NSA, Gen., Hayden, Mike Mukasey, Snowden & . . . China? (Updated)

Former NSA and later CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden is one of the people in the best position to discuss the NSA programs that aggregate vast amounts of "meta-data" on phone calls in, to and from the U.S. Here he is on the Fox News Sunday show, speaking of their use, value, and alluding to safeguards:



In the WSJ,former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote today in full throated defense both of the NSA program and to assure that it is not being misused, drawing contrasts to the IRS. He also takes pains to point out that the type of meta-data being gathered by the NSA does not violate Article 4 of the Constitution.

I am inclined to agree that the NSA program is probably valid and legal. It is unfortunate for the nation that the exposure of this program comes on the heels of real scandals of government abuse of power. It is more unfortunate that this reveals yet more of our intelligence methods to those who would do us harm.

The leak of this information came from Edward Snowden, a 29 year old described in the WSJ:

Mr. Snowden told the Guardian he grew up in Elizabeth City, N.C., though his family later moved to Maryland. He described himself as having been a poor high school student who eventually obtained a GED. He enlisted in the Army in 2003, but left the military after a training accident. He started working as a security guard at an NSA site, went on to work for the CIA, and left that job in 2009, he told the Guardian.

I have real questions about how this joker got a top secret clearance. That aside, Snowden claims that he leaked the information on the NSA program because he was concerned with privacy and government overreach. But then he seeks asylum with . . . China? Well, Hong Kong, which is today a province of Communist China. Given Snowden's avowed motives, his choice of places to defect ought to be raising, well, red flags. This from former CIA agent Bob Baer on CNN today.



Update: The Daily Beast has a primer on how to keep "NSA at bay. Do government surveillance disclosures have you fearing Uncle Sam’s reach? Winston Ross looks at PGPs, secret phone apps, and burners like The Wire to cloak your digital trail."

Update 2: Dafyyd at Big Lizards agrees that the NSA program was probably Constitutional and non-intrusive to ordinary Americans. Says he, "Nevertheless, I have a very strong feeling (I'll make it a prediction) that, strangely enough, this non-scandal will turn out to be the most devastating scandal of the Obama administration." I concur in the reasoning he lays out in his post.

Law prof. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection expresses the disquiet I and probably most feel about this massive gathering of data:

But I’m also concerned with what could be done with the information gathered about American citizens not suspected of a crime if put into the hands of politicians and political groups, and bureaucrats who work for or are sympathetic to such politicians and political groups.

That really is the crux of the issue as exists now. From Benghazi to Fast and Furious and, most importantly, to the IRS's multiple scandals, I have no trust that this information will not be misused by the left to punish political "enemies," as Obama has previously classed us on the right.

Also at Legal Insurrection, Mandy Nagy points out that the Snowden leak was largely already made public by NSA cryptologist Bill Binney in 2011 and even earlier than that by NSA employee Thomas Drake. The only thing that is new, really, is that the MSM and the left (to the extent there is a distinction) have taken note and are up in arms about all of this.

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Kirsten Powers & The Left's War On Truth

For the past six years, the right has been railing against the mainstream media for wholly ignoring all stories that would be problematic for Obama and the left. The worm has finally turned with Benghazi, the IRS scandals (targeting conservative 501(c)4's and targeted auditing), and the DOJ's investigations into Fox News and the AP over national security leaks.

And yet, the efforts of the most vile on the left is not to seek the truth, but to try and spin this all either as mere Republican partisan spin, Republican hatred of Obama, or Republican overreaching - or indeed, in the innocuous case of wording difference in some of the Benghazi e-mails, as pure right wing fabrication. It is so far beyond the pale as to cross a real boundary line where any thought of fair and open debate with these people is simply no longer an option. That said, certainly not all on the left fit this mold - Kirsten Powers being perhaps the most shining example of an intellectually honest left of center reporter. And today, she took the Obama administration and her fellow journalists on the left to task for their scurrilous acts in an exceptional column:

It’s instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organization—Fox News—and the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they weren’t next?

These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.

"What I think is fair to say about Fox … is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “[L]et's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." On ABC’s “This Week” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Fox is "not really a news station." It wasn’t just that Fox News was “not a news organization,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel told CNN’s John King, but, “more [important], is [to] not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …”

These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.

Yet only one mainstream media reporter—Jake Tapper, then of ABC News—ever raised a serious objection to the White House’s egregious and chilling behavior. Tapper asked future MSNBC commentator and then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “[W]hy is [it] appropriate for the White House to say” that “thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a ‘news organization’?” The spokesman for the president of the United States was unrepentant, saying: “That's our opinion.”

Trashing reporters comes easy in Obama-land. Behind the scenes, Obama-centric Democratic operatives brand any reporter who questions the administration as a closet conservative, because what other explanation could there be for a reporter critically reporting on the government?

Now, the Democratic advocacy group Media Matters—which is always mysteriously in sync with the administration despite ostensibly operating independently—has launched a smear campaign against ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl for his reporting on Benghazi. It’s the kind of character assassination that would make Joseph McCarthy blush. The main page of the Media Matters website has six stories attacking Karl for a single mistake in an otherwise correct report about the State Department's myriad changes to talking points they previously claimed to have barely touched. See, the problem isn’t the repeated obfuscating from the administration about the Benghazi attack; the problem is Jonathan Karl. Hence, the now-familiar campaign of de-legitimization. This gross media intimidation is courtesy of tax-deductable donations from the Democratic Party’s liberal donor base, which provides a whopping $20 million a year for Media Matters to harass reporters who won’t fall in line.

In what is surely just a huge coincidence, the liberal media monitoring organization Fairness and Accuracy in the Media (FAIR) is also on a quest to delegitimize Karl. It dug through his past and discovered that in college he allegedly—horrors!—associated with conservatives. Because of this, FAIR declared Karl “a right wing mole at ABC News.” Setting aside the veracity of FAIR’s crazy claim, isn’t the fact that it was made in the first place vindication for those who assert a liberal media bias in the mainstream media? If the existence of a person who allegedly associates with conservatives is a “mole,” then what does that tell us about the rest of the media?

What all of us in the media need to remember—whatever our politics—is that we need to hold government actions to the same standard, whether they’re aimed at friends or foes. If not, there’s no one but ourselves to blame when the administration takes aim at us.

In the video below, Ms. Powers points out not only the outrageousness of the DOJ's investigation of Fox News' James Rosen, but also the Obama administration practice of punishing and prosecuting whistleblowers while letting pass all leaks of national security information which paintw the Obama administration in a favorable light.



My respect for Ms. Powers has long been full and complete. Meanwhile, three of the most vile left wing journalists, Jonathan Capehart, Josh Marshall, and Ezra Klein, were yesterday seen filing into the West Wing, no doubt for a journolist meeting with Carney, if not Obama.

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CIA Beginning The Drip

In either her second or third generation excuse for failing to take a stand against waterboarding when she was finally told about it (hey, if Pelosi can't keep this stuff straight, how do you expect me to), Pelosi claims that the CIA merely "notified" her of what the CIA was doing. Some oversight, eh? According to Speaker Pelosi, she didn't object because she was constrained, impotent, wholly unable to protest and with no avenue by which to register her abhorance.

It is being reported on Fox News tonight that in 2004, the Bush administration considered a secret CIA-run plan to counter Iran's meddling in Iraqi elections. Pelosi was briefed on the plan and strenuously objected. She personally hunted down Condi Rice and complained until it was agreed that the CIA would not conduct the operation. Thus it would seems that, on the issue of waterboarding, Pelosi's claim of the lack of any avenue through which to register her objection - a ludicrous proposition on its face - is also demonstrably false.

Now, I wonder . . . just how that story got out to the press. I'd give better than even odds that it originated somewhere in CIA headquarters at Langley. Let the leaking commence. I'm going to put on the popcorn and get a beer out of the fridge. This should be some first class entertainment.

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Interesting News From Around the Web

The Goracle is at it again. On Monday, he used the occasion of his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize lecture "to tell the world in powerful, stark language" that "Man-Bear-Pig is" – no, wait one, strike that -- he said that "Climate change is a real, rising, imminent and universal" threat to the future of the earth.

Not only did he win the Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, the Goracle tops the list of the "Greenest Hypocrites" of 2007. And Marc Sheppard at American Thinker ponders just how green was the Bali Conference.

Students are protesting at Iran’s colleges as Ahmedinejad tightens the screws.

I am sure that someone else has already made this observation in print, but it bears repeating, people do not kill crazed gunmen, people with guns do.

Michael Vick gets hammered with a 23 month sentence for his role in a dogfighting ring. The judge went beyond the sentence of 12 to 18 months recommended by prosecutors because he believed that Vick had been misleading in his statements to the FBI.

At an international conference in Scotland organized by the IAEA, security experts are warning of the threat of "dirty bombs" and urging tighter control on nuclear materials. Perhaps someone could put them in touch Vann Van Diepen.

Ralph Peters looks at the work our Rehab Centers are doing for our wounded veterans. It’s a good read.

Scientists use genetic manipulation to create bisexual fruit flys, leading to the supposition that homosexuality has a genetic basis but is not hard wired.

The Supreme Court ponders whether the Constitution of the United States afford any due process for alien jihadists even as they conduct a terror war against Americans.

John McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA, states that the next administration and Congress need to give serious thought to stopping the flow of intelligence leaks.

Our MSM believes in balanced reporting when it comes to Iraq. As Gateway Pundit discusses, any good news must be balanced by bad news, even if it is uncorroborated.

Islamists carry out two suicide attacks in Pakistan, both horrific. One was on a busload of school children all below the age of twelve. The other was at a nuclear weapons site.

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The Sound, The Fury, And The Waterboarding

Someone tell me with a straight face that there isn’t coordination between the CIA and/or Democratic staffers and the New York Times to once again make public confidential information in an effort to one, embarrass the government, and two, forward the Democratic legislative agenda by any means available.

Let's set the stage for what happened today. The Congress is about to debate on legislation that would make illegal in all cases "enhanced" interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. I am glad to see this legislation. It is a question that should be debated and decided by our elected leadership in Congress. I hope the debate is quite robust. Do we choose moral perfection or practical necessity. How do we, as a nation, define the word and outer boundary of "torture" in all circumstances. Going to sleep at night with a clean conscious is important. So is waking up alive in the morning. Assuming George Tenet was accurate, use of waterboarding on two radical Islamists is what, in fact, has kept more than a few Americans still waking up in the morning. And the Islamists so treated suffered no damage or long term ill effects from their treatment - something that normally defines techniques considered "torture." So do we legislate this technique out of our repertoire in all future cases?

Very loyal Americans of all political persuasions can discuss this in the cold light of reason and come to different conclusions. John McCain and Teddy Kennedy both come out on the side of holding waterboarding to be torture and, by definition, outlawed under our Geneva Convention treaty obligations. Others would define waterboarding, which causes little more than momentary, overwhelming panic, not to be torture within the black letter definition of the term. So this is a very valid question with very real national security ramifications. Its not some ethical problem posed in a classroom. The lives of real people are in the balance. This matter should be debated dispassionately and all ramifications carefully considered.

But that is not what is happening. Instead what we have is an attempt by the left to cloud this very important question with emotion and seemingly bad facts wholly ancillary to the question that our government will be asked to debate. The lead article spread across our morning papers results from the NYT decision to publish that the CIA destroyed in 2005 two videos of enhanced interrogations. The CIA claims that appropriate members of Congress were briefed at the time. That is disputed by some in Congress. Proof one way or the other will likely come out of Congressional records over the next few days. There is also a question of whether these tapes should have been provided to the 9-11 Commission. That will also become clear in the next few days and, if they were held without authorization, than heads should roll. Yet another question is asked whether the tapes should have been produced to the defense in the Moussaoui case. That will also become clear in the next few days, though initial indications are that the prisoners interrogated on the tapes were not prisoners on whom Moussaoui's lawyers requested production.

All of this is meaningful, and achieving clarity on the above questions are important, but it is not meaningful in the context in which it is being manipulated by the NYT. The NYT's purpose for running the story is already accomplished - to cloud the debate over this piece of Democratic legislation.

This is the story from the NYT:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. . .

In a statement to employees on Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made “within the C.I.A.” and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program.

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which was appointed by President Bush and Congress, and which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

The disclosures about the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over laws that allow the C.I.A. to use interrogation practices more severe than those allowed to other agencies. A Congressional conference committee voted late Wednesday to outlaw those interrogation practices, but the measure has yet to pass the full House and Senate and is likely to face a veto from Mr. Bush.

The New York Times informed the intelligence agency on Wednesday evening that it was preparing to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes. In his statement to employees on Thursday, General Hayden said that the agency had acted “in line with the law” and that he was informing C.I.A. employees “because the press has learned” about the matter.

General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk” and that if they had become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”

. . . General Hayden has said publicly that information obtained through the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program has been the best source of intelligence for operations against Al Qaeda. In a speech last year, President Bush said that information from Mr. Zubaydah had helped lead to the capture in 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. . . .

Read the NYT article here. And here is the WaPo article on the tapes. If the Republicans have a single bit of backbone, they will demand an investigation into how this information, which had to be classified, came to be leaked to the NYT. This constant stream of classified leaks has got to end.

As to whether to use waterboarding as a legitimate, closely regulated technique of interrogation, let the debate begin. As to the NYT, let their stock value ebb evermore.

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Iran - The Good, the Bad, and the NIE

The U.S. has released an unclassified version of the November, 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. The document assesses with moderate confidence that Iran’s nuclear weapons program, previously thought to be active, has actually been on hold since 2003. This NIE was initiated last year by request of Senator Harry Reid. He also requested that an unclassified version be released when the NIE was completed.

The highlights of the NIE are:

It is highly likely Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program until 2003

It is highly likely Iran called a temporary halt to that program in 2003

It is more likely than not that Iran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program.

It is probable that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon.

It is possible but highly unlikely that Iran will be able to process and enrich sufficient HEU (highly enriched uranium) for a nuclear weapon by 2009.

It is possible that Iran will be able to process and enrich sufficient HEU for a nuclear weapon by 2013, but it is more likely that this will not occur until after 2015.

Iran continues to develop the technical capabilities that may be applicable to a nuclear weapons program.

It is highly likely that Iran's suspension of its covert nuclear weapon’s program was "primarily in response" to international pressure. "This suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously."

The good news is that a major military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program is off the table for the foreseeable future. Beyond that, there are some questions raised by the NIE:

1. The usefulness of sanctions and why Iran suspended their covert nuclear weapons program in 2003

The NIE credits international pressure for Iran’s decision to stop its covert nuclear weapons program. If the NIE is correct, than Iran’s leadership is making decisions on a cost-benefit model. The NIE ignores what would seem to be critical related issues. Specifically, what role, if any, did our invasion of Iraq have to do with Iran’s contemporaneous decision to suspend its covert program, and what effect does our continued presence in Iraq have on Iran’s decision not to restart the program? These "elephants in the room" have significant ramifications for whether we maintain a long term military presence in Iraq. Further, if the theocracy’s decision to suspend the covert program was indeed predicated wholly on sanctions, why hasn’t the theocracy been more cooperative with IAEA inspections and EU negotiations, thus eliminating the need for current sanctions and forestalling future ones?

2. Whether real sanctions will be achievable in the short run?

China and Russia have refused to allow significant sanctions to be imposed by the U.N. Security Council. There is some indication that Russia may be changing their position, but China surely won’t and will cite to this latest NIE for justification. Outside of the Security Council, nations with major trade relations with Iran are Germany, France and Italy. Those nations have adamantly resisted significant sanctions, though it appeared that Germany and France, at least prior to the release of this NIE, were willing to go much further in the next round of sanctions. Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News, stated his belief that will still be the case. I have my doubts. The sword of Damocles has just been removed by this NIE and likely with it the strong motivation needed to forgo trade and impose sanctions. It was just a few months ago that the EU refused to forgo even a single euro in trade with Iran to assist the UK in its effort to free its kidnapped servicemembers.

3. What will be the impact of this report on other Middle East nations that have initiated nuclear programs in response to Iran?

The NIE seems likely to push back resolution of the Iran issue by years. That is problematic in as much as resolution of the issue would be a major factor in convincing other Middle East nations to forgo their own nuclear programs. The creation of nuclear programs in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia will likely remain on track, and with it, all of the attendant ramifications for a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and the significant increase in the likelihood of terrorists gaining control of nuclear weapons or nuclear material for a dirty bomb. While we may have gained breathing space in regards to Iran's nuclear program, the larger ramifications appear likely only to grow until the issue of Iran's program is resovled.

4. Are we seeing Iraq in reverse?

This NIE is from intelligence sources, not from open inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to last weeks IAEA report, Iran is progressively becoming less cooperative with IAEA inspections. The NIE does not address the issue of Iran’s increasing non-compliance with the IAEA. Likewise, the NIE does not address Iran’s operational heavy water plant nor its continued enrichment of fuel for which it has no nuclear reactors to use. I am not saying that the NIE is incorrect or that we should not act in accordance with it. It falls far short, however, of giving me a warm fuzzy feeling that all is right at Natanz. Without any other information, I will assume that this report is not the result of politicized intelligence from agencies that seem to have had their own agenda during the Bush Presidency.

Predictably as the sun rises each day, the left and the MSM, led by Reuters, has seized on the NIE to imply that President Bush has been less than truthful in his prior assertions, most recently in October, that Iran had an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Moreover, according to the NY Times:

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as "directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran." He said he hoped the administration "appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy," and called for a "a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran."

I assume this is just typical bombast from Reid and that he is not suggesting that we either forgo more sanctions or negotiate directly with Iran. Years of negotiations and the offer of numerous carrots from the EU have proven entirely fruitless. We have more breathing space, but the threat posed by Iran to the West and the mere existence of their nuclear program in the Middle East continues to be a potentially existential problem.

The White House response to this new NIE, issued by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, seems to be measured and correct:

Today’s National Intelligence Estimate offers some positive news. It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen.

But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem. The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the Administration has been trying to do. And it suggests that the President has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests while ensuring that the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran.

The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran — with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure — and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution.

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