What If the Tor Takedown Relates to the Yemeni Alert?
Eli Lake and Josh Rogin reveal that the intercept between Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi was actually a conference call between those two and affiliates all over the region.
The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion between…
Who Will the Government Scapegoat Now on the Wuhayshi Leak?
Yesterday, I noted that McClatchy, the first outlet to publish (though probably not the first outlet to get the leak) the news that the big terror alert stems from an intercepted communication between Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi,…
Was It NSA or a Yemeni "Ally" Leaking the "Clear Orders" from Zawahiri to Wuhayshi?
Apparently, it wasn't enough for someone to leak this information to the NYT (which said that it withheld some information at the request from the government).
The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives…
Pakistan Deploys Troops to Beef Up Security at Jail Housing Shakeel Afridi, Key Taliban Figures
As we await word on why the airlines' SABRE reservation system would go down at exactly the time the US is warning that Undie 3.0 could be underway and the US is evacuating our personnel from Yemen, there are interesting developments on the…
CIA's Cloud Storage Just Bought the WaPo
You've no doubt heard that Jeff Bezos just bought WaPo.
Which means the same guy who owns WaPo also provides the CIA with its new cloud storage (unless IBM succeeds in their bid to challenge it).
I'm sure this will have an utterly salutary…
More Lies to the FISA Court
I was pulling up something else from Ron Wyden's site, and noticed a sentence in this release pointing out how last week's so-called transparency dump from James Clapper actually shows the lies the Intelligence Community told to Congress. I…
US Justice: A Rotting Tree of Poisonous Fruit?
Saturday, the NYT reported that other agencies within government struggle to get NSA to share its intelligence with them.
Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement…
About the Reuters DEA Special Operations Division Story
Reuters is out this morning with what is being hailed as somewhat of an eye opening expose on the Drug Enforcement Agency's Special Operations Division. The article is very good and should be read in full, but I would like to make a couple of…
Stewart Baker's User Interface and Edward Snowden's Authorities
Former NSA Counsel Stewart Baker has been in an increasingly urgent froth since Edward Snowden's leaks first became public trying to prove that the NSA should have more, not less, unchecked authority.
He outdid himself yesterday with an attempt…
Shut Down CyberCommand -- US CyberCommander Keith Alexander Doesn't Think It's Important
Back on March 12 -- in the same hearing where he lied to Ron Wyden about whether the intelligence community collects data on millions of Americans -- James Clapper also implied that "cyber" was the biggest threat to the United States.
So when…
Premature NFL Trash Talk Under Duress
Are y'all paying attention to that Twitter widget thingy lodged on our blog on the right hand side? Well do ya? If so, then you have seen the oppressive brutality with which the otherwise demure Empthwheel has demanded pre-season Trash Talk.
I…
If Only DOJ Hadn't Burned AP's Sources ...
The State Department announced a broad but vague warning today.
The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens to the continued potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, and possibly occurring in or emanating…
"Congress Was Fully Briefed" ... at the Last Minute
On September 30, 2009, Silvestre Reyes, then the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, requested that DOJ provide a description of the Section 215 metadata dragnet program.
Reyes sent that request 8 days after September 22, when Patrick…
Why Spend $887 Million on Armored Vehicles for Afghan Army When Thousands Sit Idle?
A single line item in the latest quarterly report from SIGAR (pdf) has my blood boiling. The report states that among the up to $7.73 billion that the Defense Department has requested for fiscal 2014 in Afghanistan, a single item of $886.9…
Michael Hayden, after Escaping Justice, Calls for Other Criminals to Be Made Examples
In an article on the Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden leaks, Washington Times quotes former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden this way: (h/t Matthew Aid)
It is “really important that the government respond well to this particular abuse,”…
James Cole: "Of Course We'd Like Records of People Buying" Pressure Cookers
Now that the Suffolk cops have revealed they investigated Michele Catalano's family because of a tip from her husband's former employer about his Google searches and not FBI or NSA analysis of Google data themselves, a lot of people are suggesting…
If By "Plots on the Homeland" You Mean "Defense against US-Backed Invaders"
Yesterday's declassified documents on the Section 215 (and Internet Trap and Trace) dragnets repeat something I observed about a James Clapper declaration submitted in several FOIA cases related to the program: they all redact parts of the description…
Have 1,485 Innocent Americans Been Investigated for Researching Pressure Cookers?
Update: One of Catalano's family members' former employers tipped off the local cops to searches for backpack and pressure cooker on their computer.
I have been warning about the criminalization of common items since it became clear in…
Keith Alexander: We Report Violations to "Everyone"
At 32:14 in his speech to BlackHat yesterday, Keith Alexander said of the Section 215 dragnet,
We comply with the court orders and do this exactly right. And if we make a mistake, we hold ourselves accountable and report it to everyone.
Here's…
"Progress" Report: ANSF Abandoning Over One Third of ISAF Facilities
As I have noted previously, Congress requires the Defense Department to provide status reports on the situation in Afghanistan twice a year. The scheduling of these reports appears to be entirely random. The first report in 2012 was in April,…