Amir Hekmati

An Iranian court has convicted an Iranian-American man of spying for the CIA and sentenced him to death, Iranian state news media reported Monday.

The alleged spy is 28 year-old Amir Mirzaei Hekmati. Hekmati ”has 20 days to appeal the court’s decision, which comes at a time of increasing tensions between Tehran and Washington,” according to a report in the Washington Post.

Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine Arabic language translator in Iraq, was born in Arizona and raised in Michigan. His family in Michigan, former colleagues and American government officials say Hekmati never served in the CIA and was in Iran to visit his grandmother.

Hekmati’s parents said they “are shocked and terrified” by the news, his mother Behnaz Hekmati wrote at the website they’ve set up to advocate for Amir’s release, FreeAmir. Hekmati’s father Ali is a professor of biology at a Flint Michigan community. “We believe that this verdict is the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair.”

“Amir did not engage in any acts of spying, or ‘fighting against God,’ as the convicting Judge has claimed in his sentence,” his mother’s post continues. “A grave error has been committed, and we have authorized our legal representatives to make direct contact with the Iranian authorities to find a solution to this misunderstanding.”

Hekmati’s family said he had the permission of the Iranian interests section–the U.S. based diplomatic outpost for the Islamic republic–in Washington D.C. to travel to Iran in August to visit his elderly grandmother. After his arrest on August 29, Iranian officials told the family to keep quiet in order to facilitate his release.

However, in December, Iranian state media aired video of Hekmati allegedly confessing to having worked as a CIA agent. His family and friends vehemently deny these charges and said it appears he had given that “confession” under extreme duress. This would not be the first time an American was accused of spying in Iran, supposedly confessed and was put through a Kangaroo Court.

Hekmati joined the Marines in 2001 after graduating from high school. He had called a friend last year to propose launching a business together. Last month he told another friend he was thinking of going back to school to get a business degree. None of this sounds like a man preparing for a career as a government spy.

Until last month, Hekmati’s Facebook page displayed photos of  himself in various locales he had worked. This is an indication, his friends say, that he was not in any way seeking to conceal his recent activities or past work in the U.S. military. Several other associates and observers have cited Hekmati’s Facebook account as cause to doubt Iranian claims he was a deep-cover American spy.

Read full story@ yahoo

In December, Wikileaks revealed what it has dubbed “the Spy Files,” a collection of 287 documents that include information about companies that provide different types of surveillance methods including cell phone forensics, spyware, and Wifi interceptions.

“Over a year or longer, SSL certificates have been penetrated by various organized crime groups and intelligence agencies. The entire SSL system, which is the mechanism that guarantees security and anonymity online, has been compromised. SSL is beyond repair,” says Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The ACLU also has listed a very detailed account of what they consider illegal domestic spying in America. “The FBI, federal intelligence agencies, the military, state and local police, private companies, and even firemen and emergency medical technicians are gathering incredible amounts of personal information about ordinary Americans that can be used to construct vast dossiers that can be widely shared with a simple mouse-click through new institutions like Joint Terrorism Task Forces, fusion centers, and public-private partnerships. The fear of terrorism has led to a new era of overzealous police intelligence activity directed, as in the past, against political activists, racial and religious minorities, and immigrants.”

Read story@ dfinews

Until this year, IBISS was a classified system, a piece of high-tech wizardry the military used to fight the war on terrorism. The contractor that made the system, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), couldn’t talk about it in public, but that’s changing. IBISS is one of the new products SAIC is hoping to sell to local police stations and fire departments as the defense contractor explores what is known in the industry as “adjacent markets.”

Adjacent markets can mean anything from foreign militaries to the Department of Homeland Security for the industry that makes the computer systems, software, remote sensors, radar and ground stations that comprise Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) for the military.

For the first decade of the war on terrorism, the ISR industry thrived, and companies like SAIC, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin made big profits. Those days are coming to an end though.

On Monday at the annual industry trade conference known as GEOINT, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence,  broke the news to the assembled contractors: “We are all going to have  to share in the pain.” Clapper said, as his office submitted billions of dollars in cuts to the Office of Management and Budget over the next 10 years.

Gulu Gambhir, the chief technology officer for the ISR group of SAIC, said he has seen this day coming. “At SAIC it is certainly no surprise to us that there are pressures on  the budget within our key customer space, and we’ve been preparing for  these pressures and a potential downturn in certain parts of our ISR  market for some time now,” Gambhir told The Daily Beast on Monday.

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said he has seen this trend for a while of military technology developed for uses overseas finding their way to local law enforcement.

It now appears SAIC is looking for new ways to utilitze this technology and primarily looking for new customers. This is where the sales of this technology to police and fire departments comes into play.

“In some ways this is the entire trend we’ve been seeing since 9/11. All  kinds of capabilities that were developed with an eye to foreign  countries are being turned inward upon the American people,” Stanley  said. “We’ve seen this with everything from the NSA to spy satellites  even to a lot of the technologies that are moving through what is called  the green to blue pipeline, which is to say the military to the police.”

Read more@ yahoo

Robert Guzanek said a private investigation firm placed the camera to spy on his neighbor, Dana Fredericks, who has filed a disability claim at work for a badback. However, Guzanek said the company illegally installed the battery-operated surveillance camera in a clearing where workers cut into his hedgerow. He said his neighbors witnessed the installation. Apparently, a van and two individuals, were acting as if they were cable company employees who were checking for a signal, according to Guzanek.

“It’s big brother watching down on you without your knowledge,” Guzanek said.

Fredericks was upset about the camera, too and said, ”I’m totally offended. “I just can’t believe in America that somebody could get away with it. I’d even feel better if it was the government.”

Guzanek called the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department which sent deputies to remove the camera. However, the private investigation company then called the Sheriff’s Department to tell them to have it put back.

“Quite upsetting. You really have to find out who these people are and prosecute them to the fullest,” Guzanek said. He said the camera was on his private property, which is a private road.

The company released the following statement on the camera.

“Accident Fund Insurance Company of America requires private investigators to comply with Michigan law. We take Mr. Guzanek’s allegations very seriously and while our information shows the private investigation complied with all laws, we are conducting an internal review to confirm the law was not violated in this situation.”

The Sheriff’s Department still had the camera as of last Wednesday night.