An Anonymous Government Official Doesn’t Want You to Know that Lockheed Works for NSA

Tomorrow and Wednesday, the WaPo will continue its series on the Intelligence Industrial Complex. It will describe the contractors in the BWI/Fort Meade area that contribute to the NSA’s surveillance programs. According to the DNI’s Director of Communications, that story will describe the contractors in the vicinity, but not say explicitly that those contractors clustered around Fort Meade are working for the NSA.

The Post advises that “links” between individual contractors and specific agencies have been deleted, although the Post will still cite contractors and their locations.

Here’s the WaPo’s description of how it acceded to spy officials’ requests not to include maps like this one–showing one of Lockheed Martin’s extensive locations in the neighborhood of Fort Meade (anyone who has taken the train to BWI will pass another of these locations)–in its database.

Because of the nature of this project, we allowed government officials to see the Web site several months ago and asked them to tell us of any specific concerns. They offered none at that time. As the project evolved, we shared the Web site’s revised capabilities. Again, we asked for specific concerns. One government body objected to certain data points on the site and explained why; we removed those items. Another agency objected that the entire Web site could pose a national security risk but declined to offer specific comments.

We made other public safety judgments about how much information to show on the Web site. For instance, we used the addresses of company headquarters buildings, information which, in most cases, is available on companies’ own Web sites, but we limited the degree to which readers can use the zoom function on maps to pinpoint those or other locations.

Nevertheless, an anonymous official–who sounds an awful lot like Acting Director of National Intelligence David Gompert did in his official statement–is already out bitching about the contractor database the WaPo published as part of this series.

The database the Washington Post compiled during its “Top Secret America” two year investigation is “troubling,” one administration official told me this morning, saying it could become a road map for adversaries – a charge reporter William Arkin denied on “GMA.”

“We’ve been through months now of negotiations and discussions with the government. I don’t think there is anything here that would do harm to national security,” Arkin told me. “And frankly I’m an American as well and I don’t want to do any harm to American national security.”

The official also told me that President Obama and his team are committed to intelligence reform — calling it a “central issue” – and said the system basically worked preventing another major attack and taking out 10 of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders. But Arkin argued otherwise – saying it is important to counter what “the government would like to put out as the good news.”

Now, this anonymous official (who sounds like David Gompert did) may have been smart enough to know that George Stephanopoulos would obediently grant him anonymity to conduct the pushback ODNI was planning even before they read the article (nice stenography, Steph!). But he apparently believes our adversaries limit their research to the DeadTree press and couldn’t figure out that Lockheed Martin works for NSA (among other agencies) via other means.  This anonymous official apparently believes our adversaries couldn’t do what Tim Shorrock did when he established the ties between Lockheed and NSA.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY. Lockheed Martin has extremely close and long-standing ties with the NSA. In the mid-1950s it built the U-2 spy plane that played a key role in the Cold War and conducted some of the NSA’s initial research in signals collection. “The U-2 has been the backbone of our nation’s airborne intelligence collection operations for several decades and continues to provide unmatched operational capabilities in support of Operation Enduring Freedom,” Lockheed Martin states in its 2008 annual report. The U-2 “is expected to continue to provide leading-edge intelligence collection capabilities for years to come.”

The company’s extensive contracts with the NSA first became public in 1997. That year, Margaret Newsham, a contract engineer working for Lockheed Space and Missile Corporation at an NSA listening post in the United Kingdom, disclosed to Congress the existence of Echelon. This global surveillance network is run by the NSA and its counterparts in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. She made the disclosure after hearing NSA intercepts of international calls placed by Sen. Strom Thurmond, the conservative South Carolina Republican. Her revelations sparked a spate of Congressional inquiries into whether the NSA was illegally listening in on domestic conversations. The discussions, led by a Republican civil libertarian, Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, presaged the intense debate that would follow the 2005 revelations about President Bush’s “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” In July 1998 a report commissioned by the European Parliament confirmed that, through Echelon, the United States, and its closest allies had the capability to intercept most European phone calls, emails, and data communications, as well as the technology to decode almost any encrypted communication. This revelation sparked deep suspicion in European capitals that NSA was using Echelon to capture European business intelligence and trade secrets and pass them to U.S. companies.

Under a contract signed in 2005, Lockheed Martin provides an integrated electronic security system to protect NSA facilities in the Washington area. A similar system is in place at the Pentagon and dozens of U.S. military facilities abroad.

And then there are the other ways to figure this out. I first copped on to Lockheed’s ties to NSA when I noted there seemed to be a closer tie between Lockheed campaign contributions and Democrats who voted in favor of retroactive immunity on the FISA Amendments Act than contributions from AT&T.

Of course, presumably this anonymous official does know that our adversaries are not as dumb as he claims.

Which suggests it’s not our adversaries the anonymous official is really worried about. God forbid the citizens of this country–the average readers of the WaPo rather than those with training in intelligence that makes such research a cinch–find out who has been analyzing all the phone data collected in the guise of counterterrrorism.

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  1. klynn says:

    Lockheed is known for having some great telecommuting jobs all over the country. I bet those are not posted on the WaPo map.

    “find out who has been analyzing all the phone data collected in the guise of counterterrrorism.”

    Many are analyst and systems analyst positions.

  2. BoxTurtle says:

    I think most people assume that the big defense contractors work closely with the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Why Anonymous would be griping about that being printed is beyond me.

    Boxturtle (Perhaps Lockheed is a giant NSA front corporation)

    • Peterr says:

      Perhaps Lockheed is a giant NSA front corporation

      I think you have it backwards. It should say “Perhaps the NSA is a giant front corporation for Lockheed.”

  3. Citizen92 says:

    I would think that more anger would arise over Lockheed Martin’s provision of red light camera ticketing and parking meters to the DC Government rather than their long term support to the intel community.

    As for the contractor list, kudos to the Post. I bet the anonymous official was more upset because intel contracting/procurement professionals are now going to have to do damage control. There are plenty of cottage industry, 8A, HUBZone, Native American, etc companies on that list – and you’ve got to wonder if some of them are delivering anything of value.

  4. klynn says:

    Hey EW, my cursor is doing the “ghosting” thing again. I take my hand off the mouse and it looks like someone is remotely using my mouse. Had this looked at the last time it happened. Funny, it happened on a post discussing national security last time.

    Man, I must be one interesting person to keep an eye on if THAT is what this computer phenomenon is due to…

    Must. Buy. More. Tin. Foil.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      1) Make sure you have the latest windows updates.

      2) Make sure you have the latest updates for your virus checker.

      3) Make sure your router is set to deny all outside traffic.

      4) Reboot.

      5) Run the virus checker.

      6) Return to the wheelhouse. If the problem persists, replace the mouse.

      7) If it returns, run a registry checker.

      8) Reboot.

      9) If it returns, start using throw way accounts.

      Boxturtle (That would have taken you 30 minutes minimum to get at any help desk)

        • BoxTurtle says:

          If you really do get to step #9, kidding aside, there are still things that might work. Swap usb connections. Reload windows. Full wipe and reload windows.

          Boxturtle (though before I did the full wipe, I’d wrap my mouse in tinfoil and see if it helps)

    • reddog says:

      I recommend that you download a “Live” version of a Linux distribution–either Mandriva (very Windows like) or Ubuntu (ubuntu “Netbook Remix” is good for everything, not just netbooks).
      Boot from the “Live” disk and you will be running a complete operating system without installing anything on your computer. If everything works (Linux doesn’t like Windows Only hardware) you can install the full version later, from the same disk. Google for how to burn a bootable disk from the downloaded .iso. Linux pretty much eliminates all but #3 from Boxturtle’s reply. And, it is FREE.

      friends don’t let friend’s go on the net with Windows

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Which suggests it’s not our adversaries the anonymous official is really worried about. God forbid the citizens of this country–the average readers of the WaPo rather than those with training in intelligence that makes such research a cinch–find out who has been analyzing all the phone data collected in the guise of counterterrrorism.

    Questions about that “analysis”: How good is it? How much is humanly verified rather than asserted by a s/w program written by a s/w program, checked by a s/w program and verified by a s/w program.

    How timely is it, given the amounts of raw data generated by ever more outsourcing contractors and contracts?

    What else is that data used for? What does the government allow – by its contract terms or those missing from its contracts – private contractors to do with that data? Analyze it? Sell versions of it to other private companies or governments? If so, on what terms, or does the government not bother to ask, since all these vendors are too-big-to-fail-or-ask-questions-of?

    • pseudonymousinnc says:

      How timely is it, given the amounts of raw data generated by ever more outsourcing contractors and contracts?

      If you create a large dataset, which can be inevitable given the size of the inputs, then it creates its own gravitational pull, regardless of its usefulness for intelligence purposes. That’s the paradox: the more you collect, the more you become invested in preserving the collection (and collectors) for its own sake.

      Think about the Stasi files, and how an unmitigated surveillance state ends up generating data that’s mostly ‘write-only’. It creates a paranoid populace, but it eventually becomes a self-perpetuating bureaucratic monster. And that’s with far fewer sources than are available now.

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Nice job pointing out that it is not from foreign government intelligence services that we are hiding this data. It is us. That’s not only to hide publicly available data from us – and other data that ought to be public. It is to make illegitimate the process of looking for and analyzing it.

      • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

        I have no clue what the KGB did, or didn’t, know.
        If they didn’t know, then they weren’t doing their jobs.
        Of greater concern to me is how many KGB-related people have found their way onto boards or policy groups of US defense-related companies? (Or not even KGB, but other non-US interests?)

        As for ‘Anonymous’, I certainly don’t mean to be unkind to anyone with the guts to call b.s. on this nexus of surveillance ghouls we’re all paying for through taxes that are spent via off-books black budgets, but it does kind of seem to fall in the ‘water is wet‘ category to say that [put in your favorite large defense firm here] works for the NSA.
        Doh.

        I don’t mean to diminish the WaPo’s efforts in any fashion, but for the NSA and the intel people to act like this is a super-duper big deal kind of makes me just shake my head in aggravation. Do they really expect us all to wander around like oblivious zombies? Good grief.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        A teacher once cautioned his students that before they start an assignment, they read the assignment, then read it again before asking themselves what question they are to answer, then ask themselves whether they’ve done it after they finish the assignment.

        Ms. EW’s post and my affirming comment on it make the point that these PR hacks for the intel “community” are not hiding secrets from their professional rivals here or abroad. They are hiding them from the public that hires and pays for them. In a democracy, that’s a self-defeating exercise, but one that makes a few insiders rabidly rich.

  7. SaltinWound says:

    When I think of Lockheed, I think of Comey. But he announced in June that he was leaving. Any idea why?

    • skdadl says:

      That was news to me too. So I looked, and I found this.

      His stature on Capitol Hill may be one reason why the hedge fund finds him attractive. The financial legislation the House and Senate will soon be working to reconcile is likely to include requirements that hedge funds register with the SEC, and that a portion of the carried interest that is sometimes a big part of executives’ compensation be taxed at a higher rate than it has been in the past.

  8. bmwrider says:

    Funny, this article should be titled: “Incredulous writer cuts/pastes several of quotes from other people (and, sadly, links to wikipedia) and calls it citizen journalism.”

      • bmwrider says:

        I didn’t leave, was waiting for someone, anyone to say something credible. I guess you chose to attack me instead of defending the author. I’ll take that as a sign that there is nothing to defend. It’s not a personal attack, by the way, it’s a wake-up call to all of you who see some quotes and don’t question “is the source even credible?”. I guess you proved my point, Wikipedia is about as you get.. So maybe I will spew thoughts and leave. Unless maybe you want to discuss this objectively.. or is that too difficult?

        douchebag? anal retentive? I admire your creative use of the English language. I should back down now because you clearly demonstrate your ability to hold (and win) a debate. Nothing like calling me a douchebag to prove your point. Sad. So. Sad.

        Can’t wait to see your next reply…

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Really. If Ms. Priest is merely cutting and pasting, what would some of our intrepid readers call the work of the other Dana?

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Thanks for correcting my misimpression, though my original question seems useful; if Ms. Priest is cutting and pasting, what on earth is Mr. Millbank’s contribution to news and views?

          As for the characterization of Ms. EW’s work, it could only have come from a “community troll”. Disinformation, after all, is what they do, often illegally. EW is not replicating Ms. Priest’s work any more than the editorial pages of the Post or Times replicate the work of their good and bad reporters.

          She is critiquing it and asking different questions about its implications for American life and democracy generally, and for you and me individually. She’s putting together and parsing disparate information in a more creative and accurate way than the more highly paid “news” media and, apparently, more than a few members of the intelligence “community”. And that’s what better commentators do here too.

  9. parsnip says:

    It’s my impression that at least one high school in the vicinity of Ft. Meade has a program to prepare students to be employed by NSA (or its contractors?), based on hearsay from friends of ours, about their grandson. How top secret could that be? Presumably the students in this program get their clearance after graduation, when they apply for a job? Or does the indoctrination and clearance happen before they are enrolled in the program, and this would mean that impressionable school kids are selected/groomed to become spies? Reminds me of the East German athletes.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      I know that at WSU, recruiting for classified positions went on all the time. You didn’t really apply, they came to YOU with an offer of a job after graduation if you took certain courses and passed a background check. I heard rumors of scholarships if they liked you enough, but I never spoke to anyone who actually got one.

      Boxturtle (They were looking for engineers, mathmagicians and other geeks, not spies)

  10. Mary says:

    That one works – you might want to include this in the quotes to though *g*

    “Lockheed Martin is a remarkable company with an inspiring ethical culture, and I have been honored to be a part of it for five years,” Comey said in the company’s press release. “Although I will miss the company, I am excited by the opportunity Bridgewater offers for a broader leadership role in a great business that is very different, except in its commitment to doing the right thing.”

    From Ray Dalio’s Principles (Dalio is Bridgewater’s founder)

    Be the Hyena. Attack that wildebeest.
    Chapter 1: For example, when a pack of hyenas takes down a young wildebeest, is that good or evil? At face value, that might not be “good” because it seems cruel, and the poor wildebeest suffers and dies. Some people might even say that the hyenas are evil. Yet this type of apparently “cruel” behavior exists throughout the animal kingdom. Like death itself it is integral to the enormously complex and efficient system that has worked for as long as there has been life. It is good for both the hyenas who are operating in their self-interest and the interest of the greater system, including those of the wildebeest, because killing and eating the wildebeest fosters evolution (i.e., the natural process of improvement). In fact, if you changed anything about the way that dynamic works, the overall outcome would be worse.
    While all this sounds very philosophical and removed from how to behave at Bridgewater, it is integral to how we operate.

    ;)

    I couldn’t resist, but it isn’t the fairest of shots – Dalio is a smart guy and his hedgefund is an uberfund that got that way by not shying away from hard truths. He made a similar point to the one EW is making above (God forbid the citizens of this country …find out) when Bridgewater declined to participate in Geithners cash-for-trash program. He seemed to think that when Americans figured out what was going on with it, they resent and hold it against those who took them to the cleaners.

    OK- so there his smart guy credentials wilted a lil bit. Americans paying attention longer than 5 seconds? Americans holding anyone responsible for anything other than having sex? And Dalio was also a contributor to Romney, McCain and Giuliani – which would wilt any boquet with peace lilies in it.

    Actually, if you thought all the time Comey spent hanging around CIA and NSA et al rubbed off on him any, getting him in at such a mega hedgefund that handles so much money for foreign govs and their central banks might be a nice thing for a SWIFT-lesser intel group.

    Or you could spec that the SOL has run on things Lockheed was concerned about that made Comey attractive initially? Or that the ties with assassination programs and drones has that troubling “no SOL and yes you are SOL” aspect. Or maybe just that he likes playing with money closer to NYC more than playing with predators and surveillance programs closer to DC. I just don’t believe in innocuous anymore; at least, not with people who have been so intertwined with torture regimes and who have so little to say that’s negative about torture (instead chirruping away in an op ed about how successful DOJ has been at getting American courts so complacent about torture that trials of the tortured will be much easier in civlian courts than in military commissions).

    • skdadl says:

      My my. That Dalio quote — how … colourful. The food chain and all. Not that I don’t believe in the food chain — in the kitchen or the garden or the forest or on the savannah — but I guess these guys extend their metaphors a little further than I would.

      You convinced me a long time ago, Mary.

    • bmaz says:

      I am just glad that our All-American hero Jim Comey, always selflessly worried about and looking out for the common little citizens, was able to extricate himself from the clenches of the dastardly Lockheed and find such rewarding, wholesome, altruistic and honest work at a big global hedge fund. Comey is one of us!!

      Hoorah!

  11. BayStateLibrul says:

    Maybe Eisenhower should have said beware of the Military Intelligence

    Complex?

    Think tanks are all over the place…

    The Defense establishment will never change, especially in a go-go war

    environment.

    Just cut — $xx Billon and call it “infrastructure adjustment”

  12. plunger says:

    “Our Adversaries?”

    Clearly, and without question, the adversaries of the people of the United States Of America are the corporations of this black infrastructure and the leaders of the shadow government that funds them.

    ALL of this goes directly back to Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness program. As soon as Congress pulled the plug on it, GHW and da boys set about creating a work around, to include a catalyzing event, like a New Pearl Harbor, allegedly by some new enemy, to serve as the justification for their most evil schemes to be implemented beyond the reach of Congress.

    Where is the $2.3 trillion that Rummy told us went missing just one day prior to 9/11 (in fact – it was $7 trillion)? I think we have our answer.

    GOT FOREKNOWLEDGE?

  13. plunger says:

    Rumsfeld Sept 10, 2001: The Pentagon cannot account for $2.3 TRILLION

    “According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” Rumsfeld admitted.

    $2.3 trillion — that’s $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

    “We know it’s gone. But we don’t know what they spent it on,” said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

    T H I S

    W A S

    T H E

    F U N D I N G

    F O R

    T H E

    M I L I T A R Y

    C O U P

    Call it what it is.

  14. emptywheel says:

    Btw, I’ll put up an announcement of this later. But I just asked Tim Shorrock to do a livechat with us about the IIC on Wednesday at 10AM ET.

    So if you’ve got questions for him you can ask then.

    • pdaly says:

      That’s great news. I will have to miss it live, but hope to read the comments and insights.

    • Mary says:

      That’s great!

      @36/37 – I’m not really trying so much to convince (bc there are so much *worser*) but just trying hard to keep the lawverton window from moving too far to where the guys who really could have made a change – and didn’t – (like the Bellingers and Comeys etc.) don’t end up being the 10s on the scale.

      • harpie says:

        Hi, faster! My commenting has been very ADHD lately, so I didn’t see your response ’till now. Yes, I am very glad Marcy got some very well desrved credit, as you say. Have a good day. Maybe I’ll see you around. ;-)

    • pdaly says:

      Thanks, harpie.

      I followed your link, and I can see the beginning of that article at worthington’s website, then I get an internet error. Finding the site on my own via google, I get the same error message. Wonder if there is a block placed on it here or in the UK, or just a temporary internet hiccup?

      • harpie says:

        pdaly…that was happening to me a couple of weeks ago with Worthington’s site, and I was wondering the same things. We updated the antivirus software and now there are no problems with it. Sorry I can’t be more helpful…I’m a computer dunce.

        • pdaly says:

          I eventually read it on my home computer. My work computer doesn’t like to venture past the border, however; I’m getting the same error message today. Maybe the browser needs to be updated.

          klynn@82: great story. Maybe you can design and wear an emptywheel/FDL t-shirt in order to redirect former CNN watchers to this site.

  15. Adam503 says:

    The NSA supposedly does internal security. The CIA supposedly does foreign intelligence. The NSA should not have a use for the U2 or SR-71 Blackbird. Both up to this day were supposedly CIA projects that Lockheed worked on at the Skunk Works during the design phase, and Area 51 during the flight testing phase.

    Has something in that history changed today?

    • MadDog says:

      The NSA supposedly does internal security. The CIA supposedly does foreign intelligence. The NSA should not have a use for the U2 or SR-71 Blackbird…

      Actually, you’ve got some stuff wrong there. The NSA’s charter has to do with SIGINT (Signal Intelligence), COMINT (Communications Intelligence), and ELINT (Electronic Intelligence).

      With those responsibilities, U2s and SR-71 Blackbirds have been longstanding platforms for all those specific INTs.

  16. Leen says:

    http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/19/top_secret_america__washington_post
    “Top Secret America” Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System

    “AMY GOODMAN: Bill, you’ve been doing this kind of work for years. What were you most shocked by in this latest investigation?

    WILLIAM ARKIN: I remember having a conversation with Dana, my writing partner, in the summer of 2009. We had sort of started by looking at the government and then shifted our attention to looking at the contracting base. And I said, “Wow! There’s 200 companies that do top-secret work for the government.” And now we’re at 2,000. I mean, it is the sheer magnitude of it, Amy, that is stunning. And to me, you know, it’s not that there might not be redundancies that are necessary or that there might not be overlap which is necessary and disparate departments doing disparate things.

    And many of the conclusions that we draw, I think, are ones that your viewers and listeners would accept readily and are part of their normal discussions of government. But the truth is that no one really has a handle on it all. No one really does. We’ve talked to the people at the highest level. We’ve talked to the principals involved, and they have all readily admitted that, yes, this ad hoc crazy system was created after 9/11. We threw money at the problem. We did it the American way, Admiral Blair said to us. You know, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. I mean, ha ha, but the truth of the matter is that now we’re two years into the Obama administration, and the basic system really has not been reformed at all. “

  17. MadDog says:

    Tangentially on topic, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) unanimously approved their version of S. 3611, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (252 page PDF).

    A smaller summary document has some real gems in it – S. Rpt. No. 111-223, Report to Accompany S. 3611 (76 page PDF).

    I should note that this is just the SSCI approval. No vote has yet been taken with the full Senate, and certainly, there has been no attempt yet to deal with the differences from the House counterpart.

    Including stuff like this from page 58 which I’m guessing was meant to bolster PapaDick, Lizard Cheney and general Repug claims justifying torture:

    …Section 427. Public availability of unclassified versions of certain intelligence products

    Section 427 requires the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to make publicly available unclassified versions of four documents which assess information gained from the interrogation of high value detainees. These documents are dated April 3, 2003, July 15, 2004, March 2, 2005, and June 1, 2005…

    And this curious bit on Cybersecurity (shades of Telco retroactive immunity) from pages 32-23:

    …Section 337(a) requires the President to notify Congress of cybersecurity programs and provide Congress with five types of information or documents: the program’s legal basis; any certifications of the program’s legality under 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(a)(ii) or other statutory provision; any concept of operations; any privacy impact statement; and any plan for independent audit or review of the program to be carried out by the head of the relevant department or agency, in conjunction with the appropriate inspector general. The notification requirements of subsection (a) are designed to ensure that Congress is aware of significant legal, privacy and operational issues with respect to each new cybersecurity program.

    The Department of Justice has expressed concern about providing to Congress any certifications of the legality of a cybersecurity program under Section 2511(2)(a)(ii) of Title 18 of the United States Code—certifications which serve to insulate from litigation providers of wire or electronic communication who provide information to the government—on the basis that those types of certifications are not routinely provided to Congress. Because of the broad scope of possible operations under cybersecurity programs as defined by this section, however, the Committee believe that a certification under Section 2511(2)(a)(ii) prepared for a cybersecurity program would be different than a certification provided in other current investigations and law enforcement activities. Rather than assessing the legality of a single instance of providing information to the government, any certification for a “cybersecurity program” would have to address the legality of the program as a whole. A certification for a cybersecurity program therefore has the potential to authorize providers of wire or electronic communication to provide significant assistance to the government, without fear of litigation. Given the potential impact of any certification, the Committee believes that significant congressional oversight is warranted…

    (My Bold)

    And this from page 28:

    …Section 333. Report on detention and interrogation activities

    Section 333 requires the DNI, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, to provide the congressional intelligence committees a comprehensive report on five matters by December 1, 2010. The report may be submitted in classified form.

    Pursuant to subsection (a)(1), the report shall contain the policies and procedures of the United States Government governing participation by an element of the Intelligence Community in the interrogation of individuals detained by the United States who are suspected of international terrorism with the objective, in whole or in part, of acquiring national intelligence. This reporting requirement applies to policies and procedures and is not intended to require a description of interrogations on a detainee-by-detainee basis. However, with respect to policies and procedures, the report is intended to be comprehensive. It includes not only interrogation directly by an element of the Intelligence Community (a term that includes the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the intelligence elements of the FBI) but also interrogation undertaken with the support of an element of the Intelligence Community or by any interagency body established to carry out interrogation…

    (My Bold)

    No mention of a report on renditioned detainees, their interrogators and their interrogations.

    And this from page 29:

    …Pursuant to subsection (a)(3), the comprehensive report shall describe the legal basis of the interrogation and detention policies and procedures described in subsection (a)(1) and (a)(2). This should include the legal basis of such policies and procedures under applicable statutes, international agreements, and Executive orders…

    And this too from page 29:

    …Finally, pursuant to subsection (a)(5), the report should describe any actions taken to implement the section of the Detainee Treatment Act that provides for the protection against civil or criminal liability, as well as counsel fees and other expenses, for U.S. Government personnel who had engaged in officially authorized interrogations that were determined to be lawful at the time…

    And finally, from page 30:

    The Committee therefore decided not to attempt to address the operation and conduct of interrogation activities in this bill. The following sections from H.R. 2701 are thus not included in this bill: Section 412, prohibition on the use of private contractors for interrogations involving persons in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency; Section 416, requirement for video recording of interrogations of persons in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Section 504, prohibition on use of funds to provide Miranda warnings to certain persons outside of the United States…

    (My Bold)

    There’s far more, but this will suffice for now, doncha think? *g*

  18. onitgoes says:

    Thanks for the post and some interesting commentary. Unsurprised as to content and that, in fact, a lot of this intelligence gathering is pretty FUBAR. Isn’t just about generating money for our wealthy overlords (via one means or another) at the end of the day? The scary surveillance stuff makes money for the peeps that make the surveilling hardware and software, etc, and also keeps the peeeee-ons in line.

  19. WilliamOckham says:

    Tangentially related (ok, totally off-topic), I got a recruiting email (via LinkedIn) from the NCS (that is the spying side of the CIA). The question before the folks here is: should I respond?

        • skdadl says:

          I’m vaguely remembering that some minor evil-doer claimed that ordained deacons get to claim some kind of confidentiality privilege — who was that?

        • Peterr says:

          OTOH, mentioning how he has skillfully infiltrated the Wheelhouse without arousing suspicion might get him a promotion on his first day.

        • WilliamOckham says:

          Haven’t quite figured out what it was in my profile that they found appealing. Maybe they try to recruit all the geeks. They probably didn’t bother googling me. Even under my real name there are few things online that should have concerned them. By the way, if anybody here wants to know my real name, here is a clue that should give it away. The oil industry expert who has appeared on Countdown nearly every day for the last month or so is my wife’s cousin. Now don’t bother him, he and I have never met. However, if you put that together with other details I have revealed here you should be able to figure out my real name. Please don’t post it here (can’t make it too easy for the CIA). You can email me at firstname at lastname dot net. Not sure anybody really cares but it makes for a fun search activity if you are bored.

          • Sara says:

            “Haven’t quite figured out what it was in my profile that they found appealing.”

            Listening to a radio discussion yesterday morning — it appears that the US only has about a thousand hacker types who might be capable of playing cyberwar games. As a result, NSA went to the Hacker Convention in NYC last week to try and recruit. They seem to be looking for two types, High School kids with a high competitive edge for getting into computers, and they are looking for those who can train less geeky, less self-taught types for the jobs. Apparently there are several hundred thousand potential jobs available, and only a thousand US born and bred advanced hackers available to agency work.

          • Mary says:

            hmmmmmmmmm – maybe they want a good excuse to hook you up to a lie detector? *g*

            Seriously – they have a huge, self created problem. Good guys with mad skilz ;) don’t want to work for a run amok war machine bunch of torture regime maniacs. Bad guys with mad skilz will work for the torture regime happily – and other torture regimes too, and mostly, for themselves.

    • bmaz says:

      Ooooh, they have sexy blonde spies like Valerie Plame and that chick on the new show “Covert Affairs”! I think you should sign up asap!

    • Hugh says:

      Sure you should. Just tell them that you would really like to work for an organization like theirs because you are a strong defender of the 4th Amendment and would use any job they gave you to make sure its protections were respected.

    • pdaly says:

      I’d be curious to hear what next step NCS would require if you did respond, although I guess you’d be asked to sign nondisclosure forms, etc. before NCS got into any details of their plans.

  20. timbo says:

    Ah, but are your adversaries and this anonymous official (who sounds like David Gompert did) adversaries the same adversaries? Interesting question.

  21. pajarito says:

    It could be nothing, but today at lunch I tried to open the WaPo site on a Department of Interior (DOI) (government) computer. It was blocked.

    Likely, they come and get me tomorrow…

    • Mary says:

      Don’t worry – when WO goes to work hacking for them, he’ll leak your whereabouts ;)

      @78 – missed or got suppressed at some point in the endless “negotiation” with the gov over what to print. Thanks for sharing the info.

      @79 – Bob you are going to end up with way to many different States in your tagline. I forgot about netroots – hope you guys have a blast.

      @82 – Go klynn! This would be the same Townsend that may have been barred by Lamberth from the FISCt for engaging in multiple instances of FBI deception to the Court? No one ever seems to ask her about that before they let her lobby while collecting her pay of both ends.

  22. seaglass says:

    I worked for Lockheed and I can tell u they get rid of anyone that isn’t a dyed in the wool conservative Rethug. They watch everyone and they question u endlessly about your politics. They think they’re clever about how they go about it but they’re not. They sent some fucking ex. marine Colonel to fire me when the time came and he made it pretty friggin clear why I was getting canned. Fascistic company if there ever was one. if your wondering how I got hired I didn’t I was absorbed Borg like when the company that hired me sold our Gov’t contract to Lockheed. Lockheed then used most of us just to do the consolidation and then canned almost all of us. The only few they kept either had been hired by Lockheed @ some earlier time or checked out as redneck enough for them. I felt dirty the whole time I worked for them. Disgusting company, robot like mgrs. and employees. The BORG!!

    • bmaz says:

      Ouch, but thanks for the comment on your experience. I had friends that worked in Lockheed engineering in Southern California in the early 80s and it was not that bad – at least there and then. Obviously the company morphed in the intervening years in many ways, few positive.

  23. reddog says:

    Or it could be the other way around, NSA may work for Lockheed and Lockheed may work for BAE. In a previous life I worked for an entity that fell under the DHS after 9/11. I know for a fact that WaPo hasn’t listed every company that contracts for DHS/NSA because I checked just one that I had to deal with and it isn’t on their list. That company was populated by a secretive bunch of jerks and they have multi-million dollar contracts with the gubmint to do what they do, and everything they provide is proprietary to the company so that only they can install and maintain it. So, not to be a glass-half-empty type but if WaPo missed 1 they likely missed others.

  24. klynn says:

    Hey Marcy got a funny story for you.

    I was working out yesterday at the gym around 6 PM ish. One of the TV monitors had CNN on. Wolf Blitzer came on and had Dana Priest on as a guest. He followed Dana with Fran Townsend. Gave no disclosure of her work at Baker Botts, the fact that Baker Botts does lobbying for the security industry and has government security-homeland security contracts. He just let her “talk” as an expert.

    I yelled at the tv monitor about what a farce Blitzer’s show happens to be…try to appear impartial by having Townsend on basically stating that Priest is making too much out of our intel growth after 9-11. I asked out loud, “How are people suppose to trust your show Wolf when you have talking heads on giving an opposing view who are also being paid by the very industry that is being questioned by Priest?”

    Most people around me did not know Townsend’s background and started asking questions. I explained her background and pointed out her conflict of interest to even be on a network discussing such concerns. She is part of the problem. Everyone appreciated the information and said they would stop watching CNN, especially Blitzer.

    I got a standing ovation from over 100 people.

    • klynn says:

      BTW EW,

      You should go watch the clip and listen to Townsend. I bet you could do quite the post on her response after the Priest interview.

      And to think, she’ll be doing this the whole run of the series on his show with no disclosure. He really needs to to better but hey, his motives are pretty clear.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      And you wonder why your PC is being monitored.

      Boxturtle (Keep spreading enlightenment)

      • klynn says:

        Well, I have a Mac, so it is a bit surprising.

        We went through and did all the updates last night. Called the Apple store and talked with our Apple Care rep.

        If it happens again, he’s ready to do quite a bit on our computer.

        Evidently the Smart Mouse can cause a similar problem as it ages and static builds up on the mouse pad. So we addressed that last night as well.

        • BoxTurtle says:

          Ugh. If you’ve got a mac, it’s almost certainly a hardware problem. Mac software works.

          Boxturtle (Had I known it was a Mac, I’d have told you to swap mice first)

    • Citizen92 says:

      Baker Botts. With headline partner James Baker. He formerly hedge fund Carlyle Group, a major intel investor. He formerly COS to Pappy. Pappy formerly of the CIA. Again and again, same story.

      As an aside, I’ve always wondered about Fran Townsend. It’s my understanding that Jr. kept Fran on as a holdover from the Clinton WH – but she rose to wuthering heights from relative obscurity.

      • klynn says:

        Yep.

        Wonder if any of those Bush Terror Alerts happened during budget approvals?

        I don’t think I would classify her as a holdover totally. I think she was at DoJ through Pappy and Clinton years as well as into Jr. years, who then promoted her.

  25. klynn says:

    In this morning’s edition:

    The privatization of national security work has been made possible by a nine-year “gusher” of money, as Gates recently described national security spending since the 9/11 attacks.

    And so many of the firms are tied to private equity firms. Talk about your vampire squid. This is a monster that will not stop until it is in all our bedrooms.

    This is not saving any of us on tax dollars. We are paying our own way towards a police state. I do not think we can spread our “land of the free” schtick anymore.