Mike Rogers: As Confused about Telecom Surveillance as He Is about Drone Strikes
Congressman Mike Rogers, like most members of the ranking Gang of Four members of the Intelligence Committees, has long made obviously false claims about the drone program, such as that public reports of civilian casualties (which were being…
Meet 3 PATRIOT Act False Positives Investigated for Buying Beauty Supplies
Both Mike Rogers and Ron Wyden made claims about the efficacy of the surveillance scoops of the last few days, especially the use of Section 215 to collect the phone data -- and other tangible stuff, including credit card records -- of every…
Side by Side: Timeline of NSA’s Communications Collection and Cyber Attacks
In all the reporting and subsequent hubbub about the National Security Administration’s ongoing collection of communications, two things stood out as worthy of additional attention:
— Collection may have been focused on corporate metadata;
—…
James Clapper's Tip for Avoiding Lies: Don't Do Talking Points
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For a guy who warned for years about an abuse of the FISA Amendments Act and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, I have to admit Ron Wyden was pretty circumspect yesterday. He issued a statement, partly to reiterate…
WHO, Bill Gates and Islamic Scholars All Push For Polio Vaccination in Province Now Governed by Khan's PTI
There are public calls on a remarkable number of different fronts for a renewed commitment to polio vaccination in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, which is now governed by Imran Khan's PTI party. Direct appeals to Khan are coming…
Jim Sensenbrenner's Horseshit Claims of Innocence
The reaction from members of Congress to the revelation that the Section 215 surveillance was just as bad as some of us have been warning has varied, with Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss reiterating claims about the value and oversight…
Section 215: The White House's Bullshit Talking Points
Here's what the White House has offered as talking points to defend collecting (DiFi has confirmed) all the call data from all Americans since 2006. Interspersed is my commentary.
The article discusses what purports to be an order issued by…
Ron Wyden Calls Bullshit on Mike Rogers' Claims
Mike Rogers, in an effort to defend his efforts to approve and hide dragnet collection on all Americans for years, claimed today that the dragnet prevented a terrorist attack.
“Within the last few years, this program was used to stop a terrorist…
Post-2014 NATO Mission in Afghanistan Has a Name, But No Enabling Agreement
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In a complete repeat of the process the Obama administration used to get NATO to be the entity to propose extending the mythical 352,000 Afghan National Security Force…
Section 215 Order Reveals Secrecy Only Serves to Prevent Court Challenge
Last March, when Hank Johnson asked him a poorly worded question about what NSA was doing with its data center in Utah, NSA head Keith Alexander kept saying the NSA had no power to collect in the US.
Johnson: “NSA’s signals intercepts include…
What an Overbroad Section 215 Order Looks Like
Glenn Greenwald has a tremendous scoop, for the first time I know of publishing a Section 215 warrant -- in this case one asking for all US-based traffic metadata from Verizon Business Services from April until July.
Now, I think that this…
DOD Inspector General Report: SOCOM Purged Their Osama bin Laden Files after Judicial Watch FOIA
I wanted to point to one more detail from the DOD Inspector General's report on Leon Panetta's leaks to Zero Dark 30's filmakers.
The very last page of the report describes how Admiral William McRaven responded after realizing the SEALs who…
Al Pacino Couldn't Protect CIA Headquarters
There's a funny passage from the DOD Inspector General on Leon Panetta's blabbing about the Osama bin Laden raid that was leaked to POGO.
It describes CIA's apparent helplessness from protecting CIA Headquarters from being breached by outsiders,…
Sharif Officially Elected as Prime Minister, Calls For End to Drone Strikes
Although the formal casting of ballots by the National Assembly was delayed for an hour by the presence of three times as many observers as the capacity of the parliament house, Nawaz Sharif breezed to an easy victory today and was elected…
Leon Panetta: Sheep Dipping Secrets
POGO has a story that adds a new twist to an old story.
The old story is Leon Panetta, leaking classified info, in this case, leaking info on the Osama bin Laden raid to a Zero Dark Thirty executive.
In June 2011, when he was director of…
Michael Hayden, Troll Extraordinaire
"Intelligence agencies often act on the edges of executive prerogative and move forward based on a narrow base of lawfulness and limited congressional notification," says Michael Hayden, the guy who oversaw Bush's illegal wiretap for 2.5 years…
Putin's Congressional Puppets
I have to give this to Michele Bachmann. Unlike most of the members of Congress she traveled to Russia with last week, she has not (at least not apparently) been suckered by Vladimir Putin to play his patsy.
Jim already described Dana Rohrabacher's…
Journalists: Eric Holder Believes You're Probably a Criminal But Won't Charge You
As I noted the other day, Eric Holder seems intent on calling journalists whom he believes are co-conspirators in a criminal leak something else.
Which is why I think this detail, from Politico’s leaks-about-a-meeting-about-leaks story,…
The Latest Ploy to Avoid Federal and Presidential Records Act, FOIA
As if the AP and the Administration weren't already enjoying a contentious relationship, today it details the Administration's use of second, secret emails.
Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the secretary for…
Afghanistan Arrests Colonel For Turning Over Prisoners to Zakaria Kandahari
Please tell me which country follows the rule of law and which one is in the process of rebuilding its political and legal systems after war has left its government lawless and dominated by corruption.
I just can't stay away from the continually…