By Pam Benson
So who might be the replacement for David Petraeus? The rumor mill was in full swing Friday after the CIA director stepped down, saying he had an extramarital affair.
One person being discussed is Michael Morell, the now acting CIA director, who could be named to the position permanently.
President Barack Obama thinks highly of Morell, several U.S. officials told CNN's Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin.
In his statement on the resignation of Petraeus, Obama expressed the "utmost confidence" in Morell continuing the work of the CIA.
Also: Petraeus stand-in has been through this before
Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein also expressed support of Morell, saying "the agency is in very good hands until the president selects a replacement."
By Pam Benson
Once again, Michael Morell is being called on to fill in as acting director of the CIA, this time after the resignation of David Petraeus on Friday.
It was only last year, during the two-month gap from the time Leon Panetta left the CIA until Petraeus took over the helm, that Deputy Director Morell oversaw the agency.
The career intelligence officer joined the CIA in 1980. Much of his early career focused on Asian issues, and he has had a steady climb up the career ladder.
Also: Who will replace Petraeus?
He served as then-CIA Director George Tenet's executive assistant and presided over the daily intelligence briefing for President George W. Bush. After a three-year overseas assignment in the mid-2000s, he returned to headquarters, where he became the associate deputy director responsible for the day-to-day operation of the agency.
By Mike Mount, with reporting from Suzanne Kelly and Pam Benson
The United States believes that Iran is behind cyberattacks on American banks and the oil industry in the Middle East, officials said.
Although officials have not made such an assertion publicly, they have characterized the attacks that occurred in recent months as initiated by a "state actor." The U.S. intelligence apparatus observed and tracked the attacks as coming out of Iran, a third official said Monday. The official would not describe further what was observed but said the belief is the perpetrators were surrogates working with the Iranian government.
“We strongly believe there is a relationship between the people typing the code and people running the government,” according to the official.
"It certainly is the case that Iran is improving its capabilities in the cyber field. We're paying attention. We are concerned about their increasing ability to operate in this realm," a U.S. intelligence official said.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted the attacks in a speech last week and warned that United States must beef up its cyber defenses or risk a potentially devastating strike. FULL POST
By Pam Benson
You usually don't associate spying with being Zen, but that's exactly what the nation's chief intelligence officer did this week at an intelligence gathering in Orlando, Florida.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was the keynote speaker at the annual Geoint Symposium and what the audience of intelligence officers, contractors and academics heard probably rank as one of the more unusual presentations.
Clapper unfurled some "heavy philosophy" as he told the audience what intelligence professionals could learn from motorcyclists. And he tied it all together with a reference to Robert Pirsig's nearly 40 year old best seller, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which is more a discourse of life philosophy than motorcycles.
It's all, Clapper explained, about finding the elusive "Truth."
These initial comments set up the body of his speech which focused on what he feels is his primary mission as DNI–the integration of all facets of intelligence gathering.
Here are Clapper's remarks:
By Pam Benson
The United States must beef up its cyber defenses or suffer as it did on September 11, 2001 for failing to see the warning signs ahead of that devastating terrorist attack, the Secretary of Defense told a group of business leaders in New York Thursday night.
Calling it a “pre-9/11 moment,” Leon Panetta said he is particularly worried about a significant escalation of attacks.
In a speech aboard a decommissioned aircraft carrier, Panetta reminded the Business Executives for National Security about recent distributed denial of service attacks that hit a number of large U.S. financial institutions with unprecedented speed, disrupting services to customers.
And he pointed to a cyber virus known as Shamoon which infected the computers of major energy firms in Saudi Arabia and Qatar this past summer. More than 30-thousand computers were rendered useless by the attack on the Saudi state oil company ARAMCO. A similar incident occurred with Ras Gas of Qatar. Panetta said the attacks were probably the most devastating to ever hit the private sector.
By Pam Benson
Looming across-the-board cuts to the intelligence community budget will be devastating if Congress fails to act according to the nation's top intelligence officer.
"If sequestration is allowed to happen, it will be disastrous for intelligence," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a group of intelligence officers and contractors gathered at a conference in Orland on Tuesday.
Clapper said every major intelligence program is "in jeopardy of being wounded" because the budget deal Congress passed last year does not allow the intelligence community any flexibility to prioritize needs.
"The current arrangement pre supposes that everything we do in intelligence is of equal import and we all know that's not the case,' Clapper said.
The cuts would be approximately 10% and would impact programs as well as personnel.
FULL POST
By Pam Benson
The United States faces a potential security threat from two Chinese telecommunication companies operating inside the United States, according to a congressional report to be released Monday.
CNN obtained a draft report of the nearly year-long probe by the House Intelligence Committee into the business practices of Huawei and ZTE telecommunications firms.
The report concluded, "the United States should view with suspicion the continued threat of the U.S. telecommunications market" by the Chinese companies.
Huawei is a nearly $30 billion Chinese company employing 120,000 people worldwide with approximately 1,500 in the United States. It is one of the top three providers of telecommunications equipment and information communications technology in the world. ZTE is a similar but smaller firm.
By Suzanne Kelly and Pam Benson
U.S. officials appear less certain about what happened in Benghazi, Libya, just before the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans last week.
"We certainly acknowledge contradictory information about whether there was a protest prior to the attack," a U.S. official told CNN on Thursday. "We're continuing to collect information and evaluate exactly what the circumstances were prior to the attack."
U.S. officials have been saying they believe, based on the intelligence, that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over a trailer for an anti-Muslim film that was circulating on the Internet, and there is no indication it was a planned attack. It is a contention that critics like Republican Sen. John McCain have said is hard to believe true given the extensive attack and the amount of weaponry involved.
By Pam Benson
The nation's counterterrorism chief told Congress on Wednesday the assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans was a terrorist attack.
But National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen said at a Senate hearing the best information so far indicates that armed extremists did not plan in advance to assault the Benghazi consulate last Tuesday, but took advantage of an opportunity to do so during a demonstration over an anti-Muslim film.
Olsen said the investigation continues and facts are being developed. But he said it "appears that individuals who were certainly well armed seized on the opportunity presented as the events unfolded that evening and into the morning of September 12.
"We do know that a number of militants in area, as I mentioned, are well armed and maintain those arms. What we don't have at this point is specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack," he said.
By Suzanne Kelly and Pam Benson
The classified program that arms the U.S. government with powerful authorities to monitor communications of foreigners overseas is at the heart of a debate over just how much people should trust their government.
The Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, originally enacted in 1978, was amended after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, allowing for a dramatic expansion of the abilities of the U.S. government to collect intelligence on foreign people in foreign countries. FISA sets procedures for the intelligence community to intercept e-mails, phone conversations and other communications of foreigners overseas who are suspected of threatening the United States.
The problem is that sometimes, in the course of collecting that electronic information, data also is collected on "U.S. persons" - meaning citizens or foreign residents of the United States.
FULL POST
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