It appears the White House may have gotten itself caught in the kabuki it played with the press on the Russian spies now swapped for some spies in Russian custody. But the timing of the kabuki suggests the target of the spy sting may not have been the illegals, but two Russian officials working under official cover.

Here’s the relevant chronology:

January 20: Surveillance against Anna Chapman starts

February: NSC, possibly including Obama, briefed on evidence against Russian spies

February 9: On orders from Russia Center, Richard Murphy purchases laptop to bring to Moscow

February 21: Murphy departs for Russia

March 3: Murphy returns from Russia, having swapped laptop for an identical one

March 7: Murphy hands off laptop to Michael Zottoli

April 7: Russian Official #1 aborts laptop chat with Chapman because he identifies surveillance

June 5: Mikhail Semenko’s laptop chats with Russian Official #2 surveilled

June 9: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled

June 11: Obama briefed about Russian spy swap

June 16: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled

June 18: Obama chairs NSC meeting on Russian spy swap

June 24: Obama and Dmitri Medvedev go to Ray’s Hell Burger

June 25: Complaint against 9 spies dated

June 26: FBI collects evidence against last two remaining spies; FBI agent says to Chapman, “I know you are going back to Moscow in two weeks.”

June 27: Spies arrested

June 29: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complains about timing of arrest; Obama reported to be miffed about timing of arrest; DOJ attributes timing to pending travel–presumably Chapman’s

Week of July 5: White House almost cancels spy swap because names of proposed spies in Russia leaked

July 10: Two weeks after FBI Agent said Chapman would be traveling to Russian in two weeks

Now, as I noted when the DOJ first pushed the excuse of–presumably–Chapman’s pending travel for the timing of the arrest, the excuse doesn’t seem to make any sense given that FBI had knowingly allowed Murphy to travel to Russia back in February. The excuse is even weirder now given that we know NSC was briefed about the investigation at that time.

Add in the fact that Obama knew of the prisoner swap when he met with Medvedev, and the fact that the complaints against most of the spies were written the day after that meeting, it sure looks like the timing had more to do with Medvedev than anything else.

Now, on Thursday, Rahm pushed back against any indication that Obama might have been involved in the decision to roll up the spies. First, Rahm claims that the decision to arrest the spies now was entirely that of law enforcement and intelligence.

JIM LEHRER: Was the decision on this spy swap the president’s?

RAHM EMANUEL: Well, first of all, what the president does appreciate is the work of the law enforcement community, as well as the intelligence community for their hard work in this case.

It wasn’t the decision of the president. It was the decision, obviously, of the law enforcement community and the intelligence community. But he does appreciate what they did and making America safer and the hard work that they did to get this done.

JIM LEHRER: Did the president — let me rephrase it then. Did the president sign off on this spy swap?

RAHM EMANUEL: The president was briefed about it.

Then when Lehrer presses (sort of), Rahm goes all spooky on his.

JIM LEHRER: Was the president aware that this spy ring existed before it was revealed publicly and these guys — these people were arrested?

RAHM EMANUEL: I think, Jim, it’s important — there will be a lot of postscripts on this.

JIM LEHRER: OK.

RAHM EMANUEL: And I think that what you should take away from this, obviously, the president was informed appropriately, known what was going on.

And they made the decision to go forward on this action. There will be a lot of writing about it, but I think, at this time, let me just say the cautionary note, the less said, the better.

JIM LEHRER: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

RAHM EMANUEL: Or how about, as I always like to say, less is more?

JIM LEHRER: Less is more.

RAHM EMANUEL: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, sir, whatever you say.

Ix-Nay on the Resident-Pay’s involvement in spy Wap-Say!

But the news of the June meetings was revealed in a background briefing to reporters yesterday–which may suggest Rahm was hushing talk of Obama’s involvement until the swap had been completed.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of timing, though, has to do with the surveillance on Russian Official #1. Two times, two days after he conducted a laptop chat with Chapman, the NSC met and discussed a spy swap.

June 5: Mikhail Semenko’s laptop chats with Russian Official #2 surveilled

June 9: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled

June 11: Obama briefed about Russian spy swap

June 16: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled

June 18: Obama chairs NSC meeting on Russian spy swap

So the meetings at which NSC first got briefed and then discussed in detail a spy swap occurred just after FBI caught Russians working spies in the US.

And while we’re at it, presumably we’ve not just expelled these 10 minor spies, right? We’ve expelled Russian Official #1 and Russian Official #2, right? The ones who were handling Chapman and Semenko directly (Russian Official #2, official the “second secretary” of the Russian UN Mission, has been involved in handling some of the illegals as far back as 2004)?

That is, was it Russian Official #1–who would be working under official cover and therefore be immune from arrest but would nevertheless be identified as a Russian spy through this investigation–that was the target of this kabuki, and not the illegals?

The catfood commission (aka Obama’s deficit commission) is dead.

Well, it must be, right?

After all, that great figure of Beltway-corporatism-posing-as-moderation, Bob Corker, has decreed that we shall pass no legislation during a post election lame duck session.

Corker called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), the Democratic leaders in their respective chambers, to make a similar pledge.

“I think for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to say the same thing — that they’re not going to try to use the lame-duck session as a place to do things that otherwise would not pass,” he said. “That type of thinking, that concern about … cap-and-trade and other types of policies just feeds into this whole unpredictability issue, the issue of what’s going to happen in Washington. We need to move away from that uncertainty.”

And that’s precisely when the Obama Administration plans to implement the catfood commission’s cuts on social security.

White House officials are working closely with the president’s new fiscal commission in the hope that the bipartisan commissions final report will provide Republican cover for the deal. The commission, due to report by December 1, needs fourteen out of its eighteen members to make an official recommendation. One hope of the deficit hawks is that a super-majority report could steamroll a lame duck session of Congress to act quickly, pending a more Republican Congress in January.

If someone like Corker won’t play along with the plan to cut social security, then it’s unlikely to get the mix of Republicans and deficit hawk Democrats they’ll need to pass the Commission recommendations.

So long as Corker keeps his word, then, about opposition to moving big legislation during the lame duck session, then social security should be safe.

I seem to be one of the biggest skeptics about the torture inquiry David Cameron announced this week. Among other things, I worry that Cameron intends to pressure plaintiffs who allege they were tortured into a mediated settlement to prevent more details of their torture from coming out. So I wanted to look at Cameron’s full statement about the inquiry for clarification.

Unfortunately, Cameron doesn’t offer any clarity on that key point: while he makes clear that the inquiry won’t start until “we’ve made enough progress,” he doesn’t specify either what “enough progress” is, or the precise role the government will play in mediating suits.

We can’t start that inquiry while criminal investigations are ongoing. And it’s not feasible to start it when there so many civil law suits that remain unresolved.So we want to do everything we can to help that process along. That’s why we are committed to mediation with those who have brought civil claims about their detention in Guantanamo. And wherever appropriate, we will offer compensation.

As soon as we’ve made enough progress, an independent Inquiry will be held.

His office’s summary is barely more specific.

The Government is committed to a mediation process with those who have brought civil claims about their detention in Guantanamo;

Though my suspicion does seem to be correct on one point: the call for mediation reflects a preference to solve these legal questions outside of the courts and therefore out of public view.

As for one of the other key questions about the inquiry, Cameron appears to say the inquiry will examine not just whether Brits ordered up torture, but also to what extent the government knowingly accepted information collected using torture–the question that Craig Murray has pushed.

It will look at whether Britain was implicated in the improper treatment of detainees held by other countries that may have occurred in the aftermath of 9/11. And if we were, what went wrong, and what do we need to do to learn the lessons.

So the inquiry will need to look at our security departments and intelligence services.

Should we have realised sooner that what foreign agencies were doing may have been unacceptable and that we shouldn’t be associated with it? Did we allow our own high standards to slip – either systemically or individually? Did we give clear enough guidance to officers in the field?

Was information flowing quickly enough from officers on the ground to the intelligence services and then on to Ministers – so we knew what was going on and what our response should be?

That said, Cameron also seems to know the answer to the last question–what the UK’s response to learning of torture should be. The answer? Whatever the Ministers say it should be.

That’s why today, we are also publishing the guidance issued to intelligence and military personnel on how to deal with detainees held by other countries. The previous Government had promised to do this, but didn’t. We are.

It makes clear that:

One – our Services must never take any action where they know or believe that torture will occur.

Two – if they become aware of abuses by other countries they should report it to the UK government so we can try to stop it.

And three – in cases where our Services believe that there may be information crucial to saving lives but where there may also be a serious risk of mistreatment, it is for Ministers – rightly – to determine the action, if any, our Services should take. [my emphasis]

That is, even while announcing this torture inquiry, Cameron is saying that that the response that the Foreign Office gave Craig Murray when he raised torture concerns–that he didn’t understand the moral trade-offs that Ministers make…

I gave Craig a copy of your revised draft telegram (attached) and took him through this. I said that he was right to raise with you and Ministers (Jack Straw) his concerns about important legal and moral issues. We took these very seriously and gave a great deal of thought to such issues ourselves. There were difficult ethical and moral issues involved and at times difficult judgements had to be made weighing one clutch of “moral issues” against another. It was not always easy for people in post (embassies) to see and appreciate the broader picture, eg piecing together intelligence material from different sources in the global fight against terrorism. But that did not mean we took their concerns any less lightly.

…is precisely the answer he wants, too. If the Prime Minister or Foreign Minister say it’s okay to look the other way while close friends torture British citizens, then it’s okay, I guess.

Particularly with that in mind, I was particularly interested in this dogwhistle Cameron included twice in his speech.

In the past, it was the intelligence services that cracked the secrets of Enigma and helped deliver victory in World War II. They recruited Russian spies like Gordievsky and Mitrokin and kept Britain safe in the Cold War. And they helped disrupt the Provisional IRA in the 1980s and 1990s.

[snip]

Mr. Speaker, as we meet in the relative safety of this House today, let us not forget this. As I speak, al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen are meeting in secret to plot attacks against us terrorists are preparing to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan the Real IRA are planning their next strike against security forces in Northern Ireland and rogue regimes are still trying to acquire nuclear weapons. [my emphasis]

Yes, I realize the Real IRA are an ongoing threat. Yes, I realize Cameron may have fear-mongered about Northern Ireland because of very crass domestic political considerations. But the mention of the IRA injects a real circularity into the process by which British Ministers decide its morally okay to use information the US got using torture.

As I’ve noted before, our torture architects approved two techniques they did not specifically source to SERE: the use of insects and wall standing. Wall standing was a technique the British used in Northern Ireland–a technique that was central to one of the court cases John Yoo used to authorize torture. Granted, the UK publicly swore off wall standing before the intelligence work from the 1980s and 90s that Cameron celebrates here. Nevertheless, with the apparent ongoing stance that British Ministers will decide if they get to use information we elicited through torture–including wall standing, I find it rather notable that Cameron invoked not just al Qaeda, but also the IRA as the enduring threat that justifies such a stance.

There are two pieces of good news in this McClatchy story reporting that Carol Rosenberg, one of four journalists banned from Gitmo because she published the previously reported name of Omar Khadr’s first interrogator, Joshua Claus, will be allowed to return next week rather than after August 5, as they had previously decided. The first piece of good news is that Rosenberg, easily the best and most experienced Gitmo reporter out there, will be back on the job.

The Pentagon on Thursday reversed its ban on a Miami Herald reporter from covering military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and said the reporter can return to the naval base there to cover a hearing next week.

The other piece of good news is that McClatchy appears uncowed by DOD’s efforts to intimidate. The story reports precisely the piece of news for which Rosenberg got banned in the first place!

Before a May hearing, Rosenberg and the three Canadian journalists published the name of a witness that the government had said should be identified as “Interrogator No. 1.” The name of the witness, former Army Sgt. Joshua Claus, had been known for years after he voluntarily gave a newspaper interview to one of the banned Canadian reporters denying that he had abused Khadr.

Claus also had been convicted by a U.S. court martial of abusing detainees in Afghanistan and sentenced to five months in prison. [my emphasis]

So much for DOD’s efforts to prevent readers from learning that the same guy that threatened Khadr with rape was convicted in association with Dilawar’s death.

Still, I can’t help but wonder whether DOD’s calculations about the relative benefits of press coverage have changed? As I pointed out, the earlier possible reinstatement date–August 5–was conveniently timed to occur after Khadr’s suppression hearing. Thus, the timing ensured that the best reporters would not be covering discussions of whether Khadr’s confession had anything to do with with abuse at the hands of his interrogators.

But on Wednesday, Khadr fired his American lawyers (again).

Omar Khadr, the Canadian accused of terrorism, has fired his American lawyers – throwing his war-crimes trial, scheduled for next month, into disarray and creating a political conundrum for both the Canadian and U.S. governments.

“We’re absolutely devastated and worried beyond words what will now happen to our former client,” said Barry Coburn, the now-dismissed attorney regarded as one of America’s premier defence lawyers.

Mr. Khadr’s bombshell decision could leave the Obama administration putting a child soldier on trial in Guantanamo without any defence lawyers in a war-crimes case that has attracted international attention, not least because U.S. President Barack Obama failed to shut down Guantanamo as promised within his first year in office.

This likely changes the calculations regarding the damage that full transparency will have on the perceived legitimacy of the Gitmo trials. So why not let the journalists who know Khadr’s history of firing lawyers and refusing to cooperate to cover the show?

Obviously, I don’t know if that’s a consideration. I’m happy Rosenberg’s on her way back, in any case.

More than one percent of all Americans–3.3 million people–will have lost their unemployment benefits by month’s end if Congress doesn’t pass an extension of long-term benefits.

The Labor Department estimates that about 1.7 million have lost benefits as of last week, after extended unemployment insurance expired in late May. Those numbers could reach 3.3 million by the end of the month if Congress doesn’t pass an extension after it returns from recess next week.

[snip]

A bigger concern is the number of people who may lose benefits this month. The tally of people continuing to claim benefits plunged to 4.4 million, the department said. But that doesn’t include an additional 4.6 million people who received extended benefits paid for by the federal government in the week that ended June 19. That’s the latest period for which data are available.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, said many people losing extended unemployment may seek aid through Social Security, food stamps and welfare.

Other economists noted that the end of extended benefits could cut Americans’ incomes by as much as $41 billion, potentially reducing consumer spending in the coming months.

Think about that for a minute. More than one out of every hundred people has been unemployed for so long the Republicans and deficit hawks in Congress think they’re just slacking and should be cut off. Of course, those one out of every hundred people aren’t evenly distributed throughout the population: the less educated, people of color, and people over 50 are suffering disproportionately during this recession.

Nevertheless, they represent a huge chunk of our neighbors, our customers, our family members. And our country seems to have decided they and those who depend on them are expendable.

We’ve discussed the recent SCOTUS decision that ruled the government can charge people engaging in First Amendment activities with material support for terrorism. Even groups trying to teach terrorist organizations to engage peacefully might be judged to be materially supporting terrorists.

And while I don’t think that’s precisely what is going on here, the logical next step after treating counseling on conflict negotiations as material support for terrorism is to treat reporting on conflict negotiations as material support for terrorism.

Hollman Morris Rincón, an independent journalist in Colombia, won a Nieman Fellowship this spring to study conflict negotiation strategies, international criminal court procedures, and the Rome Statute. I’ll just quote the AP:

BOGOTA, Colombia — The U.S. government has denied a visa to a prominent Colombian journalist who specializes in conflict and human rights reporting to attend a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University.

Hollman Morris, who produces an independent TV news program called “Contravia,” has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America.

The curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, which has offered the mid-career fellowships since 1938, said Thursday that a consular official at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota told him Morris was ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the “Terrorist activities” section of the USA Patriot Act.

Of course, given that the Attorney General has, himself, helped a bunch of white Republicans get away with their material support for Colombia’s death squads, you might think our country simply thinks some terrorists are more equal than others. But keep in mind: both Colombia’s left wing and right wing terrorists are on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list.

You know what happens when your elected representatives fight for your privacy? Counterterrorism investigators actually grant you some!

At issue is SWIFT–the database that tracked most international money transfers which the Bush Administration mined in its counterterrorism fight. When SWIFT’s server moved to the EU, the US tried to demand the same access as it had had previously. But the EU Parliament–strengthened by the Lisbon treaty–rejected the terms the US initially demanded. And as negotiations went on, the EU insisted on safeguards for its citizens.

Well, the EU finally signed an agreement with the US, and here are the protections the EU won for its citizens (h/t LES):

Elimination of bulk data transfers

The key to the deal for Parliament was the eventual elimination of “bulk” data transfers. In exchange for backing the agreement, MEPs won an undertaking that work on setting up an EU equivalent to the US “Terrorism Finance Tracking Program” (TFTP), which would preclude the need for bulk data transfers, will start within 12 months. Once Europe has a system enabling it to analyse data on its own territory, it need only transfer data relating to a specific terrorist track.

A new role for Europol

Another innovation of the new agreement is that it empowers “Europol”, the EU’s criminal intelligence agency based in The Hague, to block data transfers to the USA. Europol will have to check that every data transfer request by the US Treasury is justified by counter-terrorism needs and that the volume of data requested is as small as possible.

An EU representative in the USA to monitor data processing

The new version of the agreement also provides that the use of data by the Americans, which must be exclusively for counter-terrorism purposes, is to be supervised by a group of independent inspectors, including someone appointed by the European Commission and the European Parliament. This person will be entitled to request justification before any data is used and to block any searches he or she considers illegitimate.

The agreement prohibits the US TFTP from engaging in “data mining” or any other type of algorithmic or automated profiling or computer filtering. Any searches of SWIFT data will have to be based on existing information showing that the object of the search relates to terrorism or terrorism finance.

Right of redress for European citizens

In February 2010, MEPs demanded that under any new version of the agreement European citizens should be guaranteed the same judicial redress procedures as those applied to data held on the territory of the European Union. The new proposal says this time that US law must provide a right of redress, regardless of nationality.

Data retention and deletion

Extracted data may be retained only for the duration of the specific procedures and investigations for which they are used. Each year, the US Treasury must take stock of any data that have not been extracted, and hence individualised, which will no longer be of use for counter-terrorism purposes, and delete them.  Such data must be deleted after five years at the latest.

There will be two checks–at the Europol level and via an EU representative working in the US–to make sure the data is being accessed appropriately. Within a year, Europe will assume the role the US is now playing. And the agreement at least grants redress in court and limits on data retention (though like those in Europe who opposed this deal, I’m skeptical of the efficacy of these requirements).

That’s more than we American citizens get under some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act.

Then again, some of our representatives tried to win greater protections for US persons last year. But short of doing what the EU did–withdrawing US access to the data–Congress was unable to win concessions from the Administration.

One of the key takeaways of a study a number of people are buzzing about–showing that a majority of the country has generally opposed torture–is that six months after Obama became president, that changed.

Using a new survey dataset on torture collected during the 2008 election, combined with a comprehensive archive of public opinion on torture, we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency. This stance was true even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Even soldiers serving in Iraq opposed the use of torture in these conditions. As we show in the following, a public majority in favor of torture did not appear until, interestingly, six months into the Obama administration.

The study itself (which suffers from some unfortunate biases, including its assumption that members of the military should be more supportive of torture) suggests that Dick Cheney’s pro-torture media blitz might explain why torture became more popular once a purportedly anti-torture President took power.

There may be some truth to that. I wouldn’t endorse it unquestioningly without some evidence to support it. But if it is true, it would serve as a lesson about the Obama Administration strategy to avoid fighting for anything it believes in. That is, the study raises the possibility that–by ceding the field to PapaDick’s relentless pro-torture campaign–the Administration served to make its own stated policy less popular.

But as I said, that may not be the right lesson to take away from this.

The study argues that there has been a misperception about public support for torture and blames the chattering class for not being more skeptical of that misperception.

Our survey shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans overestimated the level of national support for torture. But more important, these misperceptions are not evenly distributed across the population. The more strongly an individual supports torture, the larger the gap in his or her perception. Those who believe that torture is “often” justified—a mere 15% of the public—think that more than a third of the public agrees with them. The 30% who say that torture can “sometimes” be justified believe that 62% of Americans do as well, and think that another 8% “often” approve of torture.

Revealingly, those people most opposed to torture—29% of the public—are the most accurate in how they perceive public attitudes on the topic. They overestimate the proportion of the public who “sometimes” approve of torture by 10%, underestimate the proportion of the public who “often” approve of torture by 10%, and perceive the rest of the public with near precision.

In short, these patterns present a classic pattern of false consensus. People who were most in favor of torture assumed that most of the public agreed with them. While we obviously do not have survey data on Washington decision makers, we do know from public statements how leading voices such as former Vice President Dick Cheney felt about the interrogation techniques. These data show that it is not at all surprising that Cheney and other political figures believed that the public stood behind them. What is perhaps more surprising is how poorly journalists, regardless of personal belief regarding their objectivity or bias toward liberalism (Lee 2005), misread public sentiments.

I’d suggest one more possible factor. Couple this graph above–showing the beginning of a decline in opposition to torture in 2006-2007–with the details of the Harvard study showing how newspapers discussed waterboarding. At roughly the same time that torture began to be more accepted, newspapers started to treat waterboarding, at least, with their typical “he said, she said” cowardice.

Before 2007, the NY Times had only scattered articles quoting others. However, beginning in 2007, there is a marked increase in articles quoting others, primarily human rights groups and lawmakers. Human rights representatives predominate during the first half of the year. However, beginning in October, politicians were cited more frequently labeling waterboarding torture. Senator John McCain is the most common source, but other lawmakers also begin to be cited. By 2008, the articles’ references are more general such as “by many,” or “many legal authorities.” Stronger phrases such as “most of the civilized world” also begin to appear.

The LA Times follows a similar pattern. In 2007, this paper mostly quoted human rights groups and Sen. McCain. Beginning in 2008, however, more general references began to be used, such as “by many” and “critics.”

That is, starting around the same time support for torture increased, the press started treating it as one more political debate.

Remember, before 2007, newspapers largely uncritically adopted the Bush Administration’s Orwellian language about enhanced interrogation, without including voices that called waterboarding torture. That said, even while it deployed such propaganda (and the newspapers willingly adopted it), the Administration itself always maintained that it did not torture. But as time has passed, former Bush officials (led by PapaDick and his spawn BabyDick) have gotten closer and closer to shifting the argument to a admission, coupled with a defense, of torture.

Is it possible, then, that by embracing the torture apologists’ relativism, newspapers encouraged individuals to think about torture as a political preference?

This is all obviously speculation on my part. But it seems to me the most important question raised by this study on public opinion about torture is why under a then-popular nominally anti-torture president, torture became popular.

Steven Aftergood reports that DOD signed a directive last week allowing for Government Accountability Office audits of Special Access Programs.

[A] Department of Defense Directive issued last week explicitly allows for GAO access to highly classified special access programs, including intelligence programs, under certain conditions.The newly revised DoD Directive 5205.07 (pdf) on special access programs (SAPs) states that:  “General [sic] Accountability Office (GAO) personnel shall be granted SAP access if:  a. The Director, DoD SAPCO [SAP Central Office], concurs after consultation with the chair and ranking minority member of a defense or intelligence committee [and] b. The GAO nominee has the appropriate security clearance level.”

The issue of GAO oversight is one of the two issues over which Nancy Pelosi is holding up the intelligence reform bill. In theory, GAO oversight would make it harder for the President to sneak through entire programs via appropriations and harder for corrupt members of Congress to do what Duke Cunningham did–put through appropriations that benefit themselves.

But I’m less sanguine than Aftergood that this directive–as welcome as it is–will do the trick.

To a significant extent, considering the dominance of defense intelligence agencies within the intelligence community, one could say that it now has been so recognized.  Only the details remain to be negotiated.

After all, this gives both key members of Congress (the leadership of either an intelligence or defense committee) and the President (because the GAO nominee would require a security clearance–remember that Bush postponed oversight of his illegal wiretap program by denying members of the Office of Professional Responsibility security clearances) veto power over GAO oversight on a program by program basis. Furthermore, it’s not clear that requiring the leadership of “a” committee to approve will do the trick, since many programs have been put through on defense appropriations without revealing them to the intelligence committees.

Finally, this follows a favorite Obama tactic: to negotiate changes Congress wants by implementing them in such a way that the Executive Branch retains the ability to reverse those changes. The whole point of GAO oversight would be to impose a check on the Executive. Whereas, done in bad faith, this could create nothing more than the illusion of a check on the Executive, one that the President might use to try to get Congress to wield on its efforts to impose real oversight.

So while this might bring more transparency and oversight to programs which all parties agree can withstand such oversight, I’m not sure it does much to the address the way in which separation of powers has been manipulated to conduct all sorts of mischief in taxpayers’ names.

As I noted in my earlier post on Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning’s charging document, there’s an apparent discrepancy between the timing Wired gives for Manning’s arrest and what the charging document shows. Wired said that the FBI told Adrian Lamo on May 27 that Manning had been arrested the previous day–that is, May 26.

At their second meeting with Lamo on May 27, FBI agents from the Oakland Field Office told the hacker that Manning had been arrested the day before in Iraq by Army CID investigators.

But the charging documents actually says Manning’s alleged activities continued until “on or about 27 May 2010,” and it says his pretrial detention started on May 29 (though see scribe’s comments on a possible explanation).

And as I pointed out in comments, there’s also a problem with the story Lamo gave Wired as to why he turned in Manning. He claimed he turned in Manning because he had told him he had already leaked 260,000 cables to Wikileaks.

Lamo decided to turn in Manning after the soldier told him that he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables. Lamo contacted the Army, and then met with Army CID investigators and the FBI to pass the agents a copy of the chat logs from his conversations with Manning.

But the charging document only accuses Manning of leaking [more than] 50 cables; it alleges he got information from [more than] 150,000 cables, but did not even load the cables onto his own computer. Now, Wired has repeatedly published a quote from Manning telling Lamo that he had leaked the quarter-million cables.

But the most startling revelation was a claim that he gave Wikileaks a database of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, which Manning said exposed “almost-criminal political back dealings.”

“Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning told Lamo in an online chat session.

But they didn’t include that quote in their publication of what they claimed to be all the chat logs, save those that revealed personal information about Manning or classified information. Note, WaPo published a longer version of the same quote after Wired first published it. It appears that such a quote would have fit in the chat logs on May 22 (Manning says, “Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed”–note the WaPo includes an ellipses here Wired does not that may indicate IM breaks–and in the May 22 log Lamo asks “what kind of scandal”), but for some reason, Wired didn’t include it there. He may well have said it and said it on May 22, but out of context, we don’t know whether Manning was talking about around 50 cables–what he is accused of leaking–or all 260,000, or the [more than] 150,000 that he is accused of having accessed. And we don’t know whether Manning really did claim to have already leaked the cables–the context doesn’t say he did (though Manning’s list of things he leaked in the very last IMs seem to include some State Department cables).

Which is why I find another oddity of the Wired publication of the chat logs so funky.

Look at the chat logs for May 25–according to Wired, the day before Manning was arrested. They start at 2:03:10 AM (you can tell from the May 23 chat logs that the times are for Lamo, presumably in CA) and go through 2:32:53 AM. They start again at 2:26:01 PM, then go through 3:12:16 PM. Then–at least as Wired presents them–they start again at 1:52:30 PM and go in spurts through 4:46:29 PM. That is, though Wired has presented the IM logs for all other days in straight chronological order, they have no done so for May 25. The chronology starts, goes through 3:12:16 PM, then goes back in time and starts again at 1:52:30. The time sequences overlap.

Now even assuming there’s nothing funky about that, if Lamo were in CA, an IM he received at almost 5 PM on May 25 would be 3 AM Iraq time on May 26, very early on the day Lamo says Manning was arrested.

But the only way that would be true is if Wired segmented and rearranged the IM chats for some reason of narrative. I’ve shown what all the overlapping IM logs in question would look like below the fold (the “parts” refer to the order in which they first appear in the Wired post). But the following chunks of IM discussion–combining the section that Wired presents 5th with that it presents 2nd–would be combined as follows (everything from part 2 is underlined):

Part 2 (underlined)/Part 5 continued

(02:26:01 PM) Manning: i dont believe in good guys versus bad guys anymore… i only a plethora of states acting in self interest… with varying ethics and moral standards of course, but self-interest nonetheless

(02:26:18 PM) Manning: s/only/only see/

(02:26:18 PM) Manning: because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge

(02:26:47 PM) Lamo: the tm meant i was being facetious

(02:26:55 PM) Manning: if its out in the open… it should be a public good

(02:26:59 PM) Manning: gotchya

(02:27:04 PM) Manning: *do the

(02:27:23 PM) Manning: rather than some slimy intel collector

(02:27:47 PM) Manning: i mean, we’re better in some respects… we’re much more subtle… use a lot more words and legal techniques to legitimize everything

(02:28:00 PM) Manning: its better than disappearing in the middle of the night

(02:28:19 PM) Manning: but just because something is more subtle, doesn’t make it right

(02:29:04 PM) Manning: i guess im too idealistic

(02:29:18 PM) Manning: im crazy like that

This order is not implausible–everything sort of flows. But there are signs that Part 5 and Part 2 did not happen simultaneously. Manning’s good versus evil comment at 2:26:01 is not entirely out of place, but it’s a big non sequitur from the comment less than 2 minutes earlier. This order would require Manning to have typed two IMs in one second at 2:26:18 which seems unlikely if not impossible for reasons of computer speed and human typing skills. Lamo’s “tm” comment at 2:26:19 appears to refer to a comment Wired didn’t replicate in any case. Furthermore, elsewhere Manning always corrects typos in the IM directly after the one in which he makes an error. But the typo “it should be a public good” at 2:26:55 and the correction “it should do the public good” at 2:27:04 would be split by the interjection “gotchya.” Plus those two comments with the interjection “gotchya” at 2:26:59 are quicker–all three in nine seconds–than almost any other series that Wired published (aside from the two IMs in one second already noted).

In other words, I can’t prove it, but it is likely those 2 chunks of IM were not simultaneous, suggesting those 5 chunks of text did not happen on the same day or their timestamps are wrong. Which in turn suggests they didn’t all come from May 25. And if they didn’t, one likely possibility is that Wired did publish the IM chats in sequence, but simply didn’t label ones from a different day–most likely, either the first series came form May 24 or the second series came from May 26–with that different day.

Now, that introduces two problems into the narrative as captured by CJR. If the IMs starting with what I’ve labeled as part 1 were actually sent May 24, it would mean Lamo was asking whether Manning suspected Army CID of investigating before–apparently–he ever talked to Kevin Poulsen about Manning. That’s not fatal for the story–but it does seem to show Lamo asking probing questions in the service of law enforcement before he first talks to Poulsen about Manning.

The other alternative is even more problematic for their story. If the second series of IMs labeled as May 25 actually came from May 26, it would mean the latest ones–which appear to have reached Lamo in late afternoon on May 26–would have been sent in Iraq in the early hours of May 27, suggesting that the story that Manning was arrested on May 26 was not correct (though that does seem to correlate better with the charging document).

All this may not be a big deal. It may be that the full series of the IMs make sense in full context. It may be that the apparent discrepancy between the Wired report and the charging document are either not discrepancies at all or not very interesting to the story.

But there does appear to be something funky here.

Update: “More than” added to references to numbers of cables per scribe.

---

Part 1

(02:03:10 AM) Manning: amazing how the world works

(02:03:27 AM) Manning: takes 6 degrees of separation to a whole new level

(02:04:12 AM) Lamo: hey, vacaville

(02:04:18 AM) Lamo: er

(02:04:23 AM) Lamo: vacaville

(02:05:12 AM) Manning: its almost bookworthy in itself, how this played

(02:07:41 AM) Manning: event occurs in 2007, i watch video in 2009 with no context, do research, forward information to group of FOI activists, more research occurs, video is released in 2010, those involved come forward to discuss event, i witness those involved coming forward to discuss publicly, even add them as friends on FB… without them knowing who i am

(02:08:37 AM) Manning:they touch my life, i touch their life, they touch my life again… full circle

(02:08:58 AM) Lamo: Life’s funny.

(02:09:24 AM) Lamo: *random* are you concerned aboutCI/CID looking into your Wiki stuff? I was always paranoid.

(02:09:40 AM) Manning: CID has no open investigation

(02:10:28 AM) Manning: State Department will be uber-pissed… but I dont think they’re capable of tracing everything…

(02:10:44 AM) Lamo: what about CI?

(02:10:51 AM) Manning: might be a congressional investigation, and a joint effort to figure out what happened

(02:11:23 AM) Manning: CI probably took note, but it had no effect on operations

(02:11:48 AM) Manning: so, it was publicly damaging, but didn’t increase attacks or rhetoric…

(02:12:10 AM) Lamo: *nod*

(02:12:34 AM) Manning: re: joint effort will be purely political,”fact finding”… “how can we stop this from happening again”

(02:12:46 AM) Manning: regarding State Dept. cables

(02:13:12 AM) Lamo: Would the cables come from State?

(02:13:21 AM) Manning: yes

(02:13:25 AM) Manning: State Department

(02:13:29 AM) Lamo: I was always a commercial intruder.

(02:13:51 AM) Lamo: Why does your job afford you access?

(02:13:59 AM) Lamo: except for the UN.

(02:14:03 AM) Manning: because i have a workstation

(02:14:15 AM) Lamo: and World Bank.

(02:14:17 AM) Manning: *had*

(02:14:36 AM) Lamo: So you have these stored now?

(02:14:54 AM) Manning: i had two computers… one connected to SIPRNET the other to JWICS…

(02:15:07 AM) Manning: no, they’re government laptops

(02:15:18 AM) Manning: they’ve been zerofilled

(02:15:22 AM) Manning: because of the pullout

(02:15:57 AM) Manning: evidence was destroyed… by the system itself

(02:16:10 AM) Lamo: So how would you deploy the cables? If at all.

(02:16:26 AM) Manning: oh no… cables are reports

(02:16:34 AM) Lamo: ah

(02:16:38 AM) Manning: State Department Cable = a Memorandum

(02:16:48 AM) Lamo: embassy cables?

(02:16:54 AM) Manning: yes

(02:17:00 AM) Manning: 260,000 in all

(02:17:10 AM) Manning: i mentioned this previously

(02:17:14 AM) Lamo: yes

(02:17:31 AM) Lamo: stored locally, or retreiveable?

(02:17:35 AM) Manning: brb latrine =P

(02:17:43 AM) Manning: i dont have a copy anymore

(02:17:59 AM) Lamo: *nod*

(02:18:09 AM) Manning: they were stored on a centralized server…

(02:18:34 AM) Lamo: what’s your endgame plan, then?

(02:18:36 AM) Manning: it was vulnerable as fuck

(02:20:57 AM) Manning: well, it was forwarded to WL

(02:21:18 AM) Manning: and god knows what happens now

(02:22:27 AM) Manning: hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms

(02:23:06 AM) Manning: if not… than we’re doomed

(02:23:18 AM) Manning: as a species

(02:24:13 AM) Manning: i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens

(02:24:58 AM) Manning: the reaction to the video gave me immense hope… CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed… Twitter exploded…

(02:25:18 AM) Manning: people who saw, knew there was something wrong

(02:26:10 AM) Manning: Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here

(02:26:36 AM) Manning: [also reason as to why there’s probably no investigation]

(02:28:10 AM) Manning: i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public

(02:28:10 AM) Lamo : I’m not here right now

(02:28:50 AM) Manning: if i knew then, what i knew now… kind of thing…

(02:29:31 AM) Manning: or maybe im just young, naive, and stupid…

(02:30:09 AM) Lamo: which do you think it is?

(02:30:29 AM) Manning: im hoping for the former

(02:30:53 AM) Manning: it cant be the latter

(02:31:06 AM) Manning: because if it is… were fucking screwed

(02:31:12 AM) Manning: (as a society)

(02:31:49 AM) Manning: and i dont want to believe that we’re screwed

(02:32:53 AM) Manning: food time… ttys

Part 4

(01:52:30 PM) Manning: funny thing is… we transffered so much data on unmarked CDs…

(01:52:42 PM) Manning: everyone did… videos… movies… music

(01:53:05 PM) Manning: all out in the open

(01:53:53 PM) Manning: bringing CDs too and from the networks was/is a common phenomeon

(01:54:14 PM) Lamo: is that how you got the cables out?

(01:54:28 PM) Manning: perhaps

(01:54:42 PM) Manning: i would come in with music on a CD-RW

(01:55:21 PM) Manning: labelled with something like “Lady Gaga”… erase the music… then write a compressed split file

(01:55:46 PM) Manning: no-one suspected a thing

(01:55:48 PM) Manning: =L kind of sad

(01:56:04 PM) Lamo: and odds are, they never will

(01:56:07 PM) Manning: i didnt even have to hide anything

(01:56:36 PM) Lamo: from a professional perspective, i’m curious how the server they were on was insecure

(01:57:19 PM) Manning: you had people working 14 hours a day… every single day… no weekends… no recreation…

(01:57:27 PM) Manning: people stopped caring after 3 weeks

(01:57:44 PM) Lamo: i mean, technically speaking

(01:57:51 PM) Lamo: or was it physical

(01:57:52 PM) Manning: >nod<

(01:58:16 PM) Manning: there was no physical security

(01:58:18 PM) Lamo: it was physical access, wasn’t it

(01:58:20 PM) Lamo: hah

(01:58:33 PM) Manning: it was there, but not really

(01:58:51 PM) Manning: 5 digit cipher lock… but you could knock and the door…

(01:58:55 PM) Manning: *on

(01:59:15 PM) Manning: weapons, but everyone has weapons

(02:00:12 PM) Manning: everyone just sat at their workstations… watching music videos / car chases / buildings exploding… and writing more stuff to CD/DVD… the culture fed opportunities

(02:01:44 PM) Manning: hardest part is arguably internet access… uploading any sensitive data over the open internet is a bad idea… since networks are monitored for any insurgent/terrorist/militia/criminal types

(02:01:52 PM) Lamo: tor?

(02:02:13 PM) Manning: tor + ssl + sftp

(02:02:33 PM) Lamo: *nod*

(02:03:05 PM) Lamo: not quite how i might do it, but good

(02:03:22 PM) Manning: i even asked the NSA guy if he could find any suspicious activity coming out of local networks… he shrugged and said… “its not a priority”

(02:03:53 PM) Manning: went back to watching “Eagle’s Eye”

Part 5

(02:12:23 PM) Manning: so… it was a massive data spillage… facilitated by numerous factors… both physically, technically, and culturally

(02:13:02 PM) Manning:: perfect example of how not to do INFOSEC

(02:14:21 PM) Manning: listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in american history

(02:15:03 PM) Manning: pretty simple, and unglamorous

(02:16:37 PM) Manning: *exfiltrating

(02:17:56 PM) Manning: weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm

(02:19:03 PM) Manning: >sigh<

(02:19:19 PM) Manning: sounds pretty bad huh?

(02:20:06 PM) Lamo: kinda

(02:20:25 PM) Manning: :L

(02:20:52 PM) Lamo: i mean, for the .mil

(02:21:08 PM) Manning: well, it SHOULD be better

(02:21:32 PM) Manning: its sad

(02:22:47 PM) Manning: i mean what if i were someone more malicious

(02:23:25 PM) Manning: i could’ve sold to russia or china, and made bank?

(02:23:36 PM) Lamo: why didn’t you?

(02:23:58 PM) Manning: because it’s public data

(02:24:15 PM) Lamo: i mean, the cables

(02:24:46 PM) Manning: it belongs in the public domain

(02:25:15 PM) Manning: information should be free

(02:25:39 PM) Manning: it belongs in the public domain

Part 2 (underlined)/Part 5 continued

(02:26:01 PM) Manning: i dont believe in good guys versus bad guys anymore… i only a plethora of states acting in self interest… with varying ethics and moral standards of course, but self-interest nonetheless

(02:26:18 PM) Manning: s/only/only see/

(02:26:18 PM) Manning: because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge

(02:26:47 PM) Lamo: the tm meant i was being facetious

(02:26:55 PM) Manning: if its out in the open… it should be a public good

(02:26:59 PM) Manning: gotchya

(02:27:04 PM) Manning: *do the

(02:27:23 PM) Manning: rather than some slimy intel collector

(02:27:47 PM) Manning: i mean, we’re better in some respects… we’re much more subtle… use a lot more words and legal techniques to legitimize everything

(02:28:00 PM) Manning: its better than disappearing in the middle of the night

(02:28:19 PM) Manning: but just because something is more subtle, doesn’t make it right

(02:29:04 PM) Manning: i guess im too idealistic

(02:29:18 PM) Manning: im crazy like that

Part 2 Continued

(02:31:02 PM) Manning: i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything

(02:35:46 PM) Manning: was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…

(02:35:46 PM) Lamo : I’m not here right now

(02:36:27 PM) Manning: everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently

(02:37:37 PM) Manning: i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

(02:38:12 PM) Lamo: That could happen in Colombia.

(02:38:21 PM) Lamo: Different cultures, dude.

(02:38:28 PM) Lamo: Life is cheaper.

(02:38:34 PM) Manning: oh im quite aware

(02:38:45 PM) Lamo: What would you do if your role /w Wikileaks seemed in danger of being blown?

(02:38:48 PM) Manning: but i was a part of it… and completely helpless…

(02:39:01 PM) Lamo: sometimes we’re all helpless

(02:39:34 PM) Manning: try and figure out how i could get my side of the story out… before everything was twisted around to make me look like Nidal Hassan

(02:40:15 PM) Manning: i dont think its going to happen

(02:40:26 PM) Manning: i mean, i was never noticed

(02:41:10 PM) Manning: regularly ignored… except when i had something essential… then it was back to “bring me coffee, then sweep the floor”

(02:42:24 PM) Manning: i never quite understood that

(02:42:44 PM) Manning: felt like i was an abused work horse…

(02:43:33 PM) Manning: also, theres god awful accountability of IP addresses…

(02:44:47 PM) Manning: the network was upgraded, and patched up so many times… and systems would go down, logs would be lost… and when moved or upgraded… hard drives were zeroed

(02:45:12 PM) Manning: its impossible to trace much on these field networks…

(02:46:10 PM) Manning: and who would honestly expect so much information to be exfiltrated from a field network?

(02:46:25 PM) Lamo: I’d be one paranoid boy in your shoes.

(02:47:07 PM) Manning: the CM video came from a server in our domain! and not a single person noticed

(02:47:21 PM) Lamo: CM?

(02:48:17 PM) Manning: Apache Weapons Team video of 12 JUL 07 airstrike on Reuters Journos… some sketchy but fairly normal street-folk… and civilians

(02:48:52 PM) Lamo: How long between the leak and the publication?

(02:49:18 PM) Manning: some time in february

(02:49:25 PM) Manning: it was uploaded

(02:50:04 PM) Lamo: uploaded where? how would i transmit something if i had similarly damning data

(02:51:49 PM) Manning: uhm… preferably openssl the file with aes-256… then use sftp at prearranged drop ip addresses

(02:52:08 PM) Manning: keeping the key separate… and uploading via a different means

(02:52:31 PM) Lamo: so i myself would be SOL w/o a way to prearrange

(02:54:33 PM) Manning: not necessarily… the HTTPS submission should suffice legally… though i’d use tor on top of it…

(02:54:43 PM) Manning: but you’re data is going to be watched

(02:54:44 PM) Manning: *your

(02:54:49 PM) Manning: by someone, more than likely

(02:54:53 PM) Lamo: submission where?

(02:55:07 PM) Manning: wl.org submission system

(02:55:23 PM) Lamo: in the massive queue?

(02:55:54 PM) Manning: lol, yeah, it IS pretty massive…

(02:55:56 PM) Manning: buried

(02:56:04 PM) Manning: i see what you mean

(02:56:35 PM) Manning: long term sources do get preference… i can see where the “unfairness” factor comes in

(02:56:53 PM) Lamo: how does that preference work?

(02:57:47 PM) Manning: veracity… the material is easy to verify…

(02:58:27 PM) Manning: because they know a little bit more about the source than a purely anonymous one

(02:59:04 PM) Manning: and confirmation publicly from earlier material, would make them more likely to publish… i guess…

(02:59:16 PM) Manning: im not saying they do… but i can see how that might develop

(03:00:18 PM) Manning: if two of the largest public relations “coups” have come from a single source… for instance

(03:02:03 PM) Manning: you yeah… purely *submitting* material is more likely to get overlooked without contacting them by other means and saying hey, check your submissions for x…

Part 3

(03:07:26 PM) Manning: i recognized the value of some things…

(03:07:33 PM) Manning: knew what they meant… dug deeper

(03:07:53 PM) Manning: i watched that video cold, for instance

(03:10:32 PM) Manning: at first glance… it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter… no big deal… about two dozen more where that came from right… but something struck me as odd with the van thing… and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory… so i looked into it… eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord… and i was like… ok, so thats what happened… cool… then i went to the regular internet… and it was still on my mind… so i typed into goog… the date, and the location… and then i see this http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html

(03:11:07 PM) Manning: i kept that in my mind for weeks… probably a month and a half… before i forwarded it to [Wikileaks]

(03:11:54 PM) Manning: then there was the Finkel book

(03:12:16 PM) Manning: im almost certain he had a copy

Part 6

(03:38:07 PM) Manning: its not much of a pic, but here’s harry ponting http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3161/2814062024_c39d25f27d.jpg the man who’s mission it is to sell the benefits of NCD throughout the State Department, Military, and IC

(03:38:18 PM) Manning: i feel terribly, terribly sorry for the guy

(03:39:17 PM) Manning: im not a bad person, i keep track of everything

(03:39:30 PM) Manning: i watch the whole thing unfold… from a distance

(03:40:07 PM) Manning: i read what everyone says… look at pictures… keep tabs… and feel for them

(03:40:18 PM) Manning: since im basically playing a vital role in their life

(03:40:29 PM) Manning: without ever meeting them

(03:40:53 PM) Manning: i was like that as an intelligence analyst as well

(03:41:09 PM) Lamo: i know the feeling, in a way.

(03:41:44 PM) Manning: most didnt care… but i knew, i was playing a role in the lives of hundreds of people, without them knowing them… but i cared, and kept track of some of the details, make sure everybody was okay

(03:42:07 PM) Manning: them knowing me

(03:43:27 PM) Manning: i dont think of myself as playing “god” or anything, because im not… im just playing my role for the moment… i dont control the way they react

(03:44:15 PM) Manning: there are far more people who do what i do, in state interest, on daily basis, and dont give a fuck

(03:45:01 PM) Manning: thats how i try to separate myself

(03:45:13 PM) Manning: from my (former) colleagues

[two more sections follow]