Sally Yates Doth Protest Too Much
Some months ago Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski wrote an important piece talking about the many way criminal prosecutions are not fair. A lot of it focused on the imperfect process behind key ingredients of prosecutions -- eye witness testimony,…
Author of Story Based on Leaks about Surveillance Parrots Brennan Condemning Leaks about Surveillance
Josh Rogin is among many journalists who covered John Brennan's complaints about how "a number of unauthorized disclosures"and hand-wringing about our surveillance capabilities this morning (which was a response to Rogin asking "what went…
DOJ Still Gets a Failing Grade on Strong Authentication
In DOJ's Inspector General's annual report on challenges facing the department, Michael Horowitz revealed how well DOJ is complying with the Office of Management and Budget's directive in the wake of the OPM hack that agencies improve their…
Surveillance Hawk Stewart Baker Confirms Dragnet Didn't Work as Designed
The French authorities are just a day into investigating the horrid events in Paris on Friday. We'll know, over time, who did this and how they pulled it off. For that reason, I'm of the mind to avoid any grand claims that surveillance failed…
Je Suis Paris Trash Talk
It is a little hard to get too excited about this weekend's games with all of what is going on across the pond in Paris. My daughter had been scheduled to be in Paris yesterday and for the weekend until a last minute change in one of her classes…
It's Harder for FBI to Get Location Data from Phone Companies Under FISA than Other Ways
I was looking for something else on Ron Wyden's website yesterday and noticed this exchange between Wyden and Jim Comey from January 29, 2014 (see my transcription below). At first it seemed to be another of Wyden's persistent questions…
Weeks after Missing Claimed Russian Bomb Plot, US and UK Take Out Jihadi John
Politico has a big piece tied to a Showtime documentary on the living CIA Directors. As should be expected of a collection of paid liars, there are a lot of myths and score settling, most notably with expanded George Tenet claims about the strength…
The Proliferation-as-Terrorism Rule
Last week, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee tried to get Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson to list the Iran Republican Guard as a terrorist organization.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas) pressed Anne Patterson, assistant…
Government (and Its Expensive Contractors) Really Need to Secure Their Data Collections
Given two recent high profile hacks, the government needs to either do a better job of securing its data collection and sharing process, or presume people will get hurt because of it.
After the hackers Crackas With Attitude hacked John Brennan,…
How to Make Peaceful Protestors of America's Torture School Look Like Terrorists
In 2001, it was uncorroborated reports that anarchists would be joining peace activists.
In 2003, Anti-Free Trade of Americas protests were dubiously invoked (they were also invoked to investigate peace protestors in Pittsburgh that year).
In…
Another War Crime Because We Relied on Unreliable Allies
Just days after the attack on Médecins Sans Frontières, I said that all the available evidence suggested the Afghans asked us to target the hospital -- claiming it was being used by Taliban -- and we did so, without the vetting that should…
On the Leak Crackdown: Donald Sachtleben Was a Convenient Scapegoat
I'm reading Charlie Savage's Power Wars. While I disagree with some parts of it and have additional information that isn't included in others (the book is already 700 pages, so it's possible they were left out because of length), it is absolutely…
Kansas to Execute White Supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller
While the focus on racial justice has been on Columbia, MO in recent days, a Judge in Kansas sentenced the white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller to death for his murder of three people he presumed were Jewish.
A judge has sentenced a white…
The Great Transformation Part 5: Polanyi on Marxian Analysis
Previous posts in this series:
The Great Transformation: Mainstream Economics and an Introduction to a New Series
The Great Transformation Part 1: The Market
The Great Transformation Part 2: More on Markets
The Great Transformation…
The Government's Bad Faith Arguments Demanding a Dragnet Stay
As expected, the government requested an immediate stay of Richard Leon's decision yesterday to enjoin the dragnet from collecting JJ Little's phone records.
Their argument is noteworthy for its stubbornness -- reasserting many of the same…
Government Still Hasn't Cleared One of Jeffrey Sterling's Appellate Lawyers
Update, 12/13: Sterling's team was finally cleared in the days leading up to the December status report deadline. But because of other scheduling issues and the difficulties of working with classified information, his team will not be able to…
Richard Leon Halts the Dragnet for One Plaintiff
Judge Richard Leon has just issued an injunction on the NSA's collection of the phone metadata of J.J. Little and his lawfirm. Little got added as a plaintiff to Larry Klayman's suit (in which Leon earlier found the program unconstitutional…
Defining Stingray Emergencies ... or Not
A couple of weeks ago, ACLU NoCal released more documents on the use of Stingray. While much of the attention focused on the admission that innocent people get sucked up in Stingray usage, I was at least as interested in the definition of an…
Daylight Saving Time Trash Talk
If there has ever been an avatar as to the gimmickry and inane stupidity of those who govern in this country, it is Daylight Savings Time. Seriously, what is wrong with this picture? Golly, we will just pretend time and seasons don't exist by…
Confirmed: Intelligence Community Claimed Credit and Top Secret Status for Open Source Intelligence
Back when the beltway first declared that Hillary Clinton's emails (by which they meant, but often didn't specify, emails received by Hillary) included two Top Secret emails, I warned about being snookered by CIA claims their drone program was…