August 7, 2013 archive

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On This Day In History August 7

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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August 7 is the 219th day of the year (220th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 146 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Northern Hemisphere is considered to be halfway through its summer and the Southern Hemisphere half way through its winter on this day.

On this day in 1947, Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes a 4,300-mile, 101-day journey from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. Heyerdahl wanted to prove his theory that prehistoric South Americans could have colonized the Polynesian islands by drifting on ocean currents.

Heyerdahl and his five-person crew set sail from Callao, Peru, on the 40-square-foot Kon-Tiki on April 28, 1947. The Kon-Tiki, named for a mythical white chieftain, was made of indigenous materials and designed to resemble rafts of early South American Indians. While crossing the Pacific, the sailors encountered storms, sharks and whales, before finally washing ashore at Raroia. Heyerdahl, born in Larvik, Norway, on October 6, 1914, believed that Polynesia’s earliest inhabitants had come from South America, a theory that conflicted with popular scholarly opinion that the original settlers arrived from Asia. Even after his successful voyage, anthropologists and historians continued to discredit Heyerdahl’s belief. However, his journey captivated the public and he wrote a book about the experience that became an international bestseller and was translated into 65 languages. Heyerdahl also produced a documentary about the trip that won an Academy Award in 1951.

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NSA Handing Information to DEA and DOJ

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The National Security Agency isn’t just looking to “keep us safe” from terrorists by collecting metadata, the NSA is sharing its information with the secretive Special Operations Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) which is then passing that information to local authorities, covering up the NSA source.

U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans

by John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, Reuters

A secretive US Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

It isn’t just the DEA that is doing this, the Justice Department is also receiving information about non-terrorist related criminal activity.

NSA handing over non-terror intelligence

by Stewart M. Powell, SFGate

The National Security Agency is handing the Justice Department information, derived from its secret electronic eavesdropping programs, about suspected criminal activity unrelated to terrorism.

This little-known byproduct of counterterrorism surveillance continues amid controversy over the NSA’s wide-ranging collection of domestic communications intelligence, including Americans’ telephone calling records and Internet use.

It is unclear whether the referrals have been built upon the content of telephone calls and emails. Administration officials have previously assured Congress that NSA surveillance focuses on so-called metadata and in the main does not delve into the content of individual calls or email messages.

Also, some in the legal community question the constitutionality of criminal prosecutions stemming from intelligence-agency eavesdropping.

Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles

by Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times

The National Security Agency’s dominant role as the nation’s spy warehouse has spurred frequent tensions and turf fights with other federal intelligence agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations, officials say.

Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement complain that their attempts to exploit the security agency’s vast resources have often been turned down because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority, current and former government officials say.

Intelligence officials say they have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights.

The recent disclosures of agency activities by its former contractor Edward J. Snowden have led to widespread criticism that its surveillance operations go too far and have prompted lawmakers in Washington to talk of reining them in. But out of public view, the intelligence community has been agitated in recent years for the opposite reason: frustrated officials outside the security agency say the spy tools are not used widely enough.

At emptywheel, bmaz points out this is nothing in the Reuter’s article on the SOD wasn’t already known, just no one has been paying attention:

First, the headline is misleading. The caption is:

   Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans

Well, not really (and, in fairness, the actual body of the article is about a practice that is a result of the SOD). DEA’s Special Ops Division is neither new nor secret in the least, and there is no way to “cover it up”. Google it; I got “About 289,000 results (0.29 seconds)” as a return. You will get something similar. The revelation that SOD was used in the Viktor Bout case is also not new, here is a Time story detailing it from 2011.

In fact, any criminal defense attorney who did cocaine hub conspiracy cases in the 90′s could have told you most of the Reuter’s article in their sleep. That was exactly the scene that DEA-SOD was born from. As the war on drugs went nuclear, the DEA devised what they termed the “Kingpin Strategy” (pdf):

   In 1992, the DEA instituted the Kingpin Strategy that focused investigative and enforcement efforts on specific drug trafficking organizations. The DEA planned to dis- able major organizations by attacking their most vulnerable areas-the chemicals needed to process the drugs, their finances, communications, transportation, and leadership structure.

   The Kingpin Strategy held that the greatest impact on the drug trade took place when major drug organizations were dis- rupted, weakened, and destroyed. This strategy focused enforcement efforts and resources against the highest-level traffickers and their organizations, and provided a systematic way of attacking the various vulnerabilities of the organiza- tions. By systematically attacking each of these vulnerabilities, the strategy aimed to destroy the entire organization, and with it, the organization’s capacity to finance, produce, and distrib- ute massive amounts of illegal drugs. Each blow weakened the organization and improved the prospects for arresting and prosecuting the leaders and managers of the organizations.

   The Kingpin Strategy evolved from the DEA’s domestic and overseas intelligence gathering and investigations.

And from Kingpin sprung the Special Operations Division:

   Under the original Kingpin Strategy, DEA headquarters often dictated the selection of Kingpin targets. In response to the SACs’ concerns, Administrator Constantine agreed to allow them more latitude in target selection. In conjuction with this decision, he established the Special Operations Division at Newington, Virginia, in 1994 to coordinate multi-jurisdictional investigations against major drug trafficking organizations responsible for the flow of drugs into the United States.

On this morning’s Democracy Now!, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald responded to a report by Reuters.



Transcript can be read here.

“It’s a full-frontal assault on the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments and on the integrity of the judicial process, because they’re deceiving everyone involved in criminal prosecutions about how this information has been obtained,” Greenwald says.

Are the Embassy Threats Exagerated? Or Manufactured?

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Strange, the US intelligence agencies didn’t intercept any communications warning of the prison breaks but have info on alleged “imminent attacks.”

Yemen on ‘high alert’ over warning of imminent al-Qaida attack

by Ian Black, The Guardian

US personnel flown out of country as reports claim ‘extraordinary and unprecedented’ security measures in force in capital Sana’a

Yemeni security forces have been put on high alert amid warnings of an imminent attack by al-Qaida in Sana’a, as the US and Britain withdrew embassy staff and urged their citizens to leave the country.

BBC Arabic quoted a Yemeni security source as saying that “extraordinary and unprecedented” security measures had been put in place, with armoured vehicles deployed at the presidential palace and other sensitive government and foreign installations in Yemen’s capital.

Dozens of al-Qaida operatives were said to have streamed into Sana’a in the last few days, apparently to take part in a terrorist attack, the BBC said. The Yemeni claim could not be independently confirmed.

US embassy closures used to bolster case for NSA surveillance programs

by Spencer Ackerman and Dan Roberts, The Guardian

Congress told that NSA monitoring led to interception of al-Qaida threats but privacy campaigners fear ulterior political motives

US embassies in the Middle East are to remain closed for the rest of the week as supporters of the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance powers used the unspecified terror alert to bolster the case against reining in the controversial measures.

The closures follow the alleged interception of al-Qaida communications in Yemen, which intelligence committee members in Congress have been told were collected overseas using powers granted to the NSA under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – not the bulk surveillance programs disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden.

A privacy group questioned the publicity given to the latest alert after the State Department announced on Sunday evening that the number of embassies and consulates closed “out of an abundance of caution”

would be increased, with some remaining shut for up to a week.

Rebublican senator Saxby Chambliss said the NSA had identified threats that were the most serious for years and akin to levels of “terrorist chatter” picked up before 9/11.

On Democracy Now!, journalist for The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald discusses the latest terrorist treats and the closings ogf US embassies int the the region.



Transcript can be read here

The Obama administration has announced it will keep 19 diplomatic posts in North Africa and the Middle East closed for up to a week, due to fears of a possible militant threat. On Sunday, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the decision to close the embassies was based on information collected by the National Security Agency. “If we did not have these programs, we simply would not be able to listen in on the bad guys,” Chambliss said, in a direct reference to increasing debate over widespread spying of all Americans revealed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. “Nobody has ever questioned or disputed that the U.S. government, like all governments around the world, ought to be eavesdropping and monitoring the conversations of people who pose an actual threat to the United States in terms of plotting terrorist attacks,” Greenwald says.

August 6, 2001

An Annual Reminder.

Echo… echo… echo… Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon… Manny Mota… Mota… Mota…

You may remember my brother the activist.  I keep trying to get him to post, but he’s shy and busy.  He sent me this yesterday and I thought I’d share it with you.

I need to add that he’s a great admirer of James Carville’s political savvy (though not his policies) and one story he likes to tell is how during the height of Monica-gate Carville was on one of the Talking Head shows and made a point about how important it is to stay on message.  Carville then proceeded to demonstrate his gift by working the phrase “Cigarette Lawyer Ken Starr” 27 times in the next 30 seconds.- ek

The date – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 – August 6, 2001 needs to be as well known to Joe and Jane American as September 11, 2001.

Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6, 2001 PDB

Declassified and Approved for Release, 10 April 2004

Presidential Daily Briefing: August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct foreign terrorist attacks on the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and “bring the fighting to America.”

Presidential Daily Briefing: August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted] service.

Presidential Daily Briefing: August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted] service at the same that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

Presidential Daily Briefing: August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

Presidential Daily Briefing: August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

So Vice President Dick, tell me again how the REPUBLICANS WILL KEEP US SAFE?

So Senator McSame, tell me again how invading and occupying IRAQ has helped the U.S. hunt down BIN LADEN?

I’m printing my own bumper stickers filled with images from 9-11 and this text-

August 6, 2001 – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. – We Will Never Forget.

“I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center”- Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor

“All right. You’ve covered your ass now.”- George W. Bush

Chronic Tonic- Prisoner Of Franklin Avenue

Originally published at VOTS

My Dad is pissed off. About what, you ask. Well, one never knows what, out of any number of things will set him off throughout the day, but, believe me, you do not want to be in his path when it happens. For instance, last week, during a seemingly innocuous discussion of Whopper Wednesday, Dad mentioned that each time we partake in this fast food festivity it cost him 25 bucks. Now, I don’t why, but for some reason a giggle managed to bubble up and escape from me. Suddenly, I found myself in the room with Joe Pesci, “What? That’s funny to you?”

“No! Nope, not at all. I wasn’t laughing at you, Dad, it was something on the computer! I can always rustle us up something here at home, we don’t even need to do Whopper Wednesday, I thought you liked it.” Oh, holy shit, that was close.

A lot of us Catholic school kids learned long ago many tricks to suppress laughter. My best bet was always to suck in slightly and bite down on the inside of my cheeks. I’ve had occasion to employ this method from time to time over the years, meetings, school plays, funerals, but I never dreamed that I’d be raw as hamburger in there at this stage of the game. It’s not just me either, it’s to the point now where I can shoot my sister a look across the table that instantly conveys: careful, you’re in danger of getting “Pesci’ed.” Yeah, it happens often enough that we’ve short-handed it.

Yes, he rants and he raves. He calls utilities and bends the ear of whatever poor shmo happens to be on the other end of the line for what seems like hours. Why isn’t it like it used to be? Why did your website change? Why is there a charge to pay by phone? Are you the same person I talked to yesterday? Damn it, what happened to customer service? Better them than me.

He runs to Home Depot to pick up epoxy. Now, this trip ought to take about a half hour at most, it’s five minutes away and he knows what he’s going for. Two hours later he is back, and there is fire in his eyes. “That fucking store doesn’t carry the two part epoxy I want! Half the people working there don’t know their ass from third base, they don’t even know how epoxy works!” This will be followed by a lecture on how epoxy works (we know, Dad, from the previous ten times you’ve told us) filled with words like methyl-ethyl-ketone, viscosity and other terms to make eyes glaze over. Yes, he does know what he’s talking about, no, I do not care. But, I will sit and nod and make appropriate noises throughout. He was, in his day, the “go to” guy at his workplace for this and many, many other things. Plus–I do not want him going all Pesci on me.

To the casual observer it might look like Dad is angry about damn near everything these days. He’s not. He’s really angry about one thing: His wife of nearly 60 years slips a little further away every damn day, and no matter what he does, he can’t fix or change it.