Comey Sending Out His Allies as Ferguson Effect Truthers
When Chuck Rosenberg, the Acting EPA Chief, echoed Jim Comey's suggestion that increased surveillance of cops had led to a chilling effect leading them to stop doing their jobs ...
Chuck Rosenberg, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency,…
Response to Snooper's Charter: URL Searches Are Broadly Available in the US
In an unsuccessful effort to beat ACLU in a lawsuit over the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, in 2005 DOJ sent a subpoena to Google asking for "all URL's that are available to be located to a query on your company's search…
It's Not Just the FISA Court, It's the Game of Surveillance Whack-a-Mole
In response to this post from Chelsea Manning, the other day I did the first in what seems to have become a series of posts arguing that we should eliminate the FISA Court, but that the question is not simple. In that post, I laid out the tools…
Kiddie Porn, Computer and Building Destruction, and Section 702
At the end of September, I Con the Record released a bunch of documents relating to 2014's Section 702 certification process including the August 26, 2014 Thomas Hogan opinion that, among other things, authorized an expansion of FBI's minimization…
Médecins Sans Frontières in Kunduz Treated 2 Higher Ranking Taliban before Attack
On Tuesday, the Daily Beast noted that DOD had not fulfilled its promise to release the preliminary results of its investigation into the October 3 bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières trauma center in Kunduz a month earlier.
When the…
The FISA Court's Uncelebrated Good Points
I'm working on a post responding to this post from Chelsea Manning calling to abolish the FISA Court. Spoiler alert: I largely agree with her, but I think the question is not that simple.
As background to that post, I wanted to shift the…
Signs of Confusion in the Middle East
Yesterday, Shane Harris told the tale of a spooked up telecom providing Iran's state-owned telecom company with Internet bandwidth.
GTT Communications Inc.—headquartered in McLean, Virginia, just a 15-minute drive from the headquarters of…
The Second Circuit Attempts to Reassert Its Non-Definition of Relevant
Orin Kerr and Steve Vladeck got in a bit of a squabble last week over the Second Circuit's decision not to reach the constitutionality of the phone dragnet. Vladeck called it wrong-headed, because even if the constitutional injury of the dragnet…
Spooky Trash Talk
Here it is Halloween already and we are in the eighth week of the NFL season. It all happens so fast. No trick or treating at Casa de bmaz, we are going out to see Bridge of Spies tonight. But before that will be some football, baseball and…
Who Was Actually Doing "FBI's" Aerial Surveillance of Black Lives Matter in Baltimore?
The ACLU just released a series of documents about the FBI's aerial surveillance of Black Lives Matter protests after Baltimore cops killed Freddie Gray. As they note, the documents show two different parts of FBI, the Washington Field…
As One of First Acts as Speaker, Paul Ryan Retains Devin Nunes on HPSCI
A few weeks ago, I noted that the new Speaker -- officially yesterday, Paul Ryan -- had an opportunity to name Chairmen of Select committees, most notably Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Chair. I argued the new Speaker should do just that,…
The Awkward Timing of the 2nd Circuit Denial of ACLU's Request for a Phone Dragnet Injunction
The 2nd circuit just denied the ACLU's request for an injunction in the phone dragnet, finding that Congress intended to let the dragnet continue for 6 months after passage of USA F-ReDux.
That's not all that surprising, but it also means…
Obama Bypassed OLC on Bin Laden Killing
There's a name missing from Charlie Savage's latest -- a description of the legal analysis behind Osama bin Laden's killing: Caroline Krass, who served as Acting Head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel from January to September 2011. She's not…
Could Corporations Include CISA Non-Participation in Transparency Reports? Would It Even Mean Anything?
I confess I don't know the answer to this question, but I'm going to pose it anyway. Could companies report non-participation in CISA -- or whatever the voluntary cyber information sharing program that will soon roll out is eventually called…
CISA Overwhelmingly Passes, 74-21
Update: Thought I'd put a list of Senators people should thank for voting against CISA.
GOP: Crapo, Daines, Heller, Lee, Risch, and Sullivan. (Paul voted against cloture but did not vote today.)
Dems: Baldwin, Booker, Brown, Cardin,…
Richard Burr Wants to Prevent Congress from Learning if CISA Is a Domestic Spying Bill
As I noted in my argument that CISA is designed to do what NSA and FBI wanted an upstream cybersecurity certificate to do, but couldn't get FISA to approve, there's almost no independent oversight of the new scheme. There are just IG reports…
Anonymous Former Intel Official Confirms: CISA Is about Bypassing NSA Minimization on Upstream Collection
In the last few days, I have laid out how CISA will permit the intelligence community to bypass the rules currently imposing reasonable limits on the sharing of domestic cyberattack information implicating Americans. Currently, any upstream…
Two Intended Consequences CISA Supporters Will Be Responsible For
Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on CISA. It is expected to pass by large margins.
Given that a majority in the Senate is preparing to vote for CISA, I wanted to lay out two intended consequences of CISA, so supporters will know what we will…
The IRS Has Stingrays ... But We Knew Stingrays Have Been Used to Chase Tax Fraud
The Guardian reports that the IRS is among the federal agencies that has a Stingray.
The Internal Revenue Service is the latest in a growing list of US federal agencies known to have possessed the sophisticated cellphone dragnet equipment known…
The Great Transformation Part 4: Reaction and Counter-Reaction To Self-Regulating Markets
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…