This is probably one of the most shocking stories I’ve read all year. US officials believe there is at least one Russian mole inside the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA). That’s not a small thing. It’s also unprecedented.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a counterintelligence probe at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters in a top-secret hunt for a Russian agent, according to a former intelligence official close to the agency.

The former official said the probe grew out of the case of 10 Russian "illegals," or deep-cover spies, who were uncovered last summer and sent back to Moscow after the defection of Col. Alexander Poteyev, a former SVR foreign intelligence officer who reportedly fled to the U.S. shortly before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited here in June.

Col. Poteyev is believed to be the source who disclosed the U.S.-based agent network.

NSA counterintelligence officials suspect that members of the illegals network were used by Russia’s SVR spy agency to communicate with one or more agents inside the agency, which conducts electronic intelligence gathering and code-breaking.

It’s also very interesting that we’re even reading about this. It can only mean one of two things. Either the mole hunt itself was leaked and has put the entire operation in jeopardy, or NSA intentionally leaked news of the hunt to provoke a reaction from the leaker. Meaning they possibly know who it is and by leaking word of the hunt they can make the person or persons do something out of the ordinary. I tend to believe it was intentionally leaked by NSA.

I wonder where DOD has that Russian Colonel stashed? Russia is probably using every intel asset they have in this country to learn the whereabouts of Col. Poteyev.

When you consider the lengths Russia went to murder Alexander Litvinenko on UK soil using radioactive polonium-210, I’d say we had best bury that Col. as far underground as we can get him.

Here’s a great documentary about Alexander Litvinenko:

WikiLeaks said Monday that their next intelligence leak will be 7 times larger than the Iraq war logs.

They offered no details about the contents of the coming leak or when we might it expect it.

They’ve claimed in the past to be in possession of a huge cache of State Department cables that give a behind the scenes look at American diplomacy around the world.

I’ve said before that Julian Assange and his cronies can only get away with this for so long. Just wait until they leak something serious about Russia or China.

Julian’s car will accidentally explode with him in it one morning. He gets away with this crap because America has become too civilized. Countries like Russia don’t give a damn about international opinion. They’ll take these guys out one by one.

The Washington Post’s resident troop basher William Arkin along with Dana Priest released their expose on the American intelligence community today.

It’s the first part of a multi-part series that is allegedly the result of more than two years of investigating by The Post.

It basically says the intelligence community was showered with unlimited funds after 9/11 and as a result has grown into an uncontrollable bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of people.

[Click here to read the full piece]

[Click here to read the highlights]

More than 830,000 people now have a top secret security clearance in America.

Basically, we did what we always do in times of emergency — we overdue it. “Go big or go home” should be the official motto of the US government.

That said, I can’t really blame us for that. After 9/11 we needed information and we needed it yesterday. We didn’t have the luxury of worrying about bloated bureaucracies.

I do think a review needs to be done on our overall intelligence efforts and see where we can cut out redundant agencies and trim the fat. A leaner more agile Intel community would be more effective.

The WaPo piece says our failure to catch the Christmas bomber until he was lighting his underwear on fire over Detroit was a direct result of information glut.

Whatever the intelligence community legitimately needs I say give it to them. But we shouldn’t let it spiral into another sacred cow like the DOD where cuts of any kind are considered blasphemy.

You really do have to keep your eye on this administration and this congress every minute of every day. In case you haven’t noticed the assault on our intelligence agencies that was in full swing after Obama’s election has died down in recent months. Things have been very quiet — a little too quite.

That uneasy calm was shattered today as Democrats tried a sneak attack on the intelligence community in the form of a last minute addition to the intel bill.

Stashed in the new intelligence bill literally in the dark of night were 11 pages that banned “degrading” treatment of detainees. Interrogators would face 15-years in prison if something they did was ruled “degrading” by this left-wing Congress.

So-called degrading treatment “includes but is not limited to” exploiting phobias, hooding detainees, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, and anything else the gutless bureaucrats decide.

The American people had no idea what they were doing when they put this radical bunch of miscreants in charge. These leftists are f*cking crazy and they’re going to get us all killed.

Fortunately, Republicans howled in protest and the bill was eventually pulled.

-Chris Jones

This is extremely disturbing video. I’ve actually read a lot about the espionage situation with China and it’s nothing short of chilling.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

For years the United States has literally been under siege by China’s intelligence services. There is hardly a secret left that China hasn’t already stolen. Not only is America awash in undercover Chinese agents like the one “60 Minutes” shows, but Chinese hackers steal Pentagon secrets on a daily basis.

It’s literally open season on the US and nobody is doing a damn thing about it.

Add that to the fact that China has us by the balls financially and you start to realize what bad shape we’re actually in.

Health care reform can wait. What we really need is intelligence reform, but that’s for another post.

By the way, the two jerks in the video only got 15 years. That’s probably the biggest disgrace in this story. That Pentagon employee sold out his country for $2,000. He should have been given life. A life sentence would serve as a deterrent to other traitors.

-Chris Jones

Maybe I’m being cynical, but something about this just doesn’t sound right. U.S. Border security officials are now saying they learned of the airline bomber’s terror ties after he was already in the air heading for the U.S. They were planning to question him once he landed in Detroit.

U.S. border security officials learned of intelligence about the alleged extremist links of the suspect in the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt as he was en route to Detroit and had decided to question him when he landed, officials said in new disclosures today.

"The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection," said a senior law enforcement official who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. "The decision had been made. The . . . database had picked up the State Department concern about this guy, that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen. . . . They could have made a decision on whether to stop him from getting on the plane."

Just a couple of days after President Obama criticized the intelligence community for it’s failure to connect the dots we hear this story? Like I said, maybe I’m being too cynical but this sounds like a heaping helping of CYA to me.

They really did connect the dots, honest! They were a little slow so he was able to get airborne, but you can bet your sweet bippy he was going to br questioned once he landed! Seriously, he really was!

Yeah, right. This sounds like typical bureaucratic BS to me.

In an effort to take Obama’s economic failures off the front page, democrats once again resurrected an issue that so far has also been a failure — CIA witch hunts.

CIA Director Leon Panetta supposedly told Congress about a CIA program last week that up until that point had been kept from Congress at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Liberals in Congress predictably ran to the press and pointed to Panetta’s disclosure as proof that the CIA lies to Congress, which means Nancy Pelosi was telling the truth when she made that accusation some weeks ago.

You can’t tell the media about a “secret” program they can’t know about, because like a child they’ll keep digging and begging until they find out the secret.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today new details on the secret program that Panetta disclosed to Congress.

Apparently, the program involved the assassination of top Al-Qaeda leaders.

Amid the high alert following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small CIA unit examined the potential for targeted assassinations of al Qaeda operatives, according to the three former officials. The Ford administration had banned assassinations in the response to investigations into intelligence abuses in the 1970s. Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.

"It was straight out of the movies," one of the former intelligence officials said. "It was like: Let’s kill them all."

I hope liberal democrats are not hanging their hat on this one. If the left thinks Americans are going to be upset about a program to kill Al-Qaeda terrorists, they’re wildly mistaken.

Terrorists should be hunted down and killed. Not arrested, not brought back for Eric Holder to give rights to, but killed on the spot.

The most troubling aspect of this latest revelation is not that such a program was being discussed, but that such a program was not immediately implemented.

More troubling still, is the fact that Director Panetta’s knee-jerk reaction to learning of the program was to cancel it.

As usual, this latest CIA dust-up is more about politics than anything else. Like Eric Holder’s determination to prosecute the very people who’ve kept us safe, Democrats are determined to play politics with our national security.

This from ABC News:

The CIA’s station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.

Cue the “America is evil”, “America is the real terrorist”, “America is raping Islam” stories. Let the America bashing commence.

-Chris Jones

A brand new effort has been launched to try and capture or kill Osama bin Laden. President Bush has asked the British special forces to assist U.S. forces in the effort and they have agreed. Some in the intelligence community believe they know what region of Northwest Pakistan Osama bin Laden is hiding and are prepared to take him out.

Special forces have been methodically rolling-up the Al-Qaeda network member by member both in the Pakistani tribal areas and around the world. The plan is to get those closest to him and push him back towards the Afghan border where unmanned drones flying overhead can spot him and take him out.

All this sounds like a great thing, but I don’t understand why we always have to know about it. We know from his recordings that UBL reads the papers, and is aware of what’s being discussed in the media. I’m sure he’ll be quite pleased to read about the plan to catch him.

-Chris Jones

From the AP:

A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.

The satellite, which no longer be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.