The Commentariat -- June 8, 2013
The President's Weekly Address:
Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times: "The United States and China are economic competitors who face 'a whole range of challenges on which we have to cooperate,' President Obama said late Friday as he welcomed his Chinese counterpart to a two-day summit in this California desert town." ...
... Rory Carroll of the Guardian: "President Barack Obama has brushed aside the outcry over surveillance operations by the US government to tell China's President Xi Jinping he wants a world order where all countries play by the same rules on cybersecurity.
Glenn Greenwald & Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals. The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) 'can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging'". The directive is here. ...
... Max Fisher of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration, based on these documents, seems to see offensive cyber attacks as most appropriate when used to preempt a possible incoming attack. In this sense, their cyber doctrine bears a striking resemblance to Obama's case for the use of drone strikes, which he articulated in a recent speech." ...
... Nick Hopkins of the Guardian: "The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year. The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK." ...
... Josh Gerstein & Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama defended his administration's data-gathering programs Friday, calling them necessary for national security and well within the bounds of the law, and saying he believed his administration had 'struck the right balance' between privacy and security." ...
Oversight?
... (1) Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday disputed a claim President Obama made at a press conference only moments earlier, when the president said that every member of Congress had been briefed on the National Security Agency's (NSA) domestic phone surveillance program. Merkley said only select members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the program, and that he was only aware of it because he obtained 'special permission' to review the pertinent documents after hearing about it second-hand." ...
... (2) Burgess Everett & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Several Republican lawmakers said they had not been briefed on the Obama administration's classified programs to monitor cellphone and Internet traffic. That's in direct contradiction to President Barack Obama's assertion. The president said on Friday that 'every member of Congress' has been briefed on the programs led by the National Security Administration." ...
... (3) Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "Despite President Obama's reassurance today that there is strict oversight of the government's data collecting activities, the federal court meant to provide a check against such espionage overreach hasn't denied a single request in almost four years -- and rarely rebuffs intelligence agencies' desires to conduct electronic or physical surveillance -- records reveal."
... Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "A secret U.S. intelligence program to collect emails that is at the heart of an uproar over government surveillance helped foil an Islamist militant plot to bomb the New York City subway system in 2009, U.S. government sources said on Friday. The sources said Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, was talking about a plot hatched by Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born U.S. resident, when he said on Thursday that such surveillance had helped thwart a significant terrorist plot in recent years." ...
... David Sanger & Charlie Savage of the New York Times on Zazi & on the broader question of whether or not catching a few Zazis merits indiscriminate mining of communications. ...
... Larry Page & David Drummond of Google: "... we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government -- or any other government -- direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a 'back door' to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.... We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law." ...
... Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook: "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday." ...
... Henry Blodgett of Business Insider: "Most of the major companies have now explicitly denied participating in such a program. Apple, Facebook, and Google have denied all knowledge of it.... These denials are explicit, vehement, and detailed, and they do not leave much room for parsing (except by diehard conspiracy theorists).... The assertion that the country's biggest Internet companies are voluntarily giving the government direct open access to their user data in real-time looks increasingly like bunk. The Washington Post has now changed and hedged its original story. The 'direct access' claim is now just attributed to a government document that, at least on this score, is likely inaccurate." ...
... Actually, No. Claire Miller of the New York Times: "... Internet companies, increasingly at the center of people's personal lives, interact with the spy agencies that look to their vast trove of information -- e-mails, videos, online chats, photos and search queries -- for intelligence.... The ... government and tech companies work together.... Instead of adding a back door to their servers, the companies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations [between the government & the tech companies] said.... Details on the discussions help explain the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program and the companies' responses." Twitter refused to negotiate the government. ...
... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who helped draft the PATRIOT Act, is exploring options to narrow a provision of the law that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to obtain telephonic metadata on nearly all Americans. The comments are the first indication that Congress may act to restrict the government's ongoing data collection since the Guardian published a secret court order compelling Verizon to turn over its records on a 'on an ongoing daily basis' and the Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T and Sprint are also sending their records to the government.... Sensenbrenner indicated that he will draft legislation to 'change that part of the business records part of the Patriot Act before it expires in 2015' ... and will question FBI Director Robert Muller about the program when he appears before Congress next week. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also plans to offer a bill designed to close the 'business records' provision." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...
... Stephen Braun of the AP: "For years, top officials of the Bush and Obama administrations dismissed fears about secret government data-mining by reassuring Congress that there were no secret nets trawling for Americans' phone and Internet records. 'We do not vacuum up the contents of communications under the president's program and then use some sort of magic after the intercept to determine which of those we want to listen to, deal with or report on,' then-CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2006. But on Friday, President Barack Obama himself acknowledged the existence of such programs...." CW: perjury in the name of national security? ...
... CW: I agree with contributor P. D. Pepe: Alec MacGillis of The New Republic provides a refreshing perspective on all the hoo-hah, not that some of it isn't merited. ...
... He's a Constitutional Scholar! Gail Collins: "Do you remember how enthusiastic people were about having a president who once taught constitutional law? I guess we've learned a lesson."
... Charles Pierce: "Listen very closely, Mr. President, because I voted for you twice and, given the alternatives, I would do so again. OK? Here it is. I...don't...believe...you." ... Thanks to James S. for the link. ...
... Pierce again: "We are a less free people. We are a people who have decided, en masse, and through our choice of leaders, to be a less free people. We should at least own that, and not talk about "trading" things that were not ours to give away." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: Rand Paul = boy hero; Barack Obama = George W. Bush.
... Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama should end the broad surveillance of telephone calls and Internet usage, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said today ... in an interview on 'Political Capital with Al Hunt,' airing this weekend on Bloomberg Television.... Manchin, 65, also indicated that Attorney General Eric Holder, who has been criticized for targeting news organizations, among other issues, should consider resigning." ...
... David Firestone of the New York Times: "What the public never learns is how many of those patterns [the NSA searches] lead to wiretaps of innocent citizens. The Guardian reported that the Internet-search program, known as PRISM, results in 2,000 further reviews of messages every month, which means that government investigators read the actual contents of tens of thousands of messages. That number undoubtedly includes many false hits on people who were not communicating about terrorist plots. But even in the unlikely case that the government never eavesdrops on the wrong people, the cost to civil liberties is still too high. The tiny chance of a useful match cannot justify collecting everyone's phone records, or running searches on millions of e-mail messages and Internet chats." ...
... Philip Ewing of Politico: "The National Security Agency pushed for the government to 'rethink' the Fourth Amendment when it argued in a classified memo that it needed new authorities and capabilities for the information age. The 2001 memo, later declassified and posted online by George Washington University's National Security Archive, makes a case to the incoming George W. Bush administration that the NSA needs new authorities and technology to adapt to the Internet era."
Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune: "Federal prosecutors urged today that former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. be sent to prison for four years and his wife, Sandi Jackson, be incarcerated for 18 months. In making the recommendation, prosecutors suggested the prison terms could be structured so that the Jacksons, who have two children ages 9 and 13, are not behind bars at the same time. Prosecutors asked that Sandi Jackson be imprisoned first."
** Chumpbait. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "... a lot of editorialists at the [Bradley] Manning trial, who have decided that the 'real story"'in the Manning case is what this incident showed about our lax security procedures, our lack of good due diligence in vetting the folks we put in charge of our vital information.... If you can convince the American people that this case is about mental state of a single troubled kid from Crescent, Oklahoma, then the propaganda war has been won already.... This case is entirely about the 'classified' materials Manning had access to, and whether or not they contained widespread evidence of war crimes. This whole thing, this trial, it all comes down to one simple equation. If you can be punished for making public a crime, then the government doing the punishing is itself criminal.... The debate we should be having is over whether as a people we approve of the acts he uncovered that were being done in our names."
For those of you who think AG Eric Holder is "just right" in his representation of the Obama administration, David Ignatius of the Washington Post disagrees: "The problem with Holder is the plain fact that, in the judgment of a wide range of legal colleagues, he has been a mediocre attorney general. Holder's mistakes in management and judgment are clear in the current controversy about leak investigations. He was silent as zealous prosecutors overrode the Justice Department's guidelines for subpoenaing reporters; he recused himself from the case but bizarrely doesn’t seem to have kept a written record of the recusal; and he failed utterly to anticipate the political flap that erupted when Justice informed the Associated Press that it had collected the call records for more than 20 phone lines." (Links original.) CW: Read the whole column. I'm with Ignatius. Holder has always blown with the wind, & (except as evidenced by his tepid & tardy pushbacks against 2012 voter suppression efforts, which could easily be seen as simply pragmatic) he doesn't seem to have any strongly-held principles. A cynic might think President Obama chose him because of his shortcomings, not in spite of them.
Air Force Damage Control. Hayes Brown of Think Progress: "The Air Force on Friday announced that it had named a woman to head its troubled Sexual Assault Prevention program, herself a much higher rank than the former director who was himself arrested on charges of sexual assault. Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward was named the new director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office within the Air Force on Friday afternoon.... According to her official biography, Woodward has served in the Air Force since 1983...." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.
Ellen Sturtz, in a Washington Post op-ed, explains why she heckled Michelle Obama. "... it's been almost 40 years since similar legislation to ENDA was first introduced in Congress. And being polite hasn't gotten us any closer to it becoming a reality." She writes that when Obama said, "Right now, today, we have an obligation to stand up for those kids," she (Sturtz) felt she had to speak up for LGBT kids. Also, she adds that the First Lady is always asking for money from LGBT groups, so the government should pay up by providing them more protection.
Ed Kilgore provides three reasons why Republicans and conservatives obsess over ObamaCare. "Given their premises about government and their very low opinion of their own country, the Obamacare Derangement Syndrome makes abundant sense for conservatives." CW: there's a 4th reason that Kilgore doesn't mention: they're afraid it will be as successful & popular as Social Security & Medicare. Here again, they're probably right.
No Strategy. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: Republican Senators are "all over the map" in their reactions to President Obama's three nominations for the D.C. Circuit Court.
News Ledes
Reuters: "The Ohio man accused of kidnapping three women and holding them captive in his Cleveland home for a decade will plead 'not guilty' to several hundred charges that also include rape and aggravated murder, his attorney said on Saturday. Former school bus driver Ariel Castro was indicted on Friday on 329 criminal counts in connection with the imprisonment of Gina DeJesus, 23, Michelle Knight, 32, and Amanda Berry, 27. The women were freed from Castro's house on May 6."
KTVK Phoenix: "A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his father at a home in Prescott Valley Friday, according to a spokesman for the Prescott Valley Police Dept. Police have identified the victim as 35-year-old Justin Stanfield Thomas of Phoenix, a military veteran who served in the Army Special Forces. Detectives say he and his son were from Phoenix and they were visiting a friend at that home. The boy found a gun in the living room and accidentally shot his father."
AP: "Former South African President Nelson Mandela is in 'serious but stable' condition after being taken to a hospital to be treated for a lung infection, the government said Saturday, prompting an outpouring of concern from admirers of a man who helped to end white racist rule."
AP: "The FBI says a Texas< woman admitted sending ricin-tainted letters to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but only after trying to pin it on her husband. Shannon Guess Richardson was charged Friday with mailing a threat to the president. The federal charge carries up to 10 years in prison.... No charges have been filed against her husband. His attorney says the couple is divorcing and the letters were a setup."
Reuters: "Police on Saturday were investigating what prompted a man dressed in black to embark on a string of shootings in the beach community of Santa Monica, killing four people before police gunned him down in a community college library. Five other people were wounded in the shooting rampage, which unfolded just a few miles from where President Barack Obama was speaking at a political fundraiser elsewhere in Santa Monica.... The bloodshed did not appear to be related to Obama's visit to Santa Monica and the Secret Service called it a 'local police matter.'" ...
... AP Update: "The gunman who went on a chaotic rampage killing four people before being fatally shot by police at a college campus planned the attack and was capable of firing 1,300 rounds of ammunition, the police chief said Saturday."
AP: "Soaking rains that spawned numerous flood warnings pushed some streams and creeks over their banks throughout the Northeast, yet the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season sped up the Eastern Seaboard without causing major damage. Andrea was centered over eastern Long Island in New York by 5 a.m. Saturday, with winds of 45 mph, and flood warnings were in effect for parts of New England. The storm was expected to reach Canadian waters by Sunday."
Reuters: "Syrian government troops backed by Hezbollah guerrillas seized the western village of Buwayda on Saturday, extinguishing final rebel resistance around the town of Qusair in a fresh success for President Bashar al-Assad. The swift fall of Buwayda came just three days after rebels were swept out of Qusair, denying them a previously important supply route into neighboring Lebanon and giving renewed momentum to Assad's forces battling a two-year civil war."
Share Article
Reader Comments (6)
OMG sexy jihads at NSA.
Now that we've got the spooks' attention, Charles Pierce at his best:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mr-obamas-war-060713
@Ak: Don't know how to say "go fuck yourself "in farsi, but in
Italy we were told that many times by twenty something year old cops
who would lounge around the piazzas leaning on their sports cars
daring anyone to make a pass, (or hoping?). It's "va la scopata
voi stessi" in Italy.
Forrest,
"Va la scopata voi stessi"?
Sounds like an aria from a Rossini opera. And it sounds eminently more civilized than the retort of my Sicilian friends, "Va fungool"
If you had been in a German speaking country I would think perhaps it might have come from something like "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail" because Mozart was at least as salacious as the Italians, but maybe it's a line from some obscure Commedia Dell'Arte.
Hope, as they say, "springs" eternal. In any language.
After reading and listening to this outcry over the surveillance that is being denied by the surveillors, I finally read something that makes sense to me. Alec MacGillis' piece in The New Republic:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113413/nsa-spying-scandal-could-cleanse-america-post-911-mindset
Remember the scene in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" when Spencer Tracy arrives home and his maid says, "All hells done break loose!" ? Seems to me that's what's happened here. We need to gather ourselves together and calmly get to the bottom of all this before we go off half cocked and accuse whomever for whatever before we know what the hell has done broke loose, if anything.
I must mention something I saw the other night while watching some of the IRS Conference Spending hearings. I came upon a Trey Gowdy, (chairman of the hearing) a republican from S.C. who was addressing the poor, sad Mr. Fink, the Inspector General of the IRS. Gowdy, a strange looking man resembling in part a character that could very well play one of the walking dead dudes, was giving what sounded like a lecture to poor, sad Mr. Fink in a voice, I swear, that sounded like a Baptist minister giving a sermon on the evils of excess and sin. And when he was finished he licked his lips almost as if he had just finished devouring a tasty dish. Poor Mr. Fink sank deeper into his chair and I imagine wished to hell he had NEVER played Spock or danced in a line or....
Heres a take on what Prism is, or isn't, or could be: http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/technology/security/nsa-data-prism/index.html
As I said yesterday, if you're worried about government surveillance, that horse got out of the barn a long time ago. To quote Ben Franklin:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
At the risk of repeating myself, IMO, the so-called PATRIOT Act was one of the most despicable things congress ever did
Well, I didn't know this! Every single piece of mail?
"Ricin Suspect Was Tracked Via Mail Scanners
Feds: Postal Service photographs every piece of mail it processes" — http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/woman-arrested-for-obama-bloomberg-ricin-letters-687435
@PD Good article from New Republic. Oh, & Trey Gowdy, had to check him out. Usually read the bios for individuals I don't know...and then view their images (à la Google) to see what the person looks like. Must say, Mr. Gowdy appears to affect more hairdos than Madonna!