FreedomWorks Challenges the Transitional Dragnet
On Friday, FreedomWorks and Ken Cuccinelli challenged the phone dragnet.
The challenge is a basic legal challenge, not a technical one arising from the lapse of the dragnet. It is smarter than others I've read because it recognizes the dragnet…
Why Is the Aramco Hack Considered a Significant NSA Milestone?
I've been puzzling over the list of "key SSO cyber milestone dates" released with the upstream 702 story the other day.
For the most part, it lists technical and legal milestones leading to expanded collection targeting cyber targets (which…
Bulk Collection Is All Fun and Games Until Office of Personnel Management Gets Hacked
Reuters reports that, contrary to initial reports, the Office of Personnel Management hack revealed earlier this week did compromise the security clearance and background check information in the data, meaning the hack will be far more valuable…
Congressional Priorities for Defense Intelligence Agency: Take More Money, Discredit Snowden
Today marks the two year anniversary of the first Snowden disclosures. The anniversary was marked not just with a Snowden op-ed published by the New York Times titled “The World Says No to Surveillance,” but also a major new Vice story…
In October 2013, Patrick Leahy and Jim Sensenbrenner Rolled Out a Bill That Would Have Ended Upstream Cyber Collection
Back in October 2013, Jim Sensenbrenner and Patrick Leahy released the original, far better, version of the USA Freedom Act. As I noted in November 2013, it included a provision that would limit upstream collection to international terrorism…
Section 702 Used for Cybersecurity: You Read It Here First
I have been reporting for years that the government uses Section 702 for cybersecurity purposes, including its upstream application.
June 10, 2013: Hacking was the biggest success story for 702
August 7, 2013: Me, saying I told you so
October…
On Carrots, Sticks, and Rand Paul
Now that USA F-ReDux has become USA FreeDone, I wanted to look at Steve Vladeck's two bizarre posts attacking Rand Paul's opposition to USA F-ReDux as a way of doing a post-mortem on the process.
I say bizarre because Vladeck complains that…
Did FBI Stall an IG Review of Innocent Americans Sucked Up in the Dragnet?
I mentioned earlier that the FBI withheld information on the Bureau's use of phone dragnet tippers from DOJ's Inspector General long enough to make any review unusable for Congress' consideration before it passed USA F-ReDux.
That's important…
FBI Successfully Runs Out the Clock on DOJ's Inspector General Review of Use of Phone Metadata
While everyone was focused on USA F-ReDux last week, DOJ's Inspector General submitted its semiannual report. In it, Michael Horowitz reiterated his complaint that FBI was stonewalling on document production. He listed 4 requests made after…
The FISC Purportedly Continues to Have Problems with "Relevant" and "All"
Amid posts bewailing Rand Paul because the Senator's substantial discussions of the problems with EO 12333 and Section 702 spying aren't the substantial discussions he wants (I'll return to these once more pressing matters have passed), Steve…
ACLU's Poker Face
Thus far, I have not seen a statement from the ACLU on last night's developments with respect to the PATRIOT Act -- the passage of cloture, McConnell's failure to even ask for an immediate vote, followed by McConnell filing several amendments…
Mitch McConnell Just Made the Country Less Safe in Bid to Ensure FISC Continues to Be Rubber Stamp
I predicted back in April that Mitch McConnell would use the threat of straight reauthorization of a program that doesn't do what the Intelligence Community wants to demand changes to USA F-ReDux.
And a data retention mandate -- presented…
Help Me U of M, You're Our Only Hope, Softball Trash Talk
As luck and airplane schedules and Senate debate would have it, Jim missed all of U Florida's extra time win over Auburn. And I missed all of U Michigan's "shorter than a cloture vote" game against LSU.
That means Monday night, our softball…
FBI Doesn't Want You To Know It Uses NSLs to "Correlate" All the Identities You Use Online
Back in March, I parsed the declaration Nicholas Merrill submitted in his bid to reveal the contents of what he was asked to turn over via an NSL back in 2004. As a reminder, here's what FBI permitted Merrill to reveal at the beginning of this…
Lessons From The FCIC Final Report In FHFA v. Nomura
The ruling of Judge Denise Cotes in Federal Housing Finance Administration v. Nomura Holding America, Inc., is a 361 page description of the fraud and corruption that went into just one group of real estate mortgage-backed securities. FHFA…
Richard Burr Wants to Label People Who Make Threats and Carry Guns "Terrorists"
The bill Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr released last Friday is bad enough for the way it expanded the existing illegal dragnet. I argued here Burr's bill would give the Intelligence Community everything they lost in 2009 and 2011.
But…
Administration Feeds Journalists Hints of More Secret Law ... Journalists Instead Parrot "Russian Roulette" Line
Back in January, Charlie Savage revealed that in 2007 the FISC approved a secret interpretation of the Roving Wiretap provision, one of the provisions due to sunset Sunday night. To support a domestic content collection order targeting al Qaeda…
DOJ IG Issues Yet Another Classified Report that Should Be Public Before Congress Votes on PATRIOT Act
DOJ's Inspector General just announced it completed its draft report on the use of Pen Register/Trap and Trace between 2007 and 2009 15 months ago, but the Intelligence Community only finished its classification review last month. It has now…
Behold, BR 15-24, the Longest-Serving Phone Dragnet Order Ever
By my calculation today marks the 91st day of the life of phone dragnet order BR 15-24, making it the longest running dragnet order ever. Though the order offered no explanation, FISC judge James Boasberg approved a 95-day expiration for this…
US Extended Its Special Relations with the Saudis another Decade
Back in 2013, then Saudi Interior Minister and current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef came to the US for a great coming out party (and, seemingly, to herald Obama's second term foreign policy team). While here, he signed an extension to the…