Colombia domestic spy chief probes alleged illegal wiretapping by 'mafia' within

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Colombia domestic spy chief probes alleged illegal wiretapping by 'mafia' within

By LIBARDO CARDONA | Associated Press Writer
6:42 PM EST, February 21, 2009

BOGOTA (AP) — Colombia's new domestic spy chief said Saturday that he is probing whether agency employees have been eavesdropping on Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists and opposition leaders.

Felipe Munoz, who took over the troubled DAS domestic intelligence agency last month, was reacting to a report by Colombia's leading newsmagazine of widespread interception of phone calls and e-mail by agency officials at least through late last year.

Munoz said he was attempting to establish the existence of a "mafia network that's threatening the security of the state," at a news conference called after the report was published online.

~snip~
Munoz, who answers directly to President Alvaro Uribe, said the wiretapping was not government policy. However, the newsmagazine Semana quoted five unnamed DAS officials in its story and said the executive branch was the primary beneficiary of the intelligence obtained through the illegal eavesdropping.



Read more: http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-colombia-eavesdropping-scandal,0,2059673.story

[L. Coyote]

1. Ahh yes, those friends of Bush and McCain. No surprise when fascists do this stuff.

Where have we heard this before? "the executive branch was the primary beneficiary of the intelligence obtained through the illegal eavesdropping"

Thinking, thinking, I know the answer, thinking, ahh yes, Republicans!! NOT :rofl:

[rabs]

3. Has Uribe gone over the edge?

This is in the AP story. What he said is going to go over like a lead balloon in Ecuador and Venezuela and probably in Washington. I just wonder if he was in an altered state of mind because of the Samana investigative report.

-------------------------

Uribe did not immediately respond to the accusations.

He was holding a daylong communal council meeting, a Saturday ritual for him, in the Pacific coast town of Buenaventura.

------------------------------

But what the AP did NOT report was what Uribe said at the council meeting. He said his government is ready and willing to strike guerrilla leaders discovered on foreign territory.

Y les advirtió que su gobierno no descansará un solo minuto en enfrentarlos, incluso, en perseguirlos en territorio extranjero.

(Paraphrased) Uribe warned guerrilla leaders that his government will not rest for one minute in confronting and pursuing them, including on foreign territory.)

"Mientras yo sea Presidente de Colombia, nada nos hará renunciar a llegar en algún momento al extranjero tras estos bandidos", enfatizó.

"While I am president of Colombia, nothing will make us relinquish reaching out on foreign territory at any given moment for these bandits," he emphasized.

(Spanish) http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/politica/cabecillas-del-eln-y-las-farc-estan-viviendo-en-el-extranjero-denuncio-presidente-uribe-_4832189-1

[rabs]

2. DAS heads are about to roll

It appears that the DAS chief of intelligence and counter-intelligence are about to be fired. This appears to be a desperate attempt to distance Uribe from the whole mess.

The Semana online report landed like a bomb on Colombia yesterday. Within a couple of hours, the DAS issued a one-paragraph communique that an investigation had begun. Intriguingly, it said that the orders for the interceptions had not come from "within" the DAS. So who ordered the intercepts ?? Did not say.

With Bush the Chimp gone, Uribe has been left dangling in the wind. Obama has far more pressing problems than Colombia. The war on drugs in Colombia has been a bust. The Colombia Free Trade Agreement is dead in the water. So Uribe went to Brazil last week to firm up economic cooperation with Brasilia. Ironic that fascist Uribe turns to moderate leftist Lula da Silva now that the bushies are gone. Lula da Silva went along with Uribe because Lula's aim is a hostage-exchange for FARC captives and guerrillas in the Colombian government's prisons.

The Semana report could doom Uribe's fading prospect for re-election next year because this crisis will not go away soon. The opposition politic ans (including at least two senators) will be raising hell. The judges investigating paramilitary abuses will not be amused that they were shadowed. The unnamed generals whose phones were tapped must be furious. Journalists will ducking because their lives could now be in danger, targets of the paras. El Tiempo reported that even Uribe private secretary had been been intercepted.

Judi, our friend Neil A. last night emailed that the Semana report had sent a chill down his spine because he thinks that the stage has been set for a coup that would make Pinochet's coup look like child's play.

[Judi Lynn]

4. My God! It couldn't have happened to a more deserving man, either, could it?

Uribe believed he had the world by the ###, too, when his stupid, vicious friend squatted in the U.S. White House. They were as thick, and cocky as thieves.

http://www.cbc.ca.nyud.net:8090/gfx/images/news/photos/2009/01/13/alvaro-uribe-cp-6085007.jpg http://www.cbc.ca.nyud.net:8090/gfx/images/news/photos/2007/03/11/bush-colombia-cp-161514.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_0p3C9NRRcto/R3_qtwwjQrI/AAAAAAAAVFc/XEZsNIxb2w0/s400/bush_uribe.jpg http://rubberstamproskam.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/bush_uribe_sm.jpg

Your post is surely one to remember. Very intense description of Uribe's predicament, and I don't doubt it for a moment.

I'm sure Neil A. would know, if anyone would, how things are stacking up.

I've been watching those headlines you've mentioned, wondering how it all fits together.

Will be back later this evening, having only had a moment to stick my head in the door just now.

Thanks for your info., will check back. :hi:

[dipsydoodle]

5. Colombian wiretap scandal grows

The entire high command of Colombia's secret police, the Das, has been asked to resign by the agency's director, Felipe Munoz Gomez.

As more evidence comes to light of a criminal conspiracy within the force, one deputy director has already gone.

Specialists from the attorney general's office have moved into the Das headquarters to seize interception equipment and start investigations.

It is still unknown how far the rot goes and how many agents are involved.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7905097.stm

[Judi Lynn]

7. This is a hot one! Uribe's people are really busy pointing AWAY from Uribe's administration,

aren't they? From the article:

What started as allegations that some rogue agents of the Das (Department of Administrative Security) could have intercepted the phone calls and e-mails of judges, politicians, government officials and journalists, appear now to be accepted as fact.

The information garnered from their wire taps could have been passed on to criminal elements, drug-traffickers, paramilitaries and even Marxist rebels.

Yeah, THAT'S it, the, uh, "Marxist rebels" done it! Let's get'em, men! They've really stepped in it now! Get the rope!"

http://personalhack.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/pointing.jpg http://blog.dennisfox.net.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/bilin-pointing.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/media/images/42340000/jpg/_42340461_uribe2333.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_Pld3K-EhX58/Rty_5MpRUbI/AAAAAAAAAGM/8JllB7h3pRo/s320/john_howard_and_george_w_bush_pointing.jpg http://us.movies1.yimg.com.nyud.net:8090/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/united_artists/invasion_of_the_body_snatchers/donald_sutherland/invasion2.jpg

http://www.breederretriever.com.nyud.net:8090/photopost/data/529/medium/shorthaired_pointer_german.jpg
This has to be the work of those pesky FARCs living out in the jungle. They're the ones what done it. Now we're really steamed.

[dipsydoodle]

8. Get the rope!

:rofl: :hi:

[tom_paine]

6. WOW! Even Colombia has more balls than our Democrats!

This reflects badly on America, but then, what hasn't these past 8 years?

Even Colombia is trying to stop "the mafia from within", which is to say, their Bushies, who are Bushfriends and Bushvassals.

Good luck, guys. From behind the Televised Curtain of Imperial America, we wish you well and live vicariously through your noble, but probably doomed, attempts. And yes, I still hold out hope that Obama can reverse the Bushification of the Nation, but he seems poised to nibble even less at the edges than Big Dog Clinton - witness the missing e-mails and 51 Criminal Bushie US Attorneys staying on to continue to undermine the Democrats that's usually not seen except in Third World countries, though it's more violent there.

But in America, watch the criminals walk away, verry slllowwly, laughing and trailing $100s from their overstuffed loot sacks with $$$ stamped on them.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Can only hope he has some gradual change in mind, subtle, but sure.

Can always hope, can't we?

The e-mails, US attorneys, what a damned shame. You're not the only one who's sick about it, you can be sure.

Don't know how that will ever go right, if it's the last word.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Colombian prosecutor orders search of spy agency

Posted on Sunday, 02.22.09
Colombian prosecutor orders search of spy agency
By LIBARDO CARDONA
Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA -- Colombia's chief prosecutor ordered a search Sunday of the headquarters of the country's domestic intelligence agency over allegations some of its agents eavesdropped on prominent journalists, Supreme Court judges and opposition members.

The interior minister, meanwhile, said President Alvaro Uribe had been among the wiretapper's chief victims.

Prosecutor Mario Iguaran ordered two prosecutors to probe the DAS agency, which answers directly to Uribe, after Colombia's leading newsmagazine reported the interception of e-mails and phone calls through at least the end of last year.

"We need to know who ordered the interceptions and who is utilizing the information," Iguaran told reporters.

One of his top deputies, Omar Zarabanda, told The Associated Press that the two prosecutors were inside the headquarters of the DAS, or Department of Administrative Security, on Sunday evening seeking evidence.

Earlier Sunday, the DAS's new director said he had accepted the resignation of the agency's deputy director of intelligence, Capt. Jorge Alberto Lagos. Felipe Munoz, who took office last month, called the resignation "an administrative measure."

The DAS has been plagued by scandal under Uribe. His first director, Jorge Noguera, is in jail on criminal conspiracy charges for allegedly colluding with far-right death squads, including providing them with lists of union activists to target for assassination.

In all, 33 members of Congress, most of them Uribe allies, were ordered jailed on criminal conspiracy charges by the Supreme Court for allegedly benefiting from ties with the far-right militias.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/916782.html

[rabs]

10. Alvarito's first reaction -- It's wasn't me."

President Alvaro Uribe today made his first comments on the scandal.

"A lo largo de los años, con gobierno o sin gobierno, jamás he dado ni una sola orden para que se vigile la vida privada de las personas", señaló el mandatario en un mensaje enviado a la radio RCN de Bogotá. (During all these years ... I have never given one single order to look at the private life of people ...)

Uribe se declaró "un hombre leal que juega limpio con sus opositores y no les hace trampas", tras lo cual dijo que "los que me conocen saben que yo no actúo de esa manera." (Uribe said he is "a man loyal to fair play with his opposition and I do not play tricks on them. ... "those who know me know that I do not act in that manner."

Was watching the frantic damage control the Attorney General's office was doing yesterday (on a Sunday) and the first one to go was the second in command of the counter-intelligence division of the DAS.

Judi, the DAS is sort of a combination of the FBI and NSA. According to the consitution, it needs a judicial order to wiretap. It's director responds directly to Uribe.

So what we have here is:

1. A DAS that has become a political/spying agency that answers only to Uribe.

2. But, as the uribistas are frantically claiming, rogue members are responsible, then it means that Uribe has lost control of the agency.

Either way, Uribe comes out looking bad. There are rumors that the DAS may be disbanded altogether.

Couple of tidbits gleaned from Bogota media yesterday: There is a "yellow room" in the DAS headquarters from which our good old DEA operates. Supposedly the DEA works on wire/cell tapping of narcos, money laundering, that sort of stuff.

About four years ago, the U.S. Embassy handed over a wire/cell tapping machine to the DAS. The embassy later discovered that embassy staffers themselves were the targets.
:rofl:

[Judi Lynn]

13. Wow! He can really shovel it out with the best of them, can't he? "Loyal to fair play," yet.

Ask the families of murdered union workers, journalists, human rights activists, etc. how they'd rate him on this question!

All he has to do is open that little mouth to the media, to accuse anyone of being a FARC sympathizer, and there's every chance in the world that person could be found somewhere dead. I'm still astonished by his attacks on the opposition members who dared to organize an anti-paramilitary demonstration last spring, and the IMMEDIATE killings of 6 or 7 of the organizers.

It would be horrible getting a view of something he would consider worse than his "fair play."

The account of what happened to the Embassy's wire and cell tapping equipment is fantastic! So cool. That must have impressed them enormously to see their gift used so skillfully.

Here's a photo of Uribe sitting on his horsie, sipping a cup of Colombian coffee. If you look in the upper left corner, you'll see a familiar face: Carlos Gutierrez, the Cuban "exile" _Bush appointed as his Secretary of Commerce, in the lavender shirt, near the photographer.

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/06ZB79Dg8y6rM/610x.jpg

http://www.swamppolitics.com.nyud.net:8090/news/politics/blog/assets_c/2008/09/Palin%20with%20Uribe%20small-thumb-425x314.jpg

Uribe,with that skillful American diplomat, Palin.

[rabs]

17. Meanwhile, for the Wall Street Journal, "bidness is bidness"

No matter that union workers, journalists, human rights activists, etc. have been slaughtered under the Uribe regime.

Btw, Santos said today that when he returns to Bogota, he will meet with Uribe and recommend that the DAS be abolished and another domestic spying agency be organized.

--------
Judging by her Asian tour, Hillary Clinton clearly thinks she is more realistic about the world than her predecessor. The Secretary of State said, for instance, that pressing China on human rights "can't interfere" with cooperation between Washington and Beijing on other issues like the economic crisis or climate change. But strangely -- or perhaps not so strangely -- Mrs. Clinton and her boss seem to have a far more pinched conception of realpolitik when it comes to Colombia.

Recall that last year Nancy Pelosi rewrote House rules to scuttle the Bush Administration's free-trade agreement with Bogotá solely on human-rights grounds, even after the pact had been rewritten to include new union protections. President Obama explained last fall that he was opposed because "The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination, on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been prosecutions."

-----------------

More, especially next graf about how hunky-dory things are under Uribe:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123543752835954729.html

[rabs]

11. Colombia comes calling for more millions, trade agreement

Defense minister Santos arrived in Washington yesterday (Monday), hat in hand.

Speaking of the massive, wire-tapping scandal in Colombia, Santos said the DAS domestic spying agency was "profoundly ill, and it needs a Christian burial."

According to El Tiempo newspaper of Bogota, Santos will be seeking 560 million dollars from the Obama admin. Anti-drug operations, 250 million. Development aid, 200 million. Pentagon aid, 110 million.

Santos will be meeting with Gates, Obama National Security adviser Jim Jones, CIA director Panneta, Hillary Clinton, Sens. Leahy, Kerry, Dodd.

The article mentions whether "under the Afro-American" there will be the same close relationship as there was during the eight years of Bush.

Story below is in Spanish. The U.S. media will catch up with the story by and by.

http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/liquidar-el-das-recomendo-el-ministro-de-defensa-juan-manuel-santos_4837754-1




Gates welcomes Santos to the Pentagon.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Santos was just here last winter, too! Why doesn't he go home?

Talk about timing! They must think it'll be easier to try to hit Obama up for this money now, before he finds out more about them, and before the current scandal with Uribe's administration gets any worse.

He already knows Gates. Maybe their thinking is that Obama needed Gates to stay where he was until they could get better people in there, and that he will be replaced with a less fascistic person later, so their best bet is to try to do all their dealing with Gates A.S.A.P. .

Santos' meeting with Leahy, Kerry, and Dodd should be a real eye-opener for him. They're all so much brighter than the crap he's used to dealing with: they're bound to ask questions he doesn't want to answer.

Not at all surprised to read about the tone in El Tiempo, ("under the Afro-American") which is owned by Juan Manuel Santos' family. What a shame their country is still so narrow, and closed socially. Sealed tight, from what I've heard, against people who aren't represented by the tiny group of oligarchs who've been running the country for centuries.

Will be looking to hear what condition he'll be in as he returns home with his booty!

[fascisthunter]

12. where are all those anti-Chavez folks? Here's your fascist

dictator-like scumbag. Why do they never bitch about this guy.... hmmmm.

[Judi Lynn]

15. They shrieked until they were hoarse over Chavez and the end of term limits,

which he left up to the PEOPLE, but when it came to Uribe, he decided to go around through his Senate, mostly beholden to him, to get the same deal from them.

It was only because of an unpredictable event, a Senator who blew the whistle on Uribe's people and their bribe attempt to get her vote, that any of us ever learned he was getting that worked out for him by BRIBING Senators to hand him the right to run again, contrary to Colombia's constitution at the time.

Bribery? A legal referendum involving the entire country? Which one of "dese" is more democratic, you have to wonder!
http://www.afi.com.nyud.net:8090/Images/tvevents/laa/archive/hs_Nicholson_Jack.jpg

[fascisthunter]

18. I Heard the Report on WMBR Nightly News

The comparison between the amount of media attention Chavez had gotten in contrast to Uribe was made. It was refreshing to hear somebody say so over the air waves.

democratically elected Chavez=dictator

fascist Uribe=a swell guy

They also compared human rights reports for both countries. Our government is so corrupt.

[rabs]

19. Update on DAS-Gate in Colombia

(From today's media in Bogota)

Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez said U.S. House Appropriations Committee had approved 545 million dollars for Plan Colombia FY 2009. Will reserve judgment on this claim until more solid confirmation. Hard to believe a Dem-controlled committee would go along with pouring another half-billion dollars down that rathole.

Bermudez and Def. Minister Santos met today with Hillary Clinton to discuss Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which has gone nowhere the past two years because of the gross human rights violations in Colombia. No word on Hillary's position on the FTA either way.

Santos, speaking of the DAS wire-tapping scandal, on Tuesday said the DAS should be disbanded and given a "christian burial."

Reaction from Uribe admin. was swift. Santos' remarks were "dis-authorized." This could hint of a power struggle because Santos is being touted as a presidential candidate to replace Uribe, who has not announced whether he will run for third term (providing Congress lifts term limit now in place). Election is scheduled 13 months from now.

Colombian Supreme Court today announced it would take the illegal wiretapping of its members (who are investigating politician-paramilitary links) to the U.N. and the OAS. Only thing that probably will come out of that is more negative publicity for Uribe on an international level.

Two more lower-level officials have resigned from the DAS, whose director answers directly to Uribe. Of the three who have resigned, not one has been charged and it is still not known who ordered the wire-tappings.

Nation's attorney general today said investigation into the wire-tapping was being obstructed.