Pentagon “Closing” CIFA

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You all remember CIFA, don’t you? It’s the Pentagon’s very own counter-intelligence organization, one with the added benefit that, like all things Pentagon, it can serve as the source of contracting bounty for corrupt Republican cronies (up to and including Stephen Cambone, who created the damn organization). CIFA has spied on, among other things, the Quakers and Jesus’ General. You know, because peaceniks and DFH satirical bloggers are apparently the biggest threat to our military…

I’ve long suspected that CIFA was a clever plot, on the part of the Republicans, to outsource their Nixonian domestic spying, so as to hide it from oversight better than Nixon managed to. That suspicion only hardened when I learned that the CIFA database (including its records on the Quakers and Jesus’ General) went “poof” one day, remarkably enough at the same time as Carol Lam was closing in on the Mitch Wade subcontractor associated with CIFA, MZM (the same organization that had a contract with OVP to do something with emails).

It’s a real treasure trove of civil liberties atrocities, CIFA is.

Well, as luck would have it, on the very same day that the Pentagon released documents to the ACLU revealing that CIFA had abused National Security Letters to (among other things) collect information on a few Pentagon employees, the Pentagon has announced it is shutting down CIFA.

The Pentagon is expected to shut a controversial intelligence office that has drawn fire from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who charge that it was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into domestic spying.

[snip]

The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, was created by Mr. Rumsfeld after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States and abroad.

Yet the office, whose size and budget is classified, came under fierce criticism in 2005 after it was disclosed that it was managing a database that included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls.

The Pentagon’s senior intelligence official, James R. Clapper, has recommended to Mr. Gates that the counterintelligence field office be dismantled and that some of its operations be placed under the authority of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the officials said.

The NYT presents advocates saying the closure is a great thing and others suggesting this is just a cover-up–that the domestic spying will get buried deep in the Pentgon where we’ll have to ferret it out again. Read more →

Jane Harman v. Jello Jay: Compare and Contrast

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Jane Harman explained her response to the warrantless wiretap program over at TPMCafe. I’m interested in it not so much to determine whether Eric Licthblau or she is right about whether she "switched her view" on the program (I think Harman is actually too sensitive to the charge; as she tells it, she did drastically change her view, but not because of the publicity of Lichtblau’s reporting, but because of the new information she learned from it; though after writing this post, I’m a little sympathetic to Lichtblau’s claim). Rather, I’m interested in the contrast Harman’s narrative presents with what we know of Jello Jay’s evolving views toward the illgeal wiretapping program. After all, Harman and Jello Jay apparently learned of the program in the same briefing (Harman had just replaced Pelosi as Ranking Member on HPSCI; Jello Jay had replaced Graham as the top Democrat on SSCI). But the two have apparently taken dramatically different trajectories in their positions on the program, and the comparison offers an instructive view on oversight.

The First Harman/Jello Jay Briefing: January 29, 2003

Harman provides this description of the January 29, 2003 she and Jello Jay received (along with Pat Roberts, then SSCI Chair, and Porter Goss, then HPSCI Chair):

When I became Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee in 2003, I was included for the first time in highly classified briefings on the operational details of an NSA effort to track al Qaeda communications using unique access points inside the US telecommunications infrastructure. The so-called “Gang of Eight” (selected on the basis of our committee or leadership positions) was told that if the terrorists found out about our capability, they would stop using those communications channels and valuable intelligence would dry up (which had happened before).

This program was so highly classified that I could discuss it with no one, not even my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee or the committee’s professional staff. (See p. 169 of the Lichtblau book.) And I was assured that it complied with the law and that the senior-most officials in the Justice Department conducted a full legal review every 45-60 days.

At that point, then, she and Jello Jay appear to have learned that:

  • The US was tracking Al Qaeda communication via US-based access points
  • The program was legal and was reviewed regularly by top Justice Department officials

If Harman’s description is accurate, it suggests the Administration gave a very distorted view of the program. Read more →

The DNI Is Well-Meaning. Really. Except with Those He Claims Want No IC.

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The LAT has an article on the acrimony between Mike McConnell and Democrats over FISA. In it, McConnell’s backers insist in his good faith in his negotiations with Democrats.

A spokesman for McConnell said that the director’s dealings with Congress were "always in good faith."

"He values the relationship with Congress," said the spokesman, Michael Birmingham. "He works at it, and he invites and welcomes the oversight they provide."

[snip]

"I think the fact that it was open and argumentative at times was very positive," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.). "I think he improved his relations [with the committee] just by communicating."

[snip]

"I feel he’s an honorable person," Ruppersberger said. "Some of my peers feel he’s compromised. I would say that on the majority side, we were not happy with some of the positions he took."

But the article also lists the many attacks McConnell has made against Democrats. Apparently, in a secret meeting leading up to the House vote, Democrats aired those complaints. And McConnell responded by attacking HPSCI members for being insufficient cheerleaders for the Intelligence Community (I really do hope he attacked both parties equally, since Crazy Pete Hoekstra is one of the loudest critics of the Intelligence Community).

Democrats accused McConnell of making exaggerated claims and of doing the bidding of the Bush administration, according to officials who attended the event. McConnell bristled at the Democrats’ charges, and chastised members of the committee for failing to defend the intelligence community amid a barrage of bad press. [my emphasis]

Incidentally, can someone point out where in the Constitution it requires Congress to defend Executive Branch incompetence in the press? That McConnell would even make such a complaint reveals his rather stunted understanding of the role of Congress.

Given McConnell’s apparent attempt to make nice with Congress, though, I’m utterly mystified by the comments he made in a speech at his alma mater, Furman University in South Carolina, last Friday, about the negotiations with the Senate.

We had a bill go into the Senate. It was debated vigorously. There were some who said we shouldn’t have an Intelligence Community. Some have that point of view. Some say the President of the United States violated the process, spied on Americans, should be impeached and should go to jail. I mean, this is democracy, you can say anything you want to say. That was the argument made.

Read more →

Listening To You – Mukasey Plays The Emotion Card

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The Bush Administration and their never say die FISA/Immunity push are like cockroaches. You can’t kill em, and they never go away. Well, they’re back again. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has graduated from DC water carrier to full fledged traveling snake oil salesman for the Cheney/Bush Administration and their sordid attempts to cover their own criminal wrongdoing via retroactive immunity for telcos.

Last night, Mukasey spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and got so emotional in his desperate plea for retroactive immunity and unlimited snooping that he he welled up with tears in the process.

… Mr. Mukasey grimaced, swallowed hard, and seemed to tear up as he reflected on the weaknesses in America’s anti-terrorism strategy prior to the 2001 attacks. "We got three thousand. … We’ve got three thousand people who went to work that day and didn’t come home to show for that," he said, struggling to maintain his composure.

Isn’t that special? Who from this Administration of criminals, fools and incompetents will cry for the Constitution that has been shredded? Who will lament the privacy of ordinary American citizens that has been lost? Who will shed a tear for the souls that have been tortured, beaten, extinguished and/or disappeared? That would be left to us I guess. There is no justice; just us.

Here, from the San Francisco Chronicle, are a few more highlights from Mukasey’s traveling minstrel show:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey defended the Bush administration’s wiretapping program Thursday to a San Francisco audience and suggested the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could have been prevented if the government had been able to monitor an overseas phone call to the United States.
The government "shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody picks up a phone in Iraq and calls the United States," Mukasey said in a question-and-answer session after a speech to the Commonwealth Club
…
Mukasey also defended President Bush’s insistence on retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that have cooperated with the administration’s surveillance program, in which phone calls and e-mails between U.S. citizens and foreign terrorist suspects were intercepted without warrants.
…
"They have cooperated," Mukasey said of the companies, without naming them. "It just ain’t fair to ask somebody to cooperate with the government" and face a lawsuit for substantial damages, he said.
If Congress denies the companies retroactive immunity, he said, the firms will withdraw their voluntary participation and the government will have to Read more →

Consequences

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I just finished Philip Shenon’s The Commission. I found it, overall, a worthwhile book. All other debates about the book notwithstanding (for example, I actually think it’s reasonably fair to Philip Zelikow, balancing his tremendous writing talents against the detrimental effect of his asshole personality), I kept thinking about the consequences of two decisions made over the course of the report–made primarily by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton. The Commission decided to avoid laying blame–on many people, including Bush, Clinton, and Tenet, but most of all on Condi Rice. And, after a great deal of lobbying from Robert Mueller, the Commission did not call for the break up of the FBI.

What if the 9/11 Commission had made it clear that Condi, above all other people, failed to do the things that might have stopped 9/11? What if the 9/11 Commission had called for drastic changes in the FBI?

Condi

To be fair, if Condi had received the blame she deserved, the some of her salutary influences on Bush would have been absent. For example, at several times in the last four years, Condi was probably the biggest thing standing between Dick Cheney and the war he wanted in Iran. Condi is incompetent, but incompetence notwithstanding, she may have saved us from World War III.

That said, I kept thinking of Condi’s ham-handed attempts to secure a legacy in the Middle East. In particular, I think of David Rose’s recent Vanity Fair article detailing how Condi’s inept attempts to install a strong-man in Palestine led to the Gaza coup and the strengthening of Hamas.

In essence, the program was simple. According to State Department officials, beginning in the latter part of 2006, Rice initiated several rounds of phone calls and personal meetings with leaders of four Arab nations—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. She asked them to bolster Fatah by providing military training and by pledging funds to buy its forces lethal weapons. The money was to be paid directly into accounts controlled by President Abbas.

Not just in Palestine, Condi has a habit of taking bad situations and making them worse, with tremendous costs in terms of lives and American stature. The question is, if she had received the blame she should have for 9/11, would we have avoided those mistakes? And if we did, how much more would that have empowered Cheney?

Update: MadDog reminds me I intended to link to this, from Laura Rozen. Read more →

SSCI Leaks

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Update: Jeff is correct. This is not the SSCI report, it’s a second report, sponsored by the Pentagon.

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. 

Which pretty much invalidates what I’ve said below. Thanks for straightening me out, Jeff. 

Boy, you guys sure like to talk about smutty governors, don’t you?

I’m still watching all the leaks coming out about the SSCI report–everyone with decent intelligence sources seems to have gotten a leak. I’m interested in the focus Warren Strobel gives to the story; he focuses very closely on the lack of any real ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn’t due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

I wonder whether this is getting leaked now in another attempt to pre-empt Cheney’s attempts to game declassification.

You see, in one of the earlier reports on Iraq the SSCI did, Cheney’s office twice prevented information pertaining to Cheney’s claims about Mohammed Atta and Iraq from being declassified. While I don’t have the report in front of me (you’ll have to take my word, for now), it had to have been since 2006, because the Democrats put a big note next to the redaction saying something to the effect of, "Dick Cheney won’t let us declassify this even though it is not technically classified."

Given that, in the past, Cheney was particularly anxious to have his lies about Al Qaeda’s ties to Iraq be hidden, I wonder whether he isn’t already chumming up Kit Bond to make sure it happens again. Of course, SSCI will look even stupider if they don’t declassify this than they did when they offered the telecoms immunity, because the news that Cheney lied will have already been all over the news.

Or it would have been, if Eliot Spitzer could Read more →

Phase II: Four Years Later

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It has taken the SSCI four years, but it is about to release the long-awaited second-to-last installment of Phase II of its investigation into Iraqi intelligence claims (the last one, which examines Dougie Feith’s little intelligence shop, may be finished around the time his book comes out). This report catalogs Administration claims about Iraq’s WMD and ties to Al Qaeda and analyzes whether the intelligence supported those claims. Greg Miller writes that the report will have mixed conclusions.

The long-delayed document catalogs dozens of prewar assertions by President Bush and other administration officials that proved to be wildly inaccurate about Iraq’s alleged stockpiles of banned weapons and pursuit of nuclear arms.

But officials say the report reaches a mixed verdict on the key question of whether the White House misused intelligence to make the case for war.

The document criticizes White House officials for making assertions that failed to reflect disagreements or uncertainties in the underlying intelligence on Iraq, officials said. But the report acknowledges that many claims were consistent with intelligence assessments in circulation at the time.

Many of the conclusions will be predictable. The BW and CW claims were largely backed up by intelligence (though I’m anxious to see where Colin Powell got the catalog of amounts he cited in his UN speech–at least some of that information came from one of Judy’s informants). But with nuclear claims, the Administration simply provided the most inflammatory judgment, ignoring the caveats. And finally, the report Scooter and Shooter’s claims that Iraq and Al Qaeda were in cahoots was made up out of thin air.

Prewar assertions about Iraq’s nuclear program were more problematic because they were supported by some intelligence assessments but not others.

"They were substantiated," a congressional official said, "but didn’t convey the disagreements within the intelligence community."

In August 2002, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that "Saddam [Hussein] has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." But by that time, the State Department’s intelligence bureau was challenging the assumption that Iraq’s nuclear program had been reactivated.

White House suggestions that Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda were at odds with intelligence assessments that voiced skepticism about such a relationship.

Read more →

My Version of Pelosi’s Statement on Exclusivity

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TPMM wrote up a summary of a response Speaker Pelosi gave to a question I asked at a blogger conference call today that has caused a stir. While I don’t disagree with McJoan’s take–if the Speaker had really said immunity was the issue, it would reflect a short-sighted view of FISA (though I’d say the same about other topics, such as segregation; after all, once the government can legally use information that has been improperly collected, that’s toothpaste out of a tube, too)–I’d like to give my version of the conversation, because I don’t think that’s what Pelosi said or meant.

The call was originally supposed to be focused on contempt. So after the Speaker finished telling about the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity bill, someone (Mike Stark, I think) asked for reassurances that the Democrats would continue to pursue contempt after we win the White House and larger margins in both houses next year. Pelosi spoke at length about how important this contempt fight is because of the separation of powers issue–and stated that this is a better case than when GAO tried to get Cheney’s records on his Energy Task Force. Finally, in response to a follow-up, Pelosi stated that Democrats would continue to pursue the contempt issue after November.

Then, I piped in. I basically asked the idea laid out in this post.

Email providers argue that immunity will contribute to uncertainty. They speak of receiving "vague promises," they demand "clear rules" and "bright lines."

Given that complaints about uncertainty and unclear demands have led these email providers to strongly oppose retroactive immunity, it suggests the requests the email providers got were really murky–murky enough that the requests caused the email providers a good deal of trouble.

If the government was making such murky requests, don’t you think Congress ought to know what those requests were in more detail?

That is, since email providers just made a very strong statement against immunity, shouldn’t we be asking them why they’re opposed to it?

Pelosi, having just spoken at length about about separation of powers, then said that immunity wasn’t the only issue, exclusivity was important as well.

Note, I’m not sure I can dispute Paul Kiel’s description, though I don’t remember Pelosi emphasizing exclusivity in the way his post suggests at all. I certainly didn’t hear her say immunity is the issue, but then I was listening for my answer. Read more →

Viktor Bout Arrested

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Curious. The Thais just arrested the noted Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout.

For years, Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has made millions of dollars allegedly delivering weapons and ammunition to warlords and militants. Officials believe many of his activities may be illegal, and on Thursday, Thai police announced his arrest.

Bout, 41, has made his deliveries to Africa, Asia and the Mideast, using obsolete or surplus Soviet-era cargo planes.

[snip]

According to U.S. officials, Bout — a former Soviet air force officer who speaks multiple languages — has what is reputed to be the largest private fleet of Soviet-era cargo aircraft in the world.

Bout acquired the planes shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Department of Treasury said in 2005.

At that time, the U.S. Treasury announced it was freezing the assets of Bout and his associates who are all tied to former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Taylor is currently on trial at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

Intelligence officials said he shipped large quantities of small arms to civil wars across Africa and Asia, often taking diamonds in payment from West African fighters.

I say, "curious," because I doubt this could have happened without US approval–as the promise of an "announcement" in NY later today suggests.

A formal announcement on his arrest is expected later in the day in New York.

And it appears that actual warrant came from our DEA–in connection with Columbia’s FARC.

Bout, the target of an international arrest warrant and U.S. sanctions, was picked up at a Bangkok hotel after he entered Thailand on February 29. Police were searching for an associate.

Bout was attempting "to procure weapons for Colombia’s FARC rebels", the Thai police said in an arrest report.

Which suggests it ties in some way to the cross-border raid the Colombians staged in Ecuador, for which the US is alleged to have provided intelligence. Read more →

Droning Cell Phone Calls

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Noah Shachtman is going to convince me to give up my cell phone. Today he notes an AP story reporting that Palestinians believe Israel’s spy drones are jamming cell phone lines and then using them to take out targets.

Palestinians say they know when an Israeli drone is in the air: Cell phones stop working, TV reception falters and they can hear a distant buzzing. They also know what’s likely to come next — a devastating explosion on the ground.

Palestinians say Israel’s pilotless planes have been a major weapon in its latest offensive in Gaza, which has killed nearly 120 people since last week.

[snip]

Wary Gaza militants using binoculars are on constant lookout for drones. When one is sighted overhead, the militants report via walkie-talkie to their comrades, warning them to turn off their cell phones and remove the batteries for fear the Israeli technology will trace their whereabouts.

The AP goes on to note that the US has used such Predator drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well–though the AP doesn’t explicitly say these drones triggered using cell phone signals.

In January, a missile fired from a Predator killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander, in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region of north Waziristan. Coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have launched a number of missile strikes from drones against Taliban and al-Qaida militants hiding on the Pakistani side of the border, but the U.S. military has never confirmed them.

This report follows on one from last week, in which the Taliban demanded cell phone operators in Afghanistan turn off cell signal for 10 hours a day–or they’d take the towers out.

Taliban militants threatened Monday to blow up telecom towers across Afghanistan if mobile phone companies do not switch off their signals for 10 hours starting at dusk.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said the U.S. and other foreign troops in the country are using mobile phone signals to track down the insurgents and launch attacks against them.

Since that time, the Taliban have taken out at least two cell towers (h/t oscar).

Two mobile phone antennas were destroyed in southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, after Taliban militants threatened to bring down such masts, alleging they are used to locate hideouts.

Read more →