Spy Gave Russia 'Crown Jewels' of U.S. Intelligence
Here's a follow up to that one....Sad and Sick....can you just imagine how this guy's family must feel? Seems the news media have been telling us for several years there was no "cold war"....let's see how they chase their tails/tales on this one...
Spy Gave Russia 'Crown Jewels' of U.S. Intelligence
Feb 21 4:49pm ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Accused FBI spy Robert Hanssen sold Russia secrets that revealed the "crown Jewels" of U.S. intelligence -- sources and information-gathering methods, intelligence experts said on Wednesday.
They said Hanssen, formally charged on Tuesday with selling documents and betraying agents in the last 15 years of his 25-year stint with the FBI, opened a window for the Russians on U.S. espionage and counter-intelligence methods.
The type of documents allegedly sold for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds could have helped the Russians stymie U.S. intelligence efforts and feed false information to the United States, the experts said.
The information Hanssen, 56, handed over in an elaborate and well-disguised series of drops at suburban parks near Washington was the sort that would "let them know what they have to do to baffle the United States," said Mark Lowenthal, a former House Intelligence Committee staff director.
"Based on what we know, Hanssen is among the most damaging spies that we've ever suffered, without a doubt," said Lowenthal, now a senior principal at the consulting firm SRA International Inc..
Former FBI and CIA director William Webster is leading an investigation into the security breach and assessing the damage it caused to U.S. interests. FBI Director Louis Freeh on Tuesday called the damage "exceptionally grave."
IN THE HANDS OF THE RUSSIANS
A court affidavit, released Tuesday when Hanssen was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and transmitting national defense information, listed documents that fell into the hands of the Russians, beginning during the Cold War.
The most secret material, classified "Top Secret-SCI" for Sensitive Compartmented Information, was only accessible to a small group of U.S. officials cleared for that particular area on a need-to-know basis.
The FBI is in charge of tracking foreign intelligence service activities in the United States, which is why Hanssen, a counter-intelligence officer, had access to the documents.
Hanssen allegedly sold names of Soviets spying for America, two of whom were subsequently executed because it was a second confirmation of their identities after they were first outed by convicted spy Aldrich Ames, a former CIA officer.
But those were not the only ones identified. "He compromised numerous human sources of the United States Intelligence Community," the affidavit said.
The documents Hanssen is accused of giving his Russian handlers included Top Secret-SCI documents on the National Measurement and Signature Intelligence Program (MASINT).
"If you want to figure out if a factory is making chemical weapons or aspirin, use MASINT. It can read the chemical composition of a plume," Lowenthal said. "It's a very sophisticated, exotic technology," he added.
"It'll give them a much better sense of how they could cheat if they wanted to cheat on certain agreements," he said.
"DOUBLE AGENT" PROGRAMS BETRAYED
Documents about the Secret "United States Double Agent" program and Top Secret "FBI Double Agent Program" were also included. The FBI program had a higher classification probably because it had more specifics such as spy names, experts said.
One document was as sensitive as its description was murky: "A highly classified and tightly restricted analysis of the foreign threat to a specific named highly compartmented classified United States Government program."
This was translated by Lowenthal as: "What we were assessing is how vulnerable is this program to foreign penetration." He said it was probably an intelligence program or possibly weapons-related.
"Now we've just figured out how vulnerable we are, and we've given it to the guys who are going to be the most interested in doing the penetration," Lowenthal said.
"This is like putting a sign in front of your house: 'The following windows and door locks are loose, we've just tested them'," he said.
There was a study concerning KGB recruitment operations against the CIA and a Top Secret assessment of the KGB's effort to gather information about certain U.S. nuclear programs.
Hanssen allegedly compromised technical operations including electronic surveillance and monitoring techniques, and precise targets of U.S. intelligence, the affidavit said.
"He might have compromised, for example, some of the eavesdropping operations out of the embassy in Moscow," Jeffrey Richelson, an author on intelligence issues, said. The Russians could then remove the device, such as a wiretap, he added.
The long-term impact of the divulged information remains unclear, Richelson said. "At some point down the road maybe we won't have a source in place who could have provided crucial information in a crisis and therefore there will be severe damage," he said.
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