INTELLIGENCE
                       No. 268, 3 July 1995
                        (Vol. 16, No. 14)

                      Publishing since 1980

Copyright ADI 1995. Reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit
authorization from the ADI. A one-year subscription (23 issues) is US $280.

INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD:

USA: FPN'S STRANGE CHILD "PROTECTION" SERVICES

     A new for-profit enterprise promising to field teams of former
federal agents to locate abducted children may itself be a prime resource
for predators and exploiters, as well as a marketing ploy designed to prey
on fearful parents, according to critics.  The company, Family Protection
Network (FPN), debuted last month with an advertising and direct mail
campaign that, according to news reports, will ultimately cost $25
million.  Although all but a tiny percent of child abductions are the
result of divorce-custody battles, FPN, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is
selling scared parents registration in a database and emergency services
for $250 a year.  If a registered child is abducted, one of the
advertisements promises, FPN's "network of over 1,000 highly qualified,
licensed, independent agents, including former agents from the FBI, CIA,
Departments of Treasury and Justice" will commence an all-out, nationwide
search.  Other ads promise to mobilize "helicopters with thermographic
capabilities," low-light photography, forensic artists, search dogs and
polygraphs. 

     COMMENT - The ads do not say what licenses the agents hold, nor how
many of them were federal officers.  Nor do they mention that 99 percent
of abductions last year were solved by police.  The critics say the
registration is of dubious value. Parents can keep photos, fingerprints
and medical records at home where they can be quickly provided to police
in the event of an abduction.  Small inexpensive kits for keeping records,
hair samples and the like are also widely available and are often promoted
by nonprofit organizations.  Companies and service organizations routinely
videotape children for free during abduction-education campaigns. 
According to experts and non-profit foundations fighting child abduction,
by putting all the information about a child in a database, as FPN is
promising to do, the company becomes a target for pedophiles and
kidnappers who want to obtain valuable information -- such as parents'
first names -- they would not otherwise have. 

     However, after reading one of the company's cleverly written
full-page newspaper ad, a parent might forget the obvious.  About
one-fourth of the way through the text, the ad astutely switches from
talking about "a child" that's missing to talking about "your child."
Except for the network of agents, the services the FPN offers (contacting
the media, distributing posters, keeping parents informed) are routinely
provided by skilled volunteers and local police departments. The ad
concludes by saying "There is an annual fee.  But think what you might get
in return." FPN also offers registration in its database without its
high-energy search service for $50 a year. 

     FPN is a unit of SafeCard Services Inc., a credit card registration
company, which also has interests in a mail-order house, a golf-related
tour business and commercial data processing.  Its CEO is Paul C. Kahn. 
Although SafeCard boasts that it keeps millions of records secure (despite
one instance in which a security guard stole 4 million of them), this
diversified portfolio gives rise to a question:  what will it do with its
records of children once they reach age 18? 

                                  *

     U.S.A. - Chicago Wants its "Red Squad" Back.  The Chicago Police
Department wants a federal judge to relax restrictions on police spying
that eliminated the Department's "Red Squad" after widespread police
spying and, in particular, the "police riot" during the 1968 Democratic
National Convention. Ironically, Police Superintendent Matt Rodriguez's
request is to better protect the 1996 Democratic National Convention.
Already planning for the Convention, the Department has installed a
contested neural networking computer program to try to weed out the "bad
apples" in the Department by analyzing their personal activity reports (IN
N. 258/3). 

                                  *

     U.S.A. - CIA "Reaches Out" to the Public.  The CIA Public Affairs
office has created an original, but small Public Liaison office under the
orders of Tom Dougherty which is in charge of the CIA's "Outreach
Program".  On a regular basis, the Outreach Program is now sending
information packets of unclassified materials to CIA institutional
partners.  The packets typically included a quarterly update on CIA
products available through the National Technical Information Service
(NTIS), such as CIA maps and country studies, copies of fax and press
releases, and on-the-record speeches and unclassified testimony by CIA
officials.  Mr. Dougherty hopes to have the non-NTIS material available on
the CIA's web homepage (IN N. 253/10) within 24 hours.  That way the
general public, and not only the CIA's institutional partners, will have
full access to Outreach Program materials. 

                                  *

     U.S.A. - The Coming Bang.  Following the bombing of the World Trade
Center (WRC) and the Oklahoma City federal building, intelligence
officials are worried by two recent incidents.  On 13 April in New York
Port Authority's engineering offices, a laptop computer with plans for the
new security command center for the WTD were stolen.  Also, on 6 June one
and a half tons of ammonium nitrate were stolen from a feed store in
Seminole, Oklahoma, about 100 km from Oklahoma City.  The FBI is
investigating both thefts. 

                                  *

PEOPLE:

     U.S.A. - Donald Nixon Jr.  The extradition of fugitive American
financier and supposed drug trafficker Robert L. Vesco from Cuba (IN N.
267/20) has been complicated by Cuban authorities' seizure of Donald Nixon
Jr.'s passport.  Havana is supposedly investigating Nixon, nephew of
former President Richard M. Nixon, and his long-term relationship with
Vesco. Nixon administration officials supposedly arranged for Vesco to
"hire" Donald Nixon to work in Geneva in 1971 and keep him out of the
limelight.  Donald Nixon had "dropped out", become a hippie living in a
commune and was probably smoking "dope". Vesco is said to have "used Don
as an errand boy".  Both Vesco and Donald Nixon's past could prove
extremely embarrassing to the Republican establishment now in power in
Washington. 
                                  *

     U.S.A. - Claire Sterling.  Journalist and author Claire Sterling died
at the age of 76 on 17 June in Arezzo, Italy. She was best known for her
Reader's Digest book "The Time of the Assassins" which claimed the KGB was
behind a coordinated international network of terrorism and, in
particular, behind the Bulgarian intelligence services and their attempt
to assassinated Pope John Paul II via Turkish hitman Mehmet Ali Agca.  The
Italian trial based on these accusations was thrown out of court and all
cases of "terrorism" mentioned by Sterling that could be independently
documented proved to be extremely tenuous.  Indeed, almost all accusations
were based on undocumented "intelligence sources" and proofreaders at
Reader's Digest were not even allowed access to such information. 
Nonetheless, once CIA director William Casey took up Sterling's thesis and
imposed it as the Reagan administration's official CIA line on terrorism,
few intelligence officials dared contradict it.  Since then, many have
done so, usually on an "off-the-record" basis. 

                                  *

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