Docket Inflation at the FISA Court?
As I noted in my last post, I'm a bit alarmed by the docket numbers we're seeing out of the FISC court. The order released today appears to be the 158th docket for the year.
Compare that to the docket numbers from 2009, as revealed in the…
Mary McLaughlin Repeats Claire Eagan's Error
FISC just released the opinion accompanying the most recent Section 215 phone dragnet order.
(Note: does it concern anyone besides me that FISC is now up to 158 dockets for Business Records production this year??)
In it, Judge Mary McLaughlin…
Barb Mikulski and Stephen Preston Seem to Disagree Over Whether David Petraeus "Jerked Around" Congress
A big part of Stephen Preston's response to Mark Udall's questions about whether he supports adequate disclosure to Congress consists of insisting the CIA Directors he worked with -- Leon Panetta, David Petraeus, presumably Mike Morell as Acting…
US Isn't Collecting Only Electronic Data On You -- Huge Biometric Database Under Construction, Too
Edward Snowden's revelations have shed much light on how secret government programs are collecting huge amounts of telephone, email and other electronic data generated by every US citizen even though, as Marcy has shown repeatedly, claims that…
Stephen Preston: Covert Operations Don't Need OLC Approval
Jane Mayer has obtained a set of questions Mark Udall made CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston answer before he would release a hold on the latter's confirmation as DOD General Counsel. They address CIA's response to the Senate Intelligence…
NSA's Dissenters
I tweeted a bunch of details from this James Risen interview with Edward Snowden. That comparing the NSA to China's People's Liberation Army is not perceived as funny by NSA brass. How Snowden's professed commitment to whistleblowing came from…
12 Years Later, DOJ Is Still Struggling Through Dragnet Discovery Issues
As I noted earlier, Charlie Savage describes how, after Don Verrilli made false representations to the Supreme Court about whether defendants get an opportunity to challenge FISA Amendments Act derived evidence, it set off a discussion in DOJ…
Why Did NSA Raise Traffickers for a Story about Drone Killing Terrorists?
There was an odd statement from NSA in the middle of yesterday's WaPo story describing how NSA facilitates CIA's drone mission (click to embiggen).
The NSA is “focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence…
P5+1 Meeting: Remarkable Change in Tone From Diplomats and Press
Laura Rozen chose a particularly appropriate title for her post yesterday on the P5+1 meeting just concluded in Geneva: "US and Iran Speak ‘Same Language’ in Nuclear Talks". Not only were the negotiations carried out in English for the first…
Dianne Feinstein Didn't Mean to Mislead the Senate into Extending FAA, Promise!
Charlie Savage has a story describing how, after Solicitor General Don Verrilli got caught lying to SCOTUS about whether defendants busted using FISA Amendments Act would have the opportunity to challenge it in court, DOJ has now decided to…
NSA Silenced Our Rendition Secret
In a story pre-empting one Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill are reportedly working, the WaPo details how NSA helps CIA target drone strikes. A key part of the story reflects NSA documents that bragged about finding Hassan Ghul through an email…
Not Breaking: Keith Alexander to Be Allowed to Retire Unscathed; Breaking: NSA
We've actually known for some time that Keith Alexander was retiring shortly. So Reuters' headline reporting it (and the departure of Alexander's Deputy John Inglis) is not news.
But mega kudos to the person who dubbed Alexander the…
Why We Can't Save Mohamed Osman Mohamud
Remember how Mohamed Osman Mohamud's father, Osman Barre, called the FBI in hopes they might help him turn his son away from extremism? Instead of helping, they sent informant after informant after him, to catch him in a terrorist sting.
FBI…
How to Evaluate the HIG? Exploitation? Dead Bodies?
Carrie Johnson uses the arraignment of Abu Anas al-Libi as an opportunity to consider the success of the High Value Interrogation Group. She weighs the following details:
There haven't been that many cases
Some governments refuse access…
US Deports Ibragim Todashev's Girlfriend
The Guardian and Boston Magazine report that Tatiana Gruzdeva, the woman whom FBI had apparently detained to pressure Ibragim Todashev to cooperate, is now back in Moldova after being deported to Russia. Gruzdeva had claimed she was deported…
Pitiful "Moral Victory" for ANSF: "Mostly Survived" and "Didn't Give Back All Gains"
I've noted before how the "fighting season" in Afghanistan is viewed by the Pentagon in terms that are eerily parallel to baseball season, but the end of season reviews this year have sunk to a pitifully low level as military leaders cast…
CIA Aims to Hide Its SEKRIT Files at Second Circuit Again
Roughly four years ago, then National Security Advisor James Jones submitted a nearly unprecedented sealed declaration to the Second Circuit in the ACLU's torture FOIA lawsuit. In it he argued the government needed to keep secret a short reference…
About that May 2007 FISC Opinion
Update, March 11: Docket 07-449 is not an Internet dragnet one (those all have a PR/TT preface). This is one of the bulk collection programs approved in early 2007.
The other day, I pointed to a passage from the October 3, 2011 John Bates…
Article II Is Article II: EO 12333 and Protect America Act, FISA Amendments Act, and FISC
I'm reading a very old SSCI hearing on FISA today -- from May 1, 2007, when then Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell initiated the push for the Protect America Act.
Given recent revelations that NSA continues to conduct some…
Clearest Indication Yet That Some Chemical Weapon Sites in Syria Are Under Rebel Control
One of the underlying assumptions for folks who joined the rush to claim that the UN report on the August 21 chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus proved the attack was carried out by Syrian government forces was that only government…