Comments (27)

Anonymous wrote on January 14, 2008 7:16 PM:

This Congress and President agreed to ignore the law and Courts. We need to discuss solutions; and get the Presidential candidates to comment on the oversight plan: It will be their job to embrace the reforms so these abuses do not continue. Need some answers, otherwise we're talking about a new system of oversight for the US government:

- What will be the oversight plan of McConnel's "larger vacuum"?

- Will there be an independent auditor in a fourth branch that will have independent power to monitor NSA, President, and contractors in their use of this technology?

- What is the plan of the candidate to support an NSA-like capability for an outside entity that will randomly sample, without notice, workproducts of the President, NSA contractors, and others to ensure they are complying with the statute in re data interception; and that the needed warrants are obtained?

- Is it the plan of the Presidential candidates to continue to support the Congressional rubber stamping of these illegal acts; if not, what does the candidate plan to outline with specifics their method to reform the failed oversight of NSA, DoJ, and DOD in re this electronic interception of US citizen data?

- Does the candidate support an NSA-like system for other entities to use to audit, monitor, and ensure legal compliance of the Executive Branch, to include the OVP's compliance with 32 CFR 2800; if not, what it their plan to ensure compliance audits are done to remedy these alleged violations of FISA?

- Why are Presidential papers -- allegedly related to war crimes -- "protected" but US citizen's communications are subject to ongoing monitoring; why isn't the reverse true: Automatic monitoring of the President's activities to ensure his compliance with the Constitution; and warrants for intrusion upon American citizens' data?

FMArouet wrote on January 14, 2008 7:18 PM:

Note that Mike McConnell has a long history in the data-mining business and in contracting out intelligence to the private sector. He is a former executive of Booz Allen Hamilton, which has been involved in data-mining contracts for the government. Here is one link:

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/12/mike_mcconnell_booz_allen_and_the

Remember Total Information Awareness, anyone?

McConnell wouldn't be steering lucrative contracts to his old buddies at Booz Allen Hamilton, would he? Nah. Of course not. How cynical of us. Surely the Bush Administration wouldn't do business that way.

No, we are not living in the world of "Nineteen Eighty-four." McConnell and the national security/corporatist surveillance state have already taken us way beyond Orwell's wildest imaginings.

M M wrote on January 14, 2008 7:19 PM:

Who in the Bush administration or intel community thinks this guy is an effective frontman for these policy goals? They need to provide a great deal more detail on the relative effectiveness of the Bush admin's surveilance and interogation program (and specific intel, specific interogations and specific plots averted) before I believe a guy who claims we've saved "tons" of people by stopping "tons" of plots. It would also help if he got his facts right about the use of FISA in pursuit of those who captured US soldiers in Iraq. Getting caught making it up to support your policy argument undermines everything else that comes out of your mouth and eliminates the very trust that you are asking (taking) from the American people.

Anonymous wrote on January 14, 2008 7:22 PM:

"My prediction is that we're going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens."

Congress _has_ "screwed" around with this, and something horrendous _has_ happened: The President and Congress have rubber stamped violations of FISA, ingnored the Consituton. This says nothing of the NSA-monitoring alleged to have started before 9-11.

It is absurd to give NSA more power to intercept all things, without addressing the failed oversight. AN impeachment investigation would give us the needed information to discuss the problem; and outline credible oversight remedies. No reason to trust the Congress, NSA, or President to "solve" this problem: They _are_ the problem.

McConnel is doing more of the "mushroom-cloud"-argument to get a rubber stamp. The public needs to get an independent system that will monitor the US government. It was supposed to be the warrants, but the US government ignored that requirement without changing the Constitution.

Maybe the ICC is the needed wakeup call: NSA-collected data appears to have been illegally used to implement war crimes. They want more unfettered power to do the same? ICC time.

PHB wrote on January 14, 2008 7:28 PM:

Privacy and security are not a zero sum game. Sorry for the eggregious plug but I just wrote a book to prove that point - The dotCrime Manifesto: How to Stop Internet Crime.

First, lets take a look at the biggest Internet related terror threat we face: terrorist fundraising. Like the ignition triangle (fire requires oxygen, fuel and a source of ignition), there is a triangle of terrorism: money, people, propaganda.

What distinguishes the terror threat from the wannabes is the money. Al Qaeda started with Bin Laden's milions and now lives off the opium trade. The IRA raised money from extortion rackets and their US NORAID fundraising opperation. The Baader Meinhof gang robbed banks. The Baader-Meinhof gang went into rapid decline after German banks stopped keeping the equivalent of a few million dollars on tap (today's money) at regular branches.

We can stop the money flow in plenty of ways that have no impact on privacy. In Europe the credit card companies have found that their fraud rates have dropped to practically zero after they deployed Chip and PIN. The residual frauds to date have all been targetting the transitional systems.

We can stop or at least severely reduce the cost of botnets by deploying reverse firewalls.

What we cannot do very effectively is to monitor the terrorists by warantless invasions of privacy. The terrorists can choose the country that they operate their computer systems in, they can use cryptography.

This appears to me to be a suggestion that we return to the 1990s when people like me who do Internet security had to worry about the US government loudly complaining that we might make the Internet too secure.

I know quite a bit about living in a society threatened by terrorism. I don't think McConnell really does. In the UK we tried all the anti-terrorism tactics that the US has adopted, from internment through to torture. Not only did they make the problem much worse, they generated sympathy for the terrorists. Rudy Giuliani was so sympathetic to the IRA he gave Gerry Adams a humanitarian award.

Meanwhile the Germans applied real policing methods, not short cuts. They put the terrorists on trial as common criminals, they broke public sympathy for them. They won the battle. The troubles ended in Ireland when the UK did likewise.

Anonymous wrote on January 14, 2008 7:45 PM:

McConnel is telling the US to put the cart before the horse: To grant more power, without ensuring the power is constrained nor attached to credible legal oversight. Congress and the President have shown they cannot be trusted, as the Framers well stated as reasons for a warrant, and prohibition against bill of attainder/ex post facto.

What's curious: There is "no time" for imeachment; but "plenty of time" to debate more power without oversight. Seems odd McConnel is arguing that there will be a large debate on _this_; but when it comes to understanding the problem -- impeachable offenses not reviewed by Congress -- "there is no time".

The FISA court is conducted in secret. The Framers intended power to be divided so there were checks, oversight, and power was not abused. The Framers intended for the warrants to be that oversight mechanism to ensure there was not a rush; that rights were protected; and that the monitoring/intrusions were reasonable.

- What's the reluctance of the NSA-President-Congress from using/working with the Judicial Branch?

- What is to prevent there from being "many FISA Courts" that _are_ staffed, supported, and secure to process _all_ the required warrants?

- Why do Congress-Executive, in secret, get to "agree" to ignore the Court; but there is nothing to remedy that exclusion; what's to say Congress and the President could not, in secret without oversight, agree to abrogate parts of the US Constitution and not enforce violations?

- Who is the Congress-Executive to assert only they can be trusted to do things in secret, but the courts cannot; why is the "trust us" as assumption government grants to itself without review, but that "trust us"-presumption does not exist for We the People?

- Without a full review of the alleged Congressional assent to these abuses, what's to say McConnel's "new solution" will not find another excuse to bypass the courts, oversight, or other regulations either in the contractor operating procedures, CFR, EO, statute, or the Constitution?

Billy Pilgrim wrote on January 14, 2008 7:51 PM:

Doesn't the Repuke party hire staff specifically for "opposition research?" Wouldn't a tool like this be handy-dandy for that? Could it possibly be used to hold the threat of blackmail over a timid legislator to force him/her to vote a certain way? Just wondering...

Rodney wrote on January 14, 2008 8:06 PM:

Makes sense. If you aren't doing anything wrong on the internet, then you don't have anything to hide, right? The Bush Administration should increase surveilance of the internet, and we should keep it secret so the bad guys don't know it. Who knows how many terrorists are out there on the internet searching for bomb making instructions, or porn, or abortion clinic info, or Bush's National Guard records, or Prescott Bush's links to Nazi's, or whatever. And to keep costs down, the whole operation could be outsourced to China where they already have mastered the internet control techniques. What am I thinking, this is the Bush Administration, so secret budget items are secret, so they cost nothing, so outsource the internet control operation to any company that donates heavily to the GOP.

Anonymous wrote on January 14, 2008 8:17 PM:

Rodney wrote on January 14, 2008 8:06 PM

Thank you for the satire. Indeed, your question is a problem for OVP: If they aren't doing anything wrong, why not let the public ensure compliance with 32 CFR 2800; and how does the US government explain the destruction of e-mail, records, backup tapes, and the CIA tape?

"Valuable information", if it is "valuable" should be protected. The President's problem is that he's asserted -- as a basis to hide evidence from FOIA discovery -- that the information is "valuable"; but his actions are not consistent with that assertion: Evidence was not retained; e-mail was not preserved; and tapes were destroyed. The court's problem is that it has said that "valuable" information can be protected; but not held the EOP-OVP-DoJ to account for failing to comply with the statutory requirements to protected that "valuable" information. It appears the information's "value" changed from deliberative notes to alleged evidence of war crimes, illegal activity, and unconstitutional conduct. One day it was shielded; the next destroyed. Why would backup systems that were supposed to enjoy executive privilege need to be destroyed? Perhaps WH Counsel feared those shields before the ICC might fail.

I would prefer balance: If the EOP-OVP-NSA want more power, then they need to assent to outside review of their compliance procedures; and be willing to permit greater court oversight of the warrants required. Yet, DoJ-NSA has a problem when it says "We have inadequate personnel" to process warrants; but those same DoJ Staff counsel are known to be spending government resources/time on non-official business.

paul wrote on January 14, 2008 8:33 PM:

It's even worse than McConnell's fantasy of complete internet surveillance: you'd have to give the government the right to ban the use of pretty much all forms of encryption, and to imprison anyone whose communications it had reason to believe might be cleverly encrypted in a form that mimicked ordinary data. Or perhaps just to deploy keystroke-logging software on everyone's computers...

And even that, of course, wouldn't do diddly to keep people safe, because the intercepts would (at best) be sitting on a desk somewhere waiting to be looked at and passed up through channels. But the plans sure do make enjoyable porn for the authoritarians.

Anonymous wrote on January 14, 2008 8:36 PM:

If NSA wants this additional power, the lawyers need additional leashes. It is absurd to entrust a "Debate" about FISA-NSA to the same crew advised by the same legal counsel that has failed us. Post 9-11 alleged legal complicity is stunning in re FISA, prisoner abuse, interrogation, surveillance, intrusions: Lawyers were the ones leading the efforts.

In secret, it was the lawyers devising ways to bypass the law. Despite their experience, education, and testing; and the reviews by the boards; and their CPE, the lawyers could not be trusted, as they should, to, in secret, fully defend the US Constitution and all Geneva obligations. The lawyers appear to have abused our trust; their oversight appears meaningless; and, in secret, the US government lawyers do not appear to have the needed support to fully assert their legal obligations to the US Constitution.

It's a shame when lawyers, even the best ones, are sullied with a black eye because the actions of a few. Yet, it was a few that led many to do nothing about illegal activity. The legal community showed us since 2001 it required outside pressure and oversight and questions to prompt it to act. That is not an effective "self-regulating" organization. Real FISA reforms require also a discussion of the legal consequences on government counsel for permitting, and not removing themselves from the illegal activity. Debating whether they should or should not be granted more power or capability distracts needed attention from those who will continue to abuse that power: Leadership moving without credible restraint by competent counsel.

If we're going to talk about granting more power to the NSA to do this, we need to have a parallel discussion over what reforms are needed in the legal community to ensure the legal requirements are enforced, even in secret, against those "trusted" with special responsibility and access. This legal community appears to have abysmally failed. Sadly, the JAGs, experts on the laws of war were ignored; and other legal experts marginalized on issues of FISA, warrants, and surveillance. There need to be known, obvious, visible, and meaningful consequences on counsel for their making excuses or working with another branch of government to ignore the law, bypass the courts, or in secret violate basic principles of the Constitution.

[Cross posted at TPMM on Pelosi/Contempt Citations, sorry for the duplicate; if one must be deleted, please delete from TPMM thread on Contempt citations ]

danger wrote on January 14, 2008 8:59 PM:

Rodney - In your rambling I figured something out: even with the way they design the operation, it'll probably end up going broke after a fixed period of time. The entire program could also essentially become obsolete too after a fixed amount of time.

Whatever it's a means to an ends of, I have no idea. But whatever system they have for surveillance, it can't stay profitable for them forever.

Dee Illuminati wrote on January 14, 2008 9:21 PM:

To PHB

I agree with you on this, I think that McConnell is another "all the eggs in one basket approach" to security is doing a disservice to security. If anything he is putting up a firewall to the competition of ideas, the free market of ideas, something that the US has always been succesful at exporting, ideas.

One of the most impressive speeches that George Tenet ever made was to Georgetown Unniversity where he said (paraphrased) that the CIA no longer has a monopoly on information and intelligence, that the internet was a two edged sword that could be used to advantage or dis advantage, and that it was an emerging challenge.

What gets me about the old politoboro type management of security, cold war thinking, is that it is based on some nebulous enemy, that similar to the Soviet Union, became themselves!

I guess that this signals the beginning of a 'dark ages' an inquisition of thought, a time when the assumption that all the worlds knowledge is static and that it can be collected and known, instead of seeing knowledge as unfolding and dynamic.

I bet McConnel is seeing technology from the perspective of bid-proposals, has not seen the movie The Lives of Others (original German: Das Leben der Anderen), or realize that communication is not a synchronous process, bet the guy would be challenged with reduction of certainty theory, or any bell labs nobel work.

I guess McConnel is taking the Musharreff approach to public policy, the peacock regime model of leadership, and telling those whom are worried about the success of their own policies that this is a solution, well we shall see.

I think that McConnell is an establishment appointee, but I have to wonder if he understands communication and the modern culture, or if he is innoculated in group think as he responds to challenge?

Sure McConnell, go ahead, regulate the internet, and watch the communication go elsewhere. The movements you seek to battle must be confronted in the marketplace of ideas, not chassing christians into the catacombs.

I find it appalling that these people attempt these things when globally we are under resource strain, we have government policy that inhibits solutions, promotes cronyism, and the populaces globally hold the system in contempt.

I would have found Tenet's understanding to the internet more realistic, Woolsey's approach to resources more pragmatic, and what did we get stuck with???

McConnell

Andrew wrote on January 14, 2008 11:00 PM:

All good arguments, but would real terrorists really care? They've probably gone back to using the U.S. mail to communicate. Damn, now I've done it. Now the gov't will probably go after that as well. Do these people really work to protect us, or spend the better part of they waking hours coming up with ideas like McConnels? Incredibile where this country has gone in seven short years and equally sad.

Jon H wrote on January 14, 2008 11:14 PM:

If the government is able to get all your email, it'll look that much more credible if they claim to have incriminating evidence, and they're more likely to be able to manufacture incriminating evidence.

And I don't much care for the idea that people who jail citizens indefinitely without representation, and who torture, can be trusted with this kind of data access.

GMFORD wrote on January 14, 2008 11:18 PM:

This notion that all the domestic spying the Bush administration is doing has saved us from certain doom doesn't ring true. These are the characters that parade every lunatic they 'capture' who says he has wants to blow up something before the American public as a big deal.

Should I really believe that they have quietly captured people with both the plan and the means to do us harm without using these people to boost their poll numbers? Well, I am not convinced.

JohnJ wrote on January 15, 2008 12:45 AM:

Sorry to be cynical but, this is the beginning-of-the-end of the internet as a place for us unwashed masses to communicate.

The biggest enemy of government control is when the rest of us can talk about it and compare notes.

There was no need for instant communication between the 9/11 people; they came months in advance, walking past our sleeping security, ignored by the agencies we pay to stop that sort of thing. The poor agencies were distracted while they squabbled amongst themselves (over more territory to be incompetent in). The only "instant" thing the terrorists needed was money, which sytem the banks already had in place, without the 'net.

How would reading my e-mail stop that from happening again?

The only thing that has saved us from a total overthrow of our Government so far is the fact that we can talk amongst ourselves. Think how much worse (??) it would be right now if whistleblowers only had the corporate owned media to take their story to. I remember that last line of the "Six days of the condor". When Robert Redford thinks he just saved himself and righted a wrong by going to the newspaper with his story, the bad guy meets him outside and asks "but will they print it"? Would the Corp. Media have acknowledged half these scandals if there wasn't the threat (& reality) of getting scooped by dirty f'in bloggers?

It must really piss these people off; just after they got total control of our "news" services, along comes that pesky internet constantly exposing things they had already paid to keep quiet.

A retired CIA friend of my dad's told me that more than 80% of all material is classified to cover someone's incompetence or crime. In this administration, that's generous.

danger wrote on January 15, 2008 1:19 AM:

I still want to know who could have leaked them the intelligence about the military exercise that day, JohnJ.

Bert wrote on January 15, 2008 3:11 AM:

I don't think there's been 'privacy' since the 1970's, and frankly, I don't care, but I WOULD appreciate it if that black helicopter and the guy with the trench coat would stop following me all the time, people are starting to talk...
yes, the dark sunglasses and the fedora in the movie theater are kind of conspicuous, not to mention poolside, and that helicopter makes a LOT of noise, neighbors are complaining...and for the last time, I DON'T KNOW where the Maltese Falcon is, so STOP ASKING, ALREADY! Make your OWN stock picks, and stop trying to steal my inventions and send them to china...

Al in Austex wrote on January 15, 2008 4:32 AM:

PHB @ 14 January 7:28PM -
Thank you for your insight into fighting terrorism as a criminal matter . Many of the same techniques that you laid out where being used by Mary Jo White et al in going after the first WTC bombers, in the previous admininstration - and several convictions followed.
Gitmo & the rest actually does make us less safe. And frankly I am more afraid of Dick Cheney with his loose nukes then I am afraid of UBL ... especiallly in the context of Dubya's recently denouncing the Iranian NIE behind closed doors with Olmert.
And egragious plugs that can teach me something ar always welcomed - I will look for your book -
PS.. and weren't the perps at Omagh - the "Real IRA " recently sent away for a long jail term ?

Dee Illuminati wrote on January 15, 2008 9:54 AM:

Reading over this blog and thinking about the comment 'zero sum' I have to come to the conclusion that comments such as that come from 'zero sum' thinking. And that 'zero sum' thinking leads to 'zero sum' policy that is at odds with democracy and in fact business.

I'm sure that there are segments of the economy that applaud these proposals, but when you consider what is happening one has to ask, could Ron Paul have imagined a better campaign issue? When one attempts to understand the motivation behind the disenfranchising of elements of societies, be they Islamic or Christian, in the United States or in Pakistan, or what is at the root of these 'mass movements' in a Hoffer sense, it is the categorical statements and acts where 'zero sum' thinking precludes constructive participation or hope.

What this type of thinking implies is that we will marginalize all of the intelligensia in our society, that we will make a loud and clear statement that 'values and ideals', the stuff that inspiration and motivation is made of, is 'fixed' and static.

It certainly didn't take the internet to overthrow Marcos, Peacock regime, Pinochet, and other historical regimes that thought in the 'zero sum' parlance.

In fact, this 'zero sum' thinking is an indicator of how bad things currently are, it is an indicator that other more fundamental issues are at stake and that the zero sum response is an unwillingness to address them.

Beyond the reading of what somebody is reading, or access to it, that illustrates the circumstance in the movie "The lives of others" where at a certain juncture, the police themselves see the dissonance, when no pretense is left to social goals, and zero sum thinking either fails from within or there is the creation of a state similar to North Korea, Pol Pott Cambodia, or similar regimes that last for but awhile, and then are regarded as the failed piriahs that they are historically.

When I consider the leadership potential of the position of NID, I see an opportunity to a call to action in areas where innovation and participation would allow commonality, as an example: James Woolsey has encouraged tomorrows leaders today to get involved in Energy issues, challenged them to seek solutions, and enter upon the road of understanding dillemas and tradeoffs themselves.

I see some indication of a similar message from Obama, and a reactionary response from Ron Paul, and I see leadership abdicating to the 'lowest common denominator' instead of promoting a vision that can be broadly accepted by a society.

The 'lowest common denominator' approach to management, 'zero sum thinking' are key indicators that mangement themselves have one of two core beliefs, that they themselves have a low confidence in their agendas of mangement, or they have a low confidence in their organization.

I'm never a blame America first individual, but will say again and again, the difference between Peter Pace stating that: "US soldiers will prevent and report torture when they encounter it in Iraq" and Donald Rumsfeld's "statements" illustrate the differences between the above 'zero sum' thinking.

Donald Rumsfeld was a 'policy person' and as such was myoptic to leadership and management, his zero sum beliefs, led this nation to military dissaster as A CONSEQUENCE of his beliefs.

Peter Pace on the other hand, offered a vision and a value that all could participate in, a value that transcended cultures, a value of non-zero sum thinking.

The saddest part of what McConnell advocates is not the ability of myself and others to 'educate' those whom might read our email, but instead the zero sum thinking in a inter related world, zero sum thinking in regard to his own society and ideals, shows that he has little confidence in his own plans and beliefs and that as a desperate last resort is now advocating zero sum policies.

zero sum policies = force and coersion

the last desperate act of a limited mind is violence

McConnel doesn't seem adequately equipped to fight in the market place of ideas, and similar to Rumsfeld has opted instead to promote 'zero sum' ideas that people universally reject.

The worst part of all of this?

Is at a very subconcious level McConnell knows this to be true.

walrus wrote on January 15, 2008 11:21 AM:

How come the government wants to look over our communication records, but they do not want us to look over theirs? When the public/congress wants access to there internal emails/records they are denied, or the info is deleted.

What a Dual Standard.. impeach the crooks!!

Remote Exploit wrote on January 15, 2008 11:50 AM:

DHS can't hire information security people... yet despite this dearth of subject matter expertise, what they're NOT doing is going out to those that DO know and enlisting them to help build a policy and program that will work. As the CISO of a target-rich US City and I can tell you that the howling is just getting started.

This will not end well.

Scott L wrote on January 15, 2008 11:53 AM:

Sure sounds like we are heading to putting notes in pouches and having them hand delivered if you want to stay privite. Another great selling point for our way of life around the world.

paul wrote on January 15, 2008 12:50 PM:

Of course, another side of this is that statements like McConnell's are mostly meant to shut down any sensible debate about information security. Everyone who objects to his nutbar gets branded as a traitor or a naif, and then letting the government monitor only a randomly-sampled 25% of the internet seems like a great victory for the forces of liberty...

Sometimes I think this administration and its surrogates propose stupid things that they would never actually want to do, just so they can use any opposition as an electoral truncheon. If they proposed burning down every building within 50 miles of the border to prevent illegal immigration, you know that anyone objecting would get accused of wanting terrorists to infiltrate our country.

melior wrote on January 15, 2008 6:41 PM:

My prediction is that they're going to screw around with this until we fire their brownshirt asses.

Roberta wrote on January 15, 2008 10:05 PM:

Can someone answer this multi-part question for me?

I know that much of what McConnell is pushing relies on programming that can sort through all of our communications in order to trap us Commies, I mean Islamofascists, but where do all the people who then read and interpret this data come from?

Are these the same geniuses who got fooled by the circular validation of Niger's yellow cake situation, when they were told by other "intelligence" agencies that the evidence was bogus?

Or maybe they're perhaps some of the same crew that oversees the equipment for the military and sends ineffective flak jackets and "armored" vehicles that don't protect the occupants over to Americans fighting their war in Iraq.

Or maybe they're a bunch chosen for their paranoid tendencies, trained by the proponents of the neocons' "one-percent" doctrine to find what they're looking for even though it's not there?

And who will round all of us up, including the soldiers overseas who still have email access and express dismay in personal letters about the wretched conditions and futile war in which they're trapped? The Blackwater boys?

On the one hand, I can see homages to Three Stooges shorts as inept technicians make a botch of yet another aspect of US "security," while on the other I can see hyper-effective social misfits and zealots who see subversive messages in every emoticon setting in motion roundups that turn Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale into a how-to guide.

Can we hold out until January 2009? Can we make sure that the person who is elected can not only set the country on a corrective course but also repudiate programs like this as well as those people who devised and implemented them?