If Only They Had Listened to Thomas Drake, They Might Have Prevented CableGate

/in /by

I’m in the process of reading all the Siobhan Gorman stories for which Thomas Drake might have served as an anonymous source. And one of the ten or so articles for which he’s a possible source exposes the NSA’s failure on an issue at the heart of Bradley Manning’s ability to allegedly leak three major databases to WikiLeaks: adequate user authentication on the network.

The Drake indictment claims that Thomas Drake served as a source for “many” of the Siobhan Gorman articles she wrote about NSA between February 27, 2006 and November 28, 2007.

Thereafter, between on or about February 27, 2006 and on or about November 28, 2007, Reporter A published a series of newspaper articles about NSA, including articles that contained SIGINT information. Defendant DRAKE served as a source for many of these newspaper articles, including articles that contained SIGINT information.

One of her articles from that period, published July 2, 2006, describes how the delay in implementing a new encryption management system for NSA and DOD computers exposed those networks to hackers.

A National Security Agency program to protect secrets at the Defense Department and intelligence and other agencies is seven years behind schedule, triggering concerns that the data will be increasingly vulnerable to theft, according to intelligence officials and unclassified internal NSA documents obtained by The Sun.

[snip]

Encryption, which is an electronic lock, is among the most important of security tools, scrambling sensitive information so that it can ride securely in communications over the Internet or phone lines, and requiring a key to decipher.

Powerful encryption is necessary for protecting information that is beamed from soldiers on the battlefield or that guards data in computers at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters.

One of the three big things DOD claims it is doing to respond to WikiLeaks is to introduce smart cards for user credentials on SIPRNet.

DoD has begun to issue a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-based identity credential on a hardened smart card. This is very similar to the Common Access Card (CAC) we use on our unclassified network. We will complete issuing 500,000 cards to our SIPRNet users, along with card readers and software, by the end of 2012. This will provide very strong identification of the person accessing the network and requesting data. It will both deter bad behavior and require absolute identification of who is accessing data and managing that access.

In conjunction with this, all DoD organizations will configure their SIPRNet-based systems to use the PKI credentials to strongly authenticate end-users who are accessing information in the system. This provides the link between end users and the specific data they can access – not just network access. This should, based on our experience on the unclassified networks, be straightforward.

Which is precisely the kind of challenge one of Gorman’s named sources in the article addresses.

And as the demand grows for “smart” identification cards with computer chips that verify the card holder’s identity, so does the need for sophisticated ways to manage who is being assigned cards, so that the cards do not end up in the wrong hands, said Stephen Kent, a chief scientist at BBN Technologies who has chaired government panels on information security.

Now, we have no way of knowing whether Drake was one of the 18 sources Gorman used for the article. But a number of her sources seem to compare this clusterfuck with that of Trailblazer–the program Drake and others submitted an Inspector General’s complaint on.

Like other major NSA efforts – such as the failed Trailblazer program to rapidly sift out threat information, and the troubled Groundbreaker program aimed at upgrading the agency’s computer networks – an ever-changing game plan has caused many of the project’s problems, current and former senior intelligence officials said.

Following that passage, Gorman cites a “former senior intelligence official”–the description (the indictment alleges) Drake asked Gorman to use when she cited him.

One former senior intelligence official said that the NSA had unrealistic expectations from the start and repeatedly opted for delays to try to perfect the program. That left the government with aging security protections in the quest for security nirvana, the official said.

“NSA often will say, `Well, this is not totally secure, so you can’t use it,’ when the only alternative is nothing,” the former official said. “My worry is this push for perfect security is the enemy of good security.

And managing the implementation of a new key system sure sounds like something that the “Senior Change Leader” of NSA might be involved with.

Interestingly, the initial deadlines predicted in Gorman’s article–2012–seem to roughly match the deadlines DOD now gives for its smart cards (as well as the insider threat detection, the deadline for which Obama is trying to push back further, though that may be a different issue).

Again, all that’s not proof that Thomas Drake was warning in 2006 that if NSA didn’t fix its management problems, something like CableGate would happen (as well as the widespread hacking we know to be happening).

But 18 people were warning of it back in 2006.

Which is, I guess, DOJ feels the need to prosecute whistleblowers, to cover up embarrassing lapses like this.

As the Arab Spring Gives Way to the Sunni Summer

/in , /by

The AP has a interesting–and interestingly timed–story on the help we’re giving Saudi Arabia to build a “facilities security force” to protect, among other things, its oil fields and planned civilian nuclear sites. The story is based, in part, on this WikiLeaks cable.

Note the date of the cable: October 29, 2008, less than a week before–everyone already knew at the time–Barack Obama would be elected President.

That makes the actual content of the cable all the more interesting. It describes a meeting between US Department of Energy representatives and Mohammed bin Naif, the Assistant Minister of Interior and the son of the long-time Minister of Interior, Naif bin Abdul-Aziz, as well as other representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior. Basically, the DOE folks gave a presentation about the vulnerabilities in the Abqaiq oil processing plant, after which bin Naif agreed to a broad security program, including the FSF.

Remember, DOE was giving a presentation about an oil facility that had already been attacked by al Qaeda as part of plan to get Saudi Arabia to agree to this 35,000 person force in Saudi Arabia.

At the meeting at which this cooperation was agreed to, CENTCOM handed bin Naif a document describing the exact language Saudi Arabia should use request CENTCOM’s help establishing the FSF. The plan was that Saudi Arabia would then present that request (the one the US wrote) to General Petraeus when he came to Saudi Arabia on November 8 (which would be after Obama’s expected election, but not by much).

The draft [Letter of Request] for OPM-FSF prepared by CENTCOM was presented to MBN. This draft explicitly lays out on one page the exact wording for the SAG’s formal request to the USG to establish OPM-FSF. MBN directed his staff to prepare such a letter for his signature. Once we receive this letter, CENTCOM will then respond with a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) which will allow CENTCOM to begin building up OPM-FSF’s personnel and equipment structure. MOI indicated they plan to present the formal Saudi LOR to GEN Petraeus when he visits the Kingdom, currently scheduled for Nov. 8.

In addition, the cable describes bin Naif’s urgent desire–expressed privately to the US Charge d’Affaires–to solidify this partnership quickly, also mentioning his plan to travel to the US on November 5-7 (that is, the days after Obama’s expected election).

In a private meeting between MBN and the Charge’, MBN conveyed the SAG’s, and his personal, sense of urgency to move forward as quickly as possible to enhance the protection of Saudi Arabia’s critical infrastructure with the priority being its energy production sites. MBN related how his grandfather, King Abdulaziz, had the vision of forming a lasting strategic partnership with the United States. MBN stressed he shared this vision, and wants the USG’s help to protect Saudi critical infrastructure. He commented that neither the Kingdom nor the U.S. would be comfortable with the “French or Russians” involved in protecting Saudi oil facilities. “We built ARAMCO together, we must protect it together.” MBN also confirmed his travel dates to Washington will be Nov. 5 to 7.

In other words, the whole thing seems like something formalized quickly just as Obama was being elected President.

One more interesting detail about the cable? Note who appears at the top of the distribution list: Dick Cheney.

WHITE HOUSE FOR OVP

Okay, so that’s the cable. Using the fear that al Qaeda would attack Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in a repeat of the 2006 attack on Abqaiq, the US (presumably largely directed by Cheney) pushed through the agreement for this 35,000 person elite force just as Obama was being elected President.

So let’s return to the AP article. The article provides some key context for the FSF–notably that it seems to have been a quid pro quo tied to our agreement to give Saudi Arabia civilian nukes.

The new arrangement is based on a May 2008 deal signed by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef. That same month the U.S. and Saudi Arabia also signed an understanding on civil nuclear energy cooperation in which Washington agreed to help the Saudis develop nuclear energy for use in medicine, industry and power generation.

So we give Saudi Arabia nukes that it wants (in part) because Iran is working hard to get them, and it lets us “train” a 35,000 person elite force to guard its critical infrastructure in the name of counter-terrorism. Are you having an Erik Prince moment, yet?

The rest of the article–that part not reliant on the WikiLeaks cable, that is–only partly focuses on the FSF itself–at least on the troops tasked with defending oil infrastructure. In addition, it focuses on missile defense and other arms targeted at Iran.

The U.S. also is in discussions with Saudi Arabia to create an air and missile defense system with far greater capability against the regional rival the Saudis fear most, Iran. And it is with Iran mainly in mind that the Saudis are pressing ahead with a historic $60 billion arms deal that will provide dozens of new U.S.-built F-15 combat aircraft likely to ensure Saudi air superiority over Iran for years.

Read more →

Please Help Support My Next 525 Posts on Torture

/in , , , , , , , /by

Become a Member of Firedoglake

GOAL: 1,000 New Members

by June 1st

Support our one-stop shop for in-depth news coverage and hard-hitting activism.

 

Just over two years ago, right around the time I reported that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a month, many of you chipped into the “Marcy Wheeler fund” to support my work; that generosity paid my way until a short time ago. Here’s what that support made possible.

Between May 1, 2009 and yesterday, by my rough count, I wrote 525 posts on torture. I unpacked the torture memos, the CIA IG Report, the OPR Report, and thousands of documents released through FOIA. I showed the bureaucratic games they used to set up our torture program, early efforts to place limits on things like mock execution, followed by more bureaucratic and legal means to get away with violating even those limits. I showed how they hid documents and altered tapes to hide evidence of their torture. I showed how, after CIA and parts of DOJ tried to put limits on torture in 2004, they again used bureaucratic tricks and ridiculous legal documents to reauthorize it. I’ve tracked DOJ’s kabuki claims to investigate torture (though bmaz gets credit for forcing DOJ to admit John Durham’s torture tape investigation had run out the clock on Statutes of Limitation). And I’ve tracked the Obama Administration’s successful efforts to suppress all evidence of torture. And all the while, I’ve relentlessly pushed back against the torture apologists’ lies.

Of course, while writing about torture is a major part mapping out the decline of the rule of law, it’s not the only part. Since May 2009, I’ve written almost 200 posts on wiretapping, almost as many on our Gitmo show trials, posts about state secrets, drones, fusion centers, the forever war metastisizing around the world. I’ve written about Wikileaks and Bradley Manning’s treatment and the banksters and the auto companies.

Cataloging the decline of the rule of law has been exhausting and infuriating. The work has been challenging.

But most of all, it has been humbling. That’s because you made this happen, as much as I did.

In addition to the absolutely brilliant observations you’ve made in comments, your support, two years ago, made this work possible. I’m profoundly grateful that many of you invested your faith and financial support in my work.

And now I’m asking for your faith and financial support again, to support the next 525 posts on torture. This time that support will come in the form of an ongoing Firedoglake membership. By becoming a member of Firedoglake, you will not only give my work some stability over the long term, but support the superb work of Jane and DDay and Jon Walker, and just as importantly, the work of the people backstage who make this all technically possible. And you will become a closer part of our efforts to push our country in the right direction, to return to the rule of law.

Please join Firedoglake today.

I hope some day soon we’ll begin to make headway against our expanding national security state. I hope some day, I won’t feel the need to write a post on torture five days a week. But until then, I feel compelled to write about what is happening to our country. And I can only continue to do that with your help.

Hillary Picks Cheney Aide to Replace PJ Crowley

/in /by

It’s bad enough that Obama didn’t clear out the Cheney folks burrowed into the permanent bureaucracy. Now the Obama Administration will appoint former Cheney aide Victoria Nuland to replace PJ Crowley as State Department spokesperson.

Victoria “Toria” Nuland, the current U.S. special envoy for conventional forces in Europe and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, will be named the new spokesperson for the State Department this week, officials and foreign policy hands told the Envoy.The State Department did not provide comment in response to queries. Nuland did not respond to  a query.

The appointment is expected to be announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as early as Monday, sources told the Envoy.

Nuland, a career foreign service officer, has previously served as U.S. Ambassador and deputy ambassador to NATO, former principal deputy national security adviser to then Vice President Dick Cheney, and as chief of staff to Clinton-era Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, now President of the Brookings Institution.

Well, I guess one way to make sure someone doesn’t go off the reservation like PJ Crowley did is to appoint a former Cheney aide.

Though I do hope Hillary recalls how Cheney sabotaged Colin Powell’s efforts at State Department with his agents there (people like John Bolton).

Eric Holder Claims Rule of Law Exists in Cyberspace

/in , /by

Just days after asking Congress not to give the intelligence community a hard deadline to put a basic cybersecurity measure into place, the Obama Administration rolled out a cybersecurity strategy yesterday with great fanfare. The event itself seemed designed to bring as many Cabinet Secretaries into one place at one time–Hillary Clinton, Gary Locke, Janet Napolitano, and Eric Holder, along with DOD Deputy Secretary William Lynn and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt–to give the appearance of real cooperation on cyberspace issues.

The strategy itself is still mostly fluff, with paragraphs like this:

This future promises not just greater prosperity and more reliable networks, but enhanced international security and a more sustainable peace. In it, states act as responsible parties in cyberspace—whether configuring networks in ways that will spare others disruption, or inhibiting criminals from using the Internet to operate from safe havens. States know that networked infrastructure must be protected, and they take measures to secure it from disruption and sabotage. They continue to collaborate bilaterally, multilaterally, and internationally to bring more of the world into the information age and into the consensus of states that seek to preserve the Internet and its core characteristics.

And loaded paragraphs like this, in the section on military goals:

Recognize and adapt to the military’s increasing need for reliable and secure networks. We recognize that our armed forces increasingly depend on the networks that support them, and we will work to ensure that our military remains fully equipped to operate even in an environment where others might seek to disrupt its systems, or other infrastructure vital to national defense. Like all nations, the United States has a compelling interest in defending its vital national assets, as well as our core principles and values, and we are committed to defending against those who would attempt to impede our ability to do so.

Lucky for DOD, there was no discussion of deadlines anywhere in the document, so they didn’t have to admit their plan to “adapt to the military’s increasing need for reliable and secure networks” was a long term project.

And then the strategy had a lot of language about norms, which places our cybersecurity strategy in the paradigm and language of international regime development from foreign relations (interestingly, Hillary started off the parade of Secretaries, further emphasizing this diplomatic approach).

But what struck me most about this dog and pony show, delivered on the day SCOTUS endorsed the executive branch’s efforts to hide torture behind the invocation of state secrets, was Eric Holder’s discussion about rule of law in cyberspace.

In recent months, the Justice Department has announced takedowns of significant criminal groups operating from Romania, Egypt, and elsewhere that had been victimizing American businesses and citizens – including children.  We’ve also brought multiple criminal conspirators to justice for their roles in coordinated cybercrimes that, according to court documents, netted nearly 1.5 million dollars from U.S. victims.  And, just a few weeks ago, we announced an operation to disable an international criminal network that had infected more than two million computers worldwide with malicious software.  Until we stepped in – with the help of industry and security experts, as well as key international partners – this malware was allowing criminals to capture bank account numbers, user names, and other sensitive and financial information online.

While we can all be encouraged by these and other successes, we cannot become complacent.  As President Obama has repeatedly indicated – we must, and we will, take our global fight against cyber threats to the next level.  The strategy that we are announcing today is an affirmation of that promise.  It reinforces our nation’s support for the Budapest Convention –and for efforts to establish the rule of law in cyberspace.   It also reflects our ongoing commitment to prevent terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the Internet for operational planning or financing – or for the execution of attacks. [my emphasis]

We’re going to build rule of law in cyberspace apparently. Sort of like an extraterrestrial colony to preserve a way of life that used to exist on Earth (or at least in the US), but no longer does.

So rest assured, if this cyberstrategy is successful, we can expect rule of law in cyberspace as compensation for the fact that the government has destroyed rule of law in meatspace.

Oh, on that note, there was no discussion of any investigation into how it was that a media outlet, Wikileaks, was attacked with a sophisticated DDOS attack, ultimately damaging free speech.

Whitewash Investigation on Detainee Abuse Is Why We Need WikiLeaks

/in , /by

The Nation has a long study on the Army’s Detainee Abuse Task Force, which one of its members described as a “whitewash.”

Jon Renaud, a retired Army Warrant Officer who headed the task force as the Special Agent in Charge for the first half of 2005, now says of the DATF, “It didn’t accomplish anything—it was a whitewash.” Neither he nor his fellow agents could recall a single case they investigated that actually advanced to a court-martial hearing, known as an Article 32.

“These investigations needed to take place,” said Renaud, a Bronze Star recipient who retired in 2009 after twenty years in the military. “But they needed to be staffed and resourced with the same level of resources that they gave the Abu Ghraib case.” He noted that the Army assigned a general and staff to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Abu Ghraib. “That was a single case,” he said, “and we had hundreds of others for six people.”

In addition to the many details of abuses ultimately ignored in Iraq, the Nation’s story demonstrates why we need something like WikiLeaks. After all, not only should there be some kind of public accountability for abuses like this (that should be as accessible and widely reviewed as the Taguba Report), citizens ought to be able search for more information.

But DOD claims the DATF never existed.

Requests to the Army for information about the origins, mission and track record of the DATF were refused, and a FOIA request to CID was denied with this claim: “No documents of the kind you described could be located. No official ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force’ was ever established by the USACIDC.” After a lengthy appeals process, during which we provided several samples of DATF communications on DATF letterhead, this finding was reaffirmed: CID “never created an official ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force,'” the denial letter read. “Individual criminal investigation units may have set up informal, ad hoc task forces while deployed to emphasize detainee abuse investigations. In turn, they may have labeled certain investigations as being subject to a ‘Detainee Abuse Task Force.'” But “there was no official organization for such a task force.”

[snip]

Angela Birt, the Operations Officer who oversaw CID’s felony investigations across Iraq during 2005, including the DATF, expressed disbelief at the military’s response. According to Birt, the DATF did not receive an official unit designator; “there was no heraldry behind it,” she said. “But to say it didn’t exist in the terms that they said in the letter? Wow, that’s really embarrassing for them,” said Birt.

“To say, ‘You never existed,'” Renaud said, “It’s insulting. It’s insulting to the agents that worked on it.

“I have to assume they just don’t want to release the cases,” he went on, “because if anybody actually got ahold of all the cases [and] read over them, they would obviously see huge holes.”

In fact, one of the Nation’s sources noted that the military kept reopening the cases the ACLU was FOIAing.

Renaud explained that his superiors at Fort Belvoir sent him weekly e-mails containing an itemized list of cases they were ordering reopened. He also separately received a list of cases about which the ACLU had filed FOIA requests. And he began to notice a correlation.

“I challenged folks on this. I said, ‘Hey, are we reopening these cases because we’re going to work them? Or are we reopening them to play hide the ball because we don’t want to release them?'”

“We did discuss the potential that they were just sending these back because as long as they’re open, they’re not subject to FOIA,” said Birt. “The rule with [the] Crimes Records Center is: if a case is open, they will not honor a FOIA request because it might jeopardize open and valid investigative pursuits.”

So it’s not just DATF DOD was hiding from FOIA, it was the cases themselves (in a tactic the government appears to be repeating more generally).

The military, if asked, would probably deny that it issued orders not to investigate instances of Iraqi-on-Iraq torture. But, because of Wikileaks, we know they did issue that order.

This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a “fragmentary order” which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ”.

Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture.

The military, if asked, would probably deny knowing that the US turned detainees over to the Iraqi Wolf Brigade to be tortured. But, because of WikiLeaks, we know that did happen.

In Samarra, the series of log entries in 2004 and 2005 describe repeated raids by US infantry, who then handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade for “further questioning”. Typical entries read: “All 5 detainees were turned over to Ministry of Interior for further questioning” (from 29 November 2004) and “The detainee was then turned over to the 2nd Ministry of Interior Commando Battalion for further questioning” (30 November 2004).

The field reports chime with allegations made by New York Times writer Peter Maass, who was in Samarra at the time. He told Guardian Films : “US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,” while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said.

[snip]

The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects. The then interior minister in charge of them was alleged to have been a former member of the Shia Badr militia.

And if it weren’t for WikiLeaks, we would know little about the multiple times our government bullied other countries to drop investigations of rendition and torture (one I’m certain we’ll see repeated when the President visits Poland later this month).

Without such transparency, the Nation study makes clear, there will be no accountability for the systematic flouting of US and international law.

But note the irony. As the Nation describes, none of the hundreds of abuse cases–not the ones that involved electrocution, not the ones that involved rape, not the ones that involved mock execution–resulted in a court-martial. But not only has the military charged Bradley Manning, but they have alleged that his actions–and not the torture and not the cover-up of torture–bring discredit on the armed forces.

Like SSCI, HPSCI Requires DNI to Close Gaping Security Holes … by 2013

/in , /by

Steven Aftergood has the House intelligence report online and–as he points out–it contains a requirement that the intelligence community close one of the gaping holes in network security highlighted by the WikiLeaks case. The deadline? 2013.

SEC. 402. INSIDER THREAT DETECTION PROGRAM.

(a) Initial Operating Capability.–Not later than October 1, 2012, the Director of National Intelligence shall establish an initial operating capability for an effective automated insider threat detection program for the information resources in each element of the intelligence community in order to detect unauthorized access to, or use or transmission of, classified intelligence.

(b) Full Operating Capability.–Not later than October 1, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence shall ensure the program described in subsection (a) has reached full operating capability.

(c) Report.–Not later than December 1, 2011, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report on the resources required to implement the insider threat detection program referred to in subsection (a) and any other issues related to such implementation the Director considers appropriate to include in the report.

(d) Information Resources Defined.–In this section, the term “information resources” means networks, systems, workstations, servers, routers, applications, databases, websites, online collaboration environments, and any other information resources in an element of the intelligence community designated by the Director of National Intelligence.

This is precisely what the Senate Intelligence Committee is also mandating. As I pointed out earlier, this seems to simply take DOD’s own lackadaisical deadline and make it a requirement.

In other words, if closing this security gap a year and a half after the leaks are alleged to have occurred is too tough, then they can go ahead and take another year or so to close the barn door.

Though to be fair, this deadline may come directly from the lackadaisical DOD, as the deadlines given here seem to match those DOD aspires to hit.

Now, maybe it’s considered unpatriotic to note that our intelligence community–and its congressional overseers–are tolerating pretty shoddy levels of security all while insisting that they takes leaks seriously.

But seriously: if our government is going to claim that leaks are as urgent as it does, if it’s going to continue to pretend that secrets are, you know, really secret, then it really ought to at least pretend to show urgency on responding to the gaping technical issues that will not only protect against leakers, but also provide better cybersecurity and protect against spies. Aspiring to fix those issues years after the fact really doesn’t cut it.

Ah well! Bin Laden is dead. Who else might want our secrets?

Bradley Manning Protest: White House Bans Journalist for Doing Journalism

/in , /by

To a degree, this reminds me of the Joshua Claus moment, when DOD banned reporters like Carol Rosenberg and Michelle Shephard because they uttered the name “Joshua Claus” in their coverage of his testimony in Omar Khadr’s trial. (Shephard had interviewed him previously, so they were basically asking her to forget information she had gathered independently to be able to cover Gitmo.)

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a “print pool” – a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues – which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as “pen and pad” reporting.

As with coverage of Omar Khadr’s trial, the Obama Administration seems to be demanding that journalists abdicate their jobs and their instincts to play by the rules.

But the event reminds me of something else: how the White House asked (and persuaded) all the big US outlets to suppress the widely discussed news that Raymond Davis was a spy, even while publications overseas and dirty fucking hippie bloggers were reporting on it.

As the account of Marinucci’s treatment makes clear, the rules they want to enforce on pool reporting basically put her at a disadvantage to everyone else in the room who had and used a cell phone video.

Carla cannot do her job to the best of her ability if she can’t use all the tools available to her as a journalist. The public still sees the videos posted by protesters and other St. Regis attendees, because the technology is ubiquitous. But the Obama Administration apparently wants to give the distinct advantage to citizen witnesses at the expense of professionals.

While there’s a bit of professional snobbery here, it is entirely justified. The White House bizarrely imagines it can manage Obama’s image by imposing rules on journalists it can’t impose on others. Not only does that not do a damn thing to prevent videos like this from getting out. It profoundly corrupts the role of journalists, imposing requirements that ensure they offer only a highly scripted and obviously false view of an event.

It’s simply not fair to require that journalists not tell stories that are already out there in the public sphere. That turns them, once and for all, into stenographers. That’s not what our country needs from presidential press coverage.

Saifullah Paracha’s Gitmo File Contains Suspect Details, but His Defense Attorney Can’t Point Them Out

/in , , /by

I’m going to be in transit for another half day yet, but I wanted to comment on this motion David Remes, Gitmo detainee Saifullah Paracha’s attorney, filed to request emergency access to the Detainee Assessment Brief on his client released by WikiLeaks on Monday. (h/t Benjamin Wittes)  Remes describes the implications of the protection order he works under, noting specifically the warning DOJ sent out the other day.

For example, because the government considers the documents classified, and counsel holds a “secret” security clearance, he is concerned that if he views the documents online, the government might revoke his clearance. Losing his clearance will disable him from continuing to represent his current or future detainee clients and jeopardize his ability to obtain further clearances. Counsel is concerned that the government may even prosecute him. To avoid any potential sanctions, undersigned counsel errs on the side of extreme caution and refrains from viewing the documents.

The only place undersigned counsel can view these documents and fear no potential sanctions is at a Secure Facility the Justice Department has provided in the Washington area for counsel with “secret” level clearances. To the best of counsel’s knowledge, the Secure Facility contains no secure computer onto which the Wikileaks documents can be downloaded. Moreover, counsel is confident that the Justice Department will not ferry the documents to the Secure Facility for viewing and use by counsel. Even if the leaked documents were made available for viewing and use by counsel at the Secure Facility, counsel located far from the Facility – some thousands of miles away – would have to journey to the Facility to view and use them. [my emphasis]

That is, Remes could view the documents in just one place without risking losing his clearance and his ability to defend his client, or even criminal sanctions–a DOJ Secure Facility. Yet DOJ is not going to make the documents accessible there. So he’s SOL; he can’t see them.

Remes goes on to describe how this prevents him from defending his client publicly, specifically because he can’t comment for a big article the NYT did which (IMO) offered a credulous reading of Paracha’s file. While that article contains a quote from ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi noting that the information in the files is uncorroborated, and while NYT admits much of the evidence derives from KSM whom they note was waterboarded, rather than point out obvious suspect details in Paracha’s file, it simply repeats those details uncritically.

Here’s just one reason why Remes needs to have access to the file to adequately represent his client and refute credulous readings of Paracha’s file:

(S//NF) The plan called for shipping explosives in containers that detainee used to ship women’s and children’s clothing to the US. Detainee agreed to this plan. KU-10024 [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] claimed in early March 2003, PK-10020 and PK-10018 [Ammar al-Baluchi, KSM’s nephew] were arranging the details with detainee and his son Uzair. KU-10024 stated detainee knew all the details of the plan. Uzair understood PK-10018 and PK-10020 were al-Qaida, but KU-10024 was unsure how much Uzair [Paracha’s son] knew about the actual smuggling plan.8 [my emphasis]

There are, in general, just two kinds of evidence offered by KSM in March 2003: evidence the CIA itself claims was disinformation offered by KSM in his early days of captivity while he was still successfully resisting interrogation, and evidence offered up under torture, potentially one of the 183 waterboarding sessions KSM survived in March 2003.

It’s unclear which category this piece of intelligence falls into, but the use of the verb “claimed” suggests there’s something about the intelligence that may have led even the briefer on Paracha’s file to doubt it.

The intelligence report cited for this detail (and therefore collected in March 2003), TD-314/16519-03, is cited three more times in Paracha’s file, only one of which is corroborated by reports dated 2004 and 2005.

In other words, one of the claims against Paracha can be traced back to a March 2003 interrogation of KSM that no one should consider credible. The entire case against Paracha builds off this early interrogation.

There are a number of other reasons to doubt the “facts” laid out in Paracha’s file. Notably, references to Aafia Siddiqui make no mention of her earlier reported detention by the US in Afghanistan, and instead claims “Siddiqui was detained in Afghanistan in mid-July 2008,” thereby hiding a key detail as to the credibility of any intelligence Siddiqui may have offered (or, just as likely, making no mention of intelligence Siddiqui refuted during years of interrogation in US custody in Afghanistan).

Parts of Paracha’s file reveal real weaknesses in the government’s case against him. These are all very basic details Remes needs to point out, particularly if NYT reporters aren’t going to read the file critically themselves. But given the way the protection order works, he can’t do that.

The Cover Story that Serves as a Cover Story

/in , , /by

Check out this sentence, which appears at the end of the Executive Summary of a document purporting to debunk the “cover stories” of detainees who claimed to have traveled to Afghanistan to teach the Koran.

Mujahideen that traveled to Afghanistan following the attacks of 11 September 2001 did so with the knowledge that Usama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida were the likely perpetrators of the attack.

Note the assumptions. First, that the detainees picked up in Afghanistan were, by definition, mujahadeen. The document doesn’t define the term. It does contextualize the term “mujahadeen” within the fight against the Russians, then calls recent “recruits” mujahadeen uncritically. And nowhere in the document does it explain how to assess a detainee’s claim that he was not an active fighter, a trainee at an al Qaeda camp, or even a trainee more generally.

Nowhere does the document address evidentiary problems assessing when a detainee left for Afghanistan and/or arrived there and whether the departure preceded 9/11 (though this is one of the least problematic parts of this statement).

As to the claim that detainees that traveled to Afghanistan after 9/11 did so “with the knowledge that Usama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida were the likely perpetrators of the attack”? Here’s the shoddy proof the document offers for the claim that these detainees assumed to be trained fighters knew of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden’s role in it.

There was already speculation on 11 September 2001 as to the origins of the perpetrators of the attacks, and the US Government publicly named Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaida no later than 12 September 2001. Even before this announcement, there were communications between extremists in Afghanistan and elsewhere identifying UBL as the sponsor of the attacks. Prior to the attacks, the recruits would have no way of knowing they would soon be engaged in a battle with a US-led coalition because of the deaths of thousands of innocent people. This does not decrease the recruits [sic] involvement with terrorist groups including Al-Qaida, however, as their travel to Afghanistan and their room and board in the months following their arrival were paid for by the Al-Qaida, the Taliban, and or other supporting extremist groups [sic] fund raising activities and the recruit elected to remain in Afghanistan. Some detainees state they attempted to leave but could not, this too is part of their cover story to show they were not in Afghanistan of their own free will. After 11 September 2001, the new recruits could no longer claim ignorance to the actions of Al-Qaida and the likelihood of hostilities resulting from the US desire to bring those responsible to justice. Therefore, especially following the attacks, Muahideen traveling to Afghanistan did so with the distinct desire to defend UBL and his organization.

Now, there are a lot of basic problems with the claim about speculation that al Qaeda executed the attacks just after 9/11, not least that key players within the Bush Administration were fighting the argument at the time that al Qaeda caused the attack. Ultimately, this amounts to an argument that because Richard Clarke was sure al Qaeda caused the attack, it meant the Americans generally were loudly backing that certainty rather than, for example, trying to turn this into a war against Iraq.

Then there’s the problem that intelligence in US possession by the time this was issued in August 2004 made clear that even Osama bin Laden himself did not expect the US to retaliate as they did. If he was expecting the US to respond with limited missile strikes, than how they hell are purported recruits (ignoring the problem of proving they were recruits) supposed to expect the full response the US made?

Then there’s the implicit problem–with the reference to Al-Qaida “and or other supporting extremist groups”–that many of these purported mujahadeen weren’t even purportedly training with al Qaeda. Even if they knew al Qaeda carried out the attack, where is the proof that because the US would, at some point in the future, assert that those “supporting extremist groups” were affiliated with the attack, recent recruits of those “supporting” groups had to have known that the US would ultimately deem those groups as supporting as well?

But the really big problem here is the failure to even attempt to establish what the media/communications consumption of someone purporting to be teaching the Koran in rural Afghanistan would have, and whether it might credibly include awareness of what Richard Clarke was arguing within the Situation Room of the White House in the days right after 9/11 (not least given the assertion that a number of these detainees had limited schooling). I mean, most Americans on September 12, 2001, watching footage of the attack over and over on CNN, probably didn’t know that al Qaeda caused the attack; many still doubt it did. But we’re insisting someone reading the Koran in Afghanistan would know?

It all feels very familiar. When confronted with refutations of their claims that Iraq had WMD before the war, the US repeatedly attributed those refutations–by people like Hans Blix and Mohammed el Baradei (not people who happened to leave for Afghanistan at an inauspicious time)–to Iraqi cover stories. Anything that didn’t confirm their assumptions was, by definition, a cover story. Only even with all the intelligence claims on Iraq that have been released, we never got to see how shoddy the logic those arguing it was all a cover story really was.

Seeing the logic, though, I’m not sure which is more appalling and embarrassing: that many people treated this as valid analysis? Or that someone had either such bad logical skills or such a desire to generate propaganda that he’d consider this report a coherent argument?

image_print