Happy Birthday, You Rebels!
It's that day again where we contemplate the great project a bunch of rebels set out on 237 years ago.
In recent years, I've focused on what those rebels said about the judicial abuses of King George -- language about denying some of Trial…
SWIFT: Big Brother with a Booz Assist, Only without the Paperwork
As reporting on Edward Snowden reveal the scope of our spying on European friends, I've been thinking a lot about SWIFT.
SWIFT, you recall, is the database tracking international online money transfers. After 9/11, the US Government started…
Tasers with Wings
I've been focusing on Edward Snowden's NSA revelations, but I didn't want this tidbit of news to go unnoticed. Among the other documents EFF has gotten in its FOIA on drones in the United States is a planning document for Customs and Border…
Wyden and Udall: As with Torture, Intelligence Committee Lies about Efficacy
Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have persistently repeated one of the findings from the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report: the CIA gave inaccurate information about the program, and it wasn't very effective.
So it's unsurprising that…
Researcher Exposes Government, Military Lies About Civilian Drone Deaths in Afghanistan
A tweet this morning by Daphne Eviatar alerted me to a very important article by Spencer Ackerman at his new home with the Guardian. Ackerman interviewed Dr. Larry Lewis, who is a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses but is also…
On the Meanings of "Dishonor" and "Hack"
The former NSA IG (and current affiliate of the Chertoff Group profiteers, though he didn't disclose that financial interest) Joel Brenner has taken to the pages of Lawfare to suggest anyone trying to force some truth out of top Intelligence…
Transpartisan Arguments the Government Won't Want to Succeed
Justin Amash, Paul Broun, Tulsi Gabbard, Morgan Griffith, Rush Holt, Walter Jones, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Thomas Massie, Tom McClintock, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Beto O'Rourke, Steve Pearce, Matt Salmon, Mark Sanford, Ted Yoho.
Well, that's…
Gitmo Detainees Try to Force End to Force-Feeding in Time for Ramadan
According to Carol Rosenberg's count, 44 of the 106 Gitmo detainees currently on hunger strike are being tube-fed. Which suggests there are too many men to carry out the tube feeding after sunset and sunset, which is what the camp has done in…
Alberto Gonzales and Internet Data Mining
I was going to leave this speculation well enough alone. But George W Bush decided to interrupt his dog painting to defend Obama's surveillance dragnet.
Bush also defended the surveillance program, which began during his administration after…
James Clapper's Double Super Secret Correction
If the Director of National Intelligence corrects a lie but nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
Greg Miller returns focus to James Clapper and Keith Alexander and President Obama's lies that underscore why, at least for some of his leaks,…
The 2009 Draft NSA IG Report Makes No Mention of One Illegal Practice
The 2009 Draft NSA IG Report released by the Guardian last week -- and related reporting from Barton Gellman -- seem to clarify and confirm what I've long maintained (12/19/05; 7/29/07; 7/30/07): that one part of the illegal wiretap program…
What Happened to that Third Branch Oversight?
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is pissed.
After spending 2002 to 2006 as Chief Judge of the FISA Court struggling to keep parts of the American legal system walled off from a rogue surveillance program, she read the classified account the NSA's…
On the Refusal to Exercise Oversight over Vast Surveillance Programs, Episode 117
The Joint IG Report on the illegal wiretap program left out all discussion of what happened to the Internet and (to a lesser extent) phone metadata collection that got moved into Pen Register/Trap&Trace and Section 215 collection, respectively,…
Yahoo, the Law-Abiding Free Email Provider
The FISA Court has officially agreed to declassify that Yahoo was the company that challenged a Protect Amendment Act order in 2007.
Once this PRISM slide was published, it was always pretty likely that Yahoo -- or maybe Google -- was the…
Defense Department Ignores SIGAR, Orders Russian Helicopters in End-Run Around NDAA
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, (SIGAR) issued a report (pdf) yesterday that serves as microcosm of the bumbling ineptitude and denial of reality that has characterized the entire US military's misadventure…
The 14% Domestic Phone Content Collection under the Illegal Wiretap Program
There's something funny about the claims the NSC Draft IG Report makes.
On page 8, the report notes:
Domestic Collection. The wording of the first authorization could have been interpreted to allow domestic content collection where both…
OMIGOD James Clapper Has Our Gun Purchase Records
It's a testament to Ron Wyden's good faith that this letter -- asking James Clapper for more information about the government's secret use of the Section 215 provision of the PATRIOT Act -- didn't try to inflame the NRA.
It's not until the…
How David Addington Hid the Document Implicating George Bush in Illegal Wiretapping
On December 16 and December 20, 2005, respectively -- just days after the NYT revealed its existence -- EPIC and ACLU FOIAed DOJ for documents relating to George Bush's (really, Dick Cheney's) illegal wiretap program (National Security Archive…
Shorter Mark Udall: Why Can't John Brennan "Honor the Oath"?
Still reading the NSA IG Report, so I'll just quote right from Mark Udall's release:
As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am concerned to see news reports about the CIA's response to the Committee's Study of the CIA's Detention…
Working Thread, NSA IG Report
This will be a working threat on the March 24, 2009 Draft NSA IG Report on PSP. Page numbers below are hardcopy pages.
P1: The Authorization on October 4 has never been mentioned in any FOIAs (there was an OLC memo that was).
P1: The…