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Obama’s Reverse Imaginary Friend, the Assassination Robot

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The Obama Administration is getting more and more like that crazy old man in the park talking to an imaginary friend. Only it works in reverse. It sends out real people to engage in hours of conversations with other real people about a real topic and then pretends both were pretend.

It sends John Brennan to the Senate for 3.5 hours where he has conversations about drones over and over with people, never once claiming not to understand what they mean when they discuss drones and/or targeted killing.

He responds to Ron Wyden’s questions about how to be more transparent on drones.

WYDEN: So it was encouraging last night when the president called and indicated that, effective immediately, he would release the documents necessary for Senators to understand the full legal analysis of the president’s authority to conduct the targeted killing of an American.

[snip]

Let me now move to the public side of oversight, making sure that the public’s right to know is respected. One part of oversight is Congressional oversight and our doing our work. The other is making sure that the American people are brought into these debates, just like James Madison said, this is what you need to preserve a republic.

And I want to start with the drone issue. In a speech last year, the president instructed you to be more open with the public about the use of drones to conduct targeted killings of Al Qaeda members.

So my question is, what should be done next to ensure that public conversation about drones, so that the American people are brought into this debate and have a full understanding of what rules the government’s going to observe when it conducts targeted killings?

BRENNAN: Well, I think this hearing is one of the things that can be done because I think this type of discourse between the executive and the legislative branch is critically important.

I believe that there need to be continued speeches that are going to be given by the executive branch to explain our counterterrorism programs. I think there is a misimpression on the part of some of American people who believe that we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there’s no other alternative to taking an action that’s going to mitigate that threat.

[snip]

WYDEN: One other point with respect to (inaudible) public oversight. If the executive branch makes a mistake and kills the wrong person or a group of the wrong people, how should the government acknowledge that?

BRENNAN: I believe we need to acknowledge that. Read more →

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Alleged Wacko Rand Paul Asks Serious Questions about Targeted Killings

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TDS cites emptywheel for its Targeted Killing Memos request tally.

TDS cites emptywheel for its Targeted Killing Memos request tally.

The Politico went to some effort, it seems, to dismiss Rand Paul’s concerns about the drone program (as well as his threat to hold John Brennan’s nomination if and when it gets out of the Senate Intelligence Committee).

But Paul’s two letters on the subject are actually far more serious than those mocking them make out (the first one also brings the tally of congressional requests for the targeted killing memos to 19).

For example, Paul is one of the few people asking any questions about non-US citizens.

Do you believe that the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil? What about the use of lethal force against a non-U.S. person on U.S. soil?

He also asks how the National Security Act and Posse Comitatus might play into a domestic strike.

Do you believe that the prohibition on CIA participation in domestic law enforcement, first established by the National Security Act of 1947, would apply to the use of lethal force, especially lethal force directed at an individual on a targeting list, if a U.S. citizen on a targeting list was found to be operating on U.S. soil? What if the individual on the targeting list was a non-U.S. person but found to be operating on U.S. soil? Do you consider such an operation to be domestic law enforcement, or would it only be subject to the president’s wartime powers?

[snip]

Do you believe that the Posse Comitatus Act, or any other prohibition on the use of the military in domestic law enforcement, would prohibit the use of military hardware and/or personnel in pursuing terrorism suspects—especially those on a targeting list—found to be operating on U.S. soil? If not, would you support the use of such assets in pursuit of either U.S. citizen or non-U.S. persons on U.S. soil suspected of terrorist activity?

And (here in his first letter to Brennan) Paul asks the seemingly unspeakable question: how 16 year old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki came to be killed by a US drone.

What role did you play in approving the drone strike that led to the death of the underage, U.S. citizen son of Anwar al-Awlaki? Unlike his father, he had not renounced his U.S. citizenship. Was the younger al-Awlaki the intended target of the U.S. drone strike which took his life? Further, do you reject the subsequent claim, apparently originating from anonymous U.S. government sources, that the young man had actually been a “military age male” of 20 years or more of age, something that was later proven false by the release of his birth certificate?

Paul even asks a question limited largely to Yemen experts — whether or expanding campaign there is really about counterinsurgency rather than counterterrorism.

Is the U.S. drone strike strategy exclusively focused on targeting al Qaeda, or is it also conducting counterinsurgency operations against militants seeking to further undermine their government, such as in Yemen?

Finally, Paul slips this question in, which has nothing to do with targeted killings, but has everything to do with Brennan’s seeming disinterest in the privacy of the American people.

Do you support the Attorney General’s 2012 guidance to the NCTC that it may deliberately collect, store, and “continually assess” massive amounts of data on all U.S. citizens for potential correlations to terrorism, even if the U.S. citizens targeted have no known ties to terrorism?

Now, to Politico this may be a big game. But Paul is asking a lot of questions that no one else in DC is asking (note: he may have more leeway to ask such questions than, say, Ron Wyden, who has presumably been read into some of these answers).

Which is, I guess, how the Village now defines wacko: those people who asks the questions they’re too afraid to ask.

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The Benghazi Truthers and the OLC Hold-Outs

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Screen shot 2013-02-14 at 8.41.25 AMDianne Feinstein announced yesterday that the Senate Intelligence Committee would not, as originally planned, vote on John Brennan’s nomination today. No Valentine’s Day love for Brennan I guess.

DiFi cited outstanding questions on Benghazi and the 7 OLC memos the White House has withheld.

That’s important background to this Joshua Hersh story, which makes fun of Richard Burr (who had just made a joke about his relative Aaron Burr killing Alexander Hamilton) grilling Jack Lew about who briefed Obama on Benghazi the night of the attack. As Hersh points out, the White House has released a picture showing Denis McDonough briefing the President that day, which ought to answer Burr’s question.

What Hersh doesn’t say is that Burr specifically asked Lew whether Brennan was in this loop. In the closed session on Tuesday, apparently, Brennan said he wasn’t. This comes on top of the White House withholding — at least as of last Thursday — Presidential Daily Briefs and some emails about the response to Benghazi as it unfolded.

Now, Lew’s role in Benghazi briefings really won’t affect his job as Treasury Secretary. But Brennan’s role might, particularly if the Murdoch boosted eBook alleging he was running ops in Libya out of the White House is true (I’m not saying it is).

In any case, the persistence of the Benghazi truthers has introduced an interesting dynamic I didn’t expect. Of the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, only Susan Collins and possibly Tom Coburn are not full-on Benghazi truthers (and James Inhofe, who gets a vote if he wants one as Armed Services Committee Ranking member, could add another truther vote).

But Collins is part of the other group — along with at least Ron Wyden and Mark Udall — holding up Brennan’s nomination, those demanding the 7 OLC memos on targeted killing the White House has thus far refused to turn over to the Committee purportedly overseeing these killings. That puts the vote somewhere in the vicinity of 9 votes holding out for something from the White House, 6 votes ready to vote Brennan’s nomination forward.

So who will the White House cede to? The Benghazi truthers, or the OLC holdouts? And is what is in the material the White House has thus far withheld enough for these groups to vote against Brennan?

Note, there’s always the possibility these groups will converge. The public record supports the conclusion that Libyan militants in Derna claimed to have been struck or at least surveilled by a drone. Those militants have ties, at least, to the militants who carried out the attack on the Benghazi post, and the public record also supports the claim the militants were avenging that drone surveillance or strike.  If that drone was approved by an unknown memo authorizing continued strikes in Libya, it would be something that both the Benghazi truthers and the OLC holdouts would be interested in.

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How Many of the Seven Missing OLC Opinions Authorize Targeted Killing in Unknown Countries?

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Dianne Feinstein has released a statement trying to pretend the Senate Intelligence Committee’s post-killing review constitutes enough oversight of the drone program. In it, she reveals that the Committee is still waiting on 5 OLC memos on targeted killing.

Since 2010 the committee has asked for copies of all the legal opinions written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice on targeted killing. I have sent three letters, each joined by Vice Chairman Kit Bond or Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, requesting these opinions.

In 2012, the committee included a legislative provision in its annual authorization bill to require the executive branch to provide OLC opinions. Unfortunately that provision was removed prior to final passage of the bill. Until last week, the committee had been provided access to only two of the nine OLC opinions that we believe to exist on targeted killings.

Last week, senators on the committee were finally allowed to review two OLC opinions on the legal authority to strike U.S. citizens. We have reiterated our request for all nine OLC opinions—and any other relevant documents—in order to fully evaluate the executive branch’s legal reasoning, and to broaden access to the opinions to appropriate members of the committee staff.

So there are 9 total. The Committee had already seen 2. It got 2 more last Thursday. Leaving 5 memos on targeted killing — purportedly not related to US persons.

Update: Charlie Savage asked for clarification on the number. There are 11 total. The Committee is still waiting on 7.

If they don’t relate to US persons, then why is the Administration so squeamish about releasing them?

Remember, per Ron Wyden, the Administration still hadn’t provided the committee a list of all the countries it has used its lethal counterterrorism authorities.

So it’s hiding where it is using targeted killings in that form. How many specific OLC memos authorize the use of targeted killings in countries not imagined to be part of the scope of the current war on terror?

Update: I’ve changed the title to reflect the likelihood that we’re using targeted killing in some countries we’re not operating drones.

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Setting Up a Department of Pre-Crime, Part One: Why Are We Doing This?

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I’m going to have a series of posts on the proposed FISA Drone (and/or Targeted Killing) Court, starting with a description of why I think there’s movement to do this now.

There are, as I see it, three different motivations among those now backing a FISA Drone (and/or Targeted Killing) Court.

First, there’s Dianne Feinstein. Now that the white paper has been released — and the actual OLC memos to the other members of her committee — it has been made clear that the program she has been assuring Americans, based on her Gang of Four review, is lawful is not the slam dunk she made it out to be. And while Mike Rogers’ constituents may not object to his continued reassurances that it is okay for the President to kill an American based on his sole authority (though they may; we shall see), DiFi’s are likely to. (Saxby Chambliss, of course, is not running for re-election; Dutch Ruppersberger has been rather quiet in the last few days). So to the degree that DiFi takes a lead on this issue, it is an effort to put a palatable spin on something she has been spinning as legal for years.

If a FISA Drone (and/or Targeted Killing) Court is necessary and justified, it should have been in 2009, when she took over the Chair at Senate Intelligence Committee (or at the very least, by January 2010, when it became clear the Obama Administration was targeted Anwar al-Awlaki). But somehow, DiFi is only backing the idea now that her poor judgment in letting the killings continue without oversight is being exposed. To some degree, I’d put Patrick Leahy (who doesn’t want to be tough with Obama) and Chuck Grassley in this position, as well.

Then there’s John Brennan, who in response to Angus King’s suggestion of a FISA Drone (and/or Targeted Killing) Court said,

And that’s why I do think it’s worthy of discussion. And the point particularly about due process really needs to be taken into account because there’s not a different standard as far as if a U.S. citizen joins Al Qaida, you know, in terms of the intelligence base or whatever. But American citizens by definition are due much greater due process than anybody else by dint of their citizenship.

I think this is a very worthwhile discussion. I look forward to talking to the committee and others about it. What’s that appropriate balance between executive, legislative and judicial branch responsibilities in this area?

I think Brennan’s motivation is far better summed up in the response he gave Jello Jay Rockefeller, who basically used his second round question to deliver a very sloppy blow job to Brennan. In response, Brennan got firey.

I want every member of this committee to be an ardent advocate, proponent, and defender of the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency.

And I see it as my obligation to represent them to you on their behalf, so that when times get tough and when people are going to be criticizing and complaining about the CIA, I have all of you to say you knew about what the CIA was doing, you supported it, and you will defend it.

My impression is that, contrary to the moral rectitude myth, Brennan is a pretty amoral guy. It’s not right and wrong that motivates him; it’s allegiance, and as CIA Director (and, probably, even now) his allegiance is going to be to the institution.

And as he said in no uncertain terms to Jello Jay, he believes it is the role of the Intelligence Committee to support and defend the illegal actions the CIA does.

Brennan likely also knows that the easiest way to give the Committee cover for ardently defending what is, at its core, indefensible, and the only way to do so without affecting the flexibility accorded to the Executive Branch, is to let them pawn off the moral questions to a court operating in secret. Read more →

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Article II or AUMF? “A High Level Official” (AKA John Brennan) Says CIA Can Murder You

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I’m not sure whether Michael Isikoff decided to stamp his version of the white paper all over with “NBC News” to make sure we all knew who was the go-to for sanctioned leaks, or whether Dianne Feinstein and the Administration asked him to do so to make it all but unreadable.

But I’m grateful that Jason Leopold has now liberated another copy that he has made available in readable form. Because now that I can read it, it becomes even more clear why Ron Wyden has persistent questions about whether the Administration killed Anwar al-Awlaki based on authorities granted under the the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force or Article II.

Contrary to what I said in this post, the memo is actually very nearly balanced, never ultimately committing to whether it relies on AUMF or Article II. In fact, the white paper often employs a dual structure, invoking both the AUMF and self-defense in the same sentence or successive ones. At times, that dual structure is sound. At other times — as with its invocation of Hamdi — it uses the dual structure to rhetorically adopt a precedent for Article II authority that has only been granted under the AUMF.

The most troubling incidence of that comes in one of the white paper’s most extensive sections, analyzing whether 18 USC 1119’s prohibition on murdering Americans overseas includes a public authority exception for those acting in an official capacity. While bmaz promises to refute the argument they do make, for the military it does seem to make sense. A soldier at war can kill someone without being subject to murder charges, right? But applying such a public authority exception to the CIA — which is prohibited from breaking US law under the National Security Act — effectively asserts that if the President authorizes the CIA to murder Americans, based solely on his Article II authority, it can murder Americans.

This dual structure, then, seems to serve more to allow rhetorical argumentative moves that would be astonishing if made to apply to the CIA alone than to authorize DOD to kill Anwar al-Awlaki.

Read more →

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Did Administration Stall Congressional Oversight Just to Beat ACLU in Court?

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In an interview with WSJ last March, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said that publicly explaining the drone program would be “self-defeating.”

White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler acknowledged Mr. Obama has developed a broader view of executive power since he was a senator. In explaining the shift, she cited the nature of the office.

“Many issues that he deals with are just on him, where the Congress doesn’t bear the burden in the same way,” she said. “Until one experiences that first hand, it is difficult to appreciate fully how you need flexibility in a lot of circumstances.”

[snip]

Ms. Ruemmler said Mr. Obama tries to publicly explain his use of executive power, but says certain counterterrorism programs like the drone campaign are exceptions. Opening them to public scrutiny would be “self-defeating,” she said.

At the time, I thought she was treating the NYT and ACLU as “the public.” After all, in a debate over releasing the targeted killing memos in the situation room in November 2011, she had warned that releasing the memo might weaken the government’s position in litigation, presumably the FOIA battle with the two entities.

The CIA and other elements of the intelligence community were opposed to any disclosures that could lift the veil of secrecy from a covert program. Others, notably the Justice and State departments, argued that the killing of an American citizen without trial, while justified in rare cases, was so extraordinary it demanded a higher level of public explanation. Among the proposals discussed in the fall: releasing a “white paper” based on the Justice memo, publishing an op-ed article in The New York Times under Holder’s byline, and making no public disclosures at all.

The issue came to a head at a Situation Room meeting in November. At lower-level interagency meetings, Obama officials had already begun moving toward a compromise. David Petraeus, the new CIA director whose agency had been wary of too much disclosure, came out in support of revealing the legal reasoning behind the Awlaki killing so long as the case was not explicitly discussed. Petraeus, according to administration officials, was backed up by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. (The CIA declined to comment.) The State Department, meanwhile, continued to push for fuller disclosure. One senior Obama official who continued to raise questions about the wisdom of coming out publicly at all was Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security director. She argued that the calls for transparency had quieted down, as one participant characterized her view, so why poke the hornet’s nest? Another senior official expressing caution about the plan was Kathryn Ruemmler, the White House counsel. She cautioned that the disclosures could weaken the government’s stance in pending litigation. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the release of the Justice Department legal opinion in the Awlaki case. [my emphasis]

But having now updated my timeline of the over 14 requests members of Congress have made for the targeted killing memos, she seems to lump Congress with the ACLU and NYT.

More troubling, though: it appears the White House stalled its response to Congress for almost nine months simply to gain an advantage in the ACLU FOIA lawsuits.

Here are the relevant dates: Read more →

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Members of Congress Have Asked for the Targeted Killing Memos 14 15 18 Times 19 Times

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With all the discussion of targeting killing memos, I thought it time to update my list of all the times members of Congress have asked for the memos. Note that the number still doesn’t reflect all requests, as a number of these requests refer to previous undated requests. It also doesn’t include, for example, efforts that were bypassed legislatively, as when John Cornyn tried to include an amendment as part of FISA.

In other words, Congress has asked, and continues to ask, for these memos.

February 2011: Ron Wyden asks the Director of National Intelligence for the legal analysis behind the targeted killing program; the letter references “similar requests to other officials.” (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. Administration drafts white paper, but does not share with Congress yet. (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 22, 2012: DOJ provides Intelligence and Judiciary Committees with white paper dated November 8, 2011.

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.

December 4, 2012: Jerry Nadler, John Conyers, and Bobby Scott ask for finalized white paper, all opinions on broader drone program (or at least a briefing), including signature strikes, an update on the drone rule book, and public release of the white paper.

January 14, 2013: Wyden writes John Brennan letter in anticipation of his confirmation hearing, renewing his request for targeted killing memos. (11)

Update

January 25, 2012: Rand Paul asks John Brennan if he’ll release past and future OLC memos on targeting Americans. (12)

February 4, 2013: 11 Senators ask for any and all memos authorizing the killing of American citizens, hinting at filibuster of national security nominees. (13)

February 7, 2013: Pat Leahy and Chuck Grassley ask that SJC be able to get the memos that SSCI had just gotten. (14)

February 7, 2013: In John Brennan’s confirmation hearing, Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden reveal there are still outstanding memos pertaining to killing Americans, and renew their demand for those memos. (15)

Update:

February 8, 2013: Bob Goodlatte, Trent Franks, and James Sensenbrenner join their Democratic colleagues to renew the December 4, 2012 request. (16)

Update:

February 13, 2013: In statement on targeted killings oversight, DiFi describes writing 3 previous letters to the Administration asking for targeted killing memos. (17, 18, 19)

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Breaking: Most Journalists Mis-Report Release of OLC Memos

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President Obama has finally — after 2 years and 14 requests — agreed to let the intelligence committees see the Office of Legal Counsel Memos that authorize the lethal targeting of US citizens.

Kudos to Ron Wyden for having the tenacity to see that this, at least, happened.

But as big a story as this is, perhaps an equally significant story is the way it is being misreported.

First, even though quotes of Obama and direct statements from Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden refer to memos, plural, people persist in reporting that there is one memo.

Second, in spite of the fact that Obama has only acceded to letting the two Intelligence Committees have access to the memos, most media outlets are reporting that “Congress” will get the memos. Congress consists of 535 people elected by citizens. The Intelligence Committees consist of 35 people selected by party leaders. Among those 35 are Michelle Bachmann and Lynn Westmoreland.

And while on the Senate side, non-Intelligence Committee Senators can usually arrange to see such classified materials, it at least used to be that on the House side Members had to ask politely. And even still, the most responsible reporters are saying terms of this kind of access is still to be determined.

Ah well. At least 35 men and women can know what might get you and I killed. But you and I aren’t allowed to know yet.

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The Administration’s Drafty Secrecy Claims

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As I’ve noted a couple of times, both Jason Leopold and Scott Shane FOIAed the white paper someone strategically leaked to Mike Isikoff this week.

Leopold requested the white paper in August, shortly after Pat Leahy discussed it in a hearing. Just weeks later, DOJ granted him expedited processing. But then his request dropped off the face of the earth — I guess the Administration treated this “expedited” request with the same temporal measure as the Administration treats “imminence.”

Scott Shane requested the white paper in December. In January DOJ rejected his request, citing deliberative process (basically claiming the white paper was a draft).

The disparate treatment of the two requests — and the leaking of it to Isikoff after two different people had been denied it already — is troubling enough.

But I think there’s another problem with the claim they made to Shane, that it was a draft.

The letter that Ron Wyden and 10 other Senators sent to President Obama the other day suggests that the reason they’re being given for not receiving the OLC memos is because they are drafts.

Specifically, we ask that you direct the Justice Department to provide Congress, specifically the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with any and all legal opinions that lay out the executive branch’s official understanding of the President’s authority to deliberately kill American citizens. We are not asking for any pre-decisional legal advice and do not believe that providing this information would violate and Constitutional privilege. However, if there is any concern that providing this information to Congress might implicate some sort of privilege, we would encourage you to simply waive whatever privilege might apply, if you would like to make it clear that you are not setting a precedent that applies to other categories of documents.

At one level, this language suggests a consistency from the Administration. Every single document they have on drone strikes, it would seem, is a draft.

Except that the Senators’ helpful suggestion — that if these so-called drafts really are drafts, then Obama could just waive the privilege this time around without implicating other drafts it wants to keep secret — suggests (I’m going to see if I can confirm it) that what the Committees have (remember, 9 of the 11 Senators are on either the Intelligence or Judiciary Committee, and so have officially received the white paper) was not considered a draft when it was given to them. If they already received a draft, after all, it would not be novel for them to get more drafts.

It’s just that when a reporter who has an active FOIA on precisely this kind of document asks for it, it suddenly reverts to draft status, until such time as someone finds it convenient for Mike Isikoff to have it.

Ah well, John Brennan has made it clear the terrorists will win if the Administration doesn’t presumptively turn over documents under FOIA. So I’m sure the Administration will sort this all out in “expedited” fashion.

Update: Thanks to Charlie Savage for linking to the letter off of which Scott Shane FOIAed the document. It reads:

On June 22, 2012, the Department provided us with a copy of a Department of Justice White Paper titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is A Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force.” That document, which is marked as “Draft November 8, 2011,” sets forth the legal framework for considering the circumstances in which a particular, identifiable United States Citizen may be targeted. In transmitting that document to us, the Department acknowledged that this white paper is not classified, but took the position that it is not intended for public dissemination.

So DOJ did represent to HJC, at least, that it was a draft.

Two more interesting details, though. The memo was finalized 5 days after the date — November 3, 2011 — when DOJ’s Office of Information Policy arbitrarily enacted as the end date for their FOIA.

And the memo was handed to HJC, at least, the day after DOJ responded to the NYT and ACLU FOIA.

Man, according to John Brennan’s own rules, the terrorists are winning.

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