Progressives Team Up With Conservatives To Scuttle Pelosi's Orwellian Domestic Spying Bill

Progressives in Congress worked with the GOP Tuesday to torpedo an authoritarian domestic spying bill-- already passed by the Senate-- that Pelosi, Hoyer and Schiff were trying to push through the House. By late that night, Pelosi and her team read the tea leaves and pulled their own bill that was meant to reauthorize key parts of FISA. Trump, for his reasons-- remember he had signed the FISA legislation into law last year-- had threatened to veto the bill hours before Pelosi cancelled the vote on it.

As Ryan Grim pointed out, "earlier this month, the Republican-led Senate failed to pass a measure that would limit the FBI’s ability to access web-browsing history and other online activity without a warrant by a single vote... Civil libertarians, led by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow an up-or-down vote on that amendment, then send it back to the Senate, where it could pass with all senators voting. Pelosi instead told Lofgren to negotiate with House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) the New York Times reported, and Schiff watered down the legislation. The result drew criticism from the left and right-- and Trump’s attention to the fight. Had Pelosi agreed to a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate amendment, it likely would have passed easily, and reauthorization of the broad surveillance authorities, along with some real reforms, would be on their way to becoming law."

The politics of surveillance, even in normal times, scramble the typical partisan tendencies, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Pelosi, and Schiff often aligning on questions about the breadth and depth of state power to surveil and track Americans. Opposing those congressional leaders is the civil liberties community, which includes both progressives and conservatives with libertarian leanings, but which rarely can muster a majority in Congress for its defense of the Bill of Rights.

The civil liberties argument has gained new traction in recent months, with Trump’s outrage over the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court’s handling of surveillance of his campaign, particularly the deeply flawed application for a warrant to surveil former adviser Carter Page. Although it was initially designed to review intelligence surveillance applications for suspected agents of a foreign power, after 9/11 the secretive FISA court signed off on expansive interpretations of surveillance law. Now, as Trump feels victimized by it, he and his allies have found religion on the question.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), a famously eccentric conservative in the House, remarked at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning on the oddity of House Democrats fighting to give Trump surveillance powers he wasn’t asking for, despite his clear determination to use law enforcement for his own political ends.

“It sure seems strange to me. For Democrats to vote for this reauthorization, even with these amendments, would have to be sort of saying, we have so much trust in Donald Trump and the people he’s appointed that they would never lie to a FISA court. They would never just go after their enemies. We feel like he can be trusted and so can all the people he’s appointed,” he said. “We know he’s cleaned out some folks at the Justice Department, FBI, I mean, think about it.”

The unlikely coalition of Trump and the civil libertarians was enough to stall the legal reauthorization of the FBI’s “call detail records” program, an amended version of the Patriot Act that allowed federal law enforcement to collect phone records. The authority lapsed in March after McConnell was unable to force through an unamended reauthorization.

Earlier this month, the Senate reauthorized those programs with additional restrictions, but an amendment that would limit the government’s ability to collect internet browsing history without a warrant fell one vote short of the 60 votes it needed to pass.

Pelosi then instructed Schiff to come up with a compromise version with Lofgren, rather than allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate language. The result of those negotiations was an amendment, introduced by Lofgren and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) that reintroduced the restriction on collecting browsing history, but applies it only to U.S. persons.

However, Lofgren’s and Davidson’s amendment leaves up to interpretation what federal agents should do when they don’t know ahead of time whether U.S. persons’ information would be swept up in information requests-- giving the secretive FISA court room to allow bulk collection and task the FBI with purging U.S. person information afterward. The agreement broke down when Schiff and Lofgren offered different interpretations of their measure.

“If the government wants to use a dragnet and order a service provider to produce a list of everyone who has visited a particular website, watched a particular YouTube video, or made a particular search query, it cannot seek that order unless it can guarantee that the business records returned will contain no U.S. person IP addresses, or other U.S. person identifiers,” Lofgren said at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning. That interpretation was enough to win the backing of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

In a statement, Schiff said that the amendment prohibited orders that “to seek to obtain” U.S. persons’ browsing information, leaving open the possibility that the FBI could seek to collect visitor logs from a website that contained Americans, as long as that was not their primary purpose.

Statements like that, noted Charlie Savage in The Times, can be used by judges to determine legislative intent and confounded what had appeared to be a settled issue.

That led to pushback from both the left and right, and the renewed attention not only risked reforms that had been won in the Senate and failed to win support for the amendment Schiff advocated for, but it also drew a veto threat from Trump. Wyden, who co-sponsored the failed amendment in the Senate, withdrew his support, saying in a statement that it “flatly contradicted the intent” of his amendment in the Senate, and urged the House to consider his version.

...David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, which lobbied against the legislation, said that Pelosi and Schiff’s apparent own goal came from too close of an alliance with the national security establishment, which, he argued, “has led them to line up against reforms that could have passed, and in support of a bill that harms Americans, might not pass, and would likely be vetoed.”

...The opposition of a vast majority of Republicans gifted the CPC a fresh opportunity to flex its muscles in the House, after a disappointing effort to influence coronavirus relief packages. Trump’s turn against surveillance authorities has produced enough Republican opposition that a concerted effort by progressives could block passage. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., a CPC co-chair, told The Intercept that the caucus was urging its 92 members to vote no. “We have grave concerns that this legislation does not protect people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, especially their online activity including web browsing and internet searches,” said Pocan and fellow co-chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in a statement later on Wednesday afternoon. “Despite some positive reforms, the legislation is far too narrow in scope and would still leave the public vulnerable to invasive online spying and data collection.”

...The opposition of a vast majority of Republicans gifted the Congressional Progressive Caucus a fresh opportunity to flex its muscles in the House, after a disappointing effort to influence coronavirus relief packages. Trump’s turn against surveillance authorities has produced enough Republican opposition that a concerted effort by progressives could block passage.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) a CPC co-chair, told The Intercept that the caucus was urging its 92 members to vote no.

“We have grave concerns that this legislation does not protect people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, especially their online activity including web browsing and internet searches,” said Pocan and fellow co-chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) in a statement later on Wednesday afternoon. “Despite some positive reforms, the legislation is far too narrow in scope and would still leave the public vulnerable to invasive online spying and data collection.”

For now, the Patriot Act provisions remain dead-- as do the reforms included in the underlying bill (some of which extend beyond the Patriot Act). All because Pelosi and Schiff insist on letting the FBI access browser history without a warrant, not what people who don't watch carefully would ever expect from either Pelosi or Schiff.

Ryan Cooper asked a salient question that Democrats should be asking themselves: If Trump is a budding autocrat-- and we all know he is-- shouldn't Democrats limit his surveillance powers?. "Why in God's name," he asked, "did Democrats even consider giving President Donald Trump-- the man they recently impeached for abuse of power-- more unaccountable surveillance powers? Over his own objection, no less?"

Schiff himself was the leader of the impeachment prosecution of Trump just a few months ago. In a long speech before the Senate, Schiff argued that the Founding Fathers had put impeachment into the Constitution specifically to deal with someone like Trump: "a man who would subvert the interest of the nation to pursue his own interests. For a man who would seek to perpetuate himself in office by inviting foreign interference and cheating an election." Even on the extremely narrow grounds chosen by House Democrats (which left out his most egregious looting of public coffers) Trump undoubtedly deserved to be removed from office.

But Schiff doesn't seem to actually believe his case against Trump. There is no possible justification for granting a corrupt, election-cheating president-- one who appointed a dishonest stooge as the nation's chief law enforcement officer-- the power to root through anyone's browser history without a warrant. Indeed, all the enormous powers of the surveillance state (which accomplish little or nothing of value) are exceptionally dangerous in the hands of Trump, and Democrats should be working frantically to scale them back. So far it appears we have gotten lucky in that Trump doesn't appear to grasp what these powers are for or how he might exploit them fully, but that situation is not guaranteed to hold.

Indeed, Trump's own objections remove the only possible political justification for passing this bill-- that Republicans would call Democrats soft on terrorism. They could shelve the bill, point to Trump, and shrug. Not their fault Trump didn't want these powers extended.

But in reality, Democrats like Schiff have completely swallowed the worldview of the national security establishment. Dragnet surveillance, like semi-randomly assassinating people up to and including American citizens, are some of the Important Tools that Keep Us Safe. The danger of a corrupt imbecile in the White House abusing those powers does not fit into this worldview, so it is ignored. If there is a choice between bowing before American imperial power and recognizing the danger of that power, they will choose the former, even when a game show demagogue is in the White House.

UPDATE From San Francisco: 

I just heard from Shahid Buttar, the progressive attorney and community organizer who is challenging Pelosi in November (having-- like her-- won the jungle primary in March). "It's entirely unacceptable—- and equally unsurprising—- that Nancy Pelosi has yet again used her formidable influence on Capitol Hill to enable authoritarian surveillance powers," he told us. "The reason I felt forced to run to replace Pelosi was her longstanding opposition to surveillance reforms on which I've worked for over a decade. What's new this year is the presence of a right-wing aspiring tyrant in the White House, and a bipartisan block of policymakers willing to do the right thing and challenge the institutional establishment that has rammed these powers through Congress on nearly a dozen occasions over the past decade without ever allowing a transparent debate. It is shameful that Pelosi supported the Republican position on FISA reauthorization. Pelosi's support for GOP positions also represents a profound threat to our democracy. Under the administration of a criminal president with no respect for the rule of law, we need resistance for real in Congress, not partisan posturing paving the road to fascism."

The Worst Democrats In Congress Voted With The GOP This Week On Two Super Important Bills. Want To Know Who?

There were two important bills Congress passed on Wednesday-- a bad one and a good one. The bad one was a reauthorization of the USA Freedom Act (FISA). It passed 278-136. 75 Democrats and 60 Republicans voted against it. The Blue Dogs, New Dems and the corrupt Military Industrial Complex supporters led the way. Which Democrats voted against it? You know... the good ones like Ro Khanna (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), AOC (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Andy Levin (D-MI), Judy Chu (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Joe Neguse (D-CO), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Chuy García (D-IL), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)... the ones you'd expect. And the bad guys? 152 Democrats joined with most of the GOP to pass this, many of them all the regular suspects like this couple of dozen shitheads:

• Steny Hoyer (Majority Leader-MD)
• Jim Clyburn (Biden Resuscitator-SC)
• Cheri Bustos (DCCC chair-IL)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY)
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)
• Joe Morelle (New Dem-NY)
• Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA)
• Pete Aguilar (Blue Dog-CA)
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)

Those 24 were just a representative sample of all the bad Democrats who voted for an especially bad bill that reauthorizes the unchecked domestic spying powers of what is now Trump's intelligence-gathering bureaus, such as the unwarranted collection of phone records. I asked some of the candidates running for Congress whose opponents voted for the bill. Liam O'Mara, the Riverside County progressive Democrat taking on Trump sycophant Ken Calvert responded with his own question: "How is it that a country which prides itself on freedom is so quick to limit freedoms in the name of security? There is no cause for spying on the communications of American citizens as a whole, and the Orwellian name of the USA FREEDOM Act should not be allowed to obscure its purpose. Calvert voted to let the NSA watch your calls; I would have voted no."

Eva Putzova, the Arizona progressive taking on Blue Dog and "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran who voted to reauthorize the domestic spying bill (and against the war powers bill). He can always be counted on to vote with the Republicans on any important legislation. Eva told us this morning that his vote "to join with the Trump administration and the GOP and reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act that allows government spying and surveillance on American citizens is reprehensible. This provision allows the unwarranted collection of phone records of hundreds of millions of people in the United States. It would give Attorney General Barr the authority to engage in surveillance of the administration's political rivals. Is this what the incumbent and my opponent wants? Growing up in pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, I'm too familiar with tools of totalitarian regimes used to terrorize their own citizens and the Patriot Act is just like that. When I am in Congress I will vote to repeal the Patriot Act and all other intrusive government spying and surveillance programs that interfere with our rights under the Constitution."

So that was the bad bill. The good bill that passed was a bicameral directive to removes all U.S. armed forces deployed against Iran without congressional approval. It passed 227 to 186. Six fucked-up fake Democrats voted with the Republicans to stop this. If you see one of these in the street, you should throw a runny fruit pie in their face:

• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)

And if you live in one of their districts... Well, you know what to do. Oklahoma's 5th district would be a good one to start in. Blue Dog Kendra Horn has one of the most disgraceful voting records of any Democrat in Congress-- craven, cowardly and conservative. She has no business being in Congress at all and was never anything more than a lesser-of-two evils candidate. Progressive Tom Guild is running against her this cycle, in part because of voters like the two she screwed up on this week-- voting for domestic spying and against peace With Iran. "Under no circumstances," said Guild today, "should American troops fight in Iran without prior congressional approval. I’m deeply disappointed that Horn gave the current volatile and impulsive president or any president carte blanche to start another costly endless war in the Middle East. Enough is Enough!"

Surveillance Nation: How DEA Agents Search and Seize Property from Amtrak Passengers

Cops can do anything they want in modern America. This is from a 2015 Washington Post piece entitled "Cops took more stuff from people than burglars did last year." Notice the jump in seizures near the end of Obama's first term.

by Thomas Neuburger

As you listen to the panicked fear that the U.S. government will turn authoritarian under Trump, consider the following story about the DEA and drug surveillance on the Amtrak Southwest Chief, the long train between Chicago and Los Angeles.

To "keep you safe," this is what cops get to do:

DEA Agents Ambush Amtrak Passengers With Controversial Searches and Seizures

by Amy Martyn

A few hours characteristically behind schedule, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief rolls into Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the small station that it shares with the Greyhound bus service on the edge of downtown.

Most people step off to stretch their legs or have a cigarette during the layover, the longest smoke break in the entire trip. That’s when two plainclothes agents come aboard the train on a rainy day in March 2019.

One agent walks to the back of the aisle in the first coach car and waits, quietly observing. The other is tasked with getting people to talk and open their bags. His name is Jarrell, or Jay, Perry, and he’s done it hundreds of times before.

Perry is white and looks like he’s in his fifties. He’s bald and slightly overweight, with a weightlifter’s build to compensate, and he’s dressed in a baseball cap, a gray sweatshirt, and jeans. He’s not carrying a visible warrant or a train ticket and has no drug dog with him. When passengers reboard, they seem oblivious to his presence.

Today, he seems confident that he will find someone on board carrying drugs — or at least a substantial amount of money. He flashes a smile and a badge. A young, disheveled man in a seat by the entrance to the car agrees to let Perry search his three bags. The agent flips through the man’s luggage with tactical speed.

The author goes on to note a number of things about these tactics. I've highlighted them in the passage below:

It’s legal for Perry to search people without probable cause, a warrant, or a dog because travelers supposedly realize that they have the right to decline to submit to his searches. Perry and others in his interdiction unit have testified that they receive manifests ahead of time listing the passengers who will be arriving in Albuquerque. The courts have ruled this is also legal-- functioning like a helpful tip sheet on whom to question.

More problematically, Perry has been captured on surveillance footage boarding empty Greyhound buses and pulling bags out of the checked luggage bin. One clip captures him pressing on a bag so aggressively that he appears to be tackling it. But he stops short of opening the bag, which would be blatantly unconstitutional. Several people that Perry has seized cash from insist that they are not drug couriers and, in fact, were never criminally charged as such, though that didn’t help them get their money back.

Perry is not the only cop riding the rails. His tactics offer a case study in how law enforcement targets mass transit in the war on drugs, generating thousands of busts and a steady stream of revenue from seized assets.

To summarize:

     • You can be searched without probable cause, because it's assumed you know you can refuse (but if you do refuse, you're asking for "extra attention" and perhaps a trip to an interrogation room downtown).

     • Amtrak gives passengers lists to DEA agents ahead of time (because they know whose side they're on).

     • Your checked baggage may be searched without your knowledge (illegal, but try and stop them).

     • They can seize your cash if they have reason to suspect you're a courier (if you you're carrying "too much" money, this could be you).

     • Seized cash is part of the lifeblood of the system.

Yes, these tactics do produce arrests. But breaking into every home in every neighborhood in Los Angeles — and a great many Bel Air mansions as well — without warning or a warrant would also produce arrests, the same number or more.

Yet are these illegal tactics justified by these arrests, and given the state of civil (not criminal) asset seizure in this country, consider how strong the incentives are for cops to continue these practices. The DEA has treated the Southwest Chief and other Amtrak trains as a trout farm to fish in for dealers, methods be damned, and has done so since at least the 1990s according to the article, when Bill Clinton was president, and the practice continued unabated through Barack Obama's presidency as well.

This, Surveillance Nation, is the country Democrats are desperately trying to protect ... from Trump.

The Genesis of This Practice

How did this practice, surveilling Amtrak trains and seizing the assets of its passengers, begin? That's an interesting story on its own:

[DEA agents'] presence on the Southwest Chief and other passenger Amtrak trains is a known phenomenon that goes back decades, or at least back to the mid-1990s. That’s when an unknown DEA agent first approached an Amtrak secretary for information about the itinerary of a passenger who was under arrest.

The Amtrak secretary started using his access to Amtrak’s reservation system to regularly look for people who “might be planning to transport illegal drugs or money,” based solely on subtle clues like one-way itineraries for private bedrooms, trips booked on short notice, trips booked by third parties, and trips paid in cash. For each drug bust or cash seizure that the DEA made thanks to this information, the Amtrak secretary was rewarded a cut of the proceeds.

The person who recruited the Amtrak secretary as a DEA snitch described him to Department of Justice auditors in 2015 as “one of the most valuable interdiction informants the DEA has ever known.” ...

The Amtrak Police Department learned about the arrangement in 2014, and by that time, the Amtrak secretary had amassed $854,460 from the DEA for his work snitching on riders.

When the Amtrak police finally heard about this practice, they were upset, but not for the reason you'd expect — "Amtrak police were unhappy because they were cut out of the deal."

Welcome to America, same as it always was for a good long while. I can think of only one Democratic candidate for president under whom this won't get worse. Most of the rest, for all their other virtues, want to keep us too "safe" to be trusted to protect us from our protectors.
  

Even the Post Office Spies on You

Why is this not a scandal? Because no one cares about it.

by Thomas Neuburger

As shocking as it is to consider, the Post Office, via its "Mail Cover" program, is one more arm of the national security state. The U.S. Postal Service routinely photographs the front and back of every envelope and package it processes, stores those images, and makes them available on demand to any federal agency that asks for them.

Worse, some version of this program has been in effect since at least 1984, according to the information below.

Here's former CIA officer and whistle-blower John Kiriakou to explain:

Neither Rain, Sleet, nor Snow Will Stop the Post Office From Spying on You

You may remember that last year some nut was arrested for mailing bombs to prominent Democrats, media outlets, and opponents of Donald Trump. Less than a week after the bombs went out, a suspect was arrested. Almost immediately, video turned up of him at a Trump rally, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hate and chanting for the camera. He was soon tried, convicted, and jailed. End of story.

But it wasn’t the end of the story. The investigation into the bomb incidents focused attention on an almost unknown federal surveillance program—one that poses a direct threat to the privacy and constitutional rights of every American. It’s called the “Mail Cover Program” and it’s run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us.

The Mail Cover Program allows postal employees to photograph and send to federal law enforcement organizations (FBI, DHS, Secret Service, etc.) the front and back of every piece of mail the Post Office processes. It also retains the information digitally and provides it to any government agency that wants it—without a warrant.

What is the Mail Cover Program? It's this:

Mail cover is defined by the U.S. Postal Regulations 39 CFR 233.3[2] and the Internal Revenue Manual[3] as follows:

Mail cover is the process by which a nonconsensual record is made of any data appearing on the outside cover of sealed or unsealed mail; or by which a record is made of the contents of any unsealed mail, as allowed by law, to obtain information to protect national security; locate a fugitive; obtain evidence of the commission or attempted commission of a crime; obtain evidence of a violation or attempted violation of a postal statute; or assist in the identification of property, proceeds, or assets forfeitable under law.

According to official statistics obtained through a FOIA request by the National Law Journal, the number of mail covers in 1984 was 9,022 and increased to 14,077 in 2000. Since 2001, the Postal Service has been effectively conducting mail covers on all American postal mail as part of the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program.

Again: "Since 2001, the Postal Service has been effectively conducting mail covers on all American postal mail."

As I read this, the Postal Service is no longer waiting for requests for surveillance. Instead, it seems to be surveilling everything it receives, then storing the information in advance of requests to see it, requests which, according to Kiriakou, are almost never denied. Kiriakou writes that "in the months after [a 2015 USPS Inspector General] report [which warned about abuse of the program] was issued, there were 6,000 requests for mail cover collection. Only 10 were rejected, according to the Feb. 2019 edition of Prison Legal News (P.34-35)."

Our acceptance of citizen surveillance is next of kin to our love of prosecuting "the other" — it springs from the same source. Whether that prosecution is carried out on TV (via Judge Judy, Jerry Springer, or "America's Worst Chefs") or by our prosecutors and the courts, those efforts are roundly cheered.

To America's surveillance police, however, everyone in the country is "the other." Perhaps when there are consequences to that for the smug self-presumed untouchables among us, things will change.

I'm not holding my breath, however. Punishing "the other" seems ingrained in our American nature, even when the other is us.
 

15 House Republicans Join The Democrats To Stand Up Against Encroachments By Big Brother

Do you remember what these 15 congresscritters have in common?

• Justin Amash (MI)
• Mo Brooks (AL)
• Mike Coffman (CO)
• Warren Davidson (OH)
• Jimmy Duncan (TN)
• John Faso (NY)
• Garret Graves (LA)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
• Walter Jones (NC)
• Tom McClintock (CA)
• Dave Reichert (WA)
• Mark Sanford (SC)
• Elise Stefanik (NY)
• Kevin Yoder (KS)
• Lee Zeldin (NY)

Yes, they are all Republicans. Some are crazy right-wing lunatics from the Freedom Caucus like Mo Brooks and Warren Davidson; some are libertarians like Walter Jones, Jimmy Duncan and Justin Amash; some are relatively mainstream conservatives like John Faso snd Jaime Herrera Beutler. Because of the nature of their districts, some are in precariously vulnerable positions for reelection, like Mike Coffman, and some are set-for-life, like Garret Graves. But all 15 crossed the aisle on March 28 of thise year to vote with every single Democrat against Jeff Flake's Joint Resolution-- which has since been signed into law by Trump-- to allow Internet providers to sell our personal online data to the highest bidders without our permission and, in fact, without even informing us.

That was insane for the Republicans-- regardless of how many of them took massive bribes from the internet providers-- to do. The bill passed narrowly, 215-205 and it makes every Republican, other than those 15, vulnerable on an issue millions American voters care very much about regardless of partisan politics.

Matt Coffay is a leader of Our Revolution in western North Carolina. He's running for Congress, taking on Freedom Caucus chieftain Mark Meadows, one of the Republicans who voted to allow Internet providers to sell our personal information to whoever wants to buy it. Matt disagrees with that vote. This morning he told us, "My position on internet privacy is much like that of Senator Bernie Sanders: your internet history belongs to you, and not to corporations. This isn't complicated, or radical. How can Republicans in Congress claim that they want government to stay out of people's lives, and then vote for a bill that allows people's private browsing data to be sold to the highest corporate bidder? This bill is a violation of our right to privacy, plain and simple."

David Gill is the progressive candidate for the IL-13 seat currently held by knee-jerk Republican Rodney Davis, who, of course, backed giving the Internet providers the green light to sell our personal information. David wasn't amused by his decision. "This vote represents yet another betrayal of his constituents by Rodney Davis: he took $49,000 from the telecom industry, and then he voted to allow those companies to sell your web browsing history to marketers and other third parties-- so much for privacy! I support undoing Citizens United & reforming campaign finance laws. When we take those steps, we'll have representatives who stand up for their constituents, rather than reps who sell out their constituents."

Three years before Flake wrote his Joint Resolution, Michael Gurnow wrote The Ed Snowden Affair, a book that tackles many of the issues the GOP legislation starkly brings up for Americans. Even back then, he wrote that "data brokers take their information, organize it into precise little profiles, and offer it to anyone with an open checkbook."

This includes the obvious customers, U.S. government and corporations, but they have other steadfast clients. Many “people locator” websites purchase data mining profiles and resell them to the general public. For a nominal fee, anyone can access a person’s birthday, place of birth, current and past residences, family relations, social security and phone number, educational background, email address, place of current and former employment, and medical, property and court records. Medical insurance firms are curious whether a potential client prints Internet coupons for over the counter headache medicine and pays in cash to avoid a rate-hiking paper trail. Employment agencies want to know an applicant’s hobbies and proclivities without having to ask. Loan companies are interested in a candidate’s choice of recreational locales, be it a casino, truck rally or library. Once this data is combined with receipts from many of the major corporations, buying habits are then merged with wants and desires. The result is a very concise, detailed picture of an individual’s pos- sessions, activities and goals. This is then compared to established buying patterns. The end result is daunting. The owner of an analyzed profile knows who a person was, is, and is going to be. Corporations refer to this as market research. Privacy advocates consider the process an infringement upon the Fourth Amendment and argue third-party cookie usage violates the last sanctuary of privacy, one’s thoughts. Orwell’s prophecy is modestly conservative by 21st-century standards. The main character in Nineteen Eighty-Four believes, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”

The surveillance debate has intensified since June 5 and lent new perspectives upon the concept of the safety technol- ogy can provide. The underlying political issue is who has the right to particular varieties of information.

The public believes there are two types of conversations, public and private. The intelligence community doesn’t agree. In the Internet Age, a person can “Like” the activity of fishing enough to let the world know by making it public knowledge on one’s Facebook profile. The individual can also choose to obtain a vanity Facebook URL by confidentially submitting one’s telephone number to the social networking site. The phone number is used for authorization purposes to verify the request is coming from the Facebook account holder. Though it is not placed online, the number is nonetheless (questionably) stored on the company’s servers. David Omand, former head of GCHQ, has no problem with collecting the publicly-known fact Bob likes fishing along with his cell number via Facebook’s FISC order permitting the U.S. government access to the information. For the watchers, there is no line dividing what an individual puts on the Internet and what people have privately entrusted to another party, be it a website, bank, doctor or telephone company.


Government spies also scoff at the notion of intellectual property rights. Bought-and-sold politicians agree. If something is publicly or privately posted online, it automatically becomes the property of the website’s owner. (This is also why most businesses permit and encourage employees to use their company-issued phones and email accounts for personal communications-- the firms have legal license to review an employee’s private network and communications, because they own the devices and programs and therefore the data on them.) It is an absurd proposition analogous to stating an individual surrenders rightful ownership of a vehicle to a bank when it is parked on property whose tenant has yet to pay the mortgage in full. This policy refuses to acknowledge the resources and labor provided by the Facebook account holder, i.e., the computer used to access the social networking site, time it took to create a profile and mental ingenuity in deciding how and what to say about oneself. It is understood that the website has issued the venue which, in turn, makes the information available worldwide but the skewed exchange undermines the statement that profiles are “free.” No profit sharing is offered the user. Without account holders, social networking sites would be empty voids on lonely servers and not multinational corporate affairs.

In the surveillance communities’ opinion, everything is public domain and no one has the right to ask “Do you mind?” to someone eavesdropping on a conversation. Their argument is that if a person doesn’t want what is being said to be known (by whomever), the individual best not speak at all. In the cloak-and-dagger world of data mining, the person having a discussion cannot reasonably expect privacy, because the individual is voicing one’s thoughts, period. It does not matter whether they are spoken in confidence and directed to a particular person, much like an email is addressed “To: Bob” and not “To: Bob; Bcc: The NSA.” If the speaker is naïve enough to say something at a volume where a microphone can detect it, it is de facto public knowledge. Whereas government surveillance only exchanges the recorded conversation with its own kind, corporate surveillance broadcasts the discussion to anyone who is willing to pay to hear it. In the surveillance world, the only guarantee of privacy is dead silence.


The U.S. government knows the difference but deliberately ignores it. It does not want a distinction to be made, because it would restrict its power and the power of those who fund political campaigns: defense contractors, telecoms, Internet companies, corporate retailers, fast food enterprises and mul- timillion-dollar data mining firms. The last thing the U.S. government or private business wants is account holders to have control over their own information.

More WikiLeaks-CIA News: Spying on the French Election, Taking Control of Your Smartphone

As you watch the Matrix, the Matrix watches you. Image © Kacper Pempel / Reuters (source)

by Gaius Publius

I want to offer three pieces of CIA news, all thanks to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly. Two of them expand on our earlier report ("Explosive WikiLeaks Release Exposes Massive, Aggressive CIA Cyber Spying, Hacking Capability"), while one is likely entirely new to you, since while it does have to do with spying on European elections, it doesn't have to do with Russia.

Let's start with the release of information about the most recent French election, the one in 2012.

CIA Espionage Orders for the 2012 French Election

WikiLeaks released this document in preparation for its release of the CIA "Vault 7" treasure trove. The underlying seven-page document details the information the CIA ordered its assets — including, one has to assume, its cyber-assets — to gather.

From the WikiLeaks press release (my emphasis):

CIA espionage orders for the last French presidential election

All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the CIA's human ("HUMINT") and electronic ("SIGINT") spies in the seven months leading up to France's 2012 presidential election. The revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series. Named specifically as targets are the French Socialist Party (PS), the National Front (FN) and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) together with current President Francois Hollande, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, current round one presidential front runner Marine Le Pen, and former presidential candidates Martine Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Khan. [...]

About Sarkozy, they write, "Sarkozy's earlier self-identification as "Sarkozy the American" did not protect him from US espionage in the 2012 election or during his presidency."

For what purpose was this information gathered? WikiLeaks has two comments on that. First:

Significantly, two CIA opposition espionage tasks, "What policies do they promote to help boost France's economic growth prospects?" and "What are their opinions on the German model of export-led growth?" resonate with a U.S. economic espionage order from the same year. That order requires obtaining details of every prospective French export contract or deal valued at $200m or more.

Information gathered via "economic espionage" has quite a few "customers", many of whom are in the so-called private sector. Airbus, for example, is a multinational aviation company based near Toulouse. Many of its export contracts surely surpass the "more than $200 million" bar. One of that company's chief competitors is Boeing, ostensibly a U.S. company.Is the CIA spying for people like the executives at Boeing? I'd call that likely.

Later in the press release, WikiLeaks offers a second motivation for spying on the French election:

The orders state that the collected information is to "support" the activities of the CIA, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)'s E.U section, and the U.S. State Department's Intelligence and Research Branch.

What "activities" are they supporting? Do those activities include attempting to influence the electoral outcome so that policies favorable to the U.S. and U.S. companies are rendered more likely? Asked another way, is it only the Russians who put their thumbs on European electoral scales? As the original Mayor Daley used to put it, "Youth wants to know."

Finally, so far the Vault 7 WikiLeaks material details CIA intent and capabilities from 2013 to 2016. To what extent is the CIA involved in the current round on European elections? Is the U.S. purpose information gathering only?

Taking Full Control of Your Android or Apple Phone

Now for more from the Vault 7 release. This comes from Jenna McLaughlin at The Intercept (again my emphasis):

CIA Has an “Impressive List” of Ways to Hack Into Your Smartphone, WikiLeaks Files Indicate

A concerted effort by the CIA produced a library of software attacks to crack into Android smartphones and Apple iPhones, including some that could take full control of the devices, according to documents in a trove of files released by WikiLeaks Tuesday.

The attacks allow for varying levels of access — many powerful enough to allow the attacker to remotely take over the “kernel,” the heart of the operating system that controls the operation of the phone, or at least to have so-called “root” access, meaning extensive control over files and software processes on a device. These types of techniques would give access to information like geolocation, communications, contacts, and more. They would most likely be useful for targeted hacking, rather than mass surveillance. Indeed, one document describes a process by which a specific unit within the CIA “develops software exploits and implants for high priority target cellphones for intelligence collection.”

The WikiLeaks documents also include detailed charts concerning specific attacks the CIA can apparently perform on different types of cellphones and operating systems, including recent versions of iOS and Android — in addition to attacks the CIA has borrowed from other, public sources of malware. Some of the exploits, in addition to those purportedly developed by the CIA, were discovered and released by cybersecurity companies, hacker groups, and independent researchers, and purchased, downloaded, or otherwise acquired by the CIA, in some cases through other members of the intelligence community, including the FBI, NSA, and the NSA’s British counterpart GCHQ , the documents indicate.

One borrowed attack, Shamoon, is a notorious computer virus capable of stealing data and then completely destroying hardware. Persistence, a tool found by the CIA, allows the agency control over the device whenever it boots up again. Another acquired attack, SwampMonkey, allows CIA to get root privileges on undisclosed Android devices.

It's not just the CIA — the FBI has developed smartphone hacking capabilities:

In addition to the CIA’s efforts, an FBI hacking division, the Remote Operations Unit, has also been working to discover exploits in iPhones, one of the WikiLeaks documents, the iOS hacking chart, indicates.

And note this:

Last February, while investigating the perpetrator of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, the FBI attempted argued in court that Apple was obligated to give the FBI access to its phones by producing a weakened version of the device’s operating system. If the WikiLeaks documents are authentic, it would appear FBI and other elements of the intelligence community are already deeply involved in discovering their own way into iPhones. The compromise of the documents also calls into question government assurances in the San Bernardino case that any exploit developed by Apple to allow the FBI access to the killer’s phone would never be exposed to criminals or nation states.

I strongly suggest reading the hacking chart, linked here and above.

CIA Hides Device Vulnerabilities; Some Companies Appear Not to Mind

Our last news piece involves this: What has been the response of high tech companies to the information contained in the WikiLeaks material — in particular, the information about vulnerabilities in their own products? WikiLeaks contacted all of the companies involved. Some were more appreciative than others to learn what WikiLeaks has discovered.

Julian Assange provides an update to the first Vault 7 material in a tweet. It reads in part:

Update on CIA Vault7 "zero day" software vulnerabilities

Organizations such as Mozilla have exchanged letters with WikiLeaks and have been informed by WikiLeaks of some vulnerabilities. Google and some other companies have yet to respond other than to confirm receipt of our initial approach. The have not agreed, disagreed or questioned our industry standard responsible disclosure plan. Most of these lagging companies have conflicts of interest due to their classified work for U.S. government agencies.

Assange also adds this:

Should such companies choose not to secure their users against CIA or NSA attacks, users may prefer organizations such as Mozilla or European companies that prioritize their users over government contracts. Should these companies continue to drag their feet, we will create a league table comparing company responsiveness and government entanglements so users can decide for themselves. We will have more to say about this issue next week. –Julian Assange

The Obama administration made a commitment, as The Intercept points out, "to disclose serious software vulnerabilities to vendors to improve the security of their products. The administration developed a system called the Vulnerabilities Equities Process to allow various government entities to help determine when it’s better for national security to disclose unpatched vulnerabilities and when it’s better to take advantage of them to hunt targets." This promise, whatever it was worth, has been abrogated and nullified.

Remember, it may not be in the "national interest" at all to allow exploitable vulnerabilities in all of the nation's smartphones. Consider the damage that can be done by foreign governments and international criminal types, as they exploit the same vulnerabilities the CIA and FBI also exploit. Is that "keeping us safe?" Hardly.

Keeping its citizens weak and vulnerable to exploitation weakens the nation against all its enemies. So why do agencies like the CIA, the FBI, and certainly the NSA as well, do this? For the benefit of those individual agencies only, as they struggle for primacy and place in what I call "spook world." Our weakness is an important part of sustaining their strength.

Needless to say, we've long left the Founders' U.S.A., and this definitely isn't Kansas in any sense. Nicole Sander and I discussed that point, our entry into spook world, in this interview, including what might be motivating WikiLeaks. The discussion itself starts at the 16:13 mark. Enjoy.

Scheduling note: My comments here appear on Monday and Thursday.

GP
 

Explosive WikiLeaks Release Exposes Massive, Aggressive CIA Cyber Spying, Hacking Capability

CIA org chart from the WikiLeaks cache (click to enlarge). "The organizational chart corresponds to the material published by WikiLeaks so far. Since the organizational structure of the CIA below the level of Directorates is not public, the placement of the EDG [Engineering Development Group]and its branches ... is reconstructed from information contained in the documents released so far. It is intended to be used as a rough outline of the internal organization; please be aware that the reconstructed org chart is incomplete and that internal reorganizations occur frequently."

by Gaius Publius

"O brave new world, that has such people in it."

Bottom line first. As you read what's below, consider:

• That the CIA is capable of doing all of the things described, and has been for years, is not in doubt.

• That unnameable many others have stolen ("exfiltrated") these tools and capabilities is, according to the Wikileaks leaker, also certain. Consider this an especially dangerous form of proliferation, placing cyber warfare tools in the hands of anyyone with money and intent. As WikiLeaks notes, "Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike."

• That the CIA is itself using these tools, and if so, to what degree, are the only unknowns. But can anyone doubt, in this aggressively militarized environment, that only the degree of use is in question?

Now the story.

WikiLeaks just dropped a huge cache of documents (the first of several promised releases), leaked from a person or people associated with the CIA in one or more capacities (examples, employee, contractor), which shows an agency out-of-control in its spying and hacking overreach. Read through to the end. If you're like me, you'll be stunned, not just about what they can do, but that they would want to do it, in some cases in direct violation of President Obama's orders. This story is bigger than anything you can imagine.

Consider this piece just an introduction, to make sure the story stays on your radar as it unfolds — and to help you identify those media figures who will try to minimize or bury it. (Unless I missed it, on MSNBC last night, for example, the first mention of this story was not Chris Hayes, not Maddow, but the Lawrence O'Donnell show, and then only to support his guest's "Russia gave us Trump" narrative. If anything, this leak suggests a much muddier picture, which I'll explore in a later piece.)

So I'll start with just a taste, a few of its many revelations, to give you, without too much time spent, the scope of the problem. Then I'll add some longer bullet-point detail, to indicate just how much of American life this revelation touches.

While the cache of documents has been vetted and redacted, it hasn't been fully explored for implications. I'll follow this story as bits and piece are added from the crowd sourced research done on the cache of information. If you wish to play along at home, the WikiLeaks torrent file is here. The torrent's passphrase is here. WikiLeaks press release is here (also reproduced below). Their FAQ is here.

Note that this release covers the years 2013–2016. As WikiLeaks says in its FAQ, "The series is the largest intelligence publication in history."

Preface: Trump and Our "Brave New World"

But first, this preface, consisting of one idea only. Donald Trump is deep in the world of spooks now, the world of spies, agents and operatives. He and his inner circle have a nest of friends, but an even larger, more varied nest of enemies. As John Sevigny writes below, his enemies include not only the intel and counter-intel people, but also "Republican lawmakers, journalists, the Clintons, the Bush family, Barack Obama, the ACLU, every living Democrat and even Rand Paul." Plus Vladimir Putin, whose relationship with Trump is just "business," an alliance of convenience, if you will.

I have zero sympathy for Donald Trump. But his world is now our world, and with both of his feet firmly planted in spook world, ours are too. He's in it to his neck, in fact, and what happens in that world will affect every one of us. He's so impossibly erratic, so impossibly unfit for his office, that everyone on the list above wants to remove him. Many of them are allied, but if they are, it's also only for convenience.

How do spooks remove the inconvenient and unfit? I leave that to your imagination; they have their ways. Whatever method they choose, however, it must be one without fingerprints — or more accurately, without their fingerprints — on it.

Which suggests two more questions. One, who will help them do it, take him down? Clearly, anyone and everyone on the list. Second, how do you bring down the president, using extra-electoral, extra-constitutional means, without bringing down the Republic? I have no answer for that.

Here's a brief look at "spook world" (my phrase, not the author's) from "The Fox Hunt" by John Sevigny:

Several times in my life - as a journalist and rambling, independent photographer — I've ended up rubbing shoulders with spooks. Long before that was a racist term, it was a catch-all to describe intelligence community people, counter intel types, and everyone working for or against them. I don't have any special insight into the current situation with Donald Trump and his battle with the IC as the intelligence community calls itself, but I can offer a few first hand observations about the labyrinth of shadows, light, reflections, paranoia, perceptions and misperceptions through which he finds himself wandering, blindly. More baffling and scary is the thought he may have no idea his ankles are already bound together in a cluster of quadruple gordian knots, the likes of which very few people ever escape.

Criminal underworlds, of which the Trump administration is just one, are terrifying and confusing places. They become far more complicated once they've been penetrated by authorities and faux-authorities who often represent competing interests, but are nearly always in it for themselves.

One big complication — and I've written about this before — is that you never know who's working for whom. Another problem is that the heirarchy of handlers, informants, assets and sources is never defined. People who believe, for example, they are CIA assets are really just being used by people who are perhaps not in the CIA at all but depend on controlling the dupe in question. It is very simple — and I have seen this happen — for the subject of an international investigation to claim that he is part of that operation. [emphasis added]

Which leads Sevigny to this observation about Trump, which I partially quoted above: "Donald Trump may be crazy, stupid, evil or all three but he knows the knives are being sharpened and there are now too many blades for him to count. The intel people are against him, as are the counter intel people. ... His phone conversations were almost certainly recorded by one organization or another, legal or quasi legal. His enemies include Republican lawmakers, journalists, the Clintons, the Bush family, Barack Obama, the ACLU, every living Democrat and even Rand Paul. Putin is not on his side — that's a business matter and not an alliance."

Again, this is not to defend Trump, or even to generate sympathy for him — I personally have none. It's to characterize where he is, and we are, at in this pivotal moment. Pivotal not for what they're doing, the broad intelligence community. But pivotal for what we're finding out, the extent and blatancy of the violations.

All of this creates an incredibly complex story, with only a tenth or less being covered by anything like the mainstream press. For example, the Trump-Putin tale is much more likely to be part of a much broader "international mobster" story, whose participants include not only Trump and Putin, but Wall Street (think HSBC) and major international banks, sovereign wealth funds, major hedge funds, venture capital (vulture capital) firms, international drug and other trafficking cartels, corrupt dictators and presidents around the world ... and much of the highest reaches of the "Davos crowd."

Much of the highest reaches of the .01 percent, in other words, all served, supported and "curated" by the various, often competing elements of the first-world military and intelligence communities. What a stew of competing and aligned interests, of marriages and divorces of convenience, all for the common currencies of money and power, all of them dealing in death.

What this new WikiLeaks revelation shows us is what just one arm of that community, the CIA, has been up to. Again, the breadth of the spying and hacking capability is beyond imagination. This is where we've come to as a nation.

What the CIA Is Up To — A Brief Sample

Now about those CIA spooks and their surprising capabilities. A number of other outlets have written up the story, but this from Zero Hedge has managed to capture the essence as well as the breadth in not too many words (emphasis mine throughout):

WikiLeaks has published what it claims is the largest ever release of confidential documents on the CIA. It includes more than 8,000 documents as part of ‘Vault 7’, a series of leaks on the agency, which have allegedly emerged from the CIA's Center For Cyber Intelligence in Langley, and which can be seen on the org chart below, which Wikileaks also released: [org chart reproduced above]

A total of 8,761 documents have been published as part of ‘Year Zero’, the first in a series of leaks the whistleblower organization has dubbed ‘Vault 7.’ WikiLeaks said that ‘Year Zero’ revealed details of the CIA’s “global covert hacking program,” including “weaponized exploits” used against company products including “Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.”

WikiLeaks tweeted the leak, which it claims came from a network inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.

Among the more notable disclosures which, if confirmed, "would rock the technology world", the CIA had managed to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”

With respect to hacked devices like you smart phone, smart TV and computer, consider the concept of putting these devices in "fake-off" mode:

Among the various techniques profiled by WikiLeaks is “Weeping Angel”, developed by the CIA's Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a 'Fake-Off' mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In 'Fake-Off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.

As Kim Dotcom chimed in on Twitter, "CIA turns Smart TVs, iPhones, gaming consoles and many other consumer gadgets into open microphones" and added "CIA turned every Microsoft Windows PC in the world into spyware. Can activate backdoors on demand, including via Windows update"[.]

Do you still trust Windows Update?

About "Russia did it"...

Adding to the "Russia did it" story, note this:

Another profound revelation is that the CIA can engage in "false flag" cyberattacks which portray Russia as the assailant. Discussing the CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group, Wikileaks' source notes that it "collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.["]

As Kim Dotcom summarizes this finding, "CIA uses techniques to make cyber attacks look like they originated from enemy state...."

This doesn't prove that Russia didn't do it ("it" meaning actually hacking the presidency for Trump, as opposed to providing much influence in that direction), but again, we're in spook world, with all the phrase implies. The CIA can clearly put anyone's fingerprints on any weapon they wish, and I can't imagine they're alone in that capability.

Hacking Presidential Devices?

If I were a president, I'd be concerned about this, from the WikiLeaks "Analysis" portion of the Press Release (emphasis added):

"Year Zero" documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration's commitments [that the intelligence community would reveal to device manufacturers whatever vulnerabilities it discovered]. Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA's cyber arsenal are pervasive [across devices and device types] and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.

As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in "Year Zero" [that it] is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities ("zero days") possessed by the CIA[,] but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.

Does or did the CIA do this (hack presidential devices), or is it just capable of it? The second paragraph implies the latter. That's a discussion for another day, but I can say now that both Lawrence Wilkerson, aide to Colin Powell and a non-partisan (though an admitted Republican) expert in these matters, and William Binney, one of the triumvirate of major pre-Snowden leakers, think emphatically yes. (See Wilkerson's comments here. See Binney's comments here.)

Whether or not you believe Wilkerson and Binney, do you doubt that if our intelligence people can do something, they would balk at the deed itself, in this world of "collect it all"? If nothing else, imagine the power this kind of bugging would confer on those who do it.

The Breadth of the CIA Cyber-Hacking Scheme

But there is so much more in this Wikileaks release than suggested by the brief summary above. Here's a bullet-point overview of what we've learned so far, again via Zero Hedge:

Key Highlights from the Vault 7 release so far:

• "Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.

• Wikileaks claims that the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.

• By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook.

• The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.

• Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

Also this scary possibility:

• As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks.

• The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.

Journalist Michael Hastings, who in 2010 destroyed the career of General Stanley McChrystal and was hated by the military for it, was killed in 2013 in an inexplicably out-of-control car. This isn't to suggest the CIA, specifically, caused his death. It's to ask that, if these capabilities existed in 2013, what would prevent their use by elements of the military, which is, after all a death-delivery organization?

And lest you consider this last speculation just crazy talk, Richard Clarke (that Richard Clarke) agrees: "Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism chief under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, told the Huffington Post that Hastings’s crash looked consistent with a car cyber attack.'" Full and fascinating article here.

WiliLeaks Press Release

Here's what WikiLeaks itself says about this first document cache (again, emphasis mine):

Press Release

Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.

The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.

Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.

"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.

Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.

By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.

In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.

Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that "There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of "Year Zero" goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective."

Wikileaks has carefully reviewed the "Year Zero" disclosure and published substantive CIA documentation while avoiding the distribution of 'armed' cyberweapons until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should analyzed, disarmed and published.

Wikileaks has also decided to redact and anonymise some identifying information in "Year Zero" for in depth analysis. These redactions include ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. While we are aware of the imperfect results of any approach chosen, we remain committed to our publishing model and note that the quantity of published pages in "Vault 7" part one (“Year Zero”) already eclipses the total number of pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.

Be sure to click through for the Analysis, Examples and FAQ sections as well.

"O brave new world," someone once wrote. Indeed. Brave new world, that only the brave can live in.

GP
 

Mike Pompeo, Torture and the Future of the Democratic Party

Things new CIA director Mike Pompeo likes. Things Chuck Schumer many other Democratic senators are just fine with. How bad will the vote for Pompeo hurt the Democratic Party?

by Gaius Publius

As I've written many many times, we're at a tipping point in this country, a very serious one. As serious and potentially revolutionary as during the Depression. The Democratic Party, which should have been a shoo-in to win the presidency last year — and would have been with Bernie Sanders as the candidate — had to scratch and claw for a narrow loss, which, with a little smarter scratching and clawing, might have been a win, but still a narrow one. Against the least popular presidential candidate in modern history.

In addition, the Democratic Party as a whole has been taking it on the chin since 2010, both at the federal level — loss of congressional seats, failure to take back the Senate in a cycle very favorable to Democrats — and at the state house and governorship level.

Clearly, Democrats as a party must not only seem different than the version that's been losing badly for the last six years, they must be different.

In a nutshell, with Sanders as the nominee instead of Hillary Clinton (she of the Wall Street speeches), the Party could be credibly seen as fundamentally transformed, in a Jeremy Corbyn–Labour Party way, in a "clean break with the Clintonism past" way.

Or, with Bernie Sanders as Senate Minority Leader, say, instead of Chuck Schumer (guardian of Wall Street interests), the Party could be credibly seen as fundamentally transforming itself as a response to the Trump win.

But Hillary Clinton was the nominee, and Chuck Schumer is Senate Minority Leader, and all those left-leaning voters who didn't pull the lever for Clinton are now asking themselves, "Is the Democratic Party any better than it was?"

We'll know the answer sometime in the next six months, largely because of the Trump confirmation votes.

Enter Mike Pompeo, Trump nominee to head the CIA.

Mike Pompeo, Abuse of National Security and Torture

Rand Paul, the only Republican senator to vote No on his nomination, writes this about Pompeo (my emphasis):

Rand Paul: Why I voted against the new CIA director

I voted against the new CIA Director because I worry that his desire for security will trump his defense of liberty.

More than ever before, oversight of the secretive world of intelligence is critically important.

Programs are authorized, money is spent, and operations are carried out in the name of the American people, yet only a few members of Congress are even allowed to know what is happening in the dark corners of these U.S. intelligence programs.

Most of Congress was surprised to learn that the U.S. government was collecting all of our phone records in bulk. Most of what our intelligence community does is shielded from the rank and file of Congress. Only eight legislators are privy to the full extent of the surveillance state....

Only begrudgingly are the American people being told about the scope of the massive intelligence apparatus that has steadily grown in secret.

Yet when oversight of the intelligence community is most needed, Congress has demonstrated an insufficient appetite for curbing the worst excesses of our country’s domestic surveillance.

And now the worst part, or the second worst part, depending on what you think about torture:

Some in Congress advocate that government collect “financial and lifestyle information” on Americans, combine it with their metadata, and store it in a government database.

A database that cross-references our every online action would be a devastating assault on liberty.

Do you want the government to collect "financial and lifestyle information" on every citizen, to use as it wishes (including, by the way, for blackmail)? I'm willing to bet that a staunch Republican like Mike Pompeo — from the Kansas branch of the party, no less — is eager to "oversee" (or use) such a program and the information it provides.

About Pompeo and torture, Rand Paul writes:

The new CIA Director described a congressional report on the CIA’s past use of torture as “a narcissistic self-cleansing.” He went on to say that those senators who voted to release the torture oversight report were “quintessentially at odds with [their] duty to [their] country.”

I [Rand Paul] couldn’t disagree more.

To recap, Pompeo thought that when Congress called the CIA (rather gently) on the carpet for committing systematic acts of torture (a war crime, by the way), Congress was indulging in an act of "self-cleansing," and Pompeo saw that use of oversight as "narcissistic" (too self-involved) on Congress' part. Pompeo's disdain, his scorn, is like Cheney's, who considered recycling as narcissistic cleansing of liberal guilt.

And Pompeo, by saying that the oversight report was "quintessentially at odds with duty to country," essentially says that defending torture is patriotism, a duty.

That's the new CIA director whose confirmation just passed the full Senate, 66-32.

Which Democrats Voted For Pro-Torture Pompeo?

The vote, 66-32, was quite lopsided. There are 52 Republicans in the Senate, 46 Democrats and two Independents (Sanders and Maine's Angus King). Only one Republican crossed the aisle to vote No — Rand Paul.

Fourteen Democrats (plus Angus King) put the stamp of approval on pro-torture Mike Pompeo, the new head of Donald Trump's CIA...

• Joe Donnelly (IN)
• Dianne Feinstein (CA)
• Maggie Hassan (NH)
• Heidi Heitkamp (ND)
• Tim Kaine (VA)
• Amy Klobuchar (MN)
• Joe Manchin (WV)
• Claire McCaskill (MO)
• Jack Reed (RI)
• Brian Schatz (HI)
• Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
• Mark Warner (VA)
• Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)

...including the Senate Minority Leader...

• Chuck Schumer (NY)

The roll call also includes these names as "not voting":

• Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
• Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Unless these two were ill or incapacitated, this was a cowardly act. They are either anti-torture and afraid to show it, or pro-torture and afraid to show it. (Blumenthal did vote No on the motion to proceed three days earlier. Murphy voted Yes.)

I've bolded the names of "people who are not who voters think they are," but really, Democrats in the Senate are now on record as a part of the "bipartisan pro-torture" crowd. Democrats now own Mike Pompeo and all his works.

The Clock on the Democratic Party Is Ticking

Will more people vote for a Democrat after this pro-torture stamp of approval than would have done before this vote? I would guess, no.

Will this situation improve after the next round of roll call votes on Trump nominees? After all, Elizabeth Warren voted for Ben Carson for head of HUD in committee. Same with Sherrod Brown.

What Mike Pompeo does, Chuck Schumer and many of his fellow Democrats helped cause. He's not just Trump's pick; he's the Democratic Party's pick as well. Tick tick tick.

GP