Tommy Vietor and I Exchange On the Record Non-Dickish Comments
Back in the days, just weeks ago, when Tommy Vietor was the National Security Council Spokesperson, I tended to attribute the dickish comments made by Senior Administration Officials in articles in which he was also quoted to him.
When…
Stephen Heymann Involved in Swartz Investigation before Arrest
Ryan Reilly reports that Aaron Swartz's last attorney, Elliot Peters, filed an Office of Professional Responsibility complaint against Swartz prosecutor Stephen Heymann in January. The complaint covers three things:
Delaying the disclosure…
WikiLeaks Will Be Nothing Compared to FinCENLeaks
According to Reuters, the Treasury Department is planning on expanding access to FinCEN reports -- which include Suspicious Activity Reports from over 25,000 financial institutions -- to the intelligence community, including CIA.
The Treasury…
Leahy and Grassley Promise to Stop Pussy-Footing on OLC Memo Transparency
As Ryan Reilly demonstrated a few weeks ago, the Office of Legal Counsel refuses to release a list of all the memos they've written in the last four years.
In response to [a FOIA list for all OLC opinions written during the Obama Administration]…
The Ideological Diversity Behind Demands for Targeted Killing or Drone Oversight and Transparency
When Barbara Lee and 7 other progressives sent a letter to the President asking for more information on both the legal authorization for targeted killings and the "architecture" of the program generally, a number of people on the left took it…
Warrick Parrots US Documentation of Iran-al Qaeda Rift, Ignores Larger Iran-Saudi Arabia Context
Joby Warrick takes to the pages of the Washington Post again today in his primary function of regurgitating whatever points the US government wishes to make. In today's installment, Warrick is repeating US statements on how Iran's expulsion…
The Global War on Wayward Knuckleheads
103 minutes into todays Global Threat Hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee, National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen got asked his first question, about what his agency is seeing as rising threats. As part of the discussion…
Mark Udall: Leakers on Senate Intelligence Torture Report Got Facts Wrong
Last week, I noted that leaks to the WSJ about CIA's response to the Senate Intelligence Torture report seemed designed to box John Brennan in, making it very difficult for him to authorize declassification of the report.
Sure enough, the very…
James Clapper Sneaks Climate Change -- But Not Bankster Speculation -- Into His Threat Assessment
You wouldn't know it by looking at his written statement, which lists Cyber, Terrorism and Transnational Crime, Counterintelligence, and Counterspace before it lists Natural Resource Insecurity, but water and food insecurity was actually the…
No SOFA? Then Transition Death Squad Control from Special Operations to CIA
A little over a year ago, Greg Miller outlined what he said would be the CIA's roles in Iraq and Afghanistan in the near future. It appears now that he was only half right:
The CIA is expected to maintain a large clandestine presence in Iraq…
The Bipartisan Effort to Keep Robert Mueller on at FBI Starts
I'm watching the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing on Global Threats.
And I'm a bit alarmed that both Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss used their statements to suggest Robert Mueller should stay beyond the end of his already-extended…
A Partial Defense of Bill Keller's Column on Manning
Late Sunday, former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller put up an op-ed column at the NYT website on the state of Bradley Manning's case, his perception of Manning's motivations and what may have been different had Manning actually gotten…
That Makes Over 21 Requests by 31 Members of Congress, Mr. President
Adding the letter that Barbara Lee, as well as a list of all Members of Congress who have, at one time or another, requested the targeted killing memos.
February 2011: Ron Wyden asks the Director of National Intelligence for the legal analysis…
The Author of the White Paper, Stuart Delery, Argues Selective, Misleading Disclosures Should Not Be Checked by FOIA
As I noted in this post, Daniel Klaidman has identified the author of the targeted killing white paper as Stuart Delery.
At the time he wrote the white paper, Delery was Senior Counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder. Last March, he became…
Somehow DOD Kept Missing Anwar al-Awlaki
I was going to leave well enough alone with this NYT article on Anwar al-Awlaki, having criticized both its legal editorializing and its selective presentation of evidence against Awlaki. But since I suspect it is intended to prepare the ground…
Iran, Pakistan Break Ground on Gas Pipeline, Capping Horrible Week for US in Region
On Saturday, the ceremony to transfer final control of the Detention Facility in Parwan to Afghanistan was canceled at the last minute as the US once again tried to maintain veto power over Afghan decisions on which prisoners to free. This…
18 USC 1119 Foreign Murder and Obama Targeted Kill White Paper
Back in February, when the "White Paper" was first "leaked", Marcy wrote a fantastic article entitled Article II or AUMF? “A High Level Official” (AKA John Brennan) Says CIA Can Murder You on the issues of Article II authority versus AUMF…
Is Stuart Delery the One Who Flubbed DOJ's FOIA Response?
In a piece describing how badly the Administration has botched its treatment of the Anwar al-Awlaki killing, Daniel Klaidman elaborates on his past reporting on why the Administration responded the way it did. Of particular note, he reveals…
Anwar al-Awlaki Is the New Aluminum Tube
Mark Mazzetti, Charlie Savage, and Scott Shane team up to provide the government's best case -- and at times, an irresponsibly credulous one -- for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and the collateral deaths of Samir Khan and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Yet…
The NYT Grants David Barron and Marty Lederman a Mulligan on 18 USC 1119
I'll have far more to say about this irresponsibly credulous accounting of the background to the Anwar al-Awlaki killing from the NYT tomorrow. But for the moment I wanted to point to an interesting detail about the genesis of the June-July…
