The Virgin Rebirth of CIA's Drone Wars and NSA's Cyberwars
The DC press is buzzing about how little President Obama will do tomorrow to rein in the dragnet. The most telling description of Obama's thought process is this one, which makes it clear Obama worries about a backlash from the Deep State if…
Jeremy Scahill: Two Degrees of Separation from the Dirty Wars Dragnet
Congratulations to Jeremy Scahill and the entire team that worked on Dirty Wars for being nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar.
This post may appear to be shamelessly opportunistic -- exploiting the attention Dirty Wars will get in…
Latest Night Raid Afghan Civilian Deaths Put BSA into Further Doubt
Back in October, I noted that one of Hamid Karzai's primary barriers to signing the Bilateral Security Agreement is his objection to night raids carried out by US-trained death squads because of the high rate of civilian casualties involved.…
Former Presiding Judge, John Bates, Makes Compelling Case to Eliminate FISA Court
As you read John Bates' "comments" about the NSA Review Group's recommendations, it's worth keeping two things in mind about him:
He has a history of dismissing legally important cases out of caution -- arguably excess caution -- over getting…
John Galt Contaminates West Virginia Water Supply Because Industries Demand Freedom
Some of the more than 300,000 residents of West Virginia who could not drink or bathe in their tap water derived from the Elk River have been told that it is now safe to do so. Considering how flawed the process was for coming up with the…
Faster and Furiouser Domestic Spying: Why Would the NSA Review Group Talk to the ATF?
Because I'm working on a post on John Bates' response to the NSA Review Group recommendations, I happened to re-review the list of people the Review Group spoke with today (see page 277; Bates was the only one from the FISA Court they spoke…
Dragnet at Bernie's: On Spying on Congress
It turns out that Mark Kirk -- not Bernie Sanders -- was the first member of Congress to raise concerns about the NSA spying on Senators after Edward Snowden's leaks started being published. Kirk did so less than a day after the Guardian published…
NSA: The Hegemon's Economic Spying Is Okay, Unlike the Challenger's Economic Spying
As part of an NYT story on implants the NSA has placed in 100,000 computers around the world, some of them via radio, it lists "trade institutions inside the European Union" among the targets for Computer Network Exploitation.
It must be…
The Common Commercial Services OLC Opinion Affecting Cyber Policy Is Over a Decade Old
I've been meaning to go back to an exchange that occurred during Caroline Krass' confirmation hearing to be CIA's General Counsel back on December 17. In it, Ron Wyden raised a problematic OLC opinion he has mentioned in unclassified…
Radical Idea: the Legislature Ends Smith v. Maryland
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with the NSA Review Group just finished. There was no earth-shattering news. Perhaps the best one-liner from the hearing came when former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell said that metadata is content (and…
What Was the Purpose of the Exigent Letter Program?
I'm aiming to have some rough guesses about what kind of bulk collection the FBI might use National Security Letters for (spoiler alert: my wildarseguess is that they're getting subscriber lists from the same telecoms they're getting phone dragnet…
More Fallout From Hakimullah Mehsud Drone Killing: Polio Vaccines Halted in Waziristan
Yesterday, we got the tremendous news that after having lead the world in the number of polio cases as recently as 2009, the World Health Organization announced that there have been zero polio cases in India for three consecutive years. In today's…
The Government Plays Connect-the-Dots Differently than They Say
In my continuing obsession to understand precisely how the government really uses the dragnet, consider this post, in which NSA Review Group member Geoffrey Stone conducts (IMO) inadequate analysis to conclude the phone dragnet is probably unconstitutional.
In…
6th Circuit: You Can Still Represent Yourself if Solitary Confinement Has Made You Incompetent
As expected, the Sixth Circuit wasted no time in denying Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's appeal of his conviction and sentence. The Circuit affirmed District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds on all matters.
Curiously though, in his opinion, Judge David…
Robert Litt and Mike Rogers KNOW Congress Hasn't Ratified the Phone Dragnet
WaPo has a biting profile of Robert Litt, ODNI's General Counsel who made one more failed attempt to rationalize James Clapper's lies to Congress last week.
One of the most newsworthy bits is that WaPo published the name of Alfreda Frances…
Implementation of Interim Agreement With Iran Begins January 20, Paving Way for Further Negotiations
Although the P5+1 interim agreement with Iran was first reached in late November, ongoing talks have been required to fill in the details of just how the agreement is to be implemented. Those talks came to fruition yesterday with the announcement…
The NSA Does Know the Identity of Some of the Targets It Is Contact-Chaining
One claim the NSA has made just about every time one of its representatives has talked about the phone dragnet is that, because the dragnet contains only phone numbers, analysts don't know who they're chaining on. They have to give a number…
Richard Clarke Alludes to the Real Costs of the Dragnet
New America Foundation did a study of 225 terrorist plots to try to discern the source of the investigation. There are numerous obvious flaws to the study -- many of which stem from the government's own efforts to obscure the sources of what…
Yes, Margaret, the NSA Dragnet Does Involve Infiltration
Margaret Talbot has a piece at the New Yorker comparing COINTELPRO with Snowden's leaks (and implicitly, the theft of data that lies behind both disclosures). Here's the key paragraph of the comparison:
In most respects, the National Security…
Spring Training Divisional Trash
It appears that bmaz is still grieving the Packers' loss last week and so has outsourced trash to me. As a courtesy to him, I'll refrain from loading up the Brady pron until around 1PM, at which point it will become too late. Settle in for 4…