The majestic petulance of John Roberts: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

The petulance and sense of self-importance on display here is quite something to behold:

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Obama's State of the Union address was "very troubling" . . . . Obama chided the court, with the justices seated before him in their black robes, for its decision on a campaign finance case. . . . Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question, Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court, and some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.
"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.
"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

Supreme Court Takes ‘Informational Privacy’ Case: Via Threat Level.

The U.S. Supreme Court is agreeing to decide how much personal information the federal bureaucracy may acquire on its workers.

The justices, without comment, decided Monday to review a lower-court decision surrounding the concept of so-called “informational privacy.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down intrusive background checks last year on nearly three dozen National Aeronautics and Space Administration contractors as being too invasive — calling them an unconstitutional, “broad inquisition.”

The checks sought information from any source surrounding their sex lives, finances and even drug use. The contractors being investigated were not privy to classified information. [ Read more ... ]

White House Cyber Czar: ‘There Is No Cyberwar’: Via Threat Level.

Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar for the Obama administration, has a short answer for the drumbeat of rhetoric claiming the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing.

“There is no cyberwar,” Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.

“I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,” Schmidt said. “There are no winners in that environment.”

Instead, Schmidt said the government needs to focus its cybersecurity efforts to fight online crime and espionage.

His stance contradicts Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence who made headlines last week when he testified to Congress that the country was already in the midst of a cyberwar — and was losing it. [ Read more ... ]

Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: Via Schneier on Security.

On Tuesday, the White House published an unclassified summary of its Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). Howard Schmidt made the announcement at the RSA Conference. These are the 12 initiatives in the plan: [ Read more ... ]

Court Keeps White House Spy Docs Secret: Via Threat Level.

A federal appellate panel on Tuesday blocked a court order requiring disclosure of e-mail between the White House, Justice Department, National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence — communications that paved the way for new spy legislation.

The 2008 messages were a precursor to legislation that year to kill litigation against the nation’s carriers for funneling Americans’ communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a California judge who ordered disclosure of those e-mails and the names of telco company lobbyists who pushed for the legislation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group in San Francisco, sought the e-mail and lobbyist information under a Freedom of Information Act claim. [ Read more ... ]

Be Careful What Your Bumper Sticker Says: Via Threat Level.

“No More Blood For Oil.”

Bumper stickers with that phrase were synonymous with opposition to the Iraq War, during the George W. Bush administration.

Simply hosting that message on one’s bumper was cause enough to remove two attendees at Bush’s 2005 speech at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum in Colorado. The White House had a policy of excluding those who did not agree with the president from his public appearances. It’s a policy a federal appeals court is upholding in a decision a dissenting judge decried as “simply astounding.”

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 ruling means, in short, that the would-be attendees who were ousted from the event had no First Amendment constitutional right to remain at the speech. The two plaintiffs obtained the free tickets from a local Colorado representative, and sued the government for giving them the boot. [ Read more ... ]

Obama Reverses Position on Disclosing Lobbyist Contacts: Via EFF.org Updates.

In yesterday's State of the Union address, President Obama made an important commitment to openness and transparency in government:

It's time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my Administration or Congress.

This is welcome news. For the past few years, EFF has been litigating a Freedom of Information Act case against the government, seeking the identities of lobbyists who contacted the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on behalf of their telecommunications company clients in order to push for telecom immunity. [ Read more ... ]

White House calls for IT boost to fight terrorism: Via Computerworld Data Mining News.

Better technology needed to 'connect the dots' on terror-related data, says Obama report

The White House report on the failed bombing attempt of a U.S airliner on Christmas Day highlights the challenges U.S intelligence agencies face in correlating terrorism-related information gathered from multiple databases and sources.

The review, released yesterday, identified an overall failure by intelligence agencies to "connect the dots," despite having enough information at their disposal to have potentially disrupted the botched attack.

The problem, according to the report, was not a lack of information sharing between government agencies but a failure by the intelligence community to "identity, correlate and fuse into a coherent story all of the discrete pieces of intelligence held by the U.S. government."

In listing the various causes for this failure, the report noted that information technology within the counter-terrorism community "did not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enabled analysts to highlight the relevant threat information." [ Read more ... ]

President Obama Rightly Emphasizes Need For Better Intelligence, But Erroneously Defends State Of Terror Watch Lists: Via ACLU - Privacy.

Government Should Protect Civil Liberties While Protecting Safety, Says ACLU

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

NEW YORK – President Obama today addressed airport security in remarks responding to the Christmas Day attack on a plane headed for Detroit.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

"We welcome President Obama's emphasis on better information and intelligence sharing between government agencies. Our limited security resources should be invested where they will do the most good and have the best chance of thwarting attacks, and that means developing competent intelligence and law enforcement agencies that will stop terrorists before they get to the airport. [ Read more ... ]

Airline Security Must Protect Rights As Well As Safety: Via ACLU - Privacy.

Racial Profiling And Body Scanners Target Civil Liberties But Not Necessarily Terrorists

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

NEW YORK – The Obama administration announced Sunday it will subject the citizens of 14 nations who are flying to the United States to intensified screening at airports, including being subjected to full-body pat downs or body scanners. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the government should adhere to longstanding standards of individualized suspicion and enact security measures that are the least threatening to civil liberties and are proven to be effective. Racial profiling and untargeted body scanning do not meet those criteria.

"We should be focusing on evidence-based, targeted and narrowly tailored investigations based on individualized suspicion, which would be both more consistent with our values and more effective than diverting resources to a system of mass suspicion," said Michael German, national security policy counsel with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent. "Overbroad policies such as racial profiling and invasive body scanning for all travelers not only violate our rights and values, they also waste valuable resources and divert attention from real threats." [ Read more ... ]

Obama can't have a BlackBerry. Should your CEO?: Via Computerworld Privacy News.

The press has been all over President-Elect Barack Obama's addiction to his BlackBerry and the possibility that he might have to give it up for reasons of national security. But no one in the media seems to be asking the most logical follow-up question: Is the cybertechnology that can compromise the future chief executive's BlackBerry also a threat to mobile devices being used every day by thousands of senior executives in corporate America?

One security expert, Ron Cochoran, president of RER Technology, answers that question quite succinctly: "If the president can't use it for security reasons, then there's obviously something wrong with the security system."

The prohibition against BlackBerrys in the White House actually started with President George W. Bush's administration. [ Read more ... ]

Obama cyber czar pick looks to secure smartphones, social nets: Via Computerworld Security News.

Calls on social media firms to alert users about various security threats

The new cybersecurity coordinator favors government promotion of education, research and prodding vendors to produce more secure products that will work their way into everyday use. "What is the government doing to make sure universities and companies have dollars to do research that will enhance security?" Schmidt said in a 2008 interview with Computer World. "There is R&D that needs to be done that may not benefit homeland security but it might create the next generation of the Internet that is more secure."

He thinks Internet security is greatly improved since the mid-1990s when he ranked the impact of a foreign cyberattack in the United States at 5 or 6 on a scale of one to 10, with 10 meaning attacks would have no effect. That has improved to 8 or 9 because the number of attack vectors has been reduced. "We have the ability to turn back attacks. We also could shut down systems that might be under attack and bring them internal," he says. [ Read more ... ]

Howard Schmidt to be Named U.S. Cybersecurity Czar: Via Schneier on Security.

I head this rumor two days ago, and The New York Times is reporting today.

Reporters are calling me for reactions and opinions, but I just don't know. Schmidt is good, but I don't know if anyone can do well in a job with lots of responsibility but no actual authority. But maybe Obama will imbue the position with authority -- I don't know.

Read Original Article:(Via Schneier on Security.)

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 ... ]

Schmidt tapped as White House cybersecurity coordinator: Via Computerworld Security News.

Seven months after he announced the creation of a White House cybersecurity coordinator, President Obama has selected industry veteran Howard Schmidt for the job, an administration official confirmed Monday night.

The official told CSOonline.com that the White House will make the announcement today.

"Cybersecurity is critical to both our national security and economic competitiveness, and the president wanted to ensure that the cybersecurity coordinator had the right mix of public and private sector experience," the official said. "After an extensive search, the president chose Schmidt because of his unique background and skill sets."

Schmidt has a long history in the IT security sector and has served in the White House before as vice chairman of the president's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. [ Read more ... ]

Salon Radio: Critical state secrets hearing today: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below w/transcript - Update II)

[link to recorder fixed]

The case of Mohamed v. Jeppesen -- brought by five victims of Bush's torture/rendition program against the Boeing subsidiary that shipped them to be tortured -- was the Obama DOJ's first test of its commitment to restore basic accountability and the rule of law.  Back in February, it resoundingly failed that test when they demanded that the case be dismissed in its entirety by invoking the same radicalized version of the "state secrets" privilege which the Bush DOJ, to great controversy, repeatedly invoked.  That was the first sign that things would go terribly awry with Obama's rule of law and civil liberties record.  This warped rendition of the "state secrets" doctrine transforms it from a long-standing, simple evidentiary privilege (i.e., this specific document is too sensitive to use in the litigation) into a sweeping, dangerous shield of immunity for government lawbreaking (i.e., courts have no right to review the legality of the crimes we commit in secret). 

The Obama administration now insists that courts must dismiss lawsuits alleging presidential lawbreaking whenever the CIA Director claims the lawsuit would jeopardize state secrets; or, as the ACLU Brief puts it, "torture victims must be denied a day in court based on an Affidavit submitted by their torturers."  The Obama DOJ has gone on to invoke that same Bush-created version of the secrecy theory to demand dismissal of numerous other cases alleging various types of lawbreaking by the Executive Branch. [ Read more ... ]

22 Million E-mails Missing From Bush White House Found: Via Threat Level.

White House computer technicians have found 22 million e-mails that were believed to have been lost during President George W. Bush’s administration, according to the Associated Press.

The discovery was announced Monday by the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed lawsuits against the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in 2007 for the e-mails. [ Read more ... ]

White House Takes Another Step Toward Greater Transparency: Via EFF.org Updates.

The Obama Administration today issued its long-awaited Open Government Directive (OGD), a blueprint for transparency that the President promised on January 21, his first full day in office. The OGD is “intended to direct executive departments and agencies to take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration” the President spoke of as he took office, and it is hopefully the first of many concrete steps that will be taken to alter the entrenched culture of secrecy that pervades the federal government.

The OGD imposes four broad mandates on the federal bureaucracy: [ Read more ... ]

Report: U.S. Fears Public Scrutiny Would Scuttle IP Treaty Talks — Update: Via Threat Level.

The proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been shrouded in secrecy, and the Bush and the Obama administrations have declared it unsuitable for public debate because divulging its contents could harm America’s “national security.”

A few recent leaks have showed that the unfinished agreement, which is being negotiated largely between the European Union and the United States, is likely to benefit the content industry. At the same time, it might pave the way for international guidelines that could lead to consumers losing their internet accounts if they are believed to be digital copyright scofflaws.

But we now know that the real reason for secrecy, the one suspected all along, was that the United States does not think it could reach an accord with Europe and the nearly dozen other nations if the proposal came under public scrutiny. [ Read more ... ]

Is Obama's civil liberties record understandable?: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Earlier this week, Kevin Drum said that "nine times out of ten" Obama's policies are "pretty much what [he] expected" but that "the biggest one-time-out-of-ten where he's not doing what [he] expected is in the area of detainee and civil liberties issues."  Similarly, Andrew Sullivan cited "accountability for war crimes and civil rights" as among the very few issues on which he finds fault with Obama.  Matt Yglesias objects to those observations as follows:

Both Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan say they think most people are too hard on Obama, but express disappointment at his record on civil liberties issues. I agree that the civil liberties record hasn’t been exactly what I would have wanted, but I'm continually surprised that people are disappointed in this turn. Of all the things for an incumbent President of the United States to take political risks fighting for, obviously reducing the power of the executive branch is going to be dead last on the list. If you want to see civil liberties championed, that’s going to have to come from congress.

Salon Radio: Rep. Jerry Nadler on State Secrets Act: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Last Friday, the House Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 18-12, approved a bill entitled The State Secret Protection Act of 2009, which, if enacted, would be the first law ever to regulate and limit the President's ability to use the "state secrets privilege" to compel the dismissal of lawsuits that allege lawbreaking by executive branch officials.  The bill was first introduced in 2007 in response to the Bush administration's radical abuse and expansion of the privilege, and was re-introduced earlier this year in response to the Obama administration's identical abuses.

The lead House sponsor of the bill is Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.  He's my guest today on Salon Radio to discuss why these limits are so imperative, how the Obama DOJ has been abusing the privilege, and why internal, voluntary DOJ safeguards are inadequate.  [ Read more ... ]

Feds’ Smart Grid Race Leaves Cybersecurity in the Dust: Via Threat Level.

Amid the government-funded rush to upgrade America’s aging electric system to a “smart grid,” Threat Level is pondering a strange confluence of press releases this week by the White House and the University of Illinois.

Tuesday morning President Obama, speaking at Florida Power and Light (FPL) facilities, announced $3.4 billion in grants to utility companies, municipal districts and manufacturers to spur a nationwide transition to smart grid technologies and fund other energy-saving initiatives as part of the economic stimulus package. [ Read more ... ]

Tucker Carlson and the right's perpetual self-victimhood: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below)

The number one rule of American politics:  the greatest, most insatiable need of the standard conservative is to turn themselves into oppressed little victims.  In The Daily Beast today, Tucker Carlson devotes his entire column to complaining that Obama is "bullying" Fox News, absurdly claiming that the White House and liberals are trying "to use government power to muzzle opinions they don't agree with."  Needless to say, Carlson doesn't say a word about the endless -- and far worse -- attacks by the Bush White House on a whole array of media outlets, ones that went far beyond mere criticisms.  

But far more delusional is Carlson's central complaint:  that "the press decide[d] to go along with all of this" -- meaning Obama's criticisms of Fox.  He echoes the typical, woe-is-us conservative whine:  "Why is the press corps giving the White House a pass for behavior it would never have tolerated from other administrations? [ Read more ... ]

The joint Post/Obama defense of the Patriot Act and FISA: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below - Update II)

The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut today produces an extreme piece of government-serving, stenographic "journalism," publishing a dubious administration press release masquerading as a lengthy news article on Obama's approach to Terrorism and civil liberties.  The Post depicts Obama as heavily and heroically engaged in disrupting the alleged Najibullah Zazi domestic terrorist plot and -- repeatedly highlighting that success -- claims "the White House has been charting a delicate course as it attempts to turn the page on Bush-era anti-terrorism policies," whereby "the Obama administration is increasingly confident that it has struck a balance between protecting civil liberties, honoring international law and safeguarding the country."  Here are all of Kornblut's cited sources for the article -- every last one of them -- in the order she cites them:

Obama aides pointed . . . administration officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . senior Obama officials stressed . . . a senior administration official said . . . aides said . . . officials said . . . one senior administration official said. . . . one senior official said. . . . The official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . administration officials said . . . . a senior official said.

Not a single named person is cited, and there's not a syllable of quoted dissent in any of it.  Virtually every sentence in the long article does nothing but praise Obama and depict him as stalwartly safeguarding America's civil liberties (unlike Bush did) [ Read more ... ]

Obama Sides with Republicans; PATRIOT Act Renewal Bill Passes Senate Judiciary Committee Minus Critical Civil Liberties Reforms: Via EFF.org Updates.

Well, it looks like most of the Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee weren't swayed by this morning's New York Times editorial, which cited this morning's Committee meeting to consider USA PATRIOT Act renewal as a "critical chance to add missing civil liberties and privacy protections, address known abuses and trim excesses that contribute nothing to making America safer." Instead, the Committee just passed a bill to renew all of the PATRIOT powers that were set to expire at the end of the year, with only a handful of the original reforms that were first proposed by Senators Feingold and Durbin's JUSTICE Act and Committee Chairman Leahy's original PATRIOT renewal bill.

Instead of adding more protections to the bill, as EFF and the Times have been urging (along with many other Americans who have been organizing Facebook and Twitter activism around PATRIOT reform), the Committee this morning voted to accept seven Republican amendments to the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act to remove the few civil liberties protections left in the bill after it was already watered down at last Thursday's Committee meeting. Surprisingly and disappointingly, most of those amendments were recommended to their Republican sponsors by the Obama Administration. [ Read more ... ]