Training missions: the other NSA scandal?
On Wednesday, the Washington Post ran the story Gonzales Seeks to Clarify Testimony on Spying (Charles Babington and Dan Eggen):

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales appeared to suggest yesterday that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance operations may extend beyond the outlines that the president acknowledged in mid-December.

The statement was taken by many (for example, Glenn Greenwald) to suggest there were "other NSA surveillance programs ongoing that the president hasn't told anyone about," as Bruce Fein, a constitutional expert and former government lawyer put it in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We've already had some indication of what one such program, or perhaps better, method might be: so-called "training surveillance," in which domestic surveillance is done for training purposes, although the results of the surveillance are supposed to be off-limits. I raised the subject in January -- "Enemy of the State (...Department Undersecretary)" -- based mainly on a post by Wayne Madsen, a former NSA employee and gadfly who reported NSA sources had told him John Bolton had availed himself of the fruits of such surveillance. Madsen:

NSA insiders report that [NSA director Michael] Hayden approved special intercept operations on behalf of Bolton and had them masked as "training missions" in order to get around internal NSA regulations that normally prohibit such eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

From my own summary of surveillance training:

Training personnel in electronic surveillance (including domestic surveillance) is explicitly allowed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law in section 1805(g)(3) -- but subsequent language in FISA makes clear that information gained this way is to be destroyed and is not to be shared with others.

On the other hand, the bit of research I did suggested to me there might be a loophole in FISA allowing such training surveillance to be misused with impunity. This is because criminal sanctions for misuse of surveillance appear limited to instances of surveillance "not authorized by statute" (see section 1809). Since training missions are authorized by statute, one might conclude it's illegal to keep or disseminate information gained that way -- but that FISA doesn't spell out any penalties for doing so. Given the kinds of hairsplitting Bush's chosen legal eagles routinely engage in, it doesn't seem impossible they'd green light abusing "training mission" surveillance on even such specious grounds.

The few inquiries I made about this went unanswered, so I can't provide any real legal analysis to back up this speculation. As I mentioned in my earlier post, Madsen thinks the main significance of "training mission" surveillance that may been shared with Bolton is that there's less of an internal paper trail of justifications and permissions than with regular surveillance.

Instead, I'll close with a discussion of former NSA chief Michael Hayden, based on James Risen's book State of War -- the book that broke the present NSA scandal.

Risen reports that Hayden was seriously concerned about "Enemy of the State," a 1998 movie in which NSA bad guys (including the director, played by Jon Voight) are portrayed as using the "training mission" dodge in pursuit of their nefarious ends. Hayden mounted a considerable PR campaign -- at least by NSA standards -- appearing on TV and giving speeches to try to allay doubts about the agency. Risen:

"Could there be abuses? Of course, there could, but I am looking you and the American people in the eye and saying there are not," Hayden told CNN. "After Church and Pike [who led the investigations leading to the FISA law -- ed.] , on this question, the ball and strike count on the agency is no balls and two strikes," Hayden added. "We don't take any pitches that are close to the strike zone. We are very, very careful. We can't go back to the American people with, 'Oh, well, we're sorry for this one, too.' We don't get close to the Fourth Amendment."

But then came 9/11. Hayden, under pressure to come up with leads on Al Qaeda, relaxed his prior strict stance against questionable surveillance methods. Maybe once this happened, Hayden could find no stopping point, and reached for the very "training mission" method the "Enemy of the State" movie suggested -- despite the obvious potential for abuse, especially in the hands of political operatives like John Bolton. Risen:

In private, [Hayden] has been defensive about his role in domestic spying. Hayden has said that the operations being conducted by NSA are "legal, appropriate, and effective" as part of the war on terrorism. He has little else to say, other than that the matter is "intensely operational." The Program was still active in late 2005, several officials said.

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BASEBALL QUERY, 3/5: What do other people think of Hayden's baseball metaphor, by the way? My instinct, such as it is, would be to be more disciplined, not less, at 0 and 2, but I guess Hayden is right if the "book" says protect the plate, foul off the borderline stuff because... the umpire might call a 3rd strike, I guess. Except that makes the whole metaphor of "not taking borderline pitches" -- ie, swinging at them, if only to foul them off -- an oddly revealing one, years in advance. Hayden seemed to be more worried about a called strike three (being found in violation of a borderline mistake), than swinging and missing at something out of the strike zone (knowingly breaking FISA regulations in pursuit of leads). If so, Hayden was saying all along he was more worried about the NSA being too inactive under FISA than about it taking risks with the FISA law. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:46:00 AM -- |    

 
"As long as I serve"
James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, got a real nice letter that he just had to read to everyone*:

Dear Dr. Dobson:

This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months.

I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.

As I said when I spoke at my formal investiture at the White House last week, the prayers of so many people from around the country were a palpable and powerful force.

As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.

I hope that we'll have the opportunity to meet personally at some point in the future.

In the meantime my entire family and I hope that you and the Focus on the Family staff know how we appreciate all that you have done.

Sincerely yours,

Samuel Alito

Now wasn't that thoughtful? I think Mr. Alito sent copies around to everyone, and Mr. Dobson was just too nice to read the rest:

PS: and thank you too, you idiots.

Transcript and link via Max Blumenthal at The Huffington Post.


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* The letter segment begins around 15:00 minutes into the broadcast, unless you don't want to miss a really long segment with Christian recording artist Rebecca St. James.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Boy, we showed him
UPI report: Bush: Bin Laden tape key in 2004 victory:

"'I thought it was going to help,' Bush told the author. 'I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.'"

Man, what a dope that Bin Laden guy was -- waiting until right before a close election to intervene with a taped statement attacking Bush! He'd have to be a complete idiot not to realize it would... help... Bush...


My God!

Don't get me the President! I don't care how you don't do it! I have something he won't want to know! posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:59:00 PM -- |    

 
The wheels off the bus go round and round...
round and round....

Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.

For the first time in this poll, most Americans say the president does not care much about people like themselves. Fifty-one percent now think he doesn't care, compared to 47 percent last fall.

Just 30 percent approve of how Mr. Bush is handling the Iraq war, another all-time low.

By two to one, the poll finds Americans think U.S. efforts to bring stability to Iraq are going badly – the worst assessment yet of progress in Iraq.

Even on fighting terrorism, which has long been a strong suit for Mr. Bush, his ratings dropped lower than ever. Half of Americans say they disapprove of how he's handling the war on terror, while 43 percent approve.

round and round...

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows.

The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq "immediately," while another 22% said they should leave in the next six months. Another 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months, while 23% said they should stay "as long as they are needed.

the wheels off the bus go round and round...

Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

...all through the world.

The Defense Intelligence Agency today presented a relatively gloomy assessment of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, reporting that recent Iraqi elections appear to have contributed to rising sectarian violence and that Afghan insurgents have sharply escalated their attacks. [...]

More broadly "Iraq appears to be emerging as an al-Qaeda platform for launching transnational terrorist attacks," he said, citing hotel bombings in neighboring Jordan in November and a rocket attack last August that targeted U.S. Navy ships visiting that country.

Problem is, it's my bus too.


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SOURCES: 1) CBS News, Poll: Bush Ratings at All-Time Low, which notes sympathetically, "In a bright spot for the administration, most Americans appeared to have heard enough about Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident." 2) Zogby International poll of 994 military respondents polled 1/18-2/14/06, MOE +/- 3.3%. 3) Ellen Knickmeyer, Bassam Sebti, Washington Post, 2/28: Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300 ) 4) William Branigin, Washington Post, 2/28: Report Offers Gloomy View of Insurgencies posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:50:00 PM -- |    

 
"Keep. Do Not Sell."


The photo was developed from one of thousands of negatives discovered in an equipment closet at The Birmingham News, whose editors had suppressed them during the civil rights movement era in the 1950s and 1960s. Writer Barnett Wright explains:

The section is the result of research by Alexander Cohn, a 30-year-old former photo intern at The News. In November 2004, Cohn went through an equipment closet at the newspaper in search of a lens and saw a cardboard box full of negatives marked, "Keep. Do Not Sell."

Cohn, who grew up in Mountain Brook and is a master's candidate at the University of Missouri, researched the images and discovered that many had never been published.

"These images were hidden in plain sight," Cohn said. "When I first started looking through this stuff, I was seeing a lot of images that I'd never seen before. I started going through everything on the subject that I could find to get a fuller picture of what was going on."

The Birmingham News has set up an online archive of many of the photos called "Unseen. Unforgotten." It's a treasure trove, and well worth your time.

Via Will Bunch, who once worked for the newspaper, and whose observations are worth your time as well.


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* Image and caption via The Birmingham News. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:05:00 PM -- |    

 
Reynolds wrap
While I've been skeptical, it may be I'll feel more reassured about the Dubai Ports World controversy as I learn more about the company's past performance, and about safeguards that would prevent infiltrators from abusing its new position of trust -- literally drafting security plans for American port facilities from Philadelphia to New Orleans.

Glenn Reynolds' remarkable take on the issue won't do the trick, though:

...I feel better about the port deal now -- though in part because it appears that port security in general is so very bad that this deal can't make much of a difference...

Now there's drunk driver logic for you. "Hell, I've already purt near totaled this heap (hic), what's runnin' one more stupid red light gonna matter?"

And come to think of it, whose responsibility would that "so very bad" port security be, going on five years after "everything changed"? Al Gore's? John Kerry's? Reynolds isn't saying, that's for sure; instead, he repeats the canard that concerns about an Arab emirate state-owned company having the keys to U.S. port facilities amounts to anti-Arab bigotry by "Democratic politicians."

You know, the ones who say "raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences," and the ones who cheer when they do.

Reynolds is having none of that kind of talk, no sir:

...casting this in terms that suggest that we're at war with all Arabs, or all Muslims, just buys into the Islamists' apocalyptic scenario. I don't like to see people in America, by pandering to stereotypes, doing that.

Welcome aboard, Professor. Better late than never -- even if "A tipping point on Islam?" is an odd title to perch atop that conclusion.


=====
NOTE: Security plan link via Yglesias.
EDIT, 2/28: "emirate" and link to CIA World Factbook added: "Suffrage- none [...] Federal Supreme Council (FSC) composed of the seven emirate rulers; the FSC is the highest constitutional authority in the UAE." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:43:00 AM -- |    

 
Six kinds of funny
News from the North Country: The Bleak, by Chris Clarke (Creek Running North) which I'm nominating right now for most humorous post of 2006. It's got to be a favorite to win, at least if you enjoy Lileks sendups as much as I do:

As I mentioned last week, Lorraine and my wife had been selected to represent Minneapolis at the 2006 Personal Trainer's convention in Cancun, Mexico, and Gnat and I were both really proud. My wife was so excited that she almost forgot to kiss me as she got into Lorraine's Subaru. "Mommy loves her girlfriend," said Gnat as the two of them pulled away, and all I could think was how sad it'll be when the public schools start punishing her for calling women "girls." Toddlers have a wonderful natural conservativism, and it's a shame the educational industry forces them to mature out of it.

What Friends are For, by Billmon ("Whiskey Bar"), provides the little known additional words spoken by Dick Whittington, that old guy our vice president shot in the face:

"I clearly obstructed a very good shot by the vice president, one which might easily have bagged several pen-raised quail if my upper torso and head hadn't absorbed most of the blast," Whittington explained. "I only hope he can find it in his heart to forgive me for not getting out of the way faster when he whirled and fired without warning."

Whittington added that that he has offered to reimburse the vice president for the full cost of the hunting trip, including the wasted birdshot.

Vinaigrette, in which Hullabaloo bids adieu to Catch. Digby thinks Kevin will be back, though:

It's hard to go cold turkey. Yelling at the TV just doesn't have the same kick. Plus it annoys people. Your loved ones quickly realize they didn't miss you that much after all and are relieved to hear the sounds of your angry typing. I'm guessing. Not that I would know, of course. I'm very even keeled.

Keyboard Kommando Komix PROUDLY presents …, by the Editors of the Poor Man Institute

German Coast Guard (.mpg file)

Fox News -- proudly marketing the new "stupid, sad" flavor of funny:



Umm... I'm going to go with "no."


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NOTES: The Bleak via Sore Eyes via Gary Farber, who disagrees about the merits of this particular Lileks-mocking. But come, let us not disagree, my brothers and sisters: all Lileks mocking is good. German Coast Guard via Damian TPoD ("digitalwarfighter"). Fox "Could it be a good thing?" still via everywhere, this particular one via Balkinization. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:55:00 PM -- |    

 
Governor Ehrlich for voter-verified electronic voting
I've meant to mention this for over a week now: credit where it is due, even when my state's governor Bob Ehrlich is involved. On February 16, the Washington Post's Ann Marimow reported:

Seven months before Maryland's primary election, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) said yesterday that he lacks confidence in the State Board of Elections to conduct fair contests, and he called for a paper trail to verify results from touch-screen voting machines and a delay in plans for early voting. [...]

"I believe that it is time for the board to get aggressive in responding to citizens' concerns over public confidence in the elections system," Ehrlich wrote.

(Link added.) Reliably stupid State Board of Elections commissioner Linda Lamone (D) went for the old regretting-sunk-costs counterargument the next day:

"We've spent a lot of money on the system, and we're literally going to be throwing it all away," Lamone testified at a hearing on legislation that would require vote verification technology for the upcoming election. "I think you are asking for a catastrophe if you try to change."

As the Washington Post responded in an editorial ("Paper-Trail Politics," February 20): "After all, who needs audits or some paper record of how votes were cast? Just take it on faith that your vote was duly recorded and that the results are right."

Ehrlich's about-face is stunning -- last year he even vetoed a bill that just called for studying adding voter verification to electronic voting systems in the state. The governor telegraphed one of his motives when he said "Maryland is not prepared to conduct an election, let alone early voting." Ehrlich was referring to the Maryland legislature's override, earlier this month, of his veto of a measure allowing early voting and expanded provisional voting.

Meanwhile, Sheila Hixson, chair of the Assembly Ways and Means committee, who has been working on a model voter-verified paper records measure, now wants the state to lease optical scan voting technology for the coming elections -- as paper-trail, voter-verified, and non "black box" as can be. The idea is strongly supported by TrueVoteMD.org, the organization that has been at the forefront of voter-verified "paper trail" efforts in the state.

So while leading Democrats like Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Ehrlich's comments were an attempt to "create confusion and chaos," I don't see quite how that reflects well on Democrats "confused" by all this, or how Ehrlich necessarily undoes early voting with this gambit. As Hixson seems to be saying, just go for optical scan voting in the short run, and other voter-verified voting machinery in the long run if that proves more attractive overall. Personally, I'd lean towards just sticking with the optical scan process.

Is Governor Ehrlich driven only by his fierce, pure love for elections accurately reflecting the true wishes of Maryland's citizens? Mmm... probably not; he may hope to somehow slow down early voting, he may simply want to sow a little discord among Maryland Democrats. So what? Whatever his motives, he may have dealt a death blow to paperless touch screen voting -- Republican legislators will have little partisan reason to vote against voter-verified voting measures, whether optical scan or the model voter-verified voting bill. As the Post editorial concludes:

Still, machines that produce paper trails are a must. The political dickering and dueling that compounded this mess has got to be cut short. The integrity of Maryland's voting process is at stake. It must not be imperiled as voters prepare to record their preferences in some of the most important state and local elections in years.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:01:00 AM -- |