A question for Glenn Greenwald

I just watched Glenn Greenwald's TED Talks video on Why Privacy Matters. In it, he spent quite a bit of time explaining that the goal of the "surveillance state" is to control the population by generating an assumption that we are being watched.

If that were the case, one has to wonder why NSA took such elaborate measures to keep their programs secret. Shouldn't they have celebrated Snowden's revelations instead? After all, how can we be controlled if we don't know we're being watched?

If I was in the mold of a Glenn Beck conspiracy theorist, I might assume that Greenwald/Snowden are really agents of the surveillance state who's job was to get the word out.

Just saying...

;-)

What we've learned from the Snowden revelations: The difference between abuse and the potential for abuse

Much of the heat produced by the Snowden revelations has started to calm down. I thought it might be a good time to take a look at the big picture and see what we've learned.

We've learned a lot about the methods/programs NSA uses to collect information: metadata, PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Its true that all of them provide fertile ground for the potential of abuse by the government. What we haven't learned about are any actual examples of abuse.

Its true that last August Bart Gellman reported that an internal NSA audit found that there were "thousands of 'incidents' or violations of the rules or court orders" under which the agency operates. But there is a significant difference between operator/typographical/computer errors and abuse. That report contained nothing to document the latter.

Recently Glenn Greenwald attempted to demonstrate abuse by reporting on five Muslim leaders the FBI and NSA spied on. But he failed to provide two pieces of important data that might have indicated there is an actual problem with abuse. First of all, he doesn't know whether or not the court approved warrants for this surveillance and if so, why.

Given that the government’s justifications for subjecting Gill and the other U.S. citizens to surveillance remain classified, it is impossible to know why their emails were monitored, or the extent of the surveillance. It is also unclear under what legal authority it was conducted, whether the men were formally targeted under FISA warrants, and what, if anything, authorities found that permitted them to continue spying on the men for prolonged periods of time.

I almost laughed out loud when I read that first sentence. Here is Greenwald reporting on millions (?) of documents Snowden stole that were formerly classified. And yet he claims that he can't report on the reasons these men were surveilled because that information is classified. IOW, Snowden didn't manage to steal any documents that would tell us why.

Secondly, the spreadsheet Greenwald uses to demonstrate this surveillance indicates that it was terminated for two of the individuals in 2008 and extended for 3 of them about the same time. After that...nothing. So the surveillance he reported on occurred prior to that time (under the Bush administration) and he provided zero evidence that it continued beyond that date. I'll simply note that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended by Congress in July 2008. Whether or not this is why the spreadsheet contains no further information, we don't know. What we can be sure of is that if Snowden's documents contained proof that this surveillance had continued into the Obama administration, Greenwald would certainly have reported that.

In the end I'd suggest that what hasn't been reported is probably more important than what has been. We've just witnessed the biggest breach of national security secrets in our country's history. And after over a year of reporting, we have not seen one case of abuse documented. That's a pretty BFD.

So it is appropriate to question whether or not we are comfortable with the potential for abuse that these NSA programs make possible for future administrations. But other than the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping that was reported by the NYT in 2005 (and ended in 2007), the Snowden documents have provided zero evidence of illegal surveillance or abuse.

Not listening makes actual reporting pretty impossible

The other day I wrote about the importance of understanding President Obama's goals in foreign policy in order to measure his success. But perhaps I should have taken it one step further. It would be helpful if we started by actually listening to what he says.

In an age where we can re-read speeches or listen to the video-tapped recordings of them, this kind of reporting on the outcome of the President's speech last year on counterterrorism is a perfect example of why our media has lost credibility. The title of the article pretty much tells you all you need to know: One Year After Obama's Big Drone Speech, Many Promises Left Unkept.

First of all, it was not a big drone speech!!!!  It was a speech about the indefinite war we've been waging since 9/11 (of which drones are a part) and a call for the country to contemplate ending that war. If you don't get that, you don't get the speech.

When someone knows how to put together a speech that makes a logical argument (as this President certainly does), you look for the opening statement that summarizes what the whole speech is about. After talking about the attacks on 9/11 and our response to them, the President said this:

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror...But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. That begins with understanding the current threat that we face.

But here's how the reporters in the article linked above summarized the speech:

One year ago last Friday, President Barack Obama gave a major address on drones, targeted killing and terrorism. The president and administration officials promised that the drone program would operate within limits protecting civilians, control would be transferred from the CIA to the Pentagon, and a new era of transparency would begin.

Assuming those are promises the President made in this speech, they conclude:

"I would give the president an 'F' based on his promises a year ago," said Alka Pradhan, the counterterrorism counsel for the human rights group Reprieve U.S.

They pretty much missed the whole point of the speech and then gave him an "F" for not fulfilling the promises they suggest he made. So lets take a look at what they think he promised and compare it to what he actually said. On limiting the drone program in order to protect civilians, he was pretty clear-eyed.

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.

Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes -- both here at home and abroad -- understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties -- not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.

What I hear is a President grappling with the world as it is - doing everything in his power to minimize civilian casualties but recognizing that his actions risk just that - while doing nothing risks more. I hear no promises; only an explanation of the call that rests on his shoulders.

Nowhere in the speech did the President make a statement about transferring control of drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon. That leak came two months prior to this speech from unnamed senior officials, so I'm not sure what it has to do with an analysis of this speech. Even so, at the time of the leak it was predicted that such a transfer would take a year or more to implement. So perhaps its a bit soon to give it a grade.

I see no great emphasis on transparency in the President's speech. But he did say this:

And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted an American citizen -- Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations for AQAP.

He also made a couple of suggestions he was open to exploring with Congress.

Going forward, I’ve asked my administration to review proposals to extend oversight of lethal actions outside of warzones that go beyond our reporting to Congress. Each option has virtues in theory, but poses difficulties in practice. For example, the establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorize lethal action has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority. Another idea that’s been suggested -- the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch -- avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public confidence in the process. But despite these challenges, I look forward to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for increased oversight.

But that's it on the topic of transparency. Once again, I fail to hear any promises.

Finally, in an article that purports to hold President Obama accountable for the promises he made in a speech, there is NO mention of the other strategies he discussed.

1. Effective global partnerships
2. Diplomatic engagement and assistance
3. Striking the appropriate balance between security and civil liberties
4. Refining and ultimately repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force
5. Closing the Guantanamo Bay prison

But I guess when you've already decided that this was "a big drone speech," all that talk goes in one ear and out the other.

I thought it might be helpful to systematically unpack just one article that missed the mark so badly in order to make a point. The authors obviously had an agenda in mind and then simply used that to measure what they assume the President said. That this kind of thing is what often passes for reporting these days speaks to the willful blindness and/or laziness of much of our media. There are days that it feels like we could spend all of our time simply correcting the record...just to get us into a position to debate it.

Steve Benen got it wrong

Its very rare to find Steve Benen making a mistake. He is one of the best in a media full of problems. But today is one of those times he got something wrong. It comes in the midst of writing about the Obama administration's decision to release the memo written by the Office of Legal Counsel justifying the drone strike on Anwar al-Awlaki. In recapping how we got here, Benen summarized the White House response to questions about the legality of its actions this way:

The Obama administration responded that it absolutely has the legal authority to use force under conditions like these. The tricky part came after – when the administration’s attorneys didn’t want to tell anyone how or why it had the authority. In effect, the argument was, “What we did was legal. Honest. Take our word for it. We can’t elaborate, but we looked into it and we’re sure.”

That totally ignores the following:

1. Attorney General Eric Holder's speech in March 2012 outlining the legal rationale for targeted killing of al Qaeda operatives - even if they are American citizens.
2. The release of the Justice Department White Paper on the legal case for drone strikes on Americans. 
3. President Obama's remarks about the legal case for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki during his speech on counterterrorism strategies in May 2013.

It is perfectly valid to mount arguments against the rationale that has been articulated. What is wrong is to continue to suggest that the Obama administration "didn't want to tell anyone how or why it had the authority." As I noted the other day, the judge who ordered the release of this memo said:

“Whatever protection the legal analysis might once have had has been lost by virtue of public statements of public officials at the highest levels and official disclosure of the DOJ White Paper,” Judge Jon Newman wrote in the Second Circuit’s opinion...

It frustrates me that these kinds of errors continue to surface in reporting about the Obama administration - especially from someone as reliable as Steve Benen.

Asked and Answered

The targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki (al Qaeda leader and American citizen) in Yemen as part of President Obama's war on al Qaeda sparked huge controversy for some leftists and libertarians. As is often the case, the President's Office of Legal Counsel wrote a memo outlining the justifications for such an action. There has been a heated battle waged by critics of the administration to release that memo and it looks like that might happen shortly.

For those who assume that this will be some sort of "bombshell," I'd simply remind them that they are about to be seriously disappointed. That's because for over 2 years now the Obama administration has been forthcoming in laying out their legal rationale.

It all started back in March 2012 when Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech detailing the executive authority provided to the President by the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force to target members of al Qaeda - even if they are American citizens.  Those same arguments were articulated in a Justice Department White Paper that was leaked to the press in February 2013. Finally, President Obama made the same argument in his speech on counterterrorism strategy in May 2013.

Critics of this administration's policy may not like or approve of the legal case that has been made for these actions. But the idea that those arguments have been kept secret in the Office of Legal Counsel memo are simply absurd. As a matter of fact, a circuit court judge who ruled in favor of the release of the memo said exactly that.

“Whatever protection the legal analysis might once have had has been lost by virtue of public statements of public officials at the highest levels and official disclosure of the DOJ White Paper,” Judge Jon Newman wrote in the Second Circuit’s opinion...

Since Senator Rand Paul is one who has again joined liberals in a demand that the memo be released, I can't help but remember when he staged a filibuster on the Senate floor because he decided that this letter from AG Holder wasn't enough to stop his grandstanding on this issue. Holder then sent a second letter that perhaps was more intelligible to the intellectual capacities of his audience. Addressing the question of whether or not the President has the authority to to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on U.S. soil, he wrote:

The answer to that is no.

Clear enough for ya?

In that sense, the focus of these critics on the need for this memo to be released actually reminds me of the teapublicans focus on Benghazi. Just because you don't like the answers you got doesn't mean the question hasn't been addressed. As a matter of fact, on both issues, I'd say its been Asked and Answered. Time to move on.

Snowden, China and cyber security

As I wrote about yesterday, I keep trying to convince myself that Edward Snowden was just a naive fool rather than something more sinister. But just as I'm about to get there, another troubling inconsistency in his story emerges.

Such was the case when I pondered the article in Vanity Fair a little bit more. To demonstrate, here's a bit of the timeline I pulled from it.

April 2012 - Snowden is working for Dell and is transferred to NSA’s Kunia Regional Security Operations Center in Hawaii. The article states:

Analysts at Kunia are said to focus on the electronic monitoring of China and North Korea.

Almost immediately, he began hacking the NSA's systems.

In today’s electronic bureaucracies, both government and corporate, a sysadmin [Snowden's job at the time] operates within fairly loose guidelines; like a motorcycle rider, he is free to roam far and wide, but only as long as he stays in his own lane. Later, after Snowden went public, N.S.A. experts studying his activities could see that, almost from his first weeks on the job, he had not only left his own lane but driven off the road entirely, zinging through open fields and peering into empty mansions. “He really went across policy lines and all kinds of things that he really shouldn’t have been able to get into as a sysadmin,” says William Binney.

December 2012 - Snowden first contacts Glenn Greenwald to begin the process of leaking documents. When Glenn didn't respond, he contacted Laura Poitras in February - who eventually got the two of them connected.

February 2013 - Snowden decides to leave his job with Dell and go to work for Booz Allen.

On the face of it he seemed to be trying to take a step up the intelligence ladder, shedding his job as a computer technician for actual espionage work; in fact, Snowden has indicated, he wanted access to more information he could download. Having passed on the N.S.A.’s job offer, he applied for and received a job at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he would move to the “cyber-security” side of the N.S.A., tracking and targeting threats to the country’s information infrastructure...“His job was to look at cyber-adversaries,” says Ledgett, “people who were exploiting U.S. communications or U.S. computer networks. And his job was to pursue them as targets and try to figure out what they were doing.”

Keep in mind that just three months prior, a Congressional report had stated unequivocally that China is the biggest threat when it comes to cyber security.

China is “the most threatening actor in cyberspace” as its intelligence agencies and hackers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to U.S. military computers and defense contractors, according to the draft of an annual report mandated by Congress...

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, described as relentless China’s efforts to blind or disrupt U.S. intelligence and communications satellites, weapons targeting systems, and navigation computers.

The commission’s draft report bolsters warnings by U.S. officials that cyberattacks pose growing risks to the military and to critical industries such as electric utilities, pipelines, and telecommunications. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cited Chinese and Russian capabilities in an Oct. 11 speech, saying cyber threats could become as devastating as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

So you can rest assured that if Snowden was tracking and targeting cyber security threats, he was likely focused on China.

May 2013 - Snowden leaves for Hong Kong. He arrived there on May 18/19 and we know nothing of his activities until Greenwald, Poitras and MacAskill arrive on June 1st. After being interviewed and filmed by these three, he goes into hiding again on June 10th and then leaves for Russia on the 23rd. That leaves 10 days prior to his meetings with the reporters and 12 days afterwards that either his location and/or activities in Hong Kong are unknown.

But here's the catch...if I was to ask you which stories from the Snowden cache have garnered the most attention in this country, it would undoubtably be the first two that were reported: (1) the FISA court order to Verizon on the metadata program, and (2) the PRISM program (the NSA collaboration with social networks like Microsoft, Google, etc.) However, the Verizon court order was signed on April 25, 2013 (posted online on April 29th) and the powerpoint slides outlining the PRISM program were from a presentation made in April 2013. So that means that Snowden couldn't have been in possession of those documents until almost 5 months AFTER he first contacted Greenwald (and just a couple of weeks before he fled to Hong Kong).

So the question becomes - what was he planning to leak when he first contacted Greenwald? All we know is that he was sure to have access to tons of material about China and cyber security threats - none of which has been released to the public. We also know that he fled first to Hong Kong - where his activities are unaccounted for over the course of 22 days - and then was granted asylum in Russia.

While everyone else is focusing either on privacy or the need to protect against terrorist threats, excuse me if I get concerned about what Snowden might have told China/Russia about our country's attempts to protect against cyber attacks. If that grants me access to the tin foil hat club...so be it.

Vanity Fair on Snowden

I have to admit that I found myself pretty enthralled by the rather long read Vanity Fair has provided on the life and times of Edward Snowden. But it wasn't because it was anything like a great John le Carré novel. Perhaps its the recovering therapist in me - but I was trying to garner some answers to questions that have gone unanswered in all our obsession with him - like "what were his motivations?" You see, I don't buy the great hero narrative he and his supporters have tried to sell.

What I will say about this piece is that - for the first time - I think the authors approached this without an agenda to sell. They seem uninterested in making a case that he's either a hero or a villain. In quoting their conversations with Snowden, its the first time he occasionally sounds unscripted by his handlers. So its worth a read for that perspective alone.

But the account only intensifies the questions that remain. For example, on the one hand the story is about a very young man who is savy enough to contact three different reporters (Gellman, Greenwald and Poitras) in order to protect himself...what Snowden calls his "checks and balances." But on the other hand, we're told that he was naive enough to head to Hong Kong with a hope (no plan) of ending up in Iceland without an alternative if that failed. An anonymous source identified as "someone who knows Snowden well" is quoted as saying:

Part of him is very naïve. I think he thought the world would see how fucked up what the N.S.A. was doing is and give him a part in a parade.

Holy shit! No one can be THAT naive, can they?

There is also not much to reconcile Snowden's rant on the Ars Technica message board about leaked security documents when he says "They’re reporting classified shit. Who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this? Those people should be shot in the balls," with the guy a close associate describes as:

...an “I.T. genius” who took his martial arts very seriously. She described him as “kind and sincere,” “introspective,” and “a bit prone to brood.”

In one of the most absurd tales included in the article, we find out that Snowden regularly showed up for his job at Dell doing contract work for the NSA wearing an Electronic Frontier Foundation sweatshirt (yeah, go check that link and you'll find their tag line "Defending your rights in a digital world"). That sure doesn't reflect well on Dell. But how naive/grandiose (chose your word) is that for Snowden?

The authors of the article don't claim to know what motivated Snowden to steal classified documents. But they tell one story as an interesting possibility.

It was that summer of 2012, Ledgett [NSA's Deputy Director] says, when Snowden made his first illegal downloads. According to the N.S.A., one of those documents was the agency’s technical employment test, with the answer sheet. Snowden later took the test, and “aced it,” according to Mike McConnell, a former director of the N.S.A. and now the vice chairman of Booz Allen. Sometime in the fall of 2012, Snowden allegedly applied for a job at the N.S.A., got it, and then turned it down because he wanted a higher rank. “They offered him a position, and he said, ‘No, no, I don’t want to be a G.S.-13. I want to be an S.E.S.,’ a much higher rank,” McConnell told The Wall Street Journal. According to this account, when the N.S.A. rebuffed Snowden, “that’s when he turned.”

So...the first time Snowden steals documents from the NSA its to cheat on a test. And then he gets mad that he didn't get offered the job he wanted. Interesting. Of course, Snowden denies the part about why he turned and suggests that a Booz Allen employee simply told this tale to get back in the good graces of the NSA. Who are you going to believe? The cheating hacker or the guy who was stupid enough to hire the cheating hacker? Tough call.

In the end Vanity Fair didn't really give me much by way of answers. But I'll give them this...at least they validated the questions. Is Snowden a sincere brooding introvert, or a narcissist who rages against lazy seniors on Social Security? Is he a savy genius or a naive fool? Is he a disgruntled employee or an ideologue about privacy? Regardless of the answers to these questions, Snowden is the guy who took it upon himself to decide what is/is not in our national security interests. Given this portrait of him, that's more than a little bit frightening.

Is anyone really interested in NSA reform?

Yesterday I said that one of the best ways to spot fear-based politics was to notice the people who are spreading fear and outrage but not engaged in talking about solutions. Those are the folks that want to tap into your emotions but not your thinking.

Glenn Greenwald got everyone emotionally riled up with all the hysteria he promoted about NSA surveillance. And now President Obama has proposed reforms to the bulk metadata collection program and his Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will shortly be releasing their recommendations for other programs.

But what's even more interesting is that - even as everyone is distracted with talking about the ridiculous House Select Committee to investigate Benghazi - almost no one is paying attention to the scramble in Congress to get an NSA reform bill to the floor of the House. Apparently the rush is fueled by some intramural power games between the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. But whatever the motivation, this "least productive Congress in history" is all of the sudden having an outbreak of bipartisanship. Even if no one is paying any attention to it. Doubt my word about that? Go check out the list of 143 Representatives who have signed on as co-sponsors of the Judiciary Committee's bill. You'll find everyone from the far right to the center-fielders to the far left on the list. Strange brew happening there!

And so, you'd suppose that the "journalist" who started all this would either be patting himself on the back and taking victory laps or knee deep in analyzing it to find out whether or not it addresses the issues he raised. Of course you would be wrong. Greenwald hasn't written a word about it. I'd suggest that tells you all you need to know about him.

P.S. Almost no one in the media is showing much interest in this story. So Glenn isn't the only one. I suspect there's no linkbait available to exploit.

President Obama and the Aikido Way on Surveillance (updated)

President Obama has prepared a proposal about changes to the bulk telephone data collection program currently operated by the NSA.

The Obama administration is preparing to unveil a legislative proposal for a far-reaching overhaul of the National Security Agency’s once-secret bulk phone records program in a way that — if approved by Congress — would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year, according to senior administration officials.

Under the proposal, they said, N.S.A. would end its systematic collection of data about Americans’ calling habits. The records would be stay in the hands of phone companies, which would not be required to retain the data for any longer than they normally would. And the N.S.A. could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.

You'll likely hear some folks respond by saying this isn't a big deal. In a way, they're right. One way to understand that is to remember how Mark Ambinder described the program months ago.

One official likened the NSA's collection authority to a van full of sealed boxes that are delivered to the agency. A court order...permits the transfer of custody of the "boxes." But the NSA needs something else, a specific purpose or investigation, in order to open a particular box.

The basics of the President's proposal will be that the NSA leave that van full of sealed boxes with the phone companies and get a warrant (currently the FISA court has to approve the searches) to obtain specific call content.

But this move is classic Obama. He set the tone for this early on in his interview with Charlie Rose about the surveillance programs.

I've got to tell you though Charlie, I think this is a healthy thing because its a sign of maturity that this debate would not have been taking place 5 years ago. And I welcome it...its useful to have a bunch of critics out there who are checking government power and who are making sure we are doing things right so that if we've triple-checked how we're operating any one of these programs, lets go quadruple-check it. I'm comfortable with that and I'm glad to see that we are starting to do that.

I'm sure there will be some who will respond to the President's proposal by suggesting that Snowden/Greenwald attacked this administration and "won." That's because they've invested their personal ego in a win/lose game. That is not how President Obama approaches things. His ego is not involved. That allows him to follow the Aikido Way:

There are no kicks and no punches within Aikido itself...Instead, there is an emphasis on blending with a partner's attack and the use of techniques to lead that attack safely to a conclusion that is good for everyone.

Well done, Mr. President.

Now, about that whole "if approved by Congress" thing. Paging Senator Paul...Senator Rand Paul to the white courtesy phone, please."

;-)

UPDATE: This morning we get Glenn Greenwald's response to the President's proposal. Given that it neutralizes Greenwald's line of attack on the metadata program, other than some nonsense about whether or not President Obama really means it, he decides to forgo his Obama Derangement Syndrome and go after Democratic partisans with: Obama's new NSA proposal and Democratic partisan hackery.

That puts hard-core Obama loyalists and pro-NSA Democrats – the ones that populate MSNBC – in an extremely difficult position. They have spent the last 10 months defending the NSA (i.e., defending Obama) by insisting that the NSA metadata program is both reasonable and necessary to Keep Us Safe™. But now Obama claims he wants to end that very same program. So what will they do?

If they had even an iota of integrity or intellectual honesty, they would instantly and aggressively condemn Obama. After all, he’s now claiming to want to end a program that they have been arguing for months is vital in Keeping Us Safe™. Wouldn’t every rational person, by definition, criticize a political leader who wants to abolish a program that they believe is necessary to stop terrorism and preserve national security?

But that’s not what will happen.

LOL! I can't speak for the other "hacks," but my response to the Snowden revelations about the metadata program were never about it being necessary to keep us safe. For me it has always been about the lies and spin Snowden/Greenwald perpetuated about it - like the time Snowden said this:

I, sitting at my desk could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.

That was NEVER true. As the President told Charlie Rose, these programs were triple-checked and now he's proposing a quadruple-check.

But I'm fine with Greenwald going after "partisans" like me. I've been watching the Aikido master take these kinds of things on for 6 years now. Time for me to demonstrate that I've learned a thing or two. So I'll just point out where Greenwald is 100% right and some in his "fan club" are needing correction:

Ending NSA's bulk collection program doesn't "put it in the telecoms' hands"- they *already have their customers' calling records, obviously
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 25, 2014

Yes, obviously.

President Obama is keeping his promise on ending perpetual war

Some of you might remember that it was only a year ago that libertarians and many liberals were consumed with talking about drones. Then in May, President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about ending perpetual war.

Of course, folks like Glenn Greenwald said it would never happen and then went on to mockingly deride the President's promises.

Until one sees actual changes in behavior and substance on those issues, cheering for those changes as though they already occurred or are guaranteed is the height of self-delusion...

How many times does Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and polices, only to watch as he then proceeds to do the opposite, before one ceases to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?

Well, I have some news for the naysayers. Over the last year, I've been documenting the fact that the number of drone strikes has been dropping dramatically. And then today comes this report from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (one of the biggest critics of President Obama's drone policy):

John Brennan has now completed his first year as director of the CIA. In that time there has not been a confirmed report of a civilian casualty from a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, according to an analysis of Bureau drone strike data...

And there has not been a reported drone strike for more than two months in Pakistan.

In light of that, I'd suggest the following re-write of Greenwald's question from up above: "How many times does [President] Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and policies, only to watch as he then proceeds to fulfill them, before one begins to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?" In typical Greenwald fashion, that's a lot of words to basically say: Obama keeps his promises...when are you guys going to finally start paying attention?

Now that everyone has dropped their vapors about the issue of drones and gone on to surveillance, perhaps its time to start believing what this President says.

NSA AND Drones...Oh My!

Anyone who has been watching Glenn Greenwald for as long as I have can probably get inside his head and figure out his strategies. So with the launch of the first stage of his new media platform, it doesn't surprise me that he went with a story that could maximize the fear-mongering by combining talk of drones AND the NSA.

The gist of the "revelations" is that the Obama administration uses signal intelligence collected by NSA to target the SIM cards of suspected terrorists for drone strikes. First of all...DUH!!! Their big leap is to suggest that since this is not coupled with affirmation from human intelligence, mistakes are likely. Yet they provide not one single piece of actual evidence to back up that claim.

In addition to the fact that their sources for this story seem to rely almost exclusively on the use of intelligence and drone strikes in Afghanistan (where we are clearly still engaged in a war with the Taliban), their assumption is that these mistakes inevitably lead to civilian casualties.

All of this might have been somewhat useful information back in 2010 when the U.S. implemented at least 127 drone strikes outside of Afghanistan. But as I've reported previously, we are talking about a total of 39 strikes in all of 2013. In addition, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (which has been especially critical of the Obama administration over drone strikes) reports that:

There were no confirmed reports of civilian deaths in the six months after [President Obama's counterterrosim] speech...Total civilian casualties have been falling since 2009, and the average number of civilian deaths in each strike has also been declining over the past four years.

I'll say this...Greenwald knows his audience. He's very aware of the fact that linking the topic of drone strikes to stories about NSA as the opening bid on this new media platform is a guaranteed way to prompt maximum outrage and generate clicks. His appeal is mostly to people who haven't noticed that President Obama is fulfilling his promise to end this perpetual war. And gawd knows Greenwald isn't about to inform them about that.

Understanding President Obama

I've spent a lot of time over the last six years observing President Obama and trying to understand him. From a personal standpoint, that's because I find him to be a fascinating human being. But from a political standpoint, I also think that he is a unique figure in our history. We have the benefit of living that history in the present moment rather than reading about it in books. It has been my passion to take it all in and try to understand what is happening.

Many people have commented that Barack Obama became a blank screen onto which people projected their own desires and fears. In watching the coverage of his presidency, I find that to be true. It has been frustrating to watch people simply put him into a pre-fabricated box of their own making rather than listen to what he says and watch what he does. On the extreme right, he has become the socialist demon and on the extreme left the corporate tool. That's what they expected and that's what they see. Every word uttered and every action taken is twisted in order to fit the mold. But those caricatures rarely bear any resemblance to the actual man who is our President. And so, whether you agree with him or not, disabusing ourselves of those projections and being open to who he actually is allows us to see the reality at play in this historical moment.

On a couple of occasions, journalists have attempted to approach President Obama with that kind of openness and given us a glimpse into the man they see. Such was the case when Michael Lewis was given extraordinary access and produced the article titled Obama's Way. Recently, David Remnick (author of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama - which I recommend that everyone read) gave us another look. I'd like to take a few minutes to cull what I see as significant insights from that article.

First up, President Obama talks about race - both in the context of himself as well as its role in politics. On so many issues, we see the President make a both/and (rather than either/or) argument. But never more so than when it comes to this topic.

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”

To my recollection, that is the first time I've heard President Obama acknowledge that race is a factor for some of his critics...a BFD! But notice that he immediately balances that with the idea that race also plays a role for some of his admirers. I imagine that this tendency of his to do the both/and is maddening to those who feel the very real anger of racism. But this is quintessential Obama, isn't it? He has been so steeped in the value of empathy that he rarely comes down on one side of an argument in righteous rage. His natural instinct seems to be to immediately place himself in the opposition's shoes in order to understand their perspective. Like it or not, if you're going to understand President Obama, this is one of the most important things to notice. Its the very thing that made his speech on race during the 2008 primaries so unique...he wanted white people to understand what racism looked like from the perspective of African Americans. But he also wanted African Americans to understand what it looked like from a white working class perspective.

In reflecting on the office of the presidency, Obama talked about his reaction to watching the movie Lincoln:

“The real politics resonated with me, because I have yet to see something that we’ve done, or any President has done, that was really important and good, that did not involve some mess and some strong-arming and some shading of how it was initially talked about to a particular member of the legislature who you needed a vote from. Because, if you’re doing big, hard things, then there is going to be some hair on it—there’s going to be some aspects of it that aren’t clean and neat and immediately elicit applause from everybody. And so the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

That reminded me of how President Obama talked about his North Star early on in his presidency.

So, my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there, what is helping people live out their lives; what is giving them more opportunity; what is growing the economy; what is making us more competitive. At any given juncture there are going to be times that my preferred option, what I am absolutely, positively sure is right, I can’t get done. And so then, my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or that way because I am keeping my eye on the long-term and the long fight. Not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long-term.

As an example of how he keeps his focus on that North Star, Reminck relates this episode:

Last summer, he received a letter from a single mother struggling to support herself and her daughter on a minimal income. She was drowning: “I need help. I can’t imagine being out in the streets with my daughter and if I don’t get some type of relief soon, I’m afraid that’s what may happen.” “Copy to Senior Advisers,” Obama wrote at the bottom of the letter. “This is the person we are working for.”

Oh my! So much for the corporate tool argument. One can make the claim that President Obama's policies might not do enough to help this mother - that he's tacking too much - but he has consistently held to this priority. And in the end,  he says that this is how he wants his presidency to be judged.

“I think we are fortunate at the moment that we do not face a crisis of the scale and scope that Lincoln or F.D.R. faced. So I think it’s unrealistic to suggest that I can narrow my focus the way those two Presidents did. But I can tell you that I will measure myself at the end of my Presidency in large part by whether I began the process of rebuilding the middle class and the ladders into the middle class, and reversing the trend toward economic bifurcation in this society.”

There is a lot of discussion in Remnick's article about foreign policy - specifically in the Middle east. On the topic of terrorism, he asks the President about the fact that Al Qaeda now appears to be in control of Falluja. Obama uses the opportunity to talk about how we need to alter the way we view terrorism post 9/11.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

“Let’s just keep in mind, Falluja is a profoundly conservative Sunni city in a country that, independent of anything we do, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. And how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology are a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”

This kind of nuanced thinking about the complexities involved in our response to terrorism is totally missed by those who claim that this administration is continuing the fear-mongering we were subjected to by Bush/Cheney. That distinction and nuance is carried on as the President talks about the use of drones.

“I think any President should be troubled by any war or any kinetic action that leads to death,” Obama told me when I brought up Yousafzai’s remarks. “The way I’ve thought about this issue is, I have a solemn duty and responsibility to keep the American people safe. That’s my most important obligation as President and Commander-in-Chief. And there are individuals and groups out there that are intent on killing Americans—killing American civilians, killing American children, blowing up American planes. That’s not speculation. It’s their explicit agenda.”

Obama said that, if terrorists can be captured and prosecuted, “that’s always my preference. If we can’t, I cannot stand by and do nothing. They operate in places where oftentimes we cannot reach them, or the countries are either unwilling or unable to capture them in partnership with us. And that then narrows my options: we can simply be on defense and try to harden our defense. But in this day and age that’s of limited—well, that’s insufficient. We can say to those countries, as my predecessor did, if you are harboring terrorists, we will hold you accountable—in which case, we could be fighting a lot of wars around the world. And, statistically, it is indisputable that the costs in terms of not only our men and women in uniform but also innocent civilians would be much higher. Or, where possible, we can take targeted strikes, understanding that anytime you take a military strike there are risks involved. What I’ve tried to do is to tighten the process so much and limit the risks of civilian casualties so much that we have the least fallout from those actions. But it’s not perfect.”

I find the statement I bolded most fascinating. It is often ignored when the President's critics accuse him of being just like (or worse than) Bush. President Obama acknowledges that his actions aren't perfect. But he wants us to think about the alternatives. Rather than invading whole countries because they harbor terrorists, he has chosen a different path. This is obviously something he has struggled with. And later on in this article, he sounds positively Niebuhrian in how he talks about it.

“I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person,” Obama said. “I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there’s going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, but that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse.”

President Obama knows that even the leader of the free world has to keep his place in the scheme of things in perspective.

“One of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate more as President is you are essentially a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids, and that river is history,” he later told me. “You don’t start with a clean slate, and the things you start may not come to full fruition on your timetable. But you can move things forward. And sometimes the things that start small may turn out to be fairly significant...

“I think we are born into this world and inherit all the grudges and rivalries and hatreds and sins of the past,” he said. “But we also inherit the beauty and the joy and goodness of our forebears. And we’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have.” The long view again. “But I think our decisions matter,” he went on. “And I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that at the end of the day we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”

Some people are suggesting that this represents a kind of resignation from President Obama that is in contrast to where he started six years ago. But I am reminded of how his wife Michelle described his foray into politics way back in 2005.

Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.

President Obama's response upon hearing that description was to see it as a compliment. Certainly he's learned a thing or two about "the viability of politics to make change" in the last six years. But I'm also reminded of what he said exactly one year ago today.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

This is a President who has always believed in the long game. Anyone who wants to understand him needs to at least get that one.

The big picture on surveillance

There was one moment in President Obama's speech on surveillance that stood out to me.

...after an extended review of our use of drones in the fight against terrorist networks, I believed a fresh examination of our surveillance programs was a necessary next step in our effort to get off the open-ended war footing that we’ve maintained since 9/11.

In other words, his overriding goal in all this is "to get off the open-ended war footing that we've maintained since 9/11." Just as with this administration's position on the use of drones, what too many of the people who are concerned with civil liberties often miss is the impact our "open-ended war footing" has on these policies - both psychologically on the American public as well as legally.

The President devoted much of his speech last May on counterterrorism to a discussion of how we might come to view these policies once we are prepared to end this indefinite war.

Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.

Those are the questions he is asking us to grapple with now.  In this fascinating article by David Remnick, President Obama talks about his openness to that conversation.

And those who have questioned our drone policy are doing exactly what should be done in a democracy—asking some tough questions. The only time I get frustrated is when folks act like it’s not complicated and there aren’t some real tough decisions, and are sanctimonious, as if somehow these aren’t complicated questions.

What remains to be seen is whether or not we're prepared to have an adult conversation to tackle those tough questions.

Christie with access to NSA? YIKES!!!

Someone finally made the argument I was expecting to hear as soon as this Chris Christie scandal broke.

...consider such an apparatus [NSA] under a President Chris Christie. If Christie's thugs will shut down a bridge to punish a Democratic mayor for not supporting Christie's re-election, imagine what they would do with access to NSA spying data on Democratic members of Congress. That's the bigger lesson here.

The Chris Christie scandal is important on multiple levels. And one of those levels is what it tells us about the danger of the NSA's vacuum spying.

Yeah, the thought crossed my mind. It scares the bejeesus out of me. But lets break it down a bit more, shall we?

What we know is that NSA stores metadata on every phone call made in the U.S. - including those of members of Congress. In order to get access to the content of those phone calls, NSA must demonstrate that they meet search criteria that adhere to the guidelines set by the FISA Court. So if a potential future President Christie were to attempt to get access to the content of phone calls made by members of Congress, that would be illegal.

We have to acknowledge that previous presidents have done things that are illegal. Of course Nixon comes to mind. He eventually resigned rather than face a Senate decision to remove him from office for doing so. And for most of us, the Bush/Cheney administration's use of torture was clearly illegal according to both national and international law.

What we learn from this is that laws don't always stop presidents from doing illegal things. In the coming months there will be an investigation into whether or not Christie has already crossed the line of doing something illegal in order to punish his political opponents. If it comes to that, not only will he forfeit any chance of being elected president, he's likely to lose his governorship.

But beyond all that the real question this raises is the extremely fuzzy one about the role of trust in electing politicians. Sure, we can do more to craft laws and policies that will reduce the possibility that a future president will misuse the NSA. But we're fooling ourselves if we think that would stop a vindictive sociopath from crossing the line...been there, done that. The only thing we have to guard against it not happening again is to not elect the bastards in the first place.

President Obama takes on the military and intelligence communities

In his speech on counterterrorism strategy last May, President Obama laid out some difficult ground for his administration to cover in the coming months - basically suggesting an end to the indefinite war that started after 9/11. Sometime this month he has also promised to give a speech outlining his administration's plans to reform the activities of NSA. Much of what he has and will propose won't be very popular with those involved in the military and intelligence communities. It has been my assumption for awhile that we terribly underestimate the pushback a Commander-in-Chief gets when he takes on those very powerful forces.

And then along comes Bob Woodward with a review of the book "Duty," by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. While I'm sure that Woodward and his neocon buddies will relish Gates' criticism of President Obama, it only serves to reinforce the reality that any president who wants to bring about reforms in this arena is facing a huge uphill battle.

For example, its fascinating to compare two accounts of the process President Obama used to decide whether or not to intervene in Libya. First of all, here is how it was described by Michael Lewis.

In White House jargon this was a meeting of “the principals,” which is to say the big shots...The senior people, at least those in the Situation Room, sat around the table. Their subordinates sat around the perimeter of the room...

The point of this particular meeting was for the people who knew something about Libya to describe what they thought Qad­da­fi might do, and then for the Pentagon to give the president his military options...The Pentagon then presented the president with two options: establish a no-fly zone or do nothing at all. The idea was that the people in the meeting would debate the merits of each, but Obama surprised the room by rejecting the premise of the meeting. “He instantly went off the road map,” recalls one eyewitness. “He asked, ‘Would a no-fly zone do anything to stop the scenario we just heard?’” After it became clear that it would not, Obama said, “I want to hear from some of the other folks in the room.”

Obama then proceeded to call on every single person for his views, including the most junior people. “What was a little unusual,” Obama admits, “is that I went to people who were not at the table. Because I am trying to get an argument that is not being made.” The argument he had wanted to hear was the case for a more nuanced intervention—and a detailing of the more subtle costs to American interests of allowing the mass slaughter of Libyan civilians...

The president may not have been surprised that the Pentagon hadn’t sought to answer that question. He was nevertheless visibly annoyed. “I don’t know why we are even having this meeting,” he said, or words to that effect. “You’re telling me a no-fly zone doesn’t solve the problem, but the only option you’re giving me is a no-fly zone.” He gave his generals two hours to come up with another solution for him to consider, then left to attend the next event on his schedule, a ceremonial White House dinner.

And here is how it is described by Gates via Woodward:

It got so bad during internal debates over whether to intervene in Libya in 2011 that Gates says he felt compelled to deliver a “rant” because the White House staff was “talking about military options with the president without Defense being involved.”

Gates says his instructions to the Pentagon were: “Don’t give the White House staff and [national security staff] too much information on the military options. They don’t understand it, and ‘experts’ like Samantha Power will decide when we should move militarily.” 

So while President Obama was looking for more military options to avoid a humanitarian disaster, Gates was telling his staff to limit the number of options they made available as a way to control the outcome. Is it any wonder that Gates writes about a atmosphere of “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”

Or how about the time back in 2009 when Petreaus leaked to the press his dissatisfaction with the President's decision to announce an exit date for our troops in Afghanisan?

At a March 3, 2010, National Security Council meeting, Gates writes, the president opened with a “blast.” Obama criticized the military for “popping off in the press” and said he would push back hard against any delay in beginning the withdrawal.

According to Gates, Obama concluded, “ ‘If I believe I am being gamed . . .’ and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”

Gates continues: “I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing” Petraeus, and perhaps Mullen and Gates himself, “of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus.

In other words, Gates was not upset that Petraeus was undermining the CIC to the press, but that the CIC called him out on it. Bad move Mr. Secretary.

And so as we watch the very slow progress we're likely to see on reigning in both counterterrorism strategies and surveillance activities, its important to keep this kind of tension in mind. We'd like to think of our President as someone who's positional power puts them above having to deal with these kinds of intransigent cultures and bureaucracies. But that would be naive.

Why it doesn't pay to answer stupid questions from Senators

A couple of days ago, Senator Bernie Sanders asked a stupid question: Does NSA spy on members of Congress? I'll grant you, the response he got was in the "non-denial denial" category.

"Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons," the spokesman said. 

It all reminded me of the last time a Senator asked a stupid question - then it was Rand Paul. He wanted to know whether the Obama administration would target US citizens on American soil for a drone strike. To understand that as a stupid question, it helps to look at events both before and after he asked.

On March 5, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech outlining the legal rationale this administration uses to approve drone strikes - including under what circumstances an individual would be targeted.

On February 4, 2013 an administration white paper on the same topic was leaked to Michael Isikoff.

On March 4, 2013, Attorney General Holder wrote a letter directly to Sen. Paul in response to his question.

And still, on March 6, 2013, Sen. Paul staged a talking filibuster on the grounds that he needed this question answered, by gawd!!!!

Subsequently, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote another letter. This time he left out all attempts to engage as if talking to an adult and brought it down to Sen. Paul's level.

It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.

Apparently that was enough to satisfy Sen. Paul (after all, it was the notoriety of the filibuster he wanted, so mission accomplished for him). But was it clear enough for the poutragers? Of course not!

Because now we need a definition of what “engaged in combat” means.

I kid you not. Go check the link. That was a serious response from Marcy Wheeler (otherwise known as "emptywheel").

That's why it doesn't pay to think this administration will EVER satisfy these people. Because aside from the effort to grandstand, they're not interested in engaging in conversation. From nuanced speeches to infantile clarity, there's no trick pony here.

In that light, I find the administration's response to Sen. Sander's question to be completely adequate - if not a bit amusing. Making it clear that members of Congress are treated exactly the same as every other American is not a bad way to go because it points to the stupidity of the question in the first place.

NYT Editorial Board Fails to Make Their Case

I find one aspect of the New York Times editorial today (suggesting that Edward Snowden should be given clemency) to be helpful. Finally, in one location, we have someone making a list of all the "horrors" revealed in the Snowden leaks. To be honest, I've been trying to figure this one out for a while now. And I keep coming up with "where's the beef?" So lets run through them real quick and see where things stand.

Of course the biggie for everyone still seems to be the metadata program. That's the one where the government collects date, time and number on all domestic phone calls. As the editorial mentions, there are conflicting court rulings on the constitutionality of the program. If there is going to be a final word on it, that will have to come from the Supreme Court.

Next they point out that NSA "broke federal privacy laws, or exceeded their authority thousands of times according to their own internal audit." That the NYT editorial board sees this as such an egregious outrage is interesting given that further down they link to their own paper's statement about it:

It found that there had been no willful violations of the rules, and that fewer than 1 percent of queries by analysts involved errors.

The next two have to do with NSA breaking into data centers to collect information and efforts to undermine encryption systems. Sorry, but this brings a big "Duh" from me. If we're going to task the intelligence community with spying on telecommunication activities, this is what they're going to do.

A biggie for lots of folks these days is that James Clapper lied to Congress when asked about the metadata program. As I see it, he was asked this question in an open session of Congress. If it was legal for him to talk about it in public, then why didn't the Senators who were so concerned talk about it? Perhaps Clapper should be called on the carpet for lying. But wouldn't he have technically been equally complicit if he had disclosed classified information in a public forum? Shouldn't the spotlight also be placed on Senator Wyden for asking a question that he knew it would be illegal for Clapper to answer?

Next comes the claim that the FISA Court ruled one of the NSA programs to be unconstitutional. Lets review this one more time. In Oct. 2011 the court ruled that an NSA program did not contain sufficient safeguards to protect the privacy of Americans whose information was collected while surveilling foreign targets. By November of that same year, NSA had returned with more stringent protections and the Court ruled the program constitutional.

The final point is mind-boggling in that it simply states that a federal judge ruled the metadata program unconstitutional. But the very same editorial had earlier pointed out that another judge had reached the opposite conclusion.

All of this belies their final statement:

When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government.

I'd say that the NYT editorial board needs to rethink their claim that "government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law." Reforms might well be worth pursuing. But accusing people of breaking the law is a serious charge that they didn't even come close to demonstrating.

Will 2014 be the year we finally end perpetual war?

This year one of the most important articles I wrote was about the reduction in the number of drone strikes. But that was way back in February. On May 23rd President Obama gave a speech about our counterterrorism efforts and focused specifically on our policy about the use of drones.

In the Afghan war theater, we must -- and will -- continue to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. And that means we will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. But by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.

Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.

He didn't promise to immediately end the use of drones, but provided us with the circumstances under which they would be used. And so, with 2013 coming to an end, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how this year compares to what has happened in the past.

This is data I compiled from the Washington Post and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism

A headline in Pakistan Today reflects what you see for that country in these numbers: Drone strikes lessen to all time low since 2008. It is also important to note that over half (7) of the drone strikes in Yemen came in July/August this year during the time that intelligence reports of threats prompted the US to shut down embassies all over the Middle East.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has been quite critical of President Obama on the use of drones, had this to say about the result of his efforts to curtail civilian casualties.

There were no confirmed reports of civilian deaths in the six months after the speech. However this could be a continuing trend rather than a direct consequence of the speech. Total civilian casualties have been falling since 2009, and the average number of civilian deaths in each strike has also been declining over the past four years.

I realize that we've all moved on from fear-mongering about drones to worrying about the NSA. But the truth is that President Obama is keeping his promise to bring an end to perpetual war. And as we look forward to the day our troops come home from Afghanistan in 2014, its pretty clear that he meant what he said back in May 2012.

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda...

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.

Why the media didn't fact-check Snowden/Greenwald

I see that Edward Snowden is following the lead of George W. Bush in prematurely claiming Mission Accomplished. Someone might want to tell him that it didn't work out so well for the guy who said that last time. But politicians and pundits from all across the political spectrum are lining up to canonize the guy.

All of this totally ignores some very inconvenient facts related to the lies and misinformation that have been spread by Snowden/Greenwald. I might remind you that one of Snowden's opening statements was that he could wiretap the President's phone from his desk if he wanted to. Not true. There was that whole PRISM thing about "direct access" that turned out to be a hoax. Of course there were also the lies of omission. Like the fact that the Snowdenistas have produced zero "revelations" on the NSA's policies - enforced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - about the minimization procedures that are in place to protect the privacy of Americans. Then there are all the things we still don't know. Like the fact that Snowden admitted he took the job at Booz Allen specifically to steal information and the questions that raises about when/how he first made contact with Greenwald/Poitras. Or what was the significance of Snowden not only fleeing to Russia, but staying in their embassy while in Hong Kong?

Can you imagine how different this whole story might look if the media ever really looked into all that? It might actually resemble how President Obama talked about it at his end-of-the-year press conference. Heaven forbid!

Based on all this, I went to Politifact to see if they've ever fact-checked Snowden/Greenwald. Oops, they don't do that for "whistleblowers" and journalists...only politicians. When it comes to journalists, Media Matters does an amazing job of fact-checking the right wingers. But we've known since the run-up to the Iraq War that there is precious little fact-checking of the MSM.

Snowden/Greenwald have been able to exploit that opening by fueling the media's love of hysterical accusations and blinding cynicism to produce a narrative that paints Snowden as a hero and NSA as the villain. I don't know about you, but my experience tells me that no story is ever that black and white. Silly me...what kind of linkbait is that going to produce?

When real progressives took on the national security apparatus

"In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything...There would be no place to hide.

"...I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

Want to know who said that? No, it wasn't Glenn Greenwald or any other Snowdenista. It was Senator Frank Church in August 1975. In one of the most progressive victories against the national security state in this country's history, Senator Church chaired a committee that investigated illegal activities by the CIA, NSA and FBI.

The revelations that prompted the investigations of the Church Committee included not only the fact that the government was spying on American citizens, but also things like this:

Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles's plan, approved by the President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Compare that to the kinds of things we're hearing from Snowden and you might understand why many of us who lived through those years are greeting these current revelations with a certain amount of "ho-hum."

As a result of the Church Committee's reports, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to stop these abuses, including the formation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). To hear many folks talk about FISC today, you'd assume its the root of all evil instead of one of the most important progressive victories in our history.

So now we have a federal judge appointed by President Bush who issued a ruling in favor of the guy who recently said that conservatives should demand that this president put the Quran down, get up off his knees, and figuratively come out with his hands up. And this one is being celebrated by so-called progressives even though it directly contradicts one recently declassified by FISC.

All I'll say is that a little history on the work of progressives in this area would go a long way towards some common sense on the issues at hand.