Archive for category: emptywheel

The Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee are trying to force the Administration to implement procedures for protecting the privacy of Americans before it will approve funding that will fund the Administration’s domestic satellite surveillance program. In their letter to the Democrats who oversee this appropriation, they put a price tag on all the surveillance programs the Administration has had to scrap because they didn’t first implement procedures to protect Americans’ privacy. That number? $290 million dollars.

In the last three years, at least four programs — including the $140million Secure Flight Program; the $100 million Computer AssistedPassenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II) program; the $42 millionAnalysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and SemanticEnhancement (ADVISE) program; and the $8 million MultistateAnti-Terrorism Information Exchange Pilot Project (MATRIX) — have beeneither cancelled or suspended by the Department as a result of itsfailure to adhere to applicable privacy rules and regulations. Weappreciate that Democrats on the House Homeland Security AppropriationsSubcommittee played a critical role in bringing to light thevulnerabilities of these programs. Each of these programs, ifimplemented, would have compromised the privacy rights of hundreds ofthousands, if not millions, of Americans. We do not want the Departmentto repeat the same mistakes with this program.

Given the Read more →

The House response to the Brent Wilkes subpoena is now online–it’s 81 pages long. I’ll comment more on the rationale for quashing the subpoenas in an update (I’ve got a talk to go give shortly, but the short version is speech and debate). But some initial details:

• The subpoena to Ike Skelton has been withdrawn
• Wilkes also subpoenaed: Carl Levin and Jay Rockefeller (no doubt in their role as Armed Services and SSCI Chair), Larry Craig, Daniel Inouye (both recipients of Wilkes largesse; here’s a question–is Craig sticking around the Senate to retain immunity? And will the Senate let him?), and Josh Bolten, Robert Gates and Gordon Craig

After some back and forth, the General Counsel of the House was able to get Geragos to explain that he was interested in information "concerning the congressional appropriations process and how it works." No, really?

There’s more detail on the subpoenas to Hunter and Lewis (big surprise) and Murtha and Reyes, as follows.

Paul Kiel notes the most curious of the three recent filings from the Wilkes/Michael case, in which prosecutors attempt to prevent Wilkes from citing duress as his defense against the bribery charges. I think the target of this filing is not–or not just–Duke Cunningham. Rather, I think prosecutors filed this to stave off Wilkes’ Congressional testimony ploy. I say this, first, because they’re only addressing Wilkes here, not Michael, and Wilkes is the one who subpoenaed 13 members of Congress. Further, prosecutors are rather sketchy about why they’re filing this motion.

Further, Wilkes has proffered no facts that would support a necessity defense, and in his post-indictment statements, vehemently denied that Cunningham demanded any bribes, or that he (Wilkes) had provided any. Thus, there may not be a dispute on this matter, but in an abundance of caution, the Government moves to preclude defendant Wilkes from presenting irrelevant argument or evidence about duress or necessity, including economic coercion or extortion.

So it seems like they’re trying to anticipate some unexpected move on Geragos’ part.

Finally, an extortion claim would explain one reason for Wilkes to subpoena those 13 Congressmen (or, at least the ones with a healthy earmark addiction). Imagine if Read more →

I joked earlier that the Administration had requested FISA be expanded so that Monica Goodling could make FISA certifications.

I’ll come back to his summary of the extra goodies the Administrationis requesting (the short version: they want to make it impossible forany case relating to wiretapping to go through normal courts, and theywant to expand the universe of people who can make FISA certificationsto include Monica Goodling non-Senate approved people the President designates).

That was based on this language from Wainstein’s testimony.

Section 404 also would increase the number of individuals who can make FISA certifications. Currently, FISA requires that such certifications be made only by senior Executive Branch national security officials who have been confirmed by the Senate. The new provision would allow certifications to be made by individuals specifically designated by the President and would remove the restriction that such individuals be Senate-confirmed. As this committee is aware, many intelligence agencies have an exceedingly small number of Senate confirmed officials (sometimes only one, or even none), and the Administration’s proposal would allow intelligence agencies to more expeditiously obtain certifications.

I thought I was being pretty funny. Until I read this, from Spencer Ackerman.

Back in June, the Bush Administration invited one of AT&T’s key lobbyists, Ed Gillespie, to serve as White House counselor. A few weeks after that, BushCo expanded AT&T’s resident lobbyist’s role to include most of Karl Rove’s portfolio. Just days after Gillespie took over that role, the DOJ made an unusual intervention into the FCC’s request for comments on Net Neutrality, weighing against Net Neutrality.

Well today, one of AT&T’s former key attorneys, Peter Keisler, just took over the Department of Justice.

In the late 1990s, Keisler represented AT&T before SCOTUS in a case divvying up authority over how the 1996 Telecom Act would be implemented. He represented AT&T and other telecom companies fighting local ordinances limiting the acts of telecommuncation companies.

In early 2001, Keisler helped AT&T win the dismissal of a lawsuit that charged AT&T had illegally shared private information (a customer’s unlisted phone number) with AT&T’s credit division.The Second Circuit ruled that transfer of such personal information does not incur damages, and therefore private citizens cannot sue.

In June 2006, Keisler was one of a number of government lawyers arguing that New Jersey had no legal authority to subpoena documents relating to AT&T’s and other telecomm companies’ participation in the warrantless wiretapping program. Also in June 2006, Keisler invoked state secrets in Hepting v. AT&T, an attempt to scuttle the citizen lawsuits on the warrantless wiretap program.

In other words, both in and out of government, Keisler has represented AT&T’s interests masterfully.