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Did AP Learn about Fake UndieBomb 2.0 because Real Marshals Deployed to Prevent It?

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In my next post, I’m going to revisit this post, where I showed 372 days ago that at least one or two of the major early sources for the most damning information on UndieBomb 2.0 came from non-US based sources.

But before that, check out this passage from the ABC story that first revealed UndieBomb 2.0 was an inside job.

The plot appeared timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, but the bomber did not get as far as purchasing plane tickets or choosing a flight. As ABC News first reported last week, the plot led the U.S. to order scores of air marshals to Europe to protect U.S.-bound aircraft. Flights out of Gatwick Airport in England received 100 percent coverage, according to U.S. officials.

While I haven’t been able to find the reporting in question [update: see below], at least according to the article, ABC had been told the previous week — around the same time the AP first learned about the purported UndieBomb 2.0 plot — that there was a massive effort on the part of the US Air Marshals to cover a bunch of US-bound planes …

… that the Intelligence Community knew had no UndieBomb on board.

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The Global War on Wayward Knuckleheads

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103 minutes into todays Global Threat Hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee, National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen got asked his first question, about what his agency is seeing as rising threats. As part of the discussion that ensued, he noted that homegrown Islamic terrorists continued to be a threat though, he admitted, such attacks would be “unsophisticated.”

He then admitted that those who get inspired by Al Qaeda propaganda are “wayward knuckleheads.”

The comment sure seems to confirm a key premise of Trevor Aaronson’s book, The Terror Factory. Our domestic war on terror — complete with FBI-concocted plots — really consists of getting wayward knuckleheads to respond to FBI incitment. “FBI’s trawling in Muslim communities has resulted largely in sting operations that target easily susceptible men on the margins of society.”

Meanwhile, Robert Mueller had a curious comment in his discussion about the ongoing al Qaeda threat. He said that airplane plots remain a threat. The individuals responsible for previous airline attempts still out there, he said.

Um, I thought we had killed at least one individual responsible for previous airline attempts in September 2011. You mean Anwar al-Awlaki wasn’t the mastermind of the UndieBomb threat?

Of course not: Ibrahim al-Asiri was the operational mastermind of it (or maybe Abu Tarak!). Which is why we had another purported attempt last year, more than six months after Awlaki died.

In any case, Mueller’s comment seems to be an at least implicit admission that the Administration oversold Awlaki’s single centrality to the first UndieBomb plot.

The Bipartisan Effort to Keep Robert Mueller on at FBI Starts

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I’m watching the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on Global Threats.

And I’m a bit alarmed that both Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss used their statements to suggest Robert Mueller should stay beyond the end of his already-extended term this year.

DiFi said,  “unless Congress intervenes again, this threats hearing will be the last one for Robert Mueller” and then looked at him and said, “it could happen.”

Then Saxby repeated that line, saying he would shortly approach Mueller to ask him to stay on again.

Before his statement, James Clapper also nodded to Mueller, noting he has served as Director for 12 years.

We have terms for FBI Director for good reason. Not just to prevent the rise of another J Edgar Hoover, one person with an empire over the secret information collection in the US. But also to bring a fresh approach to such things as our manufacturing of “terrorists.”

 

Wiretapping Your Business Records: The White House Doesn’t Want You To Be Confused

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Sadly, whoever liberated the White House talking points on the FISA Amendments Act extension didn’t get them to TechDirt until after most of the so-called debate was over.

Particularly given this explanation for why the White House opposed Pat Leahy’s efforts to shorten the extension to three years, which would have made the next extension coincide with the PATRIOT Act extension that will be debated in the year before a Presidential election.

Aligning FAA with expiration of provisions of the Patriot Act risks confusing distinct issues.

TechDirt suggested the White House thinks Congress is stupid.

Is the White House really arguing that Congress is too stupid to hold the specifics of the FAA separate from the specifics of the wider Patriot Act? If they’re confused by those issues, then they shouldn’t be in this job. Period.

But I think this talking point is far more telling. Because, in fact, there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that FAA and one of the three things that will be up for extension in 2015–Section 215–are not at all distinct.

Section 215, remember, is the “Business Records” provision that allows the government to get any tangible thing that is relevant to a national security investigation. We know Section 215 has been used to collect records of acetone and hydrogen peroxide purchases, and there’s abundant reason to believe the government has used Section 215 to get cell geolocation data.

Moreover, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have pointed to Section 215 as part of the “secret law” they’ve been complaining about, even while they also point to FISA Court opinions tied to that “secret law.”

Historically, too, there seems to be a chronological tie. In the weeks after the May 11, 2004 hospital confrontation, Cheney had a secret meeting with just Robert Mueller; FBI started bypassing DOJ’s Office of Intelligence Policy Review to get Section 215 orders; and FBI obtained its first ever Section 215 order. Then, in the months after the revelation of the illegal program in 2005 (and during that year’s debate on PATRIOT renewal), the government used Section 215 to get subscriber information on trap and trace orders.

In other words, it seems possible that in response to Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith’s efforts to stop the data mining of US person call records collected without any legal basis, the government started collecting call records under FBI orders to accomplish the same result and they repeatedly turned to Section 215 to provide legal cover for the illegal collection they refused to stop.

In fact, (I’m trying to track this down) Jeff Merkley made a speech on Thursday that invoked the Section 215 relevance standard at one point, not the FAA foreign standard. So Merkley, at least, does seem to think there’s a tie between Section 215 and FAA.

It seems, then, that the White House was (surprise!) being totally disingenuous with its purported worry that people would conflate the warrantless wiretap program with the collection it conducts using Section 215. More likely, they were worried that having these debates at the same time would make it more obvious that they’re conducting part of their warrantless surveillance program under FAA, and part of it under Section 215.

Read more →

Petraeus Rules

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While the Beltway is slowly coming around to the logic that it’s not a good thing if the CIA Director has a pseudonymous Gmail account he uses to conduct an affair, it has yet to consider some other factors that may have forced David Petraeus to quit.

As a threshold matter, it appears that both Petraeus and Paula Broadwell did things that have gotten others–people like Thomas Drake–prosecuted and stripped of their security clearance. Obama can’t continue his war on leakers if he goes easy on Petraeus after compromising his own email account. In addition, it appears that as the FBI closed in on Petraeus, he and Broadwell may have pushed back by revealing (or claiming) CIA had prisoners in Benghazi. That is, in some way Petraeus and Broadwell’s response to the investigation appears to have colored how they treated the Benghazi pushback going on at precisely the same time.

Here’s a decent timeline of Petraeus’ demise (though many of these details–from the start date of the affair, the investigation, and Petraeus’ FBI interview have been reported using different dates, suggesting different anonymous stories may be offering different timelines). I’d like to concentrate on the following, which include a few additions.

[Week of, possibly day of] October 21 [alternately reported as September]: Paula Broadwell first interviewed by FBI. She agrees to turn over her computer, which will lead to the FBI finding classified information on it.

October 24 (written the day before): Petreaus applauds the guilty plea of John Kiriakou, who passed the identity of torturers to lawyers representing Gitmo detainees who have been tortured. Those lawyers have clearance, and they did not publicly reveal the most sensitive name. In his second-to-last statement as CIA Director, he writes,

This case yielded the first IIPA successful prosecution in 27 years, and it marks an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and for our country.  Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy.

October 24: Benghazi suspect killed in Cairo.

October 26: Fox reports that CIA security in annex were twice told to stand down by “CIA chain of command.”

October 26: At an appearance at DU, Paula Broadwell says,

Now, I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually, um, had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that’s still being vetted.

The challenging thing for General Petraeus is that in his new position, he’s not allowed to communicate with the press. So he’s known all of this — they had correspondence with the CIA station chief in, in Libya. Within 24 hours they kind of knew what was happening.

Update: See this post, which makes it clear Fox had the detail about prisoners but then took it out.

October 27: Petraeus and Broadwell hobnobbing at black tie event.

October 29: FBI interviews Petraeus.

October 31: Acting after speaking to FBI “whistleblower,” Eric Cantor’s Chief of Staff calls Robert Mueller about investigation.

October 31- November 1: Petraeus in Cairo for security discussions.

November 2 [based on a briefing held November 1 while Petraeus was still in Cairo]: CIA releases timeline rebutting Fox report–mentioned by Broadwell–that CIA chain of command told security to stand down.

November 2: FBI interviews Broadwell a second time.

November 2: Scott Shane writes odd article on demise of Petraeus’ image, blaming his absence from media for Benghazi blowback, in part repeating a point made by Broadwell on October 26. Read more →

The Top Unmentioned Obama Replacement: Robert Mueller

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A slew of second-term cabinet speculation articles have come out (National Journal, first posted before the election, and NYT and USAT today).

And while they seem to indicate Jack Lew is likely to replace TurboTaxTimmeh Geithner and Secretary of State will be the subject of active speculation for some time (with intriguing speculation that Howard Berman, who lost to Brad Sherman in CA, might be under consideration), one key role–albeit not of cabinet level–is missing:

FBI Director.

After all, Robert Mueller is already 2 years beyond his sell by date; Obama extended his term to get past the election (he said). And regardless of rank, the FBI Director is one of the most important figures in the increasingly powerful surveillance state.

And there have been some very troubling names mentioned in discussions to replace him, including NYPD’s Ray Kelly, who would really be the second incarnation of J Edgar Hoover’s abusive power. There had been speculation that Patrick Fitzgerald wanted the job, but his decision to join Skadden Arps just before the election suggests he knew he wasn’t going to get that job.

Particularly given Eric Holder’s apparent increasing doubt that he’ll stick around, we have the possibility of seeing something worse–all the capitulation we got from Holder in the first term, plus and FBI Director who has none of the claimed measure of Mueller (though I’ve always had my doubts about those claims).

A new FBI Director (which is guaranteed), particularly if it came with a new Attorney General, could either set a dramatic new course or harden in the old course. And I fear it is most likely to be the latter.

The Trip Wires in the Anwar al-Awlaki Investigation

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Congressman Frank Wolf doesn’t believe what the FBI told him during an August 1 hearing on the Webster report. He suspects that Anwar al-Awlaki was an informant for the FBI (or some other agency), something that FBI’d Executive Assistant Director for National Security denied. But evidence from the report about how the FBI dealt with the Awlaki wiretap as a “trip wire” makes it clear that even by 2009 the FBI wasn’t using Awlaki’s contacts as they had other extremists, like Hal Turner, to proactively generate new leads.

Frank Wolf suggests Awlaki was approached to be an informant

Now, Wolf’s questions about Awlaki generally are based, in part, on intelligence sources–like the NYPD and Andrew McCarthy–that are suspect. And he seems confused about the line between loathsome radical speech and evidence of terrorist intent.

But he does ask worthwhile questions, notably the lunexplained treatment of Awlaki after 9/11, particularly about suggestions that Awlaki may have been approached as an informant. Wolf starts by noting that in the last installment of Inspire [safe PDF courtesy of Jihadology], an article attributed to Awlaki revealed he had been approached to be an informant in 1996, shortly after San Diego authorities busted him in a–he claims–trumped up prostitution sting.

However, Aulaqi’s own words could potentially indicate otherwise. In his final column for Inspire, Aulaqi wrote: “I was visited by two men who introduced themselves as officials with the US government (they did not specify which government organization they belonged to) and that they are interested in my cooperation with them. When I asked what cooperation did they expect, they responded by saying that they are interested in having me liaise with them concerning the Muslim community in San Diego.”

Wolf then notes that–at a time when Awlaki was under investigation, was on a terrorist watch list, and had a Diplomatic Security warrant out for his arrest for passport fraud–he was allowed to enter the country in October 2002.

The unclassified version of the Webster Commission report confirmed that around 2001, “WFO opened a full investigation” on Aulaqi, and it remained open until May 2003, after Aulaqi again fled the U.S. for the U.K. and, later, Yemen.

As noted above, NYPD reported that Aulaqi was placed on the federal government’s Terror Watchlist in Summer 2002. Please explain why and how Aulaqi was permitted to board a flight to the U.S. in October 2002 if he was already included on the watchlist?

Additionally, if, as Mr. Giuliano testified, the FBI “knew [Aulaqi] was coming in” before he landed at JFK, what information was communicated to the U.S. attorney’s office that would set off this strange series of events early in the morning of October 10? Please provide for the record the full series of communications between the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office and the customs office?

During the hearing, I raised the question of whether the FBI requested that Aulaqi be allowed into the country, without detention for the outstanding warrant, due to a parallel investigation regarding Aulaqi’s former colleague al Timimi, a radical imam who was recruiting American Muslims to terrorism. Notably, the Timimi case was being led by the same WFO agent who called the U.S. attorney’s office and customs on the morning of October 10. Did WFO want Aulaqi released to assist in its investigation of Timimi?

Public records demonstrate a nexus between these cases. Read more →

If FBI Believes NYPD Spying Violates Americans’ Rights, Why Not Stop It?

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It has long been clear that the AP series on the NYPD’s spying on NYC’s Muslims relied, in part, on FBI sources who believed the program to be problematic. Now a new edition of Ronald Kessler’s book on the voices that belief explicitly.

“What never came out is that the FBI considers the NYPD’s intelligence gathering practices since 9/11 not only a waste of money but a violation of Americans’ rights,” wrote Kessler, who in April broke news of Colombian sexcapades by Secret Service agents doing advance work for President Obama.

“We will not be a party to it,” an FBI source told Kessler.

This anonymous leaking comes not from some ACLU hippies–it comes from the FBI. So why don’t these leakers go arrest Ray Kelly?

Aside from the endorsement of the program Robert Mueller and John Brennan have given, I mean?

The White House added its stamp of approval a month later when President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited police headquarters.

“I have full confidence that the NYPD is doing things consistent with the law, and it’s something that again has been responsible for keeping this city safe over the past decade,” he said.

Remember, Brennan–who was Deputy Executive Director of CIA when CIA helped to set up the CIA-on-the-Hudson–has boasted of intimate familiarity with the program.

Speaking of John Brennan, today is the 10 year anniversary of the torture memos. You know, torture? Another abuse that has never been prosecuted under Obama?

The Administration Has Not Responded to Over 10 Congressional Requests for Targeted Killing Memo

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Back in September 2010, when the Administration successfully argued that whether or not the government had the authority to kill Anwar al-Awlaki was a matter for the Executive and Congressional Branches to decide, it claimed Congress served as a check on that power.

The nonjusticiability of the plaintiff’s claims in this Court “does not leave the executive power unbounded.” Schneider, 412 F.3d at 200. “The political branches effectively exercise such checks and balances on each other in the area of political questions[,]” and “[i]f the executive in fact has exceeded his appropriate role in the constitutional scheme, Congress enjoys a broad range of authorities with which to exercise restraint and balance.” Id. Accordingly, “the allocation of political questions to the political branches is not inconsistent with our constitutional tradition of limited government and balance of powers.” Id.

The Administration’s behavior in the interim period has proven those assurances to be utterly false. Congress has asked the Administration on more than 10 separate occasions for the OLC memo authorizing the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki (many of these 10 documented requests refer to earlier requests, and Pat Leahy sent President Obama a letter that his office could not share).

And yet here we are, 22 months after the Administration assured Judge John Bates that Congress exercised some kind of check on the Executive, at least 17 months after members of Congress first started asking for the legal analysis, and the Administration has not responded to those requests.

Here are the requests.

February 2011: Ron Wyden asks the Director of National Intelligence for the legal analysis behind the targeted killing program. (1)

April 2011: Ron Wyden calls Eric Holder to ask for legal analysis on targeted killing. (2)

May 2011: DOJ responds to Wyden’s request, yet doesn’t answer key questions.

May 18-20, 2011: DOJ (including Office of Legislative Affairs) discusses “draft legal analysis regarding the application of domestic and international law to the use of lethal force in a foreign country against U.S. citizens” (this may be the DOJ response to Ron Wyden).

October 5, 2011: Chuck Grassley sends Eric Holder a letter requesting the OLC memo by October 27, 2011. (3)

November 8, 2011: Pat Leahy complains about past Administration refusal to share targeted killing OLC memo. (4)

February 8, 2012: Ron Wyden follows up on his earlier requests for information on the targeted killing memo with Eric Holder. (5)

March 7, 2012: Tom Graves (R-GA) asks Robert Mueller whether Eric Holder’s criteria for the targeted killing of Americans applies in the US; Mueller replies he’d have to ask DOJ. Per his office today, DOJ has not yet provided Graves with an answer. (6)

March 8, 2012: Pat Leahy renews his request for the OLC memo at DOJ appropriations hearing. (7)

June 7, 2012: After Jerry Nadler requests the memo, Eric Holder commits to providing the House Judiciary a briefing–but not the OLC memo–within a month. (8)

June 12, 2012: Pat Leahy renews his request for the OLC memo at DOJ oversight hearing. (9)

June 27, 2012: In Questions for the Record following a June 7 hearing, Jerry Nadler notes that DOJ has sought dismissal of court challenges to targeted killing by claiming “the appropriate check on executive branch conduct here is the Congress and that information is being shared with Congress to make that check a meaningful one,” but “we have yet to get any response” to “several requests” for the OLC memo authorizing targeted killing. He also renews his request for the briefing Holder had promised. (10)

July 19, 2012: Both Pat Leahy and Chuck Grassley complain about past unanswered requests for OLC memo. (Grassley prepared an amendment as well, but withdrew it in favor of Cornyn’s.) Leahy (but not Grassley) votes to table John Cornyn amendment to require Administration to release the memo.

July 24, 2012: SSCI passes Intelligence Authorization that requires DOJ to make all post-9/11 OLC memos available to the Senate Intelligence Committee, albeit with two big loopholes.

UndieBomb 2.0 Led to John Brennan’s Personal Signature Strike Drone Shop

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The AP story reporting on John Brennan centralizing control of drone targeting in his own grubby paws keeps evolving. Compare the first two paragraphs of what I believe to be the second version (the first was really a leak from DOD sources describing Brennan’s power grab):

The Pentagon’s role in choosing terror leaders to be targeted for drone attacks or raids has been minimized in a new system developed by White House counterterror chief John Brennan. The current procedure concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones within one small team at the White House.

With Brennan’s team now in the lead, consulting with the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 has become less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

With the first three paragraphs  of what I believe to be the third version.

White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan’s staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists. [my emphasis]

One of the new details is that date: “about a month old.”

That is, around April 22.

Which means this decision–to bypass DOD’s evidence based targeting process and instead have Brennan do it all from the White House–coincides with and was probably a part of the decision to do signature strikes, which in turn both appear to have followed the Saudi delivery of a bomb “plot” to justify the change. Here’s what the known timeline currently looks like:

April 18: Greg Miller first reports on debate over signature strikes

Around April 20: UndieBomb 2.0 device recovered

Around April 22: John Brennan takes over drone targeting from JSOC

April 22: Drone strike that–WSJ reports, “Intelligence analysts [worked] to identify those killed” after the fact, suggesting possible signature strike

April 24: Robert Mueller in Yemen for 45 minute meeting, presumably to pick up UndieBomb

April 25: WSJ reports that Obama approved use of signature strikes

April 30: John Brennan gives speech, purportedly bringing new transparency to drone program, without addressing signature strikes

May 6: Fahd al-Quso killed

May 7: AP reports on UndieBomb 2.0

May 8: ABC reports UndieBomb 2.0 was Saudi-run infiltrator

May 15: Drone strike in Jaar kills a number of civilians

Note, other reporting makes it clear the Saudis had contact with the 2.0 UndieBomber leading up to him coming in, with some reports saying Obama had notice as well.

In any case, the chronology seems to be clear: the 2.0 UndieBomber came in, then Brennan brought the drone targeting–now including signature strikes!–into the White House for micromanagement.