#spying

This one is going to get a little gross.

What's the most valuable source of information when spying on a foreign power? It's not really stuff you get directly, like tapping into phone lines and stealing attaché cases. The western powers learned that lesson in Operation Gold in the 1950s.

The Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin during the Cold War was one of the most desirable targets, and worth investing resources into to extract secret information. To do this, the US, UK, and France cooperated to dig a tunnel beneath the East-West Berlin border, 1,480 feet long.

Their target was a bundle of cables which served as a telephone junction, just 6 feet below the surface. The operation, while costly and complex, was a massive success: The West spent 11 months with a tap directly into unguarded phone lines.

Or was it a success? The Soviets knew about the project before it even broke ground, thanks to a Soviet spy who was there for the earliest meetings. The KGB spent those eleven months feeding the tap a mix of true, false, and useless information without letting on that they knew about it.

Unwillingness to compromise their spy's existence led to much useful information still being intentionally fed through, but when he was reassigned, the USSR arranged for the tunnel to be "accidentally" discovered.

So where can you get your information and know that it's definitely the truth? Toilet paper!

Let's move forward to 1979. The Soviet-Afghan War has started. The West wants information on how it's going, the Soviet military strategy, and what equipment they use. The location to learn all this is, once again, East Germany.

Rifling through trash is a long-honored bit of spycraft, but this project, Operation Tamarisk, would take it a new level starting in the late 1970s. See, many Soviet troops injured in Afghanistan would be evacuated to East German hospitals. That may not sound very useful, but the next important thing to know is that Soviet troops often didn't have toilet paper.

And so they would use documents. Letters from home, receipts, old paperwork, top secret military plans. That last one is what drew interest. And so the unhappiest British spies found themselves digging through used toilet paper. One such document retrieved in this way: an analysis of the latest Soviet tank's strengths, weaknesses, and development.

(Why don't any of my sources say WHICH tank that is? I guess it'd be the T-80, introduced just a few years earlier?)

The worst was searching the refuse of hospitals for these hidden (but feces-covered) gems. When spies complained to their handlers that the trash was filled with things like amputated limbs, the handlers simply requested that those be recovered as well. The limbs would show evidence of chemical weapon use and shrapnel encountered in the war.

Because of its source, the toilet paper is the one thing the West could count on the Soviets not seeding with false information. In fact, Operation Tamarisk proved to be one of the most successful intelligence coups of the Cold War. And at least one spy found himself eager to go "tamarisking", as the highly valuable information would often lead to an increase in reputation and promotions.

Section 702 of FISA to expire tonight, but certification lasts until March 2027.

To the best of my knowledge and assessment, Israel’s intelligence community stopped spying on U.S. soil and against American targets or individuals around the world following the Pollard affair in 1985. Period. Not Unit 8200. Not the Mossad and not the Shin Bet.

Therefore, my understanding is that the recent reports are part of a campaign by elements within the administration to blame Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence for the unsuccessful war against Iran.

This is the background to the leaks claiming that Netanyahu and Mossad chief Dedi Barnea pushed Trump toward war and convinced him there was a chance their plan to overthrow the regime would succeed.

Other leaks claimed that the U.S. fired more missiles in defense of Israel than for its own defense, thereby depleting its missile and interceptor stockpiles. Another leak described an allegedly bizarre Mossad plan to install Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the next leader if the IDF, Mossad, and the Americans succeeded in toppling the clerical regime.

Indeed, Bibi, Barnea, and his deputy “E,” whom the new Mossad head, Roman Gutfman removed in a swift move, formulated what is described here as an absurd plan intended to install none other than the “unhinged” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the Holocaust denier who called for Israel’s destruction and for developing nuclear weapons. But in the end, even noless than the cow (Israel) wanted to nurse, the calf (Trump) wanted to suckle.

NBC and The New York Times, which published the report that a Pentagon assessment concluded Israel had recently been spying obsessively on the U.S., cite as evidence that the Shin Bet allegedly tried to listen in on Secret Service vehicles when they came to protect American officials in Israel.

Maybe that happened. But I have no doubt that American intelligence agencies as well (the FBI, NSA, and Secret Service) monitor, track, and collect information on Unit 730 personnel when they are protecting Israeli officials visiting the United States on official trips.

It is also possible that Unit 8200 intercepts conversations taking place, for example, in Pakistan between Iran and the United States. If successful, it would naturally gain an understanding of the broader situation. But the target would not be Witkoff, Kushner, or other Americans  rather, Iranian and Pakistani representatives.

In any case, facts and truth are already becoming less relevant. What matters is that the administration is turning the Israeli government and Israeli intelligence into scapegoats for the strategic failure of the war.

I agree with Yossi, the grizzled veteran of Israeli intelligence reportage.

The deeper story of the NYT article about Israeli spying -- citing an alleged report the NYT itself hasn't seen -- isn't the spying itself. There's no direct spying on America, because the costs of discovery would be enormous. But there's obviously a great deal of analysis and open-source intelligence work on America, just like there is in America's intelligence community on Israel. Because neither side is stupid, and to do otherwise would be incompetent.

No, the real story here isn't the claims in the article, but the leak itself. It's part of a spate of leaks, possibly but not yet certainly from the Vance orbit, that are trying to distance the administration from the perceived failure of the Iran war by dumping all the blame on Israel.

So I recently bought my boyfriend a custom journal, and wanted to see if he finally used it. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t have looked) he constantly promises he wants to propose and move forward but hasn’t made any movement towards that in months. His most recent entry was on a day we had a conflict and he had only written: “I didn’t ask for this. She came at the wrong time.” I wasn’t sure what to make of this. This kind of broke my heart because if he felt like he wasn’t ready or I came at the wrong time I would hope he’s not giving me false promises. I don’t know if I should just ignore this or if there’s a way to gently approach this. I just don’t want to be lead on, and if he feels unhappy or not ready I want to know that and not have him feel pressure. I know I shouldn’t have looked, but I also want to be sure how he feels. Any advice appreciated. How do I approach this?