JAMES CLAPPER, KNOWN LIAR, GOES AFTER WHISTLE-BLOWER.

If Clapper had been sworn in at the time he had this exchange with Sen. Wyden, then he perjured himself.

U.S. spy agency seeks criminal probe into leaks


By Timothy Gardner and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Sat Jun 8, 2013 10:47pm EDT

(Reuters) - A U.S. intelligence agency requested a criminal probe on Saturday into the leak of highly classified information about secret surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, a spokesman for the intelligence chief's office said.

Confirmation that the NSA filed a "crimes report" came a few hours after the nation's spy chief, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper launched an aggressive defense of a secret government data collection program.

Clapper blasted what he called "reckless disclosures" of a highly classified spy agency project code-named PRISM.

MORE ON PRES. OBAMA

(h/t Atrios)

Ezra Klein points out that Obama is full of shit:

But the Obama administration didn’t release the details on these programs. In fact, they’ve pursued an energetic war on the kinds of leaks that have led to details on these programs. So for Obama to say he “welcomes” this debate is a bit rich. He did everything in his power to keep it from happening. He may still try and throw the people who did create this debate in jail.

I've been disappointed in Pres. Obama before (e.g. here) but I will not forget this breach of trust.

MORE ON JAMES CLAPPER

(h/t Atrios)

He's another fucking liar...

Wyden: "And this is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on.
"Last summer the NSA director was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, '... the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false.'
"The reason I'm asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don't really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
Clapper: "No, sir."
Wyden: "It does not."
Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."

Pres. Obama should fire Clapper NOW.

LIMBAUGH SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE GLENN BECK

I didn't realize this until I read these quotes from The Atlantic Wire:

• February 26, 2009: "This is not even about politics anymore, folks. This is really not even about politics. I'm going to have to come up with a way of explaining that so you understand what I mean. This is not about politics. It's a political coup, maybe, if you want to look at it that way."
• September 23, 2009: "I did refer to this as a coup, a bloodless coup. He has delivered the United States to the global powers without firing a shot."
• September 23, 2009: [in a Rush quote roundup] "I would describe what Obama is doing to this country as basically a coup. It's just frightening. He talks about a New World Order, and the New World Order is him. Obama is bigger than his country, bigger than the presidency -- he is the world."
• September 30, 2010: A caller said Obama's immigration politics were "the basically coup d'etat tactics." Limbaugh did not disagree. Later, he said, "Bouncing here off the subject of our last caller, the issue here is the dictatorial nature of this regime and Obama's willingness to do anything to advance his agenda."

FOR THE RECORD...

This is one of the two current responses by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, to the revelations of massive NSA data collection:

June 6, 2013

DNI Statement on Recent Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information
The highest priority of the Intelligence Community is to work within the constraints of law to collect, analyze and understand information related to potential threats to our national security.

The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation.

The article omits key information regarding how a classified intelligence collection program is used to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties.

I believe it is important for the American people to understand the limits of this targeted counterterrorism program and the principles that govern its use. In order to provide a more thorough understanding of the program, I have directed that certain information related to the “business records” provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be declassified and immediately released to the public.

The following important facts explain the purpose and limitations of the program:

• The judicial order that was disclosed in the press is used to support a sensitive intelligence collection operation, on which members of Congress have been fully and repeatedly briefed. The classified program has been authorized by all three branches of the Government.

• Although this program has been properly classified, the leak of one order, without any context, has created a misleading impression of how it operates. Accordingly, we have determined to declassify certain limited information about this program.

• The program does not allow the Government to listen in on anyone’s phone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the identity of any subscriber. The only type of information acquired under the Court’s order is telephony metadata, such as telephone numbers dialed and length of calls.

• The collection is broad in scope because more narrow collection would limit our ability to screen for and identify terrorism-related communications. Acquiring this information allows us to make connections related to terrorist activities over time. The FISA Court specifically approved this method of collection as lawful, subject to stringent restrictions.

• The information acquired has been part of an overall strategy to protect the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it may assist counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities.

• There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which ensures that those activities comply with the Constitution and laws and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties. The program at issue here is conducted under authority granted by Congress and is authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). By statute, the Court is empowered to determine the legality of the program.

• By order of the FISC, the Government is prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program. All information that is acquired under this program is subject to strict, court-imposed restrictions on review and handling. The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization. Only specially cleared counterterrorism personnel specifically trained in the Court-approved procedures may even access the records.

• All information that is acquired under this order is subject to strict restrictions on handling and is overseen by the Department of Justice and the FISA Court. Only a very small fraction of the records are ever reviewed because the vast majority of the data is not responsive to any terrorism-related query.

• The Court reviews the program approximately every 90 days. DOJ conducts rigorous oversight of the handling of the data received to ensure the applicable restrictions are followed. In addition, DOJ and ODNI regularly review the program implementation to ensure it continues to comply with the law.

• The Patriot Act was signed into law in October 2001 and included authority to compel production of business records and other tangible things relevant to an authorized national security investigation with the approval of the FISC. This provision has subsequently been reauthorized over the course of two Administrations – in 2006 and in 2011. It has been an important investigative tool that has been used over the course of two Administrations, with the authorization and oversight of the FISC and the Congress.

Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions. Surveillance programs like this one are consistently subject to safeguards that are designed to strike the appropriate balance between national security interests and civil liberties and privacy concerns. I believe it is important to address the misleading impression left by the article and to reassure the American people that the Intelligence Community is committed to respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all American citizens.


James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence

ONE SOLUTION FOR MASSIVE METADATA COLLECTION

Tim Berners Lee suggests that we need to train judges to have the technical expertise to provide meaning oversight.   I think we also need to train the members of Congress who are on the relevant committees.

NOW THAT WE HAVE A DEMOCRAT AS PRESIDENT...

War Whore Ingraham has a change of heart about the Patriot Act:

Laura Ingraham: Maybe We Should Have Focused More On Patriot Act, Not 'Laughed Off' Civil Libertarians

OK, MAYBE I LISTEN TO TOO MUCH COAST TO COAST AM

The new NSA data center is located in Bluffdale, Utah, which is labeled A on this Google map:

Bluffdale seems to be a suburb of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake is also a hub for AT&T's Backbone Internet:

Backbone providers Level 3 & Global Crossing merged in 2011 and Level3 has two backbone lines that go through BLuffdale:

YEAH, THIS IS PRETTY DAMN CLOSE TO ORWELL, KAFKA & CATCH-22

Partway through the WaPo's article on NSA/FBI data collection, I came across this gem:

[Sen. Ron] Wyden repeatedly asked the NSA to estimate the number of Americans whose communications had been incidentally collected, and the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, insisted there was no way to find out. Eventually Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III wrote Wyden a letter stating that it would violate the privacy of Americans in NSA data banks to try to estimate their number.

BUT AMERICANS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE IN AN NSA DATABASE!!!

THIS IS MORE THAN A "SO THERE" POST

Conservative gasbags are trying to claim the higher moral and constitutional ground on the issue of NSA data collection but many liberals,  perhaps most notably Glenn Greenwald, have been speaking out against this brave new security state for years.  As I was looking through a couple of interesting New Yorker articles, one from today and the other from 2011, I found this from Jack M. Balkin, a Yale Law School professor:

Jack Balkin, a liberal law professor at Yale, agrees that the increase in leak prosecutions is part of a larger transformation. “We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national-surveillance state,” he says. In his view, zealous leak prosecutions are consonant with other political shifts since 9/11: the emergence of a vast new security bureaucracy, in which at least two and a half million people hold confidential, secret, or top-secret clearances; huge expenditures on electronic monitoring, along with a reinterpretation of the law in order to sanction it; and corporate partnerships with the government that have transformed the counterterrorism industry into a powerful lobbying force. Obama, Balkin says, has “systematically adopted policies consistent with the second term of the Bush Administration.”

ANOTHER AMERICAN TRAVESTY

Glenn Beck was given the First Amendment award by Talkers Magazine and that's just more evidence that talk radio is trash.  The same news article goes on to note that the boycott of Rush Limbaugh has been effective:

Dan Metter, senior vice president of sales at the Premiere Networks, said Limbaugh's advertising sales were better now than they were last year. Metter said Premiere's sales approach has changed; instead of seeking large established advertisers, the sales force is going after smaller entrepreneurs.

POLITICO ACTS LIKE A WINGNUT RAG

This is the POLITICO headline about the case of the young transplant girl:

Sarah Murnaghan lung transplant case: Sebelius ordered to make exception on transplant

The AP didn't get talk radio hysterical about this:

Judge rules in favor of Pa. girl who needs lungs
By MARYCLAIRE DALE and LAURAN NEERGAARD | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago

U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson suspended an age factor in the nation's transplant rules for 10 days for Sarah Murnaghan because of the severity of her condition.

The judge's ruling lifting the age requirement applies only to Sarah, at least until a June 14 hearing on the request for a broader injunction.

I WAS WONDERING IF HHS SEC. SEBELIUS CAN OVERRIDE THE OPTN

And it turns out she can.  Here's the relevant part of the Code of Federal Regulations:

Title 42: Public Health
PART 121—ORGAN PROCUREMENT AND TRANSPLANTATION NETWORK

§ 121.4   OPTN policies: Secretarial review and appeals.

(d) Any interested individual or entity may submit to the Secretary in writing critical comments related to the manner in which the OPTN is carrying out its duties or Secretarial policies regarding the OPTN. Any such comments shall include a statement of the basis for the comments. The Secretary will seek, as appropriate, the comments of the OPTN on the issues raised in the comments related to OPTN policies or practices. Policies or practices that are the subject of critical comments remain in effect during the Secretary's review, unless the Secretary directs otherwise based on possible risk to the health of patients or to public safety. The Secretary will consider the comments in light of the National Organ Transplant Act and the regulations under this part and may consult with the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation established under § 121.12. After this review, the Secretary may:

(1) Reject the comments;

(2) Direct the OPTN to revise the policies or practices consistent with the Secretary's response to the comments; or

(3) Take such other action as the Secretary determines appropriate.

(e) The OPTN shall implement policies and shall:

(1) Provide information to OPTN members about these policies and the rationale for them; and

(2) Update policies developed in accordance with this section to accommodate scientific and technological advances.

UPDATE: A little background on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network:

The U.S. Congress established the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) when it enacted the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984. The act called for a unified transplant network to be operated by a private, non-profit organization under federal contract.
Following further study and recommendations from a task force commissioned through NOTA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) solicited proposals in 1986 for the operation of the OPTN.
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) was awarded the initial OPTN contract on September 30, 1986, and has continued to administer the OPTN more than 16 years and four successive contract renewals.
Effective March 16, 2000, HHS implemented a Final Rule establishing a regulatory framework for the structure and operations of the OPTN.

CBS NEWS DISGRACED ITSELF AGAIN

It hired war criminal Condoleeza Rice as a paid pundit and this is the kind of war whore crap we can expect:

Condoleezza Rice Pushes For Intervention In Syria On CBS: ‘U.S. Doesn’t Have An Option Of No Action’

CUMULUS AND LIMBAUGH

The boycott against Rush Limbaugh's advertisers has affected the bottom line at Cumulus:

“Challenges related to the Cumulus syndicated talk segment.” That’s Moody’s term for the sales problem this NOW Newsletter’s been writing about since we debuted last November – the unfortunate environment that persists after the February 2012 “slut” comments by Rush Limbaugh. Rush belongs to Clear Channel and its Premiere Networks syndication unit. But Cumulus owns some of Rush’s most important big-market affiliates, such as WABC New York and WLS Chicago. Moody’s Investors Service recognizes that the “challenges to the Cumulus syndicated talk segment” haven’t healed yet

REMEMBER, FOR MARK LEVIN & THE BAGGERS, CHRIS CHRISTIE IS A MODERATE

Susie Madrak has a nice post about the "hidden" Christie and his solely political moves are bad enough for me to consider him a real conservative. Add in the illegal actions, and I'd say he was an almost perfect American conservative.

MAKING A DECENT OPERATING SYSTEM DOESN'T PAY

(h/t CNET)

Windows XP was introduced in August 2001, almost 12 years ago, and it's still on almost 38% of desktops:

I EMAILED GOV. JAN BREWER

She was on Huge Ego Hewitt's radio show and he gave her a hard time about vetoing a state bill that the AZ fundies really wanted, so I felt a little sorry for her and on the chance that it may be helpful, let her know what Churchill and Hayek thought about healthcare.

WHEN CONSERVATIVE GASBAGS ATTACK EACH OTHER

It's OK apparently to attack a "cousin" like Alex Jones but an absolute no-no to go after "big brother" Rush Limbaugh.   Now that Limbaugh has been badly hurt financially by the grass roots boycott, is he more vulnerable to attacks?

I WAS HOPING FOR A SET OF PROCEDURES

There are a lot of people worried about GMO crops and I was wondering what parts of the Federal government are involved in regulating them.   It's divided between 3 organizations:

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 

COPERNICUS, MAYBE?

(h/t ntodd)

That's who came to mind when I read about the revolutionary cultural move this brave person made:

The Latest Navy SEAL Book Could Impact the Military's Transgender Rules
J.K. Trotter 6,347 Views 1:32 PM ET
The Atlantic Wire

In every Navy SEAL is a memoir, it seems lately. Retired SEAL Kristin Beck's new memoir, published on Tuesday and titled Warrior Princess, is a bit different, though. In it, Beck describes how, over the course of her 20 year military career, including thirteen deployments over the globe, she slowly became more and more aware that was she meant to live life as a woman — a vexing and often tormenting realization for a long-time member of an elite all-male unit that went on to capture and kill Osama bin Laden. Beck, who identified as a man (and went by the name Chris) while in the Navy, explains that she decided to undergo hormonal therapy some time after retiring in early 2011, and eventually came out to colleagues by posting a picture of herself dressed as a woman on LinkedIn earlier this year:

That night Kris put up a new photo to her LinkedIn profile — the one taken by Christy of Kris standing in front of the American flag. This time Kris wrote, "I am now taking off all my disguises and letting the world know my true identity as a woman." Kris also changed her name on her profile page to Kristin Beck.

To Beck's surprise, her former SEAL buddies were supportive, even ecstatic:

Soon, the responses from SEALs stationed all around the world suddenly started pouring in: "Brother, I am with you ... being a SEAL is hard, this looks harder. Peace" * "I can't say I understand the decision but I respect the courage. Peace and happiness be upon you...Jim" * " ... I just wanted to drop you a note and tell you that Kris has all the support and respect from me that Chris had ... and quite possibly more. While I'm definitely surprised, I'm also in amazement at the strength you possess and the courage necessary to combat the strangers and 'friends' that I'm guessing have reared their ugly heads prior to and since your announcement. ..."

ROVE ON BACHMANN: GOOD RIDDANCE!

I have no affection for Karl "The Architect" Rove but I do enjoy his occasional bouts of sanity.

Karl Rove Says Good Riddance To Michele Bachmann: She ‘Did Nothing’
by Evan McMurry | 2:13 pm, June 2nd, 2013
MEDIAITE

On This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Karl Rove greeted Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann’s retirement as an opportunity to fill both her congressional seat and her committee presence with a more effective Republican.

“It will be an opening for the Tea Party,” Rove said. “Michele Bachmann was the chairman of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, and in that positon did nothing. Now the position is open, someone next year will accept the chairmanship of it, and they may do something with it.”

ANOTHER GOP POST-MORTEM

This one is from the College Republican National Committee and attempts to explain why the reactionaries have lost the youth vote BUT THEY STILL DON'T GET IT:

Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”

Those wackos are a very important part of the GOP's base, not mere errant strays from the flock.

THIS IS AN ABOMINATION

War Whore Laura Ingraham blames the mess in Iraq on Pres. Clinton:

“You guys are saying let [Syrian President Bashar] Assad win, let him slaughter?” Fox News host Chris Wallace wondered.
“We had a no-fly zone in Iraq,” Ingraham declared. “Remember? And what happened after that? Iraq is in flames today.”

I think Ingraham should make a public apology for this obscene statement.

AMERICAN HEALTH CARE HAS BECOME A RIP-OFF

This graphic from the NY Times is basically all the evidence you need to support that claim: