Speaking of Spies

From Mark Fiore. Click here to watch.

People's Liberation Army Hacks the Pentagon

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials.

[...]

“The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system...and the ability in a conflict situation to re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale,” said a former official, who said the PLA had penetrated the networks of US defence companies and think-tanks.

[...]

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, raised reports of Chinese infiltration of German government computers with Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, in a visit to Beijing, after which the Chinese foreign ministry said the government opposed and forbade “any criminal acts undermining computer systems, including hacking”.

“We have explicit laws and regulations in this regard,” said Jiang Yu, from the ministry. “Hacking is a global issue and China is frequently a victim.”

  Financial Times

I'm confused. It's okay to have spies and moles but it's not okay to hack computers? Who knew there were such niceities in espionage?

Police State

The Washington Post has more on those spies in the skies that we learned about recently. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, says: "They are laying the bricks one at a time for a police state."

And just on the outside chance that that's true, let's have a look at somebody who's trying to defend against state spying.

Oakland lawyer Jon Eisenberg calls the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. George W. Bush the strangest he has ever handled. How strange? Eisenberg was required to write one of his briefs in a windowless government office, without notes or lawbooks, under the watchful eye of two federal security guards.

When he got hungry, one of the guards brought him a banana. And when he finished, a security official shredded all his drafts — and even the banana peel, Eisenberg said.

  LA Times

The case claims illegal spying by the government. There are others like it. The government's defense in these cases is that it can't say anything about the spying for national security reasons; then it files for dismissal.

But in the Al-Haramain case, the Treasury Department inadvertently disclosed National Security Agency call logs stamped "top secret" indicating that the charity and two of its attorneys had been surveilled. Last year, U.S. District Judge Garr King ruled that the logs -- referred to in the court papers as "The Document" — gave the charity standing to sue in federal court.

Fine, but they aren't finding it easy.

Many of the government's motions have been filed under seal, and those lodged publicly contain gaps; one government brief reads: "REDACTED TEXT. PUBLIC TEXT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6."

Some of Eisenberg's briefs have been redacted as well, because they are considered too sensitive for the public to see. But although Justice Department lawyers can see Eisenberg's redactions, he isn't allowed to see theirs.

In the Al-Haramain case, Eisenberg has had to respond to a government filing he was not allowed to see.

Asked Monday if there was any way, under the government's interpretation of the law, that someone could contest the surveillance program, a senior Justice Department official replied, "In the current context, no."

Tough luck.

Oversight of the department's use of the overhead imagery data would come from officials in the Department of Homeland Security and from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and would consist of reviews by agency inspectors general, lawyers and privacy officers. "We can give total assurance" that Americans' civil liberties will be protected, Allen said. "Americans shouldn't have any concerns about it."

  WaPo

I think you can imagine what I might have to say to that.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Spies in the Skies

In a striking but unnoticed extension of domestic surveillance, the little-known National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency deployed a U-2 spy plane on the region affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to track hazards to public health.

In an article Thursday, Salon's Tim Shorrock explores the emergence of the NGA, born in 1996 from a partnership between the CIA, the Pentagon and the agency that maintains America's spy satellites.

[...]

In a way, Shorrock suggests the visible mission of the U-2 over New Orleans is akin to the visible mission of the U-2 over the Soviet Union -- a tip of the iceberg in a much larger program that most of America knows nothing about.

  Raw Story

Count me in. I always assume that there are other agencies we aren't - and won't be - told about, but I never heard of the NGA before. I was out of the country when Katrina hit New Orleans, so if it was mentioned in the news at that time, I wouldn't have caught it.

In 2004, the National Security Agency (which has overseen Bush's warrantless wiretapping program) announced they'd signed an agreement with the NGA to share resources and staff, including their sources, information infrastructure and "exploitation techniques." The document itself is classified, though according to Salon an NGA press release explained "the pact allows 'horizontal integration' between the two agencies, defined as "working together from start to finish, using NGA's 'eyes' and NSA 'ears.'"

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Patrick Fitzgerald Gives a Rare Public Interview

Special prosecutor for the Valerie Plame investigations, Patrick Fitzgerald gives an interview to.....wait, wait...don't tell me.....

Wait wait...Don't Tell Me!

The Chicago-based show's host, Peter Sagal, introduces the show with a lead-in to the appearance of today's special guest...

"Other cities may have the financial titans or the movie stars or those mountains and oceans we've heard are somewhat impressive to look at, but we have got something better. We've got a guy who will fly to your city wherever you are and indict your sorry behind."

Like Ted Koppel's appearance on that radio show, Fitzgerald surprises me by having a great sense of humor.

If you listen to today's entire show, you'll learn lots of interesting things that happened this week and weren't blogged on YWA, including the arrest of 14 squirrels in Iran.

"Fourteen squirrels were arrested in Iran on charges of espionage....The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies and were stopped before they could attack thanks to the alertness of [the Iranian] intelligence services. Soon after, Dick Cheney turned to the president and said, 'Okay. We tried your idea. Now let me get back to work.'"

In the special guest interview segment titled "We are so not going to ask you about Scooter Libby!", Fitzgerald correctly answers a question about the Segway scooter, noting the Pentagon's attempts to turn it into a robotic soldier.

Hey, it fought the President, and won.

Along with squirrel spies, we can add the Segway Warrior to a list of Bush plans to defeat the enemy in the Middle East.

Hey, if you think you have better ideas, pass them along.

....awww, do what you want....you will anyway.

P.S. Show panelist Roy Blount, Jr., suggests the next fantasy series after Harry Potter will be

"The Adventures of Li'l Scooter" whose dark boss, Li'l Dick, sends him out on terrible quests and he gets into the darnedest fixes, and fortunately, his magic friend, Li'l George, comes along and saves him every time."

Update: Ashcroft's deputy, James Comey, nominates Fitzgerald to replace Gonzales. Of course, that would be in fantasy land, not our current cartoon land. I'm still of mixed feelings about how Fitzgerald got the job of special prosecutor in the Plame case in the first place. Something in the back of my mind says they knew he'd have the aura of impartiality and doggedness while at the same time not actually nailing anybody beyond the scapegoat Libby, who had a nice deal to get his sentence commuted. Rove still gets off. Cheney still gets off. Bush still gets off.

I'm not saying Fitz was in on the deal. I don't have a Chertoff one way or the other about that. I just don't know how much danger there ever was in his being a threat to the criminal operations in the White House. Not much, I suspect.