Instead Of Nominating New DHS Boss, Obama Should Look At Disbanding DHS

from the a-mistake-whose-time-has-come dept

As you may have heard, last week President Obama nominated Jeh Johnson, the former General Counsel of the Defense Department, to be the new head of the Department of Homeland Security. While he's certainly better than some other proposed candidates, he's not exactly known as a supporter for civil liberties. He's been a point person defending the use of drone-strikes, even on US citizens. He also has defended the collection of metadata by the NSA. Oh, and in his remarks after President Obama announced the nomination, he talked all about 9/11 and how he's spent his time since then trying to act in response to that.

Of course, many have questioned his qualifications to lead an organization like DHS, noting that it's a pretty big leap from his last job:

“I think it’s a stretch because you go from administering a relatively small and homogenous staff… to administering a huge and very diverse staff, with things like law enforcement responsibility, immigration and border control responsibility,” says one former Obama Justice department official who worked with Johnson. “It’s just a very diverse set of issues and set of people to manage, and he has no experience with managing any of them.”

But, really, there's a bigger issue here: why do we still have a Department of Homeland Security in the first place? It seems like the whole thing is a massive bureaucratic disaster. Over the years, we've covered how the crowning jewel of DHS, its so-called "fusion centers" that tried to bring together various groups for anti-terror purposes -- the very reason that DHS was put together in the first place -- were a colossal failure. They were incredibly wasteful of taxpayer funds, created no useful intelligence at all in the fight on terror, and were regularly cited for violating civil liberties. More recently, we've noted how Customs and Border Patrol has basically become a rogue agency that can do whatever it wants with what appears to be no oversight or consequences. We've similarly seen how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (another sub-agency within DHS) was involved in illegal censorship and questionable seizures of blogs, just because the RIAA complained.

And there's plenty more. Apparently, DHS only just figured out how to actually track its finances. And this is after it spent heavily on massive tech projects that didn't work.

Maurer says that the department has only just begun to keep adequate financial books. Several big DHS projects have been expensive failures. Billions of dollars were spent on technology to secure the southern border and screen cargo containers for radioactive materials. In both cases, the tech just didn’t work.

DHS was created in the hysteria following 9/11. It officially was created in 2003, and has now been in existence for a decade. In that time, it appears to have failed at a variety of key things, and it's entirely unclear if it's created any benefit at all. Matt Yglesias pointed out last week that rather than nominating a new boss, we should be admitting that creating DHS was a mistake. It seems like that would be a much more productive step at this point.

Filed Under: barack obama, bureaucracy, department of homeland security, dhs, homeland security, jeh johnson

NSA Top Two Officials Retiring Isn't News, But Is An Opportunity To Reshape The Agency

from the but-that-won't-happen dept

There's been some recent chatter over a Reuters report highlighting that both of the top two officials at the NSA, director Keith Alexander and deputy director Chris Inglis, are retiring in the next few months. Lots of people are misreading this, believing that this is something new, and suggesting that both were either pushed out, or are doing this in response to all of the Snowden revelations. That's simply not true. Alexander's retirement has been widely reported since at least June (and has been covered in a number of other publications as well). Both retirements were planned long ago, and appear to be exactly on schedule, rather than as any reaction to things happening in the news.

This is unfortunate, as it really does seem like there should be some punishment for the widespread excesses and abuses that have been revealed by Snowden. However, what is important to recognize is that this does present a real opportunity for the President to reshape the NSA. It seems unlikely that this will happen, but the President has said that he wants to rebuild the trust of Americans in the NSA and the wider intelligence community, and the choices he makes for who will lead the NSA are a real opportunity to at least take a step in that direction. No one actually expects him to, say, pick a civil liberties activist, but there are people out there who have experience in the intelligence community and who also have shown a respect and appreciation for privacy and civil liberties. Furthermore, finding someone who can present the case for reform -- one which recognizes that "collect it all" is not just bad policy, but bad for actually finding useful information -- would be a big step forward.

Filed Under: barack obama, chris inglis, civil liberties, keith alexander, leadership, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, trust

NSA Staff Whining That President Obama Isn't Defending Them Enough

from the perhaps-there's-a-reason-for-that... dept

Foreign Policy magazine has an article highlighting how NSA employees are pissed off that President Obama hasn't been defending the NSA strongly enough these past few months. While many (including us) have been quite critical of President Obama's weak defense of the NSA programs, folks inside Ft. Meade are pissed off that he's not out there defending them more strongly:

Gen. Keith Alexander and his senior leadership team at the National Security Agency are angry and dispirited by what they see as the White House's failure to defend the spy agency against criticism of its surveillance programs, according to four people familiar with the NSA chiefs' thinking. The top brass of the country's biggest spy agency feels they've been left twisting in the wind, abandoned by the White House and left largely to defend themselves in public and in Congress against allegations of unconstitutional spying on Americans.

Former intelligence officials closely aligned with the NSA criticized President Obama for saying little publicly to defend the agency, and for not emphasizing that some leaked or officially disclosed documents arguably show the NSA operating within its legal authorities.

"There has been no support for the agency from the President or his staff or senior administration officials, and this has not gone unnoticed by both senior officials and the rank and file at the Fort," said Joel Brenner, the NSA's one-time inspector general, referring to the agency's headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Of course, one response to this is: too bad. Perhaps if the NSA didn't keep pushing the boundaries further and further out, and there were more courageous folks like Ed Snowden willing to speak up and say "what we're doing is wrong," those NSA employees wouldn't be dealing with this mess. And, of course, you'd hope that the NSA would employ grown ups who don't get all mopey because the President has other things to focus on.

While the President has defended the NSA programs a few times (on TV programs such as Charlie Rose and Leno, as well as in that one press conference in August), it is true that most of the defending has come directly from intelligence officials themselves, including Keith Alexander and James Clapper, as well as the NSA's big defenders in Congress. The higher ups within the administration have been fairly quiet. And, apparently what's pissing off many in Ft. Meade is that President Obama had embraced them so closely since he came to office. Despite expressing some skepticism about these kinds of activities while he was running for office, once he got into the White House, Obama's "embrace of the dark world of spycraft has been near-absolute."

Of course, some might argue in response that there's really not much else that the President can do at this moment. He's given a few statements about it, set up the ridiculous weak "review" board, and then has kind of had his hands full with things like Syria and a government shut down -- both of which are, certainly, issues that deserve his attention. The article quotes Brenner again, saying that the President should have gone to Ft. Meade and given them a pep talk. That seems a bit silly to me. If NSA employees need pep talks to keep morale up, it seems like they're in the wrong business.

A former NSA general counsel, Stewart Baker -- last seen here blaming civil libertarians for 9/11, blaming Senator Wyden for encouraging people to reveal NSA excesses and blaming privacy advocates for you having to get groped at airports -- is also quoted in the article whining that:

"The President is uncomfortable defending this. Maybe he spends too much time reading blogs on the left," Baker said. "That's fatal in cases like this. You have to make the case because nobody else will."

Yeah. It's those damn lefty blogs that are the problem (ignoring, of course, how much of the outcry have come from right-leaning and libertarian blogs). Of course, there is the possibility that President Obama is legitimately embarrassed over having the NSA's excesses come out. A couple years ago, we highlighted famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg talking about President Obama's response to whistleblowing (the discussion was about Wikileaks), and he speculated that Obama's incredible devotion to secrecy when it came to civil liberties violations and leaks might be because of pure embarrassment. As he noted, President Bush didn't care much for civil liberties, but he also was fairly upfront about that fact. President Obama, however, acted as if he did care about civil liberties, while behaving in a very different manner. Thus, it's entirely possible, as Ellsberg speculated years ago, President Obama is happy to do all of this so long as it stays secret. The second any of it comes out, he's ashamed by his own actions -- which might explain the less than full-throated support for these actions.

Still, as others point out in the FP article, if the rift is really that big, it's somewhat surprising that the President hasn't yet thrown either Alexander or Clapper under the bus, giving him the opportunity to pretend to blame them alone for the overreach. The President has already made the ridiculous claim that he only finds out what the NSA is doing from the press, so he could easily argue that the agencies have gone "rogue" and get rid of the leaders. But he hasn't done that.

Still, the potential of a growing rift between the White House and the intelligence community is worth watching as new bills are proposed to curb those agencies' excesses.

Filed Under: barack obama, keith alexander, morale, nsa, nsa surveillance, stewart baker, white house

Brazilian President Blasts NSA Spying In Front Of World Leaders -- Including Obama -- At UN

from the just-listen-to-that dept

It was expected that the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, would raise the issue of NSA spying when she addressed the opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week. But few would have predicted that her speech would be quite so excoriating (pdf), especially since it was given in the presence of President Obama, who spoke immediately after her.

Rousseff launched straight into her denunciation of online spying:

Recent revelations concerning the activities of a global network of electronic espionage have caused indignation and repudiation in public opinion around the world.

She then went on to emphasize that Brazil seems to have suffered more than most in this matter, not least because of economic espionage and the targeting of politicians:

In Brazil, the situation was even more serious, as it emerged that we were targeted by this intrusion. Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information -- often of high economic and even strategic value -- was at the center of espionage activity. Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the Office of the President of the Republic itself, had their communications intercepted. Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of International Law and is an affront to the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country.

Rousseff explicitly rejected the "because terrorism" excuse so often trotted out to justify such global surveillance:

The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained.

Brazil, Mr. President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups.

She pointed out the key importance of the right to personal privacy and national sovereignty, both called into question by blanket surveillance:

As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among Nations.

She reminded Obama that Brazil was still waiting for an explanation of the NSA's actions and a promise that they wouldn't happen again:

We expressed to the Government of the United States our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated.

The President of Brazil then confirmed that her country will be taking measures to protect itself better from future attempts to spy on its citizens and companies, but without going into details:

Brazil, Mr. President, will redouble its efforts to adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to protect us from the illegal interception of communications and data.

Finally, Rousseff called for the United Nations to get involved:

The United Nations must play a leading role in the effort to regulate the conduct of States with regard to these technologies.

For this reason, Brazil will present proposals for the establishment of a civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of the Internet and to ensure the effective protection of data that travels through the web.

That's unlikely to go down well with many Western countries, already worried about what form Internet governance will take in the future. But many emerging nations would be happy to reduce the influence of the West, especially the US, on how the Internet is run, and would doubtless support any such initiative at the UN.

Even if it's unlikely that Rousseff's speech will lead to any immediate actions -- either by the US or by the United Nations -- it confirms the emergence of Brazil as an increasingly powerful and independent force in the world. Rousseff's stinging rebuke to the US contrasts with the feeble protests from just a few European Union politicians, even though their citizens and institutions have been spied upon comprehensively by the NSA and GCHQ for years. Once again we are seeing interesting knock-on consequences of Snowden's leaks, with the standing of Brazil and the other BRICS countries rising even as those of the US and EU begin to fall.

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Filed Under: barack obama, brazil, dilma rousseff, nsa, nsa surveillance, un, us

More NSA Spying Fallout: Brazilian President Snubs Obama Invitation, May Trigger Internet Balkanization

from the this-is-getting-serious dept

A couple of weeks ago, Techdirt noted that the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, was angry that the NSA had been reading her private emails and text messages, and that as a result she was contemplating cancelling an imminent high-profile state visit to the US. That was before the recent revelations that the NSA had also engaged in industrial espionage at the biggest Brazilian company, Petrobras, which seems to have been the final straw: Rousseff has now formally "postponed" her trip to the US, according to the Brazilian news site O Globo (original in Portuguese.)

Despite the framing that this is merely a "postponement" until the US has provided satisfactory explanations of the NSA's behavior, it's a real slap in the face for President Obama -- in the past, no national leader would dream of snubbing the US in this way -- and a measure of how seriously the NSA's activities are affecting US standing in the world. But this is not just about symbolic actions like cancelling high-level meetings: there are also likely to be longer-term repercussions for both US companies and the whole Internet.

For example, Rousseff is making a speech next week at the opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York. According to O Globo, she will raise the issue of American spying there, and call for a ban on espionage conducted by means of the Internet. Meanwhile, an Associated Press story published by the Washington Post has some details of other actions that Rousseff intends to take in an effort to protect Brazilians from online snooping in the future:

Most of Brazil's global Internet traffic passes through the United States, so Rousseff's government plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of U.S. eavesdropping.

Of course, the problem is that then it will be the UK's GCHQ and other European agencies that start spying on Brazilian traffic, rather than the NSA. Here's another idea that the President of Brazil wants to see realised:

Rousseff is urging Brazil's Congress to compel Facebook, Google and all companies to store data generated by Brazilians on servers physically located inside Brazil in order to shield it from the NSA.

If that happens, and other nations follow suit, Silicon Valley's bottom line could be hit by lost business and higher operating costs: Brazilians rank No. 3 on Facebook and No. 2 on Twitter and YouTube.

Whether or not that helps to secure the personal data of Brazilians, such a move will almost certainly increase the costs for US Internet companies operating in Brazil -- more bad news for them, all thanks to the NSA. But there may be even worse in store for the Internet as a whole, as the AP article points out:

The effort by Latin America's biggest economy to digitally isolate itself from U.S. spying not only could be costly and difficult, it could encourage repressive governments to seek greater technical control over the Internet to crush free expression at home, experts say.

This is just what many people feared: that the leaks about the NSA's massive surveillance activities around the world -- including economic espionage -- will provide the pretext repressive regimes need in order to take complete technical control of the Internet in their countries, rather than continuing to acquiesce in its global governance, as at present. And so all the efforts by Western countries at the recent World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to stop precisely that kind of balkanization will have been in vain.

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Filed Under: barack obama, brazil, dilma rousseff, internet, nsa, nsa surveillance, politics, snub

What Convinced Obama To Change His Position On NSA Surveillance?

from the because-it-sure-was-a-mess dept

Since details of the NSA's surveillance programs started coming to light in early June -- and President Obama's been forced to publicly answer for its activities -- the president has repeatedly reminded us that he came into office with a "healthy skepticism about these programs." But, after careful evaluation, he determined "that on, you know, net, it was worth doing."

Some of these programs I had been critical of when I was in the Senate. When I looked through specifically what was being done, my determination was that the two programs in particular that had been at issue, 215 and 702, offered valuable intelligence that helps us protect the American people and they're worth preserving. (From his August 9th Press Conference.)

It's a rhetorical strategy intended to win his critics' trust by demonstrating that he understands our concerns because he used to share them. The message he wants us to take away is: if we had been in his shoes and saw the evidence he saw when he got into office, we would have signed off on these programs too.

Well, this week we got a glimpse of some of the evidence he saw when he assumed office -- at least in connection to the NSA's collection of U.S. phone call records -- and, it begs the question, what exactly changed his mind about the NSA's domestic surveillance programs? What did the President see that led him to the conclusion that everything he had previously said on the topic was wrong because allowing the NSA to collect everyone's phone call records really is a constitutionally-supported, great idea?

Because, according to the documents the ODNI released this week, when President Obama took office, the NSA's "telephony metadata" program wasn't getting stellar reviews. In fact, we now know that days prior to Obama’s inauguration, the NSA reported that it had repeatedly violated the court-ordered rules limiting its use of the data it was collecting.  A little over a month later, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that, "Since January 15 [five days before Obama's inauguration] it has finally come to light that the FISC's authorizations of this vast collection program have been premised on a flawed depiction of how the NSA uses" the phone call data.

Not only had the Intelligence Community been misrepresenting its program to the court, the judge, Reggie B. Walton, went on to write

The minimization procedures proposed by the government in each successive application and approved and adopted as binding by the orders of the FISC have been so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall BR regime has never functioned effectively.

And,

To approve such a program, the Court must have every confidence that the government is doing its utmost to ensure that those responsible for implementation fully comply with the Court's orders. The Court no longer has such confidence.

The judge also implied that -- other than hypothetical examples of how this data might provide intelligence of "immense value to the government" -- the government had yet to provide the court with concrete evidence that the program was actually providing that value.

This program has been ongoing for nearly three years. The time has come for the government to describe to the Court how, based on the information collected and analyzed during that time, the value of the program to the nation's security justifies the continued collection and retention of massive quantities of U.S. person information.

Again, Judge Walton reached these conclusions based on evidence that was available to him at the very same time that I imagine President Obama and his team were evaluating these programs. Plus, I'm assuming the president considered Judge Walton's opinion in his evaluation, right?

So, what exactly convinced President Obama that this was "worth doing?" Because as the president explained last month, the prospect that something could happen isn't the same as actual evidence that it has or ever will.

Jennifer Hoelzer is a long-time Congressional staffer with tremendous expertise on national security issues. This story is cross-posted from from her site, with permission, but you should check out her site for more insightful analysis of national security issues.

Filed Under: abuses, barack obama, fisc, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance, section 215, section 702

President Obama Says He Learns What NSA Is Doing From The Press, Then Goes To NSA For Details

from the uh,-that's-not-how-it's-supposed-to-work dept

Ewan MacAskill calls out a rather astounding statement by President Obama during his most recent press conference in St. Petersburg at the G20 summit. The very last question, which I believe is asked by AFP reporter Tangi Quemener, asks President Obama to respond to some of the recent NSA leaks, in particular the spying on Brazilian and Mexican officials. The President gives the usual long and winding answer about doing what intelligence agencies do, and various costs and benefits, but then there's this:

Now, just more specifically, then, on Brazil and Mexico. I said that I would look into the allegations. I mean, part of the problem here is we get these through the press and then I've got to go back and find out what’s going on with respect to these particular allegations -- I don’t subscribe to all these newspapers, although I think the NSA does -- now at least. (Laughter.)

Leaving aside the "joke" at the end, the admission is rather startling. Here is the President of the US admitting two astounding things. First, it appears that he and the NSA really have no clue at all what information Ed Snowden walked away with, and second (and worse), it appears that the President is admitting that he doesn't know what the NSA is doing and is similarly learning these facts from the press. This comes from the same President who has repeatedly insisted that there is plenty of oversight over these programs. If that's true, then he shouldn't be taken by surprise when the press reveals what the NSA is doing, and shouldn't have to "go back and find out what's going on." He's more or less admitting that there's no oversight and the NSA is a rogue agency making its own rules, only checked on when the press reveals something.

Filed Under: barack obama, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, surveillance

Obama: Checks & Balances Work Great To Prevent Abuse By NSA... But, Perhaps We Could Fix Things

from the say-what-now dept

It appears that, for the first time, President Obama has, ever so slightly, conceded that perhaps laws need to be tightened up to prevent abuses by the NSA. Of course, that came immediately after he insisted (falsely) that the current checks and balances were working and that the NSA isn't spying on Americans. This is a flat out lie from the President, and people should call him on it. He's lying.

"What I can say with confidence is that when it comes to our domestic operation, the concerns that people have back home in the United States of America, that we do not surveil the American people or persons within the United States, that there are a lot of checks and balances in place designed to avoid a surveillance state," Obama said. "There have been times where the procedures, because these are human endeavors, have not worked the way they should and we had to tighten them up. And I think there are legitimate questions that have been raised about the fact that as technology advances and capabilities grow, it may be that the laws that are currently in place are not sufficient to guard against the dangers of us being able to track so much."

Once again, that first part -- the part he says "with confidence" -- is a lie. We've already seen plenty of evidence that while the NSA insists that it doesn't surveil people within the US, it appears to do so regularly. Of course, since it classifies these as "incidental," it doesn't think they count, but they do. No, it may not be watching every single thing that US citizens do, but US citizens' data are clearly captured and analyzed quite frequently.

That said, the second part of that statement is actually a tiny step forward, in that it's President Obama actually signalling -- for the first time -- that the program has been abused and that new rules are possible. Many people will complain that it's such a minor statement (and coming right after a flat out lie, not particularly trustworthy), but it is more or less a signal that the President is likely resolved to agree to changes in how the NSA operates. Now the fight will be over what kinds of changes. The administration will seek to minimize those changes, but just the admission that changes need to happen is at least a baby step in the right direction.

Filed Under: barack obama, checks and balances, lies, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, us persons

Administration's Surveillance Review Board Appointees Mostly Sympathetic Insiders

from the totally-dying-of-shock-right-now dept

The surveillance review panel (feat. special guest James Clapper!) Obama announced on August 9th has taken shape. Four appointees have been named, and if this ends up being the totality of the panel, there's not much hope it will provide any sort of meaningful pushback on excessive or intrusive surveillance.

As the Washington Post reports, the four members of the panel are all Washington insiders.

[O]bama administration’s surveillance review panel will include former intelligence and White House staffers, including Michael Morell, Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire.

Morell is 33-year veteran of the CIA, who retired from his post just two weeks ago. Where he stands on privacy matters isn't exactly clear, but considering his former position as deputy director, it would stand to reason he's more aligned with the NSA's thinking than the public's.

Richard Clarke is a long-time cyberwar hawk, having served as the chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Security Group under George H.W. Bush, as well as a long stint on the National Security Counsel. Clarke has made recent pushes for more offensive cyberwar strategies and has generally contributed to the FUD surrounding these issues.

On the plus side, he was highly critical of the second Bush administration's actions during his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. That being said, he's really not in favor of scaling back surveillance efforts. Orin Kerr sums Clarke up this way in his piece on the surveillance panel.

[I]n my experience working on some similar issues as he did in the government, Clarke had a reputation for seeing everything as an extraordinarily grave national security threat. I would think Clarke is likely to bring in a pro-government perspective on the issues here.

This brings us to Cass Sunstein, who's a bit of a wildcard. Sunstein's written work tends to draw together a blend of constitutional law, behavioral science and economics, often reaching some very interesting conclusions. But what's most concerning about Sunstein's appointment is the views he expressed in a 2008 paper co-authored with Adrian Vermule, where he argued that the government should be paying more attention to those spreading conspiracy theories.

"The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be." They go on to propose that, "the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups"...

Glenn Greenwald has more on Sunstein's paper in his 2010 piece for Salon.com

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).   This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”

This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.

Whatever you may personally think about conspiracy theorists and the potential dangers they pose, it's hard to believe that government infiltration and propagandizing is the correct response. (It's somewhat hard to argue this sort of activity actually requires a response from the government at all.) Having someone with an inclination towards government-led espionage activities aimed at its own citizens on a surveillance review board isn't exactly a comforting thought.

The final name on the list, Peter Swire, may be the only appointee to take on an actively adversarial role. Swire has long been an advocate for privacy, having served as the Chief Counselor for Privacy in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Clinton administration.

More recently he has been very active working to achieve a global "Do Not Track" standard and has, over the past several years, written articles and given interviews critical of the agency's activities, including co-signing an amicus brief arguing that the NSA's telephone metadata program is illegal. He's also been a longtime critic of parts of the PATRIOT Act. If anyone's going to be advocating for privacy, it's probably going to be Swire. Unfortunately, this may leave him as the odd man out.

On top of that, this board, composed mainly of government and surveillance proponents, will be reporting directly to confirmed liar James Clapper (the administration phrases it "reporting through") who is or isn't directly involved with the appointment process, depending on how you define the word "establish."

I guess one (or 1.5, depending on Sunstein's contribution) out of four is better than nothing. But by selecting intelligence officials and former administration staff members, Obama is (once again) sending the message that the "debate" will be still be very tightly controlled.

Filed Under: barack obama, cass sunstein, james clapper, michael morell, nsa, nsa surveillance, peter swire, review, review board, richard clarke, surveillance

Stuxnet Leaks Came From Administration Itself

from the I-am-Jack's-utter-lack-of-surprise dept

It was pointed out towards the end of June that the Justice Department was investigating the "leaks" that led to David E. Sanger's book on the Stuxnet virus, along with a widely-read New York Times article that preceded it. At that time, indications were given that the target of the investigations was the former second-highest ranking member of the military, General James Cartwright.

Mike pointed out then that it would be interesting to see how Cartwright was treated for his leaks as compared to Bradley Manning. It looks like there will be plenty of "interesting" comparisons to be made in the near future, as a Washington Times article by Rowan Scarborough has discovered (with the help of documents acquired by Freedom Watch) that the trail of Stuxnet leaks leads directly back to the White House itself.

The Obama administration provided a New York Times reporter exclusive access to a range of high-level national security officials for a book that divulged highly classified information on a U.S. cyberwar on Iran’s nuclear program, internal State Department emails show.

The information in the 2012 book by chief Washington correspondent David E. Sanger has been the subject of a yearlong Justice Department criminal investigation: The FBI is hunting for those who leaked details to Mr. Sanger about a U.S.-Israeli covert cyberoperation to infect Iran’s nuclear facilities with a debilitating computer worm known as Stuxnet.

The theory that the administration is very amenable to leaks that make the administration look good is again confirmed here.

The scores of State Department emails from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012 do not reveal which officials told Mr. Sanger, but they do show an atmosphere of cooperation within the administration for a book generally favorable toward, but not uncritical of, President Obama.

While many writers have been granted insider access to the White House over the years, rarely does their level of access trigger an investigation, as Sanger's did. General Cartwright was "targeted," but conveniently avoided any further action (at least to this point) from the Justice Department by retiring. Thomas Donlion, then National Security Advisor, was called out as being the "hero" and "commenter of record" in Thomas Ricks' review of Sanger's book. Good call by Ricks. Donlion resigned in June and left his post in July.

The Times article also details accusations made by Republican critics that the administration had broken laws by divulging classified information to Sanger. More damning were the accusations that these leaks were done solely to pump up Obama's reputation during the 2012 election run.

The evidence released so far paints a pretty damning portrait of an administration prone to convenient transparency. Whistleblowing and leaks are fine as long as the administration approves of the message. What will be telling is how these leakers are punished for coughing up classified information directly related to national security.

Filed Under: administration, barack obama, david sanger, james cartwright, leaks, stuxnet, white house