A Look at Spying by Israel in the U.S.
Alan MacLeod details the number of former Israeli intelligence agents in current U.S. high tech positions
“Unit 8200 … is widely identified as the organization behind the infamous pager attack on Lebanon, which left at least nine dead and around 3,000 people injured.”
—Alan MacLeod
We’re at a tipping point, both for the world and our Constitution, a moment after which everything will change.
We were at that point in 2000, the year of the hanging chads, the year when the nation allowed a presidential theft. (Was the Supreme Court ever designed to install a president?)
We were there on 9/11 as well, the year the unconstitutionally (but legally) installed George Bush heard Dick Cheney say “Now’s the time” and followed his lead. (Bush’s exact words were, “Through my tears, I see opportunity.”)
Given that, I’m going to start offering extended analyses — my own, of course, but also that of others. I want to feature them here because some of the most thoughtful of these come from outside the mainstream (for reasons that should be obvious).
I dipped my toe in that water in the Analysis part of this piece. I’m going to go full-in now, offering from time to time, takes and predictions that I think worth thinking about. The first is below. I hope you find it helpful.
(If you’d like to follow the curated list of sources I use for this task, click here. It’s open to all.)
Spying by Israel in the U.S.
Ted Cruz has made news lately. His Tucker Carlson interview produced a number of points worth pondering (click for some breaking news as of that taping). But I want to focus on the what he said here.
Carlson: Do they (Israel) spy domestically on the United States?
Cruz: Oh, they probably do.
That’s a rather blasé response. He assumes (knows?) Israeli intelligence operates in the U.S., and I assume he’s right.
But to what extent? How deeply penetrated, exactly, is America’s upper echelon by Israeli (ex-)spies and operatives?
Alan MacLeod is a senior writer at Mint Press. His beat is the Middle East (or West Asia, if you prefer). He examines a number of very high-ranking employees at tech and media companies — for example, a member of Meta’s Oversight Board; Google's Head of Strategy and Operations —and lists which ones also had high-level positions with Israeli intelligence.
He implies these people might also be currently spies, which in fairness, could be wrong. They could be simple innocents with lurid careers. But whatever the truth, there seem to be many of them.
“Unit 8200 is widely identified as the organization behind the infamous pager attack on Lebanon, which left at least nine dead and around 3,000 people injured.”
—Alan MacLeod
The thread is here. The ThreadReader unroll is here. His published article is here. I’ve included some parts of the thread below to offer a sample. Refer to the original for his links and further detail.
If you find pieces like this helpful, please let me know.
Alan MacLeod: Thread on High Tech Employees with Israeli Intelligence Backgrounds
[2] Firstly, Meta (WhatsApp's parent company) is filled with former intelligence agents from the Israeli Defense Force's elite cyberwarfare battalion, Unit 8200. […]
[4] But what is Unit 8200?
Put simply, it is the centerpiece of Israel's hi-tech global spying, hacking, and cyberwarfare apparatus.
Responsible for covert operations, spying, surveillance and cyberwarfare, since October 7, 2023, the group has been at the forefront of the world’s attention. It is widely identified as the organization behind the infamous pager attack on Lebanon, which left at least nine dead and around 3,000 people injured.
Unit 8200 has also constructed an artificial intelligence-powered kill list for Gaza, suggesting tens of thousands of individuals (including women and children) for assassination. This software was the primary targeting mechanism the IDF used in the early months of its attack on the densely populated strip.
Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through face recognition cameras monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a dystopian dragnet that it uses to surveil, harass and suppress Palestinians.
Unit 8200 compiles dossiers on every Palestinian, including their medical history, sex lives and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel. One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in conversations.
Unit 8200 operatives have gone on to create some of the world’s most downloaded apps and many of the most infamous spying programs, including Pegasus, which was used to surveil tens of thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians around the world.
The Israeli government authorized the sale of Pegasus to the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as some of the most authoritarian governments on the planet. This included Saudi Arabia, who used the software to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye.
[5] That is why it is so inappropriate for big tech companies to hire Unit 8200 agents. Among those companies is Google. My investigation revealed at least 99 former Unit 8200 spies in Google's ranks. …
[6] Perhaps more alarmingly, Microsoft appears to be actively recruiting from the regiment, hiring people straight from Unit 8200 ranks, without even a career break in between. My investigation found at least 166 former Unit 8200 agents working for Microsoft. …
[7] Even TikTok, long slammed as a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel platform, has recently begun hiring former Unit 8200 agents to run its affairs. … For the full investigation into TikTok's ties to Unit 8200, see here: TikTok isn’t anti-Israel: It’s Hired Unit 8200 Agents to Run its Affairs
[8] If this wasn't bad enough, Unit 8200 agents could also be writing your news about the Middle East. My investigation uncovered a number of Israeli spies working in America's top newsrooms. …
[13] Facebook is also teeming with CIA agents. My investigation found dozens of top spooks employed in some of the most politically sensitive positions at the platform, effectively deciding what billions see (and don't see) in their newsfeeds. Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook's Content Policy
[16] The bottom line in all this is social media apps and communications devices are not neutral, but massive, silent battlegrounds. We give these apps incredible amounts of our data, and we have to be extremely wary of what it is being used for.
What is frightening about Alan MacLeod's article is the reach of Western intelligence agencies into the form and function of social media platforms. Inconvenient facts don't get censored rather they become siloed (the post's dissemination is limited). More ominously (really!) is to take all our freely submitted data, find relations in the data and then establish methods for handling each group. Computers excel at performing these tasks rapidly.
Most concerning to me is the one firm with loads of 8200 alumni not mentioned: Palantir, as it did not fall in the article's scope. Palantir slices and dices data to compose the groups from social media data, NGO data, government data and more. The client list for Palantir products is unfortunately more than just evil intelligence operative agencies -- the United Nations is a client.
For me, if ever there is the defining argument for the use of free software (free as in freedom, not as in beer) this is it. No one, including us and especially our governments and international agencies should be typing into black boxes.
Although it’s tangential to your main point, those of us with long memories remember Jonathan Pollard who was convicted for selling state secrets to the Israeli government and was sentenced to life imprisonment back in the 1980s. Bill Clinton considered releasing him in the 1990s until the intelligence community rebelled. If the claims are true that Netanyahu had recorded conversations of Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky are true, I think we can assume Israeli intelligence has been operating for decades in relative impunity. Also it must be remembered that on his last day in office in 2021, President Trump pardoned Aviem Sella who was Pollard’ handler. FWIW Sella had an IT company.