What Happened to Obama's Ordered Restrictions on Back Door Searches?
In the wake of yesterday's PCLOB Report, Presidential Review Board Member Geoffrey Stone reminded that Obama's hand-picked group recommended requiring warrants before accessing US person data collected via Section 702.
In effect, the Review…
In Advance of USA Freedom and CISA Fights, PCLOB Pretends Section 702 Doesn't Have a Cyber Function
In a piece for Salon, I note some of the weird silences in yesterday's PCLOB report, from things like the failure to give defendants notice (which I discussed yesterday) to the false claim that Targeting Procedures haven't been released (they…
PCLOB Ignores Glaring Section 702 Non-Compliance: Notice to Defendants
I will have far more to say about PCLOB once I finish my working thread. But there's one glaring flaw in the report's claim that the government complies with the statute.
Based on the information that the Board has reviewed, the government’s…
Working Thread, PCLOB Report
The pre-release PCLOB report on Section 702 is here. This will be a working thread.
PDF 16: First recommendation is to include more enunciation of foreign intel purpose. This was actually a Snowden revelation the govt poo pooed.
PDF 17:…
NSA Refused to Confirm Authenticity of Foreign Power Certification
There's an odd detail in yesterday's WaPo confirmation that the US may target every country in the world that's not a part of the Five Eyes partnership. After having suggested publicly and repeatedly that it has certifications for counterterrorism,…
Former Deputy DIRNSA Chris Inglis Goes to Private Equity Firm, Paladin
I've been tracking how former DIRNSA Keith Alexander has shacked up with shadow bank regulator Promontory Financial Group to scare banks into making him rich.
Today, we learned where his Deputy, Chris Inglis, will spend his sinecure: at Paladin…
Snowden's Spiegel Files, Working Thread
I've decided the best way to digest the collection of documents released by Spiegel this week is to do a working thread. You can find links to the individual files here, or a very big PDF of all files here.
NSA, BND, BfV sharing
Note they…
Were DiFi's Aides Who Claimed "Only a Small Number" of Back Door Searches Ignorant or Lying?
Yesterday, we learned:
NSA conducted unwarranted back door searches on 198 US persons' content last year and 9,500 back door searches on US person metadata
CIA conducted around 1,900 unwarranted back door searches on US person content,…
In Advance of PCLOB, WaPo Busts ODNI's Limited Hang Out on Certifications
Earlier today, I got to tell the journalists who have long ignored that the FBI does back door searches -- or even suggested I was guessing that they do, when it appeared in multiple public documents -- that I had been telling them so for a…
Told You So, FBI Back Door Search Edition
For a long time, I've been noting that the October 3, 2011 John Bates Opinion and last August's Semiannual Report on FISA make it clear that the FBI, like the CIA and NSA, conducts back door searches off Section 702 collected data.
ODNI's…
Sadness in the NSA-Telecom Bromance
In his report on an interview with the new Director of NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers, David Sanger gets some operational details wrong, starting with his claim that the new phone dragnet would require an "individual warrant."
The new phone dragnet…
How is Abdullah Obtaining So Many Tapes of Phone Calls?
It is looking more and more likely that Abdullah Abdullah will continue his boycott of the vote-counting process in Afghanistan. As I noted Friday, thousands of his supporters took to the streets to protest the expected outcome and to call for…
Bengh-- Blackwater!
You should definitely read the James Risen story describing how the head of Blackwater's operations in Iraq threatened to kill an investigator into the company's practices in the period before the Nisour Square. It definitely confirms…
NSA's New-and-Improved Call Chaining Process, Now with No Calls Required
As I noted, last night I Con the Record released the phone dragnet orders from last week and from March.
There are two significant changes (which may well be related).
First, perhaps in anticipation of shifting to production from the providers,…
USA Freedumber Weakens FISC's Authority Over Abuse of Emergency Queries
I Con the Record just released the most recent dragnet orders -- I'll have more comment on them later.
But for now, I wanted to show how HR 3361 -- AKA the USA Freedumber Act -- weakened FISA Court authority in yet another way.
I have…
I Con the Record Strikes Again
In a show of transparency, I Con the Record just released annual statistics for certain programs. Here are my thoughts, in rolling updates.
These arent't the Certificates you're looking for
Here's what I Con the Record tells us about…
Garr King's Mohamud Decision: Classifying the Unclassified Details of Section 215
There are a lot of appalling things Garr King did in his opinion denying Mohamed Osman Mohamud any of a number of remedies for the government not having revealed he was caught using Section 702.
King gives far too much credence to the government's…
Thousands of Abdullah Supporters Rally in Kabul While Ghani Predicts Million Vote Victory
Last week, Abdullah Abdullah angrily withdrew his support of the runoff election process when he released audiotapes purported to be the voice of the head of the Independent Election Commission urging his staff to stuff ballot boxes. Although…
AQAP Drone Strikes Obama's Awlaki Drone Story
Two days before the Administration was due to release a memo laying out its rationale for drone-killing American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, AQAP released a video that challenges the narrative the Administration has used for doing so.
As Gregory…
Verizon in the Cloud
As a number of people have noted, Germany canceled its contract with Verizon for network services provided to the government.
The German government on Thursday said it would end a contract with Verizon Communications Inc. because of concerns…