VIPR: More Warrantless Searches Without Probably Cause

Dear Mr. President,

Just as the NSA suffers from scope creep, TSA’s “mission” is also spreading and shrouded in secrecy. Today’s NYT reports on a previously unknown program called VIPR, an acronym for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (“T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security” p. A11). Here I thought TSA just made you take off your shoes and belts at airports and rummaged through your luggage, confiscated near-empty tubes of toothpaste and checked out people’s genitalia, but no sir, they’ve now got armed squads with bullet-proof vests roaming around outside airports, train and bus stations, sporting events (like the Indianapolis 500), rodeos, music festivals, highway weigh stations and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, scanning crowds and randomly patting down and questioning people, searching luggage, checking IDs, you know, the kinds of things the Gestapo, the Stasi, the secret police of any oppressive government does. VIPR started in 2005, has a budget of $100 million a year and is growing rapidly; in 2012 VIPR had 37 teams, up from 10 in 2008, each team consisting of federal air marshals, explosives experts, baggage inspectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and an undercover person in plainclothes monitoring crowds for suspicious behavior. Last year they ran more than 8,800 unannounced checkpoints and search operations (shades of Iraq and Afghanistan!) with local law enforcement. “‘Our mandate is to provide security and counterterrorism operations for all high-risk transportation targets, not just airports and aviation,’ said John S. Pistole, the administrator of the agency.” So when did TSA’s mission change from airport security to warrantless searches without probable cause at train stations, bus depots, rodeos and music festivals, Mr. President? Every time we turn around we’ve got yet another layer of security cops sucking money out of the national budget that should be going to education and child health programs or repairing our roads and bridges or bailing out distressed homeowners and municipalities. And how effective is VIPR, anyway? How many terrorist plots have they ever thwarted? How many major threats to public safety have they discovered? Sorry, that information is classified. But you can bet that if the number is greater than zero, they’d have been trumpeting it for all they’re worth. I object to having my money wasted like this, Mr. President. And I really object to the ever-expanding security state you’re fostering.

Ayman al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi Talk

Dear Mr. President,

I can’t be the only one who’s skeptical about the timing of the world-wide terror alert and closing of 2 dozen embassies over the weekend—extended through the rest of the week. Just in the nick of time, the NSA intercepts “chatter” and an electronic communication from Ayman al-Zawahri in Pakistan ordering his Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula guy, Nasser al-Wuhayshi in Yemen, to carry out an attack (today’s NYT, “Order By Qaeda For Attack Led To Terror Alert” p. A1). Here’s the top Al Qaeda guy, Zawahri, who the CIA claimed was killed in an air strike in 2006 but reappears in 2008, takes over Al Qaeda after bin Laden is assassinated in 2011 and is barely heard from since, a guy who knows all his electronic communications are intercepted, who knows drones are circling overhead looking for him, suddenly has a case of the stupids and dials up his 2^nd in command? Really? It had nothing to do with all the NSA’s bad publicity lately? How convenient that just as Congress is starting to come out of its long snooze and rebel, threatening to cut off funding and rein them in, the NSA comes up with intercepted communications revealing a plot to “attack.” According to your intelligence guys, there’s only about 75 Al Qaeda people left in Afghanistan and all the ones in the mountains of Pakistan are deep in hiding. There’s some contradictions here, Mr. President. You said a few weeks ago that we’ve almost reduced Al-Qaeda to where they can never threaten the U.S. again. Well, that was premature. So was the official line on al-Zawahri, “whom administration officials portrayed as greatly diminished and hindered in running a global terror network…” In spite of all the official pronouncements, Al Qaeda just succeeded in closing a dozen U.S. embassies and causing a world-wide terror alert. I’m not the only one who sees contradictions. The Times article also quotes Gregory Johnson, a Yemeni scholar at Princeton: “The question I have is, If the Obama administration is confident that its strategy in Yemen is correct, then why is Al Qaeda growing in Yemen and why is the group still capable of forcing the United States to shut down embassies in more than a dozen countries?” Presidential arm-twisting and the NSA’s assurances to Congress that their surveillance programs are legal and tightly controlled don’t seem to be working so let’s show America how valuable the NSA really is and have an old-fashioned Bush-era terror alert. Sorry, Mr. President, I don’t buy it.

The Murder of Ibragim Todashev: Another American Secret

Dear Mr. President,

Ibragim Todashev was shot dead by an FBI agent on May 22 during an interrogation. There were reportedly two Massachusetts State Troopers present as well as Orlando police. What happened is shrouded in mystery; during the first week, accounts changed daily until the FBI refused to make any further public statements pending completion of an investigation. That was 2½ months ago. The autopsy was completed on July 8 but the FBI blocked the Florida medical examiner from releasing it to the public “due to the ongoing investigation.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the ACLU called for independent inquiries. The Massachusetts AG declined and Tuesday, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also declined “due to the ongoing investigation.” Todashev’s roommate, Tatiana Gruzdeva, was picked up by immigration officials a few days before Todashev was killed and charged with overstaying her visa; she was kept in jail and apparently deported to Russia four days ago. It’s likely she has information about why Todashev thought the FBI was questioning and following him. (Ironically, in 2008 Todashev, a Chechen, was granted asylum in the U.S.) Maybe the FBI and Justice Department take this long to investigate a shooting but the outcome, like the Bradley Manning trial, is a foregone conclusion: investigations over the past 20 years of 150 shootings by FBI agents have found not one wrongful shooting of anyone in spite of a $1.3 million settlement with one victim. It’s like the Army’s investigation of the 17 Afghan civilians tortured and murdered by Special Forces and/or their Afghan cohorts: 3 separate investigations found no U.S. involvement but the Army refuses to release any of the reports. It’s like the NSA assuring Congress that they do not collect phone records or internet records in bulk. It’s like Brennan claiming that civilian casualties from drone strikes are in the single digits. It’s like you assuring us that the assassination of American citizens without legal recourse is legal but not releasing the secret memos that justify it. It’s like you assuring the American public, “No one’s listening to your phone calls.” Everything the government does is now classified, secret, a matter of national security, too sensitive for the public to know. If government was transparent and honest, there would be no Daniel Ellsbergs or Julian Assanges or Bradley Mannings or Edward Snowdens. Whistleblowers are the last line of defense against tyranny.

Obama's Letter: Spinning a Fictional Reality

Dear Mr. President,

Received you July 29 letter yesterday, one of the more outrageous spin jobs I’ve received yet. From the 2^nd paragraph: “My Administration is using every element of our national power to keep our country secure, prosperous, and free.” Secure? Your drone wars are the best recruiting tool Al Qaeda has: there are more militants in Yemen now than when we started our covert war there; our drone attacks in Pakistan have turned the Pakistanis against us—80% now view us as their enemy; your war in Afghanistan has turned large portions of that population against us—many rural areas live in fear of the American trained and directed Local Police, they view the Special Forces as no different than the Taliban and they see little if any improvement in their lives since our arrival. Al Qaida franchises pop up everywhere, our embassies in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia are closed this weekend because of terrorist threats and a worldwide alert has been issued to travelers. We’re no safer now than on 9/10. Prosperous? We’ve spent trillions on war and billions on surveillance while defunding food stamps and child health care, letting our cities go bankrupt, our social services shred and our citizens left to fend for themselves. It’s only the war profiteers and the 1% who prosper in America. Free? Freedom does not include indefinite detention and assassination without legal recourse. It does not include secret laws and findings, the suppression of information, and the persecution of whistleblowers. And freedom certainly does not include the invasion of privacy—PRISM, XKeyscore and other illegal NSA activity. From the 3^rd paragraph: “The war in Iraq is over.” The war in Iraq is over for us, not for them. There are bombings every day in Baghdad and elsewhere—each one worse than the Boston Marathon bombing—and July had the highest civilian casualty count in 5 years. “The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will soon be coming home.” Playing with numbers: you doubled the number of troops and they’re now back to where they were before your surge. “As in Iraq, we are building an enduring partnership to strengthen Afghan sovereignty and stability…” Neither country is stable; Iraq is aligned with Iran not us and Karzai denounces us on a regular basis (while taking bags of cash from the CIA). Like Iraq, Afghanistan will quickly sink into chaos after we leave. Your letter spins a fictional reality, Mr. President. It just ain’t so.

Let Snowden Testify To Congress!

Dear Mr. President,

More revelations by the Guardian yesterday and today Snowden finally got out of the Moscow airport, granted asylum for a year. But as you say, power is patient and maybe power will wait a year and see what happens. If not, assassins are as plentiful in Russia as anywhere else and renditions still happen although it might be more difficult to grab Snowden off a street in Moscow than an Islamic cleric off a street in Milan. Snowden sparked the debate you said you wanted (but until yesterday when you called in leaders of both parties to lobby for the out-of-control unconstitutional NSA surveillance program, you never actually participated in the debate). Yesterday Sen. Leahy pinned down Clapper’s 2^nd in command, John Inglis, about the value of bulk data collection and those 54 plots averted because of it vanished—poof!—first to 13, then 2, then, maybe one. And the transparency you promised? Three “secret” documents released yesterday; the secret reauthorization by the secret FISA court for the NSA to keep collecting bulk phone records for another 3 months—docket number redacted—and 2 letters to Congress saying the NSA only looked at a tiny fraction of the data collected. Still no legal justification, criteria or rules. Other than spectacle and hot air, there’s not much information coming out of Congress. Legislators bluster, intelligence officials obfuscate, spin and lie and the only real information we get is from the Snowden documents. So here’s an idea: why not have Snowden testify before Congress? He’s the only one who actually knows what he’s talking about and willing to tell the truth. Let’s have a real debate! Oh, the latest revelation in the Guardian: the NSA has been funding the Brits’ surveillance program for years—more than $150 million over the past 3 years alone. The NSA calls the shots though, and we get access to a lot of phone calls and internet traffic we otherwise wouldn’t get, like maybe the Brits spy on Americans for the NSA because it’s illegal for the NSA to do that. But here’s what bothers me, Mr. President: the NSA gives hundreds of millions to the Brits to spy and spends billions on a surveillance program that has little or no value; the CIA delivers bags of cash to Karzai every month; the Pentagon just signed a $7 billion deal with Lockheed for 71 more problem-plagued F-35s—and yet, we have no money to help Detroit or Stockton or any of the 9 million underwater homeowners in America. What’s wrong with this picture?

XKeyscore: Stasi on Steroids

Dear Mr. President,

Yesterday Bradley Manning was convicted of espionage, theft and Computer Fraud and Abuse. Unclear about the latter, I looked it up. Sure enough, it’s a crime to intentionally access a computer and obtain information from any department or agency of the United States. Guilty as charged. But there’s also a section of the act that makes “distribution of malicious code” a crime. Stuxnet and Flame was code inserted into Iran’s computer systems to slow down their nuclear program. Isn’t that a crime or doesn’t it apply to the government? I looked up “espionage” in my dictionary: “The act or practice of spying or using spies to obtain secret information.” Manning was guilty of that, too: the videos documenting war crimes—the helicopter gunship pilots laughing as they gunned down innocent Iraqi civilians—was classified; so were the war logs that revealed a far different picture of the wars than the generals and politicians presented. Then, this morning, the Guardian revealed “XKeyscore,” the NSA program that collects nearly everything from everybody and allows any analyst to sift through it without a court order or oversight. Edward Snowden claimed he could have gone through your emails—including the content—had he wanted to. Rep. Rogers (R-MI) said Snowden was lying but it turns out Snowden was right; XKeyscore is Stasi on Steroids, a massive espionage program and a clear violation of the 4^th Amendment. Or doesn’t that apply either? And isn’t hacking into other countries’ computer networks, the G-20, the EU, the UN, a violation of the Espionage Act? Or is government above the law? In The Audacity of Hope you wrote: “the people’s instincts for fair play and common sense…” My instinct is that the government is not playing fair when it sends a whistleblower to prison for life and lets those who lie, torture, kill, violate the Constitution, domestic and international law and human rights go unpunished. Rep. Rogers and Rep. Ruppersberger (D-MD) issued a joint statement yesterday on Manning’s conviction: “Justice has been served today, Pfc. Manning harmed our national security, violated the public’s trust, and now stands convicted of multiple serious crimes.” Manning’s conviction for revealing war crimes and government malfeasance was not justice but a travesty of justice. The traitors are not the Mannings and Snowdens who reveal the truth but the Rogers and Ruppersbergers, the Feinsteins and Clappers who lie and cover up the crimes of our government.

Manning's Verdit on Kill List Tuesday a Warning to Snowden

Dear Mr. President,

It’s fitting that Bradley Manning’s verdict is read on Kill List Tuesday—as much justice in Manning’s trial as in your selection of those to be killed this week. The Manning verdict was a foregone conclusion months ago, maybe years ago. Guilty as charged on all counts (except the over-the-top aiding the enemy). 130 years. You’re putting that boy away for life, sending a clear message to any other Bradley Mannings out there that the consequences of exposing war crimes and government malfeasance is life in prison. The secret findings and secret memos justifying the assassination of both foreign and American citizens is not unlike the trial of Pfc Manning. Held in a military courtroom next to NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade, the judge had a reputation for handling—i.e., controlling—the press. Armed guards wanded, searched and intimidated the small press corps, isolated in a media center away from the courtroom, watching the trial on a video feed. There was little resemblance to a real court of law—no court transcripts, no recorded video or other court documents, and only 70 press credentials issued (more than 350 were requested). The photos of Manning being led to and from the courtroom tells the story. There’s one in today’s NYT (p. A12); he’s in handcuffs, a burly guard on each side, the top of his beret barely reaching the guards’ shoulders. As Kay Rudin, a sketch artist covering the trial says, “He is tiny…. He's literally the size of a 12-year-old. The tiniest little man is also the biggest in the room in several ways… Manning is surrounded by huge fullbacks who really hate him [because] he's also the smartest guy in the room.” (http://www.mendocinobeacon.com/localnews/ci_23729839/kay-rudin-local-activist-journalist-sues-feds-over) In the epilogue of Dreams from My Father, you make this statement: “The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power—and all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition.” This seems to be your guiding principal as president—the manipulation of law to protect power and then explain the wisdom and justice of your power to those who have none. Stay safe, Edward Snowden, and out of reach of the American juggernaut for there is no justice in the land of the free or the home of the brave.