SPY AGENCIES: PATRIOTISM, "WHAT IS THAT?????"

SPY AGENCIES: PATRIOTISM, "WHAT IS THAT?????"




"LOYAL SERVANTS" of their "HONEST LEADERS"!!!!!

NOTHING MORE THAN A BUNCH OF GOONS HIRED TO KILL TRUTH, JUSTICE AND LAW BY USING EXTREME TECHNOLOGIES AND METHODS ON THEIR "TARGET"!!!!!





CIC to CBI: Name officers with ‘dubious integrity’

The Times Of India          Jul 18, 2011

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New Delhi: The Central Information Commission has directed CBI to make public names of its officials with "dubious integrity". The commission also directed the agency to make public a list of officials against whom complaints are registered and are facing enquiries.

    The order was in response to an RTI application filed by Port Blair-based lawyer Sujit Kumar Mazumder who had sought to know from CBI details of officers whose names were placed in the list of "doubtful integrity" from January 2006 till date. The agency said no such information was maintained.

    He also sought to know names of officials against whom inquiries were going on, but was refused by CBI on the grounds that it was personal information which had no relation with any public activity.

    Rejecting the arguments, the CIC said, “Every public authority is required to have information including details of any complaints registered or departmental enquiry initiated and conducted against any of its officers as a matter of record and more so because such officers are public servants discharging public function.”

    Information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said any complaint registered and taken cognisance of or inquiry conducted by any authority is “necessarily a public activity”.

    “Disclosure of such information cannot be construed as unwarranted invasion of privacy of the officer concerned, as it concerns issues raised in the exercise of his public activity as a public servant,” Gandhi said while directing CBI to provide the information before August 10.

    He said such officer was accountable to the public and every citizen had the right to obtain information that may affect the officer's credibility and integrity.





DRI phone tap logs go up in flames

The Times Of India          Sep 3, 2010

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New Delhi: A fire at the headquarters of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Tuesday night might have destroyed sensitive electronic data on financial frauds and records pertaining to tapped conversations, including some politically sensitive cases.

    The fire broke out, according to sources, in the Interception Room — also known as DRI’s ‘‘secret room’’ — on the 7th floor of the drum-shaped building at Indraprastha Estate in the capital.

    The fire brigade was informed at 10.28pm and six fire tenders were despatched, but the flames were doused by 11.30pm using internal resources at the DRI office.

    But before the fire was doused, the blaze destroyed interception equipment and computers that stored sensitive data relating to money laundering, drug syndicates and foreign trade.

    DRI has also been involved in investigation of politically sensitive cases and has provided inputs to other investigative agencies such as CBI and Enforcement Directorate. These have been part of the case files dealing with high net-worth individuals.


‘No other room affected by fire’

New Delhi: With Tuesday’s fire at the headquarters of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) suspected to have destroyed sensitive electronic data on financial frauds, it may call for a fullfledged investigation by Intelligence Bureau as none of the other rooms seem to have suffered any impact. Nothing of the stored intercepted data could be saved in the fire that damaged all the computers in the so-called secret room.

    DRI is currently headless with a member of the Central Board of Excise and Customs holding additional charge since March.

    Some of the corporate frauds DRI has pursued in the last few years ran into thousands of crores. It had also recently provided inputs to the government on Dawood gang’s operations in Pakistan and also its contacts in India.

    Besides financial frauds, the DRI closely monitors terrorist and narcotics activities and keeps a close watch on export-oriented units that may be misused by these terror and anti-national outfits to channel funds for their sleeper cells operating in the country. In the past few years, it had successfully neutralized several such terrorist and narcotics syndicates having links with Pakistan, Bangladesh, UAE and Nepal.





TALES WHICH STING          DARK SECRETS-I

The Times Of India          Oct 7, 2007

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Unlike in many other countries, India’s intelligence agencies — Research and Analysis Wing and Intelligence Bureau — are not subject to parliamentary oversight. Their declassified record is not made public either. A recent RAW decision to make it mandatory for retired officers to get accounts they plan to write vetted is likely to throttle the trend of former intelligence officers shedding precious light on covert agencies. In a threepart series, TOI speaks to retired and serving intelligence officers of IB and RAW to examine what ails the agencies and whether greater transparency will help.

New Delhi: “We need to go far beyond conventional responses in facing severe terrorist threats. We need superior intelligence capabilities which can alert us to impending threats. On internal security, we face formidable challenges” — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while addressing the conference or directors-general and inspectors-general of police in Delhi last week.

    At a time when the role of intelligence in prevention and containment of terrorist and other security threats is recognised more than ever before — not the least by the

PM himself — India’s covert agencies are handicapped by a thick curtain of institutional opaqueness and a culture of obsessive secrecy. This, often enough, leads to incessant turf battles, little or no accountability and costly glitches.

    Even 60 years after Independence, India’s primary intelligence agencies — the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) — are largely immune from any scrutiny. In the absence of a freedom of information Act or parliamentary oversight, failures and lapses can remain secret forever.

    Along with a shadowy existence, agencies are not obligated to communicate at all, leading to a double deficit. On the one hand, the layerswithin-layers functioning breeds inefficiency and makes it easier to bend rules, and on the other, anonymity of IB and RAW prevents them from presenting their points of views.

    The recent case of V K Singh, a career army officer, who retired from RAW after a deputation with the agency, underlines both aspects. His book, India’s External Intelligence: Secrets of RAW, has resulted in Singh being booked under the Official Secrets Act. He has run afoul of his former colleagues by allegedly outing a serving middle-level officer, mentioning an on-going project, as also discussing the PM’s security communication system.

    But even as his “crimes” are investigated by CBI, RAW bosses are fighting shy of listing the reasons for recommending action against him. Typically of RAW, no official account is available apart from leaks in the media. Even CBI finds it bizarre, with sources saying that it may be difficult for the investigating agency to make the case against him stick.

    While an OSA case has been registered against Singh, RAW has clamped a gag order, requiring those who retire to seek official permission before writing a book. But while RAW cracks down, there is no response to queries raised by Singh such as whether his “demi-official” letter to PMO did indeed lead to a re-evaluation of the PM’s security communication.

    On loan from army, Singh was not really a RAW “insider”, but he dealt with telecom, being a Signals expert who could spot the slackness marked by listening posts in disrepair, antennae lying unused years after procurement and anomalies in procurement prices.

    But no less worrying is the clamp down which may nip the refreshing trend of former sleuths throwing some light on how IB and RAW function: a first tentative step towards filling the gap in the nation’s understanding of security and intelligence matters. In the West, this is hardly novel — former CIA chief George Tenet’s “At the Centre of the Storm” is about his seven years as agency chief in which he rubbishes US vice-president Dick Cheney.

    But the trend is just catching on in India. Former RAW additional secretary B Raman provides a revealing account of Indira Gandhi’s security before her assassination and of the Bofors investigations in Geneva. Former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar underlines the unceasing demands by his political bosses to provide “dope” on government rebels and Opposition leaders.

    Former RAW chief Vikram Sood has regularly contributed articles on security issues as has former IB boss Ajit Doval. This growing band of professionals has slowly but surely lifted some of the mist over our covert agencies and, importantly, educated public opinion about the issues and factors influencing India’s security. Even if they sometimes offer sectional insights, they help experts and ordinary citizens understand complex issues.

    Dhar told TOI, “I have written my account as I feel that there is need to bring out certain accounts in the public. This may not have made me popular with politicians.” Similarly, Raman said that there was a strong case for bringing information out of IB and RAW closets for the benefit of researchers and experts. V K Singh said that the OSA case against him seemed intended to discourage others from penning their accounts.

    While the faint ray of sunlight offered by these accounts is crucial for educating public opinion, those enamoured of the status quo are wary of the dent into the “classified culture” that allow security czars to evade responsibility and run agencies as their fiefs.

    Not all are unhappy over the door being pushed ajar, however. Some serving intelligence officers TOI spoke to also felt that slamming OSA cases and imposing gag orders do not answer important questions: will issues of indiscipline, interagency rivalry, profit-making, political interference, seniority battles, misuse of slush funds and flawed approaches to intelligence collection, analysis and counter-intelligence raised by former sleuths be addressed?

LIFTING THE INTELLIGENCE VEIL

    As RAW and IB have no ‘official’ voice, speculation about their activities is often not corrected. This obscures failures and slip-shod operations.

    Former officials provide a vital window on agencies, casting a light on their inner workings that are never exposed.

    These accounts have provided information on events like Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Bofors and political surveillance by govts on rivals and rebels.

    If no records and accounts are available, work of researchers and experts is hampered. Review of security doctrine remains a limited affair.





Playing politics with intelligence          DARK SECRETS-II

The Times Of India          Oct 8, 2007

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A thick curtain of secrecy and a bureaucratic mindset have often bogged down India’s intelligence agencies in internal politicking and inter-agency rivalries. This has eroded their work culture and distracted RAW and IB from focussing on their mandates. Political interference has grown as have instances of abuse of resources. This has bred organisational sloth and hampered intelligence and counter-intelligence operations.

New Delhi: Meeting the growing challenge of internal security, both within India and in its neighbourhood — let alone further afield — is a major task for IB and RAW. Lessons are yet to be learnt despite the severe threat of terrorism both organisations have to contend with, from time to time.

    Previous security disasters, and even the current focus on terrorism, has failed to get security bosses to shake off their old habits. This has meant that a certain meticulousness that should mark the functioning of agencies — an essential part of their espirit de corps — is missing. And, a complete absence of openness, without even a modicum of scrutiny, has added to the rot.

    Explaining how the slack approach affects agencies, a source said that part of the sensitive RAW records dealing with the 1971 war with Pakistan and liberation of Bangladesh are not to be traced due to sheer callousness. ‘‘At least, CIA documents released under the freedom of information act (FOIA) make it evident that it maintains records very well,’’ said an officer.

    The lack of transparency, which the agencies insist upon, suits politicians as well, making it easier for the regime of the day to demand ‘‘intelligence’’ on rivals and inner-party rebels. The agency officials are only too willing to oblige. A veteran national security functionary was unrepentant while speaking at a recent meeting that he needed to provide political bosses with intelligence that they could use.

Old timers feel this brazenness is growing. ‘‘It is now taken for granted. But why should agencies spy on individual leaders?’’ former IB joint director Maloy Krishna Dhar wondered, in a conversation with TOI.

    Since recruitment, training and promotion are not transparent, it only leads to bureaucratic squabbling. RAW is almost permanently embroiled in RAS (RAW Administrative Service) versus IPS rows. A recent decision to laterally bring in two officers at additional secretary level sparked considerable resentment. This has become endemic. With all the privileges that a stint with RAW brings, it has naturally become bloated. Former officers like V K Singh, facing an Official Secrets Act (OSA) case for his book ‘India’s External Intelligence: Secrets of RAW’, claim that the agency appears overstaffed, with some 20-odd joint secretaries in the Delhi office itself.

    The slack is also to be seen, said both serving and retired officers, in RAW’s increasing reluctance to place agents under non-diplomatic cover. Increasingly, the agency operates from the relative safety of embassies, missions and consulates only. Here, too, the covers are not always too tight — while he was PM, the late P V Narasimha Rao pointed out that the expensive cars of RAW officers were a dead giveaway. There is a disproportionate use of electronic snooping or ‘techint’, since few are willing to go through the grind of collecting ‘humint’.

    Efforts at inter-agency coordination haven’t produced the desired results either. When a former Pakistan army officer, functioning as a militant, was picked up earlier this year by IB, RAW was kept out of the picture. An officer pointed out that the rules of the game were clearly all about who reached the political authority first with ‘‘breaking news.’’ After realising that better coordination among US agencies could have perhaps helped avert 9/11, things ought to have changed. Even in Pakistan, army chief-designate Lt Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani showed what better coordination can achieve as he cracked cases of assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf.

    After the escape of US mole Rabinder Singh, suspicions that he was part of a larger ring — and this was why Americans were keen that he was not questioned by Indian counter-intelligence — have not been probed. Investigations into the DRDO computer theft, where sensitive codes used by Army and para-military went missing, and the National Security Council Secretariat cases are still under investigation.

    Some sources insist that in the NSC leak case, the guilt of Ujjal Dasgupta, who was director, computers, was essentially in ‘‘improper’’ contact with a suspected CIA operative Rosanna Minschew. He did not handle any actual intelligence. Some feel that the action of RAW in banning Singh’s book and imposing a gag order on others, while more serious cases are yet to be fully investigated, is essentially due to embarrassment caused to a few higher-ups.

    Sources said revelations that a top spook did not attend office for over six months while he was handling counterintelligence had hurt more than critical analysis of the weaknesses of agencies. Yet, it is this lack of oversight that leads to misuse of resources like aircraft of the Aviation Research Centre of RAW, sometimes being put to ‘‘personal’’ use of top officials. Some of these not-so-encouraging facts surface when a former officer chooses to pen his memoirs. The accounts may not be full or accurate, but provide a glimpse of a dark, hidden world. Speaking in defence of his former organisation, ex-RAW additional secretary B Raman said that correctives were indeed taken from time to time. ‘‘It is not that there is no internal monitoring. But there is no structured mechanism to do so. If this were to happen, it will increase the efficiency of the agency.’’ Dhar points out: ‘‘Even after the intelligence debacle of Kargil, the recommendations of GoMs are not implemented.’’

    (Tomorrow: TOI looks at how parliamentary oversight and a more defined charter can help intelligence agencies) WHAT’S AILING RAW, IB

    Inter-agency coordination is still not up to the mark. Agencies compete with each other to deliver information to political leadership. Information sharing remains sporadic

    State of IB and RAW records have not been evaluated by any independent scrutiny. Some records have been lost and others are believed to have been destroyed from time to time

    RAW and IB are becoming increasing dependent on technical or electronic snooping. There is a disinclination to undertake the grind of collecting human intelligence and using non-diplomatic cover

    Cases of security leaks like DRDO computer theft are not fully resolved. Agency bosses tend to react more to accounts by former officers that are embarrassing because they name higher-ups







Cover-up games intelligence agencies play          DARK SECRETS-III

The Times Of India          Oct 9, 2007

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Repeated failure to prevent terror attacks and partial implementation of post-Kargil security recommendations on tightening intelligence have put the spotlight on slack internal controls and politicisation of postings in IB and RAW. Poor professional judgment and mediocrity are often a result of lack of oversight. TOI examines the case for greater scrutiny of the agencies.

New Delhi: Not only are the budgets that IB and RAW command a matter of speculation, but their staff strengths are also subject of guesstimates. And apart from budgets and their utilisation, any clear audit of whether agencies have met their performance targets seems largely dependent on the leadership quality of those who head the agencies at a point of time.

    A former RAW officer wryly noted that perhaps only chief accountants of the two organisations could state with any authority just what were the staff strengths of the agencies. While even parliamentary committees in US and UK do not control the purse strings of intelligence agencies, they are at least briefed about ongoing operations and those anticipated in the near future.

    In the Indian context, this is largely an internal function of the agencies themselves. No one is sure how much of tax-payers’ money goes to the two agencies and who actually keeps account of whether it is used diligently. Some officers feel that the situation needs to be altered so that a stock taking exercise is viewed as sacrosanct and performance of IB and RAW is reviewed.

    “This should be an annual exercise involving senior officials from cabinet secretariat or PMO. It should not be left to security agencies alone,” said an officer. Absence of such oversight, and an apparent unconcern that responsibility may be fixed for failures and goof-ups, had led to instances like the recent recall of a joint secretary-level RAW officer, Ravi Nair, from Colombo for a liaison with a foreign woman. Nair’s posting to Colombo was a typical example of how a system of patronage functions in agencies: the tainted officer was appointed due to a retired RAW doyen, living in UK, prevailing with the current national security establishment.

    Nair’s record was so questionable — there were complaints during his earlier posting in Hong Kong including some concerning his personal affairs — that he should never have been considered for a sensitive job. Even now, it was only after Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Alok Prasad raised a storm over Nair’s conduct that the RAW moved to recall him. With foreign postings seen as prime attractions, these are used as rewards for “loyal” service.

    Even in the IB, which offers a few postings abroad as well, this is the cause of much heartburn. A senior officer currently posted in Srinagar was tipped for an important assignment but was later bypassed. It was evident that with postings influenced by lobbying and personal preferences, often the best officer simply does not make the cut.

    These bunglings and opaqueness shrouding the agencies has led some former intelligence officials to call for parliamentary oversight. A few serving officers question whether politicians are qualified for this task, but others feel that MPs can be sensitised to the job of understanding the business of intelligence. “Why should we assume that MPs will not handle information in a responsible manner,” asked an officer.

    Ex-RAW officer V K Singh,

who is facing an Official Secrets Act case, has argued for parliamentary oversight. “There is no reason why a beginning cannot be made by limited parliamentary oversight. There should be some accounting of operations and even issues like promotions,” said B Raman, a former RAW additional secretary, who has, like Singh, also written a book on the agency.

    Another former sleuthturned-author Maloy Krishna Dhar said that there should be specific legislation to cover the functioning of IB and RAW and this should clearly lay down a charter for their operations. “This will help operatives and they will have some protection under the law,” said Dhar. All three told TOI that they favoured some form of oversight, preferably a mix of parliamentary scrutiny and structured internal auditing.

    Their views seem worthy of consideration if lessons are drawn from abroad. In the mid-1980s, legislations were framed for MI5 and MI6 in UK and the head of the former was made public in the early 90s. At the time, the British

public came to know that UK’s top spook was a woman career security officer Stella Rimington. In 1980, the intelligence oversight act was passed in the US. Today, there are two Congressional committees for intelligence and one parliamentary panel in the UK.

    “As an intelligence operative, I had violated constitutional norms on several occasions,” Dhar has written in his book ‘Open Secrets: India’s Intelligence Unveiled’. He told TOI that instead of being called to account, bosses often get cushy post-retirement placements. It is not difficult to please a home minister or the prime minister of the day, he said. In his book, Dhar is more direct.

    Referring to IB and RAW chiefs he writes: “They prosper if they can keep two ‘key consumers’, the HM and the PM, happy and if they can grease the palms of certain key officials... intelligence organisations have sufficient unaccounted resources to keep hungry mouths happy.”

    “I feel that the Indian taxpayer has a right to know how public money is spent. General public may not be interested in details, but they would want an assurance that it is not being squandered or put to illegitimate use,” said Singh. The arguments often adopted by security bosses to brush aside embarrassing exposes is that an Augean stable cannot be cleaned overnight. But efforts to make a start are stifled by concentric rings of interests which do not feel like rocking the boat. In consequence, a conspiracy of silence prevails until a former officer prises open sealed vaults to let in a few rays of light.

CASE FOR AUDIT

    Lobbying for foreign postings sees good professionals being overlooked and creates conditions for incidents like the recent recall of Ravi Nair, a RAW officer with a poor record, from Colombo

    In US and UK, there are parliamentary committees which have to be briefed on intelligence operations

    Former intelligence officials say that there is a need for a more structured system of auditing in the agencies. Too often quality of internal scrutiny hinges on the regime of the day

    By making themselves useful to the political leadership, intelligence bosses ensure that probing questions into how the agencies function are not raised