_Washington Times

Shaun Waterman

U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants. Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language network Univision, which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.

A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (said) he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy. In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats....

Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called for hearings about Iranian activities in Latin America.

Some House lawmakers called for the expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat in the U.S. who is implicated in the suspected plot....Livia Antonieta Acosta Noguera, then the second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico - is currently the Venezuelan consul in Miami.

Students secretly taped her asking for more information about the planned cyberattacks and promising to pass it along to Mr. Chavez via his head of security, Gen. Alexis Lopez.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ...

The consul represents "a potential threat to our national security," Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said in the letter, which was co-signed by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera, both Florida Republicans; and Albio Sires, New Jersey Democrat....

Read this story at washingtontimes.com ...

*Passed along courtesy of the Peace through Strength Institute