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…
Remarkably Timed Spamouflage, Scary Iran Plot Edition
WaPo has its latest Snowden scoop out, describing how the NSA collects hundreds of thousands of email contact lists daily.
The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging…
Dianne Feinstein's Pre-UndieBomb Thinking
A whole bunch of people have pilloried Dianne Feinstein's defense of the phone dragnet and related programs.
But one bizarre argument I haven't seen challenged is the underlying logic of this passage.
The U.S. must remain vigilant against…
Perhaps High Value Interrogation Group Members Don't Make the Best Doctors?
As Josh Gerstein reported last week, the Public Defenders Office for Southern District of NY and DOJ spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday fighting about whether Abu Anas al-Libi should get a lawyer. On Friday, Lewis Kaplan (who also presided…
The FISC Opinion Dance
Andrea Peterson calls attention to this cryptic Ron Wyden quote in WaPo's story on extant FISA Court opinions on bulk collection.
“The original legal interpretation that said that the Patriot Act could be used to collect Americans’ records…
The NSA Hides Its Domestic Collection by Refusing to Count It
In his speech at Cato last week Ron Wyden made it clear that when he asked Keith Alexander and James Clapper in advance of the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act for the number of Americans' communications that had been collected under…
The 2011 Disclosures
This post simply breaks out the dates in the October 3, 2011 John Bates opinion, adding the claims the government made at the time. It provides a somewhat better idea of the circumstances surrounding the manual review of upstream collection…
"Folksy and Firm" Flummoxes Fancy NYT Journalists
Less than 10 days ago, Keith Alexander admitted to Patrick Leahy that the single solitary case in which the phone dragnet proved critical was that of Basaaly Moalin. But that was not an attack. Rather, it was an effort to send money to al-Shabaab…
Continuing Shutdown Resolution Shakedown Trash Talk
Whole lotta nothing going on in the nation's capitol. Guess that is not exactly news, but, still, it seems extra fubar currently. Ah well, what to do? Rock and roll baybee. And trash talk, of course. Seriously, as I look up at my TeeVee right…
Findings versus Law: "The Intelligence Community Does Not Task Itself"
Predictably, Ben Wittes adopted the Shane Harris piece airing NSA gripes about the White House's flaccid defense of them as part of Lawfare's Empathy for Wiretappers series (brought to you in part by NSA contractor Northrop Grumman!).
In…
Shorter Rupp: We Inform Members at Briefings They Can't Attend Because They're Too Busy
Since it became clear Mike Rogers had chosen not to pass on the Administration's notice of phone dragnet problems, I've been wondering if he did the same with any notice about the FISA Amendments Act upstream problems.
In response to a query…
US Grabs Pakistan Taliban Representative From Afghan Authorities, Preventing Peace Talks
Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently lashed out at the United States, stating that US insistence on being able to conduct autonomous counterterrorism actions within Afghanistan was a major obstacle to signing a new Status of Forces Agreement…
"Together, we all prevail"
For a 1,500-word Shane Harris piece that could be part of Lawfare's Empathy for Wiretappers series (brought to you by NSA contractor Northrop Grumman!), Stewart Baker blames the White House failure to mount a vocal defense of NSA on John Brennan's…
Jack Goldsmith's Code
On May 6, 2004, Jack Goldsmith signed an OLC memo that read, in part,
We conclude that in the circumstances of the current armed conflict with al Qaeda, the restrictions set out in FISA, as applied to targeted efforts to intercept the communications…
Last Week’s Blizzard, This Week’s Hell
Did you know there was a blizzard last week? I'll admit I didn’t. Never saw a peep about it across several Twitter and internet news feeds until today.
Between 28 and 60 inches of snow fell across parts of South Dakota late last week in…
NYPD Sends Violent Undercover Officer to Spy on Occupy as It Helps Sandy Victims
On Twitter yesterday, various Occupy Wall Street participants started buzzing as Wojciech Braszczok appeared in court for his role in assaulting Alexian Lien. They realized Braszczok had infiltrated Occupy Wall Street over the course of several…
Peter Baker, Meat Grinder for Bush
In the NYT, Peter Baker presents his version of George Bush's decision not to pardon Scooter Libby as the best pitch for his new book, Days of Fire, Bush and Cheney in the White House. Given that the piece is not at all newsworthy (and…
MEK Makes Desperate New Iran Nuclear Accusation, Reuters Yawns
With the world anticipating real progress at the next round of P5+1 talks set to start next week in Geneva, the MEK is getting desperate. Because they appear to only want a violent regime change in Iran, talk of actual diplomacy is their worst…
Surveillance Logic: Snowden Is Bad because AQAP Conference Call Leak Was
McClatchy did an interview with former national security official Ken Wainstein. He focuses on leaks, explaining how sometimes the "good leaks" don't get prosecuted and admitting that overclassification is a problem.
But in response to McClatchy's…
The Business as Usual Brigade
I missed the CATO surveillance event today (they'll have video up soon, Julian Sanchez promises), but here's the speech Ron Wyden gave.
I'm amused by this line:
We wanted to put this marker down early because we know in the months ahead…