Monthly Archives: March 2014

Feinstein Savages CIA

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Cal), one of the more reliable friends the intelligence community has had in the Senate, delivered a remarkable statement on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

It’s really worth reading all of it. Choice bits below (I have boldfaced the choicest bit near the end):

The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detentions sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us.

Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then-Director Panetta and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a, quote, stand-alone computer system, end quote, with a, quote, network drive segregated from CIA networks, end quote, for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA who would, quote, not be permitted to share information from the system with other CIA personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee, end quote.

It was this computer network that notwithstanding our agreement with Director Panetta was searched by the CIA this past January — and once before, which I will later describe.

In early 2010, the CIA was continuing to provide documents and the committee staff was gaining familiarity with the information it had already received. In May of 2010, the committee staff noticed that the documents had been provided for the committee — that had been provided for the committee’s review were no longer accessible.

Staff approached the CIA personnel at the off-site location, who initially denied that documents had been removed. CIA personnel then blamed information technology personnel, who were almost all contractors, for removing the documents themselves without direction or authority.

And then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. When the White — when the committee approached the White House, the White House denied giving the CIA any such order.

… this was the exact sort of CIA interference in our investigation that we sought to avoid at the outset.

To be clear, the committee staff did not hack into CIA computers to obtain these documents, as has been suggested in the press.

When the internal Panetta Review documents disappeared from the committee’s computer system, this suggested once again that the CIA had removed documents already provided to the committee, in violation of CIA agreements and White House assurances that the CIA would cease such activities. As I have detailed, the CIA has previously withheld and destroyed information about its detention and interrogation program, including its decision in 2005 to destroy interrogation videotapes over the objections of the Bush White House and the director of national intelligence. Based on the above, there was a need to preserve and protect the internal Panetta Review in the committee’s own secure spaces.

Now, the relocation of the internal Panetta Review was lawful and handled in a manner consistent with its classification. No law prevents the relocation of a document in the committee’s possession from a CIA facility to secure committee offices on Capitol Hill. As I mentioned before, the document was handled and transported in a manner consistent with its classification, redacted appropriately, and it remains secured, with restricted access in committee spaces.

on January 15th, 2014, CIA Director Brennan requested an emergency meeting to inform me and Vice Chairman Chambliss that without prior notification or approval, CIA personnel had conducted a search — that was John Brennan’s word — of the committee computers at the off-site facility.

This search involved not only a search of documents provided by the committee by the CIA, but also a search of the standalone and walled-off committee network drive containing the committee’s own internal work product and communications. According to Brennan, the computer search was conducted in response to indications that some members of the committee staff might already have had access to the internal Panetta review.

The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the internal review or we obtained it.

Instead the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computers. The CIA has still not asked the committee any questions about how the committee acquired the Panetta review.

In place of asking any questions, the CIA’s unauthorized search of the committee computers was followed by an allegation, which we now have seen repeated anonymously in the press, that the committee staff had somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means, perhaps to include hacking into the CIA’s computer network.

As I have described, this is not true. The document was made available to the staff at the off-site facility, and it was located using a CIA-provided search tool running a query of the information provided to the committee pursuant to its investigation. Director Brennan stated that the CIA search had determined that the committee staff had copies of the internal Panetta review on the committee staff shared drive and had accessed them numerous times. He indicated at the meeting that he was going to order further forensic investigation of the committee network to loan — to learn more about activities of the committee’s oversight staff.

Besides the constitutional implications, the CIA search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.

Weeks later, I was also told that after the inspector general reviewed the CIA’s activities to the Department of Justice — excuse me, referred the CIA’s activities to the Department of Justice, the acting counsel general of the CIA filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice concerning the committee staff’s actions. I have not been provided the specifics of these allegations, or been told whether the department has initiated a criminal investigation based on the allegations of the CIA’s acting general counsel.

As I mentioned before, our staff involved in this matter have the appropriate clearances, handled this sensitive material according to established procedures and practice to protect classified information, and were provided access to the Panetta Review by the CIA itself.

As a result, there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting counsel general’s referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff, and I am not taking this lightly.

I should note that for most if not all of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the now-acting general counsel was a lawyer in the CIA’s counterterrorism center, the unit within which the CIA managed and carried out this program. From mid-2004 until the official termination of the detention and interrogation program in January 2009, he was the unit’s chief lawyer. He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study.

And now, this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of Congressional staff — the same Congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers, including the acting general counsel himself, provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.

Mr. President, let me say this: All senators rely on their staff to be their eyes and ears and to carry out our duties. The staff members of the intelligence committee are dedicated professionals who are motivated to do what is best for our nation. The staff members who have been working on this study and this report have devoted years of their lives to it, wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed.

They have worked long hours and produced a report unprecedented in its comprehensive attention to detail in the history of the Senate. They are now being threatened with legal jeopardy just as final revisions to the report and being made so that parts of it can be declassified and released to the American people.

Mr. President, I felt that I needed to come to the floor today to correct the public record and to give the American people the facts about what the dedicated committee staff have been working so hard for the last several years as part of the committee’s investigation.

I also want to reiterate to my colleagues my desire to have all updates to the committee report completed this month and approved for declassification. We’re not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification as release to the American people. The White House has indicated publicly and to me personally that it supports declassification and release.

If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted. But, Mr. President, the recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our Intelligence Committee. How Congress and how this will be resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law, National Security, Torture | 2 Comments

Management-Speak

According to an email full of corporate jargon I received today,

The results of the 2012 Mini-Pulse engagement survey and the ‘Canes Total Rewards-Your Thoughts assessment have been compiled and reported to University senior leadership. Nearly 6,000 faculty and staff responded to the surveys.

You cannot imagine my joy at learning that results are in from a 2012 survey I don’t remember. Especially given the exciting outcomes, which include, as the dramatic finale, the following:

In response to the Mini-Pulse survey and action plan submissions, the University has created a Culture Leadership Team to work on our common purpose, core values and behaviors, and employee value proposition. High-performing organizations have strong organizational identities based on established values and expectations for every member of the team. To continue to be successful we must be driven by a common vision, united in our core values, and focused on a set of aligned strategic goals. Along with President Shalala and more than 20 senior leaders, we have launched a formal process focused on leadership accountability for our workplace environment. In the months to come you’ll hear more about this effort and how you can get involved.

It is undoubtedly possible that there is a meaning hiding somewhere in that paragraph other than “more meetings,” but I for one don’t have the time or energy to figure out what it is.

Posted in U.Miami | 2 Comments

Mentioned in Dispatches

Today had more than its usually dollop of ‘net-fame, in that I was mentioned by Robert Paul Wolff at The Philospher’s Stone and by Cory Doctorow at boingboing.

As for me, I spent a good chunk of the day mastering Expresso and Scholastica and sending off my new article to law reviews. Maybe law review editors read boingboing?

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Covers

I tend to like covers of songs that change or interpret it in some way, and tend not to like to covers that redo a song much in the way of the original. And I don’t mind a little weirdness if it makes you see a song in a new way.

Thus, for example, I’ve enjoyed some strange and wonderful covers of Eleanor Rigby (although many attempts are certainly very weird, and others intentionally awful), but didn’t much like Elton John’s very popular cover of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, which I thought was too much like the original without adding anything or even being as good.

These are just tendencies. I’ve loved a number of covers of Al Green’s stunning Take Me to The River. I’m still not sure whether I prefer the original, the Talking Heads’ version, or Bryan Ferry’s even-more strangled-pop cool version. I think I heard the Talking Heads version first, but they each have something great.

All this is preamble and possibly apology for my enthusiasm for this cover of Lorde’s Royals. I like the original — I like the whole album — and I’m prepared to argue that one of the measures of great pop today is that it spawns great covers. Well, as far as I’m concerned, case closed. (Spotted via Crooked Timber; At the risk of undermining myself, I will add I was underwhelmed by the also CT-endorsed Royals cover by Mayer Hawthorne.)

Care to share your favorite cover?

Posted in Kultcha | 9 Comments

CIA Spied on Senate Committee?

This story seems like a Smoking Gun-sized Big Deal. The NYT version, C.I.A. Employees Face New Inquiry Amid Clashes on Detention Program and the less namby-pamby McClatchy version, Probe sought of CIA conduct in Senate study of secret detention program paint a pretty damming picture of an agency totally out of control, and of a potentially massive separation of powers conflict arising out of the Senate’s report on CIA torture.

Compare McClatchy’s leed:

The CIA Inspector General’s Office has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of malfeasance at the spy agency in connection with a yet-to-be released Senate Intelligence Committee report into the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program, McClatchy has learned.

The criminal referral may be related to what several knowledgeable people said was CIA monitoring of computers used by Senate aides to prepare the study. The monitoring may have violated an agreement between the committee and the agency.

to the NYT leed:

The Central Intelligence Agency’s attempt to keep secret the details of a defunct detention and interrogation program has escalated a battle between the agency and members of Congress and led to an investigation by the C.I.A.’s internal watchdog into the conduct of agency employees.

The agency’s inspector general began the inquiry partly as a response to complaints from members of Congress that C.I.A. employees were improperly monitoring the work of staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to government officials with knowledge of the investigation.

McClatchy also says this:

The committee determined earlier this year that the CIA monitored computers – in possible violation of an agreement against doing so – that the agency had provided to intelligence committee staff in a secure room at CIA headquarters that the agency insisted they use to review millions of pages of top-secret reports, cables and other documents, according to people with knowledge.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, a panel member, apparently was referring to the monitoring when he asked CIA Director John Brennan at a Jan. 9 hearing if provisions of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act “apply to the CIA? Seems to me that’s a yes or no answer.”

Brennan replied that he’d have to get back to Wyden after looking into “what the act actually calls for and it’s applicability to CIA’s authorities.”

None of that is in the NYT version, although the NYT (like McClatchy) does have these details:

Then, in December, Mr. Udall revealed that the Intelligence Committee had become aware of an internal C.I.A. study that he said was “consistent with the Intelligence Committee’s report” and “conflicts with the official C.I.A. response to the committee’s report.”

It appears that Mr. Udall’s revelation is what set off the current fight, with C.I.A. officials accusing the Intelligence Committee of learning about the internal review by gaining unauthorized access to agency databases.

In a letter to President Obama on Tuesday, Mr. Udall made a vague reference to the dispute over the C.I.A.’s internal report.

“As you are aware, the C.I.A. has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal C.I.A. review, and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the committee’s oversight responsibilities and for our democracy,” he wrote.

Developing.

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A Day Full of Comcast

Fearing that Comcast might show up without warning, I arranged my day so that I could spend most of it at home. But there was an 11am meeting I really needed go to to. Fortunately, we got done by 11:20, and then I rushed home again.

And, wouldn’t you guess, there were two trucks in front of my house when I got home. The guys said they had been trying to call me – on my home number (although they didn’t leave a message).

We agreed what they would do, namely run the new cable but leave the old one in place for the next Comcast guy to do the hookup. This was consistent with what everyone else who had come here or discussed it with me had said. So I went to my study and started working away.

Then the Internet went dead.

When I went outside I discovered the guys had pulled down the cable. Don’t worry, they told me, we’ll put in a new one and reconnect it so you won’t need to have another appointment. While being threatened with not having another Comcast appointment is like being told you may not need to have that root canal after all, I still worried. Does the contractor know how to connect up a cable? It’s not rocket science, but still, everyone else had been adamant that this was a task for a Comcast tech, not a Comcast contractor.

Meanwhile, I had a look a the trench which the team seemed to be digging with its hands. It seemed very shallow. How deep is it, I ask? Four to six inches, I’m told. So much for Comcast shovel technology not being adequate to dig a trench.

How long to make the new connection? I asked. A few minutes they say.

And indeed, in less than 10 minutes they said they were done.

So I tested it. Google strained to come up. Things were sloooow.

I ran a speed test. Ping was great: 5ms. Download was awful, 0.13 Mb when I’m paying for “Blast+” that promises 50Mb in burst mode. Upload was great, 11Mb. The last time I saw this combination of slow download fast upload it was a modem sync issue, so I power cycled the modem. Meanwhile, the contractors call in for a tech who they cheerfully promise will arrive sometime later today, undoubtedly, think I, while I’m going to fetch my son from school. That next Comcaster, the contractors said, is going to make some sort of more direct connection on the pole.

Don’t worry, it’s all outdoor work, you don’t need to be home.

I shuddered. I’d heard this before.

The modem finished its power cycle but there was no change on the download number. I ran a 50′ cable direct from the modem to a desktop, cutting out the router and the network from the circuit. This raised the download speed to 0.43 Mb, which while a vast improvement in percentage terms was still not anything like the speeds I had been getting yesterday. I ran the test several times, and managed to get over 1Mb downstream once. It still felt like a modem issue to me, and I wondered if maybe we just had to ask Comcast to resynch on their end. The tech says he’d try reinstalling the connection, just in case.

And, yes, whatever he did made a difference. Now with the PC directly connected to the modem I get about 10Mb down, and 11.75Mb up, about 20% of the download speed I previously enjoyed. And the contractor goes away, satisfied his work is done.

On the theory that this might be a modem issue, I called Comcast tech support (I get the Philippines call center), and the tech sends a refresh code down the line to the modem. This has no discernible effect. We try several different things including multiple reboots of the modem and one of the router, direct connections, network connections. The only thing I learn of interest is that one of my 50′ Cat 5e cables has a bad clip.1 All in all, we spent a good 45 minutes doing things that maybe ought to have worked, but don’t. The only thing I don’t manage to do is unscrew and reattach the coax connection to the modem, which I’m told might help somehow. I can’t do it because the original installer screwed it on so tightly that it is un-moveable. I hope the next team will have the right tools.

The phone tech tells me to tell the repair guy – who she tells me is scheduled to come between 2-6, a window that includes the school run – the following: “Modem is active and online, but it is not showing a stable connection from the server. Have the tech disconnect the coax to reset the connection. Ask them to call tech support so they can monitor connection.”

And there it sits for a couple of hours when, miraculously, a Comcast tech and his assistant show up at about 3:15, that is before I’ve left to do the school run. I explain the problem. I show them the above quote from the phone tech, which they say makes no sense to them. Surveying the back of the house, they note that the previous crew did not in fact take down the old cable so much as cut it, leaving a big piece hanging precariously, one that they then tied my new line into. The new crew brings out a giant ladder to climb up and attach the coiled up part of the new cable directly to the Comcast line high on the pole. This is no mean feat given that there is a small jungle around the base of the pole, including several trees, making it tough to get the ladder into place.

And after about 20 minutes they’re done. They test the signal at the house, and again at the modem, and its strong. Sure enough, speedtest (via the network) is now at 43.24 Mb down and 9.7Mb up; ping is up to 9, but who’s counting? Some of that speed may be illusory due to burst mode, but it’s still good. Looking at my modem diagnostics, I discover I now have IPv6 — which I didn’t have in December — and after tweaking my Tomato settings on my router to DHCPv6 with prefix delegation — I confirm this via test-ipv6.com.

So it’s all good. Well, all good except for one thing. During all this excitement, the air conditioner stopped working.2 The a/c repair guys are busy today but say they will come tomorrow.

Previously:

  1. A Report From Comcast Hell
  2. Comcast Discovers that Burying a Cable Requires Digging a Trench
  3. A Quick Comcast Update
  1. What? You don’t have a second 50′ Cat 5e cable in your house? What do you do when the first one goes bad? []
  2. Those of you mired in snow may not grasp the seriousness of this in Miami even in early March. It hit 81°F today, and was hotter upstairs. []
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