The “Heroes” of the Hospital Confrontation Brief the FISC
I’m going to have several posts on the documents released yesterday, starting with the Internet dragnet opinion and the phone dragnet application. But to give those two background, I want to look at a...
View ArticleThe Source of the Section 702 Limitations: Special Needs?
Way back in 2013, in Marty Lederman’s review of the NSA Review Group’s Report, he pointed to the Report’s suggestion that Section 702 collection was limited to use with counterterrorism,...
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Did the Hospital Confrontation Shut Down an Illegal Dragnet against Iraq War...
Several days ago I wrote, Both Goldsmith’s memo (see PDF 14) and the Draft NSA IG Report (PDF 10) make it clear that, in addition to temporarily shutting down the Internet dragnet, the March 19, 2004...
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The Senate Torture Report and CIA’s Lies about Hassan Ghul’s 2004 Torture
In my last post, I noted that in his report that Hassan Ghul served as a double agent before we offed him with a drone, Aram Roston stated, without confirming via sources, that Ghul is the person...
View ArticleThe Common Commercial Services OLC Opinion Affecting Cyber Policy Is Over a...
I’ve been meaning to go back to an exchange that occurred during Caroline Krass’ confirmation hearing to be CIA’s General Counsel back on December 17. In it, Ron Wyden raised a problematic OLC opinion...
View ArticleDid CIA Lie to DOJ about When They Tortured Hassan Ghul?
As I noted in January, comments Mark Udall made in the course of confirming Stephen Preston to be DOD General Counsel make it clear that CIA’s lies about a detainee generally believed to be Hassan Ghul...
View ArticleJack Goldsmith’s Still Active Presidential Dragnet Authorization
In the follow-up questions for CIA General Counsel nominee Caroline Krass, Ron Wyden asked a series of his signature loaded questions. With it, he pointed to the existence of still-active OLC advice —...
View ArticleJohn Brennan’s Parallel “Investigative, Protective, or Intelligence Activity”
Yesterday, Jack Goldsmith defended CIA lawyer Robert Eatinger for referring Senate Intelligence Committee staffers for criminal investigation. Eatinger had no choice but to refer his Agency’s...
View ArticleNSA Collection: Show Me the $$
As part of its superb piece on NSA spying on Tuesday, Frontline included interviews with key sources. In my opinion, the most enlightening was that with former HPSCI staffer Diane Roark, so you should...
View ArticleThe Other Authority for the Phone Dragnet
Back in February, I noted Ron Wyden’s question for then acting OLC head Caroline Krass (she’s now CIA’s General Counsel) about Jack Goldsmith’s 2004 OLC opinion authorizing the dragnet. In the...
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Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, and Baker: “All” Is the “Best” Reading of “Relevant”
Towards the end of the Memorandum of Law in support of the Internet dragnet — which was signed by those guys ———-> — DOJ makes a claim that its reading of “relevant” to mean “almost all” was the...
View ArticleThe Hospital Confrontation Heroes of Rule of Law Gutted Separation of Powers
Remember that cinematic story of how Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith and Robert Mueller stood up to Bush and Cheney and forced them to shut down their illegal dragnet to defend the rule of law in 2004? It...
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Executive Still Hiding Its Phone Dragnet Self-Authorization, While Making...
Back in February, Ron Wyden got then acting OLC head Caroline Krass to admit that Jack Goldsmith’s May 6, 2004 Stellar Wind authorization remained active. Although they could rely on it at any time,...
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Hospital Hero Jack Goldsmith, the Destroyer of the Internet Dragnet,...
As I noted earlier, I think the re-release of Jack Goldsmith’s May 6, 2004 OLC memo authorizing Stellar Wind is meant to warn Congress that the Executive does not believe it needs any Congressional...
View ArticleThe Warmongers Hang Out the Insular Bumblers
At the risk of being misunderstood as defending Susan Rice, let me explore a couple of things about this article, complaining about her “bumbling” as National Security Advisor. 3,000 words into a 3,500...
View ArticleSome Torture Facts
At the request of some on Twitter, I’m bringing together a Twitter rant of some facts on torture here. 1) Contrary to popular belief, torture was not authorized primarily by the OLC memos John Yoo...
View ArticleThe Standards for CIA Crimes
In the interest of describing why CIA’s efforts to invent a reason to torture Janat Gul are so important, I wanted to do a very quick summary of what I understand CIA’s legal means of avoiding criminal...
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...
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