Criminal Docket Talk
Another week, another series of missteps and embarrassment for the National Felon League. More facts surface showing Adrian Peterson to be a backwards horrible human, the Cardinals' Jonathan Dwyer is charged with felony assault for head butting…
Unit 8200 Refuseniks Make Visible for Israel What Remains Invisible in the US
Last week, 43 reserve members of Israel's equivalent to the NSA, Unit 8200, released a letter announcing they would refuse to take actions against Palestinians because the spying done on them amounts to persecution of innocent people. The…
Funding Hapless Mission to Train Syrian Rebels Increases Value of Saudi Terror Hedge Fund
The cycle time for the US wiping its collective memory and re-starting a training program for troops aimed against the enemy du jour seems to be getting shorter. While the covert CIA plan to train "moderate" rebels to fight in Syria has not…
Why USAF's "Transparency" Provisions Will Make Ongoing Organizing Difficult
I've had some discussions of late about whether the flawed transparency provisions in the USA Freedom Act are a net good. Until I read them closely, I believed they couldn't hurt. Now I believe they do.
That's because the transparency provisions…
About Apple's Dead Warrant Canary
There were two significant pieces of Apple security news yesterday.
In laudable news, Apple's new privacy policy makes clear that it will be unable to unlock locally stored content for law enforcement.
On devices running iOS 8, your personal…
Someone Treasure Mapped JP Morgan
Map the entire Internet -- any device, anywhere, all the time. -- NSA TREASUREMAP PPT
Last week, The Intercept and Spiegel broke the story of NSA's TREASUREMAP, an effort to map cyberspace, relying on both NSA's defensive (IAD) and offensive…
Rouhani to NBC: "US Presence in Region Exacerbates Terrorism Crisis"
NBC News' Ann Curry interviewed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday in her second extended interview with him. She had been the first Westerner to interview Rouhani after his election. Remarkably, the story put up by NBC on their…
What State Secrets Does UANI Have? How Did They Get Them?
In the aftermath of publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon Administration was so incensed that they both broke into and wiretapped the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Lewis Fielding, in an attempt to get material with which…
Are New Sealed Filings in Barry Bonds Appeal More Dirty Tricks By DOJ? Update: YES!
The handling of the BALCO series of investigations, both by lead investigator Jeff Novitsky and the US Attorneys office, has been relentlessly aggressive and marked by dubious, at best, tactics. Considering that the DOJ, during the entire time…
Now That It Is Finally Convential Wisdom the Saudis Are Part of the Problem...
There's nothing terrifically insightful about Tom Friedman's observation that the Saudis have fostered the extremist ideology that fuels ISIS.
The al-Sauds get to rule and live how they like behind walls, and the Wahhabis get to propagate…
John Bates Gets Slapped Down for Speaking Out of Turn, Again
A few weeks back, I pointed to 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski's criticism of John Bates' presumption to speak for the judiciary in his August 5 letter complaining about some aspects of USA Freedom Act. Kozinski was pretty obviously pissed.
But…
Afghan Vote Audit Farce Nears Conclusion
Reuters carries a hopeful headline this morning, "Afghan rivals said close to ending feud on how to share power", where they inform us that the elusive power sharing agreement between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah may finally be reached…
A Yahoo! Lesson for USA Freedom Act: Mission Creep
I'm still wading through the Yahoo documents released last week.
But there is a lesson in them that -- given the debate over USA Freedom Act -- deserves immediate attention: mission creep.
At least in this case, the actual implementation…
Treasure Map: It's About Location, Not Gold
Der Spiegel and The Intercept published collaborative reporting this weekend on another Snowden document — this one referring to a National Security Agency program named TREASURE MAP.
The most chilling part of this reporting is a network…
Yahoo's Lawyer's Take on the Yahoo Trove
Even back in 2009, when Russ Feingold made it clear that Yahoo had no access to the data it needed to aggressively challenge the Protect American Act orders it received, I realized what a tough legal fight it was to litigate blind. That has…
Transpartisan Coalition Calls on Senate for More NSA Reform
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks USA Freedom Act does not do enough to reform the dragnet.
A transpartisan coalition of people and organizations -- including whistleblowers Bill Binney, Thomas Drake, Dan Ellsberg, Mark Klein,…
Pakistan's Punjabi Taliban to Cease Internal Attacks, Continue Them in Afghanistan
Although their first press release announcing their change in plans earlier this month got little fanfare, now that they have followed it up with a video (fortunately, there are no beheadings in the video), the Punjabi Taliban's decision to…
The Hemisphere Decks: A Comparison and Some Hypotheses
Last week, Dustin Slaughter published a story using a new deck of slides on the Hemisphere program, the Drug Czar program that permits agencies to access additional telecommunications analytical services to identify phones, which then gets laundered…
The Curious Timing of FBI's Back Door Searches
The very first thing I remarked on when I read the Yahoo FISCR opinion when it was first released in 2009 was this passage.
The petitioner's concern with incidental collections is overblown. It is settled beyond peradventure that incidental…
If Patrick Leahy Wants to End Bulk Collection, He Needs to Amend His USA Freedom Act
The other day, the government obtained another Primary Order to collect all our phone records.
In response, Senator Patrick Leahy released this statement:
Congress must ensure that this is the last time the government requests and the court…