Stolen military data for sale in Afghanistan
Despite crackdown, computer drives found with names of alleged spies
MSNBC staff and news service reports
BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Following a newspaper’s discovery of stolen U.S. military computer drives showing up for sale at local bazaars outside the large base here, the military announced a crackdown but merchants were still selling the digital wares — including what appeared to be information about Afghan spies informing on al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported the sales on Monday, said that it was still able to find computer drives two days later — the same day that five military investigators, surrounded by heavily armed plainclothes U.S. soldiers, searched many of the two-dozen rundown shops outside the sprawling base.
One flash memory drive, the Times reported Thursday, holds the names, photos and phone numbers of people described as Afghan spies working for the military. The data indicates payments of $50 bounties for each Taliban or al-Qaida fighter caught based on the source’s intelligence. The drive, which a teenager sold for $40, also holds scores of military documents marked “secret” and which describe intelligence-gathering methods and information... Other shopkeepers on Wednesday were selling memory drives as well — including one with the Social Security numbers of four American generals. The surfacing of the stolen computer devices has sparked an urgent American military probe for the source of the embarrassing security breach, which has led to disks with the personal letters and biographies of soldiers and lists of troops who completed nuclear, chemical and biological warfare training going on sale for $20 to $50...
The computer files seen by the AP ranged from the very personal, such as a soldier’s letter to the wife of a dead comrade, to confidential personnel information. Social Security numbers were listed next to the names of hundreds of soldiers, including Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, who left Afghanistan in February after serving for a year as the coalition’s operational commander. One document listed the names of 20 members of a platoon who had undergone “the required Nuclear Biological Chemical (NBC) training and chamber exercise.” Another listed the names of 16 soldiers and the types of weapons they had been trained on.
There were biographies of six soldiers, including a sergeant who had served in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Two of the drives contained several photographs, one showing a group of about 40 soldiers posing at a base, while others had troops inside a helicopter. A 502-page manual on how to operate a CH-47 Chinook chopper, a mainstay of the 18,000 U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan, was also there, including photos and diagrams...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12289823/
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