Ex-MI5 chief: US misled allies over torturing detainees

By GottaLaff

How many times have we heard this now? Enough to finally act on it? Nah, too bothersome. Keep looking forward, don't look back. Learning from our past is so true justice ago:

United States intelligence agencies misled key allies, including Britain, about its mistreatment of suspected terrorists, the former head of the country's domestic spy agency, MI5, said Tuesday.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, who retired in 2007 and is now a member of the House of Lords, said the U.S. deliberately suppressed details of its harsh handling of some detainees, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

No way! Piffle! Why, BushCo would never think of doing such a thing!

"The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing," Manningham-Buller told a meeting at Britain's Parliament.

Of course they were. They knew they'd get nailed for war crimes.

A few years ago, back in 2002 or so, Manningham-Buller wondered how the U.S. got KSM to spill his guts, as it were, and the response was that it was KSM's pride in "his achievements" that made him talk when interrogated. However:

"It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been water boarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.

See how proud he was? And how proud BushCo has been of that "achievement"?

"Americans were very keen to conceal from us what was happening, as they were from many of their own people." Manningham-Buller spent 33 years in British intelligence, and was head of MI5 between 2002 and 2007. [...] "The government did lodge protests and I'm not going to say any more on that," Manningham-Buller said.

So, hey, remember all the jokes about how BushCo was like, totally into "24"? And how it affected their policies? Yes, a Tee Vee show...

Here's the sick punch line:

"One of the sad things is Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush all watched '24,'" Manningham-Buller said...

Some jokes just aren't funny.

Special to TPC: Infiltrating the Tea Baggers' Big Event

By GottaLaff

CORRECTION: I misunderstood my source. She was on a one-to-one call with someone, NOT the conference call.

There was some question about the reference to the Heritage Foundation's involvement, and this explains it. They were not mentioned, from what I've learned, on the conference call. They were mentioned as advisers on the private call that I refer to below.

Original post:

Earlier today, I posted this:

Ooo, watch out D.C., the Tea Tantrumers are a-comin' for ya!

(Click on image to enlarge)

I have more details since I posted that earlier today... from a concerned source who infiltrated by signing up for the Big March:

My source registered and then received the following e-mail (in part):

All,

Please try and make this call tonight for our project "Take the Town Halls to Washington", which launches this Tuesday.

Please do not post this call in information anywhere publicly -- on a blog for instance. Also, please do not share the call in number without touching base with me. The trolls on the Left on Twitter and elsewhere are actively trying to infiltrate this call.

But oops, guess what? My source got on the call, the very call that was all about what the Tea Tantrumers are planning.

According to what she learned on the call, they are being "advised" by the Heritage Foundation:

Heritage has since continued to have a significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential research organizations in the United States, especially during the Republican administration of President George W. Bush.^[2]

One of the most influential, biggest conservative think tanks is "advising" them. How grassrootsy of them.

And here's what happened next:

A woman on the call told her that "we" are to fly into DC, where "we" will have "war rooms" out in Chantilly. From there "we" will go into DC, call on Congress, meet with Congress members, with a list of questions "supplied" by the Heritage Foundation (remember, they are the ones who are "advising").

There will be groups of 4 or 5 going to see each elected official, and the meetings will be video taped. The video tapes will then be used to "inform" people, get the truth out, and stop health care reform from going through before Congress goes on break.

Yes, that's right, they will be using those videos to "get the truth out". And by truth, they mean their version of events, I'm sure. Maybe it's the same kind of truth James O'Keefe wanted to get out. If so, it will be the edited truth.

But what if Congress doesn't allow video taping?" Good question.

The woman told her that they would then announce that Congress would only agree to "off the record" meetings and would reveal which congressmen were unwilling to be recorded.

If only the Tea Tantrumers would consider applying for positions at CSPAN. Congress has no objection to CSPAN cameras. They're very orderly and respectful.

And they don't wear funny hats.

The woman also said "the people at the Heritage Foundation have read the entire bill. We want comments on the record from Senators, as this will affect Medicare & Medicaid."

At that point my source made an excuse to get off phone, because, as she told me, she could not hold her tongue any longer had she stayed on. Her head was exploding, as yours probably are now. She was feeling very uneasy about all of this.

And so she asked that I expose their plan. Nothing like a little fresh air and sunshine to disinfect.

Pentagon thought Canada spied on us via Canadian coins

By GottaLaff

Note: I have made corrections and amended the title. Thank you to those who caught my mistake.

Yes, it's true, according to an e-mail, the Pentagon thought Canada had implanted radio transmitting devices into coins in order to spy on the U.S. of A.

Espionage warnings from the Defence Department caused an international sensation a few years ago over reports of mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, until they were debunked. The culprit turned out to be a commemorative quarter in Canada.

But at the height of the mystery, senior Pentagon officials speculated whether Canadians were involved in the spy caper, according to emails marked "Secret/NoForn" and obtained this week by The Associated Press under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

No, not Canada! Not our BFF! 'Kay, we would so break up with them over that.

Not that we'd ever really, really doubt the Canadians, right?

"I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys," the Pentagon's counterintelligence chief wrote, "but then again, who knows."

What? Wait. "Who knows"? "Who knows"?? Eeks! Dude! That's even more uncool than some famous celebrity athlete guy cheating on his wife and leaving incriminating voice mails!

Canada is among the closest of U.S. allies, its continental northern neighbour and the leading oil supplier for the U.S. The intelligence services of the two countries are extraordinarily tight and routinely share sensitive secrets.

Oh em gee, I so know! We totally confide in each other at, like, every meet-up, and that whole oil thing is, like, amazing! This whole double ultra superdupersecret spy coin thingy is so bogus. I mean, I am so seriously serious.

In sensational warnings that circulated publicly in late 2006 and early 2007, the Pentagon's Defence Security Service said coins with radio transmitters were found planted on U.S. army contractors with classified security clearances on at least three occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors travelled through Canada.

No way. Like, I mean, that was during the BushCo years! OMG, were the contractors, like, Blackwater dudes? Come on, tell! Isweartogod I can keep a secret.

In January 2007, the government abruptly reversed itself and said the warnings were not true.

'K good, cuz that would have so been a major deal breaker and there is like, no way we coulda stayed together.

What suspicious contractors believed to be "nanotechnology" on the coins actually was a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

This is totally humiliating. I want. To. Die. No, seriously, totally, I mean it. I hope we can still be BFF. Pleeeeze? It will never EVER happen again. Sweartogodandeverythingprecious.

Many of the emails were censored over what the Pentagon said was national security and personal privacy.

Kewl. Cuz, I mean, if anyone saw those, we'd be so grounded and laffed off Facebook and the world stage.

Serious.

H/t: Tymlee

D.C. couple accused of spying for Cuba

By GottaLaff

Eeks:

Federal officials say a Washington, D.C.-area couple has been arrested and accused of spying for Cuba.

Officials say both are former U.S. government employees -- he from the State Department, she as a Congressional aide.

One official says the spying went on for more than two decades.

We expect to learn more details later today when a federal indictment is unsealed. For now, officials will not disclose the names or any other details.

More than 20 years? That's a whole lot of infiltrating.

Federal judge threatens to sanction ObamAdministration over secrecy

By GottaLaff

Was the judge watching the Rachel Maddow Show, because Rachel's been steaming mad over issues like this one:

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco warned the Obama administration on Friday of severe sanctions if it does not comply with the court’s order to turn over a secret document an Islamic group says proves they were illegally spied upon.

The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama (see also: Al-Haramain V. Bush), springs out of a government mistake in which a secret document detailing the wiretapping of calls between attorneys and Saudi charity Al-Haramain was turned over to the charity’s counsel.

The document was taken back by the government, and the Department of Justice has since maintained that the attorneys who read it should not be allowed to use their memories to pursue litigation over the illegal spying.

There's that S word again.

“The Court noted the government was ‘continuing to assert legal positions already specifically rejected by the court in previous orders’ and ‘government officials in one or more defendant agencies, including the NSA Director … are refusing to cooperate with the court’s orders,’” noted the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. “Judge Walker ordered the government to show cause as to ‘why, as a sanction for failing to obey the court’s orders’ the government ’should not be prohibited … from opposing the liability’ for spying without warrants and that the ‘court should not deem liability … established and proceed to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to plaintiffs.’ A hearing is set for June 3, 2009 in the San Francisco federal court.”

That should do it, right? Not so fast:

Should Walker rule in favor of Al-Haramain, it would not fully satisfy the group’s legal aims, but “it would be a stiff rebuke to an administration that has pledged to reconsider Bush’s broad claims of secrecy in all cases touching on national security,” noted Bob Egelko at The San Francisco Chronicle.

Now let's see if Rachel mentions this on her next show.

Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

By GottaLaff

I'm not feeling paranoid. No, not one bit:

A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.

In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved. [...]

Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

The researchers, who have a record of detecting computer espionage, said they believed that in addition to the spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries. [...]

Still going strong, the operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, the researchers said in their report, “Tracking ‘GhostNet’: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.” They said they had found no evidence that United States government offices had been infiltrated, although a NATO computer was monitored by the spies for half a day and computers of the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated.

The malware is remarkable both for its sweep — in computer jargon, it has not been merely “phishing” for random consumers’ information, but “whaling” for particular important targets — and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed. [...]

The electronic spy game has had at least some real-world impact, they said. For example, they said, after an e-mail invitation was sent by the Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making Internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities.

GOP "transparency" push seen as attack on Michelle Obama

I really didn't get this, other than it being just plain GOP idiotic meanness, but then someone in comments noted - "They started this last January when it was strongly presumed that Bill Clinton would be the first spouse of the White House." So, now even though they didn't get the First Spouse they wanted to spy on, they'll take what they can get.

House Republicans are pressing for a change in federal law that could force Michelle Obama and future first ladies to do more of their policy work in public. But Democrats warn President Obama may take the attempt personally “as an attack on his wife.”

The GOP effort is being led by the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose initial salvo was rebuffed recently at a contentious committee markup session. Under Issa’s amendment, any government policy group that Mrs. Obama or another first spouse regularly participates in would be subject to a law requiring meetings to be announced in advance and, in most instances, public.

Um, No Darrell, unless you want to make First Spouse an elected office (kinda difficult) and cut them a paycheck. Skip to about 10:57 in the vid for discussion of the amendment.

Israel launches covert war against Iran

By GottaLaff

I don't want to ever hear or see the word "war" again, covert or otherwise:

It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say.

The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations.

Despite fears in Israel and the US that Iran is approaching the point of no return in its ability to build atom bomb, Israeli officials are aware of the change in mood in Washington since President Barack Obama took office.

They privately acknowledge the new US administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and Mr Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now. [...]

A former CIA officer on Iran told The Daily Telegraph: "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the programme, done in such a way that they don't realise what's happening. You are never going to stop it.

"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach. ..."[...]

Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, the US private intelligence company with strong government security connections, said the strategy was to take out key people.

"With co-operation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear programme and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she said.

"As US-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result."

You can find more gory details here.

Jay Rockefeller On Hardball About Illegal Wiretaps

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Skip to 12:30 and tell me what that was about. Back when the final FISA fight was going on, there was TONS of speculation that Rockefeller was "compromised" somehow, that his stand on the bill was just not kosher. Check out the links you get on a google of Jay Rockefeller + FISA.

Undoing BushCo: Intel edition

By GottaLaff

The past three days have been, how you say, orgasmic:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

More, more!

Dennis Blair, President Obama's nominee to become the Director of National Intelligence, took a swipe at the Bush administration's methods of gathering intelligence. [...]

Blair, a retired Navy admiral who headed the Pacific Command, pledged a new approach to counterterrorism requiring the intelligence community to carry out missions "in a manner consistent with our nation's values, consistent with our Constitution and consistent with the rule of law," he said in a statement at his confirmation hearing Thursday.

He made a point to stress that he would not support any surveillance activities that "circumvent established processes for their lawful authorization."

"I believe in the importance of review and regulation of the use of those surveillance authorities," he added.

Blair also stressed that there must be clear standards for humane treatment of detainees that should apply to all government agencies.

Blair, who will likely be confirmed, also invited independent monitoring of the agencies he will lead to prevent abuses and protect civil liberties.

Yes. Yes. Yes!

Countdown: NSA Whistleblower- Bush Administration Spying on Journalists

Remember the big buzz a couple years back about Christiane Amanpour being spied on? Well, whaddaya know.

Whistleblower: U.S. Snooped on Tony Blair, Iraqi President (including pillow talk)

By GottaLaff

Too much information... literally:

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia, between 2003 and 2007.

Classy, huh?

"If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits," said one former CIA official.

In the case of the former Iraqi president, al-Yawer, Faulk says his "pillow talk" phone calls were to his fiancé, whom he later married. Faulk says the calls were intercepted by operators in the NSA facility at Ft. Gordon, Back Hall, and posted on the computer system for others to read about and hear.

Faulk described the al-Yawer calls as "courting, wooing and pillow talk" with an Iraqi woman he would later marry Nasrin Barwari, the minister of public works in the interim government.

Remember when we had a Constitution? Yeah, me too:

The Inspector General for the NSA is reported to be conducting an investigation into the allegations by Faulk and another former military intercept operator, Adrienne Kinne, about listening to calls between American citizens.

The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees also are investigating the allegations about calls involving American citizens.

Trust, schmust.

January 20, 2009.

Telco immunity faces first court challenge

By GottaLaff

I'm likin' this:

Plaintiffs suing AT&T and other telecommunications companies filed a lengthy motion in court this week arguing the government could not retroactively invalidate their lawsuit because its immunity authority is unconstitutional and destroys the notion of coequal branches of government. [...]

A 61-page filing argues that Congress doesn't have the authority to issue a retroactive immunity statute, that immunity violates separation of powers by improperly inflating executive branch authority, that immunity violates individuals rights to due process, that the secrecy provisions of immunity violate the First Amendment by creating a "chilling effect" on free speech, and that the government has not justified dismissing the telecom lawsuits even if its ability to do so was constitutional. [...]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union are representing plaintiffs in the various telecom lawsuits the government is attempting to dismiss. [...]

Plaintiffs hope the courts will reach a similar decision to strike down the FISA Amendments Act.

Stay tuned.

MUST WATCH VIDEO-- ABC: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls, Shared Sexy "cuts"

By GottaLaff

The video finally loaded.

Back story here.

ABC: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls, Shared Sexy "cuts"

By GottaLaff

Remember the U.S. Constitution? Sure you do. It's chock full of laws and rights and stuff, ones that we actually used to respect and live by. Maybe someone could explain it to the despicable, very impeachable Liar in Chief:

Ever since President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Administration wiretapping program in late 2005, he has insisted it is aimed only at terrorists’ calls and protects Americans’ civil liberties. [...]

However, ABC News reports that the NSA frequently listened to and transcribed the private phone calls of Americans abroad, according to two former military intercept operators. These conversations included those of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and American aid workers abroad, such as Doctors Without Borders:

[Former Navy Arab linguist David Murfee] Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News. […]

“We knew they were working for these aid organizations,” [former Army Reserves Arab linguist Adrienne] Kinne told ABC News. “They were identified in our systems as ‘belongs to the International Red Cross’ and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them,” she told ABC News.

Kinne called Bush’s assurances that the U.S. was only tracking phone calls of a “known al Qaeda suspect” “completely a lie.”

More here. And I'll post the video as soon as it allows me to load it.

FBI spied on N.Y. Times, Washington Post reporters

By GottaLaff

Yeah, yeah, we spied on you. Whatevs. Sorry. So what's for lunch?

That's the message from FBI Director Robert Mueller to the executive editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, after an inspector general discovered that the agency had seized telephone records from four US reporters without a grand jury.

Mueller called Times' editor Bill Keller and Post chief Len Downie Friday, "expressing regret" that agents had not followed "proper procedures. The "lapse" occurred nearly four years ago and involved four staff members of the papers.

"The FBI discontinued use of the emergency letters after privacy advocates and internal watchdogs cited hundreds of cases in which agents intentionally, or out of sloppiness, did not follow up their 'exigent' requests with paperwork that linked the submission to a genuine matter of national security," Washington Post reporter Carrie Johnson wrote in an article Saturday.

Um, yeah. It's kind of a no-no.

The records were obtained through what is called an exigent circumstances letter, a demand made by the agency in a practice that skirts civil liberties protections that has flourished in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.

Neither Mueller nor his agency offered any explanations regarding the nature of the subject of the investigation that involved spying on American reporters based overseas. Writing in the Post today, Johnson noted that the reporters were writing about Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia.

Why should he have to explain? He's just the Big Boss of the FBI, responsible for spying on innocent citizens because he can.

"FBI agents involved in the undisclosed national security probe stated at the time of the request that they would follow up with subpoenas from a U.S. attorney, but 'no subpoena was ever issued for your telephone toll records,' according to a letter that Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. received yesterday from FBI General Counsel Valerie Caprone," she added.

Such records listed the phone numbers the reporters called and received, but not the actual conversation, similar to the warrantless wiretapping program the Bush Administration has employed in tracking calls American citizens have placed to overseas destinations.

I can't tell you how much safer I feel knowing our government is keeping a close eye on me things.

AT&T Is Shameless

By Paddy



Funny stuff those civil liberties.....

Via TRex's Betsy.