Ana Belen Montes arrived at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in 2002. While there she was/is likely to bump into any of the following women who have also spent some time in Carswell.
Marion Jones - 84868-054
The Olympic athlete convicted of check fraud and steroid usage. She served her sentence from March 7, 2008 until September 5, 2008.
Chantal McCorkle - 23033-018
Convicted of financial fraud, along with her husband, using get rich quick infomercials, McCorkle’s 18 year sentence has caused tensions between the UK and the US, and raised eyebrows around the international human rights community. She has been serving out her sentence since November 5, 1998 and will complete her sentence on July 7, 2014. According to her web site she has been granted a prison transfer to the UK to be closer to her family.
Sharanda Jones - 33177-077
A so called victim of the drug war. Her situation was well documented in the film The War on Drugs. Jones also draws connections to her arrest to an image crazed Chuck Norris. She has been serving out a life sentence since 1997-98.
Lynette Alice “Squeaky” Fromme - 06075-180
Besides spending the wrong period of time with Charles Manson, Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for an assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford. She has escaped or been transferred from various prisons eventually ending up in Carswell in December of 1987. She is expected to be released on August 16th 2009.
Kristen Gilbert - 90371-038
Called “The Angel of Death” by her fellow nurses during her time working at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center because so many of her patients died from cardiac arrest. Turns out, she was murdering them by injecting them with adrenaline. For this she has been serving out a life sentence without parole since March 14th 2001.
Stay tuned for more interesting facts and spin-offs of Clandestine.
A call for “comprehensive damage assessment” came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after the arrest of Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers yesterday, June 5 2009. The couple is officially accused of spying for the Cuban government for up to 30 years. Reports are indicating that Shortwave radios were used by the couple to receive encrypted messages from Cuba via Numbers Stations broadcasts. 8 years earlier Ana Belen Montes was also arrested for spying for the Cuban government, evidence in her case included a Shortwave radio and one-time pads on her laptop.
This is good news for Clandestine as it provides further evidence that these mysterious broadcasts are used by governments to communicate to spies in the field.
visit link »
Visit defenseimagery.mil if your documentary or research requires U.S. Government defense images. Defense Imagery claims to have all their images and media from 1982 and forward available and searchable online. It’s a great place to star looking as most government images fall under the public domain.
Knowing that while Pentagon is the Department of Defense headquarters, the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center (DIAC) is where a lot of the heavy lifting occurs. One such heavy lifter is Ana Belen Montes. We were able to locate her affidavit which provided the address and room number for her office which is located in the DIAC across the Potomac from the Pentagon.
While wikimedia.org had some images of the DIAC, they were all taken before the re-construction process in 2003-2005, and Ana Montes was arrested in 2001. Paying a visit DefenseImagery.mil proved to be the best approach for finding older photographs of the building. We were able to find an aerial shot of the building from 1984, which is most likely visually the same as it was in 1985 when she was hired and 2001 when she was arrested.
Find more about Ana Belen Montes relation to Numbers Stations and espionage when we release Clandestine.
visit link »
Thank you to Google for the reminder this morning that today is Samuel F. B. Morse’s Birthday. It was May 24th 1844 when Morse sent the phrase “What hath God wrought” over the wire in the first Morse code message.
…. .- .—. .—. -.— / -… .. .-. - …. -.. .- -.— / … .- — ..- . .-.. / — —- .-. … .
Translate your own Morse Code Message
Re-Tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher
(Click to listen if you don’t see the music player)
BBC Radio did a great little special called Tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher. We first discovered it on Speechification.com, from a post by Stephen Bowbrick. In it you will hear an account from a man who has met women who remember reading Numbers Stations, and Akin Fernandez will discover a Numbers Station he had never heard before. With the Lincolnshire Poacher now off the air, it’s perhaps even more worth your time to listen, too.
The Lincolnshire Poacher was a Numbers Station broadcasting from June 1989 until June of 2008. (This information comes from Jochen Schäfer, the “Kopf” of the ENIGMA2000 German Branch, E2Kde. Thanks Jochen!) Its name was copied from the British folk tune that plays at the beginning of each of its broadcasts. Many other Numbers Stations begin with a melody—The Swedish Rhapsody, for example. These melodies are popularly believed to be some sort of queue for the agent in the field to ready themselves to take down the message.
Most of the tunes are nationalistic, which raises an interesting question: Why is it important that a government choose a nationalistic tune? It seems like this would not be important if all that was needed by a government was to send a communication to an agent, while not revealing the agent’s nationality. So then, could it be that the tune is a decoy for an alias country? But broadcast locations are easily detected, compromising the decoy. So why, when a Numbers Station broadcasts for 19 years or more, would it be of any significance what melody acts as prelude? It could have been a completely random choice or a favorite tune of the operator, but let’s be more suspicious.
We know that anyone, anywhere, can pick up a broadcasting Numbers Station with an over-the-counter shortwave radio. And, we know that shortwave radio signals travel halfway across the globe, allowing a listener to pick up signals from many different countries. Therefore it seems safe to wonder if the choice of melody is somehow related to the knowledge of a broad listening public, a show of force to a enemy, a comfort to its allies, or simply a nag.
Here you have a broadcast blaring the proud tunes of your enemy, unregistered on the dial but received within your borders, and it’s accompanied by secret codes. You know that if you can hear it, most everyone in your country can. So, what is the message saying? Who is picking it up? Which of your loyal citizens sneaks a listen? Maybe the broadcasts are like a fly buzzing in the room; an invader that you can hear but can not see; you know what it is but you feel helpless to do anything about it. Maybe it’s like the feeling of disappearing livestock. Frustration is a military tactic.
The Lincolnshire Poacher
When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire
Full well I served my master for nigh on seven years
Till I took up to poaching as you shall quickly hear
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
As me and my companions was setting out a snare
‘Twas then we spied the gamekeeper, for him we didn’t care
For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, and jump from anywhere
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
As me and my companions was setting four or five
And taking them all up again, we caught a hare alive
We caught a hare alive, my boys, and through the woods did steer
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
We threw him over my shoulder, boys, and then we trudged home
We took him to a neighbour’s house and sold him for a crown
We sold him for a crown, my boys, but I divven’t tell you where
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
Success to every gentleman that lives in Lincolnshire
(Alt. Bad luck to every magistrate)
Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare
Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer
Oh, ‘tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.
visit link »
After joining the Spy Numbers Stations mailing list, we started receiving a couple of emails a day with the subject “Automated Spy Numbers Loggings” from the Spy Numbers Robot. The email is generated by a database observer associated with the Spy Numbers Stations database. When a radio operator discovers a Numbers Station broadcast, they can report the discovery to the database. Then Spy Numbers Robot emails everyone on the list that a new broadcast has been found and logged. The Spy Numbers Robot reports frequency, ENIGMA ID (the name for the broadcaster), day of the week, date, time (in UTC), mode (radio band), additional comments, and the name of the person who reported it and their location.
Here is a sample: (click here if sample does not appear below)
Let’s look at the second listing.
So we see that someone logged station M8a on March 6th, 2009 at 7:00am Greenwich Mean Time on frequency 5883 on the CW band. If you look at the ENIGMA ID reference list you’ll find that M8a is a Cuban station that broadcasts three or so times a week with Morse Code blasts. This broadcast was reported by an amateur radio operator from Paris, TN, USA.
Spy Numbers can then analyze the history of data to provide information on current and future broadcasts. You can find predictions on what may be broadcasting now. An incredible resource for someone starting on a quest to hear a live Numbers Station broadcast. (See also what may be broadcasting in the next hour.) The database is publicly available, and searchable. If you don’t have a shortwave radio but would like to listen to numbers stations, there are three easy ways.
-
Numbers Racket CD: The largest collection of Numbers Stations recordings with a special emphasis on recordings that are no longer active.
-
The Conet Project: Available for free, streaming or download, from archive.org. Akin Fernandez complies recordings of Numbers Stations broadcasts. 4-CD set (1997).
-
Clandestine: Our film in part about the history of Numbers Stations. Sign up to receive a notification when the film is released and being screened near you.
When Ana Belen Montes is released from prision, scheduled to be July 1st 2023, she will have to comply with the conditions of her release put in place by Judge Ricardo Urbina on September 21st 2002.
She will deny government contributions to her Thrift Savings Program. She will endure five years probation. She will be participate in 500 hours of Community Service. She will regularly undergo drug testing. She will allow authorities to perform random searches on her computer. She will allow them to copy all of her data onto external drives. She will allow them to install technologies that observe her computer use. She will provide funding for this equipment. She will not be allowed any data encryption software. She will maintain a daily log of everything she does on her computer by pencil and paper. She will not be allowed to use the internet at home or at work without prior approval. She cannot receive any benefits from foreign entities. She cannot work for the US government. She cannot work for a foreign government. She will have her income tax returns reviewed. She is to have no direct contact with foreign operatives. She is to have no indirect contact with foreign operatives. Yet, she has a right to an appeal within ten days… but that was expired October 2nd 2002.
At least she is alive.
Find out more about Ana Belen Montes when you watch Clandestine.
reference: http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Montes_2.htm
visit link »
Volunteer,
If we are to engage in clandestine operations, you are to not expect regular contact from us, lest our objective be compromised. Currently there is no IMMEDIATE and all contact should be directly with control. Because we are in lockstep, limit your exchanges to EEI, even then, a relay will not arrive until we are in the wind.
There will be no OC, therfore you may defect at anytime.
A legend is provided in the following forms:
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Good luck Operative.
Clandestine Control
Sign up for our email list here:
visit link »
Follow us on Twitter for up to the minute updates on what we’re working on.
Clandestine progress. Dick-George, Tenn-Tom screenings. Plus updates ongoing research projects.
V
… -
bum-bum-bum-buuuum
It didn’t take much to unite the citizens of allied nations against the Nazi’s, just one letter or four simple notations. Those familiar with Beethoven’s 5th Symphony or Looney Tunes know it by heart. Three short notes followed by one long. Likewise, in Morse Code, three dots followed by one dash represents the letter V.
An article by icons.org sums it up best, but essentially by throwing up a V sign, painting a V, honking a V, or clapping a V to children, was a protest used in Nazi occupied territories during WWII. The idea was attributed to Victor de Laveleye who might have had his own interests in promoting the letter, nevertheless his message was broadcast over the BBC network on January 14th 1941 via shortwave radio.
Music has also played a part in the history of shortwave radios, espionage and Numbers Stations. Many of the Numbers Stations broadcasts begin with a few bars of a familiar melody. Usually a nationalistic folk tune. Speculation suggests that this would alert the spy to the incoming message, and to ready themselves to take down the incoming code. Clandestine documents this by using these melodies as source music through much of the documentary and narrative parts of the film.
