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Comey Admits He Orchestrated Leaks To New York Times
Posted: June 8, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Democratic Party (United States), Director of National Intelligence, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Donald Trump, Donald Trump presidential campaign, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, President of the United States, RUSSIA, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Leave a commentKevin Daley writes: Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that he orchestrated the leak of a memorandum detailing his private interactions with President Donald Trump during testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday morning.
“I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter,” Comey said. “I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons.”
He added that he did so in hopes that his account might spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump campaign’s contacts with elements of the Russian government, and any subsequent cover up.
The leak to The New York Times’ Michael Schmidt appears to have come by way of Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law School professor and close friend of the former director. The New Yorker describes Richman as Comey’s “unofficial media surrogate.”
Comey told Maine GOP Sen. Collins that he transmitted the memos to TheNYT through a friend at Columbia Law School.
At the hearing’s conclusion, the president’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, told reporters that Comey conceded to making unauthorized disclosures to undermine the president. Read the rest of this entry »
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY: Faithless Electors Less Faithful to Clinton
Posted: December 19, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, History, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Colin Powell, Democratic Party (United States), Director of National Intelligence, Donald Trump, Electoral College, Electoral College (United States), Faithless elector, Hillary Clinton, James R. Clapper, Nancy Pelosi, President of the United States, Republican Party (United States), The New York Times Leave a commentTRUMPAGEDDON 2.0: For all of the hype about electors switching their vote from reports, the majority of those electors who cast protest votes were supposed to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Salena Zito reports: Electoral College voters who were faithless on Monday were more upset with Hillary Clinton‘s candidacy than that of President-elect Trump.
For all of the hype about electors switching their vote from reports: Trump to anyone but Trump, the majority of those electors who cast protest votes were supposed to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Four electors in Washington state who were supposed to vote for Clinton instead voted otherwise: three for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one for a Native American leader. In contrast, just two electors in Texas voted against Trump.
More Dem electors defecting than Republicans in Electoral College https://t.co/GTK81LKO2p pic.twitter.com/uboVY36AYK
— The Hill (@thehill) December 19, 2016
The rules vary by state. In 29 states, electors are legally bound to vote for the winner of their state. The rest are not.
Voters who fail to vote the will of their state are known as faithless electors. “That occurrence is nothing new,” said Paul Sracic, a Youngstown State University political scientist and expert in the electoral college. “There have been approximately 157 electors have done just that in the past 200 plus years.” Read the rest of this entry »
This is James Clapper ‘Feelin’ Pretty Good’
Posted: November 17, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Terrorism, U.S. News | Tags: 2016, Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, House Intelligence Committee, James Clapper, The Washington Examiner, United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 1 CommentDuring a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Clapper said he “felt pretty good” about the decision…(read more)
Source: Washington Examiner
[VIDEO] Krauthammer: ‘Hard to Deny That There Is a Quid Pro Quo’ between the FBI and State Department
Posted: October 17, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Freedom of Information Act (United States), Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton email controversy, Jason Chaffetz, United States Congress, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of State 1 Comment
Charles Krauthammer said that newly released documents show that the FBI’s coordination with the State Department on the Hillary Clinton case indicates corruption.
“There are so many ironies here. The first is that this is probably normal procedure inside any administration, inside a bureaucracy: trading off favors, trading off probably shady maneuvers. But the problem is this — the charge that Republicans, Trump in particular, are making against Hillary Clinton is precisely that she represents business as usual. You can defend Clinton and say saying ‘Oh, this goes on all the time,’ but that’s the point. They are trying to wipe away this sort of culture of corruption. It is hard to deny that there is a quid pro quo, or at least one was proposed, when the phrase ‘quid pro quo’ is used to describe the transaction in the documents.”
“This is the ‘camera and sausage’ factor. I don’t think that we should be shocked that this happens in any bureaucracy, but once you see it in black in white, and you hear the charge that Clinton represents business as usual — and corrupt business as usual — that, I think, accentuates the charge, and makes it a very serious one.”
[VIDEO] James Comey Explains Cheryl Mills’ Immnuity, Why She Was Able to Sit in on Hillary Clinton’s Interview
Posted: September 28, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Cheryl Mills, Democratic Party (United States), Director of National Intelligence, Email investigation, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hillary Clinton, Immunity, James Comey, James R. Clapper, John O. Brennan, The Pantsuit Report, video, Washington Free Beacon 1 Comment

On Capitol Hill, Directors James Comey of the F.B.I., John O. Brennan of the C.I.A. and James R. Clapper Jr. of national intelligence. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images
‘Trust Us With More Data,’ Say Government Agencies Hacked By A 16-Year-Old
Posted: February 20, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, Self Defense | Tags: AOL, Central Intelligence Agency, Computer Misuse Act 1990, Director of National Intelligence, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, East Midlands, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James R. Clapper, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Department of Justice 1 CommentTim Cushing writes: We live in a world where a 16-year-old who goes by the handle of “penis” on Twitter can dive into the servers of two of America’s most secure federal agencies and fish out their internal files.
This 16-year-old is allegedly part of the same crew that socially engineered their way into the inboxes of CIA director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the administration’s senior advisor on science and technology, John Holdren.
We also — somehow — live in a world where these same agencies are arguing they should be entrusted with massive amounts of data — not just on their own employees, but on thousands of US citizens.
The DHS, FBI and NSA all want more data to flow to them — and through them. The cybersecurity bill that legislators snuck past the public by attaching it as a rider to a “must pass” appropriations bill contains language that would allow each of these affected agencies to partake in “data sharing” with private companies. This would be in addition to the data these agencies already gather on American citizens as part of their day-to-day work.
The DHS — one of the more recent hacking victims — is the only agency that expressed a reluctance to partake in the new data haul. This isn’t because it wouldn’t like to have access to the data, but because it would be the agency responsible for “scrubbing” the data before passing it on to other agencies. DHS officials likely took a look at this requirement and saw it for what it was: a scapegoat provision. Should any legal action or public outcry have resulted from the new “sharing” demands, the DHS would have been the agency offered up to appease the masses.
[Read the full story here, at Techdirt]
Fortunately for the DHS — but less fortunately for anyone concerned about expanding domestic surveillance efforts — this requirement has been altered. A bit. The Attorney General will now examine the DHS’s “scrubbing” efforts and determine whether or not they’re Constitutionally adequate. Of course, the Attorney General is more likely to side with whatever level of scrubbing provides the maximum flow of data to underling agencies like the FBI, so that’s not all that reassuring. On the other hand, it puts the AG in the crosshairs should something backfire.
This is the government that feels it can protect the nation from hackers: the government that can’t protect itself from hackers. Read the rest of this entry »
Out of Touch: Obama Stubbornly Opposing American National Security Interests; House Passes Refugee Bill in Defiance of Veto Threat
Posted: November 19, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Law & Justice, Self Defense, Terrorism, White House | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James R. Clapper, John Kerry, Michael McCaul, Refugees of the Syrian civil war, United States, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States House Committee on Homeland Security, United States Office of Personnel Management 1 CommentJack Martinez reports: “National security and public safety are not simply factors to be considered,” in policy decisions said Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina representative who heads the House Special Committee on Benghazi, during debate over a refugee bill in the House of Representatives. Instead, he argued, they are the main issues, the most important issues that should be considered in making every decision.
That appears to the be the rationale behind HR 4038, a bill authored by Republican Michael McCaul of Texas and backed by Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the House. Debate raged on for hours over the bill, which ultimately passed with votes from all but three Republican representatives, and 48 Democrats.
The bill, if signed into law, would introduce new checks on refugee admission into the United States. Under current policy, defined mostly by the Refugee Act of 1980,the State Department has broad discretion to determine refugee admission and resettlement, in consultation with the FBI. Congressional Republicans want the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security to play a greater role; the law would require all three entities to approve each individual refugee admitted to the United States after conducting background checks.
The bill does not contain any specific provisions for what the new vetting would look like, nor how it would differ from current vetting, but it does emphasize that the new measures would apply to refugees from Syria and Iraq. One house Democrat characterized the vote as purely symbolic, a way of “patting ourselves on the back” without making any policy changes to ensure the safety of the American public. Others expressed concern about a growing anti-refugee sentiment on Capitol Hill, and the likelihood that the bill would effectively pause resettlement efforts, or otherwise severely hamper them. Read the rest of this entry »
Ed Snowden Signed Up for Twitter, Follows One Account: the NSA
Posted: September 29, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Global, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Director of National Intelligence, Edward Snowden, Moscow, National Security Agency, RUSSIA, Twitter, United States, Verizon Wireless 1 CommentEdward Snowden, the world’s most famous whistleblower, has joined Twitter, announcing his presence on the social media platform with a reference to a once ubiquitous Verizon Wireless advertising campaign. In the aftermath of his disclosures, it’s a not so subtle dig at American intelligence collection.
After providing a group of journalists with a trove of classified NSA documents in 2013, Snowden initially tried to stay out of the public eye, maintaining a fairly low profile in Moscow. He granted hardly any interviews and kept himself out of the news in an apparent effort to keep public attention focused on the substance of his disclosures.
Can this man look anymore self-righteous? pic.twitter.com/aSRrKDOxpY
— Christine Sisto (@ChristineSisto) September 29, 2015
But in the last year or so, Snowden has taken on a more public profile, appearing frequently at conferences and granting occasional interviews….(read more)
Source: Foreign Policy
THE PANTSUIT REPORT: Invasive Clinton Probe to Get More Uncomfortably Invasive
Posted: August 11, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bill Clinton, Bob Corker, Cheryl Mills, Chuck Grassley, Clinton Foundation, Director of National Intelligence, Doug Band, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, John Kerry, Nuclear program of Iran, Richard Burr, United States Department of State, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 1 CommentClassified emails discovered on the server Clinton maintained at her New York home contained material more sensitive than previously known.
WASHINGTON – Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor, and Greg Gordon report: As pressure builds on Hillary Clinton to explain her official use of personal email while serving as secretary of state, she faced new complications Tuesday. It was disclosed her top aides are being drawn into a burgeoning federal inquiry and that two emails on her private account have been classified as “Top Secret.”
The inspector general for the Intelligence Community notified senior members of Congress that two of four classified emails discovered on the server Clinton maintained at her New York home contained material deemed to be in one of the highest security classifications – more sensitive than previously known.
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate.”
— Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general
The notice came as the State Department inspector general’s office acknowledged that it is reviewing the use of “personal communications hardware and software” by Clinton’s former top aides after requests from Congress.
“Both the State Department and Intelligence Community inspectors general should be looking into the staff use of the Clinton private server for official State Department business. This means giving both inspectors general access and custody of all emails that haven’t already been deleted.”
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead, to include former aides and associates, as appropriate,” said Douglas Welty, a spokesman for the State Department’s inspector general.
“From what is publicly known, it appears that the investigation thus far has focused so much on the former secretary of state, that it’s gotten lost that high-level staff apparently also used this server too.”
— Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee
Despite the acknowledgment, the State Department inspector general’s office has left numerous unanswered questions, including exactly who and what is being investigated. The office initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Intelligence Community inspector general’s office, which said it is not currently involved in any inquiry into aides and is being denied full access to aides’ emails by the State Department. Clinton, herself, is not a target.
[Read the full text here, at McClatchy DC]
The expanding inquiry threatens to further erode Clinton’s standing as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since her reliance on private email was revealed in March, polls in crucial swing states show that increasing numbers of voters say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, in part, because of her use of private emails.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants Clinton and her aides to “come clean and cough up” information about their personal email use. Read the rest of this entry »
Pentagon Rushing to Open Space-War Center To Counter China, Russia
Posted: June 24, 2015 Filed under: Science & Technology, War Room | Tags: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Central Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Kelly Ayotte, National Security Agency, Osama bin Laden, The Pentagon, United States, United States Department of Defense Leave a commentThe Pentagon and intelligence community are developing war plans and an operations center to fend off Chinese and Russian attacks on U.S.military and government satellites
The ops center, to be opened within six months, will receive data from satellites belonging to all government agencies, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Tuesday at the GEOINT symposium, an annual intelligence conference sponsored by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
“We want to be able to establish patterns of life from space. We want to know what the unusual looks like. If, all of a sudden, a lot of cars show up in a parking lot of an adversary’s missile plant, we want to know about it and we want to know about it quickly. If, suddenly, small boats are swarming in the Gulf or pirates are starting to congregate off Aden, we want to know.”
“[W]e are going to develop the tactics, techniques, procedures, rules of the road that would allow us … to fight the architecture and protect it while it’s under attack,” Work said. “The ugly reality that we must now all face is that if an adversary were able to take space away from us, our ability to project decisive power across transoceanic distances and overmatch adversaries in theaters once we get there … would be critically weakened.”
“If Russian soldiers are snapping pictures of themselves in war zones and posting them in social media sites, we want to know exactly where those pictures were taken.”
Work also said that Air Force Secretary Deborah James would soon be named the “principal space advisor” to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, where she will to provide “independent advice separate from the consensus process of the department.”
Senior officials at the Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence are still finalizing details of the new center, which will back up the military’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The center will help the military and government coordinate their preparations for and responses to any attack, said Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson, a spokeswoman for Work. Read the rest of this entry »
VICE: Releasing Bin Laden’s Porn Stash: The Public’s Heroic Battle with the CIA Continues
Posted: June 11, 2015 Filed under: Global, Law & Justice, War Room | Tags: al Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, Death of Osama bin Laden, Director of National Intelligence, Freedom of Information Act (United States), Germany, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, September 11 attacks Leave a commentJason Leopold writes: In addition to his library of English-language books on topics such as international law, voting irregularities, and the Illuminati, Osama bin Laden also had a pretty substantial porn collection.
But the CIA won’t release bin Laden’s stash of porn, which Navy Seals apparently seized during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan four years ago. That’s because, unbelievably, it’s located in an “operational file,” which is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
An operational file is defined as:
(1) files of the National Clandestine Service which document the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations or intelligence or security liaison arrangements or information exchanges with foreign governments or their intelligence or security services;
(2) files of the Directorate for Science and Technology which document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence is collected through scientific and technical systems; and
(3) files of the Office of Personnel Security which document investigations conducted to determine the suitability of potential foreign intelligence or counterintelligence sources;
“It seems like a stretch to call these [pornographic] materials operational files,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy. “Although they may have been obtained in the course of an operation, they do not have anything to do with the planning or conduct of the operation. So they don’t really fit the definition of an operational file in the CIA Information Act.”
Moreover, even if bin Laden’s porn collection wasn’t located in an operational file, the CIA said it still couldn’t release it because US law bars the agency from mailing “obscene or crime-inciting matter.”
[Read the full text here, at VICE News]
The CIA made these questionable arguments last week, in response to a May 26 FOIA request filed last month by David Covucci, an editor at BroBible, a site that describes itself as “the ultimate destination for Bros.” Read the rest of this entry »
No Mystery: Valerie Jarrett Gave Order To Stand Down In Benghazi Terrorist Attack
Posted: June 8, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, War Room, White House | Tags: Abbottabad, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Application for employment, Associated Press, Death of Osama bin Laden, Director of National Intelligence, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, United States Navy SEALs 1 CommentThe omnipresent power behind the throne some have called the president’s Rasputin had the power to call off three strikes against Osama bin Laden. She may have used that power again the night four Americans died in Benghazi.
The Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came while America failed to mount a rescue mission despite sufficient time and assets.
“The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question is: What was the president doing in those eight hours?”
— Columnist Charles Krauthammer
Included in that disaster were the unaccounted whereabouts of President Obama during eight critical hours, the lack of Situation Room photos, the failure by the president to follow up with subordinates before his trip to Las Vegas and the fabricated story that the whole thing was prompted by an Internet video.
Columnist Charles Krauthammer said recently on “The O’Reilly Factor” that the “biggest scandal of all” regarding that Benghazi slaughter has yet to emerge.
“I think there is a bigger story here … that will in time come out,” Krauthammer said. “The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question is: What was the president doing in those eight hours?”
The columnist noted: “He had a routine meeting at 5 o’clock. He never after, during the eight hours when our guys have their lives in danger, he never called the secretary of defense, he never calls the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he never calls the CIA director.”
[Order Richard Miniter’s book “Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him“ from Amazon.com]
One of the people Obama always talks to is Valerie Jarrett. She emerged from the same Chicago cauldron of radicalism where Obama got his ideological baptism.
The Iranian-born Jarrett (her parents were American-born expatriates) is the only staff member who regularly follows the president home from the West Wing to the residence and one of the few people allowed to call the president by his first name.
Her influence is shown by an account in Richard Miniter‘s book “Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him.” Read the rest of this entry »
POLL: 81% Of Al Jazeera Arabic Poll Respondents Support Islamic State
Posted: May 25, 2015 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: al Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, Death of Osama bin Laden, Director of National Intelligence, Global Panic, Inter-Services Intelligence, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, September 11 attacks, United States 1 CommentGLOBAL PANIC POLL RESULTS: We told You So
Jordan Schachtel reports: In a recent survey conducted by AlJazeera.net, the website for the Al Jazeera Arabic television channel, respondents overwhelmingly support the Islamic State terrorist group, with 81% voting “YES” on whether they approved of ISIS’s conquests in the region.
The poll, which asked in Arabic, “Do you support the organizing victories of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?” has generated over 38,000 responses thus far, with only 19% of respondents voting “NO” to supporting ISIS.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s television audience is largely made up of Sunni Muslims living in the Arab world. Its biggest viewership numbers come from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with a large amount of satellite
television viewers in the United States, according to research estimates.
[Read the full text here, at Breitbart]
AlJazeera.net is most popular in Saudi Arabia, the United States, Egypt, Morocco, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the Alexa webpage analytics site. Al Jazeera claims that it has over 40 million viewers in the Arab world.
The news that an overwhelming majority of respondents to the Al Jazeera Arabic poll strongly support ISIS may not surprise long-time trackers of the controversial network. The news outfit, which is run by Qatar’s ruling family and headquartered in Doha, has a track record rife with allegations that the organization supports the narratives of Sunni terrorist groups. Read the rest of this entry »
DECLASSIFIED: U.S. Releases Motherlode of Books, Letters Seized in Bin Laden Raid
Posted: May 20, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, War Room | Tags: al Qaeda, Bob Woodward, Central Intelligence Agency, Combating Terrorism Center, Death of Osama bin Laden, Director of National Intelligence, Federal government of the United States, National Security Agency, Obama's Wars, Osama bin Laden 2 Comments
WASHINGTON — Damian Paletta reports: The Obama administration on Wednesday released details on more than 400 letters, books, news articles, research reports and even software manuals it seized during the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his secret compound in Pakistan, offering a fresh view into the interests and correspondence of the former head of al Qaeda.
The intelligence agency declassified the names of 39 English-language books seized at bin Laden’s compound. These included books about the Central Intelligence Agency; Christianity and Islam in Spain from 756 until 1031; and Bob Woodward’s 2010 book, ‘Obama’s Wars.'”
The declassified material, which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence labeled “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf,” shows a number of interests—ranging from a Noam Chomsky book on “thought control” to things that could be seen, such as how-to books on terrorist attacks.
“It included, for example, a 2001 document from the U.S. military on ‘instruction on aircraft piracy and destruction of derelict airborne objects’ and numerous records about how to obtain a U.S. passport.”
It included, for example, a 2001 document from the U.S. military on “instruction on aircraft piracy and destruction of derelict airborne objects” and numerous records about how to obtain a U.S. passport. The compound also contained numerous world maps.

The house where Osama bin Laden was finally hunted down. SAEED SHAH — MCT
“These are gigantic events that will eventually engulf most of the Muslim world, will free the Muslim land from American hegemony, and is troubling America whose secretary of state declared that they are worried about the armed Muslims controlling the Muslim region.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said “it is in the interest of the American public for citizens, academics, journalists, and historians to have the opportunity to read and understand bin Laden’s documents.”
“All of this indicates that the Western countries are weak and their international role is regressing.”
— Osama bin Laden, in a letter recovered in the raid
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the records, said analysts were still reviewing more information seized during the raid and that “hundreds more” records could be declassified in the future.
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
The intelligence agency declassified the names of 39 English-language books seized at bin Laden’s compound. These included books about the Central Intelligence Agency; Christianity and Islam in Spain from 756 until 1031; and Bob Woodward’s 2010 book, “Obama’s Wars.”
In addition to the books, the documents seized at bin Laden’s compound included 35 items published by other extremist groups, most of which came from Khalifah Publications. Read the rest of this entry »
Foreign Policy: Nine Former Gitmo Detainees Return to Battle in Last Six Months
Posted: March 5, 2015 Filed under: Global, War Room, White House | Tags: al Qaeda, Boris Nemtsov, Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, James R. Clapper Leave a commentThe nine individuals who most recently returned to the battlefield were all released during the George W. Bush administration. During the Bush administration, Guantánamo had a recidivism rate of 20.7 percent, with 110 of 532 individuals released returning to battle
Elias Groll Between July and January, nine former inmates of the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, returned to the battlefield to carry out terror attacks or join insurgencies around the world, according to a new report by the U.S. intelligence community.
“The new study was compiled by the Director of National Intelligence, in collaboration with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency…”
The report, an assessment of recidivism rates at the prison that was first reported by Vice, presents a macro view of the rate at which detainees at the controversial detention facility have returned to battle after their release. In total, 100 of the 603 individuals released from Guantánamo are confirmed to have once more picked up arms to engage in either insurgent or terrorist activity, amounting to a recidivism rate of 17.9 percent. Of those 100, 17 are dead, 27 are in custody, and 56 remain free. Another 74 individuals are suspected but not confirmed to have returned to the fight.
“…Its release comes amid a continuing debate about whether to close the prison. Large segments of the American population oppose doing so, even though it’s continued operation has been used as a recruitment tool by terrorist organizations and widely condemned by U.S. allies and human rights group alike.”
The new study was compiled by the Director of National Intelligence, in collaboration with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. It defines “terrorist” or “insurgent” activity as “planning terrorist operations, conducting a terrorist or insurgent attack against coalition or host-nation forces or civilians, conducting a suicide bombing, financing terrorist operations, recruiting others for terrorist operations, arranging for movement of individuals involved in terrorist operations, etc.”
“Last month, U.S. forces in Afghanistan killed a former Guantánamo detainee and former Taliban commander who had been operating as a war lord in southern Afghanistan and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The militant, Mullah Abdul Rauf, was released from Guantánamo in 2007.”
Its release comes amid a continuing debate about whether to close the prison. Large segments of the American population oppose doing so, even though it’s continued operation has been used as a recruitment tool by terrorist organizations and widely condemned by U.S. allies and human rights group alike. The prospect that a released prisoner might once more pick up arms against the United States now hangs over the effort to shut the facility. Read the rest of this entry »
Break Out The Champagne: Iran Can Now Build and Deliver Nukes
Posted: January 30, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, Director of National Intelligence, Enriched uranium, Institute for National Security Studies, Iran, James R. Clapper, Tehran, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2 Comments
An Iranian worker at the Uranium Conversion Facility at Isfahan, 410 kilometers, south of Tehran. The conversion facility in Isfahan reprocesses uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, into uranium hexaflouride gas. The gas is then taken to Natanz and fed into the centrifuges for enrichment. (photo credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Tehran has capacity to break out to bomb if it wishes, intelligence chief James Clapper tells Senate, but would be detected if it tried to do so
Marissa Newman reports: Iran now has all the technical infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons should it make the political decision to do, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in a report to a Senate intelligence committee published Wednesday. However, he added, it could not break out to the bomb without being detected.
In the “US Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment,” delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper reported that Tehran has made significant advances recently in its nuclear program to the point where it could produce and deliver nuclear bombs should it be so inclined.
“Tehran has made technical progress in a number of areas — including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles — from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” Clapper wrote. “These technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.”
Surveillance Court Blasts National Security Agency in Newly Released Documents
Posted: November 20, 2013 Filed under: Law & Justice, War Room | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, NSA, Pen Register, Trap and trace device 2 Comments
General Keith Alexander (L), director of the National Security Agency (NSA) testifies at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Brendan Bordelon reports: A late-night document dump by the Director of National Intelligence revealed yet another harsh rebuke of the National Security Agency (NSA) by a federal judge, who claimed the spy agency “continuously” and “systematically” overcollected data on American citizens.
The release of thousands of previously classified — and heavily redacted — NSA slides and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions late Monday night includes the original, undated court order authorizing the sweeping surveillance of Americans’ email and internet data, known as the Pen Register and Trap and Trace provision.
But of particular interest is another FISC order — again undated — tasked with renewing that provision. The court denied a large part of that reauthorization request, charging that the NSA repeatedly and routinely collected more data on American citizens than the law empowered them to do.
Court: NSA collected domestic emails, violating the Constitution
Posted: August 21, 2013 Filed under: Reading Room, War Room | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, John D. Bates, National Security Agency, NSA, United States, United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Leave a commentThe Obama administration on Wednesday revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) improperly collected emails from people in the United States with no connection to terrorism beginning in 2008.
The NSA collected as many as many as 56,000 emails from Americans before the mistake was identified.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court concluded that the surveillance was unconstitutional after it was notified of it in 2011. In an 86-page opinion that was declassified on Wednesday, the court ordered the NSA to take steps to limit the information it collects and how long it keeps it.
In the opinion, Judge John D. Bates admonished the NSA for a ” substantial misrepresentation” of the scope of its surveillance.
Officials said the surveillance was inadvertent, and insisted that the agency ended it in 2011.
NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds
Posted: August 16, 2013 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere | Tags: Director of National Intelligence, Egypt, National Security Agency, NSA, United States, United States Department of Justice, United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Washington Post 1 CommentBy Barton Gellman
The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.
In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had beenin operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.
[FISA judge: Ability to police U.S. spying program is limited]
The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.
Watch Clapper lie.
Posted: June 12, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Andrea Mitchell, Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, National Security Agency, NBC, Ron Wyden, United States, United States Congress Leave a commentHe’s got a tell:
“No spy should have that big a tell.”
via Althouse: