Europe not terribly happy it's being spied on by the U.S.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Germany's Der Spiegel is reporting, based on documents obtained by Edward Snowden (whom that publication calls a whistleblower, in stark contrast to the way he's being treated by the corporate U.S. media), that the NSA spied on the European Union, apparently bugging its offices in Washington and even breaking into its computer network:

The attacks on EU institutions show yet another level in the broad scope of the NSA's spying activities. For weeks now, new details about Prism and other surveillance programs have been emerging from what had been compiled by whistleblower Snowden. It has also been revealed that the British intelligence service GCHQ operates a similar program under the name Tempora with which global telephone and Internet connections are monitored.

The documents SPIEGEL has seen indicate that the EU representation to the United Nations was attacked in a manner similar to the way surveillance was conducted against its offices in Washington. An NSA document dated September 2010 explicitly names the Europeans as a "location target".

The documents also indicate the US intelligence service was responsible for an electronic eavesdropping operation in Brussels.

Understandably, the Europeans aren't amused. As President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz put it in a statement:

I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations.

Furthermore:

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger "said if the accusations were true, it was reminiscent of the Cold War," ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said, adding that the minister "has asked for an immediate explanation from the United States."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called for a swift explanation from American authorities.

"These acts, if they are confirmed, would be absolutely unacceptable," he said in a statement.

Now, let's not pretend that such activities aren't going on on all sides. Surely the French and the Germans are engaged in espionage as well, including against the U.S.

At the same time, these new revelations -- thanks to Snowden -- are indeed concerning, and "full clarification" and "an immediate explanation" are the least the U.S. ought to provide to try to mend fences with its friends.

Because, really, would you trust the U.S. given what you know of it, knowing that there's a whole lot more you don't know?

NYPD spying on Muslim community damages trust, relationships

Guest post by Rabia Chaudry

Rabia Chaudry is an associate fellow of the Truman National Security Project and the president of the Safe Nation Collaborative.

A few years ago I joined about twenty other Muslim community leaders gathered to meet a regional outreach officer from a law enforcement agency. Many present had been living in the area for decades and were pillars of their communities. The officer introduced himself, noting that he had been in the region for over 15 years. He then mentioned that about 90 percent of his work, and the work of his agency, was in the Muslim community. We were shocked; none of us had ever met him before. We left the meeting feeling unnerved that there was so much "work" being done upon us without our knowledge. It was my first realization that the relationship between law enforcement and American Muslims was dysfunctional.

Training agents and officers that Islam is inherently violent, mapping Muslim establishments and mosques, infiltrating Muslim students at universities, and spying on Muslim leaders – these are only a few of the numerous stories recently uncovered about missteps taken by U.S. law enforcement agencies in their dealings with Muslims. The extent to which these invasive tactics have been unapologetically supported by officials such as Mayor Bloomberg, and apparently funded by the White House, has shocked the civil liberties world and eroded the trust of American Muslims.

The systematic dismantling by some law enforcement agencies, most notably the NYPD, of the goodwill built with Muslims over the last decade is truly puzzling. Studies show that there is no prevalence of radicalization amongst American Muslims, no correlation between religiosity and violence, and no reliable profile of a terrorist. Furthermore, Muslims have assisted authorities in foiling one third of all terror plots involving other Muslims since 9/11.

So the question must be asked: why do law enforcement agencies continue to engage in policies and tactics that, in light of empirical evidence, are futile in the fight against terror? Why are tremendous amounts of resources being wasted in monitoring and profiling communities of Muslims when the net result amounts to nothing more than notes on halal fried chicken joints or the number of times students prayed during a white water rafting trip?

Cynics may suggest that our law enforcement agencies are full of bigots and xenophobes or have no regard for civil liberties. However, I have more faith in those who risk their lives daily to protect us. The only reasonable explanation of the behavior of agencies such as the NYPD, LAPD, and FBI is that they sincerely believe that Islam is an intrinsically violent, radicalizing force and that Muslims are potential threats to security.

Such a conclusion is absurd not only to the nearly two billion peaceful Muslims in the world, but also to those who live and work alongside Muslims every day. Yet our law enforcement agencies continue to be taught that the Quran encourages violence, that religious and practicing Muslims view violent jihad as an obligation, and that peaceful Muslim practice deceit. According to "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace" (pdf), a comprehensive 2011 study by Thomas Cincotta of Political Research Associates, there exists an entire industry devoted to teaching law enforcement officers to hate Islam and Muslims.

It is said that you cannot build a tower on a crooked foundation. In this case, the foundation must be rebuilt. The only way to remedy the destructive education about Islam and Muslims given to law enforcement is to re-educate them. In fact, last year the White House and Department of Justice came to this very conclusion. They issued guidelines for trainers on Islam and Muslims and called for closer local collaboration between Muslim and law enforcement communities. The memo seems not to have reached everyone, however. Just recently, Tennessee approved law enforcement training by John Guandolo, one of the same Islamophobic trainers cited in Cincotta's study.

It has to be understood that American Muslims hold the highest stakes when it comes to keeping America safe from threats arising from rogue Muslims; no group has more to lose from a terror attack. Law enforcement must realize that it works from a place of common interest with Muslims and that the cooperation and trust of Muslims is essential to successful counter-terror operations. These understandings will only be internalized and reflected in policies and strategies when law enforcement agencies are re-trained on Islam and Muslims. Considering the significant damaging of trust in the past few weeks, it is time that law enforcement worked with Muslim communities instead of around them by making it a priority to arm themselves with accurate information about Islam.

The spy who came in from the cold, became a best-selling author, and spoke out against the evils of his time

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Raw Story:

John Le Carre, author of dozens of cloak-and-dagger thrillers, told the Sunday Telegraph's Seven magazine that the British intelligence agencies for whom he worked in the 1950s and 1960s -- MI5 and MI6 -- carried out numerous assassinations in the name of fighting the Cold War.

"Certainly we did some very bad things," he said. "We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations. Although I was never involved."

But of course we were never as bad as they were:

Le Carre argued that the operations carried out by Western intelligence agencies were a far cry from the "unaccountable" killings by their Soviet Bloc adversaries.

"Even when quite ruthless operations are being contemplated ... the process of democratic consultation was still relatively intact and decent humanitarian instincts came into play," he said. "Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn't happen in the West."

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Not only did we win, but we played nicer. We're awesome.

(Actually, I like Le Carré a great deal. I've read almost all of his novels, all of them up to the last few. While I prefer the realist Le Carré of the Cold War to the moralist Le Carré of recent years -- and it's that moralism, wrapped up in righteous outrage, that has turned me off his recent work -- I admire him for speaking out with indignation against the excesses and abuses of the West, not least with respect to Africa, as well as against the madness of recent U.S. foreign and military policy, notably the Iraq War. When he speaks, it seems to me, he ought to be taken seriously.)

Satellite shot down, misinformation campaign continues, media play along

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN: "The U.S. Navy succeeded in its effort to shoot down an inoperable spy satellite before it could crash to Earth and potentially release a cloud of toxic gas, the Department of Defense said Wednesday."

But, of course, there never really was much of a risk. Indeed, this was all an elaborate, if transparent, cover story. There were other reasons to shoot down the satellite, political-military reasons, but, from the military, there has only been a campaign of misinformation aimed at deceiving the American people.

For more on that, see here.

Satellite shoot-down plan provokes Cold War flare-up

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The U.S., as you may have heard, is planning to shoot down a rogue spy satellite. Needless to say, the Russians are not amused:

Russia has accused the US of using a plan to shoot down a broken spy satellite as a cover for testing an anti-satellite weapon.

The US said last week that it would use a missile to destroy the satellite, to stop it from crash landing.

Officials say the satellite contains hazardous fuel which could kill humans.

But Russia's defence ministry said the US planned to test its "anti-missile defence system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites".

*****

Russia's defence ministry said the US had not given enough information on the reasons for the decision.

"Speculations about the danger of the satellite hide preparations for the classical testing of an anti-satellite weapon," a statement reported by Itar-Tass news agency said.

"Such testing essentially means the creation of a new type of strategic weapons," it added.

"The decision to destroy the American satellite does not look harmless as they try to claim, especially at a time when the US has been evading negotiations on the limitation of an arms race in outer space," the statement continued.

This is a sensitive operation, and, obviously, there is a lot we don't know. Still, as Noah Shachtman has pointed out, the official rationale for the operation -- namely, that "the hydrazine tank could rupture, releasing a 'toxic gas' over a 'populated area,' causing a 'risk to human life'" -- seems rather far-fetched. In fact, there isn't much of a risk at all. Hydrazine isn't that toxic, and any affected area, in terms of geographic size, would be tiny.

So, then -- why?

Shachtman cites "a veteran space security specialist" who suspects, and with good reason, that, for the U.S., "the satellite shot is a chance for the military to try out its missile defense capabilities; a way to keep secret material out of the wrong hands; and a warning to the Chinese, after they destroyed a satellite about a year ago." "Regardless of the central rationale for the anticipated intercept of a dying satellite," however, "the action almost certainly would offer the Pentagon useful data on conducting antisatellite missions."

All of which is to say that the Russians are probably right, more or less.

To be fair, the U.S. may have communicated this in some way to Moscow and/or to Beijing and/or to anyone else -- through back channels. And the official Russian response may have been largely for domestic consumption. Putin does not want to appear weak, after all, and Moscow can ill-afford to appear as if it isn't standing up to the U.S.

Still, the U.S. is up to something -- and that something has required the use of a flimsy pretext, a cover story that is simply not credible and that further weakens America's credibility generally, both at home and abroad. (What does America's word mean nowadays?)

I don't expect the U.S. military to make public its more sensitive projects and operations, of course, but it must collectively think that we are all too stupid to figure out what's really going on. Given that the go-ahead for this operation came from the occupant of the Oval Office, it should be no surprise that there has been such a campaign of misinformation.

**********

Update: China isn't amused either.

Top Ten Cloves: Things about U.S. plans to shoot down broken spy satellite

By J. Thomas Duffy

News Item: U.S. Plans to Shoot Down Broken Spy Satellite

10. Only reason Bush gave authorization? ... Another opportunity to throw on the flightsuit!

9. Arlen Specter is making waves; Wants investigation of satellite, to be sure it isn't part of Bill Belichick and New England Patriots spying operation.

8. Grounding all astronauts around the time of the shooting ... Don't what them drunk and flying into the line-of-fire.

7. Plans call for shooting it at the angle so the debris will fall to earth, directly over Iran.

6. Mark McKinnon changing his mind -- now leaving McCain campaign not over Obama but for the shooting down of the satellite.

5. Thinking about outsourcing this to Blackwater, but fearful Blackwater will shoot down 17 innocent satellites.

4. After it's shot down, White House will suddenly claim that's where all its emails were stored.

3. Mike Huckabee has offered to loan the Navy Chuck Norris -- if that happens, satellite will shoot itself down, just so it doesn't have to deal with Chuck Norris.

2. Navy competing with Dick Cheney, who is going to be with his hunting buddies, at the Armstrong Ranch, taking shots at it.

1. How do we know this isn't just another Filipino Monkey scam?


UPDATE -- Bonus Riffs

Noah Shachtman, at Wired Blog Network: Experts Scoff at Sat Shoot-Down Rationale (Updated)




















(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Intel drivers

By Carol Gee

The M & M's --Two Mikes, one an Admiral and one a General, are in the drivers' seats of two of the main vehicles for the nation's Intel community. The first is Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence (See my recent feature post). The other Mike -- General Michael V. Hayden, heads the Central Intelligence Agency. Both men have been in the news recently, each sometimes to an advantage and sometimes to a disadvantage. Apparently, loyalty to the White House is a powerful driver for both of the Mikes. Mike McConnell originally got everything he needed in the P.A.A. reauthorization legislation to collect and analyze foreign intelligence. He would have been authorized to target strictly foreign subjects without a warrant, and to required to get FISA court warrants to target U.S. persons. Those were the essential terms in two of the three bill versions set to come up for Senate debate next week. But, after the White House demanded it during the earlier negotiations between he and Congress, McConnell also demanded retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies cooperating with the government intelligence apparatus. Only one of the pending versions contains that provision, the Senate Intel Committee bill.

The Budgets and Authorities -- Congress has the authority to control government spending. As DNI, Admiral Mike McConnell has a certain amount of authority over CIA head, General Michael Hayden, the primary subject of later material in this post.Their operating budgets are in a bill for an estimated $48 billion waiting to be signed by our current president (OCP). OCP has threatened a veto. To quote from this headlined story from the Huffington Post, "House Votes to Ban Harsh C.I.A. Methods," by The Associated Press. December 13, 2007:

The 222-199 vote sent the measure to the Senate, which still must act before it can go to President Bush. The White House has threatened a veto.

The bill, a House-Senate compromise to authorize intelligence operations in 2008, also blocks spending 70 percent of the intelligence budget until the House and Senate intelligence committees are briefed on Israel's Sept. 6 air strike on an alleged nuclear site in Syria.

The 2008 intelligence budget is classified, but it is more than the $43 billion approved for 2007.

The Road Rules -- Reflector.com hints at possible reasons for the president's threatened veto of the Mikes' funding. The White House has set up different rules of the road for its so-called war on terror, than what Congress thinks the law should be. Thus Congress put conditions on the money. To quote:

. . . The bill requires civilian as well as military interrogators to obey the Army Field Manual's ban on torture of prisoners and the United States to adhere to Geneva Conventions rules for handling prisoners of war. The bill orders a National Intelligence Estimate on the impact of climate change on U.S. security.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said "in the pursuit of those who seek to harm us, we must not sacrifice the very ideals that distinguish us from those who preach death and destruction. Yet, under the current administration, we have seen that line blurred between legitimate, sanctioned interrogation tactics and torture."

Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., objected to the bill's funding of studies into the impact of global warming on U.S. security, calling it wrong to divert funds "from tough antiterrorsm intelligence programs targeted at apprehending and killing terrorists" to those studies.

The Lapses -- The two Mikes have come into their positions rather recently. And each has had a certain number of inherited messes. DNI McConnell inherited the Terrorist Surveillance Program, secret and, apparently illegal. CIA Director Hayden inherited the torture tapes destruction scandal, also secret and, apparently illegal. The two Mikes do have strengths. They each have a relatively open manner. They are more comfortable than their predecessors with making things public. (McConnell sometimes declassifies materials on the spot). And they have absorbed considerable military discipline, which their boss -- OCP -- absorbed relatively little. The dark side of that is that it harder to resign in protest and ruin a military career, I think, than resign in civilian protest such as Jack Goldsmith and James Comey did over the administration operating outside the law.

• Failure to inform Congress -- New York Times headline, "C.I.A. Chief Cites Agency Lapse on Tapes" (12/13/07) To quote:
  
  

  Gen. Michael V. Hayden . . . acknowledged on Wednesday that the C.I.A. had failed to keep members of Congress fully informed that the agency had videotaped the interrogations of suspected operatives of Al Qaeda and destroyed the tapes three years later.
  
  General Hayden’s comments struck a different tone from a message he sent to C.I.A. employees last Thursday, when he said that Congressional leaders had been informed about the tapes and of the “agency’s intention to dispose of the material.”
  
  . . . General Hayden said Wednesday that “particularly at the time of the destruction, we could have done an awful lot better at keeping the committee alert and informed.”

• Failure to preserve evidence -- Just before Christmas the Times Online headlined, "CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm." To quote:
  
  

  THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.
  
  Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

• Failure to preserve evidence -- Porter Goss and the tapes (1/17/08). To quote:
  
  

  Former CIA Director Porter Goss never criticized plans to destroy interrogation videotapes, a lawyer said Thursday as the investigation began shaping up as a matter of competing storylines.
  
  Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who gave the order to destroy the tapes, is at the center of Justice Department and congressional investigations into who approved the plan and whether it was illegal. His attorney, Robert Bennett, said Goss and Rodriquez met several times to discuss the tapes and Goss was never critical of Rodriquez' decision.
  
  After a first round of hearings on Capitol Hill, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Rodriguez defied orders that the tapes be preserved.

• Failure to ascertain what was true before making a statement -- "Detainee's Lawyers Rebut C.I.A. on Tapes," NYT 1/19/08 To quote:
  

  In papers filed Jan. 4, Mr. Khan’s lawyers challenged a Dec. 6 statement by the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden. General Hayden, addressing agency employees after being told that The New York Times was about to publish an article about the tapes, wrote that the taping stopped in 2002.

Loyalty and Chain of Command are powerful drivers for military men. Their loyalty to their Commander in Chief must truly test the resolve of the two Mikes at times. And I do not doubt their loyalty to the idea of trying to collect sufficient information about the enemy to protect the nation against attack. The trick during the years of the current administration has been for them to have matching loyalty to the Bill of Rights and to the rule of law. It is a walk on a knife edge for all of us.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Rounding up Russia

By Carol Gee

The year 2008 will be big on elections. In the United States, the Democratic party will, in my opinion, have a pretty good idea of who is to be the nominee after February 3, when a large number of states hold their primaries and caucuses. A month later the election of a new Russian president will happen on March 2. In December of last year Russia's premier newspaper, Pravda, declared that Russia will be united , but that "It is still unclear what role Vladimir Putin will choose after his resignation, but it’s likely that Dmitry Medvedev would be nominated his successor. Elsewhere, it is also expected that Dmitri Medvedev will succeed Vladimir Putin, who will then become Prime Minister.*

Meanwhile our own current president (OCP) is traveling in the Middle East attempting, after all this time, to secure some kind of a peace legacy. (The website PressTV-Iran carries an interesting interview, offering a different perspective on the Bush legacy). OCP seems to have no interest in U.S. 2008 elections.

It is also not clear that the U.S. has much interest in Russian affairs. However President Putin in November seemed to feel that foreign nations were meddling in the Russian election process by funding his opponents. The BBC News (11/21/07), headlined "Putin attacks 'jackal' opponents. To quote:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused opposition politicians of scavenging like jackals for funds from foreign embassies.

He also accused the West of meddling in Russian politics, saying: "Those who confront us need a weak and ill state."

Though OCP has looked into Putin's eyes, and our Secretary of State has a heavy (cold war era) Russian portfolio, the administration seems unable to focus on much of anything but the Persian Gulf region. In a recent post titled,"Bubbling Balkans crisis is back," Steve Clemons at the Washington Note says as much. To quote from the post:

Lieven is correct to note that there are anti-Putin, anti-Russian hardliners in Washington who want yet more reasons to ignite global conflict and tension -- which reinforces the high-fear politics they have become vested in.

But beyond some folks in DC demonizing Putin and a resurgent Russia, there is little evidence that Russia is a priority today on Washington's foreign policy roster of concerns. As one former senior G.W. Bush administration official said at a
Nixon Center gathering, "I can see no evidence that this administration has a
strategy towards Russia of any kind."

The image of OCP blithely traveling around the Middle East seeing the sights in Dubai, hugging the King in Saudi Arabia (and filling up their sophisticated weapons caches), contrasts sharply with Vladimir Putin's markedly increasing unfriendliness towards the West. A headline, "FSB calls British Council staff for questioning" from the Financial Times (1/16/08) illustrates my point. To quote:

Russia’s Federal Security Service has summoned for questioning all the Russian staff of the British Council’s regional offices while the head of its St Petersburg office was detained last night for an hour as a standoff between Russia and the UK escalated.

. . . The intervention by the Russian security services comes after the British Council on Monday reopened its regional branches in defiance of an order by the Russian government in a dispute over the UK cultural arm’s legal status. The diplomatic feud has been linked by both sides to the rapid chill in relations over the November 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko.

Meanwhile, occasionally the Russians are behaving like grown-ups, members of the family of nations. It seems that they are attempting to curb air pollution, by cutting carbon emissions. This headline appeared in Ria Novosti (1/16/07) : "Russia's auto industry switches to Euro 3 emission standard." To quote:

Russia's auto makers have competed their transition to the Euro 3 emission standard in vehicle production, the chief executive of the Association of Russian Auto Makers said on Wednesday.

Nations meddle in each others' business all the time; it is called diplomacy. Last fall I wrote a post called "The Business of Sovereignty," which I posted at TPMCafe. It produced a very intriguing conversation with Howard Berkowitz that I saved, just for this occasion it now seems. I quote his lovely Russian spy story in full:

On October 14, 2007 - 11:44am hcberkowitz said:

Even during the Cold War, it was impressive to see Soviet and American warriors (I think the term here is more appropriate than soldier, which are not truly equivalent) get together under nonconfrontational situations. There was an unwritten agreement between the CIA and KGB not to attack one anothers' officers. If a local CIA case officer had his car break down on a lonely road in a bandit-filled area, he would have been delighted to have his KGB counterpart drive by. It would have been understood that the only damage that would have been done by the KGB man was the shared vodka hangover in the morning.

At high levels, when Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the military adviser to Gorbachev, to the general acceptance and shock of all concerned, to have paid a visit to the Pentagon and been invited into the National Military Command Center, he and the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe, connected on some emotional level, and, by the observation of everyone who saw them together, formed a true friendship. It is not clear how Akhromeyev died in the attempted coup against Gorbachev; suicide was the initial report but that has come into question. Back at the Pentagon, Crowe grieved deeply.

Both sides have been opening their histories, sometimes showing frightening things, and, on other occasions, finding things to share. No one knew, for example, that the Soviet commander in Cuba, during the Missile Crisis, had tactical nuclear weapons with the preauthorization to use them against an amphibious landing.

In the US and fUSSR strategic air defense organizations, there were mid-level officers, who, at various times, made the right call when sensors were reporting a nuclear attack in progress. This happened a handful of times, but it makes the reciprocal teams in the command centers very, very aware of responsibility not just to their own countries, but to humanity.

A colleague of mine had retired from the US Army Band, where he was the lead arranger. One year, he got me VIP tickets to their annual 1812 Overture concert. People forget that Overture is about the Battle of Borodino, when Russia turned Napoleon back. Customarily, the Soviet military attaches were invited and given honored seating. There were various pieces in the concert, but when the Overture played, the Soviets, in dress uniform, arose and stood at attention. After the last cannon and bell was silent, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff saluted them, and the salutes were returned sincerely.

Sometimes, there is reason to hope.

--
Howard

*Reference regarding Russian presidency: Analytical article from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, by Andrew C. Kuchins. To quote:

Putinism Without Putin?

With a 70 percent approval rating, an economy inflated by oil wealth, stability-minded voters and the media under his thumb, Russia’s president holds all the cards in his country’s 2008 elections. But whatever the results, Russia’s foreign policy likely will continue to be driven by a cold calculation of its national interest.

Not all the news about Russia is bad, though it may seem that way. Today's Russian Roundup was my attempt to present a bit of both sides of that picture. Some day I will try to write a post about OCP that will be more balanced, but I just do not have it in my heart yet. I am one of those "angry Democrats," and it will take me a while to regain my perspective and get over it.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

They KNEW and did nothing

By Libby Spencer

The destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes is dominating the blogs today so I'm not going to say a lot about it. The outrage du jour is that Congress was repeatedly briefed on the interrogation methods since 2002 and did nothing about it. As Nicole points out, the WaPo's coverage suspiciously centers on the Democrats, when at the time they were the minority party, and fails to give equal blame to the Republicans who were also in the know.

However, that doesn't excuse the Democratic leadership's failure here and in fact, the Democrat's betrayal is the more egregious. We expect the GOP to sell us out, but the Dems have been handwringing and making very stern statements of outrage about torture while some of the loudest voices of protest were tacitly endorsing the process all along. That's simply inexcusable and it's long past time for our so-called leaders to be called out on their dereliction of duty. Lambert is right. Pelosi should be removed immediately and furthermore Jay Rockefeller has got to go. He's proven to be nothing more than a GOP tool disguised as a Democrat in everything from this disaster to telecom immunity.

There's a whole lot of theories going around about why this was leaked, who leaked it and what it all means in terms of the prosecutions of those who suffered the interrogations. But the most interesting question I think, is posed by Cernig who ponders on when these tapes were actually destroyed. Cernig flags Larissa's post, who posits that the content of the coerced confessions are the most likely reason for their destruction, a theory I reported yesterday at the Detroit News. But more importantly she links to a pdf of a letter sent to court by the prosecution in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, where the tapes' existence was acknowledged only a few weeks ago.

Indeed, I found my saved link to a McClatchy report from November 9th that referenced the same letter. I thought at the time it was an under-reported story but never got around to blogging it myself. It's seems rather clear that these are the same tapes.

The government's letter said that "the CIA came into possession of the three recordings under unique circumstances involving separate national security matters," leaving unclear whether the tapes show CIA interrogations or possibly questioning by agents of another country. At least one senior al Qaida member, Ibn Sheikh al Libi, reportedly was turned over to Egyptian authorities for questioning in 2002, but much of what he allegedly confessed proved to be false. [...]

In it, they said that the CIA didn't notify them until Sept. 13 that it had discovered a videotape and the transcript of an interrogation of an unidentified detainee. Prosecutors said they then asked the CIA to perform "an exhaustive review" for any other recordings of roughly a half dozen al Qaida captives whom Moussaoui had sought as defense witnesses, and a second videotape and a brief audio tape were discovered. [...]

Among the prisoners whose testimony Moussaoui sought were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who allegedly admitted masterminding the 9/11 attacks after he was waterboarded; Ramzi Binalshibh, a senior al Qaida member who allegedly coordinated the attacks; and financier Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi. Summaries of statements from those three and several others were read at his trial. [...]

"The fact that audio/video recording of enemy combatant interrogations occurred, and that the United States was in possession of three of those recordings is, as noted, inconsistent with factual assertions in CIA declarations dated May 9, 2003 . . . and November 14, 2005," the prosecutors wrote.

If they are the same tapes then the CIA is lying about when they were destroyed. If they're not the same tapes, then there's apparently more video out there than anyone is willing to admit. One thing is certain. I don't think we can trust the CIA, Justice or the Intelligence committees to investigate this themselves. Biden is right. We need a special counsel for this one.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

The lives of West German spies in the East

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Have you seen The Lives of Others? Arguably -- and I will make the argument -- the best film of 2006, it is a quiet, reflective masterpiece, a brilliantly humane, if harrowing, look at the ruthless Orwellianism of the former East Germany.

What is presented so intimately in that film is what has been known for so long, if not in such human terms, namely, that the East German Communist regime subjected its oppressed citizens to seemingly ubiquitous surveillance, that the country itself was a state of seemingly universal intelligence-gathering.

What is not known nearly as well is that many in the East were not spying for the East but for the West -- and a fascinating new study reveals the massive extent of that espionage:

It's a well-known fact that East Germany had agents crawling all over West Germany during the Cold War. Up to 6,000 of them, some in high places, were regularly passing information eastwards across the wall.

According to a new study published on Friday, though, when it came to recruiting spooks, the West Germans were even better. Fully 10,000 citizens of Germany's communist half were spying for Bonn. Not only that, but West Germany's intelligence agency the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had a pretty good idea about the plans to build the Berlin Wall, but their bosses in Bonn simply didn't want to believe them.

German historians Armin Wagner and Matthias Uhl have pored over files released by Germany foreign intelligence agency (BND) covering the period between the formation of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In their book "BND Against the Soviet Army," they reveal that the agency managed to recruit thousands of people from all sections of East German society for military espionage.

Of course, the East was doing the same thing, with spies all over the West, and, indeed, "the [East's] spies were significantly more successful at the espionage game". One East German agent was even "a top aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt" -- a disturbing development that "led to Brandt's resignation" in 1974 (for more see here.)

Interesting stuff.