The Three Kinds of Dragnet Searches NSA Did When Only Doing Contact Chaining
This is going to be a weedy post in which I look at a key detail revealed by 2010 NSA Inspector General reviews of the Section 215 phone dragnet. The document was liberated by Charlie Savage last year.
At issue is the government's description,…
Thursday Morning: Chinese Fortune Not Looking Good
If I was still a practicing Catholic, I'd be tempted to pray to St. Angela of Foligno today, her saint's day. She was known for walking away from wealth and practicing charity. Given the Chinese stock market's plummet overnight, St. Angela might…
Wednesday Morning: Otherwise Known as Mike-Mike-Mike Day
My condolences to the poor Mikes among us who have suffered every Hump Day since Geico's TV commercial became so popular.
North Korean nuclear test detected by 'earthquake'
About 10:00 a.m. North Korean local time Wednesday, an event…
The 18-Minute Gap
The FBI had a press conference today to ask for help filling in the last 18 minutes of the 4-hour gap between the time San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, shot up his holiday party and the time cops killed…
Tuesday Morning: Wow, You Survived Business Day 1
The post-holiday season debris field continues to thin out, making its way by the truckful to the landfill. I wonder how much oil the season's plastic wrappings consumed.
Here's what the trash man left behind this morning.
Hackers caused…
Power Imbalances in Ukraine
The western press is ginning up alarm because hackers caused a power outage in Ukraine.
Western Ukraine power company Prykarpattyaoblenergo reported an outage on Dec. 23, saying the area affected included regional capital Ivano-Frankivsk. Ukraine's…
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 3: Superfluous Capital and Superfluous People
Previous posts in this series:
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 1: Introduction.
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 2: Antisemitism
The Origins of Totalitarianism: Interlude on the Tea Party
In Part 2 of The Origins of…
Monday Morning: First, Same as the Last
Hear that sound? Like so many sighs of resignation? Yup, it's the first Monday of the new year, and with it, a plethora of shiny resolutions slowly breached and broken like WiFi-enabled toys.
One of my 2016 resolutions (which I hope will…
Why Is Congress Undercutting PCLOB?
As I noted last month, the Omnibus budget bill undercut the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in two ways.
First, it affirmatively limited PCLOB's ability to review covert actions. That effort dates to June, when Republicans responded…
Repurposed Auld Lang Syne - Now NFL - Trash Talk
NFL Sunday Update: Okay, I have been having fun thinking and talking about the idiocy going on up in Oregon. And, so far, that is all it has been, but there are real fears about what will transpire when the Feds finally interact a little more…
Why Tell the Israeli Spying Story Now?
“Intelligence professionals have a saying: There are no friendly intelligence services,” the WSJ describes former House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers saying, on the record. While there's no way of telling -- particularly not with WSJ's…
The Origins of Totalitarianism: Interlude on the Tea Party
As I noted in this post, Arendt says that the great frauds and swindles of the 1870s led to the rise of Antisemitic political parties in Germany, Austria and France. The Grimdungsschwindel in Germany and Austria involved public offerings…
James Clapper's Twisted Definition of an Insider Threat
Back when I reviewed the goodies the House Intelligence Committee had given James Clapper in this year's Intelligence Authorization, I noted the bill eliminated this report on potential conflicts in outside employment (see clause u).
The Director…
Legal Analysis of OmniCISA Reinforces Cause for Concern
Among all the commentaries about CISA published before its passage, only one I know of (aside from my non-lawyer take here) dealt with what the bill did legally: this Jennifer Granick post explaining how OmniCISA will "stake out a category…
The Heroic IRS Agent Story Should Raise More Questions about Silk Road Investigation
“In these technical investigations, people think they are too good to do the stupid old-school stuff. But I’m like, ‘Well, that stuff still works.’ ”
The NYT got this and many other direct quotes from IRS agent Gary Alford for a…
Interstitial Trash Talk
I was away, playing in New York with my family and a few friends last week. Predictably, everyone got along quite fine! Yet, like a bad cold, here I am again. It is a weird week with the football spread out as it is. NFL and lesser bowl games…
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 2: Antisemitism
Previous posts in this series:
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 1: Introduction.
In section 1 of The Origins of Totalitarianism, titled Antisemitism, Arendt describes the history of the Jews in Europe. Beginning with the rise of the…
Christmas At The Wheelhouse, And A Giving Of Thanks
Here we are at yet another Christmas. We have been doing this a long time now, and even longer for those that go back to The Next Hurrah. Yes, we are all getting old together. But let that be painfully, fitfully and difficult for the government,…
If a Close US Ally Backdoored Juniper, Would NSA Tell Congress?
You may have heard that Juniper Networks announced what amounts to a backdoor in its virtual private networks products. Here's Kim Zetter's accessible intro of what security researchers have learned so far. And here's some technical background…
The Origins of Totalitarianism Part 1: Introduction
The Origins of Totalitarianism is Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the rise of totalitarian governments, the Nazis under Hitler in Germany and the Communists under Stalin in Russia. It was published in 1951, though it was largely completed in 1945.…