Archive for category: emptywheel

There was a rumor floating the Toobz yesterday that Trent Lott got out of the Senate in a hurry because of boy trouble–perhaps something that Larry Flynt dug up. That rumor has since been denied by the boy in question.

But Scott Horton points us to something that is rather more intriguing: The fact that Trent’s brother-in-law’s law office is presently being raided.

Sources in Mississippi law enforcement inform No Comment that FBI agents are now raiding the law office of Richard “Dickie” Scruggs in Oxford.

Horton has covered the non-indictment of Dickie Scruggs before. You see, Scruggs was the apparent mastermind of a plan behind loans to some Mississippi judges–loans for which Democratic lawyer Paul Minor is now doing time.

As Minor recounts it, and other lawyers with whom I spoke confirm, theidea of rushing in to support the judges who came under fire from theChamber of Commerce started with Richard Scruggs, probably the bestknown and wealthiest member of the Mississippi trial lawyers bar.Scruggs, like Minor, made loans to Mississippi judges and came under investigation in the original study launched by the FBI. However, there was a critical difference. Scruggs tends to support the Republicans, not the Democrats. In 2000, for instance, he gave $250,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign and to the G.O.P., and only $20,000 to Democratic candidates.  And more significantly, Scruggs Read more →

Steven Aftergood has an important post describing the squabble between the intelligence appropriations subcommittees and the intelligence committees. He explains how, even though the intelligence committees are trying to exercise more oversight over intelligence activities, the appropriators (which have increasingly become the defense subcommittee appropriators, as more intelligence activities have moved under DOD) have undercut those efforts.

The efficacy of intelligence oversight in the Senate has beendrastically undermined by procedural hurdles that enable the DefenseAppropriations Subcommittee to overrule actions taken by the SenateIntelligence Committee, Senators complained earlier this month. Toremedy this concern, a new bill has been introduced that would transfer budget appropriations authority to the Intelligence Committee.

This year, the Senate Intelligence Committee presented "four major oversight initiatives in its [authorization] bill," said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO)(pdf) at a Committee hearing on November 13. But in each case, "actionsby the appropriations committee were completely dissimilar."

AMemorandum of Agreement between the Committees that was supposed toimprove coordination between the authorizers and the appropriators hasfailed in every significant respect, he said.

Aftergood links to a Kit Bond statement, complaining about the problem. Bond explains how much more oversight SSCI has over programs than the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (SAC-D).

We have almost 50 professional staff on this Committee who spend all their time doing nothing but intelligence oversight, day in and day out. The Defense Appropriations Committee has fewer than one half dozen staff who write the intelligence appropriation which is fewer than 1/10th of their bill.

[snip]

Our Committee has held scores of intelligence oversight hearings this year; the Defense Appropriations Committee has held notably few. I think the disparity is clear and speaks for itself. What I’m saying is, let’s effectively bring the oversight power to bear on the budget; right now it is disjointed.

[snip]

But that is my point, that Committee is consumed with defense matters, not intelligence matters. That Committee is wrapped up in a nearly half a trillion dollars appropriations bill, with less than one tenth of it comprising the National Intelligence Program that the SSCI oversees. SAC-D as currently constructed cannot give intelligence the attention it deserves with all its other responsibilities.

And then Bond complains of the unauthorized programs that remain in the 08 budget.

For example, this Committee is currently conferencing our FY08Intelligence Authorization Act with the House, and we’re looking at anumber of issues where our bill is disjointed from the FY08 DefenseAppropriations Act. As recently as a few hours ago, my staff wasreceiving calls from intelligence officials worried about a number ofpotential “A not A” (appropriated but not authorized) issues. That’snot a showstopper in most fields, but when it comes to nationalsecurity and intelligence, it usually does not make a whole lot ofsense.

That’s the kind of thing, of course, that got Duke Cunningham in trouble.

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I read Wilkes’ motion to subpoena journalists and others with great interest. I’ll return to three details later:

• The naming of Seth Hettena as the journalist who allegedly showed Mark Geragos a copies of two indictments; Geragos had earlier refused to give prosecutors Hettena’s name.
• The lack of a subpoena for Dan Dzwilewski, the Special Agent in Charge who retired suddenly in the midst of this whole scandal and, presumably, one leading candidate to have leaked details of the potential indictments.
• The lack of a subpoena for anyone at Main DOJ, even though one of the leaks Geragos complained about came from there.

Lisa Myers Received a Leak from Main DOJ

But for the moment, I’d like to focus on the other revelation in Wilkes’ motion to subpoena these people. Lisa Myers, a producer at NBC, is the person who claimed to have been told that Main DOJ could no longer exercise oversight over the San Diego investigation because of the earlier leaks. Here’s how the request for subpoena describes Myers:

Lisa Myers is a senior investigative correspondent for NBC Nightly News. She can testify that she spoke to a person within the Department of Justice who told her that they had the seen the indictment(s) and gave her other detailed information.

And here’s how Geragos described her–anonymously–when he was first making a stink about the pre-indictment leaks (this is the only TV reporter Geragos describes; note that Geragos never alleged that Myers had reported this publicly, which pretty much undercuts his argument that the leaks prevented Wilkes from getting a fair trial).

Around the same time the print reporters were disclosing to me detailedknowledge of the draft indictments, and stating that governmentofficials were showing them copies of draft indictments, a televisionreporter told me that an attorney at the Justice Department mainoffices in Washington D.C. (“Main Justice”) had disclosed that MainJustice believed that it could no longer exercise its normalsupervisory role because the leaks of the indictment “would now makeany action taken by Main Justice appear to be political”.

This purported leak was central to Geragos’ theory that Wilkes wouldn’t have been indicted if it weren’t for the tumult surrounding the Carol Lam firing.

The DOJ Leak as Spin and Damage Control

The leak is particularly significant for two reasons. First, because it’s one of only two leaks tying Lam’s firing to the Wilkes indictment. And second, because this leak was almost certainly deliberate spin to push back against Lam. As I point out in this post on the leak (click through for a timeline), Main DOJ had already taken active steps to prevent Lam from finishing her ongoing cases, and the Gonzales crowd at DOJ had already been panicking about Lam long before any leaks appeared.

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I can’t say I’m surprised by this news–that some courts are approving government use of cell phone GPS data without first requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause.

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphonecompanies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint thewhereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects,according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiringthe government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believethat a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence ofa crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose averageAmericans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

But I invite you to consider the implications of this legal logic:

And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York,approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because thegovernment did not install the "tracking device" and the user chose tocarry the phone and permit transmission of its information to acarrier, no warrant was needed.

Let’s see. It looks like this:

Gov’t did not install tracking device >  User chose to use cell phone with tracking device > No need for the government to get a warrant to ask the telecom company for data on the tracking device

That looks frighteningly like this logic:

Gov’t did not install telecommunications fiber > User chose to use telecommunications fiber to make a call/send an email > No need for the government to get a warrant to ask the telecom company for data on the private citizen’s use of the telecom fiber

It’s the same logic Donald Kerr, Principal Deputy National Intelligence Director uses when he says we shouldn’t expect anonymity anymore–that we sacrifice all of that when we avail ourselves of neat telecommunications or Toobz tools.

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There is not one but two articles in the WaPo today suggesting DHS’ massive corruption is impeding its efforts to get protective scanners in place at our ports and border. The first article explains that implementation of the big radiation detectors designated for the borders will be delayed, again.

For more than a year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoffand others have told Congress that the costly next-generation machineswould sharply improve the screening of trucks, cars and cargocontainers for radiological material. In announcing contracts in July2006 to buy as many as 1,400 of the devices, Chertoff said they wereready to be deployed in the field for research. He recently calledtheir acquisition a "vital priority."

But in the face of growing questions by government auditors,Congress and border officials about the machines’ performance, Chertoffhas decided that they don’t operate well enough and need more work. Itcould be another year before they are ready, officials said.

More intriguingly, it suggests Chertoff’s DHS may be meddling with thedata surround the machines to try to get them approved for use.

In a Nov. 16 letter to Congress, the director of the DNDO said hisstaff members were looking into allegations that someone there directedpersonnel from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who were helping analyze recent results of testing of the machines, to delete some of the data.

"We have also issued a preservation notice to all personnel who haveworked on the ASP program directing them to preserve all documents,e-mail, and memoranda relating to the ASP program," Vayl Oxford,director of the nuclear detection office, wrote to Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been examining the program.

Because if you’re paying $1.2 billion for a radiation detectors, you’re apparently not paying for a guarantee they’ll work, and you’ve got to fudge with the data to make it look right.

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