Part 3 of 4

Original source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html (File no longer available on Fox News.)

FNC

Carl Cameron

Friday, December 14, 2001

This partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, Dec. 13, was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order the complete transcript.

Part 3 of 4

BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.

In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping.

Here is Carl Cameron's third report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):

The company is Comverse Infosys [lawful interception solutions], a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping works in the U.S.

Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.

The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This process was authorized by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined the whole wiretapping system.

Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law enforcement officials, who complained that "law enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted."

Congress [sic, probably Comverse] insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.

Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide.

And sources say that while various F.B.I. inquiries into Comverse have been conducted over the years, they've been halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly tested for leaks. A 1999 F.C.C. document indicates several government agencies expressed deep concerns that too many unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the wiretap system.

And the FBI's own nondescript office in Chantilly, Virginia that actually oversees the CALEA wiretapping program, is among the most agitated about the threat. But there is a bitter turf war internally at F.B.I.

It is the FBI's office in Quantico, Virginia, that has jurisdiction over awarding contracts and buying intercept equipment. And for years, they've thrown much of the business to Comverse. A handful of former U.S. law enforcement officials involved in awarding Comverse government contracts over the years now work for the company.

Numerous sources say some of those individuals were asked to leave government service under what knowledgeable sources call "troublesome circumstances" that remain under administrative review within the Justice Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And what troubles investigators most, particularly in New York, in the counter terrorism investigation of the World Trade Center attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that they had sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their telecommunications processes. They started acting much differently as soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps went into place * Brit.

HUME: Carl, is there any reason to suspect in this instance that the Israeli government is involved?

CAMERON: No, there's not. But there are growing instincts in an awful lot of law enforcement officials in a variety of agencies who suspect that it had begun compiling evidence, and a highly classified investigation into that possibility * Brit.

Original source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40981,00.html (File no longer available on Fox News.)

TONY SNOW, HOST: This week, senior correspondent Carl Cameron has reported on a longstanding government espionage investigation. Federal officials this year have arrested or detained nearly 200 Israeli citizens suspected of belonging to an "organized intelligence-gathering operation." The Bush administration has deported most of those arrested after Sept. 11, although some are in custody under the new anti-terrorism law.

Cameron also investigates the possibility that an Israeli firm generated billing data that could be used for intelligence purpose, and describes concerns that the federal government's own wiretapping system may be vulnerable. Tonight, in part four of the series, we'll learn about the probable roots of the probe: a drug case that went bad four years ago in L.A.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Los Angeles, 1997, a major local, state and federal drug investigating sours. The suspects: Israeli organized crime with operations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Canada, Israel and Egypt. The allegations: cocaine and ecstasy trafficking, and sophisticated white-collar credit card and computer fraud.

The problem: according to classified law enforcement documents obtained by Fox News, the bad guys had the cops’ beepers, cell phones, even home phones under surveillance. Some who did get caught admitted to having hundreds of numbers and using them to avoid arrest.

"This compromised law enforcement communications between LAPD detectives and other assigned law enforcement officers working various aspects of the case. The organization discovered communications between organized crime intelligence division detectives, the FBI and the Secret Service."

Shock spread from the DEA to the FBI in Washington, and then the CIA. An investigation of the problem, according to law enforcement documents, concluded, "The organization has apparent extensive access to database systems to identify pertinent personal and biographical information."

When investigators tried to find out where the information might have come from, they looked at Amdocs, a publicly traded firm based in Israel. Amdocs generates billing data for virtually every call in America, and they do credit checks. The company denies any leaks, but investigators still fear that the firm's data is getting into the wrong hands.

When investigators checked their own wiretapping system for leaks, they grew concerned about potential vulnerabilities in the computers that intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls. A main contractor is Comverse Infosys, which works closely with the Israeli government, and under a special grant program, is reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Asked this week about another sprawling investigation and the detention of 60 Israeli since Sept. 11, the Bush administration treated the questions like hot potatoes.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would just refer you to the Department of Justice with that. I'm not familiar with the report.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm aware that some Israeli citizens have been detained. With respect to why they're being detained and the other aspects of your question * whether it's because they're in intelligence services, or what they were doing * I will defer to the Department of Justice and the FBI to answer that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMERON: Beyond the 60 apprehended or detained, and many deported since Sept. 11, another group of 140 Israeli individuals have been arrested and detained in this year in what government documents describe as "an organized intelligence gathering operation," designed to "penetrate government facilities." Most of those individuals said they had served in the Israeli military, which is compulsory there.

But they also had, most of them, intelligence expertise, and either worked for Amdocs or other companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping. Earlier this week, the Israeli embassy in Washington denied any spying against or in the United States * Tony.

SNOW: Carl, we've heard the comments from Ari Fleischer and Colin Powell. What are officials saying behind the scenes?

CAMERON: Well, there's real pandemonium described at the FBI, the DEA and the INS. A lot of these problems have been well known to some investigators, many of who have contributed to the reporting on this story. And what they say is happening is supervisors and management are now going back and collecting much of the information, because there's tremendous pressure from the top levels of all of those agencies to find out exactly what's going on.

At the DEA and the FBI already a variety of administration reviews are under way, in addition to the investigation of the phenomenon. They want to find out how it is all this has come out, as well as be very careful because of the explosive nature and very political ramifications of the story itself * Tony.

SNOW: All right, Carl, thanks.

Dual nationality politicians 😂.

Which candidate do you think has the best chances?

Trump claims he received 'deep respect' at Nato summit despite video showing world leaders laughing at him

It’s not even that he lies. You can actually count on him to say the exact opposite of the truth. If a poll came out putting him in last place of something entirely trivial and which he hadn’t even heard of previously, he would claim he was the best at it ever, still not knowing what it even is.

Feniin is a person not people... But lets be honest some people essentially do get given millions of dollars by government. I know in the UK one of our public healthcare services got contracted to a US provider (owned by a friend of the ministers that facilitated the service being sold off) and it was sold hugely under valued. This contractor then sold it off again to a chinese subcontractor for a price orders of magnitude higher. Sadly i can't rember any of the details beyond these vague impressions, but I'm sure such cronyisms (or incompetence?) exist in your own government too. And Tepplar, you think the Conservative party and their leader are not the tools of the billionaires 😂.
Largely it is to provide free private security to crony business interests under the guise of local humanitarian work. The chinese do it best as they actually build decent infrastructure to support their crony businesses, so locals actually benefit much more (albiet incidentally).

Always amuses me how much Tepplar reads past my posts or focuses on superficial differences of opinion when if he examined the crucial details he'd be suprised by our overlap.

Oh and Tepplar while I'm responding to you, you asked why in the UK you have reports of wrong thinkers being rounded up and why the UK political news is obsessed with America... It's about the media creating fake bogeymen to control the populations through a climate of fear.

An immigrant inciting to kill the Queen's grand daughter (even if just through marriage) is going to have a bad time! The fact I've not been locked up proves it isn't just a mis-speak=locked up system here. The fact you believe this shows you've been filled with unreasoning fear.

Current president's wife 'presents as a lady'... Reads like a transphobic attack against the former president...perhaps just me projecting my own love of TV.

UK utterly has freedom of speech. You could easily call a policeman a brainless fuckwit if you wanted with no come back. 99% dead on bet they just cba to even bother.

I could go stand outside buckingham palace with a sign which says "Royalty sucks, get out of the UK back to Germany" and no one would bat an eyelid.

We have free speech. It's just at times people confuse it for being IMMUNE to consequences. Free speech is about being able to call someone a twat, its also about accepting they may give you a broken nose for it.

If you think the crackdown on hate speech is an infringement of that you are mistaken.

Totalitarian hogwash.