http://www.latimes.com/wires/20010528/tCB00a3509.html Monday, May 28, 2001 WASHINGTON--An FBI agent who pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow linked a fellow alleged turncoat, Robert Hanssen, to suspicious computer activity during interrogations in 1997, three years before Hanssen came under investigation for spying, the FBI acknowledged on Monday. The former agent, Earl Pitts, described as "unusual" a computer hacking incident involving Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran arrested on Feb. 18 on charges of spying for Moscow for more than 15 years, FBI spokesman John Collingwood said. But Collingwood said the FBI's National Security Division had thoroughly investigated a 1992 incident of unauthorized computer access to which they believed Pitts had referred in the interrogation after his guilty plea. The FBI investigators "were completely satisfied that Pitts had not raised any issues beyond what was already known" about Hanssen's alleged 1992 break-in to the computer of a senior FBI counterintelligence official, he said. The disclosure that Pitts had raised suspicions about Hanssen was the first evidence that the bureau had received a warning raising Hanssen's name years before he fell under suspicion in the spying case last year. The FBI has been on the defensive in recent months for a string of high-profile blunders, including a misstep in the Oklahoma City bombing case that has delayed convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh's execution for a month and the belated discovery of the alleged spy Hanssen in its midst. In a prison interview with The New York Times published on Monday, Pitts was cited as saying he had told the FBI in June 1997 that he suspected Hanssen of spying, although he acknowledged that had not known for sure. Pitts was quoted as saying that the computer incident he had learned of suggested to him that Hanssen -- who is to be arraigned in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday -- was "trying to collect information covertly." So he mentioned it when an FBI interrogator asked him whether he thought anyone else in the bureau was working for Moscow, the Times reported. It quoted Pitts as saying he had named no other suspects. Pitts was arrested on Dec. 18, 1996, on charges of selling secrets to Moscow for at least $224,000. He is serving a 27-year sentence at a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, where the Times interview took place. Lawyers for Pitts and Hanssen did not return phone calls seeking comment. 'DID NOT IDENTIFY HANSSEN AS A SPY' Collingwood said the bureau had concluded that Pitts had been referring to the penetration of a computer used by Ray Mislock, a top FBI counterspy. "During his post-guilty-pleas debriefing, Pitts did not identify anyone, either by name or position, as a spy," the FBI spokesman said. "Pitts said his Soviet handlers had not identified anyone to him as a spy. Pitts did describe as 'unusual' a computer hacking incident involving Hanssen. Pitts did not identify Hanssen as a spy. When asked if he was aware of anything beyond this hacking incident already known to the FBI, Pitts said 'no."' Collingwood added that after Pitts referred to Hanssen in his debriefing, "the matter was immediately referred to FBI headquarters for appropriate handling." "There's nothing that surfaced in the initial investigation of the '92 incident then, and there's nothing that surfaced since then in regard to the '92 incident that points to espionage," he said. At the time of the unauthorized entrance into the FBI computer, Hanssen had told Mislock he had broken in to drive home his supposed concerns about lax computer security, The New York Times reported. ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email isn-unsubscribeat_private
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