America's $1 Trillion Target Barge
The NYT has a story about a mock US aircraft carrier Iran is building, its sources say, so Iran can blow it up for the propaganda value.
Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States…
The Navy SEALs Bring You Izahgneb! Saving Libya's Crude for Marathon Oil!
I discovered NSC spokesperosn Caitlin Hayden has a (little used) twitter feed today when she tweeted this article.
The article not only explains why Navy SEALs were ordered to take over a ship absconding with Libyan oil.
Oil is Libya's lifeblood.…
In Describing CIA's Attempted Intimidiation of Senate Intelligence Committee, Harry Reid Uses the Word "Unprecedented" Too
Back when Mark Udall first hinted about the CIA's efforts to intimidate the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said CIA had taken "unprecedented action."
That's language Harry Reid repeats in a letter to John Brennan informing him that the…
Russia Expertly Plays US Press on P5+1 Talks
On Tuesday, I noted that Alissa Rubin provided an outlet for an unidentified "senior American official" to put into the New York Times concerns that Russia might allow the disagreement over Crimea to affect their negotiating stance in the…
Garr King's Speculative FISA Ruling
Garr King, the judge in Mohamed Osman Mohamud's case, has refused Mohamud's demand for broad discovery into the government's failure to notice him about the Section 702 surveillance they used to bust him.
Before I get into the substance of…
NSA Conducts So Many Back Door Searches on US Persons It Would Be Impracticable to Approve Those Queries
Update, 8/3/14: Given what we've subsequently learned about FBI's substantial number of uncounted back door searches, Litt's description of further controls as not practicable probably most directly relates to FBI, not NSA.
While there wasn't…
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Visit Pee-Clob
The first panel of an all-day Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board hearing on Section 702 of FISA just finished.
It featured NSA General Counsel Raj De, ODNI General Counsel Robert Litt, Deputy AAG for National Security Brad Weigmann,…
Carlotta Gall: ISI Sheltered Bin Laden in Pakistan
The New York Times has just released an excerpt from Carlotta Gall's upcoming book “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014". Recall that Gall lived in Afghanistan and covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Times from 2001-2013…
The Government Has a Festering EO 12333 Problem In Jewel/First Unitarian
The government claims it does not have a protection order pertaining to the phone dragnet lawsuits because the suits with a protection order pertain only to presidentially-authorized programs.
The declaration made clear, in a number of places,…
US Pouts Over Potential Crimea Spillover While Russia Enters P5+1 Talks With Optimism
Alissa Rubin today has two separate articles in the New York Times that parrot US misgivings ahead of today's round of talks between the P5+1 group of countries and Iran. In the article that went up first, Rubin offers anonymity to a "senior…
Magistrate Judge Targets DOJ's Search ≠ Seizure Theory
The second-and-third-to-last line of Magistrate Judge John Facciola's opinion responding to a warrant application for information from Apple reads,
To be clear: the government must stop blindly relying on the language provided by the Department…
The Clear Precedent for Carrie Cordero's "Uncharted Territory" of Destruction of Evidence
Shane Harris has a report on the government's odd behavior in regards to preserving the phone dragnet data in light of the suits challenging its legality.
It's surprising on three counts. First, because he claims the legal back and forth…
The Clear Precedent for Carrie Cordero's "Uncharted Territory" of Destruction of Evidence
For technical reasons this post has moved here.
Conspiracy Stories Surrounding Nils Horner Murder Hard to Dismiss Due to US Behavior
Today's New York Times has a fascinating update on the investigation into the killing of Swedish reporter Nils Horner on March 11. Although there have been systematic attacks on journalists in the region for years, it appears that in the case…
Sitting Across from KSM: KSM's Abu Ghaith Answers
Earlier today I noted that torture defender Philip Mudd argued the benefits of sitting across from top al Qaeda figures to learn more about them.
Now you can have that opportunity.
In the Suleiman Abu Ghaith trial, his lawyers have just…
In Tsarnaev-Related Case, DOJ Suggests There Is No Dragnet
As a number of stories reported last week, two of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's college buddies charged with obstruction lost their bid to get the prosecution to turn over texts Dzhokhar sent. The AP has the most detailed account:
The defense requested…
Philip Mudd: Sitting Across from KSM Was Useful So Waterboarding Him 183 Times Was Too
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Philip Mudd -- who was a top CIA analytical official until 2005 and then became a Deputy Director of FBI -- has written a defense of torture in anticipation…
Did CIA's Handsomely Paid Contractors Doctor Its Log Books, Again?
I wanted to return to one other detail of John Brennan's (designed to be made public, I believe) January 27 letter to Dianne Feinstein explaining the urgent need to continue the "investigative, protective, or intelligence activity" targeted…
The Circus Returns: Formula One 2014
The lads are back from the winter off. The 2014 F1 season opens this weekend in Melbourne down under Australian way. But things are different this time. After several years of relative stability in the top teams, there has been all kinds of…
John Brennan's Parallel "Investigative, Protective, or Intelligence Activity"
Yesterday, Jack Goldsmith defended CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger for referring Senate Intelligence Committee staffers for criminal investigation. Eatinger had no choice but to refer his Agency's overseers, you see, because EO 12333 required it.
I…