Entries by emptywheel

Pentagon “Closing” CIFA

The Pentagon is “closing” (which probably means “burying under a different name”) CIFA, it’s contractor-friendly domestic spying program. In a remarkable coincidence, it just had to turn over to ACLU a bunch of documents showing that CIFA had abused the National Security Letters program. What a remarkable coincidence.

Jane Harman v. Jello Jay: Compare and Contrast

Jane Harman explained her response to the warrantless wiretap program over at TPMCafe. I’m interested in it not so much to determine whether Eric Licthblau or she is right about whether she “switched her view” on the program (I think Harman is actually too sensitive to the charge; as she tells it, she did drastically change her view, but not because of the publicity of Lichtblau’s reporting, but because of the

The Thaw that Started Five Months Ago

The press is agog that Hillary and Richard Mellon Scaife made nice last week. But that peace-making follows five months after an earlier one between Bill Clinton and Richard Mellon Scaife. I’m not sure what that means, as far as Scaife’s motives (I presume the Clintons would just like his support, or, barring that, would like him to avoid funding a bunch of wingnut bloodhounds to sniff their panties and boxers). But it does suggest the thaw is much more than a one-off thing.

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