The State Department Has Taken Over Three Years On A FOIA Request About How Long It Takes To Process FOIA Requests

from the they're-just-messing-with-us dept

Back in 2013, a young Shawn Musgrave filed a FOIA request with the State Department for its cables regarding former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. To his surprise, he was given an estimated completion date (ECD) of December 2015 -- a full 18 months of processing time.

Curious about where the agency got that oddly specific number from -- and with plenty of time on his hands -- Shawn filed a follow-up request for any documentation outlining State's methodology for estimating FOIA completion dates. This is on August 5th, 2013, and he gets an acknowledgement back August 8th, just three days later.

Don't get used to that kind of timeliness.

Two months later, he's given his first ECD for this request -- December 2013.

Only a few months of processing, perfectly reasonable for operational manuals that FOIA officers should have easily accessible.

Except apparently not, because come December, he's given a new ECD -- May 2014.

Well, okay, we should cut them some slack -- as they said, there are extenuating factors, and if they feel they need another five months, that shouldn't be too big of a deal, so long as they-

Oh, you've got to be kidding.

December 2014. A full year since the initial filing. Alright, not great, but how much longer could it take, really?

Oh, come on! Now you're just being ridiculous, State -- the original ECD for the Thatcher docs was February 2015. How could this be a month harder to process than that? Why not just go ahead and take the rest of the year if you're feeling swamped.

Wait, no, it was a joke, don't-

Nooooooo. Why are you doing this? Are you just messing with us?

You are just messing us, aren't you!

Come on, that's not even a date!

Alright, that's better.

Wait, no it's not, that's actually much worse -- how could you possibly need until June? You finally released the Thatcher docs that started this whole mess in May!

... Are we dead? Is this Hell?

Noooooooooooooo

It's October 2016. Shawn Musgrave is a sadder and a wiser man. And we are still waiting for the State Department to tell us how long it takes to process its FOIA requests.

Maybe we'll wait forever. Maybe we've always been waiting.

Or maybe the State Department can hire some new FOIA officers already. Jeez.

Republished from Muckrock

Filed Under: estimates, foia, state department

Senate Funding Bill For State Dept. Asks It To Figure Out Ways To Stop Bad People From Using Tor

from the good-luck-with-that dept

It would appear that Congress is not so happy that the State Department is a major funding source for the Tor project. Tor, of course, is the internet anonymyzing system that was originally developed with support from the US government as a way to promote free and safe access to the internet for people around the globe (mostly focusing on those under threat in authoritarian countries). Of course, other parts of our government aren't huge fans of Tor, because it doesn't just help activists and dissidents in other countries avoid detection, but also, well, just about anyone (except on days when the FBI decides to hack their way in).

There has, of course, always been some tension there. There are always the conspiracy theorists who believe that because Tor receives US government funding it is by default compromised. Those tend to be tinfoil hat wearing types, though. The folks who work on Tor are not exactly recognized for being particularly friendly to intrusive government surveillance. They tend to be the exact opposite of that. And, of course, part of the Snowden revelations revealed that Tor was one tool that still stymied the NSA in most cases.

But it appears that Congress may be quietly trying to undermine this. On Friday, Politico had a tiny blurb in passing about how the latest State Department appropriations bill making its way through Congress includes some references to stopping "circumvention technologies" from being used by bad people. The Politico report suggests this is designed to apply more broadly to encryption, but reading the specifics it appears to be targeted straight at Tor. Here's the Senate report on the appropriations, where it discusses funding related to "internet freedom."

That, of course, was the reasoning behind Tor in the first place, but here Congress is now trying to put some limitations on what the State Dept. can do with its funds, including demanding that it seek out ways to stop bad guys from using technology like Tor. In the report, it's described this way:

...the Committee requires that spend plans submitted by the Department of State and BBG pursuant to section 7078(c) of the act include a description of safeguards to ensure that circumvention technologies are not used for illicit purposes, such as coordinating terrorist activities or online sexual exploitation of children.

In the full bill, the key section notes that the funding shall only be available for internet freedom after efforts are made to stop bad people from using the tools.

... made available for the research and development of new tools or techniques authorized in paragraph (A) only after the BBG CEO, in consultation with the Secretary of State and other relevant United States Government departments and agencies, evaluates the risks and benefits of such new tools or techniques, and establishes safeguards to minimize the use of such new tools or techniques for illicit purposes.

In case you're wondering, the "BBG CEO" is the CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US government agency that manages media efforts around the globe, such as the Voice of America.

Make no mistake, this appears to be an attempt to sneak in an attack on Tor via Congress into the State Dept. Tor has been developed to provide the best absolute anonymity/privacy tools for people using the internet -- with the acknowledgement that it can be misused, because the people developing it recognize that the best way to protect the vast majority of its users is to build a system that is truly secure -- not one that artificially tries to limit its uses. Hopefully, this provision is changed, or else it may be eventually leveraged as a way to attack Tor, to attack Tor's funding and try to get the State Department to stop supporting such useful projects.

Filed Under: congress, funding, state department, tor

FBI: Clinton 'Should Have Known' Private Email Server 'No Way To Handle Classified Info', But No Charges Will Be Sought

from the not-even-the-sting-of-a-wrist-slap dept

FBI Director James Comey just held a press conference detailing the FBI's findings during its investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. The findings are irrefutably ugly.

The FBI, "painstakingly" reassembling emails scattered to the digital wind by device abandonment, multiple server upgrades, lawyers' brute-force attempts to separate personal emails from work-related emails, and a general lack of professionalism across the board, found that Clinton's private email server contained :

• 110 classified emails in 52 chains
• 8 top secret emails
• 36 "secret" emails
• 8 "confidential" emails

All were clearly designated as such at the time sent or received. Additionally, another 2,000 emails had been "up-classified" to confidential after being sent or received.

It also found several work-related emails Clinton's staff did not include with the 30,000 handed over to the State Department for release to FOIA requesters.

There was no built-in archival function in Clinton's private server setup, a basic feature considered essential by professionals. This slowed the FBI's investigation as it was forced to reconstruct emails from the digital detritus left behind by "routine purging" and device deactivation.

As noted above, Clinton's lawyers made several efforts to delete "personal" emails, but they did so by using searches and header info, rather than actually reading the emails' content. The FBI did read the content of what it could recover, finding it likely that some work-related emails vanished during these purges. It also discovered Clinton hired some smart lawyers: "lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery."

But at the end of it all, the FBI found Clinton's use of private email server to be severely stupid, rather than criminal. Comey says the FBI found no signs of "intentional misconduct" by lawyers during personal email deletions or routine purges. Likewise, there was "no clear evidence of intentional misconduct by staffers," but Clinton's emails were "clearly mishandled."

The FBI's final conclusion is damning, but only in terms of harsh words, not actual punishment. Clinton and her staff "knew or should have known" a private email server was "no way to properly handle classified email" -- especially when housed on private server with "no full-time staff" or anything approaching the level of service one would equate with email services like Gmail. Comey also noted that Clinton used her personal domain "extensively" outside of the US, needlessly exposing sensitive information in the "presence of hostile actors."

James Comey also took a little time to bash her agency, stating that the FBI found the "security culture" of the State Department to be "lacking."

But for anyone who was hoping this would result in criminal charges, the FBI has nothing in the way of good news. Comey says it's not the FBI's call to pursue prosecution, but stated that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case" against Clinton, despite her repeated careless handling of sensitive info via her barely-competent private email service.

Final call, according to Comey: Clinton, staffers may be subject to security or administrative sanctions, but "no [criminal] charges are appropriate" in this case.

Clinton walks. The FBI has determined there was no malice in her actions. Being stupid and dishonest is no crime, at least not as far as the FBI is willing to push it. The DOJ has the final call, but it's highly unlikely it will override the FBI's recommendation. The decision is one that people in Clinton's position are far more likely to receive. Others lower on the political ladder -- or, god forbid, just average voting Americans -- are far less likely to receive this much deference from the nation's top prosecutors.

Filed Under: fbi, hillary clinton, james comey, state department

Emails Show Hillary Clinton's Email Server Was A Massive Security Headache, Set Up To Route Around FOIA Requests

from the breaking-badly dept

More bad news for Hillary Clinton and her ill-advised personal email server. Another set of emails released by the State Department shows the government agency had to disable several security processes just to get its server to accept email from Clinton's private email address.

The emails, reviewed by The Associated Press, show that State Department technical staff disabled software on their systems intended to block phishing emails that could deliver dangerous viruses. They were trying urgently to resolve delivery problems with emails sent from Clinton's private server.

"This should trump all other activities," a senior technical official, Ken LaVolpe, told IT employees in a Dec. 17, 2010, email. Another senior State Department official, Thomas W. Lawrence, wrote days later in an email that deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin personally was asking for an update about the repairs. Abedin and Clinton, who both used Clinton's private server, had complained that emails each sent to State Department employees were not being reliably received.

After technical staffers turned off some security features, Lawrence cautioned in an email, "We view this as a Band-Aid and fear it's not 100 percent fully effective."

While trial-and-error is generally useful when solving connection problems, the implication is undeniable: to make Clinton's private, insecure email server connect with the State Department's, it had to -- at least temporarily -- lower itself to Clinton's security level. The other workaround -- USE A DAMN STATE DEPARTMENT EMAIL ADDRESS -- was seriously discussed.

This latest stack of emails also exposed other interesting things... like the fact that Clinton's private email server was attacked multiple times in one day, resulting in staffers taking it offline in an attempt to prevent a breach. (h/t Pwn All The Things)

In addition to the security issues, there's also some discussion about why Clinton was choosing to use her own server.

In one email, the State Department's IT person explains the agency already has an email address set up for Clinton, but offers to delete anything contained in it -- and points out that using the State Dept. address would make future emails subject to FOIA requests.

[W]e actually have an account previously set up: SSHRC@state.gov. There are some old emails but none since Jan '11 -- we could get rid of them.

You should be aware that any email would go through the Department's infrastructure and subject to FOIA searches.

So, there's one reason Clinton would have opted to use a personal email address and server. More confirmation of the rationale behind this decision appears in an earlier email (2010) from Clinton to her aide, Huma Abedin.

Abedin: We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email to the department so you are not going to spam.

Clinton: Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible.

There appears to be some intent to dodge FOIA requests -- either by ensuring "no documents found" when Clinton's State Department email address was searched, or by being able to control any release by being the chokepoint for responsive documents.

To accomplish this, Clinton's team set up a private email server that was insecure and did not follow State Department guidelines. In fact, her team brushed off the agency more than once before finally informing it that they simply would not comply with State Department regulations.

In a blistering audit released last month, the State Department's inspector general concluded that Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup broke federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. Her aides twice brushed aside concerns, in one case telling technical staff "the matter was not to be discussed further," the report said.

The FBI investigation that Clinton refuses to call an investigation continues. There may be no criminal charges forthcoming, but there's already plenty of evidence that Clinton's use of a private email server was not only dangerously insecure, but put into place in hopes of limiting her accountability.

Filed Under: email, foia, hillary clinton, security, state department, vulnerabilities

State Dept. Press Briefing Video Had Tough Fox News Questioning Excised, Streisand Effect Takes Over

from the hmmm dept

We have covered all kinds of Streisand Effect type stories here at Techdirt, but I don't recall a whole ton of them featuring the actual United States federal government. Typically, those stories mostly deal with individuals and companies trying to keep something hidden and instead mega-upping the interest in that very would-be-hidden thing. This is different, as this story consists of the State Department apparently attempting to disappear some tough questioning by a Fox News employee. And, man, is it stupid.

Some background is in order. Back in 2013, the State Department held regular media briefings on the Iran nuclear deal. During one of those briefings, Fox News' James Rosen pressed then State Dept. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as to whether the negotiations had begun in 2013, as the administration indicated, or in 2011, as some reports were indicating. The reason why the question is important is because the Obama administration has always portrayed this deal as having coincided with the ouster of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered a hardliner, and the introduction of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, considered a moderate. If it was found that Obama's State Department was actually negotiating with the hardliner, well, that's a story of public interest. Nuland denied to the press that any such previous negotiations had taken place.

Fast forward to later that same year, where we have another press briefing conducted by new spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Rosen, having continued to hear reports of previous negotiations, recited the previous exchange with Nuland for Psaki and then posed the same question to her. She didn't answer directly, prompting Rosen to then ask if it is the State Department's view that lying to the press to facilitate this kind of foreign affairs negotiation was kosher. Psaki's response was illuminating.

James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that. Obviously, we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1 negotiations, and we’ve answered questions on it, we’ve confirmed details. We’re happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week ago.

That's as close as it gets to a State Deparment official admitting that, yes, they're happy to lie to the press when it suits them. Now, fast forward again to the present, with a recent profile of Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication, by the New York Times' David Samuels. In his piece, Samuels again accuses the Obama administration of lying to the press and the public about when these negotiations took place, stirring all this up once more. That prompted Rosen and Fox News to go back to the State Department video archives to review the briefing Psaki had conducted.

Rosen's questions and Psaki's answers had been deleted from the video recording. To blame? Well, first the State Department said it was a glitch in the video, one which apparently only removed the exact recording time of a tough question and answer exchange. But shortly after, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs John Kirby admitted the footage was removed deliberately.

A portion of the State Department’s December 2nd, 2013 press briefing was missing from the video that we posted on our YouTube account and on our website. That missing portion covered a series of questions about U.S negotiations with Iran. When alerted to this, I immediately directed the video to be restored in its entirety with a full and complete copy that exists and had existed since the day of the briefing on the Defense Video and Imagery Distribution system website otherwise known as DIVIDS. I also verified that the full transcript of the briefing which we also post on our website was intact and had been so since the date of the briefing. I asked the office of the legal advisor to look at this including a look at any rules that we had in place. In so doing, they learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why it was made. To my surprise, the Bureau of Public Affairs did not have in place any rules governing this type of action therefore we are taking immediate steps to craft appropriate protocols on this issue as we believe that deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department’s commitment to transparency and public accountability. Specifically, we are going to make clear that all video and transcripts from daily press briefings will be immediately and permanently archived in their entirety. In the unlikely event, that narrow compelling circumstances require edits to be made such as the inadvertent release of privacy protected information, they will only be made with the expressed permission of the Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs and with an appropriate level of annotation and disclosure. I have communicated this new policy to my staff and it takes effect immediately.

Laudible aims, but the damage has been done. In predictable fashion, the original exchange that was supposed to be buried is now not only unearthed but is making headlines once again, three years after it originally occurred. All because someone in the State Department wanted it covered up. And that someone will likely not be found, as the State Department appears to be uninterested in investigating this any further.

It's exactly the wrong thing to do. First, nothing is gained by the attempted coverup. In fact, the story is more widely known now than it would have been otherwise. And now we can add a dash of intrigue to this mix, by adding the story of the video edit on top of it. For a subsection of the population, this will confirm their paranoia and mistrust. And, looking at this story, it's tough to blame them.

But, thanks to the Streisand Effect, at least we know that the State Department is perfectly happy to lie to the press to achieve its goals, and then attempt to cover it up. I wonder if there are any current politicians running for office that this might reflect poorly on?

Filed Under: iran, james rosen, jen psaki, nuclear deal, state department, tough questions, transparency, victoria nulan, video editing

Not Just Hillary: State Department As A Whole Pretty Careless With Handling Of Classified Communications

from the but-we-swore-we-thought-no-one-would-find-out! dept

It may be that Hillary Clinton was the only State Department employee proactive enough to set up her own email server, but she's hardly the only one to use insecure channels to route classified information. Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reports classified communications routinely traveled through the State Department's unclassified system.

A review of the 30,322 emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server that the State Department has made public under the Freedom of Information Act provides an extensive record of how such sensitive information often looped throughout President Obama’s foreign policy apparatus on unclassified systems, from embassies to the United Nations to the White House.

The senders included Denis R. McDonough, currently the White House chief of staff and previously the deputy national security adviser, and Susan E. Rice, the former American representative at the United Nations who is now Mr. Obama’s national security adviser.

Many of the emails were sent over the State Department’s unclassified system, state.gov, which is considered secure but not at the level of the State Department’s system for emailing classified information.

In their defense, State Department officials say they often can't control how classified communications will be routed. After all, they have no control over receipt of messages from foreign government officials that might be considered classified. And they routinely use other insecure channels to communicate, like normal phone systems.

For that matter, it's difficult to determine what the government will consider classified at the point the communications are sent and received. In the case of Clinton's emails, the investigation (which James Comey recently confirmed is an investigation, not a "security inquiry" as Clinton has portrayed it) and response to FOIA requests have prompted an after-the-fact classification review of State Dept. communications contained in the FOIA response.

Of the 30,322 emails made public, 2,028 have had portions redacted and are now classified at the lowest level of classification, “confidential.”

[...]

In 18 emails, for example, information has been classified on the grounds that it identifies C.I.A. officials, including two instances that are now considered “secret.”

One of those was a seemingly benign photo opportunity listed on Mrs. Clinton’s daily schedule, with the person who gave her a daily intelligence briefing, making it obvious that the person was an agency employee.

That email was originally released as “confidential” but upgraded to “secret,” probably reflecting that the person holds an undercover position now.

It's not as though Clinton and others are blameless in their mishandling of classified information, but there are definitely some areas of the communications process that are entirely out of their hands. Other government agencies stepping in to add layers of classification to communications that once seemed innocuous enough to handle on insecure channels does little to mitigate the appearance of impropriety.

That being said, there's still plenty of digital blood on the hands of State Department officials when it comes to treating sensitive information insensitively. Communications that traveled across the State Department's less-secure channels apparently included discussions of the CIA's drone strike program, Palestine-UN communications about the country's bid for statehood and, ironically enough, conversations about how to handle the security details related to General Petraeus' sudden resignation following his own mishandling of classified information.

But the overall impression left by the review of the released emails shows the agency is willing to use less secure channels if it makes communications easier to facilitate -- even if this presents a greater risk of these communications being intercepted or obtained by hackers. And it's apparently considered acceptable -- right up to the point a server is hacked or a top official is spotted running their own email server.

Filed Under: classified information, emails, hillary clinton, state department

Wikileaks Exaggerates Story About State Department Working With Google To Block Video

from the slow-down-folks dept

Just to be clear on a few things before I get into the meat of this post. (1) I tend to be a supporter of Wikileaks and its goals to help whistleblowers reveal important information, (2) I'm flabbergasted that Hillary Clinton would use a private server for her emails, (3) I think YouTube made a big mistake in blocking the ridiculous Innocence of Muslims video in various countries, and (4) I'm very concerned about public officials meddling in the affairs of companies in telling them to block certain content.

Given all that, I was quite intrigued when Wikileaks tweeted out a story this morning claiming that a recently released Clinton email "reveals that Hillary worked with Google's CEO to keep" the "Innocence of Muslims" video blocked on YouTube. That seemed like a big deal -- especially as I remembered, clearly, Google putting out a statement about all of this and rejecting the White House's request to censor the video. The problem, though, is that Wikileaks' tweet is vastly overstating the reality.

Clinton email reveals that Hillary worked with Google CEOs to keep #Bengazhi video blocked https://t.co/UWCbZarhWi pic.twitter.com/jcLklzM7Z3

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 18, 2016

The emails, which are also embedded below, don't seem to reveal nearly as much as Wikileaks would like them to say. First off, it's important to understand the timeline. The attack in Benghazi, Libya, happened on Tuesday September 11, 2012. By Wednesday, September 12, people were already (probably inaccurately) blaming the YouTube video which purported to be a "trailer" for a movie called "The Innocence of Muslims," which was a stupid and ridiculous video that mocked Islam (and eventually led to a whole different kind of legal fight involving copyright).

By Friday September 14th, there was widespread discussion about what Google/YouTube should do about this video, when (1) the White House confirmed that it had asked Google to "review whether the clip violated its policies" and (2) Google had announced that it would not block the video in the US, but would restrict access in Libya, Egypt, India and Indonesia. At the time, we argued this was a mistake by YouTube to take the video down at all.

So, by September 14th, it was now publicly known that the White House had asked Google to review the video and that Google had agreed to take it down in some countries, but leave it up in the US.

That brings us to the emails in question. The first is just an email from Denis McDonough, who was then the Deputy National Security Advisor (prior to becoming Obama's Chief of Staff), emailing a few people the phone numbers of both Google CEO Larry Page and then YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar. That email is on September 27th -- or basically two weeks after everything above had been confirmed.

The second email, sent an hour later, is from Nora Toiv, who worked for Clinton, responding and saying that "Sue just called back and the block will stay through Monday. They will not/not be unblocking it before then." It's not entirely clear who "Sue" is, but obviously someone who works at Google/YouTube. As a guess, it may have been Susan Wojcicki who is the current head of YouTube. She wasn't back then, but she was still a high ranking Google exec who had been involved with Google Video and the purchase of YouTube at the beginning, so it's possible she is the person in question.

Still, for all of the hubbub about this email, it doesn't seem to come even remotely close to revealing anything along the lines of what Wikileaks is implying. Again, this email was two weeks after it had already been confirmed that the White House had asked Google to review the video and Google had already publicly discussed its decision. At most, the email just reveals that people in the government were wondering if Google was planning to remove the geoblock in places like Libya and Egypt in order to be ready in case anything happened because of it.

I still think it was wrong for the White House to reach out and ask YouTube to review the video in the first place. And that it was wrong for Google to block the video in some places. But this email doesn't appear to be a smoking gun of Clinton "working with Google CEOs to keep Benghazi video blocked" as Wikileaks claims. It seems to be someone from the State Department reaching out to find out when the block might be lifted -- which, if anything, suggests that Google was making the decision on its own, rather than at the White House's request.

I'm all for revealing officials meddling in internet platforms and trying to get content blocked. That's bad news and we should discuss it and highlight it. But raising false alarms over things that aren't really there just makes you look like a tinfoil hat wearer. It's not worth it.

Filed Under: benghazi, blocks, censorship, denis mcdonough, first amendment, innocence of muslims, nora toiv, state department, videos
Companies: google, wikileaks, youtube

State Department Backs Off Criminalizing Security Research Tools

from the now,-if-it-can-just-get-40-countries-to-agree-with-it... dept

Some good news for security researchers: the US government's adoption of the Wassenaar Arrangement will no longer treat the tools of security research like crates of machine guns. While exploits and penetration tools can be used by bad people for bad things, they're also invaluable to security researchers who use these to make the computing world a safer place.

Vague wording in the US government's proposed adoption of the 2013 version of the Wassenaar Arrangement threatened to criminalize the development of security research tools and make any researcher traveling out of the country with a laptop full of exploits an exporter of forbidden weapons.

To its credit, the State Department welcomed comments on its proposal. Even better, it seems to have listened.

It appears that the State Department has heard these concerns loud and clear. Not only has all talk of finalizing the proposed rule as drafted come to halt, but State has put “removal of the technology control” on the agenda for the December 2016 meeting at Wassenaar.

But, as the EFF's Nate Cardozo and Eva Galperin note, the battle isn't over yet. The State Department still has to pitch its amended adoption to the other parties involved in the Wassenaar Arrangement.

Of course, this isn’t the end of the road. There is no guarantee that the 40 other nations who participate in the Wassenaar Arrangement will agree, but for now, we are enjoying this important victory.

Stripping out the criminalizing of security research is a welcome step forward. In a country where researchers are routinely subjected to legal threats and law enforcement scrutiny for reporting security holes and the government always too willing to abuse the broadly-worded CFAA to punish "hackers," the addition of export controls on research tools would only have made the problem worse. And it would have done next to nothing to make general computing/internet usage any safer.

As was noted here last September, updates to the Wassenaar Arrangement were already having a chilling effect. HP pulled its support from Pwn2Own's hacking competition in Japan, citing the "legal uncertainty" surrounding the country's version of the agreement. Had the US government forged ahead with the wording unchanged, this country would have been the next to see major sponsors pull support from security research conferences or other hacking-related events.

For now, US security researchers are as "safe" as they've ever been -- which isn't really all that safe. But the situation could be far worse. The future is now partially in the hands of 40 other countries that may not be as receptive to the State Department's arguments as the agency was to the comments of those its proposal would affect.

Filed Under: research, security research, state department, wassenaar agreement

Federal Judge Not Amused By State Department's Continued Withholding Of Hillary Clinton's Emails

from the and-not-even-HE-can-force-it-to-work-faster dept

A federal judge has expressed his displeasure at the State Department's ongoing foot-dragging over the release of Hillary Clinton's emails.

US District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras told lawyers in a Washington, DC courtroom that "the government put me between a rock and a hard place" by failing to meet the deadline and asking for more time. Contreras didn't want the emails released without being properly vetted for sensitive information — State says it needs more time for the vetting process — but postponing the release was also to the detriment of the American public.

"To state the obvious, these documents have a lot of public interest, and the timing is important," Contreras said.

Contreras undersells the public interest -- which has been high ever since it was discovered Clinton had been conducting official (and sensitive) business using a private email server. Now that Clinton is a presidential candidate, the release of the emails could adversely affect her campaign.

I don't believe the State Department has a personal stake in Clinton's potential presidency, but it's operating in a way that would encourage people to come to that conclusion. Instead, this is likely business as usual for the agency.

For one, government agencies protect their own. Clinton's use of a private server makes the State Department look bad because no one with the power to do so ever made an effort to shut her down. Released emails show Clinton dealt with classified material, something that should never have been routed to a private email account. The State Department's lackadaisical handling of this matter would only be highlighted further by additional releases.

That's one aspect of it. The other is that the State Department is just generally terrible at handling FOIA responses. The agency's Inspector General released a report in January that showed the agency was more than just merely inept. Its FOIA response system is almost completely broken.

The report from State Department Inspector General Steve Linick points to a series of failures in the procedures the office of the secretary used to respond to public records requests, including a lack of written policies and training, as well as inconsistent oversight by senior personnel. The report also faulted the secretary’s office for a practice of not searching for emails responsive to FOIA requests unless the request specifically asked for emails or demanded “all records” on a topic.

“These procedural weaknesses, coupled with the lack of oversight by leadership and failure to routinely search emails, appear to contribute to inaccurate and incomplete responses,” the report says.

[...]

The report also points to extreme delays in other cases, such as an Associated Press request for Clinton’s schedules that was pending without substantive response for five years.

The outcome, however, is indiscernible from an active effort to shore up a candidate's presidential race. Judge Contreras is aware of this. He's attempting to set another hard deadline for the release of still-withheld emails, but there's only so much he can do when the State Department has casually rolled past other deadlines it's been given.

"Explain to me again why something that's gone through the legal reviews could not be posted until a week from Thursday," Contreras responded. "This seems like an unreasonably long period of time to post, or give access to, something that has already passed clearance."

The judge ordered State to provide "a very specific description" the following day of why the cleared files couldn't be released sooner. He also told State to consider alternative methods of disclosing the emails that might give VICE News access to them sooner, such as allowing the pages to be viewed on a screen without actually delivering them.

As it stands now -- even without malice aforethought by the State Department -- four states will have concluded their primaries before the agency has to produce the documents.

Filed Under: clinton emails, emails, foia, hillary clinton, jason leopold, rudolph contreras, state department

State Department 'Planted' Anti-Wikileaks Questions For 60 Minutes Interview With Julian Assange

from the nice-of-them dept

The latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails have been revealed, and Trevor Timm, the Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, points us to a particularly interesting one, in which then State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley tells Clinton that the State Department has successfully "planted" questions for the show, 60 Minutes, to ask Assange. Indeed, if you watch the interview, the reporter, Steve Kroft, regularly repeats State Department talking points -- often prefaced with the sort of weak journalistic hedging "there are people who believe..."

Of course, this is not the first time 60 Minutes has been seen to be extra deferential to the government. You may recall the program's infomercial for the NSA, done by a guy who immediately went to work for law enforcement week's later.

And, while Kroft seems to want to present the supposed legal case against Assange to Assange, it's worth remembering that five years later and the DOJ still has not charged Assange with any crime, though apparently the grand jury investigation is still ongoing.

It also seems noteworthy that Crowley resigned from the State Department just a few weeks after this email, right after he publicly criticized the treatment of Chelsea Manning, who was being held in solitary confinement for leaking the State Department's documents to Wikileaks. Crowley publicly said that such treatment was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid" -- and within days, he no longer had a job.

None of this is to say that 60 Minutes or any other journalism program shouldn't be asking tough questions of Julian Assange or anyone else they interview. Of course they should. But the very idea that the government is "planting" one-sided or misleading and biased questions with journalists, to pin on a guy they're trying (and failing) to charge with criminal activity for embarrassing those in power, certainly seems pretty sketchy. The media is supposed to be questioning those in power, not to be used as a tool by those in power to question those who are actually exposing corruption.

Filed Under: 60 minutes, hillary clinton, journalism, julian assange, pj crowley, planted questions, state department
Companies: cbs, wikileaks