Stewart Nozette, 52, was arrested this afternoon at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington by counterespionage agents from the FBI's on suspicion that he was meeting with agents from the Israeli intel group known as the Mossad. The Mayflower has quite a lovely history, it's also where former New York governor Elliot Spitzer took Ashley Dupre to have her reveal her own state secrets.

Nozette had met with undercover feds back in September of this year where he told them "I haven't been…involved in a classified work for the last couple of years…but I had everything…all the way to Top Secret SCI [sensitive compartmentalized information], I had nuclear."

An 18-page FBI affidavit, signed by Special Agent Leslie G. Martell, says Nozette in January 2009 told a colleague "that if the United States government tried to put him in jail" on an unrelated matter, Nozette would move to Israel or another unidentified foreign country and "tell them everything" he knows. The document also stated that Nozette was a technical consultant from 1998 until early 2008, and received total payments of $225,000 while working "for an aerospace company that was wholly owned by the government of the state of Israel."

Steve Huff at True/Slant proposes a Republican connection. A search reveals over $12,000 worth of political contributions to various GOP official coffers.

Nozette helped develop the lunar Mini-RF probe which recently helped confirm the presence of water on the moon. He's responsible for bombing the moon, folks! Didn't seem like such a big deal at the time, sure we all had fun making our little twitter quips about it, well whose laughing now?

If we were willing to let this guy have the keys to hurl projectiles at our lunar little brother, who knows what else we could have allowed him to blow up next. Pluto? Uranus?

The universe sleeps a bit more soundly tonight with this modern day Lex Luthor behind bars.

This American diplomat, who is 34 and married, is shown in a hotel room, in his underpants, and then we cut to the what is probably the same room but suddenly it is quite dark and someone is having sex with some lady, maybe, who knows. Blackmail! Oh and before all this the guy is maybe on the phone talking to a lady about something in Russian.

Scandal-mongering ABC investigative reporter Brian "One Source" Ross would like you to watch this wonderful video. Seriously, it is pretty great. We don't know if the FSB added the wonderful musical accompaniment themselves or if it should be credited to Brian Ross/Jane Birkin.

According to an American Conservative interview with Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish and Farsi language translator who used to work for the FBI, a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois was seduced by a Turkish secret agent.

Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a contractor right after 9/11, and she worked for them until they fired her for whistleblowing in 2002.

As reported by Vanity Fair in 2005, an internal FBI Inspector General's report stated that Edmonds had been improperly fired and it further said that "many of her allegations had bases in fact."

She has made lots of allegations, too! Like the ones involving former Illinois Congressman and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who, according to Edmonds, received tens of thousands of dollars in secret campaign payments from Chicago-area Turkish diplomats and Turkish-Americans. (Hastert then withdrew from House consideration one of those perennial resolutions acknowledging the Armenian genocide.) (Hastert now works for a lobbying firm hilariously named Dickstein Shapiro, where he lobbies for Turkey.)

She has further claimed to have heard evidence of Turkish agents recruiting sources in the FBI and State Departments to steal nuclear secrets which were then sold on the old black nuclear secrets market. Nice work if you can get it!

But after getting warmed up with these allegations, Edmonds decided to really see how far she could go. She says that these Turkish spies discovered that married Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky was bisexual, and so a female agent was assigned to sleep with her on camera, in order to blackmail her. Yes! According to an interview in Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, as related by BradBlog:

Edmonds says in the Giraldi interview that "in 2000 ... Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual." A female Turkish agent is said to have "struck up a relationship with her", and then, following the death of Schakowsky's mother, the woman is said to have attended the funeral "hoping to exploit her vulnerability."

"They later were intimate in Schakowsky's townhouse," Edmonds tells Giraldi, "which had been set up with recording devices and hidden cameras."

The reason for attempting to get at Schakowsky, Edmonds believes, is so that they would be able to get both her "and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois," along with Hastert, who was already on the payroll, and several other Chicago officials.

The old lesbian honeypot! Wow!

Anyway we can barely follow this insane story so who knows if you should be freaked out about the Turkish spy ring selling nuclear secrets or if their bribery and blackmail has thus far succeeded only in preventing Congress from officially recognizing this mass murder they perpetrated in 1915.

Sergey Aleynikov began working for Goldman in May of 2007 as "vice president for equity strategy." And then he left to go to some firm in Chicago and then the FBI arrested him for "theft of trade secrets" because, they claim, he uploaded all the fancy magical automated trading codes and files to some German website.

According to the affidavit:

"certain features of the [code], such as speed and efficiency by which it obtains and processes market data, gives the Financial Institution a competitive advantage among other firms that also engage in high-volume automated trading.The Financial Institution further believes that, if competing firms were to obtain the [code] and use its features, the Financial Institution's ability to profit from the [code]'s speed and efficiency would be significantly diminished."

Now anyone might have their hands on the Process! It's been sitting on some Germany-based website owned by some Londoner for a month. Meanwhile, "program trading accounted for 49% of all NYSE trading last week, and Goldman as recently as one week ago represented about 60% of all principal program trading". And the NYSE suddenly saw fit to "alter its methodology for reporting program stock trading," leaving Goldman off the list entirely.

Not that we understand any of this but it seems like basically America is even more doomed, now.

Harman (D-Calif.) went on NPR's All Things Considered and tried to stonewall, refusing to even confirm that the alleged conversations with the Israeli operative—which CQ reported were caught in a NSA wiretap—even took place. "We don't know if there was a phone call," she said, adding that it "may or may not have taken place." The she demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder release full transcripts of any calls that may have been recorded.

But when host Robert Siegal called bullshit on that request—Holder isn't going to release unredacted transcripts of calls wiretapped by the NSA or FBI during an investigation, so Harman gets to look like she wants full disclosure without having to worry about what might be on those tapes—Harman put her foot in her mouth. Watch her squirm:

But, indeed, if what happened was, initially, your phone wasn't tapped [and that] the person you were talking with was being tapped - and if that was an investigation of a foreign agent, is it realistic to think that anybody is going to release a completely unredacted transcript of that conversation?

Well, let's find out. I mean, the person I was talking to was an American citizen. I know something about the law and wiretaps. There are two ways you do it. One is you get a FISA warrant, which has to start with a foreign suspected terrorist, a non-American foreigner. If this was FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that would have had to happen.

But if you know that it was an American citizen -

If it was Article III, FBI wiretap, that's different. But I don't know what this was. And I don't know why this was done. And I don't know who the sources are who are claiming that this happened are and I think -

But you are saying that you know it was an American citizen. So that would suggest that you know that there was a -

Well, I know that anyone I would have talked to about, you know, the AIPAC prosecution would have been an American citizen. I didn't talk to some foreigner about it.

You never spoke to an Israeli? You never spoke to an Israeli about this.

Well, I speak to Israelis from time to time.

Harman also went on MSNBC, where she feigned outrage at having been wiretapped by the NSA:

I hope that [Attorney General Eric Holder] will investigate whether other members of Congress or other innocent Americans may have been subject to this kind of treatment.... I'm very disappointed that my country—I'm an American citizen just like you are—could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I'm one member of Congress who may be caught up in it. But have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I'm thinking of others who may not have a bully pulpit and may not be aware, as I was not, that right now, somewhere, somenone's listening in on their conversations—and they're innocent Americans.

Harman's gall is epic. She enabled the very abuse of power she decries: Harman was one of the eight members of Congress "read into" the NSA's wiretapping program—which completely ignored the very law passed to prevent abuses of power like listening in on members of Congress' phone calls—by the Bush Administration. She knew about it years ago. For her to pose—"I'm thinking of others who may not be aware, as I was not"—as an ingenue when it comes to her country's deliberate targeting of it's own citizens in NSA sweeps is pathological.

The National Security Agency eavesdropped on a telephone conversation Harman had with a "suspected Israeli agent" in October 2005, in which Harman agreed to try to quash an investigation into an Israeli lobby.

At the time, the Justice Department was pursuing an espionage case against two lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful Israeli lobbying group. According to CQ's Jeff Stein, the NSA was listening in on an Israeli operative's calls when they picked up a conversation between the target and Harman in which the congresswoman promised to "waddle in" to the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference."

In exchange, Stein reports, the Israeli operative promised to use his (or her) influence to help Harman land the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. In October 2005, the Democrats were heavily favored to win the mid-term election; the wrangling for committee assignments had already begun, and Nancy Pelosi, who was expected to be named Speaker, was signaling that Harman was not a candidate for the Intelligence Committee.

This is the second report that the NSA was spying on members of Congress to come to light in recent weeks; last week the New York Times reported that the agency tried to tap the phone of an unidentified congressman in late 2005 or early 2006 (the tap never happened). The Harman wiretap, according to Stein, was approved by a court.

According to Stein, Harman ended the quid-pro-quo negotiation by saying, "This conversation doesn't exist."

Nothing came of the conversation, because a) Harman didn't get the intelligence committee, and b) the Department of Justice continued with it's case against the AIPAC staffers. (So much for the all-powerful Israeli lobby!)

Allegations that Harman was in unseemly cahoots with AIPAC are not new; the FBI launched an investigation into Harman's relationship with the lobby back in 2006. But the wiretap is the first report of solid evidence that the FBI was on to something.

According to Stein the FBI was on the verge of officially opening a case against Harman based on the wiretap, but the White House scuttled it:

But that's when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.

According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he "needed Jane" to help support the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program

He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, "I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities."

[...]

And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.

Harman is in deep trouble. Through a spokesperson, she told CQ that the allegations are an "outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact."

The most interesting question is: Who was the "suspected Israeli operative"? Harman was the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, so it's not like she was palling around and making deals with just any old spy off the street. Whomever she was talking to was likely a powerful person in Washington. And a spy.

North Korea's getting ready to indict two Americans they caught trying to sneak in to report for Current TV, the Al Gore-spawned "everybody report now!" website that is decidedly not who you want behind you in a sticky international situation. Shit, they're staring down the prospect of being sent to jail in North Korea, okay? Wrap your mind around that shit. We'd be pissing our pants even if we had Bill Keller calling the State Department for us. What do you threaten the North Korean judicial system with, as a freelancer for Current TV? "This detention will be blogged! Once I get out."

Let's hope they make it home without celebrating any birthdays over there. Please forward them Moe's how-to guide for future reference.
[Pic via North Korean Propaganda Posters, translation: "Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!"

Hofmann was born in Austria in 1912, went into journalism in his early 20s, and fled Vienna for Rome in 1938 when the Nazis occupied the city. In Rome he hooked up with the "anti-Fascist underground" (cool), but was drafted into the German army and stationed in Rome, where he worked as an interpreter for high level Nazi commanders. So he awesomely became a spy!

From General Mälzer’s offices in the Hotel Excelsior on the Via Veneto, Mr. Hofmann passed information to the anti-Nazi underground. He was able to inform the underground about the deportation of the Jews from occupied Rome in October 1943 and the killing of 335 Italian hostages in March 1944 at the Fosse Ardeatine outside Rome in reprisal for the killing of 33 German policemen by Italian partisans.

In 1944 he deserted and was sentenced in absentia to death for treason. Which is also awesome, since he got away. After the war he became a New York Times correspondent in Rome, and later reported for the paper from all over the world. How many current Times reporters can say they were sentenced to death by the Nazis for treason? Few, we would venture to guess. You can buy one of his many books here. What a fine man. [Story and pic: NYT]

“I object in the strongest manner to these accusations, which are pure lies,” he said in a statement released by his French publisher, Gallimard.

In a rare interview on Monday with the Czech CTK news agency, Mr. Kundera also accused the news media of committing “the assassination of an author.”

Let's not forget that the man in question was acting suspicious. Who but a spy carries TWO pairs of sunglasses "and a tube of cream??"

But it's interesting to get confirmation, and to learn that Child forthrightly informed the spooks on her application that her weakness was that she was "impulsive," because she quit a department store job once. It's not clear where Child did her spywork — she was stationed in Sri Lanka and China before moving to France, where she was trained as a chef.

Also, there are allegedly some reporters named in the documents released today, but no names have come out yet.

On a totally unrelated note, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is a "former" Naval Intelligence man.

[AP]

All the indictees, says the Times, will be charged with four felonies: "Using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes."

What this means: Investigators that took the Fifth in the Congressional hearing may still have to relinquish evidence of their allegedly fraudulent tactics. This could reveal, as Dunn has claimed, that HP isn't the only major company dabbling in phone fraud. Oh boy, who's next?

It also means the Times needs a new shot of Dunn, because their current one with the bald men knocking heads behind her is getting old.

California to Indict Former Leader of H.P. [NY Times]

Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Mark V. Hurd approved an elaborate "sting" operation on a reporter in February in an attempt to plug leaks to the media, according to an e-mail message sent by HP Chairman Patricia C. Dunn.

BusinessWeek (Tuesday):

Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and the company's general counsel [Larry Sonsini] have agreed to testify next week before a House panel investigating the affair.

SF Chronicle:

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday gave the chairman of its oversight and investigations subcommittee the power to issue subpoenas in connection with the HP hearing.

And:

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that HP's investigative team even considered infiltrating the newsrooms of Cnet and the Wall Street Journal by deploying investigators posing as clerical employees and cleaning crews.

Right, so now Hurd, the last good guy left in charge at HP and the board chairman-to-be, is implicated in the scandal that forced his predecessor Dunn to resign. We'll see what he has to say tomorrow in an HP press conference.

HP CEO Allowed 'Sting' of Reporter [Washington Post]
Hewlett-Packard to hold press conference [BusinessWeek]

It's a hard movement to fight — everyone's afraid of being marked "pro-child-porn" — but it would give the government, fraudsters, and determined hackers easy access to every Internet user's history. It's part of Gonzales's effort to control what anyone can see — whether it's library patrons using censored Internet connections or home users unwittingly telling the government whom they e-mailed, called, or Skyped. It's scary as hell and it's succeeding.

Gonzales: ISPs must keep records on users [CNET]

Pretexting is lying. Wikipedia says: "Pretexting is the act of pretending to be someone who you are not by telling an untruth, or creating deception. The practice of pretexting typically involves tricking a telecom carrier into disclosing personal information of a customer, with the scammer pretending to be the customer."

It's common. The Washington Post says: "A security specialist said it has been a 'tradition for decades' for chief executives of big companies to hire private investigators to spy on colleagues, calling it a 'common power play.'"

It's easy. "All you need is the last four digits of a Social Security number and a correct ZIP code," a repossession investigator told the New York Times, and "you can view the bill."

It works. Hewlett-Packard's probe outed board member George Keyworth as the leaker who shared important business information with CNET.

It's unethical. At least according to a former president of a trade group, the National Council of Investigation and Security Services, quoted in the Times.

It's illegal. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act outlaws unauthorized attempts to gain personal nonpublic financial information. (Lawyers disagree on whether the ban applies to phone records.) Phone providers view pretexting as illegal and sue those who attempt it. This is why many investigators say they've stopped the practice. A bill in the California State Senate could make the offense a state crime punishable by up to a year in jail.

It got Patricia Dunn and superstar lawyer Larry Sonsini in trouble. As chairwoman of HP, Dunn authorized the leak investigation that included pretexting for phone records. Dunn now says she did not know of or authorize any pretexting. Also, the San Jose Mercury News obtained e-mails in which Larry Sonsini (outside counsel to HP) told former board member Tom Perkins that this investigation was legal.

The phone companies are fighting back. Most notably, Verizon is pushing against pretexters and other dealers in personal phone records. For example, the company settled with a records vendor who agreed to stop selling phone records and to share how they obtained those records.

This isn't the last scandal we'll hear. The president of one security company says that heads of Fortune 500 Companies hire "fly-by-night organizations" to do their dirty investigative work all the time. Now that a pretexting scandal is front-page news, expect investigative journalists to hunt down similar stories.

Pretexting [Wikipedia]
When a Stranger Calls, Beware of The Pretext [Washington Post]
An Industry Is Based on a Simple Masquerade [New York Times]