Intelligence agents or art students? The DEA and Justice Department believe there was something sinister behind unusual visits Israeli `art students' paid to employees of law-enforcement agencies

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 1, 2002 | by Paul M. Rodriguez

FBI and Justice spokesmen have sought either to downplay or knock out the stories -- even discredit the DEA reports and their authors. But if DEA was wrong then how can Justice explain this item INSIGHT discovered that was circulated by a little-known but sensitive White House agency called the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.

That agency not only circulated an internal warning to intelligence, federal law enforcement and White House planners -- three full months before DEA issued its own internal report -- but also posted on its site a warning to all federal employees about Israeli art students aggressively trying to enter federal facilities and going to the homes of senior federal agents. The same thing apparently was going on with a non-Israeli outfit with possible ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.

PAUL M. RODRIGUEZ IS MANAGING EDITOR OF Insight.