*Too bad the Guardian didn't ask, "who will guard the guardians?" Because
after this every uniformed Tom Dick and Harry inspecting luggage is gonna be keen to
clone passports.
*That could be a nice little earner, cloning passports. Especially from countries
whose passports are worth carrying.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/24/israel-ben-gurion-cloned-passports-soca
"Passing through Israel's Ben Gurion airport, a few miles east of Tel Aviv, is a unique experience no first-time visitor is likely to forget.
"It represents the pinnacle of modern aviation security. Baggage is passed through giant, state-of-the-art machines, and travellers – both arriving and leaving – are frequently subjected to lengthy, personal and repetitive questioning by officials, on their ethnic background and that of any local acquaintances they may have made.
"It is not at all uncommon for the mostly youthful immigration officers to wander off, passports and tickets in hand, ostensibly to consult with their seniors. Surrendering documents at check-in or at immigration has hitherto been considered a necessary evil for all those travelling in and out of Ben Gurion.
"But the evidence that the Israeli state has been taking the information gleaned from these inspections to create cloned identities for its spies introduces a new level of risk to the experience. (((Not just spies, either. Assassins. State terrorists with guns who kill people in Dubai hotels. You're not gonna be mistaken for a "spy," you're gonna be mistaken for a heavily armed marauder who stole your ID.)))
"The report by the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) into the use of cloned British passports in the Dubai assassination makes clear their view that this is what happened as Britons travelled through the airport in the months and years before the plot was hatched to kill the Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. (((It must be a tiresome job, being a British cop who has to investigate stuff like Russian defectors killed with poisoned teacups, and then the killers just get promoted or elected to office or something. You gotta wonder what those Mossad guys are up to right now. Back in their dayclothes and surreptitiously Google-surfing themselves, I reckon. Hi guys!)))
The Soca report concluded that the passports must have been cloned at the airport or at other interfaces with Israeli officialdom, such as airline offices in other countries. There were no other links between the 12 individuals whose identities were stolen.
According to insiders, the language in the Soca report, produced after a four-week investigation, was "direct" and the findings unequivocal: the inquiry showed that the victims' data was taken, stored and passed on when they handed their passports to Israeli officials or those linked to them....
