(Guardian) US website names MI6 officers

[evermind]

US website names MI6 officers

Richard Norton-Taylor, Monday August 22, 2005
The Guardian

An American website posted what it purported to be the names of 74 members of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, yesterday.

It was not clear last night what action British intelligence officials or lawyers will take to try to get the names taken off the website and prevent further dissemination of them. However, they are likely to conduct a damage limitation exercise and warn those individuals who have been identified. Eighteen of those named on the website have held the rank of ambassador.

The website lists the names under a message thanking someone who it refers to simply as "A".

It is not the first time names claimed to be of former or serving MI6 officers have been posted on an American website. About six years ago, the former MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, was alleged to have given a long list of names to a website address. Mr Tomlinson, who was jailed for breaking the Official Secrets Act, denied the allegation.

(...continues...)

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1553993,00.html

The website they mean, of course, is cryptome.org ( http://cryptome.org/mi6-list2.htm ) but they might also have meant groups.google.com, since the cryptome page references a post ( http://groups.google.com/group/uk.politics.parliament/browse_frm/thread/28f79e92fa548911/530bd2817d91fe99?hl=en#530bd2817d91fe99 ) to the uk.politics.parliament newsgroup, originally sent from a yahoo account, as the source of the new list. The original 1999 list mentioned in the Grauniad's story is still hosted at cryptome, at http://cryptome.org/mi6-list.htm . Tomlinson has always denied being the source of that list, which was originally published by LaRouche outlet Executive Intelligence Review which (it is alleged) has been used by British intelligence services to circulate disinformation in the past.

[D-Notice]

1. Is this classed as

"Freedom of Information"?

The innocent have nothing to fear...

[evermind]

4. It might be classed as

"It's very hard to stop people publishing information on the Internet"

- this was originally published in a USENET newsgroup, not on the web. Once so published, there's not really any further damage done by archiving it on a website: the information has been out there (and archived on google groups!) for 24 hours. Any interested parties have had plenty of time to grab it already.

USENET is quite convenient for anyone wanting to publish this type of thing: it can be done more-or-less anonymously, and the distribution mechanism means that within hours any information so published is physically hosted on literally thousands of different computers around the world, with no 100% reliable mechanism for deleting it.

[mr blur]

6. Agreed!

If they've done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about. Or does this only count for those of us objecting to ID cards?

[D-Notice]

8. I think the phrase

"Do as I say, not as I do" seems appropriate for that point of view :P

[Taxloss]

2. This seems a very strange thing to do.

Who? Why? Why now?

[evermind]

3. The list seems to be related to the 1999 one.

The format is similar, and about a dozen names are in common between the two lists, which could mean either that the source is the same or that the release of this list was inspired by the 1999 one.

If the new list is accurate, then, it at least shows that having your name and job splashed across the internet is no bar to a continuing career in MI6!

According to cryptome, "HM Diplomatic Service Overseas Reference List, August 2005, [...] lists most of these persons and shows that their 2005 positions and stations match those listed here".

On comparing this list with the 1999 one, the names in common, with a couple of exceptions, are listed by cryptome as confirmed in that location by the Overseas list. I'll not include the names here, but the locations are:

Beirut, Kabul, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Amman, Harare, Baghdad, Dubai, and Riyadh.

This seems to show a concentration in Al Qaeda / Muslim related trouble spots, but what that means, I've no idea.. Perhaps the list has red herrings to attract would-be terrorist plotters..?

(On edit: OTOH, I wonder if it could be related to this Telegraph story: Israel protests at MI6 mission to halt Hamas suicide bombings (a puzzling title - you'd think they'd be pleased at halting bombings!) at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/21/wmid121.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/21/ixnewstop.html

MI6 is attempting to persuade Hamas to renounce violence and enter negotiations with Israel after last week's withdrawal of 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip. But the contacts between MI6 and Hamas have provoked fierce criticism from the Israeli government, which is opposed to British Intelligence dealing with an organisation that Israel has denounced as a terror group.

Israeli officials confirmed last week that a formal protest had been made to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has overall responsibility for MI6.

"We have made our feelings about this known to Mr Straw in the strongest possible terms," said a senior official at Israel's foreign ministry.

"But although he gave us an assurance that the operation would be scaled down, it is still going on."

I suppose issuing an MI6 list would be a way of making their opinions felt!

As usual with spy stories, we can only speculate.

[D-Notice]

9. What a strange thing for the Israelis to do…

You’d think that they’d want people to help encourage Hamas to stop blowing people up!

If I was being paranoid, I’d say that the people who claim Hamas is a Mossad front are telling the truth…

Also, notice how over here we refer to Hamas attacks as "suicide bombings", not, as in the case of Fox News, "homicide bombings".

[ikri]

5. Pure conjecture, but....

With the rumours that the UK will be deploying forces away from Iraq to Afghanistan and with added rumours that part of the mission profile would be to actually track down Bin Forgotten, it is interesting that the very MI6 personnel who have experience of searching for war criminals and who would undoubtedly be used in the same manner in Afghanistan have suddenly had their cover blown.

[...of J.Temperance]

7. Could the reason possibly be

Payback for the leaking of the Downing Street Memo? Could it also be some form of blackmail for Blair to go into Iran, like they leak 1999 MI6 names as a warning ie. "we've GOT the 2005 MI6 names too...DON'T want them leaked now do you Tony? So be a good boy and follow orders."

Don't forget the Bush critters are experts at blowing agents cover, think Valerie Plame.

[evermind]

10. If you're serious... I think that's extremely unlikely

I very much doubt MI6 leaked the DSM! If you remember, they were on the side of the fixers of intelligence, and had an operation planting pro-WMD bullshit stories in the foreign press ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rockingham , for example )

As for your blackmail suggestion, if you read my post, or the cryptome link, the "2005 MI6 names", as you call them, HAVE been leaked already.

I wouldn't rule out that Blair might be blackmailable in some way (there was a story about how he wouldn't stand up to Bush where his briefers had advised it...) but I don't think this is it!

Probably what's happened is just some uninformed person having fun with random names from the Overseas list and the previous 1999 list format, I'm starting to think.

[...of J.Temperance]

11. Okay

I'm going to re-read those links. I was previously aware of Operation Rockingham and I think I read that they might have been involved in the odd death of Dr. David Kelly.

I know I fucked up in my original response, but hey, I CAN'T be perfect ALL of the time...just MOST of the time ;)