Caltech professor claims Israeli spy infiltrated JPL

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/general-news/20141113/caltech-professor-claims-israeli-spy-infiltrated-jpl

by tacon • 12 years ago

86 34 12 years ago

tacon• 12 years ago

“JPL is the cornerstone of Caltech’s financial security,” Stormer said. “It makes them one of the foremost research institutions in the world. Without it, Caltech is just a backwater institution with very bright people. They could not get the people here that they have without the access to the research facilities at JPL. It is what makes Caltech Caltech.”

I don't know about the merits of the case, but this kind of wild statement is embarrassing. JPL is lucky to have Caltech close at hand, not the other way around.

mturmon2• 12 years ago

It's a symbiotic relationship. Her lawyer's statement is crazy, but there is a nugget of fact there. JPL is much larger than Caltech, both in terms of budget and personnel. (http://www.caltech.edu/content/glance). I assume that is what his statement is getting at.

001sky2• 12 years ago

Employees (1)

    JPL: 5,000
    Caltech: 3,900

Budget

    JPL: $1.5 billion
    Campus: $580 million

mattfishburn• 12 years ago

JPL's budget is about three times that of non-JPL CalTech[1], $1.5B vs $580M. The "cornerstone" remark is accurate from a financial point of view.

[1] http://www.caltech.edu/content/glance

salimmadjd• 12 years ago

This is not surprising. Israel is the number-one allied country spying in America [1]

The problem is that with so many Israeli supporters in either of the administration [2] as well as in the FBI and on many campuses, any allegation of spying by whistleblowers is reacted by extreme retaliations. This is why we don't hear about it more often.

This is not a new issue [3] from Pollard [4] to Rosen [5], recently

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-spying-on-us-has-reac...

[2] http://www.thenation.com/blog/spy-story-harman-saban-and-aip...

[3] http://archive.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe122.html

[4] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0401/Who-is-Jon...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Franklin,_Rose...

edited: typo

001sky2• 12 years ago

Savoire/faire is every/where!

http://www.businessinsider.com/nazi-scientists-space-program...

ChrisGaudreau2• 12 years ago

It is amazing just how much Israel spies on America, and how nobody knows about it. If you dare to say it publicly then your reputation and career are destroyed, and you are an antisemitic terrorist sympathizer, if not also a terrorist.

jcampbell1• 12 years ago

Israel spies on America, America tapped Angela Merkel's phone. The job of spies is to know the internal thinking of the current administration.

Spying, tapping, hacking, etc are not acts of war. In fact, they probably prevent more conflict than they could possibly ever cause.

Had we listened to Israeli spies, we would have never gone to war with Iraq over WMDs. Spies save lives.

tptacek• 12 years ago

If Israel is #1 among our allies, France is infamously #2. You don't hear much about that either. I don't think this has much to do with antisemitism.

pavelrub6• 12 years ago

Please tell us exactly "how much" does Israel spy on America relative to other countries, based on what information, why is this "amazing", and provide some proof that "if you dare to say it publicly then your reputation and career are destroyed".

It's amazing how HNs usual standards of logical discourse seem to disappear once the argument becomes political.

tylerkahn• 12 years ago

Huh and yet here, as per your links, we have mainstream media reporting on it.

Have those journalists been subjected to 'extreme retaliation'?

Perhaps we don't hear about it frequently not because there is a conspiracy among 'Israeli supporters' (we all know what you mean bro!) but because the issue is not so pressing or widespread as you would have us believe?

pavelrub6• 12 years ago

I don't see anything at all in your comment that doesn't contribute to the discussion. The fact that you are downvoted on HN for just for stating an uncommon opinion is disgusting and extremely disappointing.

pavelrub6• 12 years ago

The only source of your claim that "Israel is the number-one allied country spying in America" is a single Newsweek article from 2014, citing anonymous sources. Yet you treat it as an absolute fact. I don't remember anybody doing the same when Newsweek "exposed" Satoshi Nakamoto.

You claim that "any allegation of spying by whistleblowers is reacted by extreme retaliations", yet none of your source ([3], [4], [5]) support any of that. So what reasonable allegations of spying were in fact reacted by "extreme retaliations", considering that the above allegations were all reported by big and reputable news agencies in the US, gained quite a large exposure, and are remembered by many to this day?

It's quite common among people with anti-Israeli sentiments to make wild accusations and then explain away their unpopularity by appealing to some government pro-Israeli conspiracy. An alternative hypothesis, worth considering, is that the accusations are in fact baseless, and are unpopular exactly because of that.

I seriously doubt that it makes much sense for Israel - a tiny country surrounded by enemies, with a rather limited budget that is never enough for anything - to devote any significant part of its intelligence efforts to developing sources in the US, instead of - say - in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc'.

mturmon2• 12 years ago

The legal filing has (much) more --

http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/wp-content/uploads/201...

I found one surprising thing in the complaint. If a JPL supervisor was told about an ITAR violation, there would be an immediate investigation with 100% certainty. It would be a matter of hours, not months as is alleged.

There are two workplace rule violations you can go to jail for, ITAR and time card fraud -- these are criminal, not civil, matters. So the complaint is making extremely serious accusations.

confluence• 12 years ago

Man you should've seen the stuff the Israeli's pulled back in the 1980s.

Speculation about Milchan's involvement in arms dealing and intelligence activities was sparked after the indictment in 1985 of Dr. Richard Kelly Smyth, an aerospace executive and scientist who had made illegal shipments of Krytrons (nuclear triggers) through one of Milchan's companies.

...

"at least through the mid-1980s [Milchan] was a full-fledged operative for Israel’s top-secret intelligence agency, Lakam. His activities included "buying components to build and maintain Israel’s nuclear arsenal" and supervising "government-backed accounts and front companies that financed the special needs of the entirety of Israel’s intelligence operations outside the country.". Interviewed regarding Milchan's intelligence activities, Israeli President Shimon Peres stated: "Arnon is a special man. It was I who recruited him.... When I was at the Ministry of Defense, Arnon was involved in numerous defense-related procurement activities and intelligence operations. His strength is in making connections at the highest levels.... His activities gave us a huge advantage, strategically, diplomatically and technologically."

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Milchan

He's a multi-billionaire Hollywood producer nowadays (Argo, Fight Club, etc.)

Ah the windfalls of state backing.

gaoshan2• 12 years ago

My sister works for one of the intelligence agencies and says that the two biggest threats, from an intel perspective, are China and Israel.

WorldWideWayne2• 12 years ago

You should ask her what she thinks about the possibility that China is an asset controlled by a higher power, considering the fact that Mao Zedong was a Yale man and that ever since he was installed, every US ambassador to China has been a Skull and Bones member - https://www.google.com/search?q=mao+zedong+yale+school+of+di...

gaoshan2• 12 years ago

No point in asking her that as she is mentally stable.

flyinglizard• 12 years ago

I doubt Israel would use an actual Israeli for espionage.

lisper• 12 years ago

As someone who used to work at JPL I find this story hard to swallow. It's not that it's unlikely that an Israeli spy could get a job at JPL. That I don't doubt. (In fact, I'd be surprised if it hasn't happened.) What I find doubtful is that anyone could find out about it. Information security at JPL is not very tight. It's not the NSA. You'd have to be the world's most incompetent spy to let yourself be discovered by a colleague at JPL.

GabrielF00• 12 years ago

It's worth pointing out that this is one person's allegation and that it is being made in the context of a retaliation complaint against an employer. Some of what is in the complaint doesn't make a lot of sense, for instance, if someone was actively engaged in espionage, why would they post restricted technical information to a public website 65 times?

Pinckney• 12 years ago

The allegation that Dr. Gat was a spy seems to be sensationalism on the part of the Pasadena Star. One doesn't need to be a spy to violate ITAR.

The most substantial allegations against Dr. Gat are that he shared data with his adviser. It's quite easy to imagine a young researcher viewing ITAR as a dumb American law which inhibits collaboration, and deciding to continue sharing preprints and collaborating with colleagues abroad as though he were still in Israel. And why not? He doesn't seem to have been working on a project with obvious military potential, and is from an allied country. ITAR prosecutions against professors are extremely rare.

edwinkite• 12 years ago

The article quotes Prof. Troian as saying, "JPL acted honorably throughout. They did the right thing and filed the right report. That part of the system worked well. ... My complaint is strictly with Caltech."

There's tension between the openness that a research university (Caltech) needs, and the secure handling of information that a lab doing some classified research (JPL) requires.

This tension exploded in 1952, when Caltech took government money for PROJECT VISTA. After that, Caltech decided that having faculty working on things they couldn't talk about was antithetical to the purpose of a research university [1]. Today, Caltech says [2]:

"The Caltech Way: Caltech policy does not allow the acceptance of grants or contracts supporting the conduct of classified research or other classified projects on campus. Exceptions to this restriction may be considered by the President of Caltech in times of national emergency or critical need upon an urgent request of the government." ("Standards of Conduct for Research on Campus," Chapter 1, Section 1.1).

At JPL, there has always been some classified research. In the 1980s, JPL almost become a weapons lab (it did not) [3].

Even if Dr. Gat's electrospray work wasn't classified, one can imagine how different attitudes to classified research feed over to different attitudes to ITAR violations.

I'm a former Caltech postdoc and a research associate at JPL. I know neither Gat nor Troian.

[1] http://www.patrickmccray.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2... [2] http://researchadministration.caltech.edu/theguide/tableofco... [3] "Into the Black": http://www.amazon.com/Into-Black-American-Program-1976-2004/...

colordrops• 12 years ago

I haven't figured out your conclusion. I think you are giving credit to Caltech for supporting Dr. Gat's "openness" with Israel? Does that excuse Dr. Gat hacking into Dr. Troian's computer, or the Caltech administration's apparently dishonest and sinister behavior towards Dr. Troian?

Caltech professor claims Israeli spy infiltrated JPL

Related Stories