The administration has released a heavily redacted opinion of the FISA court (FISC) from 2011 that found some of the NSA’s activities to be unconstitutional. In part, this is in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but it’s primarily aimed at countering the idea that the FISC is a toothless rubber stamp.
In that effort, the administration has been only partially successful. It’s true that they’ve demonstrated that the FISC is willing and able to stop practices that intrude on our right to privacy, but they had to admit that our privacy had been violated in order to do it, and the hostile newspaper headlines emphasize the latter point rather than the former. That’s a news management problem, but the bigger concern is that the court ruling expressed dissatisfaction with the candor of the Intelligence Community, as well as the court’s ability to conduct adequate oversight.
If the idea is that the FISC is not toothless, we may be satisfied to a small degree but we now know that it is in need of substantial dental work.
As a result, this welcome gesture at transparency does little to mitigate the sting of seeing Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison. That Manning earned himself some jail time is beyond legitimate dispute, but the proportional disparity between his punishment and the punishment received by people whose crimes Manning revealed is impossible to reconcile. Assuming some period of good behavior, Manning’s sentence should be substantially reduced.
Edward Snowden is a more complicated case. It’s easy to make the argument that his leaks have made these revelations possible and therefore argue that he deserves complete whistleblower protection. But it is very troubling that he took a job with Booz Allen with the express purpose of gathering and leaking classified information, and there needs to be a thorough investigation of what he’s been sharing with the Russians (and before them, the Chinese). At this point, we don’t have enough information to know how he should be treated, but there are mitigating factors that should work in his favor.
FISC is willing and able to stop practices
FISC has no power to actually stop the practice, they only issue a ruling, which was immediately ignored and the NSA continued business as usual.
There is the rub.
I’m not seeing that in the reporting.
And this is where the critics of the NSA lose me. There are reforms and oversight necessary. In this case, the NSA was scooping up tens of thousands of US emails along with millions of international emails. It eventually changed.
That’s oversight designed to protect US civil liberties.
But it will never be enough. Merkeley-Widen won’t be enough. Independent auditors won’t be enough.
When does the reflexive and complete mistrust of national security operations becomes the same as Teabagger’s reflexive and complete mistrust of social welfare programs?
It will never be enough for whom?
Not all NSA critics are arguing for the same thing.
Over at the GOS, there is a diarist named Vyan who actually writes about the details of the NSA operations and discussed possible fixes, and I have to tell you, in the comment threads, you can’t even tell the “critics” from the “defenders.” There is a high level of consensus about the types of changes that are needed. Sure, there are some people who continue to scream “Big Brother! Obama betrayed us!” or “Terror Terror Terror! I have no problem with any of this,” but when it comes down to what we should actually do, they are few and far between.
This is so perfectly measured that it may be inaudible, B, but I appreciate it.
“Primarily aimed at?” The administration – well, the NSA and DoJ – fought to stop its release. I don’t think you can talk about the release as being “aimed at” anything.
Yes, it does knock down the “Rubber Stamp” talking point. That’s not an “aim,” that’s just what the decision shows.
There have been two different arguments made about the FISC as an inadequate overseer: 1) they are lapdogs lackeys who do whatever the NSA asks, and 2) the rules are rigged in favor of the applicant.
I see this release as knocking down that first argument – those judges look pretty feisty and arms-length to me – but bolstering the second point. There need to be some changes in the structure of FISA.
What power does FISA have to enforce its orders on NSA? Judge Reggie Walton, the head of the FISA Court, says that the FISA Court has to rely on NSA to provide the information that shows compliance.
Likewise, the Congressional Intelligence committees depend on NSA and the NSA IG to provide them information to permit oversight. And as Ron Wyden’s experience shows, actual questions outside of routine reports and lobbying of the committee are delayed in being answered and sometimes not answered at all.
NSA is giving its overseers on the FISA Court and in Congress what NSA wants them to see. That is a failure of oversight.
And NSA’s relationship with Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is too cozy to permit actual oversight.
Only additional information from the Snowden documents can clarify whether NSA actually obeyed this FISA Court order. Because it is clear that neither NSA, the FISA Court, the Congressional Intelligence committees, nor the Administration will be forthcoming about this.
And the text of the FISA Court order showed that in this case it never should have been classified in the first case and it never should have been hidden from Congress.
None. But the good news is that FISA isn’t wholly captured, and the fact that it has no power to enforce its orders clearly rankles. That’s not much, in terms of, y’know, actually changing anything. But at least it’s better than zero.
at the end of the day does any court really have the authority to enforce it’s rulings? It’s basically up to the executive to enforce court rulings
Mike Levine, ABC News: White House Picks Panel to Review NSA Programs
Michael Morell, recent acting head, CIA
Cass Sunstein, former White House aide
Peter Swire, former Chief Counsel for Privacy at OMB during Clinton administration and professor at Georgia Tech.
It is not an independent panel. And it’s purpose will not be to evaluate compliance with the law and the Constitution but “consider how we can maintain the trust of the people [and] how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse”. The key point of issue is the definition the panel uses of “abuse”. Otherwise “maintain the trust” just means “calm people down”.
Strange folks living in the Americas, longing to return to the times of King George of Great Britain and the Tower of London. The manner how the “progressive” blog community reacts to Manning and Snowden. These two patriots should get the appreciation so deserved.
George Bush raising the laws of the Old West to how Washington needs to operate: Patriot Act, NSA spynetwork, invasion of Iraq, torture, rendition, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, forced feeding prisoners, etc. Obama continues these laws with more vengeance. Who is Cass Sustein?
Extrajudicial killing of US citizen Al-Awlaki in Yemen (plus 2 other US citizens) and the war crimes of drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen. Who gets jailed for 35 years?
○ Support Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize
○ Toobin, CNN’s Shill for the Establishment/NSA his bio
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That’s what I said and wrote in a diary yesterday … Support Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize
Manning is going through a difficult phase in his life, I wish her well.
Give Manning Obama’s Peace Prize. I’d find that hilarious personally.
Riiight…
And which section of this self-interest powered government would you like to trust with that “thorough’ investigation, Booman?
Get real.
The Permanent Government cannot be trusted to investigate itself. Everybody is covering their ass, right up to and including the Boss of all Bosses, our Peace President. What do you expect them to do, ‘fess up to the plain facts that the checks and balances of this government are no longer working, that they have been superseded by a secret government that aims at nothing less than total control of its subjects?
Please.
If Snowden has “shared” with the Russians and Chinese, why do you think that this government would want that fact to be known? It would be a total embarrassment to them, yet another plain signal that their vaunted Ship of State is in reality just another fleet of leaky rowboats manned by clowns and fools with dedicated self-seekers at each and every helm.
Please.
There will be no “investigation.” Not one that we are allowed to know about, for sure. Not a real one. There will only be ass-covering, up to and including eventually disappearing Snowden…and Assange as well…as soon as the furor subsides if they have not covered their own asses sufficiently with even more damaging information held by many, many people, people who have been given instructions to let it all fly if the principals are in any way harmed.
Get real.
The Warren Commission was a template for this sort of foolishness.
What bullshit.
WTFU.
AG
Cass Sunstein’s qualification for appointment to the NSA review panel.
Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermule, “Conspiracy Theories”
The bolded area is where the controversy over Sunstein’s appointment will be. What is “cognitive infiltration” except organized psy-ops by the government? Just another form of marketing messaging but surreptitiously. How does that conspiracy defeat conspiracy theories?
Every time I post on Red State, I’m engaged in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups….
So you are not engaged in honest political conversation, you are engaged in marketing communications that aims at pushing the right buttons to win your points through any means necessary?
Or are you?
When they say something true, do you grant that it is true? When you say something true, do they?
The whole idea of cognitive infiltration is contrary to democratic discussion of ideas and policy. It is destructive of the political processes of a society when the right wing does it. It is destructive of the political processes of society when we do it. And it is especially destructive of the political processes of society when the government does it.
Conspiracy theories exist when there has been a record of untrustworthiness in a source of information, when the messages become stereotypical deflections of discussion, and when there is evidence of interested collaboration on the part of those who stand to gain from disinformation.
We have a government that is highly secretive, corporations that are highly secretive, and mainstream news media that have demonstrated their untrustworthiness. The result is a corresponding increase in conspiracies and in conspiracy theories. And all of these have been increasing since World War II and use of secrecy and propaganda in the national security services. In the 1950s, there were flying saucers (not even “Area 51” yet) and flouridation that were the source of conspiracy theories. And then the huge conspiracy theory of the “enemy within” propagated by J. Edgar Hoover and the right wing and supported by most of the government. And much secret stuff done in the name of the American people that has created catastrophic consequences we are still living with.
We were never consulted about any of that. Just stampeded through one crisis after another. And marketed to relentlessly.
Time for some honest political discussion instead of cognitive infiltration tricks.
Davis simply said he was posting. You made the jump to being dishonest and engaging in dishonest marketing.
The whole idea of cognitive infiltration is contrary to democratic discussion of ideas and policy.
For certain definitions of “cognitive infiltration” that you haven’t provided any reason to think that either Sunstein or Davis intended.
I think there might be a little projection going on here.
Actually a made the presumption otherwise and was snarkily challenging his assertion that he was practicing cognitive infiltration.
Have you actually read the Sunstein article? The full article makes it pretty clear what Sunstein intends, and I doubt that it is what Davis intends.
Sunstein is right about conspiracy theorists.
Did you see this?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/12/1230680/-Are-Sock-Puppets-Disrupting-Daily-Kos-Discussions?
detail=hide
So now dissenting opinions are routinely greeted with the response “Who do you work for? Who sent you?”
Did you see this?
You’re asking the wrong questions, Ray
Every federal agency has social media teams as part of it PR budget.
DoD has contracted for software that allows multiple online personas for a single operator.
The Smith-Mundt act prohibiting DoD propagandizing within the US has been repealed in the last defense appropriation act.
There were cases of sockpuppet security contractors who were outed on Twitter for trying to disrupt Occupy Wall Street tweets and responses and for trying to propagate malware.
There are corporate social media teams who are participating online without identifying their affiliations.
Not a conspiracy theory, just caveat lector.
But it would not surprise me if some government agencies or lobbying groups or corporations were using sockpuppets to do cognitive infiltration.
From what occurred on Twitter, the clues are that the arguments are un-nuanced, the behavior tends toward disruption, and the talking points are rote. But no doubt some operations will try a little sophistication as time passes.
“It wouldn’t surprise if…”
Great.
How did a fallacy so widespread not acquire a Latin tag?…
Because it is not a fallacy, it is an opinion. The proof of its falsity is to show that it is impossible for that to happen. My argument is that the motives, opportunities, and methods are there but there is no evidence that it has indeed occurred. One of the reasons there is no evidence is that it is inherently a surreptitious method aimed at dishonest conversation.
It is my opinion that it is only a matter of time when someone comes forward with evidence of at least corporate use of this tactic just because there are more corporate shops that could mess up and expose themselves. On the government side, it would be worth an independent investigation with folks predisposed to look for wrongdoing providing the questions to ask.
See, Davis, he’s being perfectly reasonable.
All you have to do to refute the claim that the NSA is sending sock puppets to disrupt Daily Kos comments threads is to demonstrate that it is physically impossible for that to happen.
But you can’t, can ya?
He’s really got you there.
See? Perfectly reasonable.
Only an independent investigation with sufficient powers and skepticism of government claims will be able to determine the issue. That is an empirical test.
And this controversy demonstrates precisely why secrecy is corrosive of democracy. Everyone who is not in the “holding the proper clearances” class has no concrete information about what is going on. And those with clearances cannot tell even when they see wrongdoing.
Given the past history of the NSA, “Trust us” doesn’t work anymore.
They’ll get to that right after they take care of the faked moon landing charge, I’m sure.
No, the existence of your sudden-onset delusional paranoia does not demonstrate anything about democracy.
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[Reposted from Monday August 19 …]
Why does Obama hate whistleblowers and investigative journalists? Recent diary @EuropeanTribune and covered here @BooMan …
Never again need to ask why Assange sought refuge in Ecuador Embassy in London, President Evo Morales will ask for MIG-29 travel companions, Snowdon decided to stay put in Moscow, more persons of interest will seek alternative ways to communicate.
“Of course I came across Cass Sunstein and see him as a “nutty” professor from Harvard who apparently has much influence on Barack Obama’s thinking. He also has worked in the Obama administration. I’m contemplating a diary on Barack Obama and Sunstein in relation to the harsh stance vs whistleblowers Manning/Snowden and investigative journalists.”
Cass Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule, Obama, and Conspiracy Theories by Lisa Pease
Also known as Real History Lisa, a blogger @BooMan.
A strange couple, Cass Sustein is married to Samantha Power, our new ambassador to the UN.
My post from a few days ago in diary – Bloggers pro-Obama and anti-Greenwald – A Distraction on Issue.
And I know, I’m a churl for even mentioning it, but it appears to me that Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras are all handling sensitive, classified documents far more carefully than the government that’s trying to retrieve these documents.
Okay, I’m gonna go sit in the corner now.