Spy Scandals Update

March 20, 2014–Don’t think for a moment that the Spy Scandals involving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have gone away. Today there are several relevant items to report.

A week ago I argued in this space (“The Family Jewels Crisis,” March 12, 2014) that presidents circle their wagons when controversy that arises from the intelligence agencies rises to a certain level. In my book The Family Jewels I showed how that works. Now we have more evidence that that is happening. You’ll recall that the CIA filed a criminal notice to the Department of Justice alleging that investigators from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence broke the law in obtaining a document demonstrating the CIA’s response to the Senate torture report is disingenuous. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has commented. In his first public remarks on the matter Holder says that the Justice Department receives many criminal referrals and often declines to investigate or to prosecute.

That sounds suspiciously like an intention to cut the CIA loose and leave it flapping in the wind. You can be sure there will be more on this.

Meanwhile there’s also a fresh development in the NSA eavesdropping scandal. National Security Agency officials showed up yesterday to testify at PCLOB, the awkwardly named Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which continues to be quite alarmed at the agency’s dragnet eavesdropping (see “Funny Name, Serious Business,” January 23, 2014; “”Independent Agency Trashes NSA Claims,” January 24, 2014). Appearing at PCLOB’s latest hearing were the Director of National Intelligence’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, plus NSA general counsel Rajesh De. Their testimony ought to raise eyebrows.

Robert Litt here added to his growing reputation as an apparatchik. Referring to PCLOB’s recommendation in its January report that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) be required to approve each NSA use of its dragnet-gathered data, Mr. Litt did two things. First, he admitted that the number of NSA uses of the data was far greater than previously thought. Second, he asserted that “the operational burden” of requiring the FISC to make those judgments would be excessive. The judges, Litt declared, “would be extremely unhappy if they were required to approve every such query.”

Translation: the system should operate for the convenience of the judges (and of the NSA) rather than for the protection of the public’s civil and privacy rights, which, of course, was the purpose for which the Court was created.

The arrogance here is breathtaking.

As for Mr. De, he told PCLOB that an NSA rule previously touted as protecting Americans–that agency personnel must be at least 51 percent confident their target is a foreigner–is a myth. It does not exist. Rather, determinations are made based upon the “totality” of the circumstances. In effect this means that the NSA, which is dealing with anonymous phone numbers, is freed from employing any objective criteria whatever.

No doubt there will be more here too.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.