Has John McCain Been Chatting Up Bibi on a Tapped Phone?
Even more than Dianne Feinstein’s so-called reversal on the NSA, I’m intrigued by John McCain’s.
“We have always eavesdropped on people around the world. But the advance of technology has given us enormous capabilities, and I think you might make an argument that some of this capability has been very offensive both to us and to our allies,” McCain said. “Eavesdropping on someone’s private cellphone obviously is something that is offensive to the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
[snip]
“I think it may even call for a select committee, perhaps even bicameral, when you look at the damage that this has done to our relationship with some of our closest friends and allies,” said McCain, who was the unsuccessful GOP presidential nominee pitted against Obama in 2008. Still, McCain noted that foreign governments are not “innocent” because they also have spied on the U.S. government.
In the past, McCain hasn’t been uncritical in his comments on NSA, but he has used it to fearmonger about terrorists. More tellingly, he favors NSA taking the lead in Internet monitoring for domestic cybersecurity, effectively advocating for domestic spying. And yet now he’s squeamish because we’re wiretapping leaders of other countries?
Sure, it may be he’s just latching onto an issue to attack Obama on. Though who needs a new one given that 60 Minutes has resuscitated the old one?
Of course, McCain is the kind of guy who likes to freelance on foreign policy issues, frequently to pressure Obama from the right. And I can’t help but note that Bibi Netanyahu and Obama spoke today for no apparent reason aside from “regular consultations.”
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by phone today as part of their regular consultations. The two leaders discussed recent developments related to Iran, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and other regional issues. The two leaders agreed to continue their close coordination on a range of security issues.
While there has been no public report that we tapped Bibi, and while I’m sure the Israelis take his security very seriously, he’s precisely the kind of frenemy I could see the government prioritizing. And while I’m sure Germany spies on us (ineffectively), McCain knows that Israel spies on (and hacks) us extensively, making it a more apt reference as a country that is itself not “innocent.”
Just a gut feel: when the Section 215 database got revealed, a wide range of Senators were up in arms until, in secret briefings, they all of a sudden learned something that calmed their nerves (I strongly believe NSA strips congressional numbers from the Section 215 database on intake). And I think it not outside the realm of possibility that McCain has shown newfound concern about NSA upon learning one of his interlocutors might be targeted as well.
Israel does not need to ‘hack the USA’, because it is effectively ‘in bed’ with the NSA, the FBI, Homeland Security, etc., etc., all of whom find themselves restricted by legal and ‘constitutional’ restraints that an ‘off-shore’ nation may ignore. The relationship, and efffectiveness, is akin to the way the US ‘off-shores’ imprisonments and interrogations, to avoid ‘legal detail difficulties’ they would rather dodge and ignore. Israel is the ideal spying/hacking partner, because of her high technical ‘literacy’ and her broad spectrum deployment of agents: She can, and does, tap Jews everywhere for loyal contribution and support. Yes, this sounds bad, and it is, and it bothers some of us for other than the knee-jerk reasons, primary amongst which is that it contributes to polaraizations between Jews, especially the religious, not zionous, who do not want to be politically defined for their religion, and the peoples amongst whom, and with whom, they live. The true greatest contribution the United States made to the world was the Constitutional separation of religions from political affiliations, so the religious could be religious in peace and let the political do their fighting for political reasons. The great tragedy of Israel is that she is key to the breaking down of the inertia the United States System carried, and was slowly pressing, or impressing, on the world up until the creation of Israel as a political-religious garrison-nation. Today the US is destroying hersels as she destroys what she created, that should be the monument of her contribution to human civilization. If you think about it you will recognize that it is not the United States who has reason or need to know the private attitudes of the leaders of Europe, it is Israel, who, as the results of her actions kick back, on her side of the Atlantic water, up into Europe, needs to stay ahead, with foreknowledge of who she is making enemies.
I’m not sure about that sentence in parentheses. I strongly believe that’s what the NSA told those Senators in secret briefings, but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that they were blowing smoke when they said it.
From the NSAs point of view, it would be nice to know what these foreign leaders were saying when they were having less-guarded conversations with friendly members of Congress, quite apart from whatever the members said in return. Would it be nice enough that they’d risk speaking (again) in the “least untruthful” manner to Congress? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that’s what they were doing.
To use Bibi as an example, he’s quite media-savvy and also attuned to US politics from his days as the Israeli ambassador in DC. If he speaks more freely behind closed doors to friends in Congress, the WH and State Dept would love to know what he says.
@Peterr:
I’d think that the WH and State would get reports from their contacts in AIPAC. But maybe those guys only hand over part of the goodies.
It appears that we’ve been thoroughly had by the Israelis over an extended period. They would know which conversations with Bibi we overheard and take care that it would not continue.
DiFi’s outrage may come from realizing that much of what she has said to foreign heads of state and others was intercepted. The Congressional 215 exemption may not have included conversations where the foreign end was both the target and where the intercept took place.
That may also confirm she really has been a hollow shell of an overseer who did not even bother to task her staff with reading all those briefings describing programs and exploits over all those years. Hoist with her own petard, and about damn time.
Regarding Section 215, DNI Clapper today has released more previously classified 215 documentation: DNI Clapper Declassifies Additional Intelligence Community Documents Regarding Collection Under Section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-press-releases-2013/954-dni-clapper-declassifies-additional-intelligence-community-documents-regarding-collection-under-section-501-of-the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act
The titles of those documents are:
1. February 25, 2009 NSA notification memorandum to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) of compliance incidents identified during an on-going NSA-initiated End-to-End review of its collection of bulk telephony metadata pursuant to Section 215 authorities.
2. March 2009 Internal NSA Memorandum of Understanding required for access and query privileges of data collected through NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 authorities.
3. May 7, 2009 NSA notification memorandum to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and HPSCI on the status of the on-going NSA-initiated End-to-End review of its collection of bulk telephony metadata pursuant to Section 215 authorities.
4. July 2, 2009 Letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), providing notice of the production of NSA’s June 25, 2009 Business Records Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) End-to-End Review Report to the Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.
5. September 10, 2009 NSA notification memorandum to SSCI of presentations made to several FISC judges regarding NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 authorities and of the FISC granting the government’s request to reauthorize the bulk telephony metadata program and restoring to NSA the authority to query the metadata upon a Reasonable Articulable Suspicion standard without seeking Court approval on a case-by-case basis.
6. October 21, 2009 Joint Statement for the Record by the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the Associate Deputy Director for Counterterrorism of the NSA, to HPSCI providing information relating to NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 authorities for the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
7. December 17, 2009 Letters from DOJ to Representatives Bobby Scott, John Conyers, and Jerrold Nadler providing notice of Executive branch efforts with the Intelligence Committees to make a detailed report on NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 authorities available to all Members of Congress.
8. August 16, 2010 Cover Letter from DOJ for submission of several documents to the Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees relating to NSA collection of bulk telephony metadata under Section 501 of the FISA, as amended by Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.
9.April 1, 2011 Memorandum from NSA to SSCI regarding NSA’s receipt of cell site location information test results.
10. September 1, 2011 NSA notification memorandum to the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary on NSA’s collection of telephony metadata under Section 501 of FISA.
Looks like there will be some burning of the midnight oil hereabouts.
I’ve just begun reading the latest DNI/NSA document dump and thought that I should make the point that one should assume that the US government is likely motivated by, and under the assumption, that these documents are helpful in justifying their 215 bulk record dragnet program(s).
It remains to be seen whether they are deluding themselves again or not.
@Snoopdido: They also may be trying to get out in front of further revelations from the Snowden files, to limit future embarrassment or to wave some bright shiny things to distract folks.
Or, of course, both assumptions are true.
driveby comment
“offensive” made it to print? Catches my eye because I could have sworn I heard David Brooks on the car radio last week say that tapping your phone was “an insult.” Yet I couldn’t find it later. Not in the video online, not in the transcript, not in the audio podcast. Where did that go?
Well, I guess you can say “offended”:
There I was, cheering for David Brooks!?! (But they cut “insult”? Did I make that up?)
@Snoopdido: In reading document number 2 -March 2009 Internal NSA Memorandum of Understanding required for access and query privileges of data collected through NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program under Section 215 authorities, there are a couple of initial NSA acronyms that I’ve decrypted:
S2I4 – S2I is the Analysis and Production Center’s Counterterrorism product line of the Signals Intelligence Directorate. I’m assuming that the “4” is a further breakdown into a division or group.
HMC – This appears to be Homeland Mission Coordinator (see this NSA document over at the ACLU – https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/pub_NSA%20Business%20Records%20FISA%20Review%2020130909.pdf)
EAR – Emphatic Access Restriction – This NSA document over at the EFF (https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/br_08-13_doj_notice_with_supp_decl_as_filed_26_feb_09_final_redacted.ex_-_ocr_1.pdf) describes EAR as an installation of:
“a technical safeguard called Emphatic Access Restriction, which is the equivalent of a firewall that prevents any automated process or subroutine from accessing the BR FISA data.”
SV4 – A part of the Signals Intelligence Directorate Oversight and Compliance division responsible for FISA Compliance and Processing.
@Snoopdido: Again from document 2, the second to last sentence on page 1 is interesting and I wonder what the redacted metadata repository is:
“Homeland analysts routinely have had access to four metadata repositories. They are SIGINT, [Redacted], BRFISA and PR/TT.”
@Peterr: Sounds like they need a code word for their latest PR operation. How about Enduring Delusions?
McCain knows that Israel spies on (and hacks) us extensively, making it a more apt reference as a country that is itself not “innocent.”
Lets remember that we already hand over all our Raw Data to Israel as it is…! 8-(
also this
that reminds me – I’m so out of step, out of everything, but I saw “Edward Snowden” retweet one of Marcy’s tweets (“nationalize the fuckers” https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/389937923677630464 ) a ways back, and when I clicked in I saw this in his thread:
Is this a hoax, or am I… out of it?
@thatvisionthing: xlnt typo
If I knew about the Echelon Program in the mid-nineties, the BND knew. Merkel doth protest too much. Historically Germany has competed with the Anglo-American alliance for world dominance. Germany’s bankers are finishing mopping up their conquest of Europe. It would not be surprising if the next move on Germany’s part would be to weaken the US’s power.
Carl Oglesby’s essay “The Treaty or Fort Hunt” is an interesting read. By absorbing Gehlen’s Org into the CIA Germany essentially infiltrated our intelligence services at the end of WWII.
Even before the NSA got cranked up to where it is now it’s preposterous that any congress person didn’t assume most of their communications were being snooped on by somebody. Somebody attached to American power that is. That goes double for foreign political and economic players.
Faith in the system(s) is a mile wide and an inch deep. The political and economic/market systems, and faith they operate as advertised, for the common good. I think it is impossible to overstate the level of crisis in the political economy. It is mostly held together by the information sharpers of the media.
@Bob In Portland:
Thank you.
@thatvisionthing: That’s a fake account, right? @EJosephSnowden? I can’t remember now but early on there were warnings about fake accounts. Haven’t taken the time to go through much of the tweets but there’s no validation check mark, etc. either.
Whoa, this post caught me off guard. I read the McCain statement last night too and wondered what’s going on. I have a really bad feeling right now, ever since Alexander started doing these speeches and interviews, and since I read an article about how the intel community is upset that the White House is not defending them. Between that and the Saudis and Israelis freaking out about Syria, I’m just unsettled. I also always keep in mind that they’re all under enormous stress. I doubt that anybody has gotten a good night’s sleep since early June or May, or whenever they found out that these Snowden files were out there.
And then again, the Dirty Wars just keep rolling along as if nothing else is going on. There was a drone strike in Somalia yesterday. Moving right on with our new war on terror.
Feinstein? I think her behavior is more related to committee and legislative matters. The mark up on her bill is supposed to start this week. IIRC, the last time mark up was scheduled, she had to postpone it. The Sensenbrenner bill is being introduced this week, today I think. I’m wondering if Feinstein has lost the support of the Intel committee and thinks she can’t get her bill out of committee. Hers and McCain’s call for a big review, I would guess, are part of an effort to 1) keep some kind of control over the situation and 2) stall. I think the White House and its partners in the Senate want to stall and keep a handle on things.
But it does seem like there was a big shift over the weekend. The NYT has another editorial saying that Obama has lost all credibility on the NSA issue.
“calmed their nerves”, instead of stripping numbers could they have been made an offer they could not refuse… We know what you’ve said, where you’ve been, where you live, and the same about your girlfriend/boyfriend/family out to 3 hops. We can help you ensure that nothing unfortunate happens, and of course none of us wants that.
@joanneleon: I’m trying to imagine Edward Snowden providing info to Twitter to verify his account.
@joanneleon: @lefty665: Edward Snowden on Twitter #AskSnowden 6/1713:
HA! EJosephSnowden has changed his Twitter pic! He’s alive!
https://twitter.com/EJosephSnowden
:-)
@thatvisionthing: I hear, but what do you suppose happens to all the congress critter data when it is excluded from the database? Do the bits and bytes just spill out on the floor, or does maybe some thoughty spook put out a bucket to catch them? Perhaps labeled something like “Data immune from surveillance”.
Hoover used to keep that kind of stuff in a safe in his office. It was useful at budget, appropriation and re-appointment time. I suppose it is just a coincidence that Gen. Keith is the longest serving DIRNSA in Agency history, and he has the biggest budget too.