Why Won't The Press Admit That CIA Director John Brennan Lied?

from the questions-questions dept

We've been writing a bit about CIA director John Brennan and his continuing to misrepresent the truth and outright lie. As you probably know, back in March, Senator Dianne Feinstein revealed that the CIA had spied on the computer network being used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate the CIA's torture program. As Feinstein revealed, while the computers had been set up by the CIA (for security reasons), there was a written agreement that everything on them would be considered the Senate's, and that the CIA was not to look at them. The CIA violated this agreement, after realizing (upon being questioned in a Senate hearing) that the Senate had in its hands a draft of the so-called "Panetta Report" -- an internal review of all the documents the CIA had given to the Senate staffers, which more or less confirmed all their findings about the CIA torture program. Apparently, the CIA never intended to turn over that report to the Senate staffers, but did. Rather than realize its mistake, the CIA then snooped on the network and more, including Senate staff emails.

When Feinstein first revealed this, Brennan insisted:

"Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate."

That was a lie. Soon after, Brennan tried to release his side of the story, which we noted actually appeared to confirm nearly all of the details of Feinstein's story. And yet, the mainstream press dutifully reported that Brennan had "denied" Feinstein's claims. He did not. He denied claims she did not make in a such manner as to look like he was denying her actual charges.

After the CIA's Inspector General Report came out, confirming all of Feinstein's claims (and much more, including that Brennan's CIA had further misrepresented the truth in trying to claim that it was the Senate staffers themselves who had broken the law), Brennan sent an apology letter. And yet, he's spent the last few weeks denying he lied, claims that are completely undermined by the CIA itself.

So here's the thing: why won't the press say that Brennan lied?

Dan Froomkin, over at the Intercept, recounts most of this history in what he calls an "anatomy of a non-denial denial," and then raises the point of why won't the press actually call out Brennan for lying:

The reason you so infrequently see the word “lie” in elite media news stories is that the editors generally take the position that even when someone has said something clearly not true, a reporter’s use of the word “lie” — rather than, say, “misspoke” or “was incorrect” — requires knowledge of the subject’s intent to deceive. And a fair-minded journalist, they argue, can’t be sure what’s going on in someone else’s head.

But when someone who has so clearly uttered a non-denial denial has to go back and explain how he intentionally responded to an accusation in a very circumscribed or elliptical way, and how that answer was mischaracterized as a denial — and how he made no attempt to correct the record – isn’t that prima facie evidence of intent to deceive?

Even though the non-denial denial isn’t in itself strictly speaking a lie, when examined in context, isn’t that exactly what it is?

Froomkin notes, (as we did at the time in part, thanks to his own research) that most of the press just ate up Brennan's initial denial (which, as we stated, actually confirmed the details, while denying stuff Feinstein did not accuse the CIA of doing). Only a few put in some caveats:

Politico, the New York Times, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal all pretty much cast Brennan’s statements as a blanket denial.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the AP (“He denied that the CIA ‘hacked’ into the computer network in remarks on Tuesday but did not address the question of a search”) and the Los Angeles Times (he offered carefully worded remarks that did not dispute the actions Feinstein said had taken place, but did deny that they constituted ‘spying’ on the Senate.”)

But, as he notes, it didn't matter. Brennan got what he wanted. People thought he denied it, and now he can deny denying it, and pretend he's been telling the truth all along, when he's been doing nothing but deceiving pretty much everyone to avoid admitting the truth. That's called lying. And the press should call it that.

Froomkin dreams of a day when the non-denial denial is no longer an effective tool -- and for that to happen, the press will need to actually not fall for tricks like this. And they could start by calling a lie a lie.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, hacking, john brennan, journalism, lies, non-denial denial, senate, senate intelligence committee, spying

CIA Boss Lies About His Earlier Lie, Proved Wrong By Earlier CIA Statements

from the lies-catch-up-to-you dept

Last week, we wrote about how CIA boss John Brennan was trying to do a bit of history rewriting concerning the CIA's spying on Senate staffers' computers. As you may recall, when the allegations first came out, Brennan insisted:

"Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the Senate Intelligence Committee] or the Senate."

Except, back in July, the CIA's Inspector General put out a report that not only confirmed the story, but showed that the spying was even worse than initially detailed. At the time, Brennan apparently apologized to Feinstein, but things have heated up recently, after Brennan further refused to reveal to the Senate who authorized the spying.

Now Brennan is continuing to try to spin the story, angrily hitting back at the reports out there. First up, he tries to spin that quote above by claiming the context was different:

“This is part of the mischaracterizations. The Council on Foreign Relations, [moderator] Andrea Mitchell, said, did in fact CIA officers hack into the Senate computers to thwart the investigation on potential interrogation? Thwart the investigation, hacking in – no, we did not, and I said that’s beyond the scope of reason."

But, no, what he actually said is that "the CIA was in no way spying on [the Senate Intelligence Committee] or the Senate." It wasn't about thwarting an investigation. He made a definitive statement about the spying. And that was a lie.

From there, he tries to spin the spying away as well, with his new go to line about those computers being CIA computers, so they had every right to search them:

“When the inspector general determined that based on the common understanding between the CIA and the [committee] about this arrangement of computers, that our officers had improperly accessed it, even though these were CIA facilities, CIA computers, and CIA had responsibility for the IT integrity of the system, I apologized to them for any improper access that was done, despite the fact that we didn’t have a memorandum of agreement.

“What I’ve said to the committee and others is that if I’ve done something wrong, I’ll stand up and admit it, but I’m not going to take, you know, the allegations about hacking and monitoring and spying and whatever else, no. … When I think about that incident, I think there are things on both sides that need to be addressed.”

Except, of course, if you read what Feinstein actually said, she indicates that there was an agreement, and the agreement meant the CIA wouldn't touch those machines.

Director Panetta proposed an alternative arrangement: to provide literally millions of pages of operational cables, internal emails, memos, and other documents pursuant to the committee’s document requests at a secure location in Northern Virginia. We agreed, but insisted on several conditions and protections to ensure the integrity of this congressional investigation.

Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then-Director Panetta, and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a “stand-alone computer system” with a “network drive” “segregated from CIA networks” for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA—who would “not be permitted to” “share information from the system with other [CIA] personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee.”

So, first off, Brennan appears to be lying that there was no agreement concerning that. But he's also misleading in other ways, since it was just a few months ago that the CIA itself insisted that it wasn't allowed to search those computers.

Senator Ron Wyden points our attention to a declaration from Neal Higgins, director of the CIA's "Office of Congressional Affairs" in a FOIA lawsuit brought by the ACLU demanding the CIA release the Senate Intelligence Committee's terror report. In that declaration, Higgins insists that the works on those computers are not the CIA's and the CIA cannot access them, contradicting the new story from Brennan's latest spin attempt. In fact, Higgins confirms Feinstein's claim that there was a clear agreement between the Senate and the CIA concerning these computers.

One key principle necessary to this inter-branch accommodation, and a condition upon which SSCI insisted, was that the materials created by SSCI personnel on this segregated shared drive would not become “agency records” even though this work product was being created and stored on a CIA computer system. Specifically, in a 2 June 2009 letter from the SSCI Chairman and Vice Chairman to the CIA Director, the Committee expressly stated that the SSCI’s work product, including “draft and final recommendations, reports or other materials generated by Committee staff or Members, are the property of the Committee” and “remain congressional records in their entirety.”

The SSCI further provided that the “disposition and control over these records, even after the completion of the Committee’s review, lies exclusively with the Committee.” As such, the Committee stated that “these records are not CIA records under the Freedom of Information Act or any other law” and that “[t]he CIA may not integrate these records into its records filing systems, and may not disseminate or copy them, or use them for any purpose without prior written authorization from the Committee.” Finally, the SSCI requested that in response to a FOIA request seeking these records, the CIA should “respond to the request or demand based upon the understanding that these are congressional, not CIA, records.”

So, we have both the Senate and the CIA admitting that there was an agreement that these systems were under Senate control and that both would treat the content on those machines as being the Senate's property.

In other words, Brennan is now lying again to try to rewrite history concerning the original lie. That's fairly impressive, but as Senator Wyden notes, it just highlights the culture of lying that has become pervasive at the CIA. You lie. Then you get caught and you apologize, but a few months later you lie again to pretend you never lied originally. But the facts here are clear. The CIA spied on the Senate, despite an agreement between the two that what's on these computers was to be considered the Senate's alone, even if the equipment was set up by the CIA. Then the CIA got caught. And now Brennan is lying again in pretending there was no agreement, even though someone who works for him already admitted that there was just such an agreement.

But, of course, in this administration, apparently flat-out lying is not grounds for losing your job.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, john brennan, lies, neal higgins, ron wyden, senate, senate intelligence committee, spying, torture report

Two Top Intelligence Officials, Both Of Whom Admitted To Lying In The Past, Now Try To Rewrite History And Deny The Lies

from the don't-get-dizzy-from-all-that-spin dept

Apparently the US intelligence community has decided that they should start trying to totally rewrite the history of two of its top officials directly lying to Congress. First up: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. This lie is the famous one, in which while testifying before Congress, Senator Ron Wyden engaged in this exchange:

Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

Clapper: No sir.

Wyden: It does not?

Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect—but not wittingly.

At first, Clapper denied lying, saying he merely misunderstood the question, and thought it was about "voyeuristically" poring through emails. But the question is pretty explicit: "any type of data at all." Later, Clapper changed his story to claim that he did understand the question, but was taken off guard by it and gave "the least untruthful answer" he could. At that point, Wyden pointed out that he had actually given Clapper the questions a day earlier and then reached out to his office after to confirm that his answers were accurate, leaving Clapper plenty of opportunity to correct his error -- but Clapper did not. At that point, Clapper finally admitted he had lied and gave a semi-apology to Wyden, saying: "mistakes will happen, and when I make one, I correct it."

Except, now, over a year later, Clapper is back to denying that he lied. Before a "friendly" audience of defense and intelligence contractors (one of the questions to him started out, "You have a very supportive private sector in front of you..."), Clapper again pretended that he never lied to Congress at all. Even worse, he did so while introducing new "principles of professional ethics" for the intelligence community, and arguing that he did so because of the awful situation he endured when he was falsely accused of lying:

“When I got accused of lying to congress because of a mistake ... I had to answer on the spot about a specific classified program in a general, unsecure setting.”

Except, almost none of that is true. It wasn't on the spot. Wyden gave him the questions a day earlier. He didn't have to answer the question (before and since that questioning, Clapper and others have responded to nearly identical questions by saying they could only give details in a classified setting). And, again, Wyden gave Clapper a chance to correct the answer via a letter, and Clapper stood by the original letter. In other words, he lied. He flat out lied. And then he stood by it afterwards when he had a chance to correct the lie. And now he's lying about the lying. Oh, and as for the new "ethics" principles? 1) mission; 2) truth; 3) lawfulness; 4) integrity; 5) stewardship; 6) excellence; and 7) diversity.

And just to add to this mess, Clapper also claimed that the intelligence community has not been shown to have violated the law. That's also flat out false. Both a federal judge and the federal government's privacy and civil liberties oversight board (PCLOB) found the program unconstitutional and illegal.

Moving on, we've got CIA director John Brennan. After the big mess with Senator Dianne Feinstein accusing the CIA of spying on Senate staffers, Brennan tried to deny it (while his denials more or less confirmed the facts). However, he specifically told reporters:

"Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the Senate Intelligence Committee] or the Senate."

He also claimed that "when the facts come out on this," those who claimed that there was "spying" by the CIA "will be proved wrong." Fast forward a few months and the CIA's Inspector General confirmed everything in Feinstein's story, leading Brennan to apologize to Feinstein. In fact, the full CIA report revealed that the spying was even worse than Feinstein initially detailed.

And... guess what? Brennan is now denying he lied. At the very same conference he pulled a "who, me?" routine:

"Thwart the investigation? Hacking in? We did not."

Note that he's parsing words carefully. He's focusing on "thwarting the investigation" and "hacking" in -- though that depends on your definition of hacking. Under the DOJ's definition, what the CIA did was clearly hacking. It's why Senators Wyden and Udall asked Brennan about whether or not the US hacking statute, the CFAA, applied to the CIA. Because the CIA clearly was unauthorized to access the Senate staffers' network, based on a previous fight with the Senate Intelligence Committee, as detailed by Feinstein when she revealed the details:

Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then-Director Panetta, and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a “stand-alone computer system” with a “network drive” “segregated from CIA networks” for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA—who would “not be permitted to” “share information from the system with other [CIA] personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee.”

Yet, now Brennan is twisting the story, to say that there was no hacking because they were the CIA's computers all along:

On Thursday, he pointed out the computers technically belonged to the CIA, even though they had been partitioned to create private work space for the Senate staffers.

There was more hairsplitting when he explained his apology. “I apologized then to them for any improper access that was done, despite the fact that we didn’t have a memorandum of understanding.”

Again, that directly contradicts reality. We'll see if Feinstein decides to respond to all of this, but Senator Wyden already has with a bit of internet slang in this hilarious tweet: If you can't see it, that's Wyden's press office linking to one of these stories, saying "smh" which is internet shorthand for "shaking my head."

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, james clapper, john brennan, lies, nsa, odni, ron wyden, senate, spying, surveillance, torture report

CIA's John Brennan Refuses To Tell Senate Who Okayed Spying On The Senate

from the constitutional-crisis dept

As you may recall, over the past few months, there's been a rather big story brewing, concerning how the CIA spied on Senate staffers. Specifically, after having explicitly promised not to do so, the CIA snooped on a private network of Senate staffers who were putting together the giant $40 million report on the CIA's torture program. The CIA tried to spin the story, claiming that they only spied on that network after realizing that those staffers had a document that the CIA thought it had not handed over to the staffers (they had), believing that perhaps there had been a security breach. However, when read carefully, the CIA's spin actually confirmed the original story: the CIA, against basically all of its mandates and the basic concept of the Constitutional separation of powers, had spied on the Senate. While both the Senate and the CIA asked the DOJ to investigate, eventually the DOJ said the matter was closed and there would be no prosecutions.

At the end of July, the CIA finally came out and admitted that it had spied on the Senate, and effectively admitted that CIA boss John Brennan had flat out lied about it back in March. The CIA's inspector general then revealed that the spying went even further than people had originally believed. This raised even more questions, but with Brennan "apologizing" and Senator Dianne Feinstein saying that she was satisfied with the apology, it seemed like this unfortunate incident may have been over and done with.

Apparently not. Last week, in the latest meeting concerning the torture report redactions, apparently some Senators asked Brennan to reveal who authorized the spying on the Senate staffers, and Brennan refused to tell them, leading to a bunch of very angry Senators -- which may create some further issues, given that the Senators are supposed to oversee the CIA.

Tensions between the CIA and its congressional overseers erupted anew this week when CIA Director John Brennan refused to tell lawmakers who authorized intrusions into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to compile a damning report on the spy agency’s interrogation program.

Multiple Senators spoke out angrily about the situation:

“I’m concerned there’s disrespect towards the Congress,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who also serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told McClatchy. “I think it’s arrogant, I think it’s unacceptable.”

“I continue to be incredibly frustrated with this director,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. “He does not respect the role of the committee in providing oversight, and he continues to stonewall us on basic information, and it’s very frustrating. And it certainly doesn’t serve the agency well.”

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said he was “renewing my call” for Brennan’s resignation.

The CIA's response to all of this is typically maddening, in that it shows how they try to underplay what really happened:

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said that Brennan declined to answer the committee’s questions because doing so could have compromised an investigation into the computer intrusions by an accountability board headed by former Sen. Evan Bayh.

The McClatchy report suggests that in the meeting, Brennan "raised his voice at Feinstein." Senator Levin noted that the CIA's response to this whole thing is bogus, because even if there is an independent investigation (set up by the CIA) going on, it doesn't mean that Brennan himself gets to shirk his responsibility to answer questions coming from the Senate committees that oversee his activities.

“It may or may not be appropriate for the (CIA) IG to answer, but it’s not appropriate for Brennan to refuse to answer. If he doesn’t know the answers, he can say so,” said Levin.

Levin continued, “He either knows the information or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t know the answers, OK, tell us. It’d be kind of stunning if he didn’t know the answers to those questions, but if that’s what he wants to say, he should tell us.”

Of course, the big question is, what will the Senate do about this other than make a lot of noise? Brennan seems to be banking on "absolutely nothing," and he may be right.

Filed Under: carl levin, cia, dianne feinstein, john brennan, mark udall, martin heinrich, senate, senate staffers, spying, torture report

Senators Slam White House For CIA Torture Report Redactions That Make It 'Incomprehensible'

from the just-release-it dept

The fight over the redactions of the CIA's torture report continue. Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein noted that she and her staff were somewhat taken aback by the amount of redacted information when they received back the black ink-drenched copy of the executive summary to the $40 million, 6,300 page "devastating" report on the CIA's torture program prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee. In response, James Clapper shot back that the redactions were "minimal" and over 85% of the document was free from black ink (it's not clear if he was counting the margins as well...).

Of course, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, this is just about the executive summary of the report -- which was specifically written to be published. In other words, the really "secret" stuff is in the rest of the report, but the 408 page exec summary was written with public disclosure in mind -- meaning that the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers certainly wrote it with the expectation that it would need few, if any, redactions. So the fact that large chunks of it were redacted immediately set off some alarms.

On Tuesday, multiple Senators on the Intelligence Committee spoke out angrily about the redactions. It kicked off with Feinstein who noted that the review her staff went through of the redactions shows that the censors are trying to hide information that should be public:

“After further review of the redacted version of the executive summary, I have concluded the redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions. Until these redactions are addressed to the committee’s satisfaction, the report will not be made public.

“I am sending a letter today to the president laying out a series of changes to the redactions that we believe are necessary prior to public release. The White House and the intelligence community have committed to working through these changes in good faith. This process will take some time, and the report will not be released until I am satisfied that all redactions are appropriate.

“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report. I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the CIA’s program. That is why I believe taking our time and getting it right is so important, and I will not rush this process.”

Senator Carl Levin then came out with a much more strongly worded condemnation of the redactions suggesting that they were clearly designed to hide embarrassing information, which is not a legitimate reason for redactions:

“The redactions that CIA has proposed to the Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations are totally unacceptable. Classification should be used to protect sources and methods or the disclosure of information which could compromise national security, not to avoid disclosure of improper acts or embarrassing information. But in reviewing the CIA-proposed redactions, I saw multiple instances where CIA proposes to redact information that has already been publicly disclosed in the Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee abuse that was reviewed by the administration and authorized for release in 2009. The White House needs to take hold of this process and ensure that all information that should be declassified is declassified.”

Senator Mark Udall issued a statement in which he notes that the "strategic" redactions are used to distort the nature of what's in the report:

"While Director Clapper may be technically correct that the document has been 85 percent declassified, it is also true that strategically placed redactions can make a narrative incomprehensible and can certainly make it more difficult to understand the basis for the findings and conclusions reached in the report. I agree wholeheartedly that redactions are necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods, but the White House must work closely with this committee to reach this goal in a way that makes it possible for the public to understand what happened.

"I am committed to working with Chairman Feinstein to declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee's study to the fullest extent possible, correct the record on the CIA's brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program, and ensure the CIA learns from its past mistakes. And in light of the importance of the work the Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken, I believe that the chairman should take all necessary time to ensure that the redactions to the executive summary are appropriate — not merely made to cover up acts that could embarrass the agency.

"The CIA should not face its past with a redaction pen, and the White House must not allow it to do so."

All three of those Senators are well aware of what's in the report, and it appears they recognize that the black ink was being used not to protect national security or "sources and methods" but rather to hide or distort the facts of the CIA's torture program.

Filed Under: carl levin, cia, dianne feinstein, james clapper, mark udall, odni, redactions, senate intelligence committee, torture report, white house

James Clapper Insists Redactions On The Torture Report Are 'Minimal'

from the the-least-untruthful-thing-he-could-say dept

On Friday, we wrote about Senator Dianne Feinstein's concern about how much of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA torture program had been redacted during the declassification process. In response, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has angrily shot back that there were only "minimal" redactions:

More than 85% of the Committee Report has been declassified, and half of the redactions are in footnotes. The redactions were the result of an extensive and unprecedented interagency process, headed up by my office, to protect sensitive classified information. We are confident that the declassified document delivered to the Committee will provide the public with a full view of the Committee’s report on the detention and interrogation program, and we look forward to a constructive dialogue with the Committee.

Compare that to Feinstein's statement, which noted:

A preliminary review of the report indicates there have been significant redactions. We need additional time to understand the basis for these redactions and determine their justification.

Reporter Jason Leopold spoke to some people knowledgeable about the redactions, who said that they were about methods of torture that hadn't been revealed... and about countries that helped the CIA. Basically, more stuff that would embarrass the CIA and certain allies, but which wouldn't actually impact national security today.

Two officials with access to the declassified executive summary told VICE News that some of the redactions allegedly pertain to the manner in which the detainees were held captive, and to certain torture techniques that were not among the 10 “approved” methods contained in a Justice Department legal memo commonly referred to as the “torture memo.” The officials said the never before–revealed methods, which in certain instances were “improvised,” are central to the report because they underscore the “cruelty” of the program. Some other redactions allegedly pertain to the origins of the program and the intelligence the CIA collected through the use of torture, which the Senate report claims was of little or no value — a claim with which the CIA disagrees.

Another US official told VICE News that the CIA “vehemently opposed” the inclusion of some of the footnotes because they allegedly revealed too many “specific” details about the CIA’s operational files, which evidently contain information about foreign intelligence sources and operations, and provide clues about the foreign governments that allowed the CIA to operate its torture program in their countries. (The National Clandestine's Service's operational files are protected from public disclosure and open records laws.) The report, according to the US official, identifies the countries where the suspected terrorists were held as “Country A, Country B, Country C.”

Of course, if we're going to "come clean" on this black spot in our history, it would help to really come clean about it. Hiding that the torture the CIA did was much worse than originally thought means that officials still aren't willing to come to terms with what the CIA did.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, james clapper, redactions, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture, torture report

White House Finishes Review Of CIA Terror Report: Feinstein Wants To Know Why It's Basically All Blacked Out

from the let's-try-this-again dept

We've been joking the last few weeks about how everyone was waiting for the White House to dump buckets of black ink on the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report. As we'd noted, for reasons that still don't make any sense, the CIA was given first crack at redacting the 480 page declassified executive summary of the 6,300 page, $40 million Senate Intelligence report into the CIA's torture program. Once the CIA was done with it, it was handed over to the White House to exhaust reserve stores of black ink.

And that appears to be exactly what happened. Late Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein announced that the White House had returned the executive summary, but she's a bit overwhelmed by all the black ink and is holding off releasing the document until her staff can look into why there were so many redactions:

The committee this afternoon received the redacted executive summary of our study on the CIA detention and interrogation program.

A preliminary review of the report indicates there have been significant redactions. We need additional time to understand the basis for these redactions and determine their justification.

Therefore the report will be held until further notice and released when that process is completed.

At least Feinstein didn't just rubber stamp the redactions. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been pushing to release this report for over a year now, and it's been clear that the CIA/White House was going to fight them on it somewhat.

Given the most recent revelations about the CIA's attempt to spy on the Senate and to lie and mislead the Senate and the public about all of this, it seems like we shouldn't take their word for any of this. One hopes that the Senate pushes back strongly on bogus redactions. Or, better yet, that the Senate Intelligence Committee just overrides the White House and releases it themselves. Or, you know, that someone decides to just leak the damn thing already...

Filed Under: black ink, cia, dianne feinstein, redactions, senate intelligence committee, torture, torture report, white house

Senators Goad DOJ Into More Pointless Online Gambling Takedowns

from the wanna-bet? dept

As we should all know by now, any potential moral qualm, whether minor or major, is roughly infinitely worse if you add these magical little words to it: "on the internet." Oh yes, people, don't you dare be confused. Prostitution, drug-dealing, and ghost stories are all bad, but if they're on the internet then we must all wage sanctimonious political jihad against them. Left out of the above examples is internet gambling, the process by which people who probably can't afford to lose their money hand it over to other people in games of chance in which the odds are stacked firmly against the former. But, while most (all?) states in our glorious union operate a lottery, and many others are home to horse/dog tracks, OTBs, and some flavor of casinos, online gambling is treated as the stuff of nightmares. This has resulted in misguided applications of legislation to shut down internet sports and poker gambling sites, all dressed up as an effort to create a more moral nation, when it's really all the result of heavy lobbying by terrestrial casinos.

Somehow, the DOJ's crusade against gambling sites had reached a lull as of late. A couple of folks in Congress aim to change that with a sternly-worded letter to Eric Holder.

“We must act before we find virtual casinos making gambling pervasive in our society, invading living rooms, bedrooms, and dorm rooms across the country; a result we know the DOJ does not want to see,” the letter said.

The letter was signed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who earlier this year introduced a bill that would overturn a 2011 DOJ opinion that opened the door to online gambling.

Thank goodness for the nanny state, here to save us from doing...well...stuff we want to do. I love the entire concept behind this now-publicized letter to the DOJ, which essentially says: "The common people are lowly animals and if you let them gamble with their money, instead of doing the sensible thing and gamble invest it in Wall Street, the moral fabric we have woven for these plebes will unravel like it was a Weezer song."

Here's my counter-argument: go to hell, Congress. A government this bad at spending the money they take from me probably shouldn't be waxing on about how I spend what they graciously allow me to keep. Lindsay Graham in particular simply doesn't get to make this argument, given his love of shilling for land casinos on a manufactured moral wave.

In March, Graham and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced a bill — backed by GOP megadonor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — to restore the pre-2011 DOJ interpretation of the Wire Act.

In their letter this week, the senators wanted [sic] that the 2011 ruling if “left on its own, … could usher in the most fundamental change in gambling in our lifetimes by turning every smart phone, tablet, and personal computer in our country into a casino available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

Right! Those people should instead by driving to Sheldon Adelson's casinos to do all that same gambling that gives these congressmen the heebie-jeebies. That's the thing about trying to use morality as a basis for legislation: you had damned well better be consistent or you end up looking like a freedom-jacking bag of lies. All the more so when you're talking about telling the American people how they're allowed to spend their money.

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, doj, gambling, kelly ayotte, lindsey graham, online gambling, sheldon adelson

How Dianne Feinstein Misled Congress About How 'Useful' NSA Spying Authorities Were In Stopping Plots

from the say-what-now? dept

We've been following the case of Adel Daoud for a little while now. He's one of the many people arrested for "terrorism" in one of the FBI's dozens of "home grown plots" in which they create their very own terrorist plot, dupe someone into "joining" and then arrest (and then relish in the headlines about stopping a terrorist "plot" that was never a real plot in the first place). In Daoud's case, the made up "plot" involved blowing up a Chicago bar. But the Daoud case got a lot more attention, because in the big "debate" over the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in late 2012, Senator Dianne Feinstein directly described the Daoud "plot" as an example of why the FAA and Section 702 were necessary. Here's what she said:

There is a view by some that this country no longer needs to fear attack. I don't share that view, and I have asked the intelligence committee staff to compile arrests that have been made in the last 4 years in America on terrorist plots that have been stopped. There are 100 arrests that have been made between 2009 and 2012. There have been 16 individuals arrested just this year alone. Let me quickly review some of these plots. Some of these may arrests come about as a result of this program. Again, if Members want to see the specific cases where FISA Amendments Act authorities were used, they can go and look at the classified background of these cases.

First, in November, 1 month ago, two arrests for conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and use a weapon of mass destruction. That was Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi. They were arrested by the FBI in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The next case is another conspiracy to provide material support. Arrested were Ralph Deleon, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales and Arifeen David Gojali. These three men were planning to travel to Afghanistan to attend terrorist training and commit violent jihad; third, was a plot to bomb the New York Federal Reserve Bank; fourth, a plot to bomb a downtown Chicago bar; fifth, a conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union; sixth, a plot to carry out a suicide bomb attack against the U.S. Capitol in February of 2012; seventh, a plot to bomb locations in Tampa, FL; eighth, a plot to bomb New York City targets and troops returning from combat overseas; ninth, a plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States; and it goes on and on and on.

So I believe the FISA Amendments Act is important and these cases show the program has worked

That caught the attention of a bunch of folks, because nowhere in Daoud's case had the government suggested it had obtained or used evidence via the FAA -- leading to serious questions about whether the government had been withholding evidence or if that evidence had been unconstitutionally obtained. Unfortunately, Daoud's attempt to get access to whatever evidence has been collected on him has been shut down by the courts. Judge Richard Posner issued a "supplemental classified opinion" to go with the original opinion we wrote about, but parts of that opinion have been released as well. Very large portions of it, however, remain totally redacted. What remains more or less says that the government did everything in a proper way and there were no constitutional problems. It also implies there was a ton of evidence pointing to Daoud's activities.

However, what caught my attention in the unredacted snippets of the ruling is Judge Posner basically claiming that Feinstein's claims about Daoud's case involving the FAA didn't actually mean the FAA was used:

The defendant's challenge relies primarily on a December 27, 2012 Senate floor speech by Senator Feinstein, who said: "There have been 16 individuals arrest[ed] just this year alone. Let me quickly just review what these plots were. And some of them come right from this program [meaning the FAA]. The counter-terrorism come[s] -- and the information came right from this program. And again, if members want to see that, they can go and look in a classified manner.... Fourth, a plot to bomb a downtown Chicago bar...." (emphasis added) (visited July 11, 2014).

The referenced "plot" is obviously the defendant's, and because the Senator used the examples to support the reauthorization of the FAA, the defendant not unreasonably interpreted her remarks to mean that the FAA had been used in his case. But an equally reasonable interpretation of the Senator's remarks is that she was merely saying that the defendant was one of the 16 individuals who had been arrested in 2012, same of whom had been arrested on the basis of such information. The Senate's Legal Counsel confirmed in a letter to defense counsel that "Senator Feinstein did not state, and did not mean to state, that FAA surveillance was used in any or all of the nine cases she enumerated, including [the defendant's] case, in which terrorist plots had been stopped.... Rather, her purpose in reviewing several recent terrorism arrests was to refute the "view by some that this country no longer needs to fear attack.'"

Reading the original quote, Posner is correct that before Feinstein lists the examples, she adds the caveat that "some" of them "may" have used the FAA. But she also concludes it by insisting that these prove that the FAA worked. If anything, this ruling highlights just what a disingenuous and deceiving speech Feinstein gave during the debate over the FAA. Any reasonable person listening to that speech would hear that and believe that this program (the FAA and its 702 surveillance program) was the key to breaking up all of those "plots." After all, the entire debate was about renewing the FAA.

And yet, now it's quite clear that Feinstein was just listing out any and all "plots" (and even that is not really accurate since so many, including Daoud, were plots created by the FBI itself, meaning they never needed the FAA anyway), and falsely implying the FAA was necessary to break them up. Feinstein's scare-mongering over what would happen without a renewal of the FAA was a big part of why it passed, and as this ruling more or less confirms, she completely mislead others in Congress and the American public about it.

Filed Under: adel daoud, dianne feinstein, fisa amendments act, fud, nsa, richard posner, section 702, surveillance, terrorism

CIA Spying On The Senate Went Much Further Than Originally Reported

from the because-of-course-it-did dept

We already covered how the CIA has admitted to and apologized for its spying on the Senate, but the CIA's official "unclassified" statement on the matter shows that what the CIA did was even worse than the initial allegations. Here's the basic summary, according to the CIA's Inspector General:

Agency Access to Files on the SSCI RDINet: Five Agency employees, two attorneys and three information technology (IT) staff members, improperly accessed or caused access to the SSCI Majority staff shared drives on the RDINet.

Agency Crimes Report on Alleged Misconduct by SSCI Staff: The Agency filed a crimes report with the DOJ, as required by Executive Order 12333 and the 1995 Crimes Reporting Memorandum between the DOJ and the Intelligence Community, reporting that SSCI staff members may have improperly accessed Agency information on the RDINet. However, the factual basis for the referral was not supported, as the author of the referral had been provided inaccurate information on which the letter was based. After review, the DOJ declined to open a criminal investigation of the matter alleged in the crimes report.

Office of Security Review of SSCI Staff Activity: Subsequent to directive by the D/CIA to halt the Agency review of SSCI staff access to the RDINet, and unaware of the D/CIA’s direction, the Office of Security conducted a limited investigation of SSCI activities on the RDINet. That effort included a keyword search of all and a review of some of the emails of SSCI Majority staff members on the RDINet system.

Lack of Candor: The three IT staff members demonstrated a lack of candor about their activities during interviews by the OIG.

So, the first bit we already knew. That's what Senator Feinstein initially revealed -- and Brennan pretended to deny, while actually admitting to the facts about them accessing the Senate Intelligence Committee's private network where they were storing documents for their investigation into the CIA's torture program.

We also knew that the CIA had bogusly reported the Senate staffers to the DOJ, claiming they had "improperly accessed" CIA information. However, now the CIA is admitting that "the factual basis for the referral was not supported." In other words, for all of Brennan's blustering about how awful the Senate staffers were and how they were breaking the law, it appears that the CIA knew they were making it up. That's really bad.

But it's the next item where things get really dicey. After all of this came out and Brennan told the CIA folks to knock it off, CIA people spied on the emails of the Senate staffers. Let's repeat that. After Feinstein had already made this public and called the CIA out on its spying of intelligence committee staff members and after Brennan told them to knock if off, the CIA went and directly spied on emails. The AP is further reporting that "the CIA used classified "hacking tools" and created a fake user account in an effort to retrieve documents the CIA believed the Senate staffers had improperly accessed."

This is a major problem, and something of a Constitutional issue, given the separation of powers. No wonder Mark Udall is demanding Brennan's resignation.

Oh, and then we find out that the CIA staffers involved "demonstrated a lack of candor" about all this during the internal investigation by the CIA? Sure, it's an intelligence agency that's built on lying, but it certainly looks like the culture of professionally lying all the time is pretty deep there. Over at Foreign Policy, Shane Harris has gone through the many statements Brennan made vehemently denying the spying. It appears that all of them were false and in some cases, blatant lies.

And, remember, this is only what the CIA has deemed worthy of revealing publicly. The full Inspector General report may be even more devastating.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, emails, john brennan, senate, senate intelligence committee, separation of powers, spying, torture report