Alexander Vindman Now Threatens Bogus SLAPP Suit Against Fox News & Laura Ingraham

from the can-we-stop-with-the-slapps dept

SLAPP suits and SLAPP threats are flying back and forth these days. The latest is that Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who is a key player in the impeachment hearings, is threatening a highly questionable defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Laura Ingraham, because she had on a guest who suggested Vindman was guilty of espionage (he's not). The threat letter was sent by David Pressman, a lawyer who works for Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm which has a history of sending around bogus threat letters to the media for doing reporting.

Even if you think that Fox News is terrible (it is), that Ingraham is not to be trusted (she's not), and that her guests are fools (they are), this threat is still completely bogus and silly.

During their exchange, Ms. Ingraham said, “Here we have a U.S. national security official who is advising Ukraine, while working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest, and usually, they spoke in English. Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on this story?”

“I found that astounding,” Mr. Yoo replied. “Some people might call that espionage.”

The Mr. Yoo in question is John Yoo, whose biggest claim to fame is writing the legal justifications for torture during the Bush administration. I wouldn't trust him to throw a ball to a dog, let alone opine on matters regarding the administration, but that doesn't mean that what he said was defamatory. As Ken "Popehat" White explained in a Twitter thread, even if everything Yoo and Ingraham said is ridiculous (and it is), there's nothing in there that rises to the level of defamation:

No matter which side of this you stand on, hopefully we can all agree that bogus threats of defamation, and silly cease and desist letters over people stating a (bad and dumb) opinion are not helping anyone.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, alexander vindman, cease and desist, david boies, david pressman, defamation, espionage, free speech, john yoo, lauara ingraham, slapp, threats
Companies: fox news

DOJ Memo Shows NSA And White House Lawyers Mainly Unconcerned About Evidence Obligations In Criminal Trials

from the let's-temporarily-sort-of-care-about-something dept

Charlie Savage of the New York Times has obtained another document detailing the internal guidelines of the NSA's STELLAR WIND program as a result of the NYT's long-running FOIA lawsuit against the government. The new document is a memo from the Department of Justice, which details its lawyers' attempts to suss out the government's obligation to defendants when it comes to evidence derived from classified surveillance programs.

As Savage points out in his post, much of the NSA program's inner workings (and abuses) have been detailed in previously-released documents, including an Inspector General's report obtained by the Times in 2015. That doesn't make this document [PDF] unworthy of a read, however. It doesn't provide more detail on the program or its apparent abuse, but it does make it clear the government didn't seem too concerned about potential due process violations arising from the obscuring of surveillance-derived evidence.

First, the memo points out very few DOJ lawyers and prosecutors have been "read in" to the program, which immediately makes it more difficult to balance adversarial issues in criminal prosecutions where the paper trail leads back to the NSA's warrantless surveillance.

But the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) doesn't have the right lawyers on staff to make this determination. Then-OLC head John Yoo himself admits (via a quotation in the memo) that "criminal law is not [his] area." To remedy this, the OLC brought in two lawyers from the DOJ's Criminal Division -- Patrick Rowan and Christopher Wray -- to analyze processes and check for adherence to Rule 16 (defendant' communications and statements in the government's possession) and Brady (exculpatory evidence) obligations. But it appears once the two DOJ lawyers were "read in," they were forgotten about.

Wray told the OIG that after his and Rowan's read-in, they "were kind of left on our own." He said that no one directed him or Rowan to continue studying the Rule 16 issues or the government's Brady obligations in connection with international terrorism prosecutions, nor did anyone tell them to develop any judgments or opinions on the subject.

What is clear is that whatever changes were made at the NSA and DOJ were the result of journalism. According to Rowan's statements to the NSA's Inspector General, the NSA was, at best, "generally aware" of its evidence disclosure obligations "prior to the December 2005 disclosure… of the Stellar Wind program in The New York Times."

But the process in place -- and likely the process that continues today with the OLC's blessing -- was to spot cases that might present discovery issues and take steps to hide the origin of that evidence.

Rowan stated that if the NSA located any responsive but classified information, it would be expected to notify senior Justice Department officials with the requisite clearances about the information. Rowan said he was confident that if Brady information were known to the NSA, it would be brought to the attention of the Department and steps would have been taken to dismiss the case or otherwise ensure the program was not disclosed.

If the government wanted both program secrecy and a successful prosecution, the FBI would engage in something that looks an awful lot like parallel construction.

[Rowan] stated that the FBI had "walled off" any evidence it collected from inclusion in criminal cases by tipping out Stellar Wind-derived information under [REDACTED] with a caveat that the information in the tipper was "for lead purposes only." Rowan noted that OIPR [the DOJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review] also had in place a scrubbing process to delete program-derived information from FISA applications. Rowan expressed confidence that these mechanisms ensured that no program information was used in international terrorism prosecutions. Finally, Rowan stated that the FBI is "very quick to get FISAs up," thereby minimizing the likelihood that the NSA's Stellar Wind database would be the sole repository of Brady material.

The DOJ lawyers felt evidence issues still remained mostly unaddressed, but the OLC apparently lost interest shortly thereafter. The new head of the OLC discussed some issues with Rowan but told the DOJ "he did not believe the OLC followed up on Rowan's request that it continue researching these issues." Another OLC official said he had seen Rowan's work, but the office apparently decided Yoo's memo (the same Yoo who stated criminal law "wasn't his area") was the final word on the subject. This same official also stated he wasn't aware of any "formal procedures" for handling surveillance-derived evidence arising from the DOJ's examination of the subject.

The other DOJ lawyer "read in" to the program confirmed the OLC official's statement.

Wray also told us there was no organized Departmental effort to establish formal procedures for reviewing international terrorism prosecutions to comply with Rule 16 disclosure requests and Brady obligations. He said "the thinking was" that the Rowan memorandum was the "first step" toward devising "some kind of systematized process" for such reviews. However, we found no indication that OLC followed up on Rowan's request to further study these discovery issues with any kind of written product.

So, the answer on prosecution evidence obligations comes from a guy who knows little about criminal law. On the plus side (haha), he's a strong proponent of making all rights and liberties subservient to national security concerns. The FBI does its part to protect NSA surveillance programs by erecting parallel evidence gathering, which means defendants might actually be able to see the evidence used against them, but be unable to challenge the constitutionality of the original collection. This all works out very well for the government, which somehow managed to slack its way into a playing field tilted towards the prosecution despite having one of its flagship surveillance programs splashed all over the pages of the New York Times. Remind me again how leaks damage the government's ability to pursue investigations and prosecutions?

Filed Under: christopher wray, discovery, doj, evidence, john yoo, nsa, olc, patrick rowan, stellar wind, surveillance

The Biggest Advocates For An Imperial Executive Branch Are Suddenly Freaking Out Over Trump

from the oh,-now-you-get-it dept

For many, many years, we've pointed out why there are problems with an executive branch that is too powerful. As we noted, laws should be designed as if the people you trust the least are in power. Of course, in an era of partisan red team/blue team politics, very few people seem to care or listen. Or, worse, their positions on executive power seem to shift based on whether "their guy" is in power or "the other guy" is in power. But in a situation that would be amusing if it weren't quite so terrifying, some of the biggest advocates for expanded executive power are suddenly freaking out about the very thing they helped bring about now that there's a President Trump.

Ryan Lizza, over at the New Yorker, has a post detailing the ways in which Trump could seize more power following a terrorist attack. And there are lots of ways. That, by itself, may be interesting, but what strikes me as even more interesting is that the people who he quotes are some of the very people who helped create this kind of world where the President has almost unlimited power in certain areas.

First up, he quotes Jack Goldsmith. Goldsmith worked for George W. Bush, and while he's positioned himself as having pushed back against executive branch expansion, while he was there he did sign the Office of Legal Counsel memo that enabled the NSA to basically spy on all Americans' internet usage. That memo included the following:

We conclude that in the circumstances of the current armed conflict with al Qaeda, the restrictions set out in FISA, as applied to targeted efforts to intercept the communications of the enemy in order to prevent further armed attacks on the United States, would be an unconstitutional infringement on the constitutionally assigned powers of the President. The President has inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States. Congress does not have the power to restrict the President’s exercise of that authority.

And, more recently, Goldsmith has argued that we "need" a more invasive NSA which is crazy.

Yet, now, suddenly he's worried that Trump wants these orders to be struck down so he can blame the courts in the event of any terrorist attack, and then use that to claim more powers:

If Trump loses in court he credibly will say to the American people that he tried and failed to create tighter immigration controls. This will deflect blame for the attack. And it will also help Trump to enhance his power after the attack. After a bad terrorist attack at home, politicians are always under intense pressure to loosen legal constraints. (This was even true for near-misses, such as the failed Underwear bomber, which caused the Obama administration to loosen constraints on its counterterrorism policies in many ways.) Courts feel these pressures, and those pressures will be significantly heightened, and any countervailing tendency to guard against executive overreaction diminished, if courts are widely seen to be responsible for an actual terrorist attack. More broadly, the usual security panic after a bad attack will be enhanced quite a lot—in courts and in Congress—if before the attack legal and judicial constraints are seen to block safety. If Trump assumes that there will be a bad terrorist attack on his watch, blaming judges now will deflect blame and enhance his power more than usual after the next attack.

Yeah, that's why we don't say silly things in OLC memos like "The President has inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States. Congress does not have the power to restrict the President’s exercise of that authority."

Next up in Lizza's piece is John Yoo. Yoo, somewhat famously, seemed to have never met an executive power he couldn't justify... until Trump came to power. Yoo, wrote the Bush adminstration's legal justifications for the CIA's torture program after 9/11. He's also argued that the NSA should be given a pass on the 4th Amendment because it takes too long to get a warrant. To him warrantless surveillance is no big deal.

And yet, now suddenly John Yoo is worried about "executive power run amok"?

As an official in the Justice Department, I followed in Hamilton’s footsteps, advising that President George W. Bush could take vigorous, perhaps extreme, measures to protect the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks, including invading Afghanistan, opening the Guantánamo detention center and conducting military trials and enhanced interrogation of terrorist leaders. Likewise, I supported President Barack Obama when he drew on this source of constitutional power for drone attacks and foreign electronic surveillance.

But even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump gave little sign that he understood the constitutional roles of the three branches, as when he promised to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would investigate Hillary Clinton. (Judge Neil M. Gorsuch will not see this as part of his job description.) In his Inaugural Address, Mr. Trump did not acknowledge that his highest responsibility, as demanded by his oath of office, is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” Instead, he declared his duty to represent the wishes of the people and end “American carnage,” seemingly without any constitutional restraint.

Yoo goes on to point out a bunch of problems with some of Trump's actions (while admitting that others he finds perfectly fine).

While I guess it's kinda nice that Goldsmith and Yoo are finally recognizing that an all-powerful executive branch is problematic, they don't seem to recognize their own role in shaping that view of a uniquely powerful executive branch. It's time to own it, guys.

Filed Under: abuse of power, donald trump, executive power, jack goldsmith, john yoo, surveillance

DOJ Tells Ron Wyden, ACLU, Court That It's Under No Legal Obligation To Reveal Contents Of Secret Legal Memo

from the 'as-we've-explained-to-the-court-in-secret,-the-secret-should-stay-secre dept

There's another secret legal memo that's been floating around the nation's intelligence offices for more than a decade that the DOJ won't let the American public see. The memo's contents have been hinted at repeatedly by Senator Ron Wyden, who dropped the heaviest hint of all roughly a year ago, during the runup to the passage of the cybersecurity bill. This lends some credence to the assumption that the secret Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo is somehow related to government demands for information and data from tech companies.

[....] "I remain very concerned that a secret Justice Department opinion that is of clear relevance to this debate continues to be withheld from the public," Wyden said in his written dissent against CISA, which cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee 14-1 in March. "This opinion, which interprets common commercial service agreements, is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the law, and I believe it will be difficult for Congress to have a fully informed debate on cybersecurity legislation if it does not understand how these agreements have been interpreted by the Executive Branch."

This followed another hint dropped by Wyden earlier, during the confirmation hearings for Caroline Krass for the position of CIA general counsel. When asked about this secret memo, Krass made it clear it would not be appropriate for her agency to rely on the John Yoo-authored legal rationalizations. Nor would it be appropriate for the NSA to continue using it for legal guidance.

I have been thinking about your question because I understand your serious concerns about this opinion, and one approach that seems possible to me is that you could ask for an assurance from the relevant elements of the Intelligence Community that they would not rely on the opinion. I can give you my assurance that if I were confirmed I would not rely on the opinion at the CIA.

This led to Wyden writing a pointed letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, on behalf of the ACLU, which is engaged in a FOIA lawsuit over the DOJ's refusal to release this document.

As I have noted in previous correspondence with the DOJ, I believe that this opinion is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the law, and should be withdrawn. I also believe that this opinion should be declassified and released to the public, so that anyone who is a party to one of these agreements can consider whether their agreement should be revised or modified. For these reasons, I encourage you to direct DOJ officials to comply with the pending FOIA request.

The DOJ has now responded to the lawsuit, declaring that Wyden is mistaken in his depiction of the OLC memo and defending its "right" to keep its legal theories to itself. Mainly, it does this by claiming that, while it may rely on OLC memos for legal guidance, they are not "working law" -- something that definitely should be made public.

However, the DOJ -- in all the words it expends defending the ongoing secrecy -- never addresses the accuracy of Wyden's severely limited depiction of the memo's contents.

Not only is the DOJ in the right, lawyers claimed in a new filing, but it is Wyden whose argument is misguided.

“The senator’s claim of inaccuracy is based not on any inaccurate or incomplete facts, but rather on a fundamental misunderstanding of the ‘working law’ doctrine,” claimed the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.

On Friday, Wyden struck back, claiming that the Obama administration was avoiding his central claim.

“The Justice Department isn’t denying that this opinion is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law — they are just arguing that they should be allowed to keep it secret,” he said in a statement.

According to the DOJ, relying entirely on a legal memo for policies and procedures doesn't make it "working law." An agency can follow a legal memo to the letter but as long as it does not officially adopt the stances espoused, it can play keepaway with the legal memo forever. To support this assertion, it uses Caroline Krass' testimony -- the same answer that appears to indicate Yoo's legal arguments are on very shaky ground.

The statements made in 2013 by Caroline Krass, then-Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for OLC, testifying in her personal capacity as nominee at her confirmation hearing to be the CIA General Counsel, see Pls.’ Opp. at 7, 10 n. 6, similarly show that the OLC memorandum does not establish agency policy. Ms. Krass testified that, if confirmed, she would not rely on the opinion, she described the circumstances under which an OLC opinion might be withdrawn, and she explained that if the Senator had concerns, one possible approach to address those concerns would be to ask the relevant agencies not to rely on the OLC memorandum.

Far from showing that the OLC memorandum fixed the policy of any agency, these statements too only highlight its advisory nature.

Furthermore, the DOJ claims its stance is fully justified… because of all the things it submitted to the court in secret.

Finally, the declarations submitted by the Government, including the classified declaration submitted for the Court’s review ex parte and in camera, easily satisfy the Government’s burden to logically and plausibly explain why the OLC memorandum is exempt from disclosure in full under FOIA Exemptions 1, 3 and 5.

So far, the memo's been in effect -- and completely secret -- for thirteen years. If the court is sympathetic to the DOJ's arguments, it could go on indefinitely. But whatever it is, it's been made apparent over the past several years that it runs contrary to the public's perception of the government and its relationship to tech companies and the data they collect and store.

Filed Under: doj, foia, john yoo, legal memo, ron wyden
Companies: aclu

Obama Administration's Expansion Of Domestic Spying Powers Dwarfs The 'Good Old Days' Of Bush And John Yoo

from the a-backbone-too-far dept

I guess the real accomplishment of "The Most Transparent Administration" is how much it exposed Americans to domestic surveillance. I suppose that's its own form of "transparency."

Just Security's Patrick Toomey notes that this administration has embraced legal theories wilder and more expansive than those presented by John Yoo on behalf of the Bush administration. Yoo, despite his willingness to treat the collection of communications like a DUI checkpoint for terrorism, had his limits. This administration, however, has seen those limits and lowered them.

Like Yoo, the Obama administration has argued that Americans have a “greatly reduced” expectation of privacy in their international communications — so diminished, in fact, that no warrant is necessary for the government to intercept and search those communications. That might come as a surprise to the millions of Americans who regularly engage in personal or confidential communications with family, friends, business associates, and others overseas. When you pick up the phone to call a family member abroad, there is no reason to believe that your communication is any less private than calling a friend across town. The Supreme Court has certainly never said any such thing. Indeed, Yoo eventually admitted in his memo that the case law did not support the suspicionless interception of “the contents of telephone or other electronic communication[s]” — though he then proceeded to ignore his own conclusion.

But that has not stopped the government from making the same claims in the Section 702 cases now moving through the courts. The government has embraced Yoo’s position, arguing that the privacy interests of US persons in international communications are “significantly diminished, if not completely eliminated,” when those communications are sent to or from foreigners abroad.

Going further, this administration has decided to believe that any communication traveling outside of US borders is a communication with a foreigner, even if it's a domestic-to-domestic conversation taking an extremely circuitous route. If it crosses one of the overseas backbones the NSA has tapped into, it's fair game, no matter who the ultimate recipient of the communication actually is, or where they reside.

This is the NSA's upstream collection under Section 702, which now goes much, much further than Yoo's version ever did. Toomey notes Yoo assured FISA Court Judge Kollar-Cotelly that this collection was not the Bush administration giving itself permission to seize and search every international communication. But that's exactly how the Obama administration has chosen to interpret its powers.

As the ACLU recently explained in Wikimedia v. NSA, this surveillance is the digital analogue of having a government agent open every letter that comes through a mail processing center to read its contents before determining which letters to keep. In other words, today the Obama administration is defending surveillance that was a bridge too far for even John Yoo.

So, John Yoo, the architect of what was once thought to be the greatest expansion of government surveillance powers, is now just the guy who laid the foundation for the intelligence community today. What the Bush administration considered to be too far is the Obama administration's starting point. Considering the breathtaking reach of the NSA under this administration, it's hardly surprising a few leakers have taken it upon themselves to reveal to the public what's being done to them by their government in the name of national security.

Filed Under: civil liberties, john yoo, obama administration, president obama, privacy, surveillance

Some Thoughts On What, Exactly, The DOJ's 'Inaccurate Assertion' Might Be Concerning Secret Legal Opinion

from the some-informed-speculation dept

Earlier today we posted a story about Senator Ron Wyden's letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in which he asks (yet again) for the DOJ to disclose a secret 2003 legal opinion, and also notes that it appears the DOJ lied to the court in a FOIA lawsuit by the ACLU, as the DOJ seeks to block an attempt to force it to release that document. In our post, we pointed to an excellent post by Marcy Wheeler exploring some of the possible "misrepresentations" that the DOJ may have made in its filing -- however, her site, EmptyWheel.net is getting hit today with some sort of attack and the story is down. As we both agree that this is an important story that needs to be seen, at Marcy's request, we're reposting her story here.

I've written a bunch of times about an OLC memo Ron Wyden keeps pointing to, suggesting it should be declassified so we all can know what outrageous claims DOJ made about common commercial service agreements. Here's my most complete summary from Caroline Krass' confirmation process:

Ron Wyden raised a problematic OLC opinion he has mentioned in unclassified settings at least twice in the last year (he also wrote a letter to Eric Holder about it in summer 2012): once in a letter to John Brennan, where he described it as "an opinion that interprets common commercial service agreements [that] has direct relevance to ongoing congressional debates regarding cybersecurity legislation." And then again in Questions for the Record in September.

Having been ignored by Eric Holder for at least a year and a half (probably closer to 3 years) on this front and apparently concerned about the memo as we continue to discuss legislation that pertains to cybersecurity, he used Krass' confirmation hearing to get more details on why DOJ won't withdraw the memo and what it would take to be withdrawn.

Wyden: The other matter I want to ask you about dealt with this matter of the OLC opinion, and we talked about this in the office as well. This is a particularly opinion in the Office of Legal Counsel I've been concerned about — I think the reasoning is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the law and as I indicated I believe it needs to be withdrawn. As we talked about, you were familiar with it. And my first question — as I indicated I would ask — as a senior government attorney, would you rely on the legal reasoning contained in this opinion?

Krass: Senator, at your request I did review that opinion from 2003, and based on the age of the opinion and the fact that it addressed at the time what it described as an issue of first impression, as well as the evolving technology that that opinion was discussing, as well as the evolution of case law, I would not rely on that opinion if I were–

Wyden: I appreciate that, and again your candor is helpful, because we talked about this. So that's encouraging. But I want to make sure nobody else ever relies on that particular opinion and I'm concerned that a different attorney could take a different view and argue that the opinion is still legally valid because it's not been withdrawn. Now, we have tried to get Attorney General Holder to withdraw it, and I'm trying to figure out — he has not answered our letters — who at the Justice Department has the authority to withdraw the opinion. Do you currently have the authority to withdraw the opinion?

Krass: No I do not currently have that authority.

Wyden: Okay. Who does, at the Justice Department?

Krass: Well, for an OLC opinion to be withdrawn, on OLC's own initiative or on the initiative of the Attorney General would be extremely unusual. That happens only in extraordinary circumstances. Normally what happens is if there is an opinion which has been given to a particular agency for example, if that agency would like OLC to reconsider the opinion or if another component of the executive branch who has been affected by the advice would like OLC to reconsider the opinion they will come to OLC and say, look, this is why we think you were wrong and why we believe the opinion should be corrected. And they will be doing that when they have a practical need for the opinion because of particular operational activities that they would like to conduct. I have been thinking about your question because I understand your serious concerns about this opinion, and one approach that seems possible to me is that you could ask for an assurance from the relevant elements of the Intelligence Community that they would not rely on the opinion. I can give you my assurance that if I were confirmed I would not rely on the opinion at the CIA.

Wyden: I appreciate that and you were very straightforward in saying that. What concerns me is unless the opinion is withdrawn, at some point somebody else might be tempted to reach the opposite conclusion. So, again, I appreciate the way you've handled a sensitive matter and I'm going to continue to prosecute the case for getting this opinion withdrawn.

The big piece of news here — from Krass, not Wyden — is that the opinion dates to 2003, which dates it to the transition period bridging Jay Bybee/John Yoo and Jack Goldsmith's tenure at OLC, and also the period when the Bush Administration was running its illegal wiretap program under a series of dodgy OLC opinions. She also notes that it was a memo on first impression — something there was purportedly no law or prior opinion on — on new technology.

Back in November, ACLU sued to get that memo. The government recently moved for summary judgment based on the claim that a judge in DC rejected another ACLU effort to FOIA the document, which is a referral to ACLU's 2006 FOIA lawsuit for documents underlying what was then called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and which we now know as Stellar Wind. Here's the key passage of that argument.

The judgment in EPIC precludes the ACLU's claim here. First, EPIC was an adjudication on the merits that involved the district court's reviewing in camera the same document that is at issue in this litigation, and granting summary judgment to the government after finding that the government had properly asserted Exemptions One, Three, and Five – the same exemptions asserted here – to withhold the document. See Colborn Decl. ¶ 13; EPIC, 2014 WL 1279280, at *1. Second, the ACLU was a plaintiff in EPIC. Id. Finally, the claims asserted in this action were, or could have been, asserted in EPIC. The FOIA claim at issue in EPIC arose from a series of requests that effectively sought all OLC memoranda concerning surveillance by Executive Branch agencies directed at communications to or from U.S. citizens.2at See id. Even if the ACLU did not know that this specific memorandum was included among the documents reviewed in camera by the EPIC court, the ACLU had a full and fair opportunity to make any and all arguments in seeking disclosure of that document. Indeed, in EPIC, the government's assertion of exemptions received the highest level of scrutiny available to a plaintiff in FOIA litigation—the district court issued its decision after reviewing the document in camera and determining that the government's assertions of Exemptions One, Three, and Five were proper. Colborn Decl. ¶ 13. The ACLU's claim in this lawsuit is therefore barred by claim preclusion.

2 One of the FOIA requests at issue in EPIC sought "[a]ll memoranda, legal opinions, directives or instructions from [DOJ departments] issued between September 11, 2001, and December 21, 2005, regarding the government's legal authority for surveillance activity, wiretapping, eavesdropping, and other signals intelligence operations directed communications to or from U.S. citizens." Elec. Privacy Information Ctr. v. Dep't of Justice, 511 F. Supp. 2d 56, 63 (D.D.C. 2007).

Wyden just sent a letter to Loretta Lynch disputing some claim made in DOJ's memorandum of law.

I encourage you to direct DOJ officials to comply with the pending FOIA request.

Additionally, I am greatly concerned that the DOJ's March 7, 2016 memorandum of law contains a key assertion which is inaccurate. This assertion appears to be central to the DOJ's legal arguments, and I would urge you to take action to ensure that this error is corrected.

I am enclosing a classified attachment which discusses this inaccurate assertion in more detail.

Here are some thoughts about what the key inaccurate assertion might be:

ACLU never had a chance to argue for this document as a cybersecurity document

Even the section I've included here pulls a bit of a fast one. It points to EPIC's FOIA request (these requests got consolidated), which asked for OLC surveillance memos in generalized fashion, as proof that the plaintiffs in the earlier suit had had a chance to argue for this document.

But ACLU did not. They asked for "legal reviews of [TSP] and its legal rationale." In other words, back in 2006 and back in 2014, ACLU was focused on Stellar Wind, not on cybersecurity spying (which Wyden has strongly suggested this memo implicates). So they should be able to make a bid for this OLC memo as something affecting domestic spying for a cybersecurity purpose.

DOJ claimed only Wyden had commented publicly about the document, not Caroline Krass

DOJ makes a preemptive effort to discount the possibility that Ron Wyden's repeated efforts to draw attention to this document might constitute new facts for the ACLU to point to to claim they should get the document.

Nor is there any evidence the memorandum has been expressly adopted as agency policy or publicly disclosed. Colborn Decl. ¶¶ 23-24. Although the ACLU's complaint points to statements about the document by Senator Wyden, he is not an Executive Branch official, and his statements cannot effect any adoption or waiver

[snip]

The ACLU may argue that statements made by Senator Ron Wyden regarding the document, including in letters to the Attorney General, constitute new facts or changed circumstances. See Compl. ¶ 2 ("In letters sent to then–Attorney General Eric Holder, Senator Wyden suggested that the executive branch has relied on the Opinion in the past and cautioned that the OLC's secret interpretation could be relied on in the future as a basis for policy."). But such statements do not constitute new facts or changed circumstances material to the ACLU's FOIA claim because they do not evince any change of the Executive Branch's position vis-à-vis the document or otherwise affect its status under FOIA. See Drake, 291 F.3d at 66; Am. Civil Liberties Union, 321 F. Supp. 2d at 34. As the Senator is not an Executive Branch official, his statements about the document do not reflect the policy or position of any Executive Branch agency. See Brennan Center v. DOJ, 697 F.3d 184, 195, 206 (2d Cir. 2012); Nat'l Council of La Raza v. DOJ, 411 F.3d 350, 356-59 (2d Cir. 2005); infra at 11-12. Senator Wyden's statements are simply not relevant to whether the document has been properly withheld under Exemptions One, Three, and Five, and do not undermine the applicability of any of those exemptions. Additionally, the Senator has made similar statements regarding the document at issue in letters sent during at least the last four years. Compl. ¶ 2. Thus, the Senator's statements regarding the document are not new facts since they were available to Plaintiffs well before the district court ruled in EPIC.

That's all well and good. But the entire discussion ignores that then Acting OLC head and current CIA General Counsel Caroline Krass commented more extensively on the memo than anyone ever has on December 17, 2013 (see my transcript above). This is a still-active memo, but the then acting OLC head said this about the memo in particular.

I have been thinking about your question because I understand your serious concerns about this opinion, and one approach that seems possible to me is that you could ask for an assurance from the relevant elements of the Intelligence Community that they would not rely on the opinion. I can give you my assurance that if I were confirmed I would not rely on the opinion at the CIA.

That seems to be new information from the Executive branch (albeit before the March 31, 2014, final judgment in that other suit).

I'd say this detail is the most likely possibility for DOJ's inaccuracy, except that Krass' comments are in the public domain, and have been been written about by other outlets. It wouldn't seem that Wyden would need to identify this detail in secret.

(I think it's possible some of the newly declassified language in Stellar Wind materials may be relevant to, but I will have to return to that.)

The document may be a different document

DOJ's memo and the Paul Colborn declaration describe this as a March 30, 2003 memo written by John Yoo.

The withheld document is a 19-page OLC legal advice memorandum to the General Counsel of an executive branch agency, drafted at the request of the General Counsel, dated March 30, 2003 and signed by OLC Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. The memorandum was written in response to confidential communications from an executive branch client soliciting legal advice from OLC attorneys. As with all such OLC legal advice memoranda, the document contains confidential client communications made for the purpose of seeking legal advice and predecisional legal advice from OLC attorneys transmitted to an executive branch client as part of government deliberative processes. In light of the fact that the document's general subject matter is publicly known, the identity of the recipient agency is itself confidential client information protected by the attorney-client privilege.

But their claim that ACLU has already been denied this document under FOIA is based on the claim that this document is the same document as one identified in a Steven Bradbury declaration submitted in the Stellar Wind suit. Here's how he described the document.

DAG 42 is a 19-page memorandum, dated May 30, 2003, from a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in OLC to the General Counsel of another Executive Branch agency. This document is withheld under FOIA Exemptions One, Three, and Five.

This may be an error (if it is, Bradbury probably is correct, as March 30, 2003 was a Sunday), but a document dated March 30, 2003 cannot be the same document as one dated May 30, 2003. If it's not a simple error in dates, it may suggest that the document the DC court reviewed was a later revision, perhaps one making less outrageous claims. Moreover, as I'll show in my post on newly learned Stellar Wind information, the change in date (as well as the confirmation that Yoo wrote the memo) make the circumstances surrounding this memo far more interesting.

The document may not have been properly classified

As noted, this is a March 2003 OLC memo written by John Yoo. That's important not just because Yoo was freelancing on certain memos at the time. But more importantly, because a memo he completed just 16 days earlier violated all guidelines on classification. Here's what former ISOO head Bill Leonard had to say about John Yoo's March 14, 2003 torture memo.

The March 14, 2003, memorandum on interrogation of enemy combatants was written by DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to the General Counsel of the DoD. By virtue of the memorandum's classification markings, the American people were initially denied access to it. Only after the document was declassified were my fellow citizens and I able to review it for the first time. Upon doing so, I was profoundly disappointed because this memorandum represents one of the worst abuses of the classification process that I had seen during my career, including the past five years when I had the authority to access more classified information than almost any other person in the Executive branch. The memorandum is purely a legal analysis – it is not operational in nature. Its author was quoted as describing it as "near boilerplate."! To learn that such a document was classified had the same effect on me as waking up one morning and learning that after all these years, there is a "secret" Article to the Constitution that the American people do not even know about.

[snip]

In this instance, the OLC memo did not contain the identity of the official who designated this information as classified in the first instance, even though this is a fundamental requirement of the President's classification system. In addition, the memo contained neither declassification instructions nor a concise reason for classification, likewise basic requirements. Equally disturbing, the official who designated this memo as classified did not fulfill the clear requirement to indicate which portions are classified and which portions are unclassified, leading the reader to question whether this official truly believes a discussion of patently unclassified issues such as the President's Commander-in-Chief authorities or a discussion of the applicability to enemy combatants of the Fifth or Eighth Amendment would cause identifiable harm to our national security. Furthermore, it is exceedingly irregular that this memorandum was declassified by DoD even though it was written, and presumably classified, by DoJ.

Given that Yoo broke all the rules of classification on March 14, it seems appropriate to question whether he broke all rules of classification on March 30, 16 days later, especially given some squirrelly language in the current declarations about the memo.

Here's what Colborn has to say about the classification of this memo (which I find to be curious language), after having made a far more extensive withholding argument on a deliberative process basis.

OLC does not have original classification authority, but when it receives or makes use of classified information provided to it by its clients, OLC is required to mark and treat that information as derivatively classified to the same extent as its clients have identified such information as classified. Accordingly, all classified information in OLC's possession or incorporated into its products has been classified by another agency or component with original classifying authority.

The document at issue in this case is marked as classified because it contains information OLC received from another agency that was marked as classified. OLC has also been informed by the relevant agency that information contained in the document is protected from disclosure under FOIA by statute.

As far as the memo of law, it relegates the discussion of the classified nature of this memo to a classified declaration by someone whose identity remains secret.

As explained in the classified declaration submitted for the Court's ex parte, in camera review,1 this information is also classified and protected from disclosure by statute.

Remember, this memo is about some secret interpretation of common commercial service agreements. Wyden believes it should be "declassified and released to the public, so that anyone who is a party to one of these agreements can consider whether their agreement should be revised or modified."

If this is something that affects average citizens relationships with service providers, it seems remarkable that it can, at the same time, be that secret (and remain in force). While Wyden certainly seems to treat the memo as classified, I'd really love to see whether it was, indeed, properly classified, or whether Yoo was just making stuff up again during a period when he is known to have secretly made stuff up.

In any case, given DOJ's continued efforts to either withdraw or disclose this memo, I'd safe it's safe to assume they're still using it.

Filed Under: doj, john yoo, loretta lynch, olc, opinion, ron wyden, secret law

Senator Wyden Warns That The Justice Department Is Lying To The Courts; Also Still Worried About Secret Law

from the keep-plugging-at-this dept

We've been noting for years: when Senator Ron Wyden says that (1) there's a secret interpretation of a law that is at odds with the public's understanding of it, or (2) that government officials are lying, you should pay attention. It may take a while, but it always comes out eventually that he's absolutely correct. For at least five years now, we've been posting semi-regular updates to Wyden calling out the government for its secret interpretations of the law, and some of that was proven entirely accurate thanks to the Snowden revelations concerning how the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act had been interpreted. However, since the Snowden revelations, Wyden has made it clear that that's not all. In particular, he's spoken about a Justice Department legal opinion, written by John Yoo, that Wyden insists is important and should be revealed.

A year ago, we wrote about Wyden asking then Attorney General Eric Holder to release the document, which is currently the subject of a FOIA lawsuit filed by the ACLU. He's now asking yet again for it, in a new letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch:

As you may be aware, I have previously written to the Department of Justice regarding a particular secret legal opinion from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. which has now been the subject of a recent suit under the Freedom of information Act. This opinion remains classified, but it pertains to common commercial service agreements. The DOJ's motion to dismiss the now-pending FOIA case also noted that this opinion was signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yen and dated March 30, 2003.

As I have noted in previous correspondence with the DOJ, I believe that this opinion is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the law, and should be withdrawn. I also believe that this opinion should be declassified and released to the public, so that anyone who is a party to one of these agreements can consider whether their agreement should be revised or modified. For these reasons, I encourage you to direct DOJ officials to comply with the pending FOIA request.

As we noted in our previous coverage, the contents of this memo almost certainly impact the various cybersecurity issues, in particular the Cybersecurity law (a variation on CISA) that passed and became law late last year.

But, the much bigger news comes in the following paragraph, in which Senator Wyden says that the DOJ is lying to the court in trying to kill the ACLU's FOIA request:

Additionally, I am greatly concerned that the DOJ's March 7, 2016, memorandum of law contains a key assertion which is inaccurate. This assertion appears to be central to the DOJ's legal arguments, and I would urge you to take action to ensure that this error is correct.

I am enclosing a classified attachment which discusses this inaccurate assertion in more detail.

You can see the DOJ's memorandum of law here (or embedded below) to see if you can sniff out the "key assertion which is inaccurate." Marcy Wheeler, who is damn good at this stuff, has some suggestions and thoughts, though each has some caveats. Either way, just the fact that this is a guessing game is ridiculous. The fact that the DOJ appears to be purposely misleading the court is a travesty -- but one that has become all too common these days.

In the meantime, are there any legal opinions that John Yoo authored that didn't turn out to be absolutely horrific? He wrote the legal opinion that authorized torture. And just a few weeks ago, another one of his ridiculous legal opinions (from 2002) was released, revealing his absolutely ridiculous legal rationale for warrantless wiretapping. Yoo seemed to specialize in trying to paper over basically anything illegal that the government wanted to do.

Filed Under: eric holder, foia, john yoo, loretta lynch, olc, ron wyden, secret interpretation, secret law
Companies: aclu

John Yoo's Legal Rationale: Warrantless Surveillance Is Basically A DUI Checkpoint, But For Terrorism

from the drunk-texting,-dialing,-emailing,-internet-browsing... dept

Mike Masnick took a very in-depth look at the recently declassified legal rationale for warrantless surveillance, authored by torture aficionado John Yoo back in 2002. The long and the short of the letter is this: executive power trumps everything, even the Constitution. The letter was "given" to the FISA court, much in the way an expensive and fragile item is "given" to a toddler. FISC Judge Kollar-Kotelly was allowed to look at it, but not keep a copy or take notes.

One of the more darkly entertaining aspects of the letter is Yoo's "kitchen sink" approach to justifying the warrantless searches and seizures. USA Today's Brad Heath pointed out the long list of rough comparisons Yoo included in the letter, claiming that warrantless domestic surveillance was roughly comparable to searching high school kids' lockers for drugs… among other things.

Bush Admin. concluded NSA wiretaps didn't require a warrant, citing drug testing of high-school athletes. pic.twitter.com/Rw4TJcUhDt

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) February 29, 2016

Here's the list:

A variety of government searches, therefore, have met the Fourth Amendment requirement of reasonableness without obtaining a judicial warrant. The Supreme Court, for example, has upheld warrantless searches that involved the drug testing of high school athletes, id, certain searches of automobiles, Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 US. 938 (1996) (per curiam), drunk driver checkpoints, Michigan v. Dept of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), drug testing of railroad personnel, Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Ass'n 489 US. 602 (1989), drug testing of federal customs officers, Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 US. 656 (1989), administrative inspection of closely regulated businesses, New York v. Burger, 482 US. 69] (1987), temporary baggage seizures, United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1933), detention to prevent flight and to protect law enforcement officers, Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692 (1931), checkpoints to search for illegal aliens, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 423 US. 543 (1976), and temporary stops and limited searches for weapons, Terry v. Ohio, 392 US. 1 ([96 8). The Court has cautioned, however, that a random search program cannot be designed to promote a general interest in crime control. See Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 3 2, 41 (2000); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 US. 648, 659 n.13 (I979).

According to the government, warrantless surveillance is a Terry stop… or a drug test performed on railroad workers… or a demand for records from a pawn shop.

Yoo expands on this rationale later in the letter, stating that warrantless electronic surveillance is really nothing more than a DUI checkpoint, but for terrorism.

If privacy interests are viewed as intruded upon only by [redacted ] is likely that Fourth Amendment interests would not outweigh the compelling governmental interest present here, In the context of roadblocks to stop drunken drivers, another area of "special needs" under the Fourth Amendment, the Court has permitted warrantless searches. See Michigan Dep't of State Police v. Sitz,, 496 US. 444 (1990). There, the Court found that a roadblock constituted a "reasonable" search due to the magnitude of the drunken driver problem and the deaths it causes -- in fact, the court compared the death toll from drunk drivers to the casualties on a battlefield. Id. at 451. It found that this interest outweighed the intrusion into privacy at a checkpoint stop, which it characterized as "brief" in terms of duration and intensity. Similarly, [redacted] than in the case of a roadblock, where a [redacted] law enforcement officer stops each driver to examine whether they are inebriated. It seems that if the Supreme Court were willing to uphold drunk driver checkpoints, it would be equally or even more willing to allow [redacted].

It's a disingenuous argument that equates surveillance of millions with a low-impact checkpoint in which dozens of drivers are given a cursory look-over by law enforcement to determine whether or not they've been drinking.

But he is right about one thing: courts have been willing to cut the government more Constitutional slack when the subject matter is the War on Terror. This legal rationale was issued shortly after the 9/11 attacks when government and court sentiments would be almost exclusively receptive to Yoo's arguments. But the searches Yoo authorized are far more general than the particularized nature of the searches he cites. In each case, there's a specific group targeted. The NSA's programs aren't nearly as focused. Communications and metadata are gathered by the millions -- both a seizure and a search -- before being refined to focus on suspected terrorists.

The surveillance Yoo argued for treats all communications originating or terminating in a foreign country as "suspicious" and subject to warrantless searches. To use his analogies, this is like claiming every locker not in a private residence should be subject to warrantless searches because contraband is sometimes stored in them. Or that every business that sells or purchases anything from overseas vendors should be subjected to the same scrutiny as pawn shops and motels simply because most terrorist attacks originate outside of US borders.

Filed Under: dui checkpoint, fisa, john yoo, mass surveillance, nsa, warrantless surveillance, wiretapping

2002 Legal Rationale For Warrantless Surveillance: Because The President Can Do It, Shut Up

from the how-is-john-yoo-not-in-jail? dept

Oh, John Yoo. The former top Bush administration lawyer -- who is already well-known for writing that administration's (totally bullshit) "legal defense" for torture -- has also been an outspoken advocate for NSA surveillance as well. Soon after the Snowden revelations, Yoo defended the NSA arguing that the 4th Amendment shouldn't apply to the NSA because it takes too long. Then, he said that judges shouldn't be allowed to determine if the NSA violated the 4th Amendment because they're too out of touch with the American public. It's long been known that Yoo also was deeply involved in creating the legal justifications for that very warrantless surveillance program he's been defending, and now, finally, years later, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released the May 17, 2002 letter that Yoo sent to the FISA Court chief judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. You can read it here.

As the ODNI release notes, Judge Kollar-Kotelly was allowed to read the letter, justifying the NSA's warrantless surveillance on Americans, but "was not authorized to retain a copy or take notes" because nothing says transparency democracy like secret interpretations of the law where no one's allowed to know the details, and the people overseeing it are only allowed to glance at the justifications. It was the "re-evaluation" of this John Yoo rationalization that created the now infamous hospital room showdown in March of 2004, when some in the administration realized that Yoo was basically full of shit.

Anyway, now the Yoo memo (with plenty of redactions, of course!) has been released, and we can see just how absolutely ridiculous the whole thing was. In short, Yoo argues that even though, historically, the NSA was not allowed to do warrantless surveillance on Americans and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) made it clear that domestic surveillance needed to first be approved with warrants to the FISA Court (which is barely a court anyway), there was nothing that said that had to be the case, and the President was basically free to turn the NSA loose to spy on Americans without any FISA approval. First, he notes that the NSA is not technically or legally limited in surveilling Americans, even if it historically avoided doing so: In short, that says because Congress didn't explicitly limit the NSA in the same manner as the CIA, that must mean it's okay for the NSA to spy on Americans. This basically ignores the history and rationale for the NSA, which was entirely secret for much of its early history anyway, and created and run out of the executive branch with little Congressional oversight. Yoo then admits that the driving executive order that enables much of the NSA's activities -- the infamous Executive Order 12333 -- does explicitly say that the NSA can only conduct foreign signals intelligence surveillance, but that doesn't matter, because future Presidents aren't bound by previous Presidents' executive orders. He also argues that if the NSA is spying on Americans in order to seek "significant foreign intelligence," then it's perfectly fine as well. He then admits, generously, that even though there's no actual legal restriction (in his mind) on the NSA spying on Americans, that it could "be in tension with FISA" since FISA requires a warrant for domestic surveillance. But fear not, evil legal genius John Yoo has a bullshit way around that as well. He goes through a detailed description of the limits of getting a warrant approved by FISA and bemoans the fact that it wouldn't be possible to intercept all phone calls from a certain country under FISA.

And here's where he gets really tricky. He says that FISA is not necessarily a limitation on what kind of surveillance can be done, but merely a safe harbor such that if you follow it you're automatically presumed safe under the 4th Amendment. However, he insists that FISA cannot limit the President's constitutional powers, and thus the President can still order warrantless domestic surveillance outside of FISA, and the only issue is that it's outside of the FISA "safe harbors" -- so it may not be automatically presumed in compliance with the 4th Amendment: From there, he goes on for a while insisting that the President has the Constitutional power to order warrantless surveillance basically whenever he wants, with the only limitation being the 4th Amendment (which we'll get to). And then he pulls a neat little trick, insisting that the President doesn't require a warrant for conducting surveillance for national security related purposes (pointing to some caselaw involving questions around due process in espionage cases), and notes that, even better, FISA itself means that "surveillance conducted for national security purposes is not subject to the same Fourth Amendment standards that apply in domestic criminal cases."

Did you see the neat trick he played there? First, he showed that the President can ignore FISA and Executive Order 12333, and then used FISA (which he already said the President could ignore) to argue that the 4th Amendment standards don't really apply either. You want to know why lawyers get a bad name for bullshit arguments? Look at John Yoo -- and then remember that his bullshit arguments weren't just around a single case, but to justify spying on all Americans without a warrant (we'll leave aside the fact that he did the same thing for torture as well).

From there, he actually argues that a court reading FISA to restrict the President would create a constitutional conflict: This is a pretty fascinating rewriting of history. The whole point of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was to put limits and oversight on the collection of foreign intelligence information. And here Yoo argues that Congress intended no such thing as the very purpose of the law. That's kind of astounding.

From there, Yoo then tries to argue that warrantless wiretapping of basically everyone in America also does not violate the 4th Amendment. First, he argues that the 4th Amendment does not apply to non-US persons. Next, he said that communications that leave the US electronically are also no longer subject to the 4th Amendment due to the "border search exception" -- an issue that we've discussed plenty of times for people who have had their laptops searched as they enter the country. This, apparently, is part of Yoo's 4th Amendment loophole. Any communications involving Americans that happens to slip outside of US borders loses any 4th Amendment protections. The fact that it's digital, not physical, makes no difference according to John Yoo's extremely distorted moral compass. But, he admits that there might be some concerns about the border search theory with regards to the contents of email and phone calls, so he has a trick: how about we just say the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to the metadata, and we'll call it even.

Then he uses the infamous Smith v. Maryland case, that established the Third Party Doctrine to argue further that there's no 4th Amendment issue with sucking up all metadata. We've heard this argument many times in court by now. Because this one 1979 ruling, which was about whether or not law enforcement could get the phone records of a single phone from a person that they were tracking for criminal behavior, that means that everyone has given up any expectation of privacy in any metadata they have on any communications record -- including email. This also suggests Yoo has no clue how email works. The reason that the phone records were considered legit was because the phone company had to track all of your phone calls for billing reasons, and thus had a "legitimate business purpose" in keeping track of all your phone record metadata. That's not how email works, but Yoo basically pretends it does: My ISP doesn't get access to who I email. Because that's not how email works.

Next up, Yoo argues that because the Fourth Amendment was really designed to deal with "curbing law enforcement abuses," it really shouldn't apply to support for "military operations." And since the response to 9/11 is really about military operations, the 4th Amendment shouldn't apply to spying on all Americans because it's to support that purpose: Finally, he argues that even if this program were subject to the 4th Amendment, which he doesn't think it should be, that's still okay, because snooping on every American's communications is still "reasonable" under the 4th Amendment... because TERRORISTS!!!!!!! In short, Yoo basically wipes aside anything that protects Americans from mass surveillance, despite the fact that the 4th Amendment was specifically designed to stop "general warrants" that allowed for mass surveillance, and despite the fact that FISA was passed to stop government abuse of surveillance powers. To Yoo, there's an excuse for basically any kind of government intrusion on our private lives, and even if the laws and Constitution do apply, no problem, you just shout "terrorism" and all is allowed.

This is a really sickening letter. At the very least, it should have been made public at the time it was written so that it could have been debated (and trashed as ridiculous) at the time it was made. Instead, it was done in secret, given to a judge who could only read it and not keep it or take notes, and then wasn't revealed publicly for almost 14 years. This is not how a democracy is supposed to function.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, colleen kollar-kotelly, email, fisa, john yoo, legal rationale, metadata, nsa, surveillance, warrantless surveillance, warrantless wiretapping

George W. Bush Tried To Retroactively Declare Illegal, Unconstitutional NSA Surveillance Legal, Because He Said So

from the secret-laws,-secret-interpretations dept

When it comes to the NSA, we've been discussing just how dangerous it is when the government gets to put in place its own secret interpretation of laws that, when read by the public, appear to say something quite different than the secret interpretation. Otherwise you have secret laws, and that's no way to run an open Constitutional democracy. For many years, it's been known that in March of 2004 there was a hospital room showdown between then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales (with White House Chief of Staff Andy Card) and (at the time, quite ill) Attorney General John Ashcroft and acting Attorney General James Comey, over whether or not to reauthorize some sort of surveillance program. Comey, Ashcroft, and then FBI Director Robert Mueller all threatened to resign over the issue, and eventually, we were told, President Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. We knew at the time that the dispute was over domestic surveillance and whether or not it was legal. More recently, it came out that it was over domestic collection of internet/email metadata. This was a program similar to the phone metadata program that was revealed by Ed Snowden, but for email/internet information.

However, in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the NY Times, late on Friday, the government declassified some more information about what happened, and it appears that George W. Bush tried to first retroactively "legalize" this pretty clearly unconstitutional domestic surveillance, by saying that he'd always meant that while the NSA could sweep up all metadata, it didn't technically "acquire" it until it did a search on it. Again, this is in direct contrast to what most people thought the law (and the 4th Amendment) says the government could do.

This happened on March 11th, the day after the hospital showdown. President Bush signed a new authorization for the mass surveillance of internet records, but first decided that the White House Counsel, Gonzales, could certify it by himself, rather than having the Attorney General sign it, as in the past. This new authorization, though, directly claims that the President can simply override the law, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was put in place to limit the Executive Branch's ability to spy on Americans in the first place. Then there's the added language saying that the information is only actually "acquired" when its searched for even though it has already "retained" all the data. In other words, to get around the whole Constitution, Bush apparently just redefined the word acquire. And, to make this all the more obnoxious, while this language was only included for the first time on March 11th, the authorization claimed that Bush had really meant this to be the case all along. In short, the day after being told that the surveillance on Americans' internet metadata was likely unconstitutional, President Bush (though put together by Dick Cheney's top legal beaver David Addington) decided to fix all that by signing a new authorization that redefined a basic English word ("acquire") and then retroactively say that this new definition applied backwards on all previous authorizations to spy on Americans, pretending that this magic incantation suddenly made it all Constitutional.

Apparently these legal shenanigans were enough to make then NSA Director Michael Hayden perfectly happy to keep spying on Americans in violation of both the FISA law and the Constitution. This whole thing seems pretty horrific all around. The whole point of FISA was to restrict the government from spying on Americans. And, yes, we know that the past two administrations have basically tapdanced their way around that, but now we're getting more details on exactly how. It starts with John Yoo insisting that the President can basically do whatever the fuck he wants because it's "wartime" (never mind that Congress never officially declared war...), and then that the President can just override FISA because he says so. Then, let's add into that the fact that the President (with help from David Addington) can apparently just redefine plain English words, in order to make illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of Americans appear legal, but, even more crazy, is that he can claim this new definition applies retroactively, after people realize that they may be on the hook for a few years worth of unconstitutional surveillance.

And, again, the folks who did all this keep telling us that we should just "trust them" because they're doing everything to keep us safe.

There are some things that it's entirely reasonable to keep secret if you're a government. But your secret definition of a law that anyone can read -- as well as your actions retroactively pushing that unique definition back historically, do not seem like the kinds of things that should be kept secret.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, alberto gonzales, andy card, david addington, george w. bush, internet metadata, james comey, john yoo, metadata, nsa, privacy, retroactive, richard ashcroft, secret interpretation, secret law, surveillance