Metadata Oversight: "A Banner"!!!!!
The Guardian has their next big NSA scoop, and it is meatier than the earlier ones. The headline is that President Obama continued a 2-degrees of separation analysis of Internet metadata under Section 702 for two years after he came into office.…
BREAKING: CIA Admits to SSCI Millions of Its Official Records Are Badly Inaccurate
As I noted in this post, today John Brennan will try to convince Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss that their (well, really McCain and the Democrats') 6,000 page report documenting that torture didn't work and CIA lied to Congress (and the…
Who Was the Short-Sighted Personnel Guy at CIA Who Set up NYPD-on-the-Hudson in 2002?
As Charlie Savage reports, the CIA's IG report on CIA-on-the-Hudson has finally been released. It finds that the decision to put CIA personnel at NYPD was ill-advised and poorly managed by CIA's executives who oversaw the arrangement.
While…
After Khalid el-Masri, Details Like Snowden's Middle Name Matter
Anonymous (heh) DOJ officials have taken to the press to whine that Hong Kong delayed turning over Edward Joseph Snowden because the US got his true middle name, James, wrong (and once left it at "J").
They scoffed at the middle name mixup.…
The FBI and CIA Unminimized Collections and the Holes in Article III Review of FISA Amendments Act
In my piece confirming that the NSA can search on US person data collected incidentally in Section 702 collection, I pointed to these two paragraphs from the minimization procedures.
6(c)
(1) NSA may provide to the Central Intelligence Agency…
Keith Alexander: "We Must Win, There Is No Substitute for Victory"
I frankly have no problem with Keith Alexander giving the employees of the National Security Agency a pep talk as the truth of what they're doing to us becomes public. They are not, after all, responsible for the serial disinformation Alexander…
The Marriage Equality Decisions
The moment of truth has finally come on the long and tortured path through the Supreme Court for the marriage equality movement. Without further adieu, the Defense Of Marriage Act has been struck down as unconstitutional under Equal Protection…
FISA Amendments Act Minimization: Preventing Serious Harm to Corporate Persons
As I was working through some other things last night, I had an opportunity to compare the minimization standards for the FISA Amendments Act (see section h) with the standards under which the actual minimization procedures allow the retention…
Keith Alexander's Secret Lie: Retention and Distribution of Domestic Encrypted and Hacking Communications?
As I noted in my last two posts, Keith Alexander has admitted that the classified lie Mark Udall and Ron Wyden accused him of telling "could have more precisely described the requirements of collection under FISA Amendments Act."
He then…
NSA's Querying of US Person Data, Take Two
Update: Alexander's office has conceded Udall and Wyden's point about the classified inaccuracy. It also notes:
With respect to the second point raised in your 24 June 2013 letter, the fact sheet did not imply nor was it intended to imply…
Confirmed: NSA Does Search Section 702 Data for Particular US Person Data
Update: To help Joshua Foust understand this topic, I did a second, really basic version of this post here. So if you're fairly new to all this stuff, you might start there and then come back.
Update: Alexander's office has conceded Udall…
Taliban Attack CIA Headquarters in Kabul
[youtuber youtube='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlgt2Xxn8MY']
Yesterday, I noted that the more moderate faction of the Taliban in Afghanistan was beginning to gain more visibility in the wake of moves to decrease inflammatory…
Shorter WaPo: It Would Take Months to Know about Spying Misconduct
For what it's worth, I consider reports that the government doesn't know what Edward Snowden took to be disinformation. And indeed, claims to that effect in this WaPo article are sourced to: "one former government official,"a "former senior…
The Day of Sentencing Judgment for Scott Bloch
When we last left Scott Bloch, the former Bush attorney who was the appointed head of the Office of Special counsel (OSC), it was the original date for his sentencing. The court delayed entry of sentence to further investigate the full extent…
Wyden & Udall to Alexander: Why Do You People Keep Lying?
According to a letter Ron Wyden and Mark Udall sent Keith Alexander, the NSA is still lying publicly. At issue are two inaccuracies in the information sheet the NSA released about Section 702 implementation.
We were disappointed to see that…
Obama's Stubbornness and the Risk of Snowden
At the outset of this post, let me lay out my following assumptions (I can't prove these points, but I suspect them):
The documents released so far by Guardian and WaPo -- information on the Section 215 program, PRISM, and the PPD on cyberwar…
Moderate Faction of Afghan Taliban Gains Visibility
As the New York Times notes, the Taliban took steps over the weekend to remove some of the more provocative aspects of its office in Qatar from which representatives may enter into negotiations on the end of the war in Afghanistan. Specifically,…
Keith Alexander's "Packets in Flight" Turn Hackers into Terrorists
Keith Alexander showed up to chat with a typically solicitous George Stephanopoulos yesterday. The interview demonstrates something I'll be increasingly obsessed with in upcoming weeks.
The government is using the limited success of NSA's…
Remember How Angry Russia Is about Viktor Bout
As we await the next installment from Edward Snowden's White Bronco chase around the globe, it's worth remembering our attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and the Boston Marathon attack (and subsequent whitewashing about how closely Russia…
Finding The Way To San Jose
Well, hello there Clarisse. As I look at the crack of light filtering in through the drawn Elvis curtains of my hotel room, it appears to be morning. We had fun last night. The first picture is of, from left to right, Col. Morris Davis, Marcy…