USA Freedom Act Fails To Move Forward... For Incredibly Stupid Reasons

from the onto-the-next-round dept

So, this evening the USA Freedom Act failed to get the 60 votes it needed for cloture to "advance" to a full floor vote. It ended up at 58 to 42. There was a short debate prior to the vote, and the debate was... stupid. Yes, there are some legitimate concerns with the USA Freedom Act, mostly in that it doesn't go far enough. But that's not what the debate was about at all. You had a bunch of bizarrely clueless Senators, many of whom insisted they were against the act because it would take the bulk collection out of the hands of the NSA and put it into the hands of the telcos -- with the claim being that the NSA could keep that data safer. Senators Susan Collins and Saxby Chambliss kept harping on that point. But it's flat out wrong. Because the whole point of this is that the telcos already have this data. The debate is between "telcos have the data" and "telcos and NSA have the data." Arguing that telcos-only is inherently more likely to lead to a privacy violation makes no sense at all.

Chambliss went further, repeating (over and over again) that it's okay for the NSA to have this data because only 22 people have access to it. Of course, as Marcy Wheeler points out, that's not true. 22 people can authorize a search based on "reasonable articulable suspicion" but many others can access the results. Furthermore, as Harley Geiger points out, the problem is not even at the point of access, but collection, and there's nothing in the law that says the limit is always 22. Frankly, the whole 22 people debate seems strange to me. Is Chambliss really arguing that it's okay to violate the 4th Amendment if only 22 people can do it?

Separately, Senator Dianne Feinstein very reluctantly supported the bill, noting that she's very afraid that if this bill doesn't pass, the whole Section 215 program will go away. Frankly, that actually sounded like a good reason not to support the bill. She also kept insisting that it wasn't being abused because there were only "288" searches last year on that data. First of all, 288 already seems like quite a lot to me, and again we go to Marcy Wheeler for the fact check, where she points out that it's not 288 searches, but rather 288 "selectors," which could be queried multiple times (and those selectors could scoop up lots of data).

Hopefully, it turns out that Senator Feinstein's "fears" on this bill were accurate, and that it leads to the end of Section 215 altogether. But, the completely bogus debate over this effort just highlights how ridiculous the idea is that the Senate has any sort of "oversight" over the NSA, or that it has the interests of the Constitution or the public in mind.

Filed Under: bulk data collection, dianne feinstein, nsa, patrick leahy, privacy, saxby chambliss, senate, surveillance, surveillance reform, susan collins, usa freedom act

Senator Harry Reid Going To Try To Push Through USA Freedom Act Before GOP Takes Over Senate

from the here-we-go dept

There were some rumors that, with the GOP about to take over the Senate, the Democratic leadership might try to finally move forward with the USA Freedom Act. The Senate bill has been languishing, despite it being considered a "compromise" bill that was widely acceptable to both intelligence community folks and many in the civil liberties community. Over the last few months, civil liberties and consumer activists groups have been growing less pleased with the bill, as the deeper they've explored it, the more worried they've become about some of how it might be abused. However, it's still considered by many to be a good start, if not (in any way) a perfect bill.

And, now, Senator Harry Reid has made the move to push forward with the bill in the lame duck session before control of the Senate flips.

Reid filed for cloture on the measure late Wednesday, a surprising move intended to address the National Security Agency's mass surveillance practices before Republicans take over the Senate next year. To advance further, the legislation would need 60 votes to end debate on the measure, and then a majority vote to pass it through the chamber.

It will be interesting to see if they actually have the 60 votes. Part of the delay has been that they weren't sure that there really were enough votes. And there were still pressures by intelligence community supporters to water down the bill (despite James Clapper saying the bill is okay as is) and by Senators Wyden and Udall to add more privacy and civil liberties protections. If they're moving for cloture, it may mean that Reid is confident that they have the votes... or it's a recognition that it's now or never given the change in control that will happen in January. We'll find out soon enough if this means there's enough support, or if Reid just threw a Hail Mary as a final ploy.

Filed Under: bulk collection, congress, harry reid, mass surveillance, nsa, patrick leahy, senate, surveillance, usa freedom act

Part Of CIA Torture Report May Finally Be Released Next Week, As More Details Leak

from the it's-a-start dept

Jason Leopold has a big article at Vice detailing some more of what's in the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report, but the bigger news is that the long fought over, somewhat redacted executive summary may be released next week:

... the Senate committee is hoping to release its report as early as next week, when the US sends a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland where it will submit a report on compliance with the International Convention Against Torture. The release of the executive summary would be an effort to show "some form of accountability," one person familiar with the declassification negotiations said.

Of course, it also notes that the fight over redacting pseudonyms still isn't settled, and that may muck things up. And, really, why wouldn't the CIA keep pushing back? Now that the GOP has won the Senate, it knows that if it can just stall until January, the whole report may get buried.

As for the other leaks about the report, many of them confirm what had previously leaked about the report, but also go deeper into each of those areas. For example, earlier leaks had already talked about how the torture techniques used by the CIA went beyond what was approved, how the CIA tortured more people than previously admitted (and then hid those details), and then lied to Congress claiming that the torture was effective when it was not. Leopold has some more details about all of those, including how the CIA is responding to and challenging some of those findings.

However, Leopold also highlights a variety of ways in which the report does appear to fall short, choosing to pull punches and avoid blaming top administration officials like former Vice President Dick Cheney (despite his previous admissions that he okayed the program), and also carefully avoiding placing any blame on a high-ranking CIA official who is described as "Feinstein's boy":

Although he is identified in the Senate report, the committee did not level any criticism against Stephen Kappes, who was deputy director of the CIA while the interrogation program was up and running. Kappes allegedly played a role in covering up the death of a detainee who froze to death in 2002 at a CIA operated prison in Afghanistan called the "Salt Pit." The death of the detainee is highlighted in the Senate report.

Kappes had been Feinstein's choice to head the CIA after Barack Obama was sworn in as president in 2009. Feinstein is on record stating she would not support Panetta's nomination unless Kappes was named as his deputy, a position he served in until 2010. One former CIA official said Kappes is "Feinstein's boy," suggesting that he was spared criticism because of his close relationship with the Intelligence Committee chairwoman.

As for Cheney:

The Senate report promotes the narrative that the CIA deceived the Bush White House into permitting the agency to use the controversial interrogation techniques against certain captives. This, despite the fact that former Vice President Dick Cheney admitted in 2008 that he personally "signed off" on the waterboarding of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other high-value captives because he "thought that it was absolutely the right thing to do."

"This is why the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] report is flawed and is not a full historical overview of the EIT program," said one person familiar with it. "Who in their right mind would believe that Dick Cheney does not bear any responsibility here?"

Perhaps even more troubling is that the report does not say that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" were actually torture. We've questioned in the past why Senator Feinstein won't call torture "torture" and apparently that linguistic game continues in this report:

However, the Senate report does not conclude that the CIA violated any domestic or international laws prohibiting the use of torture, contradicting Feinstein's public statements. People familiar with the document say the Senate didn't even use the word "torture" to describe the techniques to which detainees were subjected.

In fact, Leopold claims that the report focuses on the "efficacy" of the torture program and doesn't even touch the questions of legality (or morality).

The report also, apparently, skips over George Tenet's leadership in the CIA, but instead focuses a lot of Michael Hayden:

The committee's executive summary, however, singles out Michael Hayden, who became CIA director in 2006 and is a staunch defender of the use of EITs. He is accused of lying to the panel during a briefing nearly a decade ago when he sought to revamp the CIA's interrogation program.

People familiar with the executive summary said the committee obtained records about Hayden's briefings and carefully reviewed what he told committee members. The report concludes that the former CIA director erroneously told the committee that there were fewer than 100 detainees held captive by the CIA when in fact that number was higher. (The committee's full report says the CIA detained 119 men). Hayden is also criticized for telling the committee that the enhanced interrogation program was "humane." The committee's report concludes that Hayden misrepresented the scope of the program and was not being truthful.

This probably explains why Hayden has been the most vocal and stringent critics of this report. He claimed that Feinstein was "too emotional" to judge the CIA's torture program, and also insisted that it was just a partisan attack.

Still, Leopold's report also highlights how the CIA and its defenders are likely to hit back on the claims about the torture program not being effective. They're going to argue that the torture was the "bad cop" aspect of a "good cop/bad cop" scheme, and the useful information came out when the "good cop" was in the room, but wouldn't have happened without the "bad cop" (i.e., the torture).

Retired Air Force psychologist James Mitchell, who has been credited with being the architect of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program — he's bound by a non-disclosure agreement he signed with the government and does not confirm, deny, or discuss his role in the program — said that his understanding of "the purpose of the enhanced interrogation program was to get the detainee to be willing to engage with a debriefer or a targeter who was asking a question, and that it wasn't designed so that you would ask questions about actionable intelligence… while the detainee was experiencing the enhanced interrogation program."

In other words, Mitchell is saying the enhanced interrogation program was akin to a good cop, bad cop act. For example, a "bad cop" might use EITs on a detainee, then leave the room. A "good cop" might then enter the room and, without the use of any kind of force, get answers from the detainee, who had just been subjected to EITs. If the bad cop and good cop submit separate reports, it would appear on paper that the EITs were ineffective because the bad cop didn't get the answers — the good cop did.

And the Senate would have used that intel in compiling its report.

"If you could go in and read the individual pieces of intel that were written as a result of the debriefings and the interrogations, what would that look like in the database?" Mitchell says. "What that would look like is that all the actionable intelligence came from the good cop just like you would expect, and you wouldn't see a lot of actionable intelligence leading to things like capturing bin Laden coming from the enhanced interrogation program because it wasn't designed to do that."

Still, from previous leaks, even that explanation seems questionable -- as it appears that much of the useful information came from people who weren't being tortured or before they were tortured, suggesting that argument is bunk. And, even if it were true, that doesn't magically make torture right in any way (legally or morally).

Either way, all this speculation is getting ridiculous. The Senate should just release the damn report already.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, michael hayden, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture, torture report

If GOP Takes Senate Next Week, Expect The CIA Torture Report To Disappear

from the bye-bye dept

We've heard some mumbling about one of the main reasons that the CIA has been dragging its feet on declassifying the executive summary of the CIA torture report that the Senate Intelligence Committee put together: it knows there's a decent chance that the Republicans will win the Senate next week, and suddenly the report may disappear from view. As you may recall, the Intelligence Committee (with support from GOP Senators) voted to declassify the 480 page executive summary of the 6,300 page report (which the Senate spent $40 million putting together). Multiple leaks concerning the report have suggested that it's devastating and details how terrible the CIA's torture program was, how it was completely ineffective and how the CIA lied about it all.

But most of the support for releasing the report is coming from the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Dianne Feinstein (who sides with the NSA on plenty of stuff, but is more willing to challenge the CIA). But if the Republicans take the Senate next week, then the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee will likely shift to Senator Richard Burr, who has made it quite clear that he's on the CIA's team and against the public interest.

"I personally don't believe that anything that goes on in the intelligence committee should ever be discussed publicly," Burr told reporters in March. "If I had my way, with the exception of nominees, there would never be a public intelligence hearing."

It's also expected that Burr will try to muzzle Ron Wyden and Mark Udall (if Udall is re-elected, which is iffy at this point):

If Burr takes over as chair, he could easily sideline the committee's vocal civil libertarian bloc led by Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and bolstered by Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), two senators who've called for Brennan's resignation.

Udall, in particular, drew blunt criticisms from Burr earlier this year for disclosing the existence of an internal CIA review of the detention and interrogation program that Democrats believe vindicates their own study.

"I think Mark did make some public releases that were committee-sensitive information, but that's for the committee internally to handle," Burr told reporters in March. "My concern is that the release of information could potentially cause the losses of life to Americans. That to me, is a threshold that should be addressed."

As for the torture report itself, Burr has already said that the report is inaccurate and he's against it being released in any form. When a group of religious leaders asked him to support releasing the report, Burr told them he didn't think the report was accurate:

Last year, Burr drew criticism from more than 190 North Carolina religious leaders, including Christians, Jews, Quakers, and Muslims, for opposing the release of the Senate's post-9/11 torture report.

"The U.S. does not condone torture, but torture has been done by our citizens and in our country's name," reads a letter the religious leaders sent Burr. "We are writing to you as fellow people of faith to support the release of the ... report."

Disappointing the religious groups, Burr responded in a letter saying he opposed making the report public due to factual inaccuracies contained within the report. "I believe the American public should be provided with reports that are based on accurate facts," he said.

Given all of this, if the GOP does win, it seems like the only way the public may ever see the details is if someone steps up and leaks the damn thing.

Filed Under: cia, congress, dianne feinstein, gop, republicans, richard burr, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture report

12 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Ask Nobel Peace Prize Winning President Obama To Release CIA Torture Report

from the what-happens-when-nobel-peace-prize-winners-fight? dept

We've been writing a ton about the Senate's CIA torture report, which goes into great detail on the CIA's torture program in a way that the CIA does not like (at all). The fight over the release of the report has been going on for quite a while now, even though the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify the executive summary. Now a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners have sent a letter to President Obama, himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner, asking him to release the report.

The open admission by the President of the United States that the country engaged in torture is a first step in the US coming to terms with a grim chapter in its history. The subsequent release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence summary report will be an opportunity for the country and the world to see, in at least some detail, the extent to which their government and its representatives authorized, ordered and inflicted torture on their fellow human beings.

We are encouraged by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s recognition that “the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes,” as well as the Senate Committee’s insistence that the report be truthful and not unnecessarily obscure the facts. They are important reminders that the justification of the torture of another human being is not a unanimous opinion in Washington, or among Americans as a whole.

We have reason to feel strongly about torture. Many of us among the Nobel Peace Prize laureates have seen firsthand the effects of the use of torture in our own countries. Some are torture survivors ourselves. Many have also been involved in the process of recovery, of helping to walk our countries and our regions out of the shadows of their own periods of conflict and abuse.

It is with this experience that we stand firmly with those Americans who are asking the US to bring its use of torture into the light of day, and for the United States to take the necessary steps to emerge from this dark period of its history, never to return.

The letter goes on about the problems with torture and then lists out four specific policies it hopes President Obama will follow:

a. Full disclosure to the American people of the extent and use of torture and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American officials.

b. Full verification of the closure and dismantling of ‘black sites” abroad for the use of torture and interrogation.

c. Clear planning and implementation for the closure of Guantanamo prison, putting an end to indefinite detention without due process.

d. Adoption of firm policy and oversight restating and upholding international law relating to conflict, including the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention against Torture, realigning the nation to the ideals and beliefs of their founders – the ideals that made the United States a standard to be emulated.

The signatories of the letter are Desmond Tutu, Jose Ramos-Horta, Mohammad ElBaradei, Leymah Gbowee, Muhammad Yunis, Oscar Arias Sanchez, John Hume, F.W. De Klerk, Jody Williams, Carlos X. Belo, Betty Williams and Adolfo Perez Esquivel. One hopes that this would help drive things forward on actually releasing the report, except that the CIA seems dead set against it.

Last week, Senator Ron Wyden pointed out that the CIA's focus in the declassification process has been to distort the truth:

"The intelligence leadership [is] doing everything they can to bury the facts," said Wyden.

Among the things the two sides are fighting about is whether or not to use pseudonyms for CIA agents. The CIA wants those redacted, but the Senate Intelligence Committee notes that this will hide how deeply involved certain individuals were in questionable actions -- and also that other intelligence reports have used pseudonyms without problem. In response, the CIA is blaming the Senate for "delaying" the release of the report, arguing that the Senate's demand for the report to actually reflect what happened is the real stumbling block.

It is “the Committee’s objections to the redactions” that “have delayed the process,” [CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani] said.

Technically both sides are holding it up, but that's because one side wants it to be accurate, and the other is deliberately seeking to obfuscate the details of the report. Who knows if 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners can help push the debate one way or the other, but at the very least it shows that the world is watching what the Obama Administration ends up doing.

Filed Under: barack obama, cia, desmond tutu, jose ramos-horta, nobel peace prize, president obama, ron wyden, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture report

EPIC Sues CIA For Release Of Senate Spying Report

from the FREEDOM-THROUGH-LITIGATION dept

The CIA's spying on Senate staff members during the compilation of the "Torture Report" (last seen delayed until late October) provoked some righteous (but hypocritical) indignation from political figures who were otherwise fans of government surveillance of American citizens. Dianne Feinstein's dismay may have been genuine, but it was also completely tone-deaf.

CIA director John Brennan said no spying occurred while also admitting some spying had occurred. Further details revealed by an Inspector General's investigation noted that spying continued after Brennan finally told everyone to knock it off, using a classified "hacking tool" to peer into Senate staffers' email accounts.

Nothing further has been forthcoming about the subject. The DOJ said it wouldn't investigate the issue and calls for Brennan's resignation have been ignored. The Office of the Inspector General obviously has a deeper read on the tactics used and who was involved, but all the CIA's been willing to part with is a one-page summary. The one-page document points at impropriety but doesn't fill in the blanks.

“That doesn’t give you any information about what actually happened, how purposeful this was, how high-level these people were,” EPIC associate director Ginger McCall told The Hill. “Were these high-level agency officials versus just minions down at the bottom?”

“There’s not a lot of information in this and it certainly doesn’t say anything about what they’re doing to remedy the problem or how these people are being dealt with,” she added. “That’s what we’re interested in finding out.”

EPIC is now suing the CIA over its refusal to respond to a FOIA request for the full report. The lawsuit [pdf link] notes that the group has "exhausted all remedies," which is certainly true if the "responding agency" doesn't bother to respond. EPIC is also asking for several more stipulations to be granted along with the release of the requested document.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays that this Court:

A. Order Defendant to conduct a reasonable search for all responsive records;
B. Order Defendant to promptly disclose to EPIC responsive records;
C. Order Defendant to produce a Vaughn Index identifying any document or portion of a document withheld, stating the statutory exemption claimed, and explaining how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption;
D. Order Defendant to grant EPIC news media status;
E. Order Defendant to grant EPIC a fee waiver;
F. Order Defendant to grant EPIC expedited processing;
G. Award Plaintiff its costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in this action pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E) (2013); and
H. Grant such other relief as the Court may deem just and proper.

It may seem like EPIC is jumping the gun by pulling the trigger* on an FOIA lawsuit a mere two months after requesting the documents. But look at it this way: it could have waited for six months… or a year… and still have been ignored or denied. Leading with a lawsuit is nothing more than playing the FOIA game efficiently. If the responding agency doesn't bother to respond within the statutory deadlines, you may as fire off a lawsuit to get the process moving.

*Shoutout to Thomas Friedman, yo!

Filed Under: cia, foia, senate, spying
Companies: epic

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