Detention of Mutasim Agha Jan by UAE Now Confirmed, Basis Unknown
On Tuesday, I noted that Mutasim Agha Jan had gone missing in Dubai while attempting to work toward negotiations between the Afghan Taliban and Afghanistan's High Peace Council. Multiple outlets now are reporting on the Peace Council having…
DOJ Inspector General Investigating DEA's Use of Parallel Construction under Hemisphere
As I noted in my last post, DOJ's Inspector General recently created a page showing their ongoing investigations. It shows some things not described in Inspector General Michael Horowitz' last report to Congress.
Of particular interest is…
Surprise! DOJ IG's 1,403 Day Old Section 215 Investigation Had a Baby!
As longtime readers know, I have long tracked a DOJ Inspector General investigation into FBI's use of Section 215 and other PATRIOT Act authorities.
June 2010: Then DOJ IG Glenn Fine lays out investigation
June 2013: Transition to Michael…
The DOJ Inspector General's Difficulties Getting Grand Jury Information
I'm about to do a series of posts on several investigations of DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.
Before I do that, however, I want to call attention to Horowitz' recent complaints -- most notably at a Senate Appropriations Hearing…
A Guide to John Rizzo's Lies, For Lazy Journalists
By my count, John Rizzo completes his first lie in his purported "memoir," Company Man, at the 64th word:
55: Zubaydah
56: was
57: a
58: senior
59: figure
60: in
61: the
62: Al
63: Qaeda
64: hierarchy
Zubaydah complained…
Will Illegality of Nashiri Torture Get Exposed?
Carol Rosenberg reports the very big news that Judge James Pohl has ordered the government to turn over to Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri's lawyers top secret information on the torture their client endured.
The judge’s order instructs prosecutors…
Is This the Missing WikiLeaks PayPal Order?
As I noted in this post, the declaration submitted in EFF's FOIA for Section 215 by ODNI's Jennifer Hudson is remarkably revealing. I'm particularly intrigued by these comments about the financial dragnet order released on March 28.
A FISC…
Dangerous Censored Documents, in Soviet Russia and War on Terror America
Yesterday, in announcing the public release of documents relating to CIA's publication of a Russian edition of Dr. Zhivago, the CIA bragged (justifiably) about its Cold War success in making books Warsaw Pact governments had banned available…
Hot and Cold Running Bandar
Yesterday, just weeks after the time Al Arabiya announced Prince Bandar bin Sultan would resume his duties as head of Saudi intelligence (and therefore the mastermind of the Saudi-backed effort to oust Bashar al-Assad), Bandar was replaced by…
The Terror Networks and the Hate Criminals
In response to Frazier Glenn Miller's arrest in the murder of 3 people at Jewish targets the other day, Peter Bergen reminds that white supremacist terrorists have been more dangerous in recent years than Islamic terrorists.
Now let's do the…
Who Nabbed Mutasim Agha Jan in Dubai?
While the mainstream press finally catches up to the fact that there were indeed hundreds of violent attacks on election day in Afghanistan (even though hippies could find the data over a week ago), there is yet another disturbing development…
Obama's Legal Hacks
I have a piece over at The Week on the unusually credible denial the government issued on Friday, claiming they did not know of the Heartbleed vulnerability until earlier this month. In it, I note that Obama adopted a much lower bar for using…
DOJ Says You Can't Know If They've Used the Dragnet Against You ... But FISC Says They're Wrong
As I noted the other day in yet another post showing why investigations into intelligence failures leading up to the Boston Marathon attack must include NSA, the government outright refuses to tell Dzhokhar Tsarnaev whether it will introduce…
The Horrors! West Point 2014 Graduates Must Advance Careers Without Combat Deployment!
Oh, the poor class of 2014 at the United States Military Academy! This morning's New York Times brings us the tragic news that this year's class graduating from West Point must somehow find a way to advance their military careers without…
Spy vs. Spy, Theresa Shea vs. Theresa Shea
The government has submitted its response to ACLU's appeal of its lawsuit challenging the Section 215 dragnet.
This passage, which reminded me of the old Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy comic, made me pee my pants in laughter.
Various details of…
The Day After Government Catalogs Data NSA Collected on Tsarnaevs, DOJ Refuses to Give Dzhokhar Notice
On Thursday, the Inspectors General of the Intelligence Community, DOJ, CIA, and DHS (but not NSA) released their report on the Marathon Bombing. While the public release was just a very condensed summary, included the redaction of both classified…
Working Thread on the Combined Marathon IG Report
I started reading the Combined IG Report on the Marathon attack (including the DOJ, CIA, DHS, and Intelligence Community IGs, but not NSA). And the whole thing looked so bogus from the start, I figured a working thread was in order.
One thing…
DropBox Turns to Condi Rice to Help Protect Users' Rights Overseas
On Wednesday, cloud server company DropBox named Condi Rice to its board, touting her brilliance and even her service as Secretary of State, but not her role as George Bush's National Security Advisor during the period he rolled out his most…
Iran Willing to Change Arak Reactor to Produce Less Plutonium it Can't Reprocess Anyway
While I was busy bashing David Petraeus yesterday over his tantrum warning us that dropping sanctions on Iran will result in more funding for terrorism, I missed an important Reuters article by Fredrik Dahl in which he noted this PressTV…
Chuck Grassley: Insider Threat Program Poses Threat to Whistleblowers
Chuck Grassley rarely gets the credit he deserves for championing whistleblowers. But, while there have been notable exceptions, Grassley has long defended both generalized protections for whistleblowers, as well as whistleblowers themselves.
Yesterday,…