Jim Comey's Consistent Dodges on Torture
On March 12 of this year, Dianne Feinstein plaintively asked Jim Comey to read the full SSCI Torture Report. Before giving a really lame answer about how FBI doesn't torture to excuse why he (and his staffers) hadn't read, perhaps even opened,…
What an XKeyscore Fingerprint Looks Like
As part of its cooperation with New Zealand's best journalist on that country's SIGINT activities, Nicky Hager, the Intercept has published a story on the targets of a particular XKeyscore query (note: these stories say the outlets obtained…
The Standards for CIA Crimes
In the interest of describing why CIA's efforts to invent a reason to torture Janat Gul are so important, I wanted to do a very quick summary of what I understand CIA's legal means of avoiding criminal prosecution was.
Torture began -- certainly…
The 4-Year Old Pizza Conversations
Because I harp endlessly about the need to defeat pizza joints in the NSA's contact chaining, which might affect the process' utility for the Tsarnaev brothers, both of whom worked at pizza joints who had weird ties to another pizza joint, I…
John Brennan's Careful Dodge of Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Abuses
In his appearance as the Council on Foreign Relations today, a woman with Human Rights Watch listed (starting at 56:30) a number of abuses our "partners" in the fight against ISIL engage in, including,
The ABC report of egregious abuses…
Deconstructing Neoclassical Utility
Several commenters have pointed out definitional problems with the term “utility” as used in neoclassical economics, including Tarheel Dem, rg and Alan. As I noted in the linked post, Samuelson and Nordhaus are careful to call utility…
John Brennan Predicts the Dissolution of the Nation-State Structure
Rather than asking John Brennan challenging questions about the reform of CIA at Brennan's Council on Foreign Relations event Friday, Charlie Rose instead asked John Brennan what he saw as the challenge to CIA's analytical function over…
Did John Brennan Confirm NSA's Role in Tracking Finance?
In his talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, John Brennan was asked about terrorists' use of offshore bank and shell companies (just after 50:00)
I must say that the US Department of the Treasury as well as other institutions of the…
CIA Headquarters Ordered Janat Gul's Torture to Keep Going for an OLC Approval
I'm working on a longer post on how the torture of Hassan Ghul and Janat Gul relate to the three May 2005 OLC memos, which -- as Mark Udall has pointed out -- were based on a series of lies from CIA.
But for the moment, I want to point to…
UK More Interested in Asian Investment than Its Special Relationship
At Salon today, I did another post on how ridiculous it is that the US just sanctioned Venezuela. As part of it, I discuss again how China and Russia are setting up new financial tools to contest our financial hegemony.
Worse, at a time when…
Move Afoot to Get UN Security Council Action to Prevent GOP Meddling After Iran Deal
Although Israel's Netanyahu and the 47 Senate Republicans who signed Tom Cotton's letter to Iran are suffering badly in public opinion after their most recent foot-stomping over a potential P5+1 deal on Iran's nuclear technology, there is still…
Jim Comey's Learned Helplessness about the Torture Report
Dianne Feinstein used the Federal Law Enforcement Appropriations hearing as an opportunity to implore Jim Comey to read the Torture Report.
I'm surprised neither by her request nor by her plaintive manner, given how most Federal Agencies…
NSA Probably Doesn't Have ALL of Hillary's Emails ... But Maybe Someone Should
I'm among those who believes Hillary Clinton's use of a privately run email server is an abuse of power. Doing so appears to have skirted laws ensuring good governance and it may well have exposed her communications to adversaries (including…
The Marathon Trial: An Assessment of FBI and NSA's Online Investigations
There are a number of journalists doing a superb job of live-tweeting the Boston Marathon trial (I'm following @JimArmstrongWBZ, @susanzalkind, and @GlobeCullen, among others).
On top of gruesome details from survivors about the injuries…
Time to Burn Lord Jeffrey Amherst's Genocidal Blankets
The SAE fraternity racist song -- and righteous response of Oklahoma University President David Boren -- has focused a lot of attention on campus racism.
But as more attention has focused on what a tradition this song -- which invokes lynching…
BREAKING: Venezuela Has Worse Human Rights Problems than Saudi Arabia ... ?
President Obama imposed sanctions on a number of Venezuelans yesterday, including -- among others -- the woman prosecuting Caracas MayorAntonio Ledezma Diaz, Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron. Apparent intelligence officers seized Ledezma on…
AP Also Notes the Torture and Drones Double Standard
After the Torture Report came out, I argued we ought to take a broader lesson from it about failures of accountability in CIA's covert programs. Specifically, I noted how the drone program -- which operated under the same Memorandum of Notification…
Should Ex-Senator Tied to CIA "Accountability" Be Involved in This Kind of Propaganda?
In a post on the over-the-top propaganda released by a new 503c4 started by Saxby Chambliss, Evan Bayh, and Norm Coleman, Ryan Cooper makes the comparison with LBJ's "Daisy" ad targeting Goldwater.
The American Security Initiative was founded…
Better Put Tom Cotton and His 46 Co-Conspirators on the No-Fly List
As Josh Rogin first reported, Tom Cotton and 46 other Senators have written a letter to the "leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran." They want to warn them that without Senate ratification, the agreement they're working to sign with President…
Choking the Security State with Its Own Bottleneck
One former and one current high-ranking intelligence official (is that you Keith?) have gone to CNBC to complain that tech firms are showing reluctance to get more of their people security clearances.
U.S. government officials say privately…