive-bys. Meanwhile, bread-and-butter undercover operations to infiltrate and monitor al-Qaeda were eschewed, and leads on the upcoming attacks bungled. After 9/11, he asserts, the Bush administration used the attacks as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq; a Defense Department intelligence unit was set up to tout trumped-up evidence against Saddam, which, Bamford says, CIA analysts were pressured into endorsing. Much of the book rehashes a now familiar critique of both the pre-9/11 lapses and the Bush administration’s selling of the war, but the author enriches it with a wealth of insider interviews that illuminate structural problems in the nation’s intelligence effort."
http://www.amazon.com/Pretext-War-Americas-Intelligence-Agencies/dp/0385...

A review of Bamford's 'A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies' --

"Bamford has put together a text that alleges U.S. Intelligence operations have been politicized, allowing intelligence gathering and security to break down and miss opportunities to prevent the 9-11 events while the Bush administration sought to prepare a case for attacking Iraq. The apparent thesis of this book blatantly ignores the obvious possibility that having 9-11 occur was itself part of the plan to facilitate an attack on Iraq, making the 9-11 attacks an intelligence "success" rather than a failure from the perspective of those guiding U.S. "National Security." This is ironic considering Bamford is the author of Body of Secrets, a book that describes Operation Northwoods, a plan in the early 1960's to stage terror attacks on American targets and blame them on Cuba as a pretext for invading Cuba to overthrow Castro. Thus, Bamford's analysis of 9-11 and the drive toward the Iraq war turns out to be distorted to ignore the most disturbing conclusions and the evidence that would support the idea that 9-11 was an inside job. While Bamford has documented some aspects of the warped motives of the Bush administration and its benefactors and directors, he spins his thesis to ignore the full extent of treachery and criminality behind the U.S. Government and global power structures. Intelligence operations have always served the agendas and security of those controlling the agencies and associated military-industrial-occult cabals rather than the safety and interests of ordinary citizens. Bamford has exposed this to some degree, but for unknown reasons he does not pursue a full examination of how intelligence operations function."
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0385506724/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_3?_enc...

Thanks for the alternative

Thanks for the alternative perspective on Bamford, Victronix. I would tend to favor the Michael Parenti, point of view that these types of intelligence moves are deliberately planned, and rather than saying the CIA or other agencies failed, that they were in fact very successful in assisting "someones" strategic goals. Bamford, nonetheless, deserves to be paid attention to.

The thing about this is, he

The thing about this is, he didn't have to write a book about 9/11 -- no one forced him. So he chose to go in the opposite direction from what a sincere investigator would. If someone in his position couldn't imagine it being an inside job, I tend to feel he cannot be trusted to be writing in the interests of those outside the intelligence agencies. If he could imagine it, and chose to write the opposite story, that's a huge red flag. Why? If he could expose Northwoods, why can't he expose NIST? His NOT writing about 9/11 could have been a big message in itself.

And of course

See Wayne Madsen's The Israeli Art Students and Movers Story

70 Disturbing Facts About 9/11

John Doraemi publishes Crimes of the State Blog
http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/

johndoraemi --at-- yahoo.com.

Bamford has an upcoming special on NOVA.

It is scheduled to air on January 13th.

I imagine that there will be a bunch of crap to wade through, but going through Bamford's work is sort of like panning for gold. You have to do a lot of sifting to get the good stuff.

FBI agent Kenneth Maxwell:

“Two al-Qaeda guys living in California—are you kidding me? We would have been on them like white on snow: physical surveillance, electronic surveillance, a special unit devoted entirely to them.”

http://www.lawrencewright.com/WrightSoufan.pdf

Because 9/11 happened in the US, I expect US officials to explain what happened. Especially considering that FBI Cole investigators were left out of the loop by the CIA and FBI ITOS. Are we truly to believe Mossad agents were tracking al Qaeda operatives but US intel was in the dark? And US intel officials had no role in approving illegal Mossad spying operations?