American Hegemony: Delivering "Unpredictable Instability" the World Over
I love Global Threat Hearings and curse you Richard Burr for holding the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing in secret.
At least John McCain had the courage to invite James Clapper for what might have been (but weren't) hard questions…
FBI Now Claiming Section 215 (Which Is Different Than the Phone Dragnet) Has a Big Role in Hacking Investigations
Admittedly, after its alarmism on encryption, one should always treat FBI claims about necessary tools skeptically. But I'm interested in the claim, made by FBI's Assistant Director of its Cyber Division, that the Bureau relies on 215 for computer…
Markets as a Justification for Milton Friedman's New Liberalism
I’ve put up several weedy posts explaining my view of the terms Market and Market Economy. In this post I pull back to see how this all fits in with neoliberalism. The basic idea of 19th Century liberalism was stated by Milton Friedman…
NSA's Dysfunctional Post-Tasking Checks
I noted this in both my working threads on the NSA, CIA and FBI minimization procedures, but it deserves more attention. Sometime in the last several years, the process by which NSA determines whether something they've collected is of a person…
Insanity Continues to Build Around Prospect of Iran Nuclear Pact
From the nature of the political feeding frenzy surrounding the ongoing P5+1 negotiations with Iran on Iran's nuclear technology, it is hard to believe that the Joint Plan of Action under which the countries are now operating was extended last…
FBI Now Holding Up Michael Horowitz' Investigation into the DEA
Man, at some point Congress is going to have to declare the FBI legally contemptuous and throw them in jail.
They continue to refuse to cooperate with DOJ's Inspector General, as they have been for basically 5 years. But in Michael Horowitz'…
Bibi Lied to UN in 2012, Likely to Lie to US Next Week
Benjamin Netanyahu overstated Iran's nuclear technology in 2012 when he used his bomb cartoon in an address to the United Nations. The Guardian and Al Jazeera have released a trove of documents relating to Iran's nuclear program and one…
Does the FBI STILL Have an Identity Crisis?
I've finished up my working threads on the NSA, CIA, and FBI Section 702 minimization procedures. And they suggest that FBI has an identity crisis. Or rather, an inability to describe what it means by "identification of a US person" in unclassified…
Working Thread: 702 Minimization Procedures (NSA and CIA)
NSA
These SMPs have not changed significantly since they were changed in the wake of the 2011 upstream ruling. The exceptions are:
(1) "of information, including non-publicly available information" was added to the first paragraph. This…
After Failing at the White House, Then Illegally Hacking SSCI, Brennan Wants Cyber
Back during John Brennan's confirmation process, I noted he got zero questions about cybersecurity, in spite of the fact that that is a big part of the portfolio of the White House Homeland Security Czar (as has been made evident by Lisa Monaco's…
How Internet Dragnettery Got Way More Permissive Under PRISM
I'm finally working through the minimization procedures released earlier this month as part of the blitz claiming that the Intelligence Community has made big changes in the year since President Obama's surveillance speech. Here's my first…
Working Thread: 702 Minimization Procedures (FBI)
FBI
(2) Does the exclusion of data acquired with consent incorporate the Third Party doctrine assumption that you've given your metadata over willingly? Because the FBI is using 702 acquired data for metadata analysis.
(2) The definitions…
David Cole Turns in His Torture Homework Late, Gets a C
I was going to simply ignore David Cole's annoying NYT op-ed, asking if the CIA got a bad rap with the SSCI Torture Report, until I saw the claims he made in his JustSecurity post on it.
Like many others, I commented on and wrote about the…
Loretta Lynch Is A Dubious Nominee For Attorney General
Loretta Lynch is an excellent nominee for Attorney General, and her prior actions in whitewashing the blatant and rampant criminality of HSBC should not be held against her, because she didn't know that at the time she last whitewashed that…
What Was the CIA Really Doing with Merlin by 2003?
Bloomberg is reporting that the exhibits released in the Jeffrey Sterling case may lead the UN to reassess some of the evidence they've been handed about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors…
Reminder: Bybee Was Too Busy Protecting Big Oil to Oversee Torture
Jay Bybee just gave a speech at University of Utah on the Constitution at which he tried to claim the torture memos that bear his name included constraints that no one else has been able to find.
One middle-aged man stood to the side of…
After Taking Bold Stand Against Testing Kindergartners, Susan Bowles is Teacher of Year
In the political landscape that is Florida, Gainesville is a lonely, tiny blue dot in a vast sea of red. Last night, that blue dot celebrated a symbolic act that could have major repercussions in the national elections coming up next year. Kindergarten…
Yes, Eric Holder Does Do the Intelligence Community's Bidding in Leak Prosecutions
The second-to-last witness in the government's case against Jeffrey Sterling, FBI Special Agent Ashley Hunt, introduced a number of things she had collected over the course of her 7.5 year investigation into James Risen's chapter…
34 Years Later, Treasury Is Still Operating without Procedures to Protect Americans under EO 12333
With almost no explanation, PCLOB just released this table ODNI compiled showing the status of procedures Agencies follow to protect US person information when using data obtained under EO 12333. This is something PCLOB has been pushing for…
AP's Matt Lee: US Officials Say Netanyahu Trying to Destroy Iran Negotiations
I haven't chimed in yet on the political drama that has been building around the approaching deadline in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran and the massive breach of protocol by John Boehner in inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress just…