Friday 30 April 2010

gm crops in court trouble / russian health warning

.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100427/ts_alt_afp/uscourtcompanymonsantofarmbiotech

US Supreme Court eyes bar on Monsanto GM alfalfa

Tue Apr 27

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Supreme Court justices sounded skeptical Tuesday of a federal court decision blocking US biotech giant Monsanto's sale of genetically modified alfalfa because some farmers fear their crops will be contaminated.

A federal judge in California in May 2007 ruled in a finding upheld on appeal in 2009 to block the sale of Monsanto's GM alfalfa seeds.

The ruling also asked the USDA to carry out an environmental impact study which it had not done before giving a green light back in 2004 to the sale of these seeds.

Plaintiffs, who are organic farmers supported by organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, worry that genetically modified seeds will contaminate their crops.

Monsanto took the fight all the way to the highest court in the land, arguing that the federal court did not have authority to block the alfalfa seed sales.

In a hearing, justices had questions about whether the environmental impact could be addressed before the USDA had done an impact study.

Judge Antonin Scalia minimized potential risks saying, "This is not the contamination of the New York city water supply. This isn't the end of the world. It really isn't."


http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=3018

GM Crops Go to US High Court, Environmental Laws on the Line

Matthew Berger

WASHINGTON, 26 Apr (IPS) - The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in its first-ever case involving genetically modified crops. The decision in this case may have a significant impact on both the future of genetically modified foods and government oversight of that and other environmental issues.

The case, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, revolves around an herbicide-resistant alfalfa, the planting of which has been banned in the U.S. since a federal court prohibited the multinational Monsanto from selling the seeds in 2007.

That decision found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not do a thorough enough study of the impacts the GM alfalfa would have on human health and the environment and ordered the agency to do another environmental impact statement (EIS) review.

Though a draft was released in December, "there is no anticipated date" for the final EIS, Suzanne Bond, a spokeswoman with the USDA division charged with regulating GM organisms - the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - told IPS.

The law under which organic farmers were allowed to challenge USDA's oversight of the GM alfalfa, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), is what may suffer the most from the court's eventual decision, which is expected in June at the earliest. The law "requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision-making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions", said Bond.

It is also a key legal tool for environmental groups seeking to challenge those agencies' decisions. The vulnerability of NEPA is a key reason so many such groups have joined the plaintiffs by filing amicus briefs against Monsanto in this case.

The Centre for Biological Diversity, one of those groups, does not normally get involved in GM issues, said the Centre's Noah Greenwald, but this case "has broad implications for how governments do environmental analysis and when they need to prepare impact statements".

"The broader implications are why we got in this," he told IPS.

Doug Gurian-Sherman, who wrote several expert opinions for the earlier cases in lower courts and is a senior scientist at the food and environment programme of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has also filed an amicus brief, pointed to the need for the type of citizen oversight of the government's own oversight that is granted by statutes like NEPA.

"The big issue here is how much deference should be given to a regulatory agency and its expertise in doing its job versus how much access or deference should be given to the public in having the ability to challenge the agency in court," he said.

"The issue here then becomes how amenable is the Supreme Court going to be in terms of allowing citizens to bring suit against an agency that is not doing its job, and that I think is the gist of what this decision may be," he added.

But the legal implications are only half the story. Also implicated, at least potentially, is the future of GM crops in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In the original court case, organic farmers argued that the genes of the GM alfalfa would be carried to neighbouring - potentially miles away - non-GM alfalfa by the bees that pollinate the crop and that genetic contamination would hurt their ability to market their alfalfa under the label "organic". This would also preclude them from exporting to countries that prohibit GM crops.

"Consumers may not accept products cross-contaminated with genetically-engineered components and you can test for those and testing is done pretty routinely and therefore the market could reject the contaminated organic crops," explained Gurian-Sherman.

In addition to this economic impact, they have argued that the planting of the Roundup Ready alfalfa that is at issue here, used in conjunction with the Monsanto-made herbicide Roundup, may also lead to increased herbicide-resistance in weeds.

APHIS largely dismissed this as an issue in its original analysis, says Gurian-Sherman, "even though over the last couple years the incidence of resistant weeds and the economic impacts they're having largely contradicts APHIS's analysis."

Though questions over the environmental and economic impacts of growing GM crops have existed for decades, the issue remains extremely complicated from an ethical and health perspective. Depending on how broad the Supreme Court's decision ends up being, it could go a long way to deciding the fate of other GM crops.

A case on GM sugar beets is currently ongoing. The court has allowed plantings this year, but has reserved the right to prohibit them in the future. The USDA is in the midst of preparing a draft impact statement for both these sugar beets and a GM creeping bentgrass.

Gurian-Sherman has serious concerns about the agency's actions on GM crops generally. "There's been several indications beside this case that USDA has not been really doing an adequate job regulating genetically-engineered seed&As a scientist, having reviewed a number of environmental assessments that the agency has done, in my opinion they've often done a very lax, scientifically often unsupportable job in their analyses. It's not like they've been completely negligent, but in my opinion they've made a number of errors in either scientific reasoning or in their data or data analysis."

Since 1992, USDA's APHIS division has granted non-regulated status to GM plants in response to 80 petitions, according to Bond, including multiple varieties of corn, soybeans, cotton, rapeseed, potato, tomato, squash, papaya, plum, rice, sugar beet, tobacco, alfalfa, flax, and chicory.

Tuesday's decision may have a significant influence on how that list changes in the future.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201004250405/BUSINESS01/4250320

Biotech crops go before Supreme Court this week

By PHILIP BRASHER • pbrasher@dmreg.com •

April 25, 2010

Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Supreme Court is considering genetically engineered crops for the first time, in a case that has divided conventional and organic farmers.

The justices will hear oral arguments Tuesday on a lower court's ruling that halted the sale of biotech alfalfa seeds that were developed by Monsanto Co. and briefly sold to farmers after getting government approval.

The biotech industry, including Monsanto and Johnston-based Pioneer Hi-Bred, and organizations representing conventional farmers argue that the case could stifle the development of biotech crop varieties, unless the justices make it harder to block the sale of the seeds.

Farmers would be hesitant to start using some new biotech products if they're worried a court could stop the crop varieties after they've gone on the market, said Danielle Quist, an attorney for the American Farm Bureau Federation. "For farmers who want to use any sort of biotechnology trait, if they can't rely on a decision made by USDA to regulate a product that is put out there, then they may not want to use it," she said.

The impact on individual crops and companies could vary. Pioneer's biotech work focuses on corn and soybeans. Company officials say they are concerned about delays they are already seeing in getting new biotech crop varieties approved. But they also say they have improved the data they give the USDA and don't expect the court case itself to have a major impact.

Organic food companies, growers and environmental organizations say the federal government hasn't regulated the crops tightly enough. They say regulators are allowing biotech seeds to go on the market before enough is known about their impact on the environment or on farmers who have to keep their crops uncontaminated by gene-altered varieties.

Organic milk, one of the strongest products in the organic sector, is especially vulnerable, because farmers feed their cows alfalfa hay. A loss of organic hay would "irreparably cripple organic dairy producers," the industry groups said.

Dan Specht, who raises organic beef cattle near McGregor, is concerned that organic alfalfa seed and hay will be more expensive. "I can see in the future that it would be impossible to get pure seed," he said.

A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences said the proliferation of biotech crops had made it harder for farmers to produce organic and other non-biotech crops that were free from any contamination by genetically modified varieties.

Monsanto's biotech alfalfa is engineered to survive being treated with Roundup herbicide, making it easier for farmers to control weeds. Similar varieties of Roundup Ready soybeans, corn and cotton have been in wide use for years.

Some alfalfa seed growers are worried that their non-biotech crops would be contaminated by the biotech variety. They sued to end the sale of the gene-altered alfalfa, and a federal judge stopped the sale of the seeds in 2007, two years after the seeds went on the market. The judge ordered the USDA to do a more thorough environmental analysis of the crop's potential impact.

Among other things, the judge said USDA officials had failed to adequately consider whether farmers growing non-biotech alfalfa can protect their crops from cross-pollinating with the gene-altered variety.

The USDA has since finished the environmental study and is moving once again toward approving the crop for commercial use. But Monsanto says the judge was wrong to force the seeds off the market without investigating the issue itself and looking for a way to address the interests of farmers who wanted to keep buying the seeds.

Another judge recently ruled that the department's review of biotech sugar beets was insufficient. Like the alfalfa, the sugar beets are immune to Roundup. The rulings don't affect other Roundup-tolerant crops, including soybeans and corn.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the seed industry, the Farm Bureau and several commodity groups warned that such court rulings amount to de facto bans on biotechnology and "dramatically increase the degree of uncertainty surrounding the availability of genetically engineered crops."

Organic farmers can protect their crops from being contaminated with biotech varieties the same way growers of popcorn or seed corn have protected their crops from being cross-pollinated, such as by seeding fields so they pollinate at a different time than the neighboring crops.

"Agriculture has successfully managed these things for decades," said Jeff Rowe, vice president of biotech affairs for Pioneer.

The problem for the organic industry is that while federal rules don't require organic crops to be free of biotech contamination, some companies do, and that forces organic farmers to keep their crops as pure as possible.

Before the court order blocked the sale of the alfalfa variety, 5,550 growers planted the seed on 236,000 acres nationwide, according to Monsanto. Alfalfa is typically grown on about 23 million acres.

The biotech seeds won't be for everyone, even if they go back on the market. One of the farmers who tried them was Dick Kleis, a dairy producer near Zwingle, south of Dubuque. He said the seeds worked just as advertised.

He sprayed the field with Roundup after planting and wiped out the weeds. The only problem is that the absence of weeds left some of the ground around the young alfalfa exposed and soil washed away, he said. Now, he just lets his young cattle graze on the weeds that come up, and once the alfalfa matures, additional weeds don't have a place to grow.

"I have a really good (alfalfa) stand that I'm looking at right now that's not Roundup Ready," he said, as he talked on his cell phone from his fields. "It's beautiful. I don't see a weed in it."


http://www.celsias.com/article/ex-monsanto-lawyer-clarence-thomas-hear-major-mons/

Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case

Celcias, March 11, 2010

In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto's third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.

Here's where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.

Stephen Breyer
Charles Breyer, the judge who ruled in the original decision of 2007 which is being appealed, is Stephen Breyer's brother, who apparently views this as a conflict of interest and has recused himself.

Clarence Thomas
From the years 1976 - 1979, Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. Thomas apparently does not see this as a conflict of interest and has not recused himself.

Fox, meet henhouse.

(...)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.rense.com/general90/soy.htm

GM Soy Linked To Sterility, Infant Mortality

Jeffrey Smith
4-26-10
"This study was just routine," said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov, in what could end up as the understatement of this century. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. What he discovered may uproot a multi-billion dollar industry.
After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.
And if this isn't shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths - a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.
The study, jointly conducted by Surov's Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Association for Gene Security, is expected to be published in three months (July 2010) --so the technical details will have to wait. But Surov sketched out the basic set up for me in an email.
He used Campbell hamsters, with a fast reproduction rate, divided into 4 groups. All were fed a normal diet, but one was without any soy, another had non-GM soy, a third used GM soy, and a fourth contained higher amounts of GM soy. They used 5 pairs of hamsters per group, each of which produced 7-8 litters, totally 140 animals.
Surov told The Voice of Russia,
"Originally, everything went smoothly. However, we noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs' growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly."
He selected new pairs from each group, which generated another 39 litters. There were 52 pups born to the control group and 78 to the non-GM soy group. In the GM soy group, however, only 40 pups were born. And of these, 25% died. This was a fivefold higher death rate than the 5% seen among the controls. Of the hamsters that ate high GM soy content, only a single female hamster gave birth. She had 16 pups; about 20% died.
Surov said "The low numbers in F2 [third generation] showed that many animals were sterile."
The published paper will also include measurements of organ size for the third generation animals, including testes, spleen, uterus, etc. And if the team can raise sufficient funds, they will also analyze hormone levels in collected blood samples.
Hair Growing in the Mouth
Earlier this year, Surov co-authored a paper in Doklady Biological Sciences showing that in rare instances, hair grows inside recessed pouches in the mouths of hamsters.
"Some of these pouches contained single hairs; others, thick bundles of colorless or pigmented hairs reaching as high as the chewing surface of the teeth. Sometimes, the tooth row was surrounded with a regular brush of hair bundles on both sides. The hairs grew vertically and had sharp ends, often covered with lumps of a mucous."
(The photos of these hair bundles are truly disgusting. Trust me, or look for yourself.)
At the conclusion of the study, the authors surmise that such an astounding defect may be due to the diet of hamsters raised in the laboratory. They write, "This pathology may be exacerbated by elements of the food that are absent in natural food, such as genetically modified (GM) ingredients (GM soybean or maize meal) or contaminants (pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, etc.)." Indeed, the number of hairy mouthed hamsters was much higher among the third generation of GM soy fed animals than anywhere Surov had seen before.
Preliminary, but Ominous
Surov warns against jumping to early conclusions. He said, "It is quite possible that the GMO does not cause these effects by itself." Surov wants to make the analysis of the feed components a priority, to discover just what is causing the effect and how.
In addition to the GMOs, it could be contaminants, he said, or higher herbicide residues, such as Roundup. There is in fact much higher levels of Roundup on these beans; they're called "Roundup Ready." Bacterial genes are forced into their DNA so that the plants can tolerate Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. Therefore, GM soy always carries the double threat of higher herbicide content, couple with any side effects of genetic engineering.
Years of Reproductive Disorders from GMO-Feed
Surov's hamsters are just the latest animals to suffer from reproductive disorders after consuming GMOs. In 2005, Irina Ermakova, also with the Russian National Academy of Sciences, reported that more than half the babies from mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks. This was also five times higher than the 10% death rate of the non-GMO soy group. The babies in the GM group were also smaller (see photo) and could not reproduce.
In a telling coincidence, after Ermakova's feeding trials, her laboratory started feeding all the rats in the facility a commercial rat chow using GM soy. Within two months, the infant mortality facility-wide reached 55%.
When Ermakova fed male rats GM soy, their testicles changed from the normal pink to dark blue! Italian scientists similarly found changes in mice testes (PDF), including damaged young sperm cells. Furthermore, the DNA of embryos from parent mice fed GM soy functioned differently.
An Austrian government study published in November 2008 showed that the more GM corn was fed to mice, the fewer the babies they had (PDF), and the smaller the babies were.
Central Iowa Farmer Jerry Rosman also had trouble with pigs and cows becoming sterile. Some of his pigs even had false pregnancies or gave birth to bags of water. After months of investigations and testing, he finally traced the problem to GM corn feed. Every time a newspaper, magazine, or TV show reported Jerry's problems, he would receive calls from more farmers complaining of livestock sterility on their farm, linked to GM corn.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine accidentally discovered that rats raised on corncob bedding "neither breed nor exhibit reproductive behavior." Tests on the corn material revealed two compounds that stopped the sexual cycle in females "at concentrations approximately two-hundredfold lower than classical phytoestrogens." One compound also curtailed male sexual behavior and both substances contributed to the growth of breast and prostate cancer cell cultures. Researchers found that the amount of the substances varied with GM corn varieties. The crushed corncob used at Baylor was likely shipped from central Iowa, near the farm of Jerry Rosman and others complaining of sterile livestock.
In Haryana, India, a team of investigating veterinarians report that buffalo consuming GM cottonseed suffer from infertility, as well as frequent abortions, premature deliveries, and prolapsed uteruses. Many adult and young buffalo have also died mysteriously.
Denial, Attack and Canceled Follow-up
Scientists who discover adverse findings from GMOs are regularly attacked, ridiculed, denied funding, and even fired. When Ermakova reported the high infant mortality among GM soy fed offspring, for example, she appealed to the scientific community to repeat and verify her preliminary results. She also sought additional funds to analyze preserved organs. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Samples were stolen from her lab, papers were burnt on her desk, and she said that her boss, under pressure from his boss, told her to stop doing any more GMO research. No one has yet repeated Ermakova's simple, inexpensive studies.
In an attempt to offer her sympathy, one of her colleagues suggested that maybe the GM soy will solve the over population problem!
Surov reports that so far, he has not been under any pressure.
Opting Out of the Massive GMO Feeding Experiment
Without detailed tests, no one can pinpoint exactly what is causing the reproductive travesties in Russian hamsters and rats, Italian and Austrian mice, and livestock in India and America. And we can only speculate about the relationship between the introduction of genetically modified foods in 1996, and the corresponding upsurge in low birth weight babies, infertility, and other problems among the US population.
But many scientists, physicians, and concerned citizens don't think that the public should remain the lab animals for the biotech industry's massive uncontrolled experiment.Alexey Surov says, "We have no right to use GMOs until we understand the possible adverse effects, not only to ourselves but to future generations as well. We definitely need fully detailed studies to clarify this. Any type of contamination has to be tested before we consume it, and GMO is just one of them."

see: Russia says genetically modified foods are harmful
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.naturalnews.com/028585_GMOs_Bayer.html

Bayer admits GMO contamination out of control

Thursday, April 15, 2010
David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Drug and chemical giant Bayer AG has admitted that there is no way to stop the uncontrolled spread of its genetically modified crops.

"Even the best practices can't guarantee perfection," said Mark Ferguson, the company's defense lawyer in a recent trial.

Two Missouri farmers sued Bayer for contaminating their crop with modified genes from an experimental strain of rice engineered to be resistant to the company's Liberty-brand herbicide. The contamination occurred in 2006, during an open field test of the new rice, which was not approved for human consumption. According to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Don Downing, genetic material from the unapproved rice contaminated more than 30 percent of all rice cropland in the United States.

"Bayer was supposed to be careful," Downing said. "Bayer was not careful and that rice did escape into our commercial rice supplies."

The plaintiffs alleged that in addition to contaminating their fields, Bayer further harmed them financially by undermining their export market. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the widespread rice contamination, important export markets were closed to U.S. producers. A report from Greenpeace International estimates the financial damage of the contamination at between $741 million and $1.3 billion.

Bayer claimed that there was no possible way it could have prevented the contamination, insisting that it followed not only the law but also the best industry practices. The jury disagreed, finding Bayer guilty of carelessness in handling the genetically modified crops. The company was ordered to pay farmers Kenneth Bell and Johnny Hunter $2 million.

"This is a huge victory, not only for Kenny and me, but for every farmer in America who was harmed by Bayer's LibertyLink rice contamination," Hunter said.

According to Hunter, the company got "the wake-up call they deserved."

Bayer is still being sued by more than 1,000 other farmers from Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Sources for this story include: www.organicconsumers.org; www.bloomberg.com.

uk: lib dem want legal cannabis

.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1269649/General-Election-2010-Lib-Dems-secret-plan-high-street-cannabis-cafes.html

Lib Dems' secret plan for high street cannabis cafes

James Slack

29th April 2010

Cannabis cafes would be permitted under secret Liberal Democrat plans.

A leaked policy document calls for the decriminalisation of the drug in an approach even more radical than Amsterdam’s.

The paper also suggests allowing possession of cannabis, social supply to adults and cultivation of the plants for personal use.

It follows an internal party vote that commits the Lib Dems to making it ‘no longer a crime for the occupier or manager of premises to permit someone to use cannabis on those premises’.

The party’s constitution binds its leaders – in power – to implement votes carried at annual conferences.

The Tories, who unearthed the policy document, said the policy would go further than the Dutch model of turning a blind eye to ‘cannabis coffee shops’.

Cafe owners could allow customers to smoke the drug outside or buy ‘hash brownies’ and vaporised cannabis.

Chris Grayling, Tory Shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘Lib Dem policy on drugs is deeply worrying.

‘When you look at the detail of what they want to do it’s quite clear that they want to be soft on crime and want to sign up to more and more powers from Brussels.

‘I have spoken to countless people whose lives have been wrecked by hard drugs.’

Nick Clegg has also come under fire for suggesting heroin and other drugs should made legally available.

The Liberal Democrat leader claimed that criminalising drug use was restricting ‘individual freedom and civil liberties’ – and argued that drug offences should not lead to jail.

While serving as an MEP, Mr Clegg complained it was unfair that drug users were being pushed to the fringes of society.

He said heroin – currently a Class A substance – should be made available to addicts under medical supervision.

He signed a motion calling on EU member states ‘to take measures to make the fight against organised crime and trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances more effective, by establishing a system of legal control and regulation of production, sale and use of currently illegal substances’.

Last night, a Lib Dem spokesman said: ‘We will always base drugs policy on the independent scientific advice of experts.’

  • The Liberal Democrats are on course to see their number of MPs soar at Labour's expense, a poll revealed yesterday. The ICM/Guardian poll shows the party's vote is increasing more strongly in Labour-held marginal seats than in Conservative ones. They could end the election with 80 MPs - the most since 1923.

intel updates:7/7/kyrgystan/afpak/telecom/fatah/india

.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8649577.stm

MI5 files on 7/7 attacks 'impossible' to access

28 April 2010

It would be "impossible" to reveal secret MI5 files about the 7/7 London terror attacks, a court has been told.

The claim has been made at a hearing to decide the format of inquests into the deaths of those killed in 2005. Lawyers for the families of those who died argue the hearing should also look at whether the intelligence services could have prevented the attacks.

Counsel for the home secretary and MI5 argued examining MI5's involvement was outside the scope of the inquests. Four suicide bombers detonated their devices on three Tube trains and one bus killing 52 innocent people.

It emerged after the attacks that security agencies came across two of the bombers in 2004 while investigating other terrorist plots.

Developed vetting

But they were not considered to be of sufficient interest to be put under surveillance.The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice heard there would be no problem with providing highly sensitive intelligence material to the coroner and counsel to the inquests.

But any jurors could only see the material if they all underwent intrusive "developed vetting" and neither the bereaved families nor their lawyers would be allowed to see it.

Neil Garnham QC, counsel for the home secretary and MI5, said the two official reports about the attacks by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) - made up of security-cleared MPs - had adequately investigated MI5's involvement.

He added there was "overwhelming" public interest in not having top secret MI5 documents revealed in the hearings.

The coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, asked whether it would be possible to restrict the intelligence material discussed in the inquests to that related to the 7 July attacks.

She said: "The families want to know why the decisions were taken in the way they were, and to put questions."

But Mr Garnham suggested a problem would arise because it was necessary to put the decision not to place the 7 July bombers under surveillance in context of all the other investigations MI5 was carrying out at the time.

He said: "It is difficult to see how that can be done without, metaphorically speaking, handing over the keys to Thames House." The coroner also revealed she went on the internet to read conspiracy theories about the attacks. The hearing continues.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/77-court-told-mi5-deceived-mps-1955727.html

7/7 court told MI5 deceived MPs

Sam Marsden, Press Association

27 April 2010

MI5 deceived MPs by claiming the July 7 bombers had not been identified before carrying out their deadly attacks, a court heard today.

In May 2006 the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said security agencies came across two of the men in 2004 during other investigations but did not identify them.

But a second ISC report, published in May 2009, revealed that the police and MI5 in fact held a series of records relating to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the 2005 London bombings.

A hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to decide the format of the inquests for those killed in the attacks was told that MI5 misled the British public.

Patrick O'Connor QC, counsel for four of the bereaved families and 15 survivors, said: "This is a serious allegation to make.

"The last time MI5 was accused of deception... the ceiling seemed to fall in, as if MI5 is incapable of deception. They aren't, and they deceived the ISC."

He went on: "MI5 left the ISC under this misunderstanding - and therefore the British public - for three years, thinking they had not identified Mohammad Sidique Khan before the 7/7 bombings."

He said the ISC's findings would be "deeply undermined" if MI5 had deliberately misled the committee.

Mr O'Connor strongly criticised MI5's involvement in the July 7 case, saying the agency demonstrated flaws in its assessment policy, record-keeping and co-operation with other agencies.

He said of the second ISC report: "We submit that by contrast with its simple conclusion exonerating MI5, the material detailed in it exposes a profound criticism of MI5 and raises many more questions than answers...

"Those criticisms may well arguably become very considerably more powerful upon a proper analysis of the primary material."

Khan and three other suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 innocent people when they detonated their devices on three Tube trains and one bus on July 7 2005.

The coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, is holding a three-day legal hearing to decide what form the inquests - expected to start in October - should take.

Lawyers for the families of those who died argue that they should include a broad-ranging investigation of whether the authorities could have prevented the attacks.

Neil Garnham QC, counsel for the Home Secretary and MI5, urged the coroner not to examine how the security service dealt with the limited information it had about the bombers before the attacks.

He argued that the ISC report was an "effective investigation" into MI5's involvement.

He said: "The public interest would, we submit, not be served - in fact would be positively damaged - by attempts in these inquests to reinvestigate the matters that were before the ISC."

Mr Garnham also suggested that national security could be damaged if the inquests attempted to delve deeper into MI5's activities.

He said: "Nothing more of the information revealed to the ISC by the security service can safely be put into the public domain or disclosed to the interested parties than is revealed by that ISC report." The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/01-448/

Russian intelligence arrests, extradites fmr Kyrgyz interior minister

April 26, 2010

JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

If there were any doubts that Russia is aggressively courting the new interim government in Kyrgyzstan, they were dispelled earlier today with the announcement that Russian authorities arrested the Central Asian republic’s former interior minister. Kyrgyzstan’s National Security State Service (NSSS) announced that Moldomusa Kongantiyev was arrested on Sunday in Moscow, by agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and will be extradited to Bishkek, where he will face charges of using state repression against demonstrators. Kongantiyev had escaped to Russia in mid-April, after he was abducted and viciously beaten by Kyrgyz opposition demonstrators, who released him after his family paid a significant amount of money as ransom. IntelNews hears that Kongantiyev suspected that Moscow planned to extradite him to Kyrgyzstan, and that some of the supporters of the deposed regime in Russia offered to hide him. But their attempt to smuggle him out of a hospital in Moscow, where he was receiving medical care, was thwarted by the FSB, after a tip from NSSS. Kongantiyev is the most senior cabinet member of the toppled regime of Kurmanbek Bakiyev to have been arrested so far. Bakiyev himself has escaped with his family to close Russian ally Belarus, where he has been offered political asylum. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, the former Kyrgyz president denied he had plans to return to Kyrgyzstan, or to form a government-in-exile. Russia was among the first countries to recognize the interim government of Roza Otunbayeva, and has dramatically increased its monetary aid to the impoverished Central Asian nation. Both Russia and the United States, which maintains a strategically crucial air base in Kyrgyzstan, have been courting the interim government, which says it plans to hold free elections on October 10.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/02-305/

Abduction of former Pakistani ISI officials raises questions

April 24, 2010IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |

Questions are being raised about the reported abduction of two well-known veterans of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, who appear to have been kidnapped by an unknown group in Pakistan’s remote tribal regions. The two are Khalid Khawaja and Sultan Amir Tarar, a.k.a. Colonel Imam. Khawaja, a retired ISI officer, was a critical mediator between the CIA and Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, during the al-Qaeda’s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Colonel Imam, also a former intelligence officer and a diplomat, was the ISI handler of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in the 1980s and early 1990s. Both Khawaja and Imam are considered senior members of the ISI’s ‘old guard’, who have strong ideological sympathies for both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and frequently voice support for the latter. Last February, Colonel Imam called on the US to strive for a political settlement with the Taliban, by directly negotiating with Mullah Omar. The two were apparently abducted in March, while accompanying British-Pakistani film producer Asad Qureshi on a documentary tour of Pakistan’s Waziristan province. A few days ago, a video was emailed to Pakistani media by an unknown group calling itself Asian Tigers, showing Qureshi, Khawaja, and Colonel Imam, and calling for the release of imprisoned Taliban commanders Mullah Abdul Kabir, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Ironically, both Imam and Khawaja have publicly campaigned for Baradar’s release, a fact which raises questions among some observers about the authenticity of the video showing the alleged abductees.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/30/jihadi-activist-executed-taliban-group

Taliban splinter group executes Pakistani spy turned jihadi

Asian Tigers faction dumps Khalid Khawaja's body in North Waziristan, raising fears over fate of two other hostages

Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Friday 30 April 2010

Khalid Khawaja pictured in June 2007

Khalid Khawaja pictured in June 2007. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

A Taliban splinter group in the tribal belt has executed a former intelligence officer and prominent jihadi activist, raising fears for two other hostages being held by the same group.

Khalid Khawaja's body was found dumped by the road near Mir Ali, a notorious centre of militant activity in North Waziristan.

Khawaja, a retired Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agent, had been shot in the head and chest. A note pinned to his body warned that other "American spies" would face a similar fate.

A previously unknown group named Asian Tigers claimed responsibility in an email to the Guardian titled "khalid khawaja (episode is over)". It read: "Khalid Khwaja is no more ... We have given the deadline in order to approve our demands. The ISI and government didn't take it serious. This is the last warning to set your minds. What would be the next?"

Khawaja was a retired Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official who boasted of his links with Osama bin Laden. He was kidnapped just over a month ago while travelling with another well known ex-ISI official, Colonel Imam, and Asad Qureshi, a journalist. Their fate is not known.

The militants recently sent the Guardian hostage videos of the three men from the same email address. Asian Tigers is believed to be a cover name for a group of Punjabi sectarian militants belonging to the notorious Lashkar I Jhangvi group.

In recent weeks sectarian attacks on Shias have increased in the tribal belt, including one against a UN aid distribution centre. Asian Tigers is demanding the release of dozens of militant prisoners in Afghanistan in return for hostages, stoking suspicions that it has links with a larger Taliban group.

Colonel Imam, whose real name is Sultan Amir Tarar, trained jihadi fighters with CIA funding in the 1980s and helped nurture the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the 1990s. He is widely referred to as the "father of the Taliban".

The three men entered North Waziristan in late March on a mission to meet and film Taliban groups. Before leaving Islamabad Khawaja told journalists he had proof that the Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, had survived a CIA drone attack last January – something that a senior ISI official confirmed to the Guardian this week. Khawaja may have promised Qureshi, the journalist, that he would broker a meeting with Mehsud.

Khawaja occupied a prominent, if ambiguous, position in the murky world of Pakistan's jihadi politics. He boasted of being a close associate of Osama bin Laden during the 1980s; last year he said he brokered a meeting between Bin Laden and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in 1990 with a view to ousting the government of then prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

After retiring from the ISI Khawaja became a prominent champion of jihadist causes and, when necessary, turned against his former spymasters. He spent time in jail after the Red Mosque siege in central Islamabad in 2007.

He became a human rights activist of sorts, championing the rights of the "disappeared" – Islamist suspects who had been illegally abducted, detained and sometimes tortured by Pakistani intelligence, often at the behest of the CIA and, less frequently, MI6.

But by several accounts he was playing a complex game – one that appears to have caught up with him.

In his hostage video Khawaja said he was secretly working for the ISI during the Red Mosque crisis and helped engineer the arrest of Maulana Abdul Aziz, an extremist cleric who was caught fleeing the mosque wearing a woman's burqa.

Ali Dayan Hasan, a Human Rights Watch researcher who had worked with Khawaja, described him as an ambiguous operator who balanced an implacable belief in jihadist causes with a concern for the plight of those victimised by the "war on terror".

"He made an essential contribution in bringing to attention the disappearances by the Pakistani intelligence agencies at the behest of the US authorities – whatever his motivations," Hasan said.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20002986-245.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.0

April 21, 2010

Legal spying via the cell phone system

Elinor Mills

Two researchers say they have found a way to exploit weaknesses in the mobile telecom system to legally spy on people by figuring out the private cell phone number of anyone they want, tracking their whereabouts, and listening to their voice mail.

Independent security researcher Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey, a security consultant with iSec Partners, planned to provide details in a talk entitled "We Found Carmen San Diego" at the Source Boston security conference on Wednesday.

"There are a lot of fragile eggs in the telecom industry and they can be broken," Bailey said in an interview with CNET. "We assume the telecom industry protects our privacy. But we've been able to crack the eggs and piece them together."

The first part of the operation involves getting a target's cell phone number from a public database that links names to numbers for caller ID purposes. DePetrillo used open-source PBX software to spoof the outgoing caller ID and then automated phone calls to himself, triggering the system to force a name lookup.

"We log that information and associate it with a phone number in a (caller ID) database," DePetrillo said. "We created software that iterates through these numbers and can crawl the entire phone database in the U.S. within a couple of weeks... We have done whole cities and pulled thousands of records."

"It's not illegal, nor is it a breach of terms of service," Bailey said.

Next up is matching the phone number with a geographic location. The SS7 (Signaling System) public switched network routes calls around the world and uses what's called the Home Location Register to log the whereabouts of numbers so networks can hand calls off to one another, DePetrillo said. Individual phones are registered to mobile switching centers within specific geographic regions and they are logged in to that main register, he said.

Only telecom providers are supposed to have access to the location register, but small telcos in the EU are offering online access to it for a fee, mostly to companies using it for marketing data and cost projections, according to DePetrillo.

"Using previous research on the subject as a starting point, we've developed a way to map these mobile switching center numbers to caller ID information to determine what city and even what part of a city a phone number is in" at any given moment, he said. "I can watch a phone number travel to different mobile switching centers. If I know your phone number, I can track your whereabouts globally."

For instance, the researchers were able to track a German journalist talking to a confidential informant in Serbia and follow his travels back to Germany, as well as obtain the informant's phone number, Bailey said.

Bailey said he had contacted telecom providers with the information on how industry outsiders were able to get to information believed to be privileged to the providers, but said the hands of GSM providers in the U.S. are tied.

"The attack is based on the assumption of how the networks work worldwide," he said. "For interoperability and peer sake, the larger providers in the U.S. have to hand out the information to other providers."

Asked what cell phone users can do to protect themselves, Bailey said, "people are just going to have to be made aware of the threat."

It's also relatively easy to access other people's voice mail, a service that's been around for years from providers like SlyDial. They operate by making two nearly simultaneous calls to a target number, one of which disconnects before it is picked up and another that goes straight into voice mail because of the earlier call. This enables the caller to go directly to voice mail without the phone ringing. DePetrillo and Bailey re-created that functionality for purposes of their legal spying scenario.

"If I want to find Brad Pitt, I find his number using the caller ID database, use Home Location Register access to figure out what provider he has. T-Mobile is vulnerable to voice mail spoofing so I get into his voice mail and listen to his messages," said DePetrillo. "But I can also have the system tell me the numbers of the callers and I can take those numbers and look them up in the caller ID database and use the Home Location Register system to find their providers and break into their voice mail, and so on."

This can allow someone to make a social web of people, their cell numbers, the context of their voice mail, and their relationships to others, he said.

"These attack scenarios are applicable to corporations and individual users alike," DePetrillo said. "Corporations specifically should start to take a look at their security policies for executives as this can impact a business very hard, with insider trading, tracking of executives, etc."

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/01-441/

Comment: Is Palestinian Fatah Spying for Israel?

April 18, 2010

Mohammed Dahlan

Dahlan

JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

Gaza-based Palestinian movement Hamas has again accused a senior official of rival Palestinian group Fatah of spying for Israel. Speaking last week from Damascus, Syria, Hamas official Mohammed Nazal said that Fatah Central Committee member Mohammed Dahlan, who has been tipped for the post of Vice President in Fatah-controlled Palestinian National Authority, is actively gathering information on behalf of Israeli intelligence. Nazal said Hamas received a tip-off about Dahlan from a former security officer in the Palestinian National Authority, who appears to have defected to Hamas. The unnamed informant reportedly met with Hamas defense officials on Friday, and told them that Dahlan had asked him to “collect detailed information” about the March 26 execution of two Palestinians, who were accused by Hamas of working for Israeli intelligence. He also claimed that Dahlan showed him a lengthy list of known Hamas operatives and asked him to determine the precise location of their residences in the Gaza strip.

The allegations concerning Mohammed Dahlan’s rumored contacts with Israeli and Western intelligence agencies go back several years. Until 2006, Dahlan, a.k.a. Abu Fadi, was the charismatic leader of Fatah in the Gaza strip. But in the civil strife that followed Hamas’ 2006 election success, Dahlan –a fluent Hebrew-speaker– was expelled from Gaza, along with his extensive network of operatives. Two years later, Vanity Fair reported that Dahlan led an aborted CIA-funded coup against Hamas, which involved extensive CIA paramilitary training, and formed the basis of the CIA’s current presence in the West Bank.

IntelNews has previously reported on the increasingly close collaboration between Fatah and Israeli or American security agencies. Last August, it emerged that Israeli Shin Bet operatives were providing political security for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad during their official trips around the West Bank. In December of last year, British newspaper The Guardian alleged that the Fatah-controlled General Intelligence service and the Preventive Security Service were working so closely with the CIA, that some American intelligence officers “consider them as their property”.

Less than a month later, there were reports of three Palestinians having allegedly assisted Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to assassinate Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. It is worth noting that all three were arrested by Emirati and Jordanian authorities, who have little sympathy for Hamas. The three arrestees included two Palestinian ‘businessmen’ in Dubai, who are known to belong to Fatah’s network of operatives, as well as Ahmad Hasnin, a Fatah intelligence officer.

The latest accusations by Hamas against Mohammed Dahlan should be considered within the context of the increasingly close collaboration between Fatah, the CIA, and Israeli security agencies. Admittedly, it is difficult to imagine someone like Dahlan working alongside the Shin Bet, the same agency that imprisoned him nearly a dozen times in the 1980s. On the other hand, close observers of the deepening political rift between Hamas and Fatah would admit that this scenario appears more likely as the Hamas-Fatah rivalry deepens. Both factions now routinely direct considerable portions of their security apparatus on each other. It is easy to see how US and Israeli intelligence agencies would be very interested in having a share in Fatah’s intelligence exploits in the Gaza strip.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/01-450/

Political wiretap scandal erupts in India

April 28, 2010

IAN ALEN | intelNews.org |

A major scandal has erupted in India, with the revelation last weekend that government intelligence services have monitored the telecommunications of senior political figures since at least 2006. Indian newsmagazine Outlook, which is published nationwide, reported on Sunday that the left leaning government of the United Progressive Alliance and the Indian National Congress ordered intelligence officers to tap the telephone communications of several politicians. The list allegedly included Bihar state chief minister Nitish Kumar, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat, and minister for agriculture Sharad Pawar. According to Outlook, the government also used powerful communications interception hardware to “listen in on the conversations of opposition leaders during the July 2008 no-confidence motion on the Indo-US nuclear deal”. The deal between Washington and New Delhi prompted the resignation of the CPI(M) from India’s governing alliance. The magazine quotes a senior intelligence official, who says that the tappers intercepted targeted telecommunications signals exchanged between cell phones and cell phone towers, which apparently voided the standard requirement for official court warrants. Speaking on Monday, Indian interior minister Palaniappan Chidamabaram vouched that a government investigation of the scandal will be conducted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/7633926/Indian-intelligence-agencies-bugged-senior-politicians.html

Indian intelligence agencies bugged senior politicians

India's opposition has warned that democracy is in danger following allegations that senior politicians' telephones had been tapped by the government's intelligence agencies.


26 Apr 2010

India's opposition Bharatiya Janata Party senior leader L.K.  Advani: Indian intelligence agencies bugged senior politicians
India's opposition Bharatiya Janata Party senior leader L.K. Advani Photo: AP

The agents secretly listened in to mobile telephone conversations of leading public figures have united opposition rivals and plunged the government into a new scandal at a crucial time, it has been claimed.

"Democracy has to be defended," L K Advani, a veteran leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told the lower house of parliament, which was repeatedly adjourned amid uproar on the opposition benches.

"This house will not be satisfied until the prime minister comes to the house and makes a statement," Mr Advani added, demanding new legislation to prevent such abuses of personal privacy.

P Chidamabaram, Home Minister, promised a probe into the scandal, which surfaced in a magazine last week.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to address the issue in parliament on Monday

The magazine Outlook was the first to report that intelligence officers had been tapping the phones of politicians including Sharad Pawar, the Agriculture Minister, Prakash Karat, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary, and Nitish Kumar, the Bihar state chief minister.

The latest controversy threatens to further sap the left-leaning government at a time when it is looking to pass key legislation.

It is seeking support from its allies for a possible no-confidence vote over high food prices, as well as passing the budget and other key bills, and has been embroiled for the last two weeks in a cricket scandal.

Shashi Tharoo, the Junior Foreign Minister, resigned a week ago after it was disclosed that his girlfriend had been given a free stake worth 15 million dollars in an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team based in his state.

The opposition charged that this was a kickback for his role in putting together the consortium that bought the franchise in the southern city of Kochi. Mr Tharoor denies all wrongdoing.

The government has a comfortable majority in parliament but has struggled to push through its legislative programme in the face of rising food and fuel prices, Maoist violence and the IPL scandal.

Other opposition parties also decried the alleged phone tapping as an assault on democratic and civil rights.

"We are not living in a military regime," Communist Party of India national secretary D. Raja told reporters at the weekend.

Mr Advani said the phone tapping reports recalled the time when former Indian Congress premier Indira Gandhi clamped a state of emergency on the country in 1975, censoring the press and jailing hundreds of opposition politicians.

"We must ensure there is no such emergency (rule) in the country," Mr Advani said.


http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265191


phone-tapping exclusive

We, The Eavesdropped

The government has been tapping the cellphone conversations of these prominent political leaders

Saikat Datta

Digvijay Singh, Congress general secretary
February 2007
Digvijay Singh was driving from his house in South Avenue through Sardar Marg Patel having a conversation on his cellphone with a Congress leader from Punjab. The two were discussing possible candidates for 2007 chapter of the Congress Working Committee elections, which are held every three years. The leader from Punjab was seeking Digvijay’s support for his possible candidature. Unknown to them, their entire conversation was being tapped and filed in a computer system. Digvijay had this to say about the surveillance: “I think it is illegal and unethical.”

Nitish Kumar, Bihar chief minister
October 2007
The Bihar CM was on his way in his official car from Bihar Bhavan in Chanakyapuri to South Block for a meeting when his conversation—on a cellphone belonging to the then Bihar resident commissioner, who was travelling with him—was tapped. Nitish was discussing with a colleague how to get more funds from the Centre for his state. Other related issues like projects on the Kosi river also figured in his call.

Sharad Pawar, Union agriculture minister
April 2010
Discussions between the minister and IPL commissioner Lalit Modi were tapped and taped last fortnight in the wake of the scandal in the cricket league. The recorded conversations allegedly threw up inside details of the deals that were struck in the bidding process for the various teams.

Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary
July 2008
The cellphones of Opposition leaders were tapped to ascertain their plans regarding the Indo-US nuclear deal and the consequent no-confidence motion in Parliament at the time. Karat was targeted since he was leading the charge against the UPA government.

M.K. Narayanan, Then NSA
He was instrumental in bringing the new tapping technology to India in 2005-06. During a demonstration at an NTRO facility in Delhi on Jan 7, ’06, his phone was tapped successfully.

***

In February 2007, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh was on his cellphone with a party leader from Punjab. With Congress Working Committee (CWC) elections due soon, the Punjab leader was discussing his possible candidature. Neither was aware that the conversation was being tapped and taped. In fact, a team from the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), an intelligence agency created in the aftermath of the Kargil war to cover all aspects of technical intelligence-gathering, was monitoring the conversation. The call was recorded, logged and filed away.

Likewise, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s mobile phone was tapped during an official visit to Delhi in October 2007. The call was intercepted while he was going in his official car from Bihar Bhavan in Chanakyapuri. Sources familiar with the interception say Nitish had called a colleague in Delhi seeking his help to lobby with the Planning Commission for more funds for Bihar. The CM was using the phone of the then Bihar resident commissioner who was with him. He also discussed certain projects for flood relief, and spoke about a project related to river Kosi. Currently a close aide of Nitish Kumar, the resident commissioner categorically confirmed to Outlook that the Bihar CM did make such a call and that he had this discussion.

Digvijay expressed surprise when Outlook sought his comment. While he couldn’t recall the exact details of his conversation, he conceded that there was a distinct possibility of it having taken place. It is a matter of fact that the CWC elections were due later that year. The CWC nominations and elections are held every three years. They were held last in 2007 and are due again in the latter half of 2010.

“The conversation may have taken place,” Digvijay told Outlook. “But I think this is very disturbing. I am very surprised to know that the government has been eavesdropping on political leaders, which I think is illegal and unethical.” While he wondered how such tapping could go on in a government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh, he felt that modern (surveillance) technology should be used only for national security.

Both Digvijay and Nitish’s phones were tapped using the new off-the-air GSM monitoring device, which can track and tap into any cellphone conversation within a two-km radius. Nor have Digvijay and Nitish been the sole victims of such tapping. The device, sources say, was used extensively to listen in on the conversations of opposition leaders during the July 2008 no-confidence motion on the Indo-US nuclear deal. One intelligence agency targeted some leaders of the Left Front, including CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, to fathom the Left’s strategy to bring down the government. More recently, in fact last fortnight, the conversation between IPL commissioner Lalit Modi and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was tapped and allegedly used to pressurise Pawar to call for Modi’s resignation.

“The whole system works on deniability,” a senior intelligence official told Outlook. “It can be deployed anywhere. We don’t need to show any authorisation since we’re not tapping a phone number at the exchange but intercepting signals between the phone and the cellphone tower and recording them on a hard disk. If too many questions are asked, we can remove the disk and erase the conversation. No one gets to know.”

Outlook has also learnt that an air vice marshal, then posted as an air defence commander in the Western Air Command, was put under similar surveillance. The officer’s cellphone, besides those of his wife and other family members, was tapped for several weeks in the early half of 2006. Ironically, the air vice marshal also applied for a position in the NTRO as a joint secretary since he had been overlooked for promotion by the air force.