“Only Facts Matter:” Jim Comey Is Not the Master Bureaucrat of Integrity His...
Since Jim Comey’s showy press conference yesterday, the press has rehashed Jim Comey’s carefully cultivated image as a Boy Scout, with outlet after outlet replaying the story of how he ran up some...
View ArticleTuesday: Tilted
I miss prosthesis and mended souls Trample over beauty while singing their thoughts I match them with my euphoria When they said “Je suis plus folle que toi” — excerpt, Tilted by Christine And The...
View ArticleA Dragnet of emptywheel’s Most Important Posts on Surveillance, 2007 to 2017
Happy Birthday to me! To us! To the emptywheel community! On December 3, 2007, emptywheel first posted as a distinct website. That makes us, me, we, ten this week. To celebrate, the emptywheel team has...
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Jack Goldsmith and Susan Hennessey Run Cover for Those Giving Jeff Sessions...
I’m used to Susan Hennessey partnering with Ben Wittes to write apologies for NSA and FBI that ignore known facts. I’m a bit surprised that Jack Goldsmith did so in this defense of Democrats — like...
View ArticleHow to Charge Americans in Conspiracies with Russian Spies?
As I laid out a few weeks ago, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here...
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The William Barr Case for Impeaching Donald Trump: From Whom Did Trump Suborn...
Last month, I argued that a memo William Barr wrote that many say disqualifies him to be Attorney General in fact (or perhaps, “also”) should make him utterly toxic to Trump, because he (unknowingly)...
View ArticleAs Democrats Entertain a Ukraine-Only Impeachment, Jack Goldsmith Lays Out...
As June Bug the Terrorist Foster Dog and I drove the last leg of our epic road trip over the last few days, I listened to Jack Goldsmith’s book on his stepfather, Chuckie O’Brien, In Hoffa’s Shadow: A...
View ArticleJohn Bolton Versus Navy Versus Egan
John Bolton filed a motion opposing the government’s legal actions against him last night (it is both a memorandum in opposition to the Temporary Restraining Order as well as a motion to dismiss). It...
View ArticleSix Data Points about the CIA Dragnet
Last week, Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich released a declassified letter they wrote last April, describing a CIA bulk program that had not been fully briefed to the Intelligence Committees, which...
View ArticleAlberto Gonzales Lectures Jack Goldsmith about Perception versus Reality in a...
I never, never imagined I’d see the day when Alberto Gonzales would school Jack Goldsmith on how to defend democracy. Once upon a time, remember, it fell to Goldsmith to school Gonzales that the...
View ArticleThe Precedent for Using Presidential National Emergency Proclamations to...
On September 14, 2001 — 3 days before signing an expansive Memorandum of Notification that would authorize a suite of covert operations against al Qaeda, and 4 days before signing an AUMF that would...
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Section 215’s Multiple Programs and Where They Might Hide after June 1
In an column explicitly limited to the phone dragnet, Conor Friedersdorf pointed to a post I wrote about Section 215 generally and suggested I thought the phone dragnet was about to get hidden under a...
View ArticleJohn Yoo Approved the Stellar Wind Authorization that First Covered Iraq
As I noted, one interesting aspect of reading the Stellar Wind IG Reports is tracking the things that show up in the Snowden-leaked draft IG Report that are completely redacted in the DOJ-released...
View ArticleOLC Lowers Its Standards for Retroactive Legal Reviews
There’s an interesting passage in the DOJ IG discussion of Jack Goldsmith’s efforts to rewrite the Stellar Wind OLC memos (PDF 456). The first passage describes Jim Comey permitting a lower standard of...
View ArticleOn the Nonsense of Norms about Secrets
At a panel on secrecy yesterday, Bob Litt proclaimed that the NYT “disgraced itself” for publishing names, some of which were widely known, of the people who were conducting our equally widely known...
View ArticleDean Baquet Explains that the CIA Cries Wolf, But Misses How Transparency...
Jack Goldsmith conducted fascinating interview with NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet about the latter’s decision to name Michael D’Andrea and two other top CIA officials whose identities the CIA was...
View ArticleThe Continued Belief in Unicorn Cyber Deterrence
For some reason, people continue to believe Administration leaks that they will retaliate against China (and Russia!) for cyberattacks — beyond what are probably retaliatory moves already enacted. I...
View ArticleThe New Stellar Wind Language
Charlie Savage got another drip drip drip of language declassified from the Joint IG Stellar Wind reports (his story, annotated document). The new language reveals a bit more about what Alberto...
View ArticleDomestic Collection and Stellar Wind
I’m in the middle of comparing John Yoo’s May 17, 2002 letter to Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (which is largely the November 2, 2001 justification he wrote for Stellar Wind) with Jack Goldsmith’s May 6, 2004...
View ArticleBombshell “New[s]:” Jack Smith DID Consult about Timing before Adopting...
After I wrote this post laying out that Elie Honig was not only wrong about Jack Smith’s immunity briefing, but that it was very likely DOJ had decided not to take certain steps in August because of...
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