Is This the Missing WikiLeaks PayPal Order?

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As I noted in this post, the declaration submitted in EFF’s FOIA for Section 215 by ODNI’s Jennifer Hudson is remarkably revealing. I’m particularly intrigued by these comments about the financial dragnet order released on March 28.

A FISC Supplemental Order in BR 10-82, dated November 23, 2010 and consisting of two pages, has been withheld in part to protect certain classified and law enforcement sensitive information. The case underlying BR 10-82 is an FBI counterterrorism investigation of a specific target. That investigation is still pending. Here, in the course of a pending counterterrorism investigation, the FBI sought authorization under the FISA to obtain financial records, under the FISA’s business records provision, pertaining to the target of the investigation and in fact obtained such authorization.

[snip]

Here, in the course of a pending counterterrorism investigation, the FBI sought authorization under the FISA to obtain certain financial records. The FISC Supplemental Order, which was issued in relation to its authorization for such collection, was thus compiled for law enforcement purposes, in furtherance of a national security investigation within the FBI’s authorized law enforcement duties.

[snip]

Here, the FBI has determined that the release of the final paragraph of the order, which describes certain requirements reflecting the FBI’s particular implementation of the authority granted by the FISC, could reasonably be expected to adversely impact the pending investigation and any resulting prosecutions. Release of this paragraph would reveal the specific and unique implementation requirements imposed on the FBI under this FISA-authorized collection during a particular time period. It is unclear what and how much the target might already know about the FBI’s investigation. However, as more fully explained in my classified ex parte, in camera declaration, there is reason to believe that the target or others knowledgeable about the nature and timing of the investigation could piece together this information, the docket number, the dates of the collection, and other information which has already been released or deduced to assemble a picture that would reveal to the target that the target was the subject of a particular type of intelligence collection during a specific time period, and by extension, that the target’s associates during that period may have been subject to similar intelligence collections. This could lead the target to deduce the scope, focus, and direction of the FBI’s investigative efforts, and potentially any gaps in the collections, from which the target could deduce times when the target’s activities were “safe.” [my emphasis]

The bolded section says that certain people — the target, but also “others knowledgeable about the nature and timing of the investigation” — could put the financial dragnet request together with other information released or deduced to figure out that the target and his associates had had their financial data collected.

Gosh, that’s like waving a flag at anyone who might be “knowledgeable about the nature of the investigation.”

What counterterrorism investigation has generated sufficient attention such that not only the target, but outsiders, would recognize this order pertains the investigation in question? The investigation would be:

  • A counterterrorism investigation
  • In relatively early stages on November 23, 2010
  • Used financial records in a potentially novel way, perhaps to identify affiliates of the target
  • Still going on

The CIA & etc. Money Order Orders

One obvious possibility is the generalized CIA investigation into Western Union and international money transfers reported by WSJ and NYT last year. While both stories said the CIA got these orders, I suggested it likely that FBI submitted the orders and disseminated the information as broadly as FBI’s information sharing rules allowed, not least because CIA has no analytical advantage on such orders, as NSA would have for the phone dragnet.

There are two reasons this is unlikely. First, there’s the timing. The WSJ version of the story, at least, suggested this had been going on some time, before 2010. If that’s the case, then there’s no reason to believe a new order in 2010 reviewed this issue. And while I don’t think the 2010 order necessarily indicates the first financial 215 order (after all, it took 2.5 years before FISC weighed the equivalent question in the phone dragnet), it is unlikely that this order comes from an existing program.

That’s true, too, because this seems to be tied to a specific investigation, rather than the enterprise counterterrorism investigation that underlies the phone dragnet (and presumably the CIA program). So while this practice generated enough attention to be the investigation, I doubt it is.

The Scary Car Broker Plot

Then there’s what I call the Scary Car Broker Plot, which I wrote about here. Basically, it’s a giant investigation into drug trafficking from Colombia through Western Africa that contributes some money to Hezbollah and therefore has been treated as a terror terror terror investigation when in reality it is a drug investigation. Treasury named Ayman Joumaa, the ultimate target of that investigation, a Specially Designated Trafficker in February 2011, so presumably the investigation was very active in November 2010, when FISC issued the order. The case’s domestic component involves the car broker businesses of a slew of (probably completely innocent) Lebanese-Americans, who did business with the larger network via wire transfers.

The Car Buyers also received wire transfers for the purpose of buying and shipping used cars from other account holders at the Lebanese Banks (“Additional Transferors”), including the OFAC-designated Phenicia Shipping (Offshore); Ali Salhab and Yasmin Shipping & Trading; Fadi Star and its owners, Mohammad Hammoud and Fadi Hammoudi Fakih for General Trade, Khodor Fakih, and Ali Fakih; and Youssef Nehme.

Perhaps most interesting, the government got at these businessmen by suing them, rather than charging them, which raised significant Fifth Amendment Issues. So between that tactic and Joumaa’s rather celebrated status, I believe this is a possible case. And the timing — from 2007 until 2011, when Joumaa got listed — would certainly make sense.

All that said, this aspect of the investigation was made public in the suit naming the car brokers, so FBI would be hard-pressed to claim that providing more details would compromise the investigation.

HSBC’s Material Support for Terrorism

Then there’s a very enticing possibility: that this is an investigation into HSBC for its material support for terrorism, in the form of providing cash dollars to the al Rajhi bank which went on to support terrorist attacks (including 9/11).

HSBC’s wrist slap for money laundering is one of the most noted legal atrocities in recent memory, but most people focus on the bank’s role laundering money for drug cartels. Yet as I’ve always emphasized, HSBC also played a key role in providing money to al Qaeda-related terrorists.

As the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report made clear, HSBC’s material support for terror continued until 2010.

After the 9-11 terrorist attack in 2001, evidence began to emerge that Al Rajhi Bank and some of its owners had links to financing organizations associated with terrorism, including evidence that the bank’s key founder was an early financial benefactor of al Qaeda. In 2005, HSBC announced internally that its affiliates should sever ties with Al Rajhi Bank, but then reversed itself four months later, leaving the decision up to each affiliate. HSBC Middle East, among other HSBC affiliates, continued to do business with the bank.

Due to terrorist financing concerns, HBUS closed the correspondent banking and banknotes accounts it had provided to Al Rajhi Bank. For nearly two years, HBUS Compliance personnel resisted pressure from HSBC personnel in the Middle East and United States to resume business ties with Al Rajhi Bank. In December 2006, however, after Al Rajhi Bank threatened to pull all of its business from HSBC unless it regained access to HBUS’ U.S. banknotes program, HBUS agreed to resume supplying Al Rajhi Bank with shipments of U.S. dollars. Despite ongoing troubling information, HBUS provided nearly $1 billion in U.S. dollars to Al Rajhi Bank until 2010, when HSBC decided, on a global basis, to exit the U.S. banknotes business. HBUS also supplied U.S. dollars to two other banks, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. and Social Islami Bank, despite evidence of links to terrorist financing. Each of these specific cases shows how a global bank can pressure its U.S. affiliate to provide banks in countries at high risk of terrorist financing with access to U.S. dollars and the U.S. financial system. [my emphasis]

Now, the timing may match up here, and I’d really love for a bankster to be busted for supporting terrorism. Plus, an ongoing investigation into this part of HSBC’s crimes might explain why Lanny Breuer said nothing about it when he announced the settlement with HSBC. But I doubt this is the investigation. That’s because former Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey moved to HSBC after this point in time, in large part in a thus-far futile attempt to try to clean up the bank. And I can’t imagine a lawyer could ethically take on this role while (presumably) knowing about such seizures. Moreover, as the PSI report made clear, there are abundant other ways to get at the kind of data at issue in the HSBC investigation without Section 215 orders.

Who am I kidding? This DOJ won’t ever really investigate a bank!

WikiLeaks the Aider of Al Qaeda 

I realize these three possibilities do not exhaust the list of sufficiently significant and sufficiently old terrorism investigations that might be the target named in the order. So I’m happy to hear other possibilities.

But there is one other investigation that is a near perfect fit for almost all the description provided by Hudson: WikiLeaks.

As I’ve reported, EPIC sued to enforce a FOIA for records the FBI has on investigations into WikiLeaks supporters. The FOIA asked for and FBI did not deny having, among other things, financial records.

All records of any agency communications with financial services companies including, but not limited to Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, regarding lists of individuals who have demonstrated, through monetary donations or other means, support or interest in WikiLeaks.

In addition to withholding information that they apparently have because of an ongoing investigation (though the Judge has required the government to confirm it is still ongoing by April 25), the government also claimed exemption under a statute that they bizarrely refused to name. I speculated four months before Edward Snowden’s leaks that that statute was Section 215.

And the timing on this investigation is a perfect fit. On November 3, 2010, Joint Terrorism Task Force Officer Darin Louck seized David House’s computer as he came across the border from Mexico. While House refused to give the government his encryption passwords, the seizure makes it clear FBI was targeting WikiLeaks supporters. Then, according Alexa O’Brien, on November 21, 2010, a report on the upcoming Cablegate release was included in President Obama’s Daily Brief. The government spent the weeks leading up to the first releases in Cablegate on November 28, 2010 scrambling to understand what might be in them. On December 4, PayPal started refusing donations to WikiLeaks. And on December 6, Eric Holder stated publicly he had authorized extraordinary investigative measures “just last week.”

Nor would he say whether the actions involved search warrants, requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes wiretaps or other means, describing them only as “significant.”

“I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can, hopefully, get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable as they should be,” he said.

December 6 was a Monday and technically Tuesday, November 23 would have been 2 weeks earlier, just 2 days before Thanksgiving. But a Section 215 order doesn’t require AG approval, and indeed, dragnet orders often generate leads for more intrusive kinds of surveillance.

Moreover, according to Hudson’s declaration, this order did precisely what EPIC’s FOIA seems to confirm FBI did, investigate not just Julian Assange, but also his associates (also known as supporters), including WikiLeaks donors.

The only thing — and it is a significant thing — that would suggest this guess is wrong is Hudson’s description of this as a “counterterrorism” investigation and not a “counterespionage” investigation (which is how Holder was discussing it in December 2010).

But that doesn’t necessarily rule WikiLeaks out. As noted above, already by early November 2010, the FBI had JTTF agents involved in the investigation. And central to the government’s failed claim that Chelsea Manning had aided the enemy was that she had made the Afghan war logs available knowing (from the DIA report she accessed) that the government worried about al Qaeda accessing such things, and that some Afghan war logs were found at Osama bin Laden’s compound. So the government clearly has treated its WikiLeaks investigation as a counterterrorism investigation.

Moreover, all Hudson’s declaration claims is that the government currently considers this a counterterrorism investigation. Section 215 can be used for counterintelligence investigations (as I’ve noted over and over). Since the Osama bin Laden raid revealed al Qaeda had accessed cables, the government has maintained that it does involve al Qaeda. So it may be that Hudson’s reference to the investigation as a counterterrorism investigation only refers to its current status, and not the status used to obtain the order in 2010.

That said, Hudson also provided a classified version of her statement to Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers, and I can’t imagine she’d try to pitch the WikiLeaks case as a counterterrorism one if a judge actually got to check her work. But you never know!

It’s likely that I’m forgetting a very obviously publicly known counterterrorism investigation.

But I think it possible that either the Scary Car Broker plot or WikiLeaks is the target named in the order.

DOJ Says You Can’t Know If They’ve Used the Dragnet Against You … But FISC Says They’re Wrong

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As I noted the other day in yet another post showing why investigations into intelligence failures leading up to the Boston Marathon attack must include NSA, the government outright refuses to tell Dzhokhar Tsarnaev whether it will introduce evidence obtained using Section 215 at trial.

Tsarnaev’s further request that this Court order the government to provide notice of its intent to use information regarding the “. . . collection and examination of telephone and computer records pursuant to Section 215 . . .” that he speculates was obtained pursuant to FISA should also be rejected. Section 215 of Pub. L. 107-56, conventionally known as the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, is codified in 50 U.S.C. § 1861, and controls the acquisition of certain business records by the government for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. It does not contain a provision that requires notice to a defendant of the use of information obtained pursuant to that section or derived therefrom. Nor do the notice provisions of 50 U.S.C. §§ 1806(c), 1825(d), and 1881e apply to 50 U.S.C § 1861. Therefore, even assuming for the sake of argument that the government possesses such evidence and intends to use it at trial, Tsarnaev is not entitled to receive the notice he requests.

This should concern every American whose call records are likely to be in that database, because the government can derive prosecutions — which may not even directly relate to terrorism — using the digital stop-and-frisk standard used in the dragnet, and never tell you they did so.

Note, too, Dzhokhar’s lawyers are  not just asking for phone records, but also computer records collected using Section 215, something Zoe Lofgren has made clear can be obtained under the provision.

And in the case in which Dzhokhar’s college buddies are accused of trying to hide his computer and some firecracker explosives, prosecutors profess to be unable to provide any of the text messages Dzhokhar sent after his last text to them. That stance seems to pretend they couldn’t get at least the metadata from those texts from the phone dragnet.

The government, then, claims that defendants can’t have access to data collected using Section 215. They base that claim on the absence of any language in the Section 215 statute, akin to that found in FISA content collection statutes, providing for formal notice to defendants.

But at least in the case of the phone dragnet, that stance appears to put them in violation of the dragnet minimization procedures. That’s because since at least September 3, 2009 and continuing through the last dragnet order released (note, ODNI seems to be taking their time on releasing the March 28 order),  the minimization procedures have explicitly provided a way to make the query results available for discovery. Here’s the language from 2009.

Notwithstanding the above requirements, NSA may share information derived from the BR metadata, including U.S. person identifying information, with Executive Branch personnel in order to enable them to determine whether the information contains exculpatory or impeachment information or is otherwise discoverable in legal proceedings.

The government routinely points to these very same minimization procedures to explain why it can’t provide information to Congress or other entities. But if the minimization procedures trump other statutes to justify withholding information, surely they must have the weight of law for disclosure to criminal defendants. And all that’s before you consider the Brady and Constitutional reasons that should trump the government’s interpretation as well.

Using the formulation the government always uses when making claims about the dragnet’s legality, on at least 21 occasions, FISC judges have envisioned discovery to be part of the minimization procedures with which the government must comply. At least 7 judges have premised their approval of the dragnet, in part, on the possibility exculpatory information may be shared in discovery.

Now, there is a limit to the discovery envisioned by these 21 FISA orders; this discovery language, in the most recently published order, reads:

Notwithstanding the above requirements, NSA may share results from intelligence analysis queries of the BR metadata, including U.S. person identifying information, with Executive Branch personnel (1) in order to enable them to determine whether the information contains exculpatory or impeachment information or is otherwise discoverable in legal proceedings …

That is, this discovery language only includes the “results from intelligence analysis queries.” It doesn’t permit new queries of the entire database, a point the government makes over and over. But in the case of the Marathon bombing, we know the queries have been run, because Executive Branch officials have been bragging about the queries they did after the bombing that gave them “peace of mind.”

Those query results are there, and the FISC judges explicitly envisioned the queries to be discoverable. And yet the government, in defiance of the minimization procedures they claim are sacred, refuse to comply.

Spy vs. Spy, Theresa Shea vs. Theresa Shea

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The government has submitted its response to ACLU’s appeal of its lawsuit challenging the Section 215 dragnet.

This passage, which reminded me of the old Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy comic, made me pee my pants in laughter.

Various details of the program remain classified, precluding further explanation here of its scope, but the absence of those details cannot justify unsupported assumptions. For example, the record does not support the conclusion that the program collects “virtually all telephony metadata” about telephone calls made or received in the United States. SPA 32, quoted in Pl. Br. 12; see also, e.g., Pl. Br. 1-2, 23, 24, 25, 48, 58. Nor is that conclusion correct. See Supp. Decl. of Teresa H. Shea ¶ 7, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, No. 4:13cv3287 (filed Feb. 21, 2014).3

3 The precise scope of the program is immaterial, however, because, as we explain, the government should prevail as a matter of law even if the scope of the program were as plaintiffs describe. [my emphasis]

Note that they’re citing a declaration from SIGINT Director Theresa Shea submitted in another case, the EFF challenge to the phone dragnet? They’re citing that Shea declaration rather than the one Shea submitted in this very case.

In her declaration submitted in this case in October, Shea said NSA collected all the call records from the providers subject to Section 215.

Pursuant to Section 215, the FBI obtains from the FISC directing certain telecommunications service providers to produce all business records created by them (known as call detail records) that contain information about communications between telephone numbers, generally relating to telephone calls made between the U.S. and a foreign country and calls made entirely within the U.S. (¶14) [my emphasis]

Not all providers. But for the providers in question, “all business records.”

Remember, ACLU is suing on their own behalf, and they are Verizon customers. We know Verizon is one of the providers in question, and Shea has told us that providers in question, of which Verizon is one, provide “all business records.”

Theresa Shea, in a declaration submitted in the suit in question: “All.”

Rather than citing the declaration submitted in this suit, the government instead cites a declaration Shea submitted all the way across the country in the EFF suit, one she submitted four months later, after both the ACLU and Judicial Watch suits had been decided at the District level.

Ostensibly written to describe the changes in scope the President rolled out in January, Shea submitted a new claim about the scope of the program in which she insisted that the program (ignoring, of course, that Section 215 is just a small part of the larger dragnet) does not collect “all.”

Although there has been speculation that the NSA, under this program, acquires metadata relating to all telephone calls to, from, or within the United States, that is not the case. The Government has acknowledged that the program is broad in scope and involves the collection and aggregation of a large volume of data from multiple telecommunications service providers, but as the FISC observed in a decision last year, it has never captured information on all (or virtually all) calls made and/or received in the U.S. See In re Application of the FBI for an Order Requiring the Production of Tangible Things from [Redacted], Dkt. No. BR13-109 Amended Mem. Op. at 4 n.5 (F.I.S.C. Aug. 29, 2013) (publicly released, unclassified version) (“The production of all call detail records of all persons in the States has never occurred under under this program.“) And while the Government has also acknowledged that one provider was the recipient of a now-expired April 23, 2013, Secondary Order from the FISC (Exhibit B to my earlier declaration), the identities of the carriers participating in the program(either now, or at any time in the past) otherwise remain classified. [my emphasis]

I explained in detail how dishonest a citation Theresa Shea’s newfound embrace of “not-all” is.

Here, she’s selectively citing the declassified August 29, 2013 version of Claire Eagan’s July 19, 2013 opinion. The latter date is significant, given that the day the government submitted the application tied to that order, NSA General Counsel Raj De made it clearthere were 3 providers in the program (see after 18:00 in the third video). These are understood to be AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

Shea selectively focuses on language that describes some limits on the dragnet. She could also note that Eagan’s opinion quoted language suggesting the dragnet (at least in 2011) collected “substantially all” of the phone records from the providers in question, but she doesn’t, perhaps because it would present problems for her “virtually all” claim.

Moreover, Shea’s reference to “production of all call detail records” appears to have a different meaning than she suggests it has when read in context. Here’s what the actual language of the opinion says.

Specifically, the government requested Orders from this Court to obtain certain business records of specified telephone service providers. Those telephone company business records consist of a very large volume of each company’s call detail records or telephony metadata, but expressly exclude the contents of any communication; the name, address, or financial information of any subscriber or customer; or any cell site location information (CSLI). Primary Ord. at 3 n.l.5

5 In the event that the government seeks the production of CSLI as part of the bulk production of call detail records in the future, the government would be required to provide notice and briefing to this Court pursuant to FISC Rule 11. The production of all call detail records of all persons in the United States has never occurred under this program. For example, the government [redacted][my emphasis]

In context, the reference discusses not just whether the records of all the calls from all US telecom providers (AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, which participated in this program on the date Eagan wrote the opinion, but also T-Mobile and Cricket, plus VOIP providers like Microsoft, owner of Skype, which did not) are turned over, but also whether each provider that does participate (AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon) turns over all the records on each call. The passage makes clear they don’t do the latter; AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon don’t turn over financial data, name, or cell location, for example! And since we know that at the time Eagan wrote this opinion, there were just those 3 providers participating, clearly the records of providers that didn’t use the backbone of those 3 providers or, in the case of Skype, would be inaccessible, would be missed. So not all call detail records from the providers that do provide records, nor records covering all the people in the US. But still a “very large volume” from AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, the providers that happen to be covered by the suit.

That is, in context, the “all call detail records of all persons in the United States has never occurred” claim meant that even for the providers obligated under the order in question — AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon — there were parts of the call records (like the financial information) they didn’t turn over, though they turned over records for all calls. That’s consistent with Eagan’s quotation of the “virtually all” records with respect to the providers in question.

But by citing it disingenuously, Shea utterly changes the meaning Eagan accorded it.

Theresa Shea, disingenuously citing a declaration submitted in another suit: “Not all.”

It’s like the hilarity of Mad Magazine’s old Spy vs. Spy comics. Only in this case, it pits top spy Theresa Shea against top spy Theresa Shea.

The Day After Government Catalogs Data NSA Collected on Tsarnaevs, DOJ Refuses to Give Dzhokhar Notice

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On Thursday, the Inspectors General of the Intelligence Community, DOJ, CIA, and DHS (but not NSA) released their report on the Marathon Bombing. While the public release was just a very condensed summary, included the redaction of both classified and “sensitive” information, and made no attempt to reconstruct data government agencies had or could have had on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the report did show that the NSA had data on Tamerlan Tsarnaev and that the FBI found information on his computers that NSA might have gotten via other means.

On Friday, prosecutors in the case against Dzhokhar refused to tell him what they collected under FISA.

Before I get into the government’s refusal on FISA notice — some of which has repercussions for other cases — let’s go over what electronic communications the government did have or could have had.

First, the IG Report (which did not specifically involve NSA’s IG and did not include Dzhokhar in its scope) nevertheless points to information NSA collected in 2012 that was not turned over to FBI until after the attack.

Screen Shot 2014-04-12 at 12.37.13 PM

The report also points to communications dating to January 2011, which is entirely redacted. This probably refers to communications the Russians intercepted, not the NSA (indeed, the report discusses NSA data, above, later in the same section, which indicates the earlier redaction doesn’t pertain to NSA). Though there’s no indication whether the NSA received notice of these communications, including the non-US person interlocutor located overseas involved in them, who would have been a legal NSA target.

Read more →

Judge in WikiLeaks FOIA Cites “Events that Have Transpired,” Government Claims FOIA Is “Improper”

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Back in 2011, the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued to enforce a FOIA for documents on FBI’s investigation of WikiLeaks supporters. In response, the government cited an ongoing investigation exemption. But they also cited a statutory exemption, claiming some law prevented them from releasing the records on investigations into WikiLeaks supporters. Unusually, DOJ refused to name the law in question. For that reason, and because my suspicions of how Section 215 gets used suggested it would make a spectacular tool for investigating a group of WikiLeaks supporters, I suggested that the statute was likely Section 215.

Since then, we’ve seen indications of NSA involvement in the investigation into WikiLeaks, though without any details from before EPIC’s FOIA.

And until March 11, that’s where things stood, with the government claiming it couldn’t release records about its investigation into completely innocent supporters of a publishing outlet and the judge (who had been newly assigned to the case in April 2013) doing nothing with the government’s motion for summary judgement.

On March 11, however, Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein ordered DOJ and EPIC to submit briefs updating her on the status of the investigation into WikiLeaks and with it the government’s ongoing investigation exemption, but not its claimed statutory exemption.

The Court takes judicial notice that events have transpired during that time that may cause the government’s position to to have changed. Therefore, the Court instructs the government to update its position regarding Plaintiff’s FOIA request, particularly with respect to the government’s invocation of exemption 7(A).

The language of her order suggests two things. First, if Rothstein is asking whether the 7(A) ongoing investigation exemption remains active, it suggests she’s may not accept the government’s statutory exemption 3 to completely withhold these documents. And she doesn’t say what the “events” that “have transpired” are, but it’s probably not any developments in the WikiLeaks investigation, as that’s what she says she doesn’t know. That makes it likely the Snowden leaks and related official disclosures have made the exemption 3, the basis for which she knows about from classified declarations, moot.

That’s all tea leaf reading. And even if I’ve read the tea leaves correctly, it doesn’t mean I’m right about Section 215. After all, back door searches on collection targeted at Julian Assange (who, as a foreign citizen and alleged spy, would be a legal target under Section 702 or even generally) would be a useful investigation into WikiLeaks supporters as well, though there’s abundant reason to believe dragnet queries serve as the basis for back door searches. Still, I think it’s likely that something that has been released and declassified since last April has mooted the government’s secret statutory claims.

The government, having sat on Judge Rothstein’s April 11 deadline from March 11 until Tuesday, is now stalling for time. (h/t JG; links to come shortly) On Tuesday, the lawyer who inherited this case claimed she has another case that prevents her from writing 10 pages on the status of the WikiLeaks investigation. But also that she needs more time to consult with the “defendant agencies.”

In addition, the draft supplemental brief will require review within the Department of Justice and defendant agencies before it may be filed.

EPIC’s not buying it, citing from the judge’s previous orders warning against extensions and stating clearly that business in other matters is not a good excuse. EPIC also described DOJ’s sleazy post-business hours effort to provide notice. and noted this is precisely the kind of thing Judge Rothstein had said would get a motion summarily denied.

Ms. Zeidner Marcus also did not timely notify Plaintiff’s counsel of her plans to file this Motion for Extension of Time. Ms. Zeidner Marcus first contacted Ms. McCall on April 8, 2014, the date that the filing was due, after ordinary business hours. Ms. Zeidner Marcus first emailed Ms. McCall on April 8, 2014 at 5:01 PM and followed up at approximately 5:30 PM that day with a telephone call. This did not give Ms. McCall sufficient time to consider Ms. Zeidner Marcus’ request or to consult with Ms. McCall’s co-counsel ,Mr. Rotenberg, regarding that request. Ms. Zeidner Marcus then filed her Motion for Extension of Time at 11:23 PM on the same day (April 8, 2014).

To which DOJ responded by accusing EPIC of filing an “improper” FOIA.

This case involves plaintiff’s attempts to improperly use the Freedom of Information Act to seek information about ongoing criminal investigations.

Remember, the underlying issue here is that DOJ shouldn’t be investigating innocent supporters of a publishing outlet. But DOJ believes trying to learn how and why they are doing so is an improper FOIA.

Meanwhile, DOJ sources admitted last November that they can’t really charge Assange without charging the NYT as well.

Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Which, I guess, explains the rudeness and urgent need for one more month. Because if the government loses both its ongoing investigation and its statutory exemptions, they might have to explain why they used national security tools against people exercising free speech.

Update: The Judge gave the government half the extension they requested, to April 25.

In light of the fact that the motion was not timely filed and that press of business is not an adequate reason for an extension, the Court will not grant the request for a thirty day extension. Instead, the Court will grant an extension to and including April 25, 2014. Plaintiff’s opposition shall be filed on or before May 12, 2014. The reply shall be file on or before May 19, 2014. In the future, the Court expects the parties to comply with the terms of the Standing Order in this case.

Initial Thoughts on Obama’s Dragnet Fix

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The White House has rolled out the bare sketch of its proposal to fix the dragnet. The sketch says,

  • the government will not collect these telephone records in bulk; rather, the records would remain at the telephone companies for the length of time they currently do today;
  • absent an emergency situation, the government would obtain the records only pursuant to individual orders from the FISC approving the use of specific numbers for such queries, if a judge agrees based on national security concerns;
  • the records provided to the government in response to queries would only be within two hops of the selection term being used, and the government’s handling of any records it acquires will be governed by minimization procedures approved by the FISC;
  • the court-approved numbers could be used to query the data over a limited period of time without returning to the FISC for approval, and the production of records would be ongoing and prospective; and
  • the companies would be compelled by court order to provide technical assistance to ensure that the records can be queried and that results are transmitted to the government in a usable format and in a timely manner.

The most important question asked in a conference call on this is what the standard for querying would be. Congress would decide that, but it Reasonable Articulable Suspicion would be the starting point.

That sketch doesn’t really answer a lot of questions about the program, including:

  • Will this program be used for “national security concerns” beyond counterterrorism? Never once did the conference call say it was limited to CT, and several comments suggested it could be used more broadly.
  • What kind of protections will the data (the overwhelming number of which would be innocent people) get once it lands at NSA (see the minimization procedures noted above)? Will it resemble the corporate store of forever datamining that currently exists?
  • Who will do the data integrity that currently requires access to the raw data, which has a dramatic influence on how much data would be responsive to a 2-hop query? The required “technical assistance” might include some of it (it definitely includes formatting the data such that NSA can legally accept it, which has caused a problem with cell data). But does Verizon or NSA or Booz go through the raw data and pull out the high volume numbers?
  • For how long will these orders be granted? (It sounds like the White House will use this to entice congressional support.)
  • Will the NSA have access to location data (I’m guessing the answer is no but would like assurances)?

All that said, this is an improvement over the status quo and over RuppRoge in several ways, not least that it applies only to phone data, and that they’re using the same vocabulary we’ve just spent 10 months agreeing on common definitions for.

Update: One observation. One thing both this reform and RuppRoge include is the ability to dictate what the government gets from providers. That’s a testament to how poorly suited the Section 215 program has always been, because it could only ask for existing business records, and most telecoms (the likely exception is AT&T) could and almost certainly did simply provide their SS7 telecom records, which would include everything, including cell location data that apparently became problematic, probably since 2010, when Congress learned NSA was actually going to start using that data. Those problems likely grew more intense after the Jones decision made it clear SCOTUS had problems with the government tracking location persistently without a warrant.

In other words, these “reforms” seem to arise as much from the fact that the outrage against this dragnet provides the government with an opportunity to build a system more appropriate to the task at hand rather than what they could jerry-rig together in secret.

A Key Part of RuppRoge’s Fake Dragnet Fix Reform: Pay the Telecoms

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Here’s an interesting “reform” in the RuppRoge’s Fake Dragnet Fix. It pays the telecoms.

COMPENSATION AND ASSISTANCE.–The Government shall compensate, at the prevailing rate, an electronic communications service provider for providing records in accordance with directives issued pursuant to [their bill].

Section 215 does not include such a payment provision. And while the first two phone dragnet orders included provision for such payments, that was probably illegal.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the government has found some way to pay the telecoms, either through added payments for AT&T’s Hemisphere program or gifts in kind. (Though given the timing of DOJ’s suit against Sprint for over-billing, I do wonder whether the government is retaliating for something.) Telecoms don’t spy for free, so I’m sure they’ve been getting paid, illegally, for the last 8 years of dragnet spying they’ve been doing.

But the lack of such provision in Section 215 should have limited the scope of the dragnet. It should have required that requests be so narrow no telecom was going to send big bills to the government every month. And it presumably made the telecoms (well, except for AT&T, which never met a spying request it didn’t love) less willing to interpret orders from the government expansively.

The inclusion of such a compensation clause in the RuppRoge “reform” makes it even more likely this dragnet will expand with the now well-oiled willingness of the telecoms to go above and beyond the letter of the request.

Which is presumably just how the NSA wants it to be.

RuppRogers Fake Dragnet Fix Would End (?) Bulk Firearm Record Collection, But Not Bulk Credit Card Record Collection

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I’m just beginning to go through the House Intelligence Fake Dragnet Fix bill — what I will henceforth call the RuppRogers Fake Dragnet Fix.

It does have some improvements — the kind of bones you throw into a legislation to entice members of Congress to back what is in fact a broad expansion of surveillance.

One of those is a prohibition on the use of FISA (presumably including Section 215) to engage in bulk collection of certain kinds of records:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Government may not acquire under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearm sales records, tax return records, education records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person without the use of specific identifiers or selection terms.

I find this interesting, for one, because it is yet another piece of evidence that suggests the government has been using Section 215 (and National Security Letters, probably) to make its own firearm registry, in defiance of congressional intent.

But I also find it instructive to compare this list:

  • Some but not all library and book records
  • Firearm sales records
  • Tax return (but not other tax) records
  • Education records
  • Some but not all medical records

With the list laid out in this letter from Ron Wyden and Mark Udall and others.

  • Credit card purchases
  • Pharmacy records
  • Library records
  • Firearm sales records
  • Financial information
  • Book and movie purchase records

I would assume from the difference that NSA was unwilling to give up certain kinds of bulk collection, notably credit card and non-tax return financial records.

I think the use of Section 215 to collect gun records is patently illegal, even though I might support a gun registry if passed legislatively. But if we’re going to roll back that collection, let’s roll back the bulk financial record collection as well.

The October 30, 2009 Statement of Authorities: The EFF Document Fight Could Get Very Interesting

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If the Chief FISC Judge accuses the government of material misrepresentations but no one but a dirty fucking hippie blogger reports it, did it happen?

On Friday, I reported on Judge Reggie Walton’s cranky opinion asking for an explanation about why the government didn’t tell him EFF believed they had a protection order in cases relevant to the dragnets. And while it overstates the resounding silence to say that only your esteemed DFH host reported it — TechDirt had a good report — some of the other reporting on it thus far seems to have missed the whole material misrepresentation judgement in Walton’s order.

But I think it’s not yet clear — to anyone — how interesting this document fight could get.

Just as one example of why (I’ll develop some of the others over the next couple of days, I hope), consider the October 30, 2009 statement of authorities.

Earlier this month, I noted that EFF had submitted a list of filings that the government had not released in spite of what they believed to be Judge Jeffrey White’s order to declassify everything.

  • April 9, 2007 notices indicating FISC Judge rejected early bulk orders
  • October 25, 2007 government challenge to motion to protect evidence, with ex parte NSA official declaration submitted in Shubert
  • April 3, 2009 supplemental memorandum in Jewel
  • October 30, 2009 supplemental memorandum on points of authority in Shubert
  • November 2012

In last Wednesday’s hearing, the government claimed they didn’t have to release these because they engaged in a colloquy limiting White’s orders to the state secrets declarations. And for the moment, I’ll take that as accurate.

But since then, the government has released one of these — the October 25, 2007 challenge to the protection motion — as part of their filing on Monday fighting a protection order in EFF’s phone dragnet suit. And that document was pretty stunning. Not only did it show the government had redefined the Multidistrict Litigation suits so as to exclude any of the FISA-authorized metadata dragnets that EFF of course had no way of knowing about yet. But in the filing, the government revealed that because of this filing and in defiance of Vaughn Walker’s November 2007 protection order, it has been destroying the metadata dragnet data in the interim.

In other words, the government is withholding these filings because they’re fairly damning.

Which got me thinking about the timing and significance of the October 30, 2009 supplemental memorandum on points of authority supporting a motion to dismiss the Shubert suit based on sovereign immunity and state secrets.

At one level, the memorandum is not all that suspicious. As you can see above, the government filed what is presumably roughly the same filing at the analogous time in Jewel, just as it was making its state secrets bid.

But I find the timing of the October 30 filings in Shubert to be of particular interest. That’s because a 2011 NSA training program seems to indicate that the Internet dragnet shut down at almost precisely that time, as it indicates that Internet dragnet data collected prior to November 2009 requires some sort of special treatment.

In addition, in the source information at the end of the line, the SIGAD [redacted] BR data can be recognized by SIGADs beginning with [redacted] For PR/TT, data collected after October 2010 is found [redacted] For a comprehensive listing of all the BR and PR/TT SIGADs as well as information on PR/TT data collected prior to November of 2009, contact your organization’s management or subject matter expert.

Remember, Shubert was suing for illegal wiretapping. And while Judge John Bates did not fully assess what NSA was doing — which appears to be collecting data that counts as content in the guise of collecting metadata — until the following year (some time between July and October 2010), when he did so, he implied the government had to comply with the laws in which they were claiming, in 2009, they had sovereign immunity. And the government had to know by that point they had serious legal problems with the Internet dragnet.

Indeed, the government kept asking for extensions leading up to this filing — at the time they claimed it was because of DOJ’s whats-old-is-new state secrets policy. Altogether they got an extra 22 days to file this filing (which should have been substantially similar to the ones they filed in April). They were almost certainly having still-undisclosed problems with the phone dragnet (probably relating to dissemination of data), as the October 30, 2009 phone dragnet orders is one of the ones the government has withheld even though it is obviously responsive to ACLU and EFF’s FOIA. But the discussions on the Internet dragnet must have been even more contentious, given that the FISC (probably either Reggie Walton or John Bates) refused to reauthorize it. (Note, October 30, 2009 was a Friday, so if FISC formally didn’t approve the Internet dragnet in October 2009, it would have been that day).

And the thing is, from Keith Alexander’s state secrets declaration, submitted perhaps hours and almost certainly no more than a month before the Internet dragnet got shut down because it was illegally collecting metadata that was legally content, it’s not at all clear that the government fully disclosed details they knew about those legal problems with the dragnet. Look closely at ¶¶ 27 and 28, ¶¶48-56, ¶¶58-62 with footnotes.

The phone dragnet description hides the problems with ongoing dissemination problems (which the Administration hid from Congress, as well). It also makes no mention that the phone dragnet had US persons on an alert list without reviewing those selectors for First Amendment review, something that should be central to the suits against NSA (see in particular ¶60). And while there are redacted sentences and footnotes — 13 and 24 — which could include notice that the government was (and had been, since the inception of the FISC-authorized Internet dragnet) collecting metadata that counted as content, those are all very brief descriptions. Moreover, the unredacted descriptions clearly claim that the Internet dragnet program collects no content, which legally it almost certainly did. Moreover, note that the references to the Internet dragnet speak of it in the present tense: “Pursuant to the FISA Pen Register, …. NSA is authorized to collect in bulk.”But there doesn’t seem to be the parallel structure in ¶28 where you’d expect the government to confess that the program was imminently shutting down because it was illegally collecting Internet content.

Note, too, how the declaration refers to the reauthorizations. ¶59 describes the phone dragnet authority “continuing until October 30, 2009” and ¶58 describes the Internet dragnet “requires continued assistance by the providers through [redacted] 2009. They appear not to have known for sure whether the programs would be reauthorized that night! But they appear not to have explained why not.

Perhaps the most pregnant paragraph is ¶62, which in context appears to relate only to the phone dragnet, though I suspect the government would point to to claim their description of violations was not comprehensive:

NSA is committed to working with the FISC on this and other compliance issues to ensure that this vital intelligence tool works appropriately and effectively. For purposes of this litigation, and the privilege assertions now made by the DNI and by the NSA, the intelligence sources and methods described herein remain highly classified and the disclosure that [redacted] would compromise vital NSA sources and methods and result in exceptionally grave harm to national security.

By any measure, Alexander’s declaration falls short of what the government already knew at that time, demonstrably so in the case of the phone dragnet. He hid details — significantly, the watchlist of Americans that violated statute, and almost certainly that the NSA was collecting content in the name of metadata — that were material to the suits at hand.

Which brings me to the memo on authorities. Even as the government was hiding material violations of the statutes they were disclosing to Judge Walker, was it also making expansive Executive Authority claims it couldn’t (and still can’t) share with plaintiffs? Did the government, for example, make an Executive Authority claim that we have every reason to believe John Bates (especially) and Reggie Walton would rebut if they knew about it?

In any case, in addition to the watchlist data from those 3,000 US persons (which would have aged off last month otherwise), the last of the illegal Internet content-as-metadata data might be aged off as soon as April absent these stays.That data might well provide plaintiffs proof they were illegally wiretapped (note, the Internet dragnet was limited to certain switches, but Jewel was built around the Folsom Street switch which was almost certainly included in that). And that the government provided highly misleading descriptions to Vaughn Walker when bidding for a state secrets exemption.

And add in one more legal fight here: as I noted, DOJ is withholding the October 30, 2009 (as well as one later one from 2009) from both the ACLU and EFF (the EFF suit is before a different San Francisco judge). In addition, DOJ is refusing all push for expedited processing on FOIAs for the Internet dragnet filings.

Seeing how clearly manipulative their data release in these lawsuits is, it seems safe to suggest the government is also making FOIA decisions to prevent plaintiffs from obtaining information to really contest these suits. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. But I would hope it would piss off the judges.

Former NSA General Counsel Robert Deitz, Who Rubber-Stamped Illegal Wiretap Program, Says All Felonies Should Be Prosecuted

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I’m watching a CUNY conference on sources and secrets, which currently has a panel including Bob Woodward, Jane Mayer, and former NSA General Counsel Robert Deitz.

When asked whether he could think of a leak that had been damaging, Deitz said the exposure of the illegal (he called it “special”) wiretap program had been damaging.

Then, in the context of prosecuting leaks, Deitz argued that all leaks should be prosecuted, because they involve a felony violation of an oath (that’s not always true, but I’ll just accept that Deitz believes all felonies should be prosecuted). He went on to say, “How is it you put a line around this felony and not prosecute it?”

According to the 2009 Draft NSA IG Report, Deitz, on September 20, 2001, suggested to Alberto Gonzales they should consider modifying FISA (which was then being modified as part of the PATRIOT Act); he appears to have gotten no answer. On October 5, 2001 — having asked but not been permitted to read the underlying OLC authorization for it (Addington read him a few lines over the phone), having not participated in the drafting of the Presidential Authorization for it, and having given it just one day of legal review — Deitz said a program violating the exclusivity provision of FISA was legal. On October 8, Deitz briefed the analysts who would carry out this illegal program.

Deitz’ subordinates provided the only oversight of the program at first. (Later in today’s program he claimed the line between domestic and foreign intelligence was rigorously maintained.) To his credit, Deitz ultimately fought to have the Inspector General read into the program after it had operated for some months.

This is a man who provided the legal fig leaf for a patently illegal program (though the IG Report provides no details of Deitz’ actions for the March to May 2004 timeframe, when the program was even more illegal). This is a man who showed awareness of the legally correct way to do this — include this expanded program in PATRIOT — but nevertheless accepted and participated in not doing so.

And he advocates prosecuting every felony.

Perhaps before he talks about prosecuting journalists and their sources, he should consider his own role in encouraging felonies?