Senator Lindsey Graham Doesn't Know Details Of NSA Abuse, But Sure It's Fine Because 'WE'RE AT WAR!'

from the fud dept

So, over the weekend, the Washington Post reported on the latest bombshell from the Snowden files, showing both that the NSA is really bad at "minimizing" information on Americans that it's not supposed to hang onto and (more importantly) that, contrary to earlier claims, Snowden did in fact have access to the FISA collection database of info (suggesting that the NSA's controls over misuse of that data are not nearly as good as the agency and its defenders have claimed). Over at the Daily Beast, they figured that the various Senators in charge of oversight of the NSA would have some comments on the piece and how it shows an out of control NSA. But, that's not quite what happened. Senator after Senator insisted that they either hadn't yet read the story or were still trying to understand the details. The most ridiculous of all was kneejerk defender of the NSA, Lindsey Graham, who insisted that whatever was in the report didn't matter because we're at war:

Sen. Lindsey Graham—who sits on the Senate’s armed services, appropriations, and judiciary committees and is one of the Republican Party’s most prominent voices on defense and intelligence issues—wasn’t familiar with the Post piece.

“I don’t really know the details about what they’re saying in the paper. I know [NSA intelligence-gathering] is necessary. We’re at war with radical Islam,” Graham said.

Of course, that's interesting on two accounts. First, technically, we're not at war, because Congress hasn't declared war. You'd think a Senator would know that. Second, even if we were at war, does Graham honestly believe that there can be no limitations on NSA surveillance and nothing can go too far, so long as he can insist that "we're at war" (even if we're not)? If so, that's rather scary.

Other Senators similarly begged off responding to the piece, insisting they hadn't seen the details, including Intelligence Committee head Dianne Feinstein:

Nearly two days after the release of The Washington Post’s report, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, who has direct oversight of the NSA, was just beginning to be fully briefed in the issue.

“I’m just in the process of looking into that,” Feinstein said.

And onto some others:

Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was in Afghanistan and hadn’t had a chance to catch up. Sen. James Inhofe, his Republican counterpart, hadn’t seen the story. Sen. Angus King, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said he didn’t know the facts behind the newest revelations yet. He wasn’t alone.

Of course, it's safe to assume that most of them are just making an excuse to avoid answering the question, but that seems even worse. Either they don't know what's happening and have taken days to find out (bad) or they do know what's happening and simply don't want to comment about it (worse). Then, of course, there's always someone who is going to insist the whole thing is bogus -- but refuses to give any explanation as to why:

Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of Feinstein’s committee, came out of the Senate’s Monday votes challenging the veracity of the report, saying the “story is not accurate.” Pressed on where it was inaccurate, Coburn said, “I can’t tell you in what way. If I could tell you in what way, I would.”

To date, there has been no indication that there is anything amiss with the story. If it were really "not accurate," you can rest assured that the NSA or James Clapper's office would have been hitting back hard already about "inaccuracies" in the report. To date, they have not. Coburn's "trust me," is not particularly convincing since he still is the only person saying that... Though, I guess that's still better than Graham's ridiculous "we're at war!" comment.

Filed Under: abuse, dianne feinstein, ed snowden, lindsey graham, nsa, surveillance, tom coburn
Companies: washington post

Sen. Coburn Offers To Put An Outdated Agency Out Of Its Misery With His 'Let Me Google That For You' Bill

from the microsoft-now-hastily-composing-angry-response-letters dept

No entity highlights the ridiculous amount of bureaucratic inefficiency and ineptitude of government agencies better than the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Its reports are loaded with the sort of damning evidence that would lead those unfamiliar with how government actually works to assume that heads will be rolling. In reality, the agencies investigated by the GAO soldier on from scathing report to scathing report with little to no sign of improvement.

Tom Coburn, a long-time combatant of government waste and fraud who publishes a yearly report exposing the worst of worst in terms of senseless government spending (the "Wastebook") is now using the GAO's own words to craft a bill targeting the money pit that is the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

Here's the leadup:

(3) NTIS is tasked with collecting and distributing government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information and reports.
(4) GAO found that NTIS sold only 8 percent of the 2,500,000 reports in its collection between 1995 and 2000.
(5) A November 2012 GAO review of NTIS made the following conclusions:

(A) 'Of the reports added to NTIS's repository during fiscal years 1990 through 2011, GAO estimates that approximately 74 percent were readily available from other public sources.'
(B) 'These reports were often available either from the issuing organization's website, the Federal Internet portal (http://www.USA.gov) or from another source located through a web search.'
(C) 'The source that most often had the report [GAO] was searching for was another website located through http://www.Google.com.'
(D) '95 percent of the reports available from sources other than NTIS were available free of charge.'

(6) No Federal agency should use taxpayer dollars to purchase a report from the National Technical Information Service that is available through the Internet for free.

And here's the punchline:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'Let Me Google That For You Act.'

Someone had fun cranking out this "Short Title."

As the bill points out, it was suggested by the Secretary of Commerce in 1999 that the NTIS would eventually outlive its usefulness. According to the GAO's 2012 findings, that sell-by date was reached more than a decade ago.

NTIS product expenditures exceeded revenues for 10 out of the past 11 fiscal years.

The "Let Me Google That For You" Act calls for the repeal of the 1988 National Technical Information Act and the disbandment of the agency itself, with the redistribution of whichever of its duties are still deemed essential to the Commerce Department.

It's not often you get the chance to watch an extraneous government agency be put down and even rarer still under a snarky, incisive, short title. This is for the best. As we've seen all too frequently, time marches on, swiftly distancing itself from the glacial pace of government innovation.

Filed Under: documents, gao, let me google that for you, ntis, search, tom coburn
Companies: google

Senate Intelligence Committee Agrees To Declassify Key Points Of CIA Torture Report

from the good-news dept

While not entirely unexpected, it's good to see that the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally voted to declassify the key parts of the massive 6,300 page report on the CIA's torture program. As we've been discussing for months, this report, which cost $40 million and has been progressing for years, has been the subject of a pretty big fight from the CIA. It was expected that the Intelligence Committee would approve declassifying the executive summary -- which itself runs 480 pages -- along with "20 findings and conclusions" from the report. It seemed clear that the Democrats on the committee would support declassification (and President Obama has supported it as well), though it was unclear if Republicans would. Yesterday, we noted that Republican Senator Susan Collins announced her support for declassification, while also directly calling the CIA's program "torture," -- something that others on the committee have been afraid to do.

What's a bit surprising is that the vote wasn't even close: 11 to 3 in favor of declassifying the report, and even the highest ranking Republican, Saxby Chambliss voted in favor of declassification, though he did so under what appears to be a bit of a protest. His statement about the vote certainly sounds like sour grapes, rather than strong support:

"Today, I voted in favor of sending a portion of this majority report to the executive branch for declassification. Despite the report’s significant errors, omissions, and assumptions—as well as a lot of cherry-picking of the facts—I want the American people to be able to see it and judge for themselves. In addition, this study has been an expensive, partisan distraction that has hindered the committee’s ability to provide oversight of current national security issues, including NSA reforms, cybersecurity, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. I hope we can put this behind us and focus on the national security challenges at hand.

While I agree with some of the conclusions in this report, I take strong exception to the notion that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program did not provide intelligence that was helpful in disrupting terrorist attacks or tracking down Usama bin Ladin. This claim contradicts the factual record and is just flat wrong. Intelligence was gained from detainees in the program, both before and after the application of enhanced interrogation techniques, which played an important role in disrupting terrorist plots and aided our overall counterterrorism operations over the past decade."

Another Republican on the committee, Tom Coburn also called it torture, though he insisted that the CIA did it in "good faith" and voted "present" rather than in favor of declassification.

“I agree that some of the more extreme Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) could be considered torture, and that in the future this country should not rely on such techniques. Yet, at the time, they had legal sanction. Readers of the report will make their own judgments about how they were implemented. I believe that the CIA acted imperfectly, but in good faith and under great urgency to prevent an attack from a little understood enemy that had brought devastation to our shores."

Feinstein was willing to call it "a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen" but refused to call it torture.

Of course, the "fight" is not over yet. There will certainly be a fight over how the declassification is handled and the public won't see the report for many, many months. Senator Mark Udall, who has been a big critic of the intelligence community for a while, has asked that the CIA not handle the declassification itself, knowing that it will over-classify:

"Following today’s historic vote, the president faces what I believe should be a straightforward question. He can defer declassification decisions to the CIA — which has demonstrated an inability to face the truth about this program — or pass this authority to the Director of National Intelligence or hold on to the redaction pen himself. The president needs to understand that the CIA’s clear conflict of interest here requires that the White House step in and manage this process."

Of course, throughout the past few weeks, more and more details of what's in the report have been leaked to the press (including some more leaks today, which we'll try to write about shortly)...

Filed Under: cia, declassification, dianne feinstein, mark udall, saxby chambliss, senate, senate intelligence committee, tom coburn, torture

Homeland Security Redacts Drone Info It Already Released Publicly In Report To Congress

from the oops dept

We've noted multiple times in the past that the process by which the federal government redacts documents it's declassifying and/or releasing publicly is quite arbitrary, and when the same document is released multiple times, the redactions can be totally different. However, the latest screw up along those lines is quite incredible. Last summer, Homeland Security's Customs and Border Patrol sent EFF a bunch of records in response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit concerning CBP's use of drones (CBP later "found" additional records it had neglected to pass along).

Those documents were certainly interesting, but perhaps more interesting (and troubling) is that last fall, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) in Congress had asked DHS for similar information, including "all mission logs related to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's (CBP) drone program from 2010 to 2013." DHS eventually handed over that information, including many of the same documents it released to the EFF, which were shared publicly. Except... the documents it gave to Congress had many more redactions than the ones they released to EFF.

Senator Tom Coburn's staff noticed this, and thought it was, well, rather odd, that DHS seems to think that the public can handle the information, while the relevant oversight committee in Congress cannot. Coburn has now sent a letter asking about the differences:

DHS insisted these documents were so sensitive they could not be produced without explicit promises they would be handled with utmost care, and reviewed only by Committee staff. The Department further requested the Committee promise not to release any document without receiving permission from DHS, and to return or destroy all documents when they had been reviewed. The Committee declined to oblige this virtually unprecedented request.

The documents DHS produced are extensively redacted. DHS claims it redacted information relating to activities by other agencies. The release of that information to Congress, it stated, is "under review," presumably with the other agencies.

My staff has reviewed the logs DHS produced for calendar year 2010. From this limited review, it appears that DHS has redacted information in the documents it provided to the Committee that is not redacted in the same documents DOJ released publicly.

For 2010 alone, my staff has tallied at least 20 instances in which the publicly-released documents appear to contain legible passages which are redacted entirely or in large part from the documents DHS provided the Committee. In other words, DHS appears to have chosen to withhold information from Congress which the DOJ -- and, we must assume, DHS -- has determined was appropriate to share with the American public. I have attached examples to this letter for your review.

Also of concern is the apparent lack of coordination between DHS and outside agencies, particularly the Department of Justice. DHS stated to the Committee that the passages it redacted were "pending review" with an outside agency. However, a comparison of the redacted passages with the publicly-released documents reveals that several of those passages relate to support for DOJ components, including the FBI. If the DOJ compels public release of documents detailing activities on behalf of its own component, and the documents are subsequently released to the public, it is not clear why DHS would later withhold the same information from Congress in order to consult with DOJ.

Oh, also, Coburn's staff noticed that some of the documents included don't appear to have been given to EFF at all, raising a separate question: that even among the newly found documents that DHS is still withholding pertinent information.

Of secondary concern but still significant, my staff noted several instances in which information that was provided to Congress does not seem to appear, even in redacted form, in the public documents released to the public interest group, suggesting that information may have been withheld in full from the organization without explanation or accounting.

Not surprisingly, Coburn is... not pleased with DHS over this.

The Department's conduct in this matter has impacted the Committee's ability to conduct its Constitutional responsibilities to oversee DHS operations. It has delayed access to relevant documents, and what it has provided falls short of what it is required to share with anyone, let alone in response to a Congressional request.

For over a year, this Committee has pressed the Department for more information regarding its unmanned aerial vehicle operations. These improperly redacted documents raise even more questions. If these vehicles are being operated in accordance with U.S. laws and in support of the Department's statutory mission, the lawfulness and efficacy of their operations should be easily demonstrable. This exercise may be said to demonstrate many things, but it does not demonstrate efficiency or transparency. Congress and the American people have a right to expect more from a Department which asks to be trusted with powerful tools and great authorities.

After all this, Coburn orders DHS to hand over "a full, unredacted set of the documents" as soon as possible.

Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, drones, homeland security, redactions, tom coburn
Companies: eff

Senate Intelligence Committee Rejects A Bunch Of Attempts To Amend Dianne Feinstein's Fake NSA Reform Bill

from the but-of-course dept

The Senate Intelligence Committee apparently just voted on Dianne Feinstein's fake NSA reform bill, which actually legalizes all of the illegal spying and adds a few new ways for the government to spy on everyone. Some of the members of the committee tried to add some amendments which would have made the bill do at least a few minor useful things, but it sounds like all of those were rejected. Incredibly, even though the NSA has been indicating pretty strongly that it's fine if the data it collects can only be held for three years, rather than the five it currently uses, an amendment limiting such data collection to three years was rejected. Even Dianne Feinstein supported that amendment, but increasingly disappointing Senator Angus King (like so many politicians, he seemed promising... until he got into office) voted with the Republicans on the Committee who all wanted to keep the surveillance backups for five years. As for other amendments, here's how Politico summarized them:

Another 7-8 casualty in the intel panel mark-up was a provision to ban the bulk collection of cell-site information that can show where a caller is physically located at the time of making or receiving a call. The NSA has acknowledged running experiments to handle such data, but says it isn’t collecting it now. Most panel Democrats supported the geolocation data ban, and most Republicans opposed it, but some crossed the lines. Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), whose state is home to the NSA, voted against the ban. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted for it.

The third proposed reform to fall 7-8 was an amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to require that any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision finding a violation of the Constitution be made public. Again, most Democrats supported the proposal, while most Republicans opposed it. This time, Feinstein and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) bucked their Democratic colleagues. Collins joined with six Democrats in favor of the transparency mandate.

The overall bill passed out of committee 11-4, with Senators Wyden, Udall, Heinrich and Coburn voting against it. As the Politico article notes, Coburn voting against it is a bit of a surprise, since he's been seen as an NSA supporter. In fact, the article suggests he voted against it because he thinks it puts too many restrictions on the NSA, which is crazy since it puts fewer restrictions than they have today. Specifically, Coburn doesn't want any limits on how long the NSA can keep your data, which is downright nutty.

Filed Under: amendments, dianne feinstein, fisa, fisa improvements act, mark udall, nsa, ron wyden, surveillance, tom coburn

PIPA's Own Sponsors Backing Off Bill; Ask Senate To Hold Off On Voting [Updated!]

from the wow dept

It looks like the internet uprising really is having an impact. Senator Ben Cardin -- a co-sponsor of PIPA -- has put out a press release saying that he won't vote for the bill as written today, after hearing from many constituents. Oddly, he says he will remain a co-sponsor of the bill, but wants to amend the bill to take into account the concerns he's hearing.

Similarly, six other Senators, including two co-sponsors -- Senators Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley (the two co-sponsors) along with John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee and Tom Coburn -- have asked Harry Reid not to bring the cloture vote he's promised to bring on the 24th. In other words, as many of us have been asking: don't rush this. This is huge news. With Senators -- including three co-sponsors -- coming out so forcefully to Harry Reid that this bill needs more time, Reid is much more likely to delay the cloture vote, and to leave PIPA aside for other business for the time being. Either way, the letter (embedded below) makes it clear that more debate on the issues in the bill were promised and never held. And, they note, that they're hearing more and more and more about the problems in the bill, and believe they should be discussed openly, before anyone is voting on cloture or on the bill itself.

All of this, by the way, is because tons of you (tons!) have stepped up and reached out to your Reps. and Senators and let them know that these bills are unacceptable. Let's see if Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy and Lamar Smith finally admit that they, too, can hear you.

Update: Harry Reid apparently cannot hear you. He has come out with a statement saying that the cloture vote will continue on January 24th, despite the concerns of so many Senators (even co-sponsors of the bill) because it's "too important to delay." No. He's wrong. What's too important to delay is a real careful look at the impact of such a bill.

Update 2: More and more Senators appear to be distancing themselves from the bill. The latest is Senator Pat Toomey who makes it clear he does not like any bill that involves the government being able to order blocks of links to certain websites -- something he calls "pretty disturbing."

Filed Under: ben cardin, chuck grassley, delay, harry reid, jeff sessions, john cornyn, mike lee, orrin hatch, pipa, protect ip, tom coburn

Funny How All The Senators Supporting Anti-FCC Bill, Have Raised Lots Of Money From AT&T

from the just-saying dept

We mentioned, when the recent FCC report on broadband came out, that it seemed notable that the first politician out of the gate complaining about it, Rep. Cliff Stearns just happened to have had massive financial support from the biggest broadband players around when it came to raising money for his political campaigns. Given that, it seemed worth looking into the sponsors of a new bill designed to prevent the FCC from implementing net neutrality rules. Now I'm still not convinced the FCC really has the authority to do what it's trying to do, but I find it even more troubling when a group of Senators get together and call a new bill the "Freedom for Consumer Choice Act (FCC Act)," and it seems like they're all funded by AT&T. Somehow, I don't think that AT&T is supporting "freedom for consumer choice" when it comes to broadband. Over the years, they've done exactly the opposite, and worked hard to limit competition.

So, let's see. The bill's main sponsor is Senator Jim DeMint. Over the course of his career... AT&T is the second largest contributor to his campaigns. Ditto for Senator Tom Coburn. John Cornryn no doubt knows that AT&T is the 4th biggest contributor to his campaigns over the years, and Orrin Hatch must be happy that AT&T is the fifth largest contributor to his campaigns over the years (amusingly, AT&T is the only non-healthcare company in the top 8 on Hatch's list).

There are three other co-sponsors who don't have AT&T among their top contributors, but apparently they all want to start. If you drill down and look at campaign contributions this year all three -- John Ensign, Jeff Sessions and John Thune see AT&T appearing on their list of top contributors after being absent in previous years.

Funny how that works.

Now, of course, you could argue that AT&T contributes to politicians who have the same views as AT&T, rather than that these politicians are responding to AT&T's bidding. But, either way, it's hard to argue with a straight face that this particular bill has anything to do with protecting consumers, when it's pretty clearly designed to protect AT&T.

I've seen people suggest in the past that elected officials should have to wear "sponsorship patches," like Nascar racers, to show who funded their campaigns. While I think the idea was a joke, I have to admit, it's growing on me. Also, a special thanks to Karl Bode for inspiring me to write this post, in noting that none of the press coverage of the newly introduced bill seems to note the AT&T contributions to these Senators...

Filed Under: cliff stearns, contributions, jeff sessions, jim demint, john cornryn, john ensign, john thune, orrin hatch, senators, support, tom coburn
Companies: at&t, fcc