Obama Gives Himself A Pay Raise

The Patriot       March 29, 2014 Obama Gives Himself A Pay Raise2014-03-29T05:24:51+00:00     US      Comments

President Obama issued an Executive Order raising his salary to $1 million per year.
President Obama understands how much Americans are struggling financially and told reporters yesterday he, too, has been having trouble paying his bills.
“Four hundred thousand dollars a year to be Leader of the Free World, is just not enough.”  Obama told reporters on the golf course on Sunday.  “There are junior traders at Goldman Sachs that make more than that in a week.  Is that fair?”
Obama shocked reporters when he said he issued an Executive Order on Saturday raising his salary to $1 million a year – plus a $200,000 bonus, this year only, for killing Osama Bin Laden.
“Look, let me clear, adjusted for inflation my salary is not even half of what George Washington made.  Now, I don’t want to bring race into this, but is the First Black President worth half as much as the First White President?  I’m just saying… “

The Presidential pay raise will take effect immediately.
Congress was quick to respond to Obama’s announcement.  “If he gets a pay raise, then I want a pay raise, ” said John Boehner, Speaker of the House.  “Hell, I think the whole damn Congress should get a pay raise.”
Boehner went on to say that in today’s world, members of Congress have to spend half their time raising money, “and that means the Representatives we send to Washington are putting in longer and longer hours trying to raise money so they can keep their seats.  They need to be paid for that time.”
Obama told Boehner he would give Boehner a raise if, and only if, Boehner agrees to raise the debt ceiling.  “Well, that’s a no brainer,” Boehner said.  “Let’s take away the ceiling all together.  Who likes salary caps?”

Sharia law to be adopted into UK legal system for first time

Published time: March 23, 2014 19:02
Edited time: March 26, 2014 12:08

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Reuters / Luke MacGregor

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Court, Law, Religion, UK

Sharia principles are to become enshrined in the UK legal system for the first time, with The Law Society publishing guidelines for drawing up documents according to Islamic rules, which would exclude non-believers and encroach on women’s rights.
The new guidelines were produced by The Law Society earlier this month. Under the guidance, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills which will have the power to exclude non-believers completely and deny women an equal share of an inheritance.
“The male heirs in most cases receive double the amount inherited by a female heir of the same class. Non-Muslims may not inherit at all, and only Muslim marriages are recognized,” states the document.
Any children who have been born outside of marriage and even kids who have been adopted will also not be recognized as legitimate heirs.
It also advises lawyers to draft special exclusions from the Wills Act 1837, which would allow gifts or money to pass to the children of an heir who has died, as this practice isn’t recognized in Islamic law.
Sharia law only recognizes Muslim weddings, so anyone who was married in a Christian church or in a civil ceremony would also be excluded from succession.
At the moment, Sharia law is not formally included in the UK’s laws, though a network of unofficial Sharia courts has developed in Muslim communities to deal with issues within Muslim families.
A few are official tribunals which operate under the Arbitration Act, drafted in 1996 to help settle personal disputes within Britain’s diverse community. They mainly operate in commercial disputes, but can also deal with issues of domestic violence and other family disputes including battles over inheritance.
There is also a large network of more informal Sharia tribunals, also called “councils,” which are normally based around a mosque and deal with child custody issues and divorces in line with Islamic religious teaching. Their hearings are laid out like courts.
A study compiled four years ago by Civitas think-tank found more than 80 unofficial Sharia courts operating in the UK.
Nicholas Fluck, president of the Law Society, told The Sunday Telegraph that publishing the new guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.
“This is the first time such advice has been published and we hope it will assist solicitors with Sharia probate matters. There is a wide variety of spiritual, religious and cultural beliefs within our population, and the Law Society wants to support its members so they can help clients from all backgrounds,” he said.
However, Sadikur Rahman of the Lawyers Secular Society, said this new guidance legitimizes discrimination towards women and so-called "illegitimate children," and is contrary to the Equality Act by which UK solicitors must abide.
“This raises serious questions about professional ethics and the role of The Law Society. The guidance seems not to recognize that there is a serious potential conflict between theCode of Conduct for solicitors and the guidance,” he said.
Baroness Cox, a cross-bench peer who leads a parliamentary campaign to protect women from religious discrimination, said she thought The Law Society's publishing of the guidance was “deeply disturbing” and vowed to raise the issue with ministers.
“Everyone has freedom to make their own will and everyone has freedom to let those wills reflect their religious beliefs. But to have an organization such as The Law Society seeming to promote or encourage a policy which is inherently gender discriminatory in a way which will have very serious implications for women and possibly for children is a matter of deep concern,” she said.

Pamela Omidyar and Matthew Bannick, Rundlet decided to quit his job at the White House and go to work as “vice president for investments” for a humanitarian group called “Humanity United.” The founders of that group? Pierre and Pamela Omidyar.

Pamela Omidyar and Matthew Bannick, Rundlet decided to quit his job at the White House and go to work as “vice president for investments” for a humanitarian group called “Humanity United.” The founders of that group? Pierre and Pamela Omidyar.

Florida House Passes Anti-Muslim Law Bill

The Patriot       March 25, 2014 Florida House Passes Anti-Muslim Law Bill2014-03-25T07:00:20+00:00     US      Comments

Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist groups have consistently and successfully argued that anti-Sharia laws would infringe upon Muslims’ religious rights. They still make headway using that argument with judges and lawmakers who are ignorant of the nature of Sharia.
In reality, no one cares about individual Muslim religious practice or wants to restrict it. The purpose of anti-Sharia laws is not to stop Muslims from getting married in Islamic religious ceremonies or to restrict their religious practice in other ways, but to stop the political and supremacist aspects of Islam that infringe upon the rights and freedoms of non-Muslims, denying the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. This is the case that must be made, but it still hasn’t been. This bill is certain to be challenged on the same grounds.
“‘Anti-Sharia Bill’ Passes Florida House Civil Justice Subcommittee,” by Eric Giunta for Sunshine State News, February 7:

The Florida House Civil Justice Subcommittee has passed HB 351, formally titled “Application of Foreign Law in Certain Cases” but more popularly referred to as an “Anti-Sharia Bill.” The bill is modeled after legislation proposed by activist groups who claim Islamic law, which discriminates against women and non-Muslims, is stealthily encroaching upon the American judicial system.
The bill prohibits the enforcement by Florida courts of contracts, mediation agreements, or other voluntary settlements if those agreements are based “on any foreign law, legal code, or system that does not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges guaranteed by the state Constitution or the United States Constitution.”

SOUNDING THE ALARM: Obama doing to the U.S. military what no enemy on Earth could do

SOUNDING THE ALARM: Obama doing to the U.S. military what no enemy on Earth could do

Guest post by Alan Caruba

I began March with a look at the way President Obama is undermining the U.S. military and did not think I would have to return to this topic for a while. I was wrong.

A March 25 article in The Washington Times was titled “Obama to Kill Navy’s Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs in Budget Decimation” and on March 21, The Wall Street Journal published a commentary, “America’s Incredible Shrinking Navy.” When you add those to The New York Times February 23 article, “Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level”, you’ve got sufficient reason to begin to realize something very ominous is occurring.

This concern is heightened by the way dozens of high ranking officers are, in the view of some observers, being purged. A number of retired generals are speaking out about it. One of them, retired Army Major General Paul Vallely has charged that Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.” Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady agrees saying, “There is no doubt he is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.”

The world, over the course of human civilization, has always been a dangerous place. Much of the history of mankind is a history of wars, large and small. In the last century the U.S. military was involved in two world wars, a Korean conflict, a war in Vietnam, and the Gulf War to drive out Hussein’s Iraqi forces after he invaded Kuwait.

The Russian seizure of Crimea in the wake of the protests that has left Ukraine in disarray has put all of Europe on edge and raised questions about the readiness of NATO. A look around the world sees China increasing its military strength, particularly at sea.

The Middle East to include much of northern Africa is a hotbed of turmoil. And, of course, Iran continues to contribute to it, aiding Syria’s regime along with the Russians, supporting Palestinian terror organizations that threaten Israel, while pursuing its own nuclear weapon capabilities.

This would hardly seem a good time to undermine U.S. military capabilities, but that is exactly what is occurring thanks to President Obama.

The Washington Times reported that “President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.” The Tomahawk missile program, under Obama’s 2015 budget proposal, would be completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016. Seth Cropsey, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower, said “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Writing in The New York Times, Steve Cohen, a former director of the U.S. Naval Institute, noted that “The Navy is supposed to be ‘forward deployed’ to provide the president with tools powerful enough to deal with potential threats and trouble spots.” For decades since the end of World War Two the U.S Navy has patrolled the world’s sea lanes to protect trade between nations, but Cohen said, “The rest of the world isn’t unpatrolled, but it is under-patrolled” noting that “Some 90% of the world’s trade moves by sea. Much of that can be disrupted by attacks on a handful of choke points readily apparent to pirates, terrorists, and rogue nations.”

“With the U.S Navy arguably at its smallest since 1917, we don’t have many ships that are actually at sea. Only 35% of the Navy’s entire fleet is deployed, fewer than 100 ships.”

U.S. air power has been under assault as well by the Obama regime. In June of last year, David A. Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general and senior military scholar at the Air Force Academy, warned that “In the Air Force alone, more than 30 squadrons are now grounded, along with aircrews, and maintenance and training personnel.” Less than a year ago “The graduate schools for Air Force, Navy and Marine combat aviators” had been cancelled. “Equipment testing and upgrades to F-22s, F-15s, F-16s, and other aircraft have been delayed.”

In September 2013, the commandant of the Marine Corps, James F. Amos, warned that cuts to the nation’s defense and security spending that occurred from 1990 to 2001, reduced its total active-duty strength by 32%. In 2001 the Corps totaled approximately 172,000 Marines, down from 197,000 in the 1990 Gulf War. When 9/11 occurred, the Marines “found themselves short of critical capabilities in intelligence collection and analysis, in communication and in mobility on land, sea and in the air.” These days the Marines are facing further reductions.

It will be up to Congress to eliminate the sequestration cuts and the Obama regime proposals to ensure that the U.S. military is restored to a state of readiness. If it rubber stamps the reductions that have been occurring for more than a decade, the ability of the nation to respond to an attack on our homeland or any of our allies will be highly limited.

You can be sure that those nations unfriendly to our future are fully aware of this and the defeat of our armed forces could occur on the battlefield because it has already occurred here.

BUSTED: Obama Giving Russia Free, High-Level Military Equipment

BUSTED: Obama Giving Russia Free, High-Level Military Equipment

Oklahoma Republican Jim Bridenstine has just helped uncover the latest Obama scandal: Giving away high-level military equipment to the Russians!
In yet another criminal and treasonous act, and in the face of his ‘sanctions’, the US has been giving Russia ‘Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES)’.
Used by the U.S. military for training purposes, MILES uses a system of lasers and dummy ammunition to simulate ground combat for soldiers.
We shouldn’t be giving Russians slingshots, much less advanced systems for training troops!
Bridenstine, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has joined forces with Ohio Republican Mike Turner, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, to try to end the program.
Washington, DC—Congressman Mike Turner, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, and House Armed Services Committee Member Jim Bridenstine along with sixteen House colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Moniz regarding the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) FY15 proposal to provide the Russian Federation with the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES).
Employed by the U.S. military for training purposes, the MILES is a tactical force-on-force trainer, which uses a system of lasers and dummy ammunition to simulate ground combat for soldiers. While a military-grade technology, MILES could be compared to a “laser tag” system available in some commercial markets. Both Turner and Bridenstine are concerned that the Administration’s planned supply to the Russian Federation is grave mistake given the recent invasion of Ukraine launched by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.
The letter said, in part, “In the process of reviewing the Fiscal Year 2014 budget and the proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget request, it has come to our attention that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been, and is planning to continue providing the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) to the Russian Federation free of charge.”
“It’s ludicrous that U.S. taxpayers are paying to give Russia free military equipment after President Obama announced a suspension in military engagement with Moscow.  It’s just another example of how the President is hanging on to his failed “reset with Russia” policy despite Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine.  I expect Secretary of Energy Moniz to act quickly and stop irresponsible military equipment transfers,” said Bridenstine.
“Putin has proven that he has a brazen disregard for the sovereignty and stability of Eastern Europe and that he will continue manipulate and disregard international law. Despite this overwhelming evidence that Putin is not our ally, it is astonishing that the Obama Administration would still provide superior, U.S. military technology to an aggressive and advancing Russia. The United States must seriously redirect its approach and immediately terminate all military aid to Russia,” said Turner.

3 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

³ But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

Read Feinstein’s Full Speech Blasting the CIA (Updated) (Video)

By Steven Dennis Posted at 11:18 a.m. on March 11, 2014

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Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday accused the CIA of spying on her committee’s computers without authorization — in possible violation of the law and the Constitution — and suggested the CIA may have also tried to engage in an effort to intimidate her staff.
Here is her full floor statement:

Over the past week, there have been numerous press articles written about the Intelligence Committee’s oversight review of the Detention and Interrogation Program of the CIA, specifically press attention has focused on the CIA’s intrusion and search of the Senate Select Committee’s computers as well as the committee’s acquisition of a certain internal CIA document known as the Panetta Review.
I rise today to set the record straight and to provide a full accounting of the facts and history.
Let me say up front that I come to the Senate Floor reluctantly. Since January 15, 2014, when I was informed of the CIA’s search of this committee’s network, I have been trying to resolve this dispute in a discreet and respectful way. I have not commented in response to media requests for additional information on this matter. However, the increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating now cannot be allowed to stand unanswered.
The origin of this study: The CIA’s detention and interrogation program began operations in 2002, though it was not until September 2006, that Members of the Intelligence Committee, other than the Chairman and Vice Chairman, were briefed. In fact, we were briefed by then-CIA Director Hayden only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.
A little more than a year later, on December 6, 2007, a New York Times article revealed the troubling fact that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of some of the CIA’s first interrogations using so-called “enhanced techniques.” We learned that this destruction was over the objections of President Bush’s White House Counsel and the Director of National Intelligence.
After we read about the tapes’ destruction in the newspapers, Director Hayden briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee. He assured us that this was not destruction of evidence, as detailed records of the interrogations existed on paper in the form of CIA operational cables describing the detention conditions and the day-to-day CIA interrogations.
The CIA director stated that these cables were “a more than adequate representation” of what would have been on the destroyed tapes. Director Hayden offered at that time, during Senator Jay Rockefeller’s chairmanship of the committee, to allow Members or staff to review these sensitive CIA operational cables given that the videotapes had been destroyed.
Chairman Rockefeller sent two of his committee staffers out to the CIA on nights and weekends to review thousands of these cables, which took many months. By the time the two staffers completed their review into the CIA’s early interrogations in early 2009, I had become chairman of the committee and President Obama had been sworn into office.
The resulting staff report was chilling. The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us. As result of the staff’s initial report, I proposed, and then-Vice Chairman Bond agreed, and the committee overwhelmingly approved, that the committee conduct an expansive and full review of CIA’s detention and interrogation program.
On March 5, 2009, the committee voted 14-1 to initiate a comprehensive review of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. Immediately, we sent a request for documents to all relevant executive branch agencies, chiefly among them the CIA.
The committee’s preference was for the CIA to turn over all responsive documents to the committee’s office, as had been done in previous committee investigations.
Director Panetta proposed an alternative arrangement: to provide literally millions of pages of operational cables, internal emails, memos, and other documents pursuant to the committee’s document requests at a secure location in Northern Virginia. We agreed, but insisted on several conditions and protections to ensure the integrity of this congressional investigation.
Per an exchange of letters in 2009, then-Vice Chairman Bond, then-Director Panetta, and I agreed in an exchange of letters that the CIA was to provide a “stand-alone computer system” with a “network drive” “segregated from CIA networks” for the committee that would only be accessed by information technology personnel at the CIA—who would “not be permitted to” “share information from the system with other [CIA] personnel, except as otherwise authorized by the committee.”
It was this computer network that, notwithstanding our agreement with Director Panetta, was searched by the CIA this past January, and once before which I will later describe.
In addition to demanding that the documents produced for the committee be reviewed at a CIA facility, the CIA also insisted on conducting a multi-layered review of every responsive document before providing the document to the committee. This was to ensure the CIA did not mistakenly provide documents unrelated to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program or provide documents that the president could potentially claim to be covered by executive privilege.
While we viewed this as unnecessary and raised concerns that it would delay our investigation, the CIA hired a team of outside contractors—who otherwise would not have had access to these sensitive documents—to read, multiple times, each of the 6.2 million pages of documents produced, before providing them to fully-cleared committee staff conducting the committee’s oversight work. This proved to be a slow and very expensive process.
The CIA started making documents available electronically to the committee staff at the CIA leased facility in mid-2009. The number of pages ran quickly to the thousands, tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and then into the millions. The documents that were provided came without any index, without organizational structure. It was a true “document dump” that our committee staff had to go through and make sense of.
In order to piece together the story of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the committee staff did two things that will be important as I go on:
First, they asked the CIA to provide an electronic search tool so they could locate specific relevant documents for their search among the CIA-produced documents—just like you would use a search tool on the Internet to locate information.
Second, when the staff found a document that was particularly important or that might be referenced in our final report, they would often print it or make a copy of the file on their computer so they could easily find it again. There are thousands of such documents in the committee’s secure spaces at the CIA facility.
Now, prior removal of documents by CIA. In early 2010, the CIA was continuing to provide documents, and the committee staff was gaining familiarity with the information it had already received.
In May of 2010, the committee staff noticed that [certain] documents that had been provided for the committee’s review were no longer accessible. Staff approached the CIA personnel at the offsite location, who initially denied that documents had been removed. CIA personnel then blamed information technology personnel, who were almost all contractors, for removing the documents themselves without direction or authority. And then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. When the committee approached the White House, the White House denied giving the CIA any such order.
After a series of meetings, I learned that on two occasions, CIA personnel electronically removed committee access to CIA documents after providing them to the committee. This included roughly 870 documents or pages of documents that were removed in February 2010, and secondly roughly another 50 were removed in mid-May 2010.
This was done without the knowledge or approval of committee members or staff, and in violation of our written agreements. Further, this type of behavior would not have been possible had the CIA allowed the committee to conduct the review of documents here in the Senate. In short, this was the exact sort of CIA interference in our investigation that we sought to avoid at the outset.
I went up to the White House to raise this issue with the then-White House Counsel, in May 2010. He recognized the severity of the situation, and the grave implications of Executive Branch personnel interfering with an official congressional investigation. The matter was resolved with a renewed commitment from the White House Counsel, and the CIA, that there would be no further unauthorized access to the committee’s network or removal of access to CIA documents already provided to the committee.
On May 17, 2010, the CIA’s then-director of congressional affairs apologized on behalf of the CIA for removing the documents. And that, as far as I was concerned, put the incident aside.
This event was separate from the documents provided that were part of the “Internal Panetta Review,” which occurred later and which I will describe next.
At some point in 2010, committee staff searching the documents that had been made available found draft versions of what is now called the “Internal Panetta Review.”
We believe these documents were written by CIA personnel to summarize and analyze the materials that had been provided to the committee for its review. The Panetta review documents were no more highly classified than other information we had received for our investigation—in fact, the documents appeared to be based on the same information already provided to the committee.
What was unique and interesting about the internal documents was not their classification level, but rather their analysis and acknowledgement of significant CIA wrongdoing.
To be clear, the committee staff did not “hack” into CIA computers to obtain these documents as has been suggested in the press. The documents were identified using the search tool provided by the CIA to search the documents provided to the committee.
We have no way to determine who made the Internal Panetta Review documents available to the committee. Further, we don’t know whether the documents were provided intentionally by the CIA, unintentionally by the CIA, or intentionally by a whistle-blower.
In fact, we know that over the years—on multiple occasions—the staff have asked the CIA about documents made available for our investigation. At times, the CIA has simply been unaware that these specific documents were provided to the committee. And while this is alarming, it is also important to note that more than 6.2 million pages of documents have been provided. This is simply a massive amount of records.
As I described earlier, as part of its standard process for reviewing records, the committee staff printed copies of the Internal Panetta Review and made electronic copies of the committee’s computers at the facility.
The staff did not rely on these Internal Panetta Review documents when drafting the final 6,300-page committee study. But it was significant that the Internal Panetta Review had documented at least some of the very same troubling matters already uncovered by the committee staff – which is not surprising, in that they were looking at the same information.
There is a claim in the press and elsewhere that the markings on these documents should have caused the staff to stop reading them and turn them over to the CIA. I reject that claim completely.
As with many other documents provided to the committee at the CIA facility, some of the Internal Panetta Review documents—some—contained markings indicating that they were “deliberative” and/or “privileged.” This was not especially noteworthy to staff. In fact, CIA has provided thousands of internal documents, to include CIA legal guidance and talking points prepared for the CIA director, some of which were marked as being deliberative or privileged.
Moreover, the CIA has officially provided such documents to the committee here in the Senate. In fact, the CIA’s official June 27, 2013, response to the committee study, which Director Brennan delivered to me personally, is labeled “Deliberative Process Privileged Document.”
We have discussed this with the Senate Legal Counsel who has confirmed that Congress does not recognize these claims of privilege when it comes to documents provided to Congress for our oversight duties.
These were documents provided by the executive branch pursuant to an authorized congressional oversight investigation. So we believe we had every right to review and keep the documents.
There are also claims in the press that the Internal Panetta Review documents, having been created in 2009 and 2010, were outside the date range of the committee’s document request or the terms of the committee study. This too is inaccurate.
The committee’s document requests were not limited in time. In fact, as I have previously announced, the committee study includes significant information on the May 2011 Osama bin Laden operation, which obviously postdated the detention and interrogation program.
At some time after the committee staff identified and reviewed the Internal Panetta Review documents, access to the vast majority of them was removed by the CIA. We believe this happened in 2010 but we have no way of knowing the specifics. Nor do we know why the documents were removed. The staff was focused on reviewing the tens of thousands of new documents that continued to arrive on a regular basis.
Our work continued until December 2012, when the Intelligence Committee approved a 6,300-page committee study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program and sent the report to the executive branch for comment. The CIA provided its response to the study on June 27, 2013.
As CIA Director Brennan has stated, the CIA officially agrees with some of our study. But, as has been reported, the CIA disagrees and disputes important parts of it. And this is important: Some of these important parts that the CIA now disputes in our committee study are clearly acknowledged in the CIA’s own Internal Panetta Review.
To say the least, this is puzzling. How can the CIA’s official response to our study stand factually in conflict with its own Internal Review?
Now, after noting the disparity between the official CIA response to the committee study and the Internal Panetta Review, the committee staff securely transported a printed portion of the draft Internal Panetta Review from the committee’s secure room at the CIA-leased facility to the secure committee spaces in the Hart Senate Office Building.
And let me be clear about this: I mentioned earlier the exchange of letters that Senator Bond and I had with Director Panetta in 2009 over the handling of information for this review. The letters set out a process whereby the committee would provide specific CIA documents to CIA reviewers before bringing them back to our secure offices here on Capitol Hill.
The CIA review was designed specifically to make sure that committee documents available to all staff and members did not include certain kinds of information, most importantly the true names of non-supervisory CIA personnel and the names of specific countries in which the CIA operated detention sites.
We had agreed up front that our report didn’t need to include this information, and so we agreed to redact it from materials leaving the CIA’s facility.
Keeping with the spirit of the agreements, the portion of the Internal Panetta Review at the Hart Building in our safe has been redacted. It does not contain names of non-supervisory CIA personnel or information identifying detention site locations. In other words, our staff did just what the CIA personnel would have done had they reviewed the document.
There are several reasons why the draft summary of the Panetta Review was brought to our secure spaces at the Hart Building.
Let me list them:
The significance of the Internal Review given disparities between it and the June 2013 CIA response to the committee study. The Internal Panetta Review summary now at the secure committee office in the Hart Building is an especially significant document as it corroborates critical information in the committee’s 6,300-page Study that the CIA’s official response either objects to, denies, minimizes, or ignores.
Unlike the official response, these Panetta Review documents were in agreement with the committee’s findings. That’s what makes them so significant and important to protect.
When the Internal Panetta Review documents disappeared from the committee’s computer system, this suggested once again that the CIA had removed documents already provided to the committee, in violation of CIA agreements and White House assurances that the CIA would cease such activities.
As I have detailed, the CIA has previously withheld and destroyed information about its Detention and Interrogation Program, including its decision in 2005 to destroy interrogation videotapes over the objections of the Bush White House and the Director of National Intelligence. Based on the information described above, there was a need to preserve and protect the Internal Panetta Review in the committee’s own secure spaces.
Now, the Relocation of the Internal Panetta Review was lawful and handled in a manner consistent with its classification. No law prevents the relocation of a document in the committee’s possession from a CIA facility to secure committee offices on Capitol Hill. As I mentioned before, the document was handled and transported in a manner consistent with its classification, redacted appropriately, and it remains secured—with restricted access—in committee spaces.
In late 2013, I requested in writing that the CIA provide a final and complete version of the Internal Panetta Review to the committee, as opposed to the partial document the committee currently possesses.
In December, during an open committee hearing, Senator Mark Udall echoed this request. In early January 2014, the CIA informed the committee it would not provide the Internal Panetta Review to the committee, citing the deliberative nature of the document.
Shortly thereafter, on January 15, 2014, CIA Director Brennan requested an emergency meeting to inform me and Vice Chairman Chambliss that without prior notification or approval, CIA personnel had conducted a “search”—that was John Brennan’s word—of the committee computers at the offsite facility. This search involved not only a search of documents provided to the committee by the CIA, but also a search of the ”stand alone” and “walled-off” committee network drive containing the committee’s own internal work product and communications.
According to Brennan, the computer search was conducted in response to indications that some members of the committee staff might already have had access to the Internal Panetta Review. The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the Internal Review, or how we obtained it.
Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computers. The CIA has still not asked the committee any questions about how the committee acquired the Panetta Review. In place of asking any questions, the CIA’s unauthorized search of the committee computers was followed by an allegation—which we have now seen repeated anonymously in the press—that the committee staff had somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means, perhaps to include hacking into the CIA’s computer network.
As I have described, this is not true. The document was made available to the staff at the offsite facility, and it was located using a CIA-provided search tool running a query of the information provided to the committee pursuant to its investigation.
Director Brennan stated that the CIA’s search had determined that the committee staff had copies of the Internal Panetta Review on the committee’s “staff shared drive” and had accessed them numerous times. He indicated at the meeting that he was going to order further “forensic” investigation of the committee network to learn more about activities of the committee’s oversight staff.
Two days after the meeting, on January 17, I wrote a letter to Director Brennan objecting to any further CIA investigation due to the separation of powers constitutional issues that the search raised. I followed this with a second letter on January 23 to the director, asking 12 specific questions about the CIA’s actions—questions that the CIA has refused to answer.
Some of the questions in my letter related to the full scope of the CIA’s search of our computer network. Other questions related to who had authorized and conducted the search, and what legal basis the CIA claimed gave it authority to conduct the search. Again, the CIA has not provided answers to any of my questions.
My letter also laid out my concern about the legal and constitutional implications of the CIA’s actions. Based on what Director Brennan has informed us, I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution, including the Speech and Debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.
I have asked for an apology and a recognition that this CIA search of computers used by its oversight committee was inappropriate. I have received neither.
Besides the constitutional implications, the CIA’s search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.
Days after the meeting with Director Brennan, the CIA inspector general, David Buckley, learned of the CIA search and began an investigation into CIA’s activities. I have been informed that Mr. Buckley has referred the matter to the Department of Justice given the possibility of a criminal violation by CIA personnel.
Let me note: because the CIA has refused to answer the questions in my January 23 letter, and the CIA inspector general review is ongoing, I have limited information about exactly what the CIA did in conducting its search.
Weeks later, I was also told that after the inspector general referred the CIA’s activities to the Department of Justice, the acting general counsel of the CIA filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice concerning the committee staff’s actions. I have not been provided the specifics of these allegations or been told whether the department has initiated a criminal investigation based on the allegations of the CIA’s acting general counsel.
As I mentioned before, our staff involved in this matter have the appropriate clearances, handled this sensitive material according to established procedures and practice to protect classified information, and were provided access to the Panetta Review by the CIA itself. As a result, there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting general counsel’s referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff—and I am not taking it lightly.
I should note that for most, if not all, of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, the now acting general counsel was a lawyer in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center—the unit within which the CIA managed and carried out this program. From mid-2004 until the official termination of the detention and interrogation program in January 2009, he was the unit’s chief lawyer. He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study.
And now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff—the same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers—including the acting general counsel himself—provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.
Mr. President, let me say this. All Senators rely on their staff to be their eyes and ears and to carry out our duties. The staff members of the Intelligence Committee are dedicated professionals who are motivated to do what is best for our nation.
The staff members who have been working on this study and this report have devoted years of their lives to it—wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed. They have worked long hours and produced a report unprecedented in its comprehensive attention to detail in the history of the Senate.
They are now being threatened with legal jeopardy, just as the final revisions to the report are being made so that parts of it can be declassified and released to the American people.
Mr. President, I felt that I needed to come to the floor today, to correct the public record and to give the American people the facts about what the dedicated committee staff have been working so hard for the last several years as part of the committee’s investigation.
I also want to reiterate to my colleagues my desire to have all updates to the committee report completed this month and approved for declassification. We’re not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people. The White House has indicated publicly and to me personally that it supports declassification and release.
If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.
But Mr. President, the recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our Intelligence Community. How Congress responds and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.
I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States.

HARMAN RELEASES DECLASSIFIED LETTER TO CIA ON POTENTIAL DESTRUCTION OF INTERROGATION VIDEOTAPE Lawmaker Had Urged CIA in February 2003 Letter to Preserve Tape; Calls for Investigation to “follow the facts wherever they lead.”

January 3, 2008

Washington, D.C. Representative Jane Harman (D-Venice), Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, today released a copy of a letter she sent on 10 February 2003 to then CIA General Counsel Scott Muller, urging the Agency to reconsider its plan to destroy videotape of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah – a high-ranking al Qaeda operative and close associate of Osama bin Laden.  The text of her letter and the CIA response follow below. Harman, who had served as Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee for a matter of weeks before the 2003 briefing, requested that her correspondence and the Agency’s response be declassified after the destruction of interrogations videotapes was acknowledged publicly by CIA Director Michael Hayden on 6 December 2007. “Given the highly classified nature of the briefing I and others received, until Director Hayden disclosed that videotapes had been destroyed, I was unable to discuss this matter publicly," said Harman.  “However, the classified letter I sent at the time, which I applaud the CIA for making public, makes clear my concern about possible destruction of any tapes.”  Added Harman:  “It is critically important to follow the facts wherever they lead.  Clearly, White House officials were involved in discussions regarding the disposition of the tapes and Congress needs to know why key Committees may have been misled about their existence and not told they had been destroyed.” Following her 2003 letter to the CIA, Harman continued to raise questions in “Gang of Eight” briefings about the legal basis for the Bush Administration’s detention/interrogation program but never received the legal opinions from the Justice Department that she requested.   In February 2005, in a speech at Georgetown University, Harman publicly urged the President to negotiate with Congress on a legal framework for detentions and interrogations.  Later that year, in October, she introduced HR 3985 – The Interrogation Procedures Act – to clarify that no individual in US custody, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.   Most recently and following the September 2006 disclosure by the President of the existence of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, Harman called waterboarding “torture” and voted for legislation to prohibit any interrogations techniques not contained in the Army Field Manual – effectively closing the loophole that allowed the CIA’s separate program to be established. Text of Representative Harman’s letter to CIA General Counsel Muller: February 10, 2003 Mr. Scott Muller General Counsel Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC  20505 Dear Mr. Muller: Last week’s briefing brought home to me the difficult challenges faced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the current threat environment.  I realize we are at a time when the balance between security and liberty must be constantly evaluated and recalibrated in order to protect our nation and its people from catastrophic terrorist attack and I thus appreciate the obvious effort that you and your Office have made to address the tough questions.  At the briefing you assured us that the [redacted] approved by the Attorney General have been subject to an extensive review by lawyers at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council and found to be within the law. It is also the case, however, that what was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions.  I would like to know what kind of policy review took place and what questions were examined.  In particular, I would like to know whether the most senior levels of the White House have determined that these practices are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States.  Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President? You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry.  I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan.  Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future.  The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency. I look forward to your response. Sincerely, JANE HARMAN Text of CIA General Counsel Muller’s Response to Representative Harman: 28 February 2003 The Honorable Jane Harman Ranking Democratic Member Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence House of Representatives Washington, DC  20515 Dear Ms. Harman:            Thank you for your letter of 10 February following up on the briefing we gave you and Congressman Goss on 5 February concerning the Central Intelligence Agency’s limited use of the handful of specially approved interrogation techniques we described.  As we informed both you and the leadership of the Intelligence Committees last September, a number of Executive Branch lawyers including lawyers from the Department of Justice participated in the determination that, in the appropriate circumstances, use of these techniques is fully consistent with US law.  While I do not think it appropriate for me to comment on issues that are a matter of policy, much less the nature and extent of Executive Branch policy deliberations, I think it would be fair to assume that policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch.             I enjoyed meeting you, albeit briefly, and I look forward to seeing you again. Sincerely, Scott W. Muller *                                  *                                  *                                  * Links to the copies of the letters in .pdf format are attached below.  Representative Harman’s letter to CIA General Counsel Muller CIA General Counsel Muller’s Response to Representative Harman ###

Pierre Omidyar

Pierre Omidyar

 

Jeff Bezos’s landmark purchase of the Washington Post

We’ve now officially entered the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse—for good or ill

By Ryan Chittum

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There must be a dozen serious, fascinating implications of the jaw-dropping news that the Graham family is selling the Washington Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Here are a few quick takes, which we’ll be fleshing out in the days, months, and years ahead in the wake of a truly landmark event in newspaper history.
First, this will be the first time a major newspaper has been owned by a tech revolutionary. I’ve criticized Bezos and Amazon heavily over the years, but there’s no doubt the man is a business genius who understands the Internet as well as anyone. Newspapers have had an extraordinarily difficult time—to the extent they’ve even tried—hiring top-notch digital talent. Bezos knows the people and has the money to change that in a major way. The question is how that will affect the quality of the paper’s journalism.
Second, expect the Post’s paywall to fall quickly after Bezos takes over. Someone with $25 billion doesn’t buy the Washington Post as much for its pathetic business prospects as he does for its outsized influence. Bezos doesn’t really need the tacked-on revenue that digital circulation will provide the Post.
Third, $250 million is a fire sale for one of the great American newspapers, however diminished. The New York Times is valued by the stock market at more than $1.5 billion. The Grahams’ decision to not go national when they had the chance was an enormous failure.
Fourth, Bezos has operated Amazon on slim-to-no profit margins since it started making money. That’s a good sign for the Post since its margins are slim to none. What the paper has needed is investment. It seems likely that Bezos will provide it. In slamming the Graham family’s caretaking of the Post last year, I noted how much it had squandered on share buybacks and dividends meant to hand short-term profits to shareholders. Bezos runs Amazon in a completely opposite manner.
A corollary: Will Bezos run the Post as a business or as a philanthropy—or some hybrid of the two?
Fifth, Bezos has enormous political interests in Washington. How much will the Post’s editorial operations become a megaphone for his libertarian views and for Amazon’s business interests?
Sixth, Bezos bought the Post but skipped the digitally native Slate. I have no idea why—perhaps it wasn’t for sale—but I’d like to know.
Finally, we have now officially entered the oft-predicted Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper-industry’s collapse. Two of the best papers in the country have gone this route in the last few days: The Boston Globe and now the Post. In the coming months, the same will likely happen with the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Will other Silicon Valley/Seattle billionaires follow Bezos into the journalism game? It has to be awfully tempting when you can pick up an institution like the Washington Post for chump change. And if they can figure out a business model or subsidize journalism in the absence of one, they can repair some of the massive collateral damage their businesses have unleashed on how we fund serious public-interest journalism.
Further reading:
The Washington Post Co.’s Self-Destructive Course. Dividends, share buybacks, and an anti-paywall stance help bleed the paper dry.
The Washington Post needs a paywall—now. A strategic error needs to be reversed, stat.
A Times Story Bodes Ill for the Washington Post. An investigation shows how Kaplan used predatory tactics to get students and government money.
The Seattle Times Takes On Hometown Amazon. A tough series on the dark side of the booming local company.
Amazon Bolts Texas’s “Unfavorable Regulatory Environment.” But there’s more to the story than we get from the AP and The Dallas Morning News.