Intelligence Official Acknowledges Policy Allowing Targeted Killings Of Americans: Via American Civil Liberties Union.

ACLU Says More Information Needed On Policy That Grants President Power To Target Americans Abroad

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union expressed serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power.
 
The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project: [ Read more ... ]

Obama Appoints Former Microsoft Security Chief New Cyber Security Czar: Via Threat Level.

It took seven months but President Obama has finally found someone to take the cybersecurity czar job no one wanted.

Howard Schmidt,  a former Microsoft security executive and a one-time cybersecurity adviser to President George W. Bush, has been appointed to the position of cybersecurity coordinator, according to a White House announcement on Tuesday.

Schmidt served as vice chair, and then chair, of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and as Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House from December 2001 until May 2003, when he reportedly left the position out of frustration that the government wasn’t making cybersecurity a priority. After leaving the White House, he became chief information security officer at eBay. [ Read more ... ]

Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut: Via EFF.org Updates.

The ACTA juggernaut continues to roll ahead, despite public indignation about an agreement supposedly about counterfeiting that has turned into a regime for global Internet regulation. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has already announced that the next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations will take place in January — with the aim of concluding the deal "as soon as possible in 2010."

For the rest of us, with access to only leaks and whispers of what ACTA is about, there are many troubling questions. How can such a radical proposal legally be kept so secret from the millions of Net users and companies whose rights and freedoms stand to be affected? Who decides what becomes the law of the land and by what influence? Where is the public oversight for an agreement that would set the legal rules for the knowledge economy? And what can be done to fix this runaway process?

We wrestle with these questions in an essay on “The Impact of ACTA on the Knowledge Economy”(PDF here) in the Yale Journal of International Law Online. [ Read more ... ]

A court decision that reflects what type of country the U.S. is: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

It's not often that an appellate court decision reflects so vividly what a country has become, but such is the case with yesterday's ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Arar v. Ashcroft (.pdf).  Maher Arar is both a Canadian and Syrian citizen of Syrian descent.  A telecommunications engineer and graduate of Montreal's McGill University, he has lived in Canada since he's 17 years old.  In 2002, he was returning home to Canada from vacation when, on a stopover at JFK Airport, he was (a) detained by U.S. officials, (b) accused of being a Terrorist, (c) held for two weeks incommunicado and without access to counsel while he was abusively interrogated, and then (d) was "rendered" -- despite his pleas that he would be tortured -- to Syria, to be interrogated and tortured.  He remained in Syria for the next 10 months under the most brutal and inhumane conditions imaginable, where he was repeatedly tortured.  Everyone acknowledges that Arar was never involved with Terrorism and was guilty of nothing.  I've appended to the end of this post the graphic description from a dissenting judge of what was done to Arar while in American custody and then in Syria. [ Read more ... ]

'War on Terror' II: Via The Nation.

We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of "state secrets." We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance. [ Read more ... ]

Obama’s Disappointing State Secrets Procedures: Via EFF.org Updates.

After months of internal review, the Obama Administration today announced a new policy on the use of the state secrets privilege. The state secrets privilege traditionally allows the government to withdraw particular pieces of evidence from a court case on the grounds that the evidence would reveal sensitive classified information. Despite this limited purpose, it's been repeatedly misused by the Bush and now Obama administrations to try to throw important litigation out of court, and is badly in need of reform.

Unfortunately, the new policy falls far short of the real reform that's needed. The Obama Administration has essentially added several layers of Executive Branch bureaucracy before the privilege can be asserted. They've promised only to use the privilege in cases where a “significant harm” to national security would result, and promised “not to invoke the privilege for the purpose of concealing government wrongdoing.” [ Read more ... ]

Attorneys Can See Classified Info in Coffee Table Spy Suit: Via Threat Level.

A federal judge in Washington has ordered the government to grant security clearances to lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit claiming illegal spying against a DEA agent, in a ruling that challenges the government’s long-held claim that the executive branch alone has the authority to determine who can access classified material.

The attorneys in the case, which was noted by Secrecy News, need the security clearances to obtain classified knowledge held by their clients so they can adequately argue the lawsuit, the judge said, in an August 26 ruling supported by attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit, but bitterly opposed by the government.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ordered an emergency stay of the order pending an appeal by the Justice Department. [ Read more ... ]

EPA Asserts Executive Privilege In CA Emissions Case - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:

Brad Eleven writes "The AP reports that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invoked executive privilege to justify withholding information in its response to a lawsuit. The state of California is challenging the agency's decision to block their attempt to curb the emissions from new cars and trucks. In response, the EPA has delivered documents requested by the Freedom of Information Act for the discovery phase of the lawsuit — but the documents are heavily redacted. That is, the agency has revealed that it did spend many hours meeting to discuss the issue, but refuses to divulge the details or the outcomes of the meetings. [ Read more ... ]

Bush's torture ban is full of loopholes: "The president has issued an executive order to stop the CIA from using torture, but the ban is unenforceable.

[...]

July 23, 2007 | Once upon a time, a U.S. official's condemnation of torture was a statement of moral principle. Today, it is an opportunity for obfuscation. We have learned that when President Bush says, "We don't torture," it's important to read the fine print. So it was once again on July 20, when Bush issued a long-awaited executive order purporting to regulate interrogation tactics used by the CIA in the "war on terror." According to a White House press release, the order provides "clear rules" to implement the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of detainees in wartime -- rules the administration insisted did not even apply to the "war on terror" until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise last summer. But while the new rules reflect a significant retreat by the administration from its initial torture policies, they are anything but "clear," come far too late in the day, and in any event are unenforceable. [ Read more ... ]

Executive Order Overturns US Fifth Amendment: "RalphTWaP writes 'Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact.' There hasn't been much media notice of this; the UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.
[ Read more ... ]

NSA Subpoena Deadline Looms -- What Happens Next?: "

The Senate Judiciary Committee has now issued subpoenas for documents related to the NSA spying program, and the deadline for the Administration to respond is tomorrow. What’s going to happen next? Can the Executive branch ignore these committee subpoenas?

It certainly can try, and a showdown between Congress and the Executive may lie ahead. Having shrouded the program in secrecy for over five years and fought oversight in the traditional court system, the Administration is likely to keep trying to avoid meaningful Congressional oversight as well. [ Read more ... ]

Bush and Cheney's tortured secrecy: "Can the White House win a constitutional showdown with Congress over executive privilege after shredding the nation's trust?

The Bush administration, already arguably the most aggressive advocate of unchecked executive power in the history of the American presidency, has done it again. President Bush has defied a congressional subpoena for testimony and documents related to his politically and legally suspect firing of a group of U.S. attorneys. Invoking "executive privilege," Bush directed two former White House employees -- Sara Taylor, who was his political director, and Harriet Miers, who was his White House counsel -- not to testify about any "White House consideration, deliberations or communications" on the matter. [ Read more ... ]

Confusion Over Cheney's Office Mounts: "Dick Cheney continues to bedevil any mortal foolish enough to determine whether the vice president is part of the executive branch, the legislative branch or even this earthly realm. The new Tricky Dick contortion act has become quite the to-do here in D.C. We've already made a few observations that have elicited some good debate. And there are some arguing for impeachment. CongressDaily today provided more fodder for the fray in a story that chronicled Cheney's governmental do-si-do. More:

'Speaking on April 9, 2003, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Cheney placed himself squarely in the executive branch as he lauded a judicial ruling against efforts to obtain information about the energy task force he headed. [ Read more ... ]

Bush Says He Will Ignore Laws; Federal Agencies Do: "The executive branch ignores the law. That's the unvarnished way of summing up the results of a new study by Congress's nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which took a look at 19 legal provisions formally challenged by the Bush administration but signed into law as elements of larger bills. In six cases, federal agencies disobeyed the law, the GAO revealed.

President Bush has made it a practice to formally protest sections of bills that he signs into law through the use of 'signing statements,' orders that invoke presidential authority in implementing a statute. In a mega-exertion of executive power, Bush has challenged over 1,100 sections of various bills, more than all presidential administrations combined. Some of the more noted provisions that Bush didn't like are:

A federal ban on torture.
A request for more information about the use of the USA Patriot Act.
A requirement that authorities obtain judicial warrants to open U.S. mail.

The GAO didn't look at the more controversial signing statements the president has used. Instead, one example from the study involved a Congressional directive that U.S. Customs and Border Protection move its Tuscon checkpoints every week in an attempt to stop illegal immigration. But the agency interpreted the law differently. Almost like it wasn't a law. CBP merely shut down its checkpoints for periods of time, rather than move them. Vacation, anyone? [ Read more ... ]

Cheney Again Part of the Executive Branch?: "Dick Cheney can't seem to make up his mind. One day, he's part of the executive branch. Another day, he's not. Cheney's flip-flopping over a National Archives mandate to protect classified executive branch information has been widely lampooned. Cheney barred investigators from entering his workplace and even tried to dissolve the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the government's classification system. He claimed his office was also part of, kind of, the legislative branch because the veep presides over the Senate. This smacks of -- dare we say (to a chorus of abuse in the comments section) -- a man trying to hide something.

There is already talk among GOP leaders in Congress of ousting Cheney, according to some reports. And Democrats are turning up the heat, threatening to cut funding to the vice president's office, since Cheney claims it is no longer part of the executive branch or any branch of government. Earlier this week, Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) sent a letter to Cheney's office expressing concern that:

'[T]he Vice President has self designated his position as part of neither the legislative branch nor the executive branch, and is therefore not accountable to the laws that govern either branch. As you know, Vice President Cheney has refused to allow routine inspections or issue mandated reports on classified information as required by executive order 12958.' The justification issued by the Vice President for violating this executive order is that he not in fact part of the executive branch and therefore is not subject to this mandate.' This is an unprecedented break with hundreds of years of history and does not keep good faith with the hierarchy of government.' [ Read more ... ]

The imperial vice presidency: "New details about his secret mission to expand the power of the president show that Cheney, at the end of his career, refuses to loosen his grip.

Two months after 9/11, on the day of the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 13, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared in the Oval Office with a four-page executive order designating terrorism suspects as enemy combatants to be held indefinitely, with no right to have their detention reviewed by any court except newly created military commissions, where they would not be permitted to learn the accusations or evidence against them, or be represented by counsel, or even know that their case had been heard and decided. [ Read more ... ]

White House: Of Course, the Rules Don't Apply to Cheney: "At today's White House briefing, Administration spokeswoman Dana Perino attempted to downplay the import of Thursday's'story of Vice President Cheney's refusing to allow Information Security Oversight Office officials to audit his handling of classified information and his alleged subsequent attempt to destroy the office.

'From today's press briefing: [ Read more ... ]

Vice President Cheney Defied Security Rules; Turned Away Inspectors: "Vice President Dick Cheney has exempted his office from a presidential classification order, refusing to make annual reports to the National Archive and turning away classification inspectors, claiming that his office is not an entity within the executive branch, according to letters from the Archive made public today by a Congressional oversight committee.

Cheney's office has a history of selective secrecy and shoddy information security practices, such as unilateral and selective declassifying of documents to suit political purposes and'fighting a government sunshine request for energy task force records up to the Supreme Court.' Cheney's top aide is facing 30 months in federal prison for lying to investigators about which Administration official'outed an'undercover CIA operative whose work focused on fighting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. [ Read more ... ]