Exposing the Dark Forces Behind the Snowden Smears

[Peter Lemkin]

Clarifying Snowden's Freedom' By Ray McGovern

November 3, 2013

A common angle from the mainstream U.S. media is that NSA leaker Edward Snowden will regret his asylum in Russia (rather than life in prison in the U.S.). A quote from ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was used in support of that theme, but he has asked the New York Times to clarify it.


By Ray McGovern (addressing the New York Times editors)
I was quoted in Steven Lee Myers's "In Shadows, Hints of a Life and Even a Job for Snowden," published by the New York Times on Oct. 31, as saying (about former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden), "He's free, but not completely free" in asylum in Russia.
An unfortunate juxtaposition in the text of Mr. Myers's piece has led several acquaintances to misinterpret my words. I trust you will agree that the issue is of some importance; thus, my request that you publish this clarification.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013, after receiving an award from an organization of former U.S. intelligence officials. (From a video posted by WikiLeaks)

Mr. Myers quotes me correctly. Unfortunately, the immediately preceding sentences quote a Russian journalist, who "cautioned" that the appearance of a "happy, open asylum" could be "propaganda," and that the Russian security services might be waiting to question Mr. Snowden until he becomes "increasingly dependent on them."
This is not at all what I meant by "not completely free." For starters, I guess I'm not sure how free you can feel being stateless, the State Department having revoked your passport.
Still more on this issue emerged on Oct. 9, after Mr. Snowden was presented with this year's Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence. We four Sam Adams Associates Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, Coleen Rowley, and I chatted into the wee hours with Mr. Snowden and WikiLeaks journalist Ms. Sarah Harrison. (It was Ms. Harrison who facilitated his departure from Hong Kong on June 23. She has been at his side ever since to witness that he is not undergoing at the hands of the Russians what in some Western countries are called "enhanced interrogation techniques.")
I asked Mr. Snowden whether he was aware that just six days before our Sam Adams award ceremony, Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and the CIA had said publicly that he had "thought of nominating Mr. Snowden … for a different list" an unmistakable hint that Mr. Snowden be put on President Barack Obama's infamous "Kill List." With a wan smile, Mr. Snowden assured me that Yes; he keeps well up on such things.
And did he know that Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, chimed right in with immediate support for Hayden's suggestion, stating, "I can help you with that?" This time the wan smile gave way to a wince and another Yes. (Both Hayden and Rogers were speaking at an Oct. 3 conference sponsored by the Washington Post, which, oddly, neglected to report on this macabre/mafiatype pas de deux.)
After the back-to-back wan smile and wince, I resisted the urge to ask Mr. Snowden if he saw reassurance in the official letter of July 23 from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to his Russian counterpart conveying Holder's promise: "Mr. Snowden will not be tortured … if he returns to the United States."
In his Oct. 31 article, Mr. Myers includes an instructive remark from Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer assisting Mr. Snowden. Mr. Kucherena told Myers he would not discuss Mr. Snowden's life in exile "because the level of threat from the U.S. government structures is still very high."
THAT'S what I meant by "not completely free."

[Peter Lemkin]

(CNN) -- Leaked classified documents show the U.S. National Security Agency and its British counterpart are among the "worst offenders" of mass surveillance without oversight, according to an open letter purportedly written by Edward Snowden and published Sunday by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The publication of the letter, titled "A Manifesto for the Truth," comes as leaks by the former NSA contract analyst have roiled U.S.-European relations amid allegations that the NSA and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters monitored the communication data of some world leaders.
"The world has learned a lot in a short amount of time about irresponsibly operated security agencies and, at times, criminal surveillance programs. Sometimes the agencies try to avoid controls," Snowden wrote, according to the news magazine.
"While the NSA and GCHQ (the British national security agency) appear to be the worst offenders -- at least according to the documents that are currently public -- we cannot forget that mass surveillance is a global problem and needs a global solution."

Edward Snowden: I'm no criminal

Might Snowden testify in Germany, U.S.?

Edward Snowden's new job

Glenn Greenwald on NSA spying on allies
The letter, published in German by Der Spiegel, was written on Friday in Moscow and provided to Der Spiegel through a "locked channel," the news magazine said. It was published in German and has been translated by CNN.
Snowden, 30, has admitted in interviews he was the source behind the leak of classified NSA documents, which revealed the existence of top-secret surveillance programs that collect records of domestic e-mails and telephone calls in the United States and monitor the cell phone and Internet activity of overseas residents. He is wanted in the United States on espionage charges.
A recent report by Der Spiegel, citing documents provided by Snowden, alleged the NSA monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. Some reports also suggest the United States carried out surveillance on French and Spanish citizens.
The allegations have prompted some European countries to call for investigations. It also has prompted congressional hearings in the United States, where some are calling for more transparency and more oversight of American spy programs.
Opinion: Don't underestimate risks of government spying
'Witch hunt'
The letter also accused governments of trying to squash debate about mass surveillance "with a never before seen witch hunt" that threatens journalists and criminalizes the publication of details about the programs.
In the letter, Snowden purportedly writes that his actions were bringing about change.
"The debate they wanted to avoid is now taking place in countries around the world," the letter said.
"And instead of causing damage, the use of this new public knowledge is causing society to push for political reforms, oversight and new laws."
Snowden has been in Moscow since June after fleeing from Hong Kong. In August, Russia granted him asylum for one year.
Snowden gets website job in Russia
The release of the open letter is the second in a matter of days from Snowden, who released a letter to German authorities through an intermediary.
Last week, Hans-Christian Stroebele, a member of Germany's parliament, met with Snowden in Russia. Stroebele returned from the meeting with a letter from Snowden to German authorities, which was distributed to the media.
In it, Snowden said he is confident that with international support, the United States would abandon its efforts to "treat dissent as defection" and "criminalize political speech with felony charges."
"I hope that when the difficulties of this humanitarian situation have been resolved, I will be able to cooperate in the responsible finding of fact regarding reports in the media, particularly in regard to the truth and authenticity of documents, as appropriate and in accordance with the law," he wrote.
Report: Snowden's Russia asylum not breached by NSA spying reports
'Face justice'
The White House did not immediately respond to Snowden's claims in the letter.
But earlier Sunday, White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer said on ABC's "This Week" that there has been no discussion of granting Snowden clemency.
"Mr. Snowden violated U.S. law," Pfeiffer said. "And our belief has always been that he should return to the U.S. and face justice."
It was a sentiment echoed by the heads of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
"He had an opportunity -- if what he was, was a whistle-blower -- to pick up the phone and call the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and say, 'I have some information,'" Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, said Snowden has to "own up with what he's done."
"If he wants to come back and open up to the responsibility of the fact that he took and stole information, he violated his oath, he disclosed classified information -- that by the way has allowed three different terrorist organizations, affiliates of al Qaeda to change the way they communicate -- I'd be happy to have that discussion with him," Rogers said on "Face the Nation."

[Peter Lemkin]

Military & Defense More: Edward Snowden

It's Now Clear That Edward Snowden's Life Is Dictated By Russian Intelligence

Michael Kelley Nov. 1, 2013, 10:00 AM 18,308


REUTERS
Edward Snowden is seen in front of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in central Moscow.


Even as Edward Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying continue to create global waves, it's becoming clear that the American's life is supervised by Russian intelligence agents."He's actually surrounded by these people," Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist who co-authored a history of the Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), told Steven Lee Meyers of The New York Times.
That has appeared to be the case since the 30-year-old arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23, when a radio host in Moscow "saw about 20 Russian officials, supposedly FSB agents, in suits, crowding around somebody in a restricted area of the airport," according to Anna Nemtsova of Foreign Policy.
"When the F.S.B. actually got him, they started to handle it their own way," Soldatov told The Times. "This is the way the security services operate all the time."
Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer who presented Snowden with a whistleblowing award and visited his apartment last month, said he had to pass through metal detectors before the meeting and that the former CIA technician appeared to be attended by some kind of official Russian security detail.
Snowden's life in Russia has been overseen by Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer employed by the FSB, as well as Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks advisor who has reportedly been by Snowden's side since he was in China.
A Kremlin-linked news agency has posted pictures of Snowden grocery shopping and riding a boat, and Kucherena says that Snowden got a job at an unnamed Russian website.
Soldatov and others cautioned to the Times that what the FSB allows for public consumption may present an impression of a happy and free asylum while obscuring ulterior motives for hosting the former CIA technician and NSA-trained hacker.
From Meyer's report in the Times:
The security services now protecting Mr. Snowden, [Soldatov] said, might not even try to question him soon on what he knows perhaps the greatest worry of American officials but rather simply let him live in such circumstances and become increasingly dependent on them.
In August WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed that the FSB hasn't even interviewed Snowden, but that almost certainly false.

Lingering questions

The unusual circumstances raise two significant questions. The first involves what the Russians can potentially glean from Snowden; the second involves the role of WikiLeaks.
In October he told the Times that "a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents," referring to the stolen trove of classified NSA documents that he took from Hawaii to Hong Kong.
The information includes not only the "blueprints of the NSA" but also 30,000 documents that do "not deal with NSA surveillance but primarily with standard intelligence about other countries' military capabilities, including weapons systems," according to a report in the Washington Post.
Snowden claimed to the Times that he gave all of the classified documents to journalists he met in Hong Kong, but there are several holes in that assertion. One of those journalists, Glenn Greenwald, has said that he believes Snowden held back some documents, saying Snowden "was clear he did not want to give to journalists things he did not think should be published."
And following Snowden outing himself on June 9 and subsequently parting with the journalists, he leaked specific IP addresses in China and Hong Kong the NSA was hacking to the South China Morning Post. He also told SCMP: "If I have time to go through this information, I would like to make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment."
No matter how all of the documents left his possession in Hong Kong, Snowden's ability to pull off the leak of the century means he has an enormous amount of highly valuable information in his head.
"Snowden understood exactly how far he could push [the NSA]," Robert Caruso, a former assistant command security manager in the Navy and consultant, told Business Insider in July. "That, coupled with his successful exploitation of our entire vetting process, makes him very dangerous."
Caruso refused to discuss Snowden's actions after Hawaii but did say that Snowden "understands how to exploit our systems human systems, vetting systems, and accountability systems."
WikiLeaks met with Snowden in Hong Kong after he went underground and facilitated his arrival in Moscow. The organization has clearly been coordinating with the FSB since Harrison is by Snowden's side, the FSB surrounds him, and WikiLeaks arranged for four former U.S. government officials to present him with a whistleblower award in Moscow.
Despite those uncertainties, Snowden's father told the Times that he knew very little about his son's life in Russia and declined to detail what he did know, saying that the "story isn't really about him at this point."
The story of the recognized NSA overreach that Snowden's leaks have exposed certainly is not but his vulnerability after landing in the hands of the Kremlin is a reason to worry.
SEE ALSO: Edward Snowden's Claim About Ditching All Of His Secret Documents Doesn't Add Up












Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-i...z2khCg4hJv

[Peter Lemkin]

NSA chief says Edward Snowden has shared up to 200,000 classified documents with media and that leaks increase the probability of a terrorist attack

By Reuters Reporter and Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED:20:51 GMT, 15 November 2013| UPDATED:22:12 GMT, 15 November 2013

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked as many as 200,000 classified documents to the media, according to little-noticed public remarks by the eavesdropping agency's chief late last month.

NSA Director General Keith Alexander was asked what steps U.S. authorities were taking to stop Snowden from leaking additional information to journalists at a Q&A session in Baltimore October 31.

'I wish there was a way to prevent it. Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out,' Alexander said. He also warned that these leaks made a terrorist attack more likely.


Whistleblower: Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden during a meeting with a German Green Party MP (not pictured) regarding being a witness for a possible investigation into NSA spying in Germany, on October 31. The NSA claim Snowden has leaked up to 200,000 classified documents


Alexander added that the documents were 'being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation,' according to a transcript of his talk made available by NSA on Thursday.
The agency chief claimed it is 'very hard' for the NSA to prevent such leaks. 'But I'll tell you, this increases the probability that a terrorist attack will get through,' he said.


'I think it's absolutely wrong. When we look back on this, people are going to see that and understand that and say what they did was wrong.

'Until then, we're at their mercy. They're putting them out, one or two a week, to cause the maximum problem. They get it wrong.'


Concerns: NSA Director General Keith Alexander claimed it is 'very hard' for the NSA to prevent such leaks. 'But I'll tell you, this increases the probability that a terrorist attack will get through,' he said


Officials briefed on investigations into Snowden's activities have said privately for months that internal government assessments indicate that the number of classified documents to which Snowden got access as a systems operator at NSA installations ran into the hundreds of thousands.

Officials said that while investigators now believe they know the range of documents that Snowden accessed, they remain unsure which documents he downloaded for leaking to the media.

By comparison, the number of Pentagon and State Department documents leaked to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled U.S. Army private was much larger.

The anti-secrecy group obtained around 400,000 Pentagon reports on the Iraq war, as well as 250,000 State Department cables and tens of thousands of documents on U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

None of the WikiLeaks material was classified higher than 'Secret' but many NSA documents leaked by Snowden were marked 'Top Secret' or with an even more restrictive 'Special Intelligence' stamp.

The material includes highly technical details on U.S. and allied eavesdropping activities.

Row: A supporter of the Anonymous group wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holds up a placard featuring a photo of US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Berlin. There has been uproar in Germany over reports of NSA spying in Europe


Snowden's revelations, which first surfaced in June, are still causing a headache for the government of President Barack Obama, particularly in its dealing with allies.
For example, Germany was outraged by reports that the NSA monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone.
Alexander also spoke about the report that the NSA had gained access to the phone records of over 70 million French citizens over a 30-day period.
The NSA chief said that was aimed at gathering data to support NATO-related activities, adding 'none of that information was collected in France, on French people or European citizens.'
'Yet the uproar in Europe over this is huge,' Alexander said. 'And it's interesting. It's almost like the War of the Worlds.'

Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Snowden's leaks were 'extremely damaging.'
'There is no doubt that those disclosures have made our job harder. We've seen that terrorists or adversaries are seeking to learn about the ways that we collect intelligence and seeking to adapt and change the ways that they communicate,' he told a congressional hearing on Thursday.


More to come: Glenn Greenwald (right) has written a series of stories based on material leaked by Edward Snowden. His partner David Miranda (left), a 28-year-old university student, was held and questioned at Heathrow for nearly nine hours in August under terrorism legislation. The NSA believes reporters have many more documents leaked by Snowden


In the past few days, U.S. officials say, a panel of former officials and experts set up by Obama to review NSA operations in the wake of Snowden's disclosures has privately reported interim conclusions to the White House.

The group's final report is due on December 15. The report, along with the White House's own review, is likely to lead to policy changes to be announced by year's end.

These are expected to include some constraints on the NSA's wide-ranging eavesdropping.

Also included in documents leaked by Snowden are at least 58,000 classified documents generated by Government Communications Headquarters, the NSA's British counterpart, according to UK authorities.

Snowden is in Russia, where he was granted asylum in August for at least a year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z2knwvgFai

[Carsten Wiethoff]

So now journalists are potential terrorists and writing an article can be an act of terrorism. How much more can be said about the current state of the "freedom of the press" in this world?
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24830684

The publication of material leaked by Edward Snowden is capable of being an act of terrorism, the home secretary's barrister has said.The claim was made in legal papers in a High Court case in which the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald is challenging his detention at Heathrow in August under anti-terror laws.
David Miranda was carrying data files for Mr Greenwald who has covered data leaked by US whistleblower Mr Snowden.
He says his detention was unlawful.
The two-day judicial review action is being contested by the home secretary and the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Miranda was en route from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro on 18 August when he was detained, questioned and searched by police at Heathrow under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

[Magda Hassan]

Guilty of journalism.

[Magda Hassan]

Snowden ally Appelbaum claims his Berlin apartment was invaded

Jacob Appelbaum, a US Internet activist and one of the people with access to Edward Snowden's documents, has told a Berlin paper that his apartment was broken into, saying he suspected US involvement.

Berlin resident and US national Jacob Appelbaum told Saturday's edition of the "Berliner Zeitung" daily that he believed he was under surveillance in the German capital. Appelbaum told the paper that somebody had broken into his apartment and used his computer in his absence.
Appelbaum accused the US security services of practicing a policy of subversion or disruptiveness similar to that in the former Communist East Germany.

DW.DE

[URL="http://www.dw.de/pressure-builds-to-crack-down-on-nsa-spying/a-17307624"]

Pressure builds to crack down on NSA spying

Not only is Obama's advisory panel putting pressure on the president, but Congress is also considering two bills aimed at the NSA's spying programs. Will they provide additional protections for non-US citizens? (19.12.2013)

[/URL]



"The surveillance terrorizes people and supports the much more violent terror of the drone war," Appelbaum, who often draws a link between telecommunications surveillance and unmanned aircraft strikes in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, told the Berliner Zeitung.
Appelbaum moved to Berlin citing better privacy protection in Germany and saying he did not feel safe in the US after a series of airport detentions after trips abroad. The computer security researcher and hacker, a former WikiLeaks representative and spokesman and developer for the "Tor" free software network designed to provide online anonymity, is one of the few people with access to some of the data held by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
"Currently our communications infrastructure is set up in such a way that the authorities can chime in at any time," Appelbaum said. "The problem is that the NSA therefore always has access to the data. The appropriate approach would be to cut the budgets of the spy agencies and to control them better, furthermore the encryption of communication should be legally guaranteed and the Internet's infrastructure should be altered accordingly."
Snowden, formerly a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US, went public in June with information about the organization's Internet and telephone espionage practices. Some of Snowden's leaked documents implicated other espionage bodies, not least Britain's GCHQ. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone was among the lines tapped, according to Snowden's information. Snowden is currently in Russia, having been granted temporary asylum in August.
In August in Berlin, Appelbaum delivered Edward Snowden's acceptance speech after he was awarded the biannual Whistleblower Prize by a group of NGOs.
http://www.dw.de/snowden-ally-appelbaum-...4-xml-mrss

[Peter Lemkin]

Guilty of journalism.

Worse than that...Investigative Journalism..... and the worst type of all is, of course, unembedded investigative journalism = treason.

[Peter Lemkin]

Former CIA Chief: Snowden should be "Hanged by the Neck until Dead"

By Joe Mullin

• • 
    

A very tentative suggestion of amnesty on a CBS program leads to a threat.

December 19, 2013

After all the virtual public flogging National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has received, in the past week a few voices have suggested cutting him some slack.

At a Tuesday closed-door meeting with tech leaders, one unnamed participant suggested to Obama that Snowden be pardoned; Obama said he couldn't do that. During a 60 Minutes report on the leaks that aired Sunday, though, even an NSA official suggested it might be worth discussing amnestyif and only if he returns the leaked documents securely, almost surely an impossibility at this point. (CBS news has been busy defending itself against accusations that Sunday's show was a "puff piece.")
Even that tiny, tentative olive branch seems to have crossed a line for security hawks. NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander dismissed the idea, comparing Snowden to "a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say[ing], You give me full amnesty and I'll let the other 40 go.'"
Former CIA director James Woolsey responded to the suggestion of amnesty even more strongly, saying in a Fox News interview that Snowden should be hanged.
"I think giving him amnesty is idiotic," said Woolsey, who ran the CIA from 1993 to 1995. "He should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead."
The tough talk on Snowden came the day after a federal judge found the NSA's broad phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional. US District Judge Richard Leon is the first federal judge to consider the program who does not sit on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/...ntil-dead/

[David Guyatt]

Woolsey was, or is, a senior vp at Booz Allen. So absolutely no conflict of interest there then.

Snowden released all this information on principle, whereas the duplicitous Woolsey had been named as a war profiteer. Nothing like having double standards is there...

WOOLSEY WATCH: Woolsey Needs to Make a Choice Between Being a War Profiteer or War Pundit

Steve Clemons - July 10, 2005

20 COMMENTSPRINT[email=type%20email%20address%20here?subject=I%20wanted%20to%20share%20this%20post%20with%20you%20from%20The%20Washington%20Note&body=WOOLSEY%20WATCH:%20%20Woolsey%20Needs%20to%20Make%20a%20Choice%20Between%20Being%20a%20War%20Profiteer%20or%20War%20Pundit%20%20%2D%20%20%28%20http://washingtonnote.com/woolsey_watch_w_1/%20%29]EMAIL[/email]SHARE

TWN has posted a great deal in the past about James Woolsey and his personal enrichment in a network of national security-oriented firms, investment funds, and other activities.
Woolsey was the first person on national television on September 11, 2001 to allege the connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda without disclosing on these shows his legal relationship representing Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.
He is also someone who seems to see no conflict between being a pro-war pundit pretending to be on objective commentator and a war profiteer who is pocketing a lot of money from contracting related to war activities.
To add to the pile of Woolsey involvement in defense firms (to see the rest, just search under "Woolsey" on the search function on the front page of TWN), here is another snippet regarding a defense firm he is playing with and no doubt being lavishly compensated.
As reported in the San Diego Union Tribune this week:

If a rising tide lifts all boats, a surge in federal defense spending has raised a fleet of small defense contractors.
At the end of May, the Navy said it had awarded an omnibus contract valued at nearly $ 40 billion to 503 government vendors, including hundreds of small businesses. The multiyear contract enables the companies to bid for a wide variety of services needed by the Navy under SeaPort Enhanced, a relatively new Web-based procurement program.
The Navy said it expects to award up to $ 5.3 billion a year under the SeaPort Enhanced program for engineering services, software development and all phases of weapons acquisition and program support. The list of eligible companies includes 60 firms based in San Diego, most of them small, privately held businesses.
"It's a hunting license, basically," said William G. Gang, chief operating officer for Information Systems Laboratories, an employee-owned defense firm based in San Diego since 1996. "You have to be on this SeaPort list to respond to the announcement."
Information Systems Laboratories, also known as ISL, serves in many ways as a paradigm among the legion of small defense contractors in ascendance throughout the San Diego region.
Like other defense companies, ISL has responded in recent years to the Pentagon's emphasis on "transformational" military technologies and tactics. The new doctrine has sought to combat terrorist and guerrilla attacks by revising the Pentagon's preference for big weapons systems to include "the small, the fast and the many."
A key to such capabilities is the electronic umbrella of digital communications and computer systems that enables regional military commanders to share information with their forces in the field as well as strategists in the Pentagon. The military calls it C4ISR, an acronym that refers to the four C's Command, Control, Communications and Computers along with Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
As a technology company, ISL has expertise in signals processing, sensors and communications.
"They are in a pretty sweet spot right now," said Jonathan Clark, a vice president and investment banking specialist at BB&T Capital Markets/Windsor Group in Huntington Beach.
"One of the things we're seeing is that (sector) has been a tremendously robust market," Clark said, "particularly companies that are focused on intelligence, homeland security and defense."
ISL is registered as a small business, which has been helpful in winning contracts awarded under the Pentagon's Small Business Innovative Research program. About 45 percent of its 125 employees hold security clearances from the Department of Defense.
As a small business, though, ISL also has distinguished itself in other ways.
ISL's sales growth put it on Deloitte's 2004 list of "Fast 50″ high-technology companies in the San Diego area. The company recorded $ 22 million in revenue last year, a 17.6 percent gain over 2003. ISL estimates its revenue this year will exceed $ 27 million.
R. Michael Dowe Jr., ISL's chief executive, was recently named as Ernst & Young's 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year among San Diego's software and information technology companies.
ISL also has recruited some prominent leaders in the defense industry to serve on a five-member technical advisory committee created to help set priorities for the company's research and development.
The committee includes James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Norman Augustine, the retired chairman and chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp.; Kent Kresa, a former chairman and chief executive of Northrop Grumman; Ret. Adm. William Owens, chief executive of Nortel and former vice chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Ret. Gen. Paul Gorman, former commander in chief of the U.S. Army's Southern Command and commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Woolsey should either choose to offer his expertise to the nation on biowarfare and national security issues while making a salary commensurate with those activities, as he apparently does at Booz Allen, and then forfeit his many other national security-related money-making boondoggles in which he gets rich while our nation's soldiers risk everything on the front line. Or alternatively, he should recuse himself from punditry and make all the money in the war business he would like to.
Doing both is outrageous and Congress should call hearings about those who have fanned the flames of the Iraq invasion, and now potentially an Iran conflict, while making windfall profits from these national security crises.
Steve Clemons

From Washington Note