Part 2: Carl Cameron
Investigates
Monday, December 17, 2001
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Part 2 of 4
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time
we reported on the approximately 60 Israelis who had been
detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism
investigation. Carl Cameron reported that U.S.
investigators suspect that some of these Israelis were spying
on Arabs in this country, and may have turned up information
on the planned terrorist attacks back in September that was
not passed on.
Tonight, in the second of four reports on
spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an
Israeli-based private communications company, for whom a
half-dozen of those 60 detained suspects worked. American
investigators fear information generated by this firm may have
fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect of impeded the
Sept. 11 terror inquiry. Here's Carl Cameron's second
report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS
CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fox News has
learned that some American terrorist investigators fear
certain suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks may have managed to
stay ahead of them, by knowing who and when investigators are
calling on the telephone. How?
By obtaining and analyzing data that's
generated every time someone in the U.S. makes a call.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What city and state,
please?
CAMERON: Here's how the system works.
Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call
records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone
companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private
elecommunications company.
Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest
phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The
White House and other secure government phone lines are
protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on
normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it.
In recent years, the FBI and other
government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than
once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any
security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox
News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency,
headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top
Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI,
warning that records of calls in the United States were
getting into foreign hands in Israel, in particular.
Investigators don't believe calls are being
listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when
is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdocs memo to
senior company executives suggests just how Amdocs generated
call records could be used. Widespread data mining
techniques and algorithms.... combining both the properties of
the customer (e.g., credit rating) and properties of the
specific behavior
. Specific behavior, such as who the
customers are calling.
The Amdocs memo says the system should be
used to prevent phone fraud. But U.S.
counterintelligence analysts say it could also be used to spy
through the phone system. Fox News has learned that the
N.S.A has held numerous classified conferences to warn the
F.B.I. and C.I.A. how Amdocs records could be used. At
one NSA briefing, a diagram by the Argon national lab was used
to show that if the phone records are not secure, major
security breaches are possible.
Another briefing document said, "It has
become increasingly apparent that systems and networks are
vulnerable.
Such crimes always involve unauthorized persons,
or persons who exceed their authorization...citing on
exploitable vulnerabilities."
Those vulnerabilities are growing, because
according to another briefing, the U.S. relies too much on
foreign companies like Amdocs for high-tech equipment and
software. "Many factors have led to increased dependence
on code developed overseas.... We buy rather than train or
develop solutions."
U.S. intelligence does not believe the
Israeli government is involved in a misuse of information, and
Amdocs insists that its data is secure. What U.S. government
officials are worried about, however, is the possibility that
Amdocs data could get into the wrong hands, particularly
organized crime. And that would not be the first thing
that such a thing has happened. Fox News has documents
of a 1997 drug trafficking case in Los Angeles, in which
telephone information, the type that Amdocs collects, was used
to "completely compromise the communications of the FBI, the
Secret Service, the DEO and the LAPD."
We'll have that and a lot more in the days
ahead Brit.
HUME: Carl, I want to take you back
to your report last night on those 60 Israelis who were
detained in the anti-terror investigation, and the suspicion
that some investigators have that they may have picked up
information on the 9/11 attacks ahead of time and not passed
it on.
There was a report, you'll recall, that the
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, did indeed send
representatives to the U.S. to warn, just before 9/11, that a
major terrorist attack was imminent. How does that leave
room for the lack of a warning?
CAMERON: I remember the report, Brit.
We did it first internationally right here on your show on the
14th. What investigators are saying is that that warning
from the Mossad was nonspecific and general, and they believe
that it may have had something to do with the desire to
protect what are called sources and methods in the
intelligence community. The suspicion being, perhaps
those sources and methods were taking place right here in the
United States.
The question came up in select intelligence
committee on Capitol Hill today. They intend to look
into what we reported last night, and specifically that
possibility Brit.
HUME: So in other words, the problem
wasn't lack of a warning, the problem was lack of useful
details?
CAMERON: Quantity of
information.
HUME: All right, Carl, thank you very
much.
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