Month: October 2014

Emperor Keith and his very odd trades

by digby

This certainly stinks to high heaven

At the same time that he was running the United States’ biggest intelligence-gathering organization, former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander owned and sold shares in commodities linked to China and Russia, two countries that the NSA was spying on heavily.

At the time, Alexander was a three-star general whose financial portfolio otherwise consisted almost entirely of run-of-the-mill mutual funds and a handful of technology stocks. Why he was engaged in commodities trades, including trades in one market that experts describe as being run by an opaque “cartel” that can befuddle even experienced professionals, remains unclear. When contacted, Alexander had no comment about his financial transactions, which are documented in recently released financial disclosure forms that he was required to file while in government. The NSA also had no comment.

I don’t know what went on, but this certainly looks odd:

On Jan. 7, 2008, Alexander sold previously purchased shares in the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, a Canadian firm that mines potash, a mineral typically used in fertilizer. The potash market is largely controlled by companies in Canada, as well as in Belarus and Russia. And China was, and is, one of the biggest consumers of the substance, using it to expand the country’s agricultural sector and produce higher crop yields.

“It’s a market that’s really odd, involving collusion, where companies essentially coordinate on prices and output,” said Craig Pirrong, a finance professor and commodities expert at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business.
“Strange things happen in the potash market. It’s a closed market. Whenever you have Russians and Chinese being big players, a lot of stuff goes on in the shadows.”

“Strange things happen in the potash market. It’s a closed market. Whenever you have Russians and Chinese being big players, a lot of stuff goes on in the shadows.”

On the same day he sold the potash company shares, Alexander also sold shares in the Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd., a state-owned company headquartered in Beijing and currently the world’s second-largest producer of aluminum. U.S. government investigators have indicated that the company, known as Chinalco, has received insider information about its American competitors from computer hackers working for the Chinese military. That hacker group has been under NSA surveillance for years, and the Justice Department in May indicted five of its members.

The government raised no red flags and he doesn’t appear to have made a bunch of money. But read the whole article to see just how bizarre these trades were.

U.S. officials have long insisted that the information that intelligence agencies steal from foreign corporations and governments is only used to make political and strategic decisions and isn’t shared with U.S. companies. But whether that spying could benefit individual U.S. officials who are privy to the secrets being collected, and what mechanisms are in place to ensure officials don’t personally benefit from insider knowledge, haven’t been widely discussed…

Alexander has a history of conflict of interest problems. He wants to patent an “invention” based upon knowledge gleaned from his time at the NSA. The taxpayers apparently aren’t entitled to anything except the knowledge that people like Keith Alexander have had access to all their personal information. And then there’s this one from just this week:

In an employment deal that prompted an internal investigation at the NSA and inquiries from Capitol Hill, Alexander arranged for the agency’s chief technology officer, Patrick Dowd, to work part time for a new cybersecurity consulting firm that Alexander started this year after leaving the NSA and retiring from the Army with a fourth star. Experts said the public-private setup was highly unusual and possibly unprecedented.

Reuters revealed the arrangement last week, and on Tuesday, Oct. 21, with pressure building from lawmakers to investigate, Alexander said that he was severing the relationship with Dowd. “While we understand we did everything right, I think there’s still enough issues out there that create problems for Dr. Dowd, for NSA, for my company,” Alexander told Reuters when explaining why he scuttled the deal. Alexander’s company, IronNet Cybersecurity, is based in Washington, and he has said he might charge clients as much as $1 million per month for his expertise and insights into cybersecurity.

A little reminder about Alexander:

“We jokingly referred to him as Emperor Alexander—with good cause, because whatever Keith wants, Keith gets,” says one former senior CIA official who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. “We would sit back literally in awe of what he was able to get from Congress, from the White House, and at the expense of everybody else.”

Now why do you suppose that was?

Remember, this was the guy who was running around accusing journalists of “selling secrets” because they were paid by the newspapers that printed the stories they wrote. Yes, he really said that. 

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Exceptionally hysterical

by digby

US vs Canada:

How embarrassing ….

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QOTD: Larry Klayman

by digby

This one really takes the cake:

Does anyone doubt that former Alabama Gov. George Wallace was a racist, after he banned blacks from attending the state’s university in the 1960s? So too can anyone refute that Obama’s not even temporarily banning West Africans from entering the United States is also as least de facto racism, as this high risk caper puts whites and others at risk at the expense of not even temporarily “inconveniencing” his fellow Africans. Wallace and Obama are both despicable and both to be condemned to the trash heap of history for their actions.

Just … wow. I like how the alleged caper puts white and others at risk. What others do you suppose he’s talking about? I guess that dumb old Obama didn’t think about that did he?

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Can you have a democracy when the government spies on the press?

by digby

Steve Coll of the New Yorker (and dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of journalism) writes about the threat to the freedom of the press posed by government incursion on our privacy through technology. He’s moved to do it by his viewing of Laura Poitras’ “Citizen Four” about the Edward Snowden story, in which it’s revealed just how thoroughly the government has infiltrated all of our communications systems:

In fashioning balanced practices for reporters, it is critical to ask how often and in what ways governments—ours and others—systematically target journalists’ communications in intelligence collection. For all his varied revelations about surveillance, this is an area where Snowden’s files have been less than definitive. It seems safe to assume the worst, but, as for the American government’s practices, there are large gaps in our understanding. White House executive orders, the Patriot Act, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act might all be grounds for targeting journalists for certain kinds of collection. Yet the government has never disclosed its policies, or the history of its actual practices following the September 11th attacks. (For a chilling sense of how vulnerable a journalist’s data would be if targeted by sophisticated surveillance, read “Dragnet Nation,” by Julia Angwin, an investigative reporter, formerly at the Wall Street Journal and now at ProPublica.)

In September, the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press and more than two dozen media organizations asked the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal body, to look into these questions and report their findings publicly. “National security surveillance programs must not be used to circumvent important substantive and procedural protections belonging to journalists and their source,” their letter said. “Sufficient details about these programs must be disclosed to the public so that journalists and sources are better informed about the collection and use of their communications.”

From a working journalist’s perspective, the Edward Snowdens of this world come around about as often as Halley’s Comet. It is not possible to report effectively and routinely while operating as though every communication must be segregated in a compartment within a compartment. The question of what constitutes best practices is a work in progress, as is the protection of personal privacy more broadly.

Thank you.

Maybe you don’t think that it’s important that journalists get these stories in which case you probably think it’s just fine that the government is not only spying on them it is intimidating them with threats of legal action. (Indeed, this administration has taken these threats to unprecedented levels — even as the Attorney General continues to say that they are not …) But if you are a journalist and you defend this behavior it’s very hard to see why you chose that career. This really doesn’t strike me as that complicated of a question.

Coll sounds eminently reasonable to me. Why are so many other reporters so complacent about this?  Or worse, why are they actively hostile to people who are trying to tell these difficult stories simply because they are offended by their “tone” or their personalities? How can we possibly believe what they tell us?

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A platform for cranks

by digby

Yes, I’m talking about George Will and Fox News:

As of this writing, the number of patients diagnosed with Ebola in the United States can be counted on one hand, and the number who have died on one finger. The dozens of people who were in close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who was the index case in this country, have had their quarantine lifted, not having contracted the illness despite breathing the same air as he had. There is no evidence that airborne Ebola exists anywhere outside of fear-mongering headlines. Yet despite this, Will was happy to insinuate otherwise on a network that gets upward of 2 millions viewers every day.

Later in the same segment, Will went on to say “We’re getting used to people declaring scientific debates closed over and settled. They rarely are.” But there is no “debate” in this case. There is no indication that Ebola is spreading through the air, and no controversy within the infectious-disease community about it doing so. Will’s reckless implications to the contrary, in order for there to be a scientific debate there has to be some kind of disagreement about the evidence at hand, not merely the idle speculation of a pundit using up his airtime.

This kind of irresponsible running of the mouth is precisely how medical conspiracies start. Someone with the air of authority is given a platform with which they undermine the integrity of people who have dedicated their lives to public health, and their idiotic or downright dangerous ideas take hold and spread.

It’s always possible that Ebola could mutate into something it currently is not. But there’s no evidence of that happening and Will’s reckless bow-tied fearmongering just interferes with the epidemiologists’ ability to contain the virus that does exist. They absolutely must be able to trace contacts and that requires delivering calm and deliberate information to the public.

He used to be sensible on the subject of science. (You’ll recall that he’s also a famous climate change denier.) Why he once even declared that evolution is “a fact.” It’s hard to know what’s happened to Will lately but perhaps it’s something in the water at Fox News. He’s become much more of a crackpot since he joined them. And that’s saying something.

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Willie Horton will never die

by digby

My Salon piece today is about the re-emergence of the GOP “law and order” campaign in this election cycle:

Every election season brings at least a few think pieces about the notorious Willie Horton ad and what it meant to American politics. This is a good thing to the extent that it reminds people of just how racist the whole “law and order” campaign that animated U.S. politics from the time of the civil rights movement on really is. In fact, take a look at it again just to remind yourself of the bad old days:

Infamous GOP strategist Lee Atwater saw that ad and declared he was going to make Willie Horton Michael Dukakis’ running mate. This was a perfect example of his contention that Republicans would need to make their pitch a lot more abstract than just running around screaming the N-word. The law and order campaigns did that by pointing at the “killer, killer, killer” — with a black face.

Read on...

If you haven’t seen this year’s version, here it is:

I discuss the history of various racist appeals over the years and how certain current politicians (Ted Cruz for instance) laud the leaders of the past who used them.

After I filed that piece I came across this, which may explain why the fear campaigns include these moldy old racist tropes. It’s a survey of what people are afraid of. The list is fairly mundane, but this was interesting:

Turning to the crime section of the Chapman Survey on American Fears, the team discovered findings that not only surprised them, but also those who work in fields pertaining to crime.

“What we found when we asked a series of questions pertaining to fears of various crimes is that a majority of Americans not only fear crimes such as, child abduction, gang violence, sexual assaults and others; but they also believe these crimes (and others) have increased over the past 20 years,” said Dr. Edward Day who led this portion of the research and analysis. “When we looked at statistical data from police and FBI records, it showed crime has actually decreased in America in the past 20 years. Criminologists often get angry responses when we try to tell people the crime rate has gone down.”

Despite evidence to the contrary, Americans do not feel like the United States is becoming a safer place. The Chapman Survey on American Fears asked how they think prevalence of several crimes today compare with 20 years ago. In all cases, the clear majority of respondents were pessimistic; and in all cases Americans believe crime has at least remained steady. Crimes specifically asked about were: child abduction, gang violence, human trafficking, mass riots, pedophilia, school shootings, serial killing and sexual assault.

This irrationality distorts our politics in a way that favors the conservatives who are more than happy to pimp the “law and order” trope and tickle the racist lizard brains of their followers. As you can see, they’re doing it in this race already. Combined with the terrorism fear fest they’re aiming at women which I discussed yesterday the GOP strategy is pretty clear: same as it ever was — “they’re comin’ tah git yah!”

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Taking a break to cash in their winnings

by digby

Bowl me over with a feather:

Sensing a GOP majority in the Senate is within reach, conservative groups have put down their bombs and are working together with establishment actors to make that happen — even backing formerly sworn enemies in some races.

In New Hampshire, Tea Party Patriots (TPP) has launched a ground effort to help elect Republican Scott Brown, who has drawn the ire of conservatives for backing stricter gun control in some cases. In North Carolina, TPP and others are actively supporting Republican Thom Tillis, who was far from being the conservative pick in his primary. He faces Sen. Kay Hagan (D).
The Tea Party Express (TPE) is now actively backing Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) — little liked among Tea Partyers — and former South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (R), for Senate.

At the very least, Tea Partyers are showing a willingness to “hold their nose and vote,” as FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon put it, because of the understanding that a Republican-controlled Senate with some impurities is better than nothing at all.

“Our members have told us that right now, having a Republican-controlled Senate and firing [Majority Leader] Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are their top priority,” Jenny Beth Martin, TPP president, told The Hill.

It’s a stunning reversal from early on in the cycle, when establishment actors were gearing up for what was expected to be a fierce fight with Tea Partyers in a number of primaries nationwide. But despite promising a fierce battle, an establishment bloodbath never materialized, and Tea Party groups failed to knock off a single incumbent senator this cycle.

While some establishment Republicans have privately declared victory over the Tea Party, some right wing activists say the willingness to work with these groups and candidates doesn’t suggest Tea Partyers have been cowed by those defeats. As TPE founder Sal Russo put it, Tea Partyers are simply waking up to the fact that electoral politics requires a willingness to accept impurities within the Republican Party.

Bless their hearts.

I cut the opening sentence in that piece because it was exactly backwards:

Tea Partyers have learned to play nice after a cycle of knockdown, drag-out fights with the Republican establishment that have gotten them nowhere.

So untrue. They have achieved more than they could have ever dreamed back in 2010 when they began their crusade. Now they want to consolidate power. Does the political establishment (as exemplified by The Hill) believe that this means the conservative movement has “learned its lesson” and now it will be willing to “work across the aisle” like Tipnronnie? I’m afraid they do. And that’s just silly. If they take control of the Senate they are going to expect total obstruction. They haven’t changed their goals.

I wish the Villagers could accept the fact that these people actually believe what say they believe. (As do liberals, by the way.) If they’ve temporarily tempered their tactics for strategic reasons it doesn’t mean they are turning into moderates. They still want the same things. And they aren’t going to be happy if they don’t get it.Right now that’s fairly easy to deliver: obstruction. But that’s not going to be enough forever.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this alleged pragmatism will continue to the presidential cycle. I’d be surprised if it does. More likely they will want a true believer like Ted Cruz but you never know. Maybe the long awaited Christie Comeback is in the cards after all … Stay tuned.

Update: Oh, and by the way one has to wonder what their patrons the Koch Brothers are thinking about all this. I suspect they are good with it. Their goal was to take over the Republican Party to achieve their agenda. I think they’re probably pretty happy with how that’s going.

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“Constitutionally abhorrent”
by Tom Sullivan

“Super seals” are not the navy’s newest secret weapon, but they are double super-secret:

For your “I can’t believe this stuff happens in America” files:

Calling their conduct “constitutionally abhorrent,” a federal judge recently chided government prosecutors for working in secret to keep millions of dollars in cash and assets seized from a Las Vegas gambler and his family in a decadelong bookmaking investigation.

In his 31-page opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach cast light on the little-known court process that allowed the government to file civil forfeiture actions against Glen Cobb, his 82-year-old parents and his stepdaughter under “super seal” with no notice to anyone — not even the family it targeted.

The documents remain sealed in the court’s vault and not logged into any public database —
secret from both the public and affected parties:

“This is unacceptable,” Ferenbach wrote in court papers only recently made public. “Relying on various sealed and super-sealed filings, the government asks the court to rule against private citizens, allow the deprivation of their property and deny them a process to redress possible violations of their constitutional rights through a secret government action that provides no notice or opportunity to be heard.

“Saying that this would offend the Constitution is an understatement. It is constitutionally abhorrent.”

Civil-asset forfeiture laws sanction “official thievery,” as Digby put it, “yet another symptom of a justice system that is corrupt and unaccountable.” I first ran across the practice on 60 Minutes in the early 1990s, and can’t believe it still continues. (Maybe it’s the secrecy?) Victims face a “Kafkaesque world” of litigation, attorneys fees, bankruptcy, and blacklisting. The icing on the cake? Hiding the seizures from the public via a “super seal.”

Welcome to the land of the free, y’all. Star chambers and stripes forever.

Just leak it already


by digby

I’m hearing lots of pathetic spinning about Laura Poitras’ documentary an James Risens’ new book as people try to dance on the head of a pin to exonerate the Obama administration’s full capitulation to the security state. But this puts the lie to that spin if nothing else does:

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough is personally negotiating how much of the Senate’s so-called torture report, a probe into the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program, will be redacted, according to sources involved in the negotiations.

McDonough’s leading role in the redaction discussion has raised eyebrows in the Senate, given that his position comes with a broad array of urgent responsibilities and that the Obama White House has a team of qualified national security advisers.

Despite the White House’s public reluctance to get involved in the widely aired spat between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over the report, McDonough’s role suggests that the Oval Office sees the feud as a high-stakes one.

The White House confirmed McDonough’s involvement in the negotiations, but would not discuss the extent of it.

“We’re not going to get into the details of our discussions, but White House officials, including Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, are in regular touch with [Intelligence Committee] leadership on a variety of matters, including to discuss the committee’s review of the Bush Administration’s rendition, detention and interrogation program, in an effort to help ensure the executive summary is completed and declassified consistent with national security interests,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

Sources involved in the discussions also said McDonough’s involvement has gone beyond negotiating redactions. During the last weeks of July, the intelligence community was bracing itself for the release of the Senate investigation’s executive summary, which is expected to be damning in its findings against the CIA. The report was due to be returned to the Senate panel after undergoing an extensive declassification review, and its public release seemed imminent.

Over the span of just a few days, McDonough, who makes infrequent trips down Pennsylvania Avenue, was a regular fixture, according to people with knowledge of his visits. Sources said he pleaded with key Senate figures not to go after CIA Director John Brennan in the expected furor that would follow the release of the report’s 500-page executive summary.

The White House said the purpose of the trips was to negotiate the terms of the report’s release, not specifically to defend the CIA head. “The Chief of Staff’s agenda was about how we could work together to meet the President’s desire to ensure the executive summary is completed and declassified consistent with national security interests, so that we can shed light on this program and make sure it is never repeated. These were not discussions about Director Brennan,” Meehan said.

McDonough’s personal involvement in the decisions around which parts of the torture report to redact illustrates how in the national security realm, differences between the two parties often dissolve when one takes control of the executive branch. The report itself, meanwhile, sidesteps the role of Bush administration officials in ordering or approving torture, focusing instead only on the agency, McClatchy Newspapers has reported.

This is torture we’re talking about. It’s not “sources and methods” or a program that the administration even alleges we need to keep going to keep the boogeyman at bay. This is about something done in the past which the administration says is wrong and should never be done in the future. (That is, of course, not exactly the case, but for the sake of argument we’ll just accept that they don’t think torture is ok.) An yet they have the White House Chief of Staff negotiating with the Senate over what to be released in a Senate report.

Obviously someone will have to leak this report. At this point I guess it’s the only way we’ll ever really know what the Senate says happened. (And that’s probably a long way from knowing everything…) Back in the day the House refused to release the Pike Committee report and someone leaked it to Daniel Schorr who leaked it to the Village Voice.

There’s too much secrecy in this government.  And all those who are wringing their hands over Big Mean Risen and that kooky Poitras are aiding and abetting this. Enough.

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Now here’s a good answer from a politician #Merkley

by digby

It’s not that hard to explain why you are a progressive guys. Senator Merkley shows how it’s done: