Signs of sophisticated cellphone spying found near White House, U.S. officials say

Members of the Secret Service patrol from the top of the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

 

A federal study found signs that surveillance devices for intercepting cellphone calls and texts were operating near the White House and other sensitive locations in the Washington area last year.

A Department of Homeland Security program discovered evidence of the surveillance devices, called IMSI catchers, as part of federal testing last year, according to a letter from DHS to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on May 22. The letter didn’t specify what entity operated the devices and left open the possibility that there could be alternative explanations for the suspicious cellular signals collected by the federal testing program last year.

Russian Orthodox Archbishop Warns the West

Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev has offered a stark warning to Western churches confronting secularism in Europe.

 

Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev issued what could only be viewed as a warning to Western churches during a speech last week at the Russian Embassy in London.

Syrian Military And Political Opposition: Russian Forces In Syria Are Occupation Forces, We Will Expel Them From Our Country

Following media reports of an intensification of the Russian military presence in Syria, some elements from both the political and military wings of the Syrian opposition clarified that they would consider Russian forces in Syria as “occupation forces” and threatened that they would fight them and strike at them until they expelled from Syrian soil. They said that they will transform Syria into “a graveyard for the Russian forces” and stressed that Russian forces in Syria would have no sense of and that Russia would sustain a severe defeat.

A third of Russian diplomats are spies, says Swedish security service

The claim was made at SAPO’s headquarters in Solna, in the suburbs of Stockholm, during the unveiling of the agency’s annual counterintelligence report. The main presenter at the press conference, SAPO chief analyst Wilhelm Unge, told reporters that Russia constitutes “the biggest intelligence threat against Sweden” at present.