“An internal and an external review”
I’ll have more to say about WSJ’s report that Obama was unaware that the NSA was wiretapping 35 world leaders tomorrow.
But in my opinion, the most important detail in it reveals in addition to Obama’s James Clapper Committee to Make You Love the Dragnet, he has an internal review.
This summer, President Obama launched two reviews—an internal one and an external one. He highlighted them in a speech in August as part of a series of measures being taken to respond to the domestic uproar over NSA’s extensive spying practices in the U.S.
[snip]
The internal review, among different U.S. national security agencies, will be informed by findings from the external review, which is expected to deliver its final report in December, said White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. [my emphasis]
Frankly, I don’t buy that Obama “highlighted” both these speeches in August. He highlighted his “independent” review, but mentioned nothing else that I can see.
Fourth, we’re forming a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies. We need new thinking for a new era. We now have to unravel terrorist plots by finding a needle in the haystack of global telecommunications. And meanwhile, technology has given governments — including our own — unprecedented capability to monitor communications.
So I am tasking this independent group to step back and review our capabilities — particularly our surveillance technologies. And they’ll consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used, ask how surveillance impacts our foreign policy — particularly in an age when more and more information is becoming public. And they will provide an interim report in 60 days and a final report by the end of this year, so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our foreign policy.
Nor did the White House provide any details on reviews in the readout of the Angela Merkel conversation last week.
In other words, I suspect that for some reason — probably for a variety of them — Obama has decided that The James Clapper Committee to Make You Love the Dragnet is insufficient to the task of restoring confidence in the dragnet, so has people internal to the Administration working on fixes, probably tasked well after the Clapper committee, if not in the last week.
Or maybe he has just invented the existence of an “internal review” so as to explain why he is prepared to admit that 35 world leaders were being wiretapped by the NSA and anything else that proves inconvenient.
The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an internal Obama administration review started this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operations, U.S. officials said.
Officials said the internal review turned up NSA monitoring of some 35 world leaders, in the U.S. government’s first public acknowledgment that it tapped the phones of world leaders.
After all, the Guardian reported on the 35 world leaders (which the WSJ notes), and only after that we learn there’s an “internal review” that raised this as a point of concern? (Perhaps, too, this serves as a convenient fiction to accord with whatever Obama has told Angela Merkel on various occasions.)
WSJ spends much of the rest of the story trying to suggest the James Clapper Committee to Make You Love the Dragnet is not, as all evidence indicates, kabuki.
I don’t buy that, nor do I buy that there was really an “internal review” before things got really hot this week.
But I do hope that having been forced to create at least the appearance of a second review, Obama will use it as an opportunity to make more changes than he otherwise had planned on.
Update: Adding to my suspicion that the Administration created an “internal” review in the last few days, National Security Rice is now tweeting about it.
Marcy someone on this site, I believe it was you, once asked rhetorically what Obama was keeping Alexander and Clapper around for. What worse things were coming that he wanted them on hand? Perhaps this is it?
If we are to believe the WSJ article he has a new internal review. If we are to believe the reuters article he only found out from another such review in 2010. Neither story, as you say, holds much water. But on the other hand neither does the claim that he was “fully briefed” on the programs when it comes from an agency with such a long track record of lying to congresses and courts.
Well spotted.
So I am tasking this independent group to step back and review our capabilities — particularly our surveillance technologies. And they’ll consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used, ask how surveillance impacts our foreign policy — particularly in an age when more and more information is becoming public. And they will provide an interim report in 60 days and a final report by the end of this year, so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our foreign policy.
Fresh read of that paragraph reminds me of the absurdity of some of the statements.
– “review our capabilities — particularly our surveillance technologies” it’s impossible to do a thorough review, even reasonably thorough review of all of our capabilities in 60 days
– “independent group” As already discussed widely, not independent
– “maintain the trust of the people” regain is more like it
– “make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used” This is an absurd statement. It’s an impossibility.
– “interim report in 60 days” 60 days has passed; no report.
This was never a serious speech. We knew that at the time but it’s all the more obvious now.
Assume the worst about these secret manipulaters. Then you may be seeing some reality. Surveillance is only the beginning. They suppress anti-war activists and apparently supress technologies for the oligarchs.
They spy on the most important people in the world. That is because they control or want to control them. It is an epic struggle to free the world from a world wide Secret Police, that are trying to enslave us all. “I wonder who they are, the men who really run this land”
I also don’t believe this story about the internal review. I think there was a review of some kind but I think it went something like this: “You had better tell me right now what kinds of things might be revealed in these Snowden files stories that I’m not already aware of and if you don’t, you’ll regret it.” I think he also laid down the law that all responses to this are to be coordinated through the White House and any leaks will be hunted down and dealt with.
So maybe there’s a tiny bit of truth to the internal review thing but IMHO more likely it was a series of internal meetings discussing how to deal and defend against all of this. And I think the probability that he knew nothing of surveillance on world leaders nears zero. If he really didn’t know then he’s merely a political puppet and there really was a military/intelligence coup as Wes Clark has suggested. And it means that our problems are much worse than any of this and that we don’t even have a democracy.
That being said, considering how much time and effort and travel Obama dedicated to that reelection campaign for nearly a year, it’s hard to imagine that he could possibly be involved at any level of detail in much of anything. But even so, the people who surround him have a ton of experience and I’m sure they know how to bring the most critical things to the top and inform the president of those most critical details.
let me put this here also:
orionATL on October 27, 2013 at 11:29 pm said:
@C:
“the president was not informed about” – passive voice won’t do here. it’s the prez’s job to WANT to know, to WANT to ask questions, to demand answers.
to me it points to a, at best, naieve c-in-c,
at worst, and i think most likely, to a prez who avoids knowing (directly asking about) what could be troublesome for himself to know and then have to deal with.
this guy’s m.o. is avoidance of conflict, avoidance of knowing, evasion of responsibility, and speaking in platitudes and vague generalities. he should have stayed in the senate where he belonged.
he needs to bone up on lyndon johnson’s way of presidenting, not tom daschle’s.
Reply
– See more at: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/10/27/did-lying-keith-just-accuse-obama-of-lying/#comments
I must say I am enjoying the game.
It is so much more satisfying to watch Obama, Clapper, Alexander, Feinstein, (where’s John Brennan lately?) and Caitlin Hayden (when did she show up?) put forward what they think are irrefutable statements and have them shoved back down their lying gobs one by one, than it would have been if it all came out in one big expose.
Maybe I’m a bit perverse but it is so much more enjoyable to watch the straws of what they thought was an impenetrable fortress pulled out from under them one-by-one and sense the rising fear and panic encompassed in their newly invented lies, knowing these too will be exposed.
No need to rush this for my benefit, let them slow cook for a few more months or longer and then maybe even turn off the heat and watch them self destruct as they realize they have no clothes.
In fact, this dish certainly will be best served cold. I suggest it be dished up in its fullest about when the next election cycle kicks off.
That’s when the most damning revelations would have the greatest impact.
One of the German papers yesterday called Obama’s denial last Wednesday to Merkel “at best a diplomatic white lie”. German papers are desribing Merkel as “empoert” – furious – over the NSA spying. They are also asking how it is that the German intelligence services were oblivious to the NSA’s activities right in the heart of Berlin.
Also in one of their papers today http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/dokumente-von-edward-snowden-nsa-sammelte-in-spanien-binnen-wochen-millionen-telefondaten-1.1805362
, republication of the synopsis of Greenwald’s latest article running today in Madrid’s El Mundo: per Snowden’s documents at the end of 2012 NSA hoovered connection data (metadata) on more than 60 million Spanish phone calls in less than a month. The lede was especially funny/ironic:
IMHO, what the WSJ article reports and what Obama is or may be doing is more for domestic US consumption than anything else. My morning news (the same thing most people get their news rom) mentioned that the tapping of 35 world leaders is something of a scandal, without giving anything more than that. I speculate Obama figures if he can keep the real furor overseas it will gradually fade and go away without any damage domestically.
“But I do hope that having been forced to create at least the appearance of a second review, Obama will use it as an opportunity to make more changes than he otherwise had planned on.”
This strikes me as unlikely. Obama is one of the most dishonest men I have ever had the misfortune to witness in public office. The reason he created such a farce of a review committee under Clapper in the first place was to ensure nothing fundamentally changed as you so well capture by your titling it the Committee to Make You Love the Dragnet.
What worries me so much is even if Congress does act to restrain the excesses of the NSA, that so much of our government (well beyond the NSA) operates in secret that it will be impossible to enforce any restrictions. Just as the FISA court fails to impose any real limitations now.
I would love to know what ideas members of Congress have to limit our out of control classification system, what sorts of external reviews will be put in place to audit all classified activities undertaken throughout the government, whether or not we will ever get a proper accounting of the tax dollars being spent on these activities so the public can properly assess their value, and how ordinary people can be assured that we are indeed protected from government snooping by the 4th amendment.
I’m not entirely certain that Congress has come to grips with the challenge at hand. This is ultimately not the responsibility of the President to fix. It is the responsibility of Congress and the Courts. Presidents will push the envelope of their power. It is inherent in their job description and it is why the system of checks and balances was created in the first place.
The problem is the 3 branches have lost their balance under the 2 party system. It is not clear to me that either Congress or the Courts are up to their jobs here.
This seems to be another pack of lies by Torturer and Assassin Michael Hayden. Obviously, Hayden is violating security regulations by discussing classified topics in public. And, Hayden was also talking about one of his favorite things, “black sites.” That is the secret locations, where Hayden and his torturers create false confessions as pretexts for more war.
Serial liar Hayden refers to his own tweets as “bullshit”. He calls Matzzie a “liberal activist”, which is a crime to the intelligence community. Hayden must have reviewed Matzzie’s NSA file.
“They are also asking how it is that the German intelligence services were oblivious to the NSA’s activities right in the heart of Berlin.”
The answer to which is obvious: they knew. They probably assisted.
Thanks for all your guesses and speculation, emptywheel! You have some of the most interesting guesses and speculation anywhere on the internet!
It’s a good thing you wrote this post as a kind of damage control. It’s possible that some people will feel slightly less hateful towards Obama after hearing of the internal review, and even though you have nothing but guesses and speculation to contradict the reports, it’s good you dumped cold water on this before anyone’s hatred of Obama cooled off by a few degrees!
@orionATL:
I think it goes back to his childhood, so that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
So what is wrong with bugging Merkel et al? That is squarely in the purview of the enabling memorandum, EO 12333, and is the legitimate mission of the NSA. Gathering foreign intelligence is not a violation of the US Constitution.
It is embarrassing to get caught bugging our allies, but not illegal here. Watching the machinations that ensue to help O eat as little crow as possible while getting off the hook are enlightening. They can help us recognize the techniques when they are deployed for domestic surveillance.
What really pissed Merkel off was the personalization to her own phone. That embarrassed her. She could tolerate the rest, and is surely getting some useful US intelligence from her own services. I’d hate to be the guy who had to explain to her why they deployed ineffective encryption on her phone. Shades of Enigma.
Recent disclosures and Gen. Keith’s bleats last week make me think we are getting into the realm of real damage to our intelligence capabilities. On the one hand I think Gen. Keith you SOB you should have thought about that before you over reached so badly domestically. On the other I have to ask myself how much of our nose are we really ready to cut off to spite our face? Are there limits, and if so where are they?
As a practical matter it seems, contrary to Gen. Keith, disclosures must continue until Congress provides real oversight and reforms the intelligence community. Part of that is really stopping collection of domestic communications and refocusing back onto the legitimate, constitutional mission, foreign communications.
@orionATL: “bone up on lyndon johnson’s way of presidenting”. That’s funny! That was LBJ’s way of presiding.
@lefty665:
johnson was perpetually talking with people, questioning them, harrassing them.
@bevin: They probably just thought it was only being used against “the bad people.”
When you think about it we know that the NSA has lied to Congress and the FISA court. Based upon existing reports (e.g. Schneir’s reporting) we have good evidence that they lie to U.S. vendors as well viewing their ‘partnerships’ as a way to gather exploits not secure the channels. And we have ample evidence that they lied to the security community both at NIST and more publicly at events like Blackhat.
At this point the Obama Administration’s claim that surveillance activities were concealed from them seems increasingly plausible, although that concealment was probably welcomed as OrionATL and I have noted.
Why on earth wouldn’t they lie to other Intel Services? And if the other intel services aren’t complicit why are they being sent to demand answers and not, for example, Germany’s Foreign Secretary?
@lefty665: Yeah, those things too, but it was mostly being the Alpha male and swinging his d*ck at them. “boning up” on them so to speak:)
@lefty665:
:)