Mohammed bin Nayef's Remarkable Prescience about Obama's Second Term Cabinet
Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu just resigned.
Which got me thinking about my latest obsession: the Technical Cooperation Agreement beween Saudi Arabia and the US, under which (as far as the agreement admits publicly) the US helps…
DOJ: We Can't Tell Which Secret Application of Section 215 Prevents Us From Telling You How You're Surveilled
As Mike Scarcella reported yesterday, the government has moved for summary judgment in an Electronic Privacy Information Center FOIA suit for details on the government's investigation into WikiLeaks. EPIC first FOIAed these materials in June…
Hagel Hearing: Twilight of the Neocons Makes Senate Armed Services Committee Dysfunctional
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiXTyDnA2TI#![/youtube]
The disgusting bullying of former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) during his hearing yesterday on his nomination to be Secretary of Defense is demonstrated clearly in the short clip…
Did Zero Dark Thirty Accidentally Tell the Most Dangerous Truth?
Update: Let me make this clear: I am not commenting on the content of the movie. I am commenting on the content of John Rizzo's reactions to the movie, particularly his depiction about when and how and by whom "the box" was approved, which --…
Mohamed Osman Mohamud Found Guilty
Apparently, the FBI can still take a troubled young man, track him for up to two years, seduce him into terrorism, and win a terrorism conviction.
The jury handed up its verdict after less than seven hours of deliberations in a trial that began…
The Kangaroo Court Unplugged
Carol Rosenberg, Jason Leopold, Charlie Savage, and Ryan Reilly all have updates on the Gitmo Military Commission's efforts to pretend they control the proceedings of the court room, and not someone like John Brennan or the CIA.
All of them…
Another Republican Lawyer Warns Obama about Legal Problems
I know it's probably easy for Obama supporters, if not members of the Administration, to dismiss the warnings of lawyers who fought within the Bush Administration to cloak our counterterrorism policy in legal sanction as trolling.
But you'd…
Levin's Fifth Question: Chain of Command under Title 10
I was planning on spending the morning using Twitter to juxtapose the Chuck Hagel confirmation hearing, the ongoing decline of the 9/11 trial into Kangaroo status, and the opening of the Rios Montt trial in Guatemala. Sadly, Twitter failed.
So…
The Diplomat to Jahn, Dahl IAEA Leak Pipeline on Iran Opens Once Again
I have often described the process of "diplomats" close to the IAEA's Vienna headquarters gaining access to documents and other confidential information relating to Iran's nuclear activities and then selectively leaking the most damaging aspects…
Maybe John Brennan Didn't Want to Talk about CIA Lying to Congress?
Mark Udall just released word that John Brennan failed to connect the dots do his homework before meeting with Udall about his CIA confirmation.
Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he is "deeply disappointed"…
Slam Dunk's Deputy: John Brennan's "an Honest Guy"
This Mark Hosenball story is getting a lot of attention. It repeats earlier assertions--from Dianne Feinstein among others--about whether or not John Brennan opposed torture or not, with anonymous sources (one, a senior Administration official,…
Bill Schuette Labels Random Serial Shooting Terrorism
For a period last fall, someone--allegedly 43-year old stay at home dad named Raulie Casteel--repeatedly shot at motorists driving along one of MI's main east-west freeways. Altogether, there were 24 shooting incidents, with one man injured…
Acknowledgement of Failure in Afghanistan Spreads Throughout US Government
After staying out of the headlines while the military carried out its panty-sniffing investigation of his emails, General John Allen is back in today's Washington Post in the first of what will be many valedictories of his time as commander…
Lanny Breuer Now Blames 94 US Attorneys for Immunizing Banksters
Remarkably, on the same day two Senators (one of them named in the article) reminded Eric Holder that Lanny Breuer said this,
I think I and prosecutors around the country, being responsible, should speak to regulators, should speak to experts,…
Imagine How Future Parents Will Respond to Concerns about Their Son's Radicalization
While it's hard to tell from the reporting, it appears that the government tried to claim last week that it wasn't Mohamed Osman Mohamud's First Amendment protected but hateful speech that triggered their investigation and entrapment of the…
Sherrod Brown and Chuck Grassley Watch Frontline, Too
Citing this line from Lanny Breuer in last week's Frontline program,
I think I and prosecutors around the country, being responsible, should speak to regulators, should speak to experts, because if I bring a case against institution, and as…
John Brennan's Kangaroo Court
Congratulations to Barack Obama, whose invisible hand censor has made Gitmo even more of a kangaroo court than it was under Bush.
As Jim laid out, over the last two days of Gitmo hearings, we saw (thanks to livetweeters like Carol Rosenberg,…
Will Guantanamo Judge Reveal Identity of Monday's "Big Brother" Censor?
Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald and Peter Finn in the Washington Post recount a very strange sequence of events during yesterday's proceedings in the Guantanamo military commission that is attempting once again to "try" the group of five…
Why Is State Waiting to Release the Saudi Technical Cooperation Agreement?
As I noted in this post, one explicit purpose of Saudi Minister of Interior Mohammed bin Nayef's trip to the US from January 14 to 16 was to renew the Technical Cooperation Agreement first signed on May 16, 2008 by Condi Rice and MbN's father…
Months after Intelligence Community IG Accepts Budget Cut, He Pleads Resource Limitations on Oversight Request
Back when Ron Wyden was trying to get the Intelligence Committee and NSA Inspectors General to reveal how many Americans had been surveilled under the FISA Amendments Act, they stalled long enough to prevent Wyden from requiring such a review…
