For quite some time now, there have been serious questions about how how the US was able to track down Osama bin Laden’s “hiding place” to send in special forces to kill him. The story many people have heard was that the CIA was able to identify the “courier” who was used to help bin Laden communicate with the outside world, and then used that info to figure out where he was. And, a big part of that story — especially as immortalized in the movie Zero Dark Thirty — was that the CIA’s torture program was instrumental in revealing that information. However, even before the big Senate Intelligence Committee study on the torture program was released, it was revealed that the torture program had nothing to do with identifying the courier, known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
However, as you may have heard over the weekend, Seymour Hersh published a somewhat epic story, arguing that almost everything about the bin Laden killing was a lie, and a bunch of stories — including everything about al-Kuwaiti — were made up after the fact. Hersh’s story is well worth reading (as are some of the criticisms of it that question some of the details). But one key aspect of the report is that finding a courier had absolutely nothing to do with finding bin Laden. Instead, it was a so-called “walk in” — a Pakistani intelligence official who knew that Pakistan already had captured bin Laden — who reached out to the US, seeking the $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden’s whereabouts.
In other words, even the Senate’s torture report gets the story wrong completely. In the Senate report, the identifying of al-Kuwaiti came from traditional interrogation, rather than the torture part. The CIA’s response was basically that it was the torture part (the bad cop) that enabled the information to come out separately (good cop). But Hersh’s report says the whole courier story is made up whole cloth. While some have questioned the details of Hersh’s report, there’s now independent verification from other sources to NBC that bin Laden was actually found via a “walk-in,” rather than the courier (warning: stupid NBC autoplay video at that link).
In Hersh’s version, the plan had been to kill bin Laden, and later (perhaps weeks later) come up with a story saying bin Laden had been killed by a drone strike. A few things went wrong — including one of the US helicopters famously crashing, and there was enough buzz that the US rushed to publicly announce the killing, including Obama’s famous speech that, apparently, created havoc since it messed up a bunch of previously agreed to things about how the killing would be presented, and was done without first clearing it with the intelligence community. This resulted in the CIA being rushed in to concoct some cover stories, and some CIA officials quickly realized that this would be a fantastic way to pretend that torture had been useful
Month: May 2015
“I’m not going to talk about this issue, read this book, or explore this idea because someone may think I’m a terrorist…” Bernie Sanders
Copyright Holders Want Cox to Expose “Most Egregious” Pirates
In the United States most large Internet providers forward DMCA notices to subscribers who’re accused of downloading copyrighted material.
Cox Communications is one of the ISPs that does this. In addition, the ISP also implemented a strict set of rules of its own accord to ensure that its customers understand the severity of the allegations.
According to some copyright holders, however, Cox’s efforts are falling short. Last year BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music sued the ISP because it fails to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.
The companies, which control the publishing rights to songs by Katy Perry, The Beatles and David Bowie among others, claimed that Cox has given up its DMCA safe harbor protections due to this inaction.
The case revolves around the “repeat infringer” clause of the DMCA, which prescribes that Internet providers must terminate the accounts of persistent pirates. Both parties are currently conducting discovery.
In order to make their case the copyright holders have sent a long list of demands to Cox, but court records show the ISP is reserved in the information it’s willing to hand over.
The company refused, for example, to reveal the identities of roughly 150,000 subscribers who allegedly downloaded infringing works from BMG and Round Hill Music. According to the ISP, the Cable Privacy Act prevents the company from disclosing this information.
“You Can Read My Notes? Not on Your Life!”: Top Democratic Senator Blasts Obama’s TPP Secrecy
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., today blasted the secrecy shrouding the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
“They said, well, it’s very transparent. Go down and look at it,” said Boxer on the floor of the Senate. “Let me tell you what you have to do to read this agreement. Follow this: you can only take a few of your staffers who happen to have a security clearance — because, God knows why, this is secure, this is classified. It has nothing to do with defense. It has nothing to do with going after ISIS.”
Boxer, who has served in the House and Senate for 33 years, then described the restrictions under which members of Congress can look at the current TPP text.
“The guard says, ‘you can’t take notes.’ I said, ‘I can’t take notes?’” Boxer recalled. “‘Well, you can take notes, but have to give them back to me, and I’ll put them in a file.’ So I said: ‘Wait a minute. I’m going to take notes and then you’re going to take my notes away from me and then you’re going to have them in a file, and you can read my notes? Not on your life.’”
You Can’t Read the TPP, But These Huge Corporations Can
The Senate today is holding a key procedural vote that would allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked.”
So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes.
But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory Committees,” whose members include AT&T, General Electric, Apple, Dow Chemical, Nike, Walmart and the American Petroleum Institute.
The TPP is an international trade agreement currently being negotiated between the US and 11 other countries, including Japan, Australia, Chile, Singapore and Malaysia. Among other things, it could could strengthen copyright laws, limit efforts at food safety reform and allow domestic policies to be contested by corporations in an international court. Its impact is expected to be sweeping, yet venues for public input hardly exist.
Industry Trade Advisory Committees, or ITACs, are cousins to Federal Advisory Committees like the National Petroleum Council that I wrote about recently. However, ITACs are functionally exempt from many of the transparency rules that generally govern Federal Advisory Committees, and their communications are largely shielded from FOIA in order to protect “third party commercial and/or financial information from disclosure.” And even if for some reason they wanted to tell someone what they’re doing, members must sign non-disclosure agreements so they can’t “compromise” government negotiating goals. Finally, they also escape requirements to balance their industry members with representatives from public interest groups.
The result is that the Energy and Energy Services committee includes the National Mining Association and America’s Natural Gas Alliance but only one representative from a company dedicated to less-polluting wind and solar energy.
The Information and Communications Technologies, Services, and Electronic Commerce committee includes representatives from Verizon and AT&T Services Inc. (a subsidiary of AT&T), which domestically are still pushing hard against new net neutrality rules that stop internet providers from creating more expensive online fast-lanes.
And the Intellectual Property Rights committee includes the Recording Industry Association of America, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Apple, Johnson and Johnson and Yahoo, rather than groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which shares the industry’s expertise in intellectual property policy but has an agenda less aligned with business.
Reid to McConnell on NSA Bulk Surveillance: “You Can’t Reauthorize Something That’s Illegal”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday used last week’s appellate court ruling that NSA bulk collection of call records is illegal to bash his Republican counterpart for wanting to keep it going through 2020.
“My friend, the Majority Leader, keeps talking about extending the program for five and a half years,” Reid said from the floor of the Senate, referencing Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “How can you reauthorize something that’s illegal?” Reid asked. “You can’t. You shouldn’t.”
“Extending an illegal program for five and a half years? That is not sensible,” he said. “What should happen is that we should move forward and do something that is needed here — and that is, do it all over again.”
On Sunday at a speech in Boston, McConnell called the bulk phone call metadata collection program “an important tool to prevent the next terrorist attack,” and said that the U.S. “is better off with an extension of the Patriot Act than not.” Three provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire on June 1, including one that the NSA has claimed justifies the program.
Reid offered an alternative Monday, saying that McConnell should seek to advance the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would end the bulk collection of metadata from domestic phone companies. He pointed out that a version of the bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in April by a 25 – 2 vote, and predicted that the legislation would be advanced by a full House vote this week.
Reid also painted the bill as an escape hatch for McConnell — and said he would back a revolt that’s being openly planned, should the Senate Majority Leader attempt to move for a clean extension of the Patriot Act. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have already threatened filibusters.
“This is the only bipartisan, bicameral solution we have today that will end the illegal bulk collection and reform and reauthorize key provisions of FISA,” Reid said.
“Otherwise … I’m not the only one, Mr. President,” he added. “I’m told, walking over here, that the junior senator from Kentucky is not going to let an extension … take place. So why don’t we just go ahead and get it done now.”
DEA Takes $16,000 From Train Passenger Because It Can
After scraping together enough money to produce a music video in Hollywood, 22-year-old Joseph Rivers set out last month on a train trip from Michigan to Los Angeles, hoping it was the start of something big.
Rivers changed trains at the Amtrak station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on April 15, with bags containing his clothes, other possessions and an envelope filled with the $16,000 in cash he had raised with the help of his family, the Albuquerque Journal reports. Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration got on after him and began looking for people who might be trafficking drugs.
Rivers said the agents questioned passengers at random, asking for their destination and reason for travel. When one of the agents got to Rivers, who was the only black person in his car, according to witnesses, the agent took the interrogation further, asking to search his bags. Rivers complied. The agent found the cash — still in a bank envelope — and decided to seize it on suspicion that it may be tied to narcotics. River pleaded with the agents, explaining his situation and even putting his mother on the phone to verify the story.
No luck.
Court To Homeland Security: Wait, No, You Can’t Just Take Anyone’s Laptop At The Border To Bring Somewhere To Search
The government — via the DHS and CBP — has long insisted it should be able to search whatever, whenever, within X number of miles of the border for national security reasons. The DOJ has routinely argued on its behalf, delivering non sequiturs like “Not searching your laptop doesn’t protect your civil liberties” with a straight face.
The security/liberty tradeoff has routinely suffered from the government’s insistence that its Fourth Amendment-skirting efforts are in the public’s best interest, even if the public isn’t nearly as interested in seeing the drawers of their personal computing equipment emptied onto the floor every time they stray too close to the “Constitution-Free Zone.”
The courts have generally upheld the government’s arguments, with a few exceptions. The Eastern District of New York basically said that if you don’t want your stuff looked through for no reason, don’t put so much stuff in your stuff — especially sensitive stuff. The presiding judge, Edward Korman, went so far as to compare the US to countries with severe civil rights issues, like Syria and Lebanon, and declared the US the “winner,” seemingly because citizens enjoy more rights once they move further inland.
Congressmen Blame Drugs, Gay Marriage, Welfare, and Immigrants for Unrest in Baltimore
Protesters in Baltimore say they have been driven into the streets by years of police abuse and a lack of economic opportunities.
But some lawmakers have other ideas for what’s causing the unrest in Baltimore:
— Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., appeared on Birmingham talk radio on April 28 to denounce illegal immigration and politicans who have leaned towards more lenient drug laws as “factors culminating in what we saw in Baltimore.”
— Rep. Bill Flores, R-Tex., went on a podcast program to discuss the Supreme Court case over gay marriage on April 29. Flores tied the lack of marriages “between a man and a woman” with “what is going on in Baltimore.”
— Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., called into on the Sam Malone Show on May 1 to discuss the “anarchy” in Baltimore. The host argued, “if there’s no one telling you about love of America and your neighbors, what do you expect” To which Kelly replied, “I’m with you.” The congressman continued, to those who say families in Baltimore “did not have a chance,” Kelly said, “give me a break,” before going on to blame the unrest in Baltimore on welfare programs.
While the protests engulfed the city of Baltimore, Congress worked diligently on other matters last week. Legislators, including Rep. Brooks, voted on legislation to boost taxpayer spending on fighter jets and missile systems well beyond what Pentagon planners had requested.
Canada passes controversial spook-powers law
The Canadian government has passed a controversial anti-terrorism Bill, designed to extend the powers of the country’s spy agencies.
The Bill was passed 183 votes to 93 yesterday and was introduced following the first terror attack on Canadian soil last October, in which a gunman attacked the country’s parliament, shot a soldier on cermonial guard duty and was subsequently killed himself.
The legislation will give Canada’s spooks the ability to operate overseas and make preventative arrests.
It says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will be able to take within and outside Canada “measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada, including measures that are authorised by the Federal Court”.
It will also enact the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which enhances the government information disclosure powers.
Stephen Blaney, minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, said:
“[Since] October 22, we have crafted measures that are specifically designed to face the international jihadi threat that our country is facing.”