How DC police use citizens as spies

Of the dozens of private intelligence corporations that have emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, one firm has been singled out for particular scrutiny: TrapWire.

The Virginia-based spy outfit founded by several former CIA employees a decade ago developed, it says, surveillance software that can root out terrorist attacks while they are in the planning stage.

The company, formerly known as Abraxas Corp., markets its technology to local law enforcement, federal agencies and private corporations. TrapWire has been installed in 65 locations around the United States, according to the company’s website, including Washington, D.C., where it is being used by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Espionage case reveals double standard on secrets

It never ceases to amuse me how the sordid, often mundane world of espionage elicits near orgasmic media coverage. The latest example of this unbridled giddiness comes in the wake of espionage-related charges against a junior Canadian Navy intelligence officer, who enjoyed “top secret” security clearance — truth be told, it’s not a particularly sensitive security classification but you won’t hear that from much of the press — for allegedly feeding hush-hush information apparently to the Russians.

This earned Russia a predictable diplomatic rebuke, as a few of its embassy staff in Ottawa were summarily sent packing. It’s an old, silly pantomime played out again and again by largely ordinary and not so bright people.

Traditionally, intelligence officers (an oxymoron if there ever was one) or spies involved in the intelligence trade “sell out” their countries for a few reasons, usually in this order: money, sex, love and, in rare cases, ideology.

We may or may not learn what motivated this latest so-called betrayal. Word of the officer’s arrest has prompted the usual intelligence experts to trot out the usual apocalyptic pronouncements about how this “scandal” may yet constitute the most grievous and injurious security breach in Canadian history.

Oh, please.

I believe it’s unlikely that a junior intelligence officer would be privy to the kind of secrets that could cost lives or irreparably damage Canada’s strategic alliances.

U.K. spies escape criminal charges for detainee torture

ONDON—British spies escaped immediate criminal charges over torture complicity Thursday, but the country's top prosecutor ordered a new investigation into claims that intelligence shared with Moammar Gadhafi's regime led to the torture or rendition of Libyans.

Prosecutors have been investigating claims of mistreatment by detainees who were eventually sent to the United States prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. Most of the torture allegations come from terror suspects who were either initially held in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or sent to other countries such as Morocco for interrogation.

Although the investigation into specific claims of collusion has ended, authorities said new evidence could force criminal investigations to be reopened. Civil actions may also emerge.

The agents have been accused of passing on information about detainees to their foreign captors but not of direct abuse.

The criminal investigation began in 2008 after former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohammed alleged that Britain was aware of his torture.

Mohamed, an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager and initially held in Pakistan, says he was also sent by the U.S. to Morocco where he was interrogated and brutally tortured. He alleges that he told an MI5 officer of his mistreatment in 2002.