Former Army Intelligence Analyst: "Army security is like a Band-Aid on a sunken chest wound"
Evan Knappenberger, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who served in roughly the same position Bradley Manning did (but several years earlier), was interviewed by his college newspaper about my latest obsession, DOD's network security.…
WikiLeaks Reveals that China Already Knows What WikiLeaks Reveals
I've been bitching and bitching and bitching and bitching about DOD's refusal to fix the gaping holes in its network security even while it cries that Bradley Manning allegedly downloaded a bunch of cables using those gaping holes. As I point…
Have the Spooks Finally Admitted to Congress They've Been "Exploiting" Gitmo Detainees as Spies?
Something funny happened yesterday.
The House Armed Services Committee had a hearing on Gitmo Detainee Transfer Policy. According to Carol Rosenberg's tweeting, up to two hours of the hearing was conducted in closed session before the hearing…
The Weakness Of The Barry Bonds Obstruction Verdict
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bmazYesterday the Barry Bonds trial ended with a single conviction for obstruction of justice and a mistrial declared due to a hung jury on the other three remaining counts. There were originally five counts in the indictment, but count four was…
DOJ Points to David Passaro's Trial as Proof We Investigate Torture, But It Actually Proves John Yoo Should Be Tried
Update: Meanwhile, the Spanish judge threw out the case.
A SPANISH judge overnight dismissed a complaint filed against former top US officials over alleged torture at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Judge Eloy Velasco decided to throw out…
Response to GE Hoax Reveals How Badly Press Understands Multinational Capitalism
The AP wrote a story on the hoax GE Press Release reprinted in its entirely below; after GE informed them it was a hoax, they withdrew the story.
But of the reports on the hoax, few seem to get it.
Business Insider notes it "OBVIOUSLY…
A New Form of MI "Terrorist": The Friendly Fire One
There was a weird period last spring, as all the fearmongering in the country focused on the underwear bomber sitting in a jail just nineteen miles from me, after the autopsy of an African American imam in Detroit raised new questions about…
One Good Reason the WaPo Should NOT Get Kudos for Its "Top Secret" Series
The WaPo has an article out that's causing quite a stir. It bemoans the fact that the CIA has lost much of its top managers since 9/11.
More than 90 of the agency’s upper-level managers have left for the private sector in the past 10 years,…
Helicopter Ben Invented Tax Evasion Vehicles for the Real Housewives of Wall Street
Matt Taibbi is out with his take on the Fed's bailout lending revealed last month. He focuses on how two rich housewives with no apparent business experience got almost a quarter of a billion dollars in the TALF program.
In August 2009, John…
PJ Crowley's Acting Replacement Can't Differentiate Us from China on Human Rights and Transparency
Josh Gerstein provides the entirety of an exchange between former State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley's acting replacement, Mark Toner, AP reporter Matthew Lee, and Reuters reporter Arshad Mohammed. At issue is how State can still claim…
Ongoing Fallout from Raymond Davis Affairs Reveals Extent of Our Activities in Pakistan
When the US detained the Kuwaiti-Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and interrogated him for years (including at least a month of harsh torture), he revealed a handful of al Qaeda operatives in the US. When Pakistan held the American contractor,…
DC Mayor Gray Arrested: Finally a Leader In Washington DC Finds His Shoes
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bmazWashington DC Mayor Gray and several other DC City Council members have been arrested protesting in the streets over the shabby treatment of the District and its women in the "budget compromise" passed last Friday night. If only other leaders in Washington DC had the guts to stand up for their citizens.
US Willing to Bomb Libya to Maintain UN Credibility, But Not Allow an "Official" Visit to Bradley Manning
By my count, the OLC memo retroactively authorizing the bombing of Libya mentions the importance of UN or UN Security Council credibility nine times, including these two extended discussions.
In prior opinions, this Office has identified a…
Democracy and Now Capitalism Are Failing Ideologically; But What Comes Next?
As I was prepping for my panel on Saturday, I was thinking a lot about PJ Crowley. Crowley is, as you'll recall, the State Department spokesperson who was ousted after he called the treatment of Bradley Manning "ridiculous and counterproductive…
Administration Continues to Cling to Precedent of Slavery, Genocide, and Illegal Belligerency to Legitimize Its Actions
It has increasingly become clear that the Obama Administration treats the category of "terrorist" more flexibly than the Bush Administration did. With the introduction of the term "countering violent extremism," for example, the Administration…
Obama's Would-Be "Rule of Law" Counselor Calls Bradley Manning's Treatment Unconstitutional
In Charlie Savage's story from last year on the sidelining of Laurence Tribe as head of an "Access to Justice" program at DOJ, he reported that Tribe originally believed he would serve as counselor for "rule of law" issues in Obama's Administration.
There…
The Fog of Obamawar In Hi-Def 1080p
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bmazToday, David Cloud portrays the vignette of the cold, detached remote killing in the Afghanistan countryside. Tomorrow it will be open ground in the vicinity of Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana or Key West. Hammers like this, once set in motion and cravenly unrestrained by the men in American political leadership and White House, always find more nails. Stay tuned, drone life and remote enforcement is coming to a city and town near you.
Formula One Trash Talk: Malaysian Grand Prix
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bmazWell, this weekend is round two in this year's F1 Circus, the Malaysian Grand Prix. The field is set and Vettel is on pole.
William Welch and DOJ's Mojo Is Not Risen
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bmazDOJ and Willilam Welch have a problem in their case against ex CIA spook Jeffrey Feldman for his alleged leaks to Jim Risen of the New York Times.
OLC Memo as Time Machine
I'm going to have more to say about the Libya memo the Administration released yesterday. But I just wanted to point out something about the structure of it.
Here's the first paragraph:
This memorandum memorializes advice this Office provided…