Category Archives: Terror

Flight Recorders: Crashed Russian Airliner NOT Struck From Outside

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Flight Recorders Show Crashed Russian Airliner NOT Struck From Outside — According To Investigator Analyzing Crash; ISIS Said To Have Taken Advanced MANPADS From Syrian Air Base Which It Overran In 2014; Saudi Arabia Gave Chinese SAMs To Syrian Rebels In 2014

     Although a terrorist bomb on the doomed Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula over the weekend cannot be ruled out as a potential cause for the crash, Reuters News Service is reporting that the aircraft “was NOT struck from the outside — thus eliminating the possibility of a surface-to-air  missile being used — if true.  Ahmed Mohmed and Polina Devitt, reporting for the publication from Cairo, Egypt, write on the November 2, 2015 edition of the news website, cites a “source [investigator] who has done a preliminary examination of the black boxes recovered from the A321 which crashed n Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula region on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board.  An Egyptian Islamic militant group affiliated with the Islamic State claimed over the weekend that it had downed the civilian airliner, “in response to Russian airstrikes that [it says] killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.” Russian Transport Minister immediately dismissed the claim saying — “It can’t be considered accurate.”  Alexander Smrnov, Deputy General of the Russian airline, Kogalymavia, which operated the plane under the brand name — Metrojet — said only a “technical, or physical action” could have caused the aircraft break up in the air.”

     Reuters reports that “militants in the area are not believed to have missiles capable of hitting a plane at 30,000ft.,” though that may be wishful thinking.

ISIS Takes Advanced MANPADS From Syria – Stolen From Airbase Saudi Arabia Supplied Syrian Rebels With Chinese Surface-To-Air Missiles In 2014

    

     Thomas Gibbons Neff, writing for the Washington Post last year, (Tuesday, August 26, 2014 edition) reported that “ISIS militants stormed a Syrian airbase over the weekend, routing the remaining elements of the Syrian Army from the northern Raqqa Province; and, reportedly seized a cache of shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles. Mr. Neff adds that “the seizure of Tabqa air base, while not the first installation of its type to fall to militants, highlights the Islamic State’s gains in the region; and, the groups continued pilfering of advanced military equipment — particularly the surface-to-air missile systems known as MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems).”

    Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher at the Switzerland-based research group, Small Arms Survey; and, author of a recent report on MANPADS in Syria, believes the takeover of Tabqa Air Base could mark a “significant proliferation” of weapons across the region. “What we do know from previous airfield seizures…is that these places are a source of MANPADS and similar weapons,” Schroeder said.

     Damien Spleeters, an investigator for Conflict Armament Research, who has been documenting the weapons of the Islamic State in northern Iraq and Syria, said, “usually when you take an airbase you don’t just find one or two systems. You find a lot more than that because airbases are meant to store those types of weapons.” Spleeters added that “the prevalence of advanced systems like the SA-24, which can hit aircraft flying up to 20K feet — is very worrying. There’s a limited shelf-life for these type of weapons. There’s a lot of parameters in the picture.”

     “Most MANPADS,” for example, Mr. Spleeters said, “depend on batteries, which usually lasts only a few years when in storage; and, a few seconds when activated. When powered, the battery allows the missile to lock on to its target, but only for a brief window,” Spleeters explained. “Once the battery is expended, the weapon is useless.”

     “It’s possible,” however, “that militants are trying to work around that limitation by using a homemade recharging system for one particular MANPADS variant,” Mr. Neff wrote. C.J. Shivers, of The New York Times, first reported the case of the Syrian rebel with an SA-7 outfitted with such a system,” Mr. Neff wrote.

     Rachel Stohl, an expert on arms control at The Stimson Center, believes that like prior conflicts in the region, that the Syrian Civil War will have long-standing ramifications for MANPADS proliferation in the Middle East. “There’s no question, that the region is going to have to deal with a legacy of these weapons,” Stohl said. “You don’t just put the immediate area at risk, there’s a ripple effect.”

German Intelligence Previously Warned That ISIS Could Shoot Down Passenger Planes

     Reuters News (reporting on October 26, 2014) citing the German newspaper, Bild am Sontag — who cited German intelligence sources — says Islamic State militants “have modern, man portable air defense systems that are capable of shooting down a passenger plane,” Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, said that “Islamic militants located in northern Iraq, had obtained air-defense systems from the captured military arsenal of the Syrian Army. The German newspaper went on to note that air defense arms “were 1970s models; as well as modern man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). “Unlike other air defense weapons, MANPADS are easy to use, barely trained militia-men can fire the weapon accurately,” the report said, adding that the weapons are especially dangerous to aircraft that are landing or taking off. The paper added that German authorities had not yet confirmed the report [though there has been other reliable reporting indicating this as well]. Several airlines, including Austrian Airlines, and Qatar Airways, still fly in the airspace over northern Iraq — where ISIS is in the heat of battle.

Saudis Reportedly Gave Syrian Rebels Mobile Antiaircraft Missiles In 2014

     Maria Abi-Habib and Stacy Meichtry had a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal (Sat., Feb. 15, 2014) with the title above.”Disappointed with U.S. disengagement in the region; and in particular, the Syrian civil war, Saudi Arabia has decided to provide the rebels fighting Bashir al-Assad with more sophisticated weapons — including Chinese man-portable air-defense systems (reportedly in significant numbers), or Manpads, as well as anti-tank guided missiles (Konkurs) from Russia,” according to the Journal article.  The Journal cited an Arab diplomat and several rebel opposition figures as their source for this report. “The bulk of the weapons are reportedly in warehouses in Jordan, and are awaiting transport and delivery across northern Jordan and via southern Turkey. These new weapons reportedly will not go to the Islamic Front; but, keeping that commitment may be easier said than done. But, clearly Riyadh felt the potential to swing the momentum in favor of the rebels outweighed the potential risks that some of these weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

     So, while this particular downing of a civilian airliner may not have been due to Islamic militants using a surface-to-air missile, downplaying the possibility that they could do so — could be fatal.  Clearly, credible reporting suggests that in all likelihood — Islamic militants have MANPADs; and, to believe otherwise….invites disaster.  V/R, RCP

Let ’em Fight, Fight to Win, 50 SpecOps to Syria

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The White House says there is no military solution to Syria and this deployment is not a game changer, rather the White House was a diplomatic solution, allegedly a new election for Syria. Assad’s job is safe for at least 6 months, perhaps longer.

The dangers are significant when it Syria, there are an alleged 5000 Iranian forces, Hezbollah, Cuba, Russia, pro-Assad forces and al Qaeda factions. If the rules of engagement and supportive military assets are allowed, this is a moment the United States can prevail. Yet under Mr. Obama in collusion with Iran and Russia the expectations for winning and success are slim.

Putin’s military minister is already verbally outflanking the White House:

MOSCOW (AP) — A senior Russian government official says some in the U.S. may have a delusion of winning a war with Russia with new conventional weapons without resorting to nuclear arms.

Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister in charge of military industries, said in remarks carried Friday by Russian news agencies that “for the first time ever, the American strategists have developed an illusion … that they may defeat a nuclear power in a non-nuclear war.” He added that “it’s nonsense, and it will never happen.”

Rogozin, who spoke after the Security Council’s meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin, was commenting on prospective U.S. weapons under the so-called Prompt Global Strike program, which would be capable of striking targets anywhere in the world in as little as an hour with deadly precision.

U.S. to Send Special Forces to Syria

Syrian government forces walk in the eastern outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

By Adam Entous, Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee

 

WASHINGTON—The White House has approved the deployment of small teams of U.S. Special Forces to locations in northeastern Syria, expanding America’s direct role on the ground in support of U.S.-backed Syrian rebel forces as they prepare for a new military campaign against Islamic State militants in their stronghold in Raqqa, officials said.

The new deployment would amount to the first sustained U.S. ground presence in Syria. A senior Obama administration official said the U.S. role in Syria would, nonetheless, remain narrow. “We don’t have any intention to pursue long-term, large-scale ground combat operations like those we’ve seen in the past in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the official said.

Eleven million people displaced, four million refugees, and a quarter of a million dead—all in the last four years. What’s happened to Syria’s people? WSJ’s Niki Blasina takes a look at the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.

Up to 50 U.S. commandos will be involved in the new mission under President Barack Obama’s authorization, officials said, marking the start of a sharp escalation in the level of U.S. involvement in the fight against Islamic State.

The new campaign is expected to kick off with an operation in northern Syria as early as next week. Initially, two small teams will evaluate the security situation on the ground and link up with local Syrian forces there, officials said.

The American commandos will operate under what the Pentagon calls an “advise-and-assist” mission. But military officials said they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the forces would be pulled into occasional firefights with Islamic State given their proximity to the confrontation line. The officials cited as an example last week’s raid in Iraq in which a U.S. commando was killed.

Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Mr. Obama has sought to keep U.S. ground forces out of the country, although the Pentagon has conducted a limited number of raids there using special-operations forces since mid-2014.

The change in the U.S. approach comes as the White House struggles to demonstrate progress in the fight against Islamic State and begins talks with Russia and Iran over the future of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Moscow and Tehran, allies of Mr. Assad, have stepped up their support for the regime in recent weeks.

Officials said the special-operations forces will help coordinate local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State, as well as help ensure they receive U.S. air support during ground operations.

To support local forces with their ground campaign, Mr. Obama has authorized the deployment of A-10 ground-attack planes as well as F-15 fighters to the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, a senior administration official said.

The decision, made in a meeting between Mr. Obama and his top advisors Thursday, followed weeks of debate over ways to increase pressure on Islamic State.

In addition to authorizing the special-forces deployment, Mr. Obama also has authorized U.S. officials to discuss with the Iraqi government the establishment of a special-operations task force there. Officials said Mr. Obama has also agreed to furnish targeting information to Jordan to help its attack aircraft pinpoint Islamic State positions, officials said.

The White House, however, has yet to approve other proposals that would expand the U.S. role in the conflict, including a military proposal to deploy a small squadron of Apache attack helicopters to Iraq.

For months, members of the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force have been in contact with Syrian Kurdish and Sunni Arab commanders who have been jointly fighting Islamic State militants in a swath of territory in northeastern Syria east of the Euphrates River.

In early October, the Pentagon abandoned plans to build an army from the ground up to fight Islamic State in favor of providing ammunition and other equipment directly to the Syrian Arab commanders with whom the U.S. commandos have been in contact.

The Pentagon recently used aircraft to drop ammunition and other supplies to those commanders, part of what the Pentagon calls the Syrian Arab Coalition, which fights alongside Syrian Kurdish groups.

The growing partnership between U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish groups in northeastern Syria has angered North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally Turkey, which has accused the Pentagon of sending arms to the Kurds rather than the Syrian Arab Coalition. Ankara sees Kurdish territorial gains in Syria as a threat to the Turkish state. Pentagon officials say they delivered the arms to the Syrian Arab Coalition as intended.

U.S. officials said the deployment of the American commandos will help in laying the ground for a U.S.-backed campaign to encircle Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold, and cut the city off from Mosul, the group’s stronghold in neighboring Iraq. U.S. officials said both the Syrian Arab Coalition and the Kurds will take part in that campaign, assisted by U.S. air support.

Officials said the new campaign doesn’t call in the near term for U.S. allies on the ground to try to retake Raqqa from Islamic State. Rather, the aim of the planned campaign will be to “squeeze” Islamic State within Raqqa by closing off the group’s supply lines.

Mr. Obama’s decision to expand the role of U.S. special-operations forces on the ground inside Syria followed a rare joint mission last week by U.S. special forces and Kurdish fighters to free prisoners of Islamic State in Iraq. The commandos intervened unexpectedly when the Kurdish forces they were assisting were pinned down by Islamic State fighters. One of the U.S. commandos was killed in the firefight, the first U.S. combat fatality in Iraq since 2011.

In May, Delta Force commandos carried out a raid in Syria in which they killed an Islamic State finance chief and captured his wife.

The first known U.S. raid in Syria during the civil war took place in July 2014, when Delta Force commandos attempted to rescue several Americans held by Islamic State militants at an oil facility near Raqqa. The U.S. force swarmed the oil facility but the militants had already moved the hostages.

Putin’s Most Terrifying Army

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This hacking wing of the Kremlin is not lost on our Congressional members, they clearly are aware of the names and events.

Organized crime is now a major element of Russia statecraft
BusinessInsider: In the past couple years, Russian hackers have launched attacks on a French television network, a German steelmaker, the Polish stock market, the White House, the US House of Representatives, the US State Department, and The New York Times.

And according to press reports citing Western intelligence officials, the perpetrators weren’t rogue cyber-pranksters. They were working for the Kremlin.

Cybercrime, it appears, has become a tool of Russian statecraft. And not just cybercrime.

Vladimir Putin’s regime has become increasingly adept at deploying a whole range of practices that are more common among crime syndicates than permanent members of the UN Security Council.

In some cases, as with the hacking, this involves the Kremlin subcontracting organized crime groups to do things the Russian state cannot do itself with plausible deniability. And in others, it involves the state itself engaging in kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, bribery, and fraud to advance its agenda.

Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda has noted that the activities of Russian criminal networks are virtually indistinguishable from those of the government.

“It’s not so much a mafia state as a nationalized mafia,” Russian organized crime expert Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and co-host of the Power Vertical Podcast, said in a recent lecture at the Hudson Institute.

Hackers, Gangsters, And Goblins
According to a report by the FBI and US intelligence agencies, Russia is home to the most skilled community of cybercriminals on the globe, and the Kremlin has close ties to them.

“They have let loose the hounds,” Tom Kellermann, chief security officer at Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based security firm, told Bloomberg News.

Citing unidentified officials, Bloomberg reported that Russian hackers had stepped up surveillance of essential infrastructure, including power grids and energy-supply networks, in the United States, Europe, and Canada.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the security firm CrowdStrike, noted recently that the Russian security services have been actively recruiting an army of hackers.

“When someone is identified as being technically proficient in the Russian underground,” a pending criminal case against them “suddenly disappears and those people are never heard from again,” Alperovitch said in an interview with The Hill, adding that the hacker in question is then working for the Russian security services.

“We know that’s going on,” Alperovitch added.

And as a result, criminal hackers “that used to hunt banks eight hours a day are now operating two hours a day turning their guns on NATO and government targets,” Kellermann of Trend Micro told The Hill, adding that these groups are “willingly operating as cyber-militias.”

The hacking is just one example of how the Kremlin effectively uses organized crime as a geopolitical weapon.

Moscow relied heavily on local organized crime structures in its support for separatist movements in Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Donbas.

In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, organized crime groups served as agents for the Kremlin, fomenting pro-Russia unrest and funneling arms to rebel groups.

In annexed Crimea, the Kremlin installed a reputed gangster known as “The Goblin” as the peninsula’s chief executive.

And of course there is the case of Eston Kohver, the Estonian law enforcement officer who was investigating a smuggling ring run jointly by Russian organized crime groups and the Russian Federal Security Service.

Kohver was kidnapped in Estonia September 2014, brought across the Russian border at gunpoint, and convicted of espionage. He was released in a prisoner exchange last month.

The Geopolitics Of Extortion
But Putin’s mafia statecraft doesn’t just involve using and colluding with organized crime groups.

It often acts like an organized crime group itself.
In some cases this involves using graft as a means of control. This is a tactic Moscow has deployed throughout the former Soviet space, involving elites in corrupt schemes — everything from shady energy deals or money-laundering operations — to secure a “captured constituency.”

This is a tactic Russia attempted to use in Georgia following the 2003 Rose Revolution and in Ukraine after the 2004 Orange Revolution, where “corruption and shadow networks were mobilized to undermine the new leadership’s reform agenda,” according to James Greene in a 2012 report for Chatham House.

This was particularly successful in Ukraine, where opaque gas deals were used “to suborn Ukraine’s post-Orange Revolution new leadership,” Greene wrote.

And Putin is clearly hoping to repeat this success in eastern Ukraine today — especially after elections are held in the rebel areas of Donbas.

“His bet in the eastern Ukraine local election, if it ever takes place, won’t be on the rebel field commanders but on local oligarchs who ran the region before the 2014 ‘revolution of dignity.’ Through them, he will hope to exert both economic and political influence on Kiev.” political commentator Leonid Bershidsky wrote in Bloomberg View.

In addition to graft, Moscow has also effectively utilized blackmail — making the international community a series of offers it can’t refuse.

It’s a neat trick. First you create instability, as in Ukraine, or exasperate existing instability, as in Syria.Then offer your services to establish order.

You essentially create demand — and then meet it. You get to act like a rogue and be treated like a statesman.

It’s how protection rackets operate. And it has become one of the pillars of Putin’s foreign policy.
“It’s the geopolitics of extortion, but it’s probably working,” Galeotti told Voice of America in a recent interview.

“He’s identifying a whole series of potential trouble spots around the world, places that matter to the West, and is essentially indicating that he can either be a good partner, if they’re willing to make a deal with him, or he can stir up more trouble.”

Cold War Part 2, Gathering Conditions

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At the center of the conditions we have Iran, Russia, China and for extra measure, more aggressive terror factions and cells.

We had Afghanistan won until Barack Obama declared a termination to hostilities and combat roles. Now, conditions include:

Islamic State militants who say they are based in Afghanistan have in recent days promoted their alleged successes in the country. And on Wednesday they issued a call for Muslims to “take up arms” against Jews and Christians and “fight them in whatever way we can.”

The message in the Pashto language was the third time in less than a week that IS has highlighted its activities in Afghanistan on its website. In recent days, U.S. and Afghan officials have warned of an increased IS presence in Afghanistan and of its threat to Central Asia.

FNC: Russia has helped Iran deliver weapons into Syria twice a day over the past 10 days, western intelligence sources tell Fox News. Those sources say Russian cargo planes transported the weapons. The planes were spotted earlier this month on the tarmac at the Russian air base in Latakia, Syria’s primary port city. The flights are not registered, and are in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions which impose an arms embargo on Iran.

Fox News is told the increased Russian transport of Iranian weapons is being coordinated by Qassem Soulimeini, the head of the Iranian Al-Quds force, as well as President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. An Iranian civilian airline, Mahan Air, is flying military personnel into Syria several times each day from Tehran to Latakia.

Tehran’s support has been crucial to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s survival. Besides significant financial aid to Assad, Iran has acknowledged that its Revolutionary Guard officers are on the ground in Syria in an advisory role. There have been multiple Iranian officers and soldiers killed in fighting in Syria, though Tehran denies the presence of actual combat troops in the country.

In part: The United States has upgraded the security at its two largest overseas nuclear weapons bases, Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and Aviano Air Base in Italy. Incirlik is undergoing a particularly extensive upgrade, a move connected to its vulnerable location close to the Syrian border.

Recent satellite images from Incirlik and Aviano show double-fence security perimeters—a sealed-off area where intruders can be shot—being built around the nuclear weapons storage areas. At Incirlik the garage holding the trucks that service the warheads is also being improved, along with the trucks themselves. Incirlik’s newly upgraded area contains 21 vaults, each holding two to three warheads, and will be equipped with lighting, cameras, and intrusion-detection devices. In addition to soldiers already guarding the enclosure, manned vehicles will also patrol space between the two fences around the clock.

Combined, the Incirlik measures amount to a major security upgrade. “They didn’t use to have the special double-fence security perimeter with sensors and the patrol road around the nuclear weapons vaults,” explained Hans Kristensen, a nuclear expert at the Federation of American Scientists, who first reported the Incirlik and Aviano activity on his blog. “When the vaults were constructed in the nineties, they were considered so secure that the special security perimeter that had previously been used for nuclear weapons storage areas was no longer considered necessary.” He added that it’s unclear whether the upgrade is a direct result of volatility in the region or related to changed Pentagon security requirements.

More Cold War Part 2 Indicators:

Just as Russia has increased its military activism in the Middle East, the Kremlin is turning down the temperature in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, as the September 1 cease-fire is largely holding and larger caliber weaponry is being pulled back. The October 2 Paris meeting of the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia—the so-called Normandy Format—yielded a modest but positive result in postponing unsanctioned elections in the separatist areas. Yet the ultimate goal of returning Ukraine’s sovereignty over its eastern border still seems distant. Russia’s shadow therefore continues to loom over NATO’s eastern flank.

Against this geopolitical backdrop, 28 NATO defense ministers agreed on a plan to expand the NATO Response Force (NRF) to 40,000 troops, more than double its current size. This implements one of the principal elements of the program launched by NATO leaders at the September 2014 Wales Summit to upgrade NATO’s rapid-response capacity and to begin adapting the alliance to the challenges from Russia in the east. Among the other key elements in NATO’s adaptation are the creation of a high-readiness “spearhead” task force—Secretary General Stoltenberg announced October 8 that lead nations for the spearhead force have been identified through 2022 (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), demonstrating resolve by NATO members to put resources behind its top-priority initiative. Thus far, the United States has deferred a decision to become a lead nation for the spearhead force, but the Obama administration’s European Reassurance Initiative invested $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2015 in strengthening European defense, enabling U.S. force rotations, security assistance, and pre-positioning of equipment in Europe. Sustaining U.S. investments beyond FY15 will be essential to ensuring European—and transatlantic—security.

Need more? al Qaeda in the Maghreb, deploying more special forces to Iraq against ISIS, additional success and growth of ISIS in Afghanistan, terror plan or Asia discovered, the Taliban is aiding and harboring al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

There is more, but you understand that since America under Barack Obama has retreated, the enemies are exploiting the weakness and lack of strategy by the West, where the United States used to lead.

MI5 and the FBI: Terrorists on Twitter-Social Media

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Twitter is the least cooperative technology company calling terrorists on the internet ‘freedom fighters. This was revealed in testimony this week.

Twitter has come under criticism from some analysts who say the social media company has failed to swiftly remove accounts that recruit potential terrorists and incite violence, raising concerns that the United States has not done enough to combat the Islamic State’s rapid expansion of its propaganda operations online.

Mark Wallace, CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, said on Wednesday that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group has effectively used social media sites such as Twitter to propagandize and radicalize individuals, including Americans. His nonprofit project recently chronicled 66 U.S. citizens who are accused of joining or attempting to join the Islamic State, plotting attacks in the United States, providing financial support to extremist groups, or disseminating radical propaganda.

“These individuals have very different backgrounds and experiences, but the one characteristic they seem to share is active participation on social media,” he said in testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The terror group known as Islamic State or Daesh has deployed and exploited unprescendented use of social media, where the effectiveness is beyond definition. Intelligence agencies in the West are grappling with solutions pushing the protections of free speech and use of the internet.

In part from Newsweek: The head of Britain’s internal counter-intelligence service MI5, has warned that ISIS and other extremist groups “continue to aspire to mass casualty attacks against the U.K.” and that an increasing proportion of their communication online and via encrypted channels is out of reach of Britain’s security services.

“All of this means the threat we are facing today is on a scale and at a tempo that I have not seen before in my career,” Andrew Parker said in his keynote speech made at a lord mayor’s event in London on Wednesday night.
Parker also warned of the “three-dimensional threat” that ISIS pose—at home, overseas and online. “We are seeing plots against the U.K. directed by terrorists in Syria; enabled through contacts with terrorists in Syria; and inspired online by Isil’s [ISIS] sophisticated exploitation of technology.”

Parker said MI5 must evolve its activities in order to combat modern threats, and emphasized that the agency’s ability to intercept communications has “been a key component in MI5’s toolbox throughout our history.”

The MI5 boss said he imagined the forthcoming defence review would garner more public interest than previous debates on similar matters. “But I hope that the public debate will be a mature one, ” he added. “Informed by the three independent reviews, and not characterized by ill-informed accusations of ‘mass surveillance’, or other such lazy two-worded tags.”

When it comes to the very similar requests by FBI Director, James Comey, his pleas are in earnest yet, tech companies and the U.S. Constitution actually prevent some actions due to the 1st Amendment. It is a slippery slope for both sides.

FBI Director James Comey called for a national conversation about how far tech companies should be allowed to go in applying encryption to their devices, saying law enforcement faces growing and overlapping challenges in accessing data needed to prosecute crimes.

During a speech at the Brookings Institution Thursday, Comey said the new forms of encryption being developed for mobile devices, as well as the rapid growth of the devices themselves, make it tough for the FBI to keep up with ways criminals can “go dark.”

“With going dark, those of us in law enforcement and public safety have a major fear of missing out,” Comey said. “Missing out on predators who exploit the most vulnerable among us; missing out on violent criminals who target our communities; missing out on a terrorist cell using social media to recruit, plan and execute an attack. We have seen case after case — from homicides and car crashes to drug trafficking, domestic abuse and child exploitation — where critical evidence came from smartphones, hard drives and online communication.”

To advance the discussion, Congress is holding hearings with counter-terrorism experts and they too make a compelling argument siding with Comey.