FBI Says Jailed Turncoat Warned of Spy Suspect

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.latimes.com/wires/20010528/tCB00a3509.html

Monday, May 28, 2001 

WASHINGTON--An FBI agent who pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow
linked a fellow alleged turncoat, Robert Hanssen, to suspicious
computer activity during interrogations in 1997, three years before
Hanssen came under investigation for spying, the FBI acknowledged on
Monday.
      
The former agent, Earl Pitts, described as "unusual" a computer
hacking incident involving Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran arrested on
Feb. 18 on charges of spying for Moscow for more than 15 years, FBI
spokesman John Collingwood said.
      
But Collingwood said the FBI's National Security Division had
thoroughly investigated a 1992 incident of unauthorized computer
access to which they believed Pitts had referred in the interrogation
after his guilty plea.
      
The FBI investigators "were completely satisfied that Pitts had not
raised any issues beyond what was already known" about Hanssen's
alleged 1992 break-in to the computer of a senior FBI
counterintelligence official, he said.
      
The disclosure that Pitts had raised suspicions about Hanssen was the
first evidence that the bureau had received a warning raising
Hanssen's name years before he fell under suspicion in the spying case
last year.
      
The FBI has been on the defensive in recent months for a string of
high-profile blunders, including a misstep in the Oklahoma City
bombing case that has delayed convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh's
execution for a month and the belated discovery of the alleged spy
Hanssen in its midst.
      
In a prison interview with The New York Times published on Monday,
Pitts was cited as saying he had told the FBI in June 1997 that he
suspected Hanssen of spying, although he acknowledged that had not
known for sure.
      
Pitts was quoted as saying that the computer incident he had learned
of suggested to him that Hanssen -- who is to be arraigned in federal
court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday -- was "trying to collect
information covertly."
      
So he mentioned it when an FBI interrogator asked him whether he
thought anyone else in the bureau was working for Moscow, the Times
reported. It quoted Pitts as saying he had named no other suspects.
      
Pitts was arrested on Dec. 18, 1996, on charges of selling secrets to
Moscow for at least $224,000. He is serving a 27-year sentence at a
federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, where the Times interview took
place.
      
Lawyers for Pitts and Hanssen did not return phone calls seeking
comment.
      
'DID NOT IDENTIFY HANSSEN AS A SPY'
      
Collingwood said the bureau had concluded that Pitts had been
referring to the penetration of a computer used by Ray Mislock, a top
FBI counterspy.
      
"During his post-guilty-pleas debriefing, Pitts did not identify
anyone, either by name or position, as a spy," the FBI spokesman said.
      
"Pitts said his Soviet handlers had not identified anyone to him as a
spy. Pitts did describe as 'unusual' a computer hacking incident
involving Hanssen. Pitts did not identify Hanssen as a spy. When asked
if he was aware of anything beyond this hacking incident already known
to the FBI, Pitts said 'no."'
      
Collingwood added that after Pitts referred to Hanssen in his
debriefing, "the matter was immediately referred to FBI headquarters
for appropriate handling."
      
"There's nothing that surfaced in the initial investigation of the '92
incident then, and there's nothing that surfaced since then in regard
to the '92 incident that points to espionage," he said.
      
At the time of the unauthorized entrance into the FBI computer,
Hanssen had told Mislock he had broken in to drive home his supposed
concerns about lax computer security, The New York Times reported.



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