SpyTalk: July 18, 2010 - July 24, 2010

Russian spy pitched private intelligence firm

The head of a private intelligence-gathering and publishing firm has come forward to say his firm was approached by one of the Russian spies.

By Jeff Stein  | July 23, 2010; 4:43 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Financial/business, Intelligence  
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Intelligence oversight panels dodge contractor reform

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long wanted more members of Congress to know what’s going on at the CIA, but why doesn’t she announce a full-fledged investigation into the intelligence contractor mess, complete with televised hearings? Why has it fallen...

By Jeff Stein  | July 23, 2010; 12:30 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (7)
Categories:  Intelligence  
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House panel gains cooperation from firms in Kyrgyz air base probe

After weeks of tense negotiations, a House oversight subcommittee has gotten promises of cooperation from two secretive companies at the center of allegations regarding corruption in aviation fuel contracts at the big U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan. The objects of...

By Jeff Stein  | July 21, 2010; 8:53 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Intelligence, Military  
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Iranian spy getting the movie treatment

There are agents, and then there are Agents. The Iranian state news agency isn’t saying who negotiated what kind of deal for Shamran Amiri, but it is saying that the re-defector’s tale is going to get the feature treatment from...

By Jeff Stein  | July 21, 2010; 12:13 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
Categories:  Entertainment, Intelligence  
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CIA applicant's arrest tops wave of China spy cases

A young Michigan man was quietly arrested last month and charged with lying on a CIA job application about his connection with Chinese intelligence. The case drew virtually no attention outside his home state, but it Shis just the latest in a virtual tsunami of prosecutions against suspected Chinese agents in the past two years.

By Jeff Stein  | July 20, 2010; 11:19 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Financial/business, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Lawandcourts  
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Backchannel chatter: Spy workers smart but bored

"I came away from these talks with the impression that the post-9/11 workforce is bored and even adrift — at least in the sense that there are too many people chasing too little hard intelligence," Baer said.

By Jeff Stein  | July 20, 2010; 11:18 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Financial/business, Intelligence, Media  
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US-Iranian spy war spinning on Amiri

Shahram Amiri may turn out to be more useful to Washington as a re-defector than a defector. Of course, maybe the CIA is just making the best of a bumble. Whatever the immediate case -- and the ground truth may...

By Jeff Stein  | July 19, 2010; 7:06 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)
Categories:  Intelligence  
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War on terrorism’s price tag: $1 trillion

Military operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have cost over $1 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service report, making the "war on terrorism" second only to World War II in cost to U.S. taxpayers. “CRS provided its...

By Jeff Stein  | July 19, 2010; 3:34 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)
Categories:  Backchannel chatter, Financial/business, Intelligence, Military  
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South Africa's 'dirty bomb' mystery

South African police are still trying to figure out what the five mokes busted with a Cesium-137 device at a Pretoria gas station last week were up to. All of them are South African citizens, but not much else is known about them, police said.

By Washington Post staff  | July 19, 2010; 10:22 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)
Categories:  Intelligence  
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