Entries by emptywheel

Colombia Refuses to “Look Forward”

In Colombia, apparently, you get arrested when you oversee illegal domestic wiretapping. Colombia’s Prosecutor General ordered the arrest of Jorge Noguera, a former director of Colombia’s state intelligence agency DAS, for the his alleged involvement in the illegal spying on government opponents. Noguera, who was director of the DAS between 2002 and 2006, is suspected […]

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Redefining Security

Joe Biden finally endorsed yesterday what the imperialists in DC have long been backing: an open-ended presence in Afghanistan. “It is not our intention to govern or to nation-build,” Mr Biden said. “As President Karzai often points out, this is the responsibility of the Afghan people, and they are fully capable of it.” But he […]

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Could the UndieBomber Have Destroyed the Plane?

There are two new minor details in the UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s, case. He was scheduled for a pre-trial hearing tomorrow, but his lawyer, Anthony Chambers, just submitted a waiver of Abdulmutallab’s presence at the hearing, and the judge rescheduled the hearing for two weeks later. This is significant only insofar as it’ll prevent him […]

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Why Did Bradley Manning Allegedly Leak WikiLeaks Two Things before He Verified Assange’s Identity?

To return to the work I was doing yesterday, there’s something odd about the timeline of Bradley Manning’s alleged leaks to WikiLeaks: he appears to give WikiLeaks at least two things–the Rejkjavik 13 cable and the Collateral Murder video–before he verified Julian Assange’s identity. In the chat logs, Manning explains he first started working with […]

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State Department Secrecy: What a Bunch of Crap!

Since the issue of State Department secrecy — breached by the WikiLeaks cable dump — has been a topic of discussion, I thought it worthwhile to point to this National Security Archive post describing a particular FOIA appeal. Eleven years ago, in those halcyon pre-9/11 days, Frank Pallone sponsored a resolution declaring Pakistan a state […]

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Is the Government Alleging Bradley Manning Loaded Encryption Software onto DOD Computers?

I’ve been revisiting the timeline revealed in Bradley Manning’s charging document. Here’s a short version of what that shows: November 1, 2009: Earliest date for which government subpoenas Wikileaks related twitter accounts November 19, 2009: Earliest possibly date for all charges except accessing the Rejkjavik 13 cable (which was dated January 13) November 24, 2009: […]

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“Our” Terrorist Goes on Trial

Today, Luis Posada Carrilles goes on trial. Posada is, of course, the Cuban-American who was a CIA asset for at least the Bay of Pigs era and almost certainly for years after. Among other things, he orchestrated the bombing of a Cuban plane in 1976, and more recently involved in the bombing of Cuban tourist […]

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Our (We) Working Class Pundits

Digby has a righteous rant about a discussion between Wolf Blitzer, Mary Matalin, and Paul Begala in which they revealed their utter divorce from the reality lived by most Americans as they discuss whether the $172,000 Robert Gibbs made as Press Secretary was a sacrifice. Here’s a taste: According to these guys [Robert Gibbs’] job […]

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Wildcard Weekend Trash

bmaz was going to put Trash together, but got distracted by the tragic craziness happening in his state. So until he does something more substantive, here’s what I’ve picked in this weekend’s games: NO-SEA: I’m gonna be stupid and pick the home team, the worst playoff team ever. Just a feeling I’m already beginning to […]

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What the Government Might Be After with Its Twitter Subpoena

After a member of Iceland’s Parliament and former Wikileaks volunteer, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, revealed on Twitter yesterday that Twitter has been subpoenaed for details on her Twitter account, Glenn got a copy of the subpoena. The subpoena was first submitted to Twitter on December 14, and asked for account information for six people as well as […]

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