In 2009, NSA Said It Had a "Present Example" of Abuse Similar to Project Minaret
While we're discussing new hints that the NSA actually has targeted Americans in creepy old-style spying, I want to look closely at a training program that ODNI describes as dating to August 2009. The I Con description reads, in part,
August…
Imran Khan's PTI Party Retaliates for Drone Strike, Outs Islamabad CIA Station Chief
Recall that back on November 21, John Brennan allowed the CIA to carry out a drone strike that hit a settled area of Pakistan rather than the tribal areas where most strikes occur. I noted that by striking within the province governed by former…
Definition of a "Radicalizer:" A Sunni Opponent to Unchecked US Power
As if on cue in response to my post noting that while the NSA may not be like the Stasi for most Americans, it may well be closer for Muslims, Glenn Greenwald teams up with HuffPo's two Ryans to disclose that the NSA has been snooping on online…
Chomsky v. Gellman on the Stasi
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Noam Chomsky and Barton Gellman did a panel at an MIT Big Data conference. In the middle of it, they get into a quasi debate about whether the NSA is like the Stasi (this starts after 20:00).
For what it's…
60 Minutes' Response Is Still Inadequate
60 Minutes has released the results of its review of Lara Logan's ridiculous story on Benghazi. In response, they're putting Logan and the producer of the story on administrative leave for an undisclosed period of time.
I guess if Dan Rather…
Exploitation: "In my ears and in my eyes"
Goldman and Apuzzo, perhaps as a swan song before the former heads off to WaPo, break the story of Penny Lane -- the story of the Gitmo camp where recruited double agents stayed until they were sent off to spy for the CIA.
They focus primarily…
Phone and Internet Associations Are Both Terror Group Membership and a Chance Encounter in a Dance Hall
As I noted last week, from the start of the dragnet programs, neither the Court nor the government appear to have considered the implications dragnet analysis had for Freedom of Association.
Several of the training documents released…
John Brennan: "Gone Native," or Always Already Native?
In a piece laying out how, rather than shift drone strikes to DOD (as much of the press credulously claimed John Brennan planned to do while he was still in the White House), the Executive will instead merge CIA and DOD operations more closely,…
Stuxnet and the Poisons that Open Your Eyes
Playwright August Strindberg wrote, “...There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.”
We’ve been blinded for decades by complacency and stupidity, as well as our trust. Most Americans still naively believe that…
Keith Alexander: The One General Obama Didn't Fire
Obama has developed a reputation for firing Generals (so much so the wingnuts have developed some conspiracy theories about it).
Most famously, of course, he fired Stanley McChrystal for insubordination. He ousted CENTCOM Commander James…
Jirga Approves BSA While Karzai Stands by Pledge to Delay Signing
After Sunday got off to a historic start with the announcement of an agreement between the P5+1 and Iran, the day continued to be momentous as the loya jirga in Kabul approved the Bilateral Security Agreement between the US and Afghanistan.…
Historic P5+1 Interim Agreement With Iran Buys Time for Permanent Solution
There will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth by Bibi (Red Line) Netanyahu, war mongers John (Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran) McCain and Lindsey Graham and paid MEK shills throughout Congress today because an agreement was reached early…
NSA Denies Their Existing Domestic Cyberdefensive Efforts, Again
James Risen and Laura Poitras have teamed up to analyze a 4-year plan the NSA wrote in 2012, in the wake of being told its collection of some US person content in the US was illegal. I'll discuss the document itself in more depth later. But…
The Quarterback With The Golden Gun Trash Talk
For all the yammering about nuclear options and assassination anniversaries and other wild news, this weekend there is only one big bang. The big guns are being positioned on the battlefield.
Brady v. Manning. Manning v. Brady. Mano a mano.…
50 Years: That Day, JFK and Today
Where were you fifty years ago today? If you were old enough to remember at all, then you undoubtedly remember where you were on Friday November 22, 1963 at 12:30 pm central standard time.
I was at a desk, two from the rear, in the left…
Was DOJ Hiding a Section 215 Gun Registry from Congress?
Among other documents, ODNI released on Monday all the Attorney General Reports on Section 215 use from 2005 to 2011 (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012).
This is the classified version of a report that also gets released in…
By "Application" the Administration Didn't Mean "Memorandum of Law"
This is a very minor point.
But, perhaps to rebut my observation that the government withheld significant constructions of law from the oversight committees until after the PATRIOT Act was reauthorized in 2010, ODNI released these this July…
8 Years Later, NSA Still Using Same PR Strategy to Hide Illegal Wiretap Program
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Between these two posts (one, two), I've shown that the Executive Branch never stopped illegally wiretapping Americans, even after the worst part of it got "shut down" after the March 2004 hospital confrontation.…
Where Is the Moral Rectitude When Political Retaliation Drone Strike Hits Settled Area, Misses Target?
Early this morning, just hours after the US had assured Pakistan that drone strikes would be curtailed if Pakistan is able to restart peace talks with the Taliban (after the US disrupted them with a drone strike), John Brennan lashed out with…
The Empire's New Clothes
Jay Rosen likes to talk about the Snowden effect -- the events that have followed on Edward Snowden's leaks that lead to more public knowledge.
This is surely a superb example of it. Someone has leaked the US Redlines -- US negotiating goals…