ShaneHarris.net Blog

The Lessons of Leaks

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0000

I've got a piece on The Atlantic this morning, looking at the political lessons of CIA leaks.

NSC takes on interrogation

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:35:00 +0000

The Washington Post has a front-page story this morning on the Obama administration's new plan to create a crack group of interrogators to glean intelligence from so-called "high value detainees." The idea had been reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. But a new piece of information, the significance of which was overlooked by the Post, was revealed in today's article:

"Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council..."

This is an extraordinary extension of the NSC's authority. The staff is a policy-making body, and has for many years now stayed out of "operational" issues, of which interrogation is not only a prime example, but one of the most controversial of the past eight years. The White House is now taking on direct responsibility for overseeing the interrogation of some of the most important terrorist suspects. That means that NSC staff officials, presumably, will not only be held accountable for what happens to those suspects in U.S. custody, but might also be expected to weigh in on how the interrogations should be conducted.

There's a reason the NSC staff got out of the operations business. You can read about it here. The fall-out of the Iran-Contra affair so tainted the White House and President Reagan's national security team that his successor, George Bush, dismantled many of the counterterrorism operations that had been set up during Reagan's term. These were unprecedented efforts to fight terrorist networks head on in the wake of the 1983 attack on U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. But once it was revealed that the NSC staff had become embroiled in unseemly, and potentially illegal, operations in Iran and Nicaragua, future staffs stayed clear of anything that had a whiff of such controversy and left it to the intelligence agencies like the CIA to get their hands dirty fighting wars.

But now, the appetite for operations seems to have returned. The Post characterizes the shifting of interrogation management as a change in "the center of gravity," taking it "away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight." That's true. But think about the gravity of that very statement.

Incidentally, it's worth noting a particular irony here. Presumably, the oversight duties will fall primarily to John Brennan, who is Obama's adviser on counterterrorism matters. Brennan, you will recall, saw his potential nomination for CIA director scuttled over allegations that he was involved in Bush-era interrogations. What a curious turn of events that he might now be overseeing interrogations in the Obama-era.

China's Cyber Militia

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:34:00 +0000

Just a quick heads up to those who might not be on my e-mail list, a pointer to a cover story in Friday's National Journal on China's cyber militia . U.S. intelligence officials and computer security experts believe that Chinese hackers may be responsible for two major blackouts, as well as the theft of information from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. The Associated Press picked up on the Gutierrez incident today, as well.

Total Information Awareness and the National Security Agency

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:09:00 +0000

In light of recent reporting, I want to recall two previous stories on the revival of the Total Information Awareness Program and its connection to the NSA's surveillance efforts.

You can view all my NSA reporting here.

Brennan and Obama on telecom immunity

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:30:00 +0000

In my interview with John Brennan, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign, Brennan stated that he favors granting immunity to those companies that were asked to participate in covert surveillance activities after 9/11.

This position differs from Obama's. He voted to strip an immunity provision out of a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the Senate has passed. Obama did not vote on the final bill, which does contain an immunity provision.

Brennan deferred to the Obama campaign to articulate the Senator's current position on immunity. A spokesperson told me, "Senator Obama opposed the retroactive immunity provisions in the FISA bill, indicating that is more appropriately a decision for the Judiciary."

Deputy intel chief warns of narco-terrorism, praises Uribe, says spies should open up

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:33:00 +0000

I attended a dinner last night sponsored by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, and Don Kerr, the principal deputy director for national intelligence, was the guest speaker.

The ODNI has a transcript of Kerr's remarks. I was struck by a few remarks. First, Kerr talked about a recent two-week trip to Latin America. He wasn't clear about why he had gone, but he shared some observations. "Of course there you see the conjunction of narcotics trafficking and terrorism and there may be a nexus forming between them," Kerr said. He continued:

They share the need for money laundering. In fact in Latin America you have a real presence of Hezbollah. Hezbollah, after al-Qaida, is the terrorist organization that has the most American blood on its hands. So if you need to worry about something you might think about our hemisphere where a terrorist organization is involved in money laundering, narco-trafficking, and very close to other criminal enterprise. That to me is the kind of thing that we need to worry about looking forward, not just fixating on the East/West prospects we have for the conflicts we’re in today.

To be fair, I think one should emphasize the word "may" in this connection between narco-traffickers and terrorists, particularly in the context of Hezbollah, because there is a fair amount of debate over this connection and its significance in the counterterrorism community. I'm not dismissing it. But that aside, Kerr really wanted to draw the attention of the audience--mostly intelligence professionals, past and present--to threats that exist "in our backyard."

So we need to be watchful, pay attention in fact our back yard and to just Iraq and the Afghan/Pak border. That was one reason I went to Latin America. [I think there's a transcription error here, and that Kerr said, or meant to say, "and not to just Iran and the Afghan/Pakistan border."]

Kerr then turned to a discussion of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who's caught up in a potential regional conflagration after Colombian troops last weekend crossed into Ecuador to kill members of the revolutionary guerrilla group FARC. (The United States is not alone in labeling FARC a terrorist organization.)

"One of the things I’m proud to report to you is that even before last weekend I had the
opportunity to meet with President Uribe," Kerr said. "This is a leader of a country that’s actually succeeding in his endeavor. The number of FARC are now under 10,000. There was, of course, significant further loss last weekend [the Colombian troops killed FARC leader Raul Reyes and 23 of his cohorts] but I think the important thing for all of us to understand,
this is a leader of a democracy who has an 80 percent support rating from his citizens."

The rest of Kerr's remarks, while a bit lengthy, are worth reading. Remember, this is the second-highest-ranking intelligence official in the United States, and he's expressing a point of view that is not at all at odds with President Bush.

What are his [Uribe's] principles? They’re really simple. Democracy leads to security. He’s trying to provide a climate for investment. And he’s trying to build the institutions that provide social cohesion. That leads to confidence in the electorate and why he has, of course, the 80 percent rating.

He does some other simple things that all of us know how to do but may fail to do. That is, he does town meetings throughout his country. He takes his National Security Council to meet in a different city each week. And so if you want to look for hands-on leadership that’s succeeding you need look no further than Colombia where they’re really taking on this question of narcotrafficking and terrorism and doing it in their own country. I think we need to support that and learn from it.

Now if you think about what I just said, I’ve just talked about something that’s not very different than what we’ve achieved with the surge in Iraq. We provided more troops, provided the security window, the ability to train up the Iraqis. We now have the CLCs, the concerned local citizens, taking back their own communities. What we hope is, of course, that investment and social cohesion will follow. So this is not a lesson that need be learned over and over again. It’s one we simply need to pay attention to and apply as we take responsibilities in different parts of the world.

I can't speak to the 80 percent approval rating, but this is as strong of an endorsement of Uribe as I've seen from any senior intelligence policy official. The Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela standoff is, of course, still developing, and as I noted the other day, speculation about documents on a FARC laptop are fueling the fire. (Greg Palast has a rebuke of the documents, based on his review of some of them, in Spanish. )

Kerr also made a pitch to intelligence officials to open up more to the press and not be afraid to talk about what spies do for a living.

The last challenge I’d like to talk to you about tonight is the one I have no answer for, but it’s really this. How do we do these things in a way that helps people understand how we in the Intelligence Community operate? Not as political pawns, but as professionals and apolitical experts. How do we pull back the curtain just a little bit for a society that of course automatically distrusts and dislikes secrets without sacrificing our sources and methods?

In the U.S., for example, we talk a lot about trying to support moderate Muslim leaders and dispelling myths about U.S. intentions and goals, and quite frankly, Americans as people. We are not really that good at communicating here at home when it comes to perceptions about the Intelligence Community. No poll has been conducted in recent years asking people about their feelings on the Intelligence Community. We should probably be thankful for that, for the number might be depressingly low.

That’s not because people don’t appreciate what we do or the live we save or the tomorrows we make possible. It’s because they don’t understand what we do. That’s in effect entirely our fault. If you brought in the best PR firm in the nation to diagnose our problem, they would sum it up pretty simply. We’ve allowed our detractors to frame the national debate and cast us as the villains.

We in the Intelligence Community are not winning hearts and minds in the U.S.. We’re not even trying. That’s what bothers me most.

Interview: John Brennan

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:50:00 +0000

This week, I sat down with John Brennan, the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Brennan, who was the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is now advising Sen. Barack Obama on intelligence and foreign policy. Brennan is also the president and chief executive officer of The Analysis Corporation, headquartered in McLean, Va., which does a great deal of work for the intelligence community.

In our interview, Brennan discussed restructuring the intelligence community, renewing FISA and debating counterterrorism on the campaign trail. Edited excerpts follow. You can also access the transcript at National Journal's Web site.

Q: Are we hearing a sufficient level of debate and distinction among the candidates of their various national security and counterterrorism positions?

Brennan: I think we are hearing some of that debate. And that debate is going to intensify as we get closer to the election.

There has been a fair amount of discussion, particularly on the terrorism front, about the different types of approaches. But I think it's mainly at the strategic level.

The intelligence business is a very complicated one, and I think a lot of the nuances may be lost on people. It's difficult in a presidential debate to really get into those intricacies.

I think there's a real issue related to some of the approaches that the next administration will have toward some of those countries, in particular, that still pose national security challenges to us -- for example, Iran, and whether or not there needs to be some initiative on the part of the United States to see whether there's some way to bridge the gap, or whether we should maintain a confrontational posture toward Iran.

Senator Obama and Senator [Hillary Rodham] Clinton have expressed an interest in trying to reach out, even to our adversaries. There are differences between those two as to when the president should get engaged.

Q: As a counterterrorism professional, is there one path that you see as more productive?

Brennan: I think that what we need in our quiver are many different types of arrows. We certainly need to have a military arrow. We need to have an intelligence one. But we need to have a diplomatic one. We need to have foreign aid. There needs to be a comprehensive set of approaches. A lot of these issues, including counterterrorism, cannot be solved with kinetic force.

I am a strong proponent of trying to focus more of our efforts on the upstream phenomenon of terrorism. I make the analogy to pollution. We learned that pollutants kill us when they get into the water we drink or the fish we eat or the air we breathe. But I think we also learned that we have to go upstream to identify and eliminate those sources of pollution. Terrorism is a tactic, and we have to be more focused upstream. Since 9/11, understandably we've focused downstream, on those terrorists who might be in our midst or trying to kill us, the operators. I think there needs to be much more attention paid to those upstream factors and conditions that spawn terrorists.

We also have to have a full discussion about the appropriate techniques we're going to use when individuals are captured or detained. But we have to be looking at what are those foreign policies, aid programs, international efforts that we need to be engaged in, that are going to try and stem the flow of those terrorists further upstream. I think a lot of our resources have been dedicated to that downstream phenomenon; I think the United States is a lot safer because we put in place the security filters to prevent terrorists from coming into our country. Now we have to look at the longer-term issues that are more difficult to deal with -- why individuals are succumbing to a lot of the recruitment efforts on the part of terrorist groups.

Q: What is the appropriate government agency to handle that?

Brennan: This is an issue the government is grappling with. A lot of the issues right now fall between the Department of State and the Department of Defense and Commerce and others. I think as we deal with these transnational issues, we need to bring to bear those capabilities that exist in different agencies. The National Counterterrorism Center is a place that is trying to deal with the issue in a comprehensive fashion. They have a group there, the Strategic Operational Planning Group, which is trying to bring to bear the full instruments of U.S. national power, from the diplomatic front to the intelligence front to law enforcement and defense. I think we need to have more of these integrated efforts, because no single department can in fact address the issues.

Q: People like you have talked about the need to do this for some time. Why haven't we seen this take hold as an ethos in government?

Brennan: There are a number of factors. One is, it's really, really hard. It addresses legacy institutions and architectures and ways of doing business. In Washington, it's difficult to rearrange how you do work. It would be overhauling, in many respects, the way we do government work. That requires legislation, a close interaction and coordination between the executive and legislative branches, and it also affects a lot of rice bowls.

Q: Then what will it take to finally push this through and make agencies feel compelled to change?

Brennan: It certainly isn't something that should be done quickly or without appropriate thought. I'm an advocate of having a review of the U.S. governance structures that's going to transcend administrations. It's going to be something that people are going to get together and say, "What type of governance structures and changes need to take place so that we can deal with the challenges of 2015, 2020?" The Department of Defense went though the Goldwater-Nichols Act [which changed the military command structure], but I would argue reorganizing a department is easier than reorganizing how many agencies are going to interoperate. I think we still are struggling with that.

Q: Would it make sense then to make the Director of National Intelligence more like the FBI director, someone who's not necessarily going to leave when the administration changes?

Brennan: I'm an advocate of having term appointments for the Director of National Intelligence. I think it makes sense. But the intelligence community is a subset of the broader national security establishment, which is a subset of the broader U.S. government. I would argue that the challenge for the next decade is how you're going to ensure better interaction between the federal, state, and local elements, in terms of information sharing, knowledge, and expertise.

Q: In your estimation, where is the threat level of terrorism today versus where it was right after 9/11? How big is the threat domestically? How has it changed?

Brennan: There are two sides to that coin. Whenever you do a net assessment, you look at the threat and the vulnerability. Let me take the vulnerability side. A lot has happened in the past six years in terms of making the homeland a much less hospitable environment for terrorists to ply their trade. We should feel good that our borders are not as porous. There's a much more substantial watch-listing effort. And a much better capability to detect terrorists and terrorist activity within our borders.

That said, on the threat side, while Al Qaeda, the organization, has been badly bloodied since 9/11, they still retain a potentially lethal capability. There has been a metastasis. Al Qaeda has manifested itself in a lot of different countries and communities, and it's a movement that continues to be grown and fueled by a number of factors.

One, is, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we no longer have this bipolar world where you had the United States and the Soviet Union competing with each other and proxies lining up behind them. We now have basically a unilateral world with the United States as the sole superpower from a military and economic standpoint. But also, we've seen the fading away of a lot of competing ideologies: socialism, Baathism, Nasserism, communism and others. They have been discredited. You have in some respects Western capitalism on one side, and on the other side, maybe those religiously-driven forms of extremism. Islamic extremism has filled the void where in the past there were alternatives in terms of competing ideologies. We don't have the same number of "-isms" out there. And so I think this [Islamic extremism] is going to continue to garner support and recruits in different parts of the world.

Q: Compare our ability to counter ideologies versus our tactical capabilities to collect more intelligence, to share it, to do more sophisticated things with it.

Brennan: I think unfortunately we have been way behind the curve as far as the public relations campaign -- making sure the image of the United States is seen in a more positive light. When I first went to the Middle East, I studied in Cairo in 1975, and the U.S. was viewed as the sponsor and supporter of Israel. But when I was in Egypt, I was regularly befriended by people, because Americans were still looked upon in a very positive way. Unfortunately, the U.S. image now is not the same as it was several decades ago. The Iraq situation, unfortunately, was viewed as military adventurism on the part of the United States. We need to repair that image. We need to make sure we convey to the world the types of things the United States is committed to. That is very difficult. Focusing on the downstream effort is, in some respects, easier because it's more tangible. You can go after those high-value targets; you can go after those training camps.

Q: In the 2004 campaign, it seemed you had on one hand President Bush talking about downstream efforts, and then John Kerry articulating something more like the public diplomacy approach. It became a partisan division: that if you were for public diplomacy, you were weaker and identified with Democrats, and if you were on the Republican side, then you were with the president and fighting the fight. It seems not that pronounced this time, and that the candidates are talking more about combating ideologies. Is there still a divide between hard war and soft war?

Brennan: I think there is a divide. Obama is a good example in terms of the different approaches between the parties. In the articulation of the public effort, there needs to be the companion discussion about the need to act forcefully to ensure that U.S. lives and property are protected. I think some of the statement you see coming out from the Democratic side is to reassure the American public that although public diplomacy is going to be a major part of that foreign policy approach, it's not going to be at the expense of ensuring that we're going to be able to utilize military and other measures to take action against the threats.

Q: Assess the debate in Congress and with the administration over reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [Democratic lawmakers allowed the temporary extension of that law, the Protect America Act, to expire, over the vehement objections of the White House.] Why has it come to this point where politics has arguably pulled things off the rails?

Brennan: There is this great debate over whether or not the telecom companies should in fact be given immunity for their agreement to provide support and cooperate with the government after 9/11. I do believe strongly that they should be granted that immunity, because they were told to do so by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context, and so I think that's important. And I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing to do. I do believe the Senate version of the FISA bill addresses the issues appropriately. [Director of National Intelligence] Mike McConnell, I think, did a very good job trying to articulate the distinctions between the old FISA law, the FISA understanding under the Protect America Act, and then the House and Senate versions.

There are many types of scenarios for signals [for example, telephone calls and e-mails] to be accessed. But whenever this happens, there needs to be some substantive predicate, a probable cause, that someone is being targeted appropriately. There is an important issue about timeliness. And even though you can go through the FISA process, particularly when you're dealing with terrorism issues, there needs to be an understanding that intelligence agencies can move quickly if certain predicates are met. We shouldn't be held hostage to a complicated, globalized [information technology] structure that puts up obstacles to that timely collection. I think there are some very, very sensible people on both sides of the partisan divide trying to make this happen. And it's unfortunate that it's become embroiled now in a partisan debate in some quarters. But I think that's expected in any election year, especially one like this.

Q: So how do we get to the point where the public has reasonable assurances that what an intelligence agency does to determine probable cause, or that predicate, is based on sound technique?

Brennan: Maybe there needs to be a system of executive, legislative and judicial representatives who are going to oversee and ensure that this moves along the right path. It really takes those three legs of government to make sure there aren't advertent or inadvertent abuses.

You can have FISA judges and representatives from Congress, not to routinely review those individual requests [for surveillance], but the process, the criteria, and to make sure it's being followed in a strict fashion.

Q: You know that one big debate about FISA is the question of balancing security and privacy and civil liberties. Speaking as someone who has spent your life in counterterrorism, what do the terms "privacy" and "civil liberties" mean to you, and what is that balance?

Brennan: First of all, privacy and civil liberties mean so many different things to different people. There are people on one end of the spectrum that don't want to have any government interference or insight into what you're doing.

To me, I think the government does have the right and the obligation to ensure the security and safety of its citizens. If there is probable cause, reasonable suspicion, about the involvement of a U.S. person in something, the government needs to have the ability to understand what the nature of that involvement is. The threshold for that type of government access can be high or can be low, and it needs to be somewhere in the middle.

It really gets back to that issue of what is the substantive predicate. ... If we know there's a terrorist overseas that has been involved in activities, but he's also an import-export dealer, and he reaches out to Shane Harris because you happen to be an importer of stuff -- you're a U.S. citizen -- and we can see there's contact going on there, well, is that sufficient to give us reasonable suspicion that Shane Harris is involved in something? And Shane Harris happens to be in touch with somebody in his neighborhood that has a past record in engagement in some type of things. So there is going to be a judgment call here.

And what I think is important is that there needs to be an airing of this issue, public hearings that Congress can hold. You can't explain the issue in such rich detail that you can say exactly where that line is going to be drawn. But there needs to be an articulation of those triggers that the American people overall feel, yes, that's the right thing for the government to do.

You don't want to just troll and with a large net just pull up everything. There are technologies available to pulse the data set and pull back only that which has some type of correlation to your predicate.

Q: Is this the difference between the government controlling information, locking it down, and having controlled access to certain data sets which do exist?

Brennan: Right. And I would argue for the latter. Private sector companies can do things the government is unable to do, for marketing to their clients. I would argue the government needs to have access to only those nuggets of information that have some kind of predicate. That way the government can touch it and pull back only that which is related. It's like a magnet, set to a certain calibration. That's what I think we need to go to.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the threshold, quite frankly, was low, because we didn't know the nature of the threat we faced here in the U.S. Every effort was made by the government to try to get as much understanding and visibility into what else might be out there that's going to hurt us again. Now that a number of years have passed, we need to make sure the calibration is important. But maybe in a period of heightened threat you have to recalibrate that based on new information you have -- new intelligence that's going to give you a better sense of where to aim your magnet.

These are things that need to be discussed openly -- not to the point of revealing sources and methods and giving the potential terrorists out there insight into our capability -- but to make sure there is a general understanding and consensus that these initiatives, collections, capabilities, and techniques comport with American values and are appropriately adjusted to deal with the threat we face.

Q: How does the next president go about doing that?

Brennan: It's going to be a real tough job. Even though people may criticize what has happened during the two Bush administrations, there has been a fair amount of continuity. A new administration, be it Republican or Democrat -- you're going to have a fairly significant change of people involved at the senior-most levels. And I would argue for continuity in those early stages.

You don't want to whipsaw the [intelligence] community. You don't want to presume knowledge about how things fit together and why things are being done the way they are being done. And you have to understand the implication, then, of making any major changes or redirecting things. I'm hoping there will be a number of professionals coming in who have an understanding of the evolution of the capabilities in the community over the past six years, because there is a method to how things have changed and adapted. My advice, to whoever is coming in, is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what's out there, inventorying those things, and identifying those key issues or priorities that they have -- FISA or something else. They need to make sure they do their homework, and it's not just going to be knee-jerk responses.

Q: In other words, don't come in and do a housecleaning?

Brennan: Right -- not just in terms of people, but also programs. You don't want to create upheaval, because it will create a disruption in the system. There are still a lot people who say we have to implement all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. I have problems with some of those, because they're not really anchored in reality. Sometimes a superficial understanding of a problem leads one to making superficial decisions.

Q: It seems unlikely that any of the leading candidates would come in and dismantle things. They're fairly savvy to the kinds of things you're talking about. Is that the case, or is there still a risk there will be a political calculation, in that the next president will need to make a demonstrable effort to wipe the slate?

Brennan: I don't think anybody's going to come in and just make wholesale changes. But there's going to be a learning curve... at a time when you're still faced with national security challenges. So they have to be learning as they go, but at the same time managing all these issues and making sure they don't drop any balls at all. It's going to be challenging, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of America's enemies didn't see if they could take advantage of that transition, and to see whether or not they can do things that are going to be confrontational and provocative to test the new administration.

Published in National Journal.

The Smoking Laptop

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:49:00 +0000

The AP has a rundown this morning on a laptop, reportedly belonging to slain FARC leader Raul Reyes, that may prove massive and covert support for the Colombian rebel movement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. If the documents in the computer are authentic, they also hint at U.S. efforts to intervene in a prisoner exchange with the FARC, which captured three U.S. military contractors in 2003 after their plane crashed in Colombia.

Colombian troops captured the computer after a raid into Ecuador over the weekend; Reyes and 23 of his compatriots in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) died. Among the more fascinating revelations in the documents and correspondence stored on the computer are:

Chavez gave $300 million to the rebel group--a staggering sum, and about half the amount of military aid that the United States gives overtly to the Colombian government;

Last year, a FARC emissary to Venezuela was preparing to receive individuals named as "Jim and Tucker," apparent references to Americans, in order to "hear the proposal of the gringos" regarding the prisoner release;

Said gringos, working through the Ecuadorian government, wanted to discuss "various issues" with the FARC;

And (get this), two days before he was killed, Reyes wrote to his compatriots that the Americans "say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," and that he rejects George W. Bush's free trade agreement with Colombia and its military aid program.

The AP story lists a number of other revelations and does a good job putting this potential smoking gun in context. If the United States had evidence that Chavez was massively supporting FARC, which the Bush administration considers a terrorist group, it would give the president a huge public advantage in his attempts to discredit Chavez. Based on my discussions with some people more knowledgeable about this, it would also help undermine Chavez's reputation in the region, something that the administration has been hoping--trying--to do.

More debate on the Iran NIE

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:43:00 +0000

I have a story in today's National Journal about the remarkable reaction to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program. As I reported this story, I was struck by the degree of confusion around the NIE's key judgments, stemming largely from how they were written.

There are still many more questions to answer. But the fact that so many thoughtful people are expressing concern about what this NIE really means, and what has happened since it was released, gives this document a new level of significance. It has also fundamentally altered the United States' posture towards Iran, in ways that we're only beginning to understand.

We need a new wiretapping law, eh

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:41:00 +0000

"All of our legal architecture is founded on the notion that telecommunications intercepts involved putting bugs in walls or hooking interception devices to pairs of copper wires."

Sound like a familiar complaint? It should, if you've been following the debate to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But this quote comes from one of our neighbors to the north.

Jack Hooper, a former deputy director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service—basically, their CIA—says that the nation's wiretapping law is outdated, and that it's inhibiting Canadian intelligence’s ability to monitor suspects abroad.

In something of a twist on the U.S. debate, a Canadian Federal Court judged ruled that a number of suspects CSIS wanted to monitor were enough of a threat to bug in Canada, the court had no authority to order a wiretap of Canadian citizens abroad.

According to the Globe & Mail, whose Colin Freeze (btw, how cool is that name?), interviewed Hooper, "Counterterrorism agencies have spent years hoping to run wiretaps against Canadian suspects who live abroad. Yet a lingering loophole means the spies continue to go 'blind and deaf' whenever Canadian targets board outbound planes."

"Technically we can do it, but legally we can't," Hooper says.

Listen to all the parallels between the Canadians' conundrum and the Americans'.

Mr. Hooper argued that the country's spying laws are legacies of an analog age, hampering investigations in an era of mobile phones, the Internet, cheap jet travel and so-called "homegrown" terrorist threats.

"God forbid. If something really bad happens, the question will be asked: 'What were you doing with this guy when he was in Country X?'" he said. "And we'll say 'Well we could have covered him, but we were proscribed by law.' "

Canada's equivalent of the National Security Agency apparently can lend a hand sorting through signals intelligence to domestic law enforcement agencies. As long as the intel was obtained legally, the cooperation is allowed. As the Globe & Mail reports, CSIS' attempt to get a warrant for overseas surveillance "was an attempt to further marry the sister agencies' capabilities."

Wow, they really did it.

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Defying expectations, the House adjourned for recess Thursday and will let the Protect America Act expire tomorrow. Unwilling to try and iron out differences between their bill and a version passed this week by the Senate, lawmakers will take up the thorny issues of telecom liability and oversight of intelligence surveillance at a later date. I don't think anyone would have predicted that in a blinking contest with the White House, Nancy Pelosi would emerge the victor. But here we are.

Senior intelligence officials, including the director of national intelligence, have been making the media and talk show rounds. They're being challenged on the question of whether intelligence activities will cease when the PAA expires. Surveillance already in place will continue, but the intelligence community will have to go through the "old" process of obtaining warrants if they want to start new surveillance. Those rules will be dictated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), barring any orders to the contrary by the president—and don’t count that out.

The big question, though, seems to be whether or not the telecom companies assisting in any new surveillance think they will have legal protections going forward. I have pinged some national security lawyers on this, and the consensus is that they would have immunity for whatever they're doing now under PAA, and that said immunity would continue until those activities stop, regardless of whether the law is in effect. (Surveillance authorized and conducted under PAA can continue uninterrupted for one year.) But presumably any new surveillance would not have immunity, since it would be taken up under FISA.

Think of it this way. It's like giving a high-school student a permanent hall pass during third period French, but not during fourth period chemistry. The companies will find themselves now in the position of operating different kinds of surveillance under different standards and with different protections. Democrats have a point that letting PAA expire will not bring the government’s intelligence efforts to a halt. But letting the law expire does nothing to clarify the rules of the road.

Would Democrats let Protect America expire?

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Comments by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer suggest that Democrats might be preparing to let the Protect America Act expire this week. They would then use the next few weeks to pass a longer-term law.

Voice of America has a roundup of member positions this morning, and quotes Hoyer.

Hoyer asserted to reporters that even if the foreign intelligence surveillance law [PAA] expires, Americans will not be in danger and the intelligence community will be able to continue intercepting communications of suspected terrorists.
Expressing disappointment with the vote [yesterday not to extend PAA for 21 days], Hoyer does not expect Democrats will attempt another short-term extension, although he wouldn't rule this out, saying Democrats will use coming weeks to work on a bipartisan bill acceptable to President Bush. "In the event that the Protect America Act is not extended, we nevertheless intend to use the next 21 days for the same purposes, that is to try to see if we can reach agreement between the House and the Senate, on a bill that would enjoy broad support in the House and the Senate,” he said.

Interesting. I had predicted that the Dems would vote for the Senate bill that passed earlier, but Hoyer is certainly putting another route out there. This move would, of course, inspire the wrath of Republicans and the White House, but that would presumably inspire Democrats to work quickly on a new law. I still think the Dems will vote to pass the bill this week, but we’ll see.

IN THE WEEDS CONTENT: To clear up some of this business about whether surveillance activities will be put at risk if the PAA is allowed to expire. Here's how this works. Under the law, surveillance activities are conducted per the authorization, or certification, of the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. Essentially, they identify targets, and the intelligence community starts monitoring them. That surveillance is allowed to continue uninterrupted for one year. It does not expire when the PAA expires.

So, for example, if the government begins a new surveillance today, that surveillance can continue until February 14, 2009. It would not have to be shut down at the end of this week, when the PAA expires. And it’s important to note, what’s included in said surveillance is classified. But based on the law, and a lot of reporting, we know that the intelligence community is looking at whole groups of communications; we’re not only talking about single wiretaps here.

Now, if the PAA expires, the government would have to begin any new foreign intelligence surveillance under FISA. In other words, they'd have to go to a judge before they begin surveillance, which would be limited to individual targets and would be subject to the same rules of the road that were guiding surveillance before PAA was enacted. When intelligence officials say that without PAA their efforts will be hindered, that’s because they would be slowed down, legally and bureaucratically. Remember that when the National Security Agency’s warantless surveillance program was revealed, senior officials said that they had to go around FISA because that law was unsuited to the technology landscape—full of cell phones, e-mails, instant messaging—and to their need to engage in “hot pursuit” of suspected terrorists. There are lots of other reasons officials don’t want to revert to FISA, but for immediate purposes, this is probably the most important.

It's not clear whether or not the secret orders the president issued in October 2001—the ones that kicked off the NSA’s warantless program—would come into play if PAA were no longer in existence. I have to presume that the president could issue new orders if he felt that was necessary, to continue surveillance activities in lieu of the PAA. Bottom line, our intelligence-gathering efforts are certainly tied up in this law, but they are not hanging on it.

House seems poised to approve Senate's FISA bill

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:26:00 +0000

The House voted down a Democratic measure that would have extended the Protect America Act for another 21 days. Joining the unanimous Republican vote were 34 Democrats (list below). In breaking ranks, they have positioned the House to take up a Senate bill that makes major changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and which passed yesterday evening by an overwhelming majority. The President wants to sign that bill immediately.

It’s increasingly unlikely that the House won't pass the legislation, which includes immunity for telecom companies that helped the government conduct electronic surveillance inside the United States after 9/11. Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, appeared in the Oval Office with President Bush this morning, who made clear he would veto the House attempt to punt the law for three weeks.

Given House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes' rather tepid remarks on immunity yesterday, I doubt the House will put up much of a fight. The Democratic split today shows that the chamber doesn't have the votes to fend off the Senate bill. More importantly, it will be seen as a revolt and evidence that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid have failed to hold a coalition against the Bush administration on intelligence activities that the Democrats have protested for more than two years.

The Protect America Act expires on Saturday. The ACLU has just called upon House members to let it expire, a game of chicken that Democrats have shown zero willingness to play. I think we'll have a new law on the books before the week is through.

For the record, here’s the list of Dems who voted not to extend PAA for three weeks. There are some surprising names here. Dennis Kucinich is hardly a friend of the administration on this issue. And Maurice Hinchey was a thorn in the White House’s side over the president’s halt of a Department of Justice inquiry into NSA-related activities.

UPDATE AND NOTE: A reader correctly points out that many of the following members voted against the PAA in its original incarnation. In fact, only five members--Altmire, Boren, Boswell, Peterson, and Walz--voted to extend the act today. The reader notes, "How could you vote to extend something you didn't vote for in the first place. They [members voting no] WERE NOT siding with republicans."

I note, however, that they were still breaking with their party, and, whether intentionally or otherwise, helping force the House to act on the Senate bill this week.

Jason Altmire (PA)

Dan Boren (OK)

Leonard Boswell (IA)

Michael Capuano (MA)

Jerry Costello (IL)

Lincoln Davis (TN)

Peter DeFazio (OR)

Lloyd Doggett (TX)

Bob Filner (CA)

John Hall (NY)

Maurice Hinchey (NY)

Rush Holt (NJ)

Dennis Kucinich (OH)

Barbara Lee (CA)

John Lewis (GA)

Tim Mahoney (FL)

Jim Moran (VA)

Christopher Murphy (CT)

Patrick Murphy (PA)

Frank Pallone (NJ)

Donald Payne (NJ)

Collin Peterson (MN)

Steven Rothman (NJ)

Loretta Sanchez (CA)

John Sarbanes (MD)

Jan Schakowsky (IL)

Jose Serrano (NY)

Tom Udall (NM)

Tim Walz (MN)

Maxine Waters (CA)

Mel Watt (NC)

Lynn Woolsey (CA)

David Wu (OR)

Clinton and Obama avoid future weak-on-terror ads

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Sens. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama will avoid a spate of weak-on-terror ads by John McCain or his surrogates, particularly those alleging the senators voted to deny intelligence agencies the power to monitor terrorists’ phone calls or e-mails. That's because when time came to vote on a new intelligence surveillance law, the presidential candidates didn't vote.

The Senate passed S. 2248, the FISA Amendments Act, by an overwhelming majority of 68 to 29. Clinton and Obama were two of three senators listed as "not voting." Republican Lindsey Graham was the third. John McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, voted in favor of the bill.

As I noted earlier today, Clinton didn't vote on the most controversial amendment to the bill, granting immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that assisted the government with warantless surveillance activities. That amendment passed and is in the final bill that now heads to the House. (Obama voted against immunity, McCain for it.)

The Clinton campaign told Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic, "Senator Clinton was unable to vote earlier, but she has made her strong opposition to this legislation crystal clear." The senator was in Texas campaigning.

The FISA Amendments Act was arguably the most important piece of national security legislation taken up by the Senate in the past year. Presumably, the Democratic candidates’ non-votes will shield them from Republican accusations that they voted against the intelligence community. Maybe they saw the RNC Daisy ad. There’s also a decent chance that Obama and Clinton, despite statements to the contrary, actually think the Senate has passed a decent bill, one that a future president would find advantageous.

"This is the sound of settling."

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:13:00 +0000

With apologies to Death Cab for Cutie.

The Senate has passed a bill that amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and offers immunity to companies that assisted the government with electronic surveillance after the 9/11 attacks. Now it's onto the House, which has already passed its FISA fix, without the immunity clause. What are immunity’s chances of survival?

Well, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Tx., has just released a telling statement. The meat is in the second paragraph.

Last November, the House passed strong legislation that would modernize our surveillance authorities to monitor terrorists abroad while preventing government spying on Americans. As we begin to negotiate with the Senate, I plan to advocate strongly for the House bill, which contains important protections for the constitutional rights of Americans

We have also begun to review the documentation provided recently on the alleged role played by the private sector in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. These documents raise important questions, and it will take some time to gather enough information to make a determination on the issue of retroactive immunity.

No passionate opposition to immunity. No defense of the House's previous vote not to grant it. "It will take some time."

This is a far cry from the stand that Democrats in the Senate took earlier today, when they tried to strip immunity from the bill that now goes to the House. Immunity is looking mighty healthy. (BTW, when the Senate Intel Committee looked at those documents Reyes is reviewing, they came down in favor of immunity.)

In related developments, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Mich., released a letter a few hours ago that he sent to Fred Fielding, the White House counsel. Conyers demanded that his committee members be read into the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program, so that they, like their Intel Committee colleagues, could assess whether or not immunity was warranted. Conyers made it clear he didn't think it was.

As for Reyes' assessment that it's going to take some time to hash through said documents, the House has until Friday. That's when the latest extension of the Protect America Act, the temporary grant of warantless surveillance authorities, expires, and the White House has said it will not approve any more of them. Unless the Dems are prepared to face the onslaught of charges that they're letting down the country's guard against terrorists, look for a final bill before the end of the week.

Presidential candidates split over telecom immunity

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:44:00 +0000

The Senate has voted to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the government with electronic surveillance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Here's the roll call of votes.

The immunity amendment is part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's bill to modify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The three senators running for president split over the immunity amendment.

Sen. Obama voted to strip it (so, he voted for no immunity).
Sen. McCain voted not to strip the amendment (voted for immunity).
Sen. Clinton did not vote.

No surprise on the first two. But Clinton's non-vote is most interesting. She was never considered fully onboard with the anti-immunity crowd, represented most vocally in the Senate by Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). Presumably, this hands Obama an arrow to fire at his rival, who has criticized the former Illinois state senator for his record of "present" votes.

But I’m not sure how sharp this arrow is. Obviously, the liberal wing of the Democrat party will have some problems with her non-position position. But I don't see how this costs her anything in the primaries, or in the long run. But let’s see how she votes on the full bill, or if she does.

RNC goes Daisy

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:22:00 +0000

The Republican National Committee has a new ad warning that Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are playing into terrorists' hands by trying to block permanent changes to surveillance law. Not that Republicans haven't been playing tough over this issue. They’ve also tried to assert that if the Protect America Act is allowed to expire, all intelligence-gathering will come to a halt. That's not true, although it could be harder to monitor new targets.

But what's noteworthy about this RNC ad is that we've seen it before, in the Johnson-Goldwater campaign from 1964. The famous (or infamous, if you supported Goldwater) “Daisy” spot was only aired once, but may have so successfully stoked Americans’ fears about nuclear annihilation that it helped LBJ win the election. The RNC ad all but says Americans will be killed by Al Qaeda if Clinton or Obama win the presidency. Expect to see the full-fledged Daisy version as we get closer to November.

Putting that aside for the moment, what's perhaps most politically notable about the GOP-Dem fight over the Protect America Act is that the Democrats have been unable to capitalize on their position for their own gain. They don’t really want to bankrupt telecommunications companies who helped the NSA monitor phone calls and e-mails after 9/11, even though they did so without traditional warrants. And neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that the law shouldn't be changed to make it easier for intelligence agencies to do their job. The politics of this debate have become so basic that there's little room left for serious debate or discussion of broader implications from a change to law, and whether those should be taken into consideration.

I think that if you assess this fight purely on the politics, Democrats are once again coming out on the losing end. They seem either unwilling or unable to assert an alternative to the kind of line the RNC is putting out in its video, which may have some fair points but obviously is not designed to encourage an intellectual discussion. This is all very strange, because Democrats have proposed dramatic changes to surveillance law that their traditional allies in the civil liberties community find repugnant. It's not as if Dems are truly obstructionist on this stuff. But they are letting themselves be painted as such.

DNI cautions senators on Iran intel

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Saying he wanted "to be very clear in addressing the Iranian nuclear capability," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee today that Iran continues down a path that could lead to construction of a nuclear weapon. Reiterating what appears to be a coordinated line of thinking, McConnell said that Iran is still enriching uranium and building missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. These are two of the three legs in the stool of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

While not refuting the judgment of his intelligence agencies that Iran halted the third leg, a set of covert, military-run nuclear weapons activities, McConnell clearly wanted to tamp down the dramatic headline of the recent National Intelligence Estimate, which gave the strong impression that Iran's nuclear program is, at least temporarily, on ice.

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities, as well as its covert military uranium conversion and enrichment-related activities, for at least several years. Because of intelligence gaps, [the Department of Energy] and the [National Intelligence Council] assess with only moderate confidence that all such activities were halted. We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted these activities as of mid-2007, but since they comprised an unannounced secret effort which Iran attempted to hide, we do not know if these activities have been restarted.

For good measure, McConnell added, "I note again that two activities relevant to a nuclear weapons capability continue: uranium enrichment that will enable the production of fissile material and development of long-range ballistic missile systems."

This is now the official counterargument to the NIE. The fact that these statements come from the man who is ultimately responsible for that document is, as best I can tell, unprecedented.

Israel adds a (much anticipated) dissent on Iran NIE

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:09:00 +0000

The list is growing. Israel has now come out against the United States' National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, declaring that the country is three years away from obtaining offensive nuclear capabilities. Mossad chief Meir Dagan presented that assessment to a Knesset committee Monday, and added that the NIE "pulls the rug out from under" attempts to halt the Iranian program diplomatically, "leaving Israel to face the threat alone."

Who is out there actually defending the NIE? Israel now joins the French, the President of the United States, and the U.S. Director of National Intelligence in concluding that Iran is still on the path to a nuke, despite the NIE's judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weaponization program years ago. Like the other NIE skeptics, Israel homes in on two key pillars of a nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and ballistic missile construction, and concludes that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are alive and thriving. (President Bush made this case publicly, as well.)

Israel's departure with the NIE differed in that it rebuked the document itself as diplomatically counterproductive, something that, so far, only staunch critics of the intelligence community in the United States have done. Israel’s reaction is hardly surprising, of course, given its particularly precarious position in the region, and its long-standing insistence that Iran is either close or very close to developing a nuclear weapon.

But the fact that Israel is now on record against the U.S. conclusion is an important development, and could signal the start of a new international alliance, backed by President Bush himself, against the NIE’s conclusion, which will continue to be painted as rosy, overly optimistic, and fundamentally off-the-mark because it doesn’t rank the enrichment and missile programs highly enough in the final calculation. Will the authors of the NIE defend their work again, as they did so forcefully when their key judgments were declassified late last year? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here’s something from the vault on Israel’s historic insistence that Iran was practically within reach of a nuke. In October 2006, I sat in on a meeting between then-Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Daniel Ayalon, then Israel’s ambassador to the United States. (I was writing a profile of Weldon, and the two men had previously scheduled this meeting in Weldon's office.) The conversation turned to Iran's nuclear ambitions, a topic that had possessed Weldon's interest. Like the Israelis, he insisted that Iran was closer to a weapon than most people thought, and that the United States perilously underestimated the regime.

Weldon told Ayalon that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two years. A military attaché who had accompanied Ayalon to the meeting replied, with a smile, "We say less." It was a chilling moment, in and of itself. But it also stood out because, at the time, such a dire assessment was at odds with most experts' opinion, as well as the judgment of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. They estimated then that Iran's weapons program was at least five years from maturity and probably more, given Iran's difficulty producing the necessary materials for a bomb. It's worth noting that, around the time of this meeting, the intelligence community would have been in the early stages of its reassessment of the Iranian program, which resulted in last year's NIE and the about-face on the previous assessment.

Security risks in FISA reform

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Several noted computer security experts have an interesting paper in the current issue of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine. Rather than critique the civil liberties implications of the Protect America Act, the "fix" to intelligence wiretapping and surveillance law being debated in Congress, the experts examine potential security weaknesses in the surveillance system run by the National Security Agency, the system that the act affects.

The authors’ essential concerns stem from the design of the surveillance system itself, which they regard as inherently—and perhaps unavoidably—prone to abuse, both from outside forces and, more likely, government insiders.

First, they argue that the “surveillance architecture implied by the Protect America Act will, by its very nature, capture some purely domestic communications...” This seems plausible, considering the design of modern telecom networks, which the authors do a good job of summarizing in easy-to-understand terms. They spend a fair amount of the paper describing how the NSA’s system would inevitably capture purely domestic communications without a warrant—which would be illegal, even if unintentional—and also how hackers could theoretically penetrate the system and steal communications and other intelligence. The authors acknowledge that the design of the NSA's surveillance apparatus is still secret, but they base their assessments of how it works on press accounts, changes in surveillance law, and on accounts by a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, about an alleged NSA listening post in San Francisco that siphons off traffic from the company’s network.

Another fascinating aspect of the surveillance system involves the use of call detail records, which I've written about in some detail. Specifically, the authors are concerned that CDRs, which the government probably can obtain without a warrant, can reveal an enormous amount of personal information about an individual, even though the records only contain so-called “meta data,” such as when a call was placed, what number was called, how long the call lasted, and so on. Could CDRs be a productive form of warantless surveillance?

The authors also point out that CDR information can be inaccurate. The NSA uses meta data to decide which conversations and e-mails to listen to or read. So, if the targeting data is bad, how can the NSA be sure it’s intercepting the appropriate communications? To remedy any potential abuse, intentional or otherwise, the authors recommend “frequent ex post facto review of CDR-based real-time targeting.”

There are some indications in the Protect America Act that this review would occur. The government would be required, for instance, to demonstrate to a secret intelligence court that the means by which it determines the location of certain targets is “reasonable.” (The location of a target is a key factor in whether the NSA can intercept without warrants.) But it remains to be seen how this ex post facto review would work in practice, and whether it would involve CDRs.

A number of the authors have quite a history opposing various enhancements to government surveillance of telecom networks, but their report is by no means an outright condemnation of the pending law or NSA’s activities. It’s worth a read just for the technical explanations of how very difficult it is to intercept communications on the net. But they also offer some constructive suggestions and cautionary tales for a surveillance system that we’ll all be living with for the foreseeable future.

France says "non" to Iran NIE

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:12:00 +0000

So now, in addition to the Director of National Intelligence, and the President of the United States, add the French government to the dissent column on the explosive National Intelligence Estimate on

Iran

's nuclear weapons program.

Herve Morin, the French defense minister, was in Washington yesterday, and he said that “coordinated information from a number of intelligence services leads us to believe that Iran has not given up its wish to pursue its [nuclear] program,” and is “continuing to develop” it. Morin (unsurprisingly) called upon the International Atomic Energy Agency to “continue carrying out all the necessary investigations” into Iran's nuclear activities. The IAEA has also doubted U.S. intelligence.

The French dissent is significant on a number of levels. First, France is a key ally in the administration’s hard line against the Iranian regime, and having their defense minister sound such a provocative note of caution could help put the wind back in the administration’s sails as it tries to rally international pressure on Iran. When the NIE reversed earlier claims that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon, it presumably undercut the administration’s push to impose harsher international sanctions on Iran.

Second, note that Morin said “a number of intelligence services” had provided information that led France not to concur with the United States’ key judgments—ones, it should be noted, that the president sought to distance himself from the very day they were declassified. France is saying that a community of nations, which certainly includes Israel, have pooled their notes, and that they find plenty of reason to believe the United States is missing the mark. This contrary assessment probably hinges on Iran’s continued pursuit of enriched uranium, as well as its ongoing ballistic missile program. (See my previous post on how President Bush homed in on these legs in Iran’s nuclear platform.) France has expressed great concern over Iran's pursuit of ballistic missiles, which could threaten Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

The Russian and Chinese governments—whose support for sanctions is key at the United Nations—haven’t come out in opposition to the NIE, but it doesn’t hurt President Bush’s case to keep up the pressure by having a key European ally come over to his side, especially one that feels threatened by Iran. The United Nations Security Council this week considered a new proposal from the United States and France, among others, for new sanctions against Iran.

Presidential dissent on the NIE?

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:57:00 +0000

President Bush offered fresh evidence in his State of the Union address last night that not all decision-makers share the intelligence community's view on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Although he was remarkably restrained in his rhetoric--particularly in comparison to years past--Bush homed in on Iran's uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs to remind us that the country still poses a mortal threat.

Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon. [Note: The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program doesn't contradict him on this point.] ... Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home and cease your support for terror abroad. But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.

The NIE concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but it narrowly defined said program as "Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work," as well as its covert work to convert and enrich uranium. In other words, this assessment does not cover Iran's civilian enrichment work, which holds so-called "breakout potential" for a weapons program, nor does it cover work on building a missile to deliver a bomb. Still, it seems the community's view is that a full weapons program cannot come to fruition without the key weaponization piece.

The president, though, clearly thinks otherwise, and he's not alone. No less than the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, said recently that he thinks--apparently despite the NIE's findings--that Iran is on the path to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This all could be evidence of a high-level split between the intelligence community and its customers. But there's another possibility. Intelligence is a special policy input, but it is, in the end, just one input. It's usually a mistake to take any single NIE or intelligence stream as dispositive. The president learned that painful lesson in the run-up to war in Iraq. Some might find it refreshing that this administration, even if in its final days, is not once again hanging its policy towards a key Middle Eastern country on inherently murky intelligence. It just may be that this time the country in question actually does have nuclear weapons, despite what the intelligence community believes.

Cyber Cold War gets its battle plans

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:03:00 +0000

President Bush has signed a directive that formally kicks off what intelligence reporters have been chronicling for months: The National Security Agency, the nation's electronic eavesdropping agency, will take a new, presumably aggressive role in responding to Internet-based attacks against government agencies.

The Washington Post broke news of Bush's directive on Friday, and the Baltimore Sun had been following this in considerable detail for months. Of particular interest is the distinctly military character of this new plan, known simply as the "cyber initiative" inside government. According to the Post, once the NSA determines that a hostile nation or Internet threat is targeting a government system, the Pentagon can strike back.

The Pentagon can plan attacks on adversaries' networks if, for example, the NSA determines that a particular server in a foreign country needs to be taken down to disrupt an attack on an information system critical to the U.S. government. That could include responding to an attack against a private-sector network, such as the telecom industry's, sources said.

Don't miss the importance of that last sentence. Our government's critical and sensitive information systems run on or are dependent upon privately-owned networks. An attack on AT&T, under this new initiative, can constitute an attack on the nation. The military's cyber attack capabilities are something of an open secret. Commanders love not to talk about them in on-the-record interviews.

This new initiative is meant to send a signal to our chief Cyber Cold War adversary, China: "We are going on the offensive." This campaign will, in some ways, be more significant than the war on terrorism. It will cost billions of dollars, implicate just as many of our most important policies--from privacy to secrecy to the authorities of the intelligence agencies--and ultimately could be a prelude to more overt, off-line conflicts. Settle in. This will be a long ride.

FISA has hit political rock bottom

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:05:00 +0000

The Protect America Act, a six-month modification to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that directly affects the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program, expires on Feb. 1. It's looking more and more like the Congress will punt on this one, passing another temporary extension--perhaps as short as one month--while lawmakers try and sort out a compromise on the law's most intractable issue: immunity for telecom companies that assisted the government in the NSA program after the 9/11 attacks.

The fact that there has yet been no bargain on this point is an excellent measure of just how politically poisonous the debate over intelligence gathering has become. When Protect America was enacted last summer, no one thought a permanent law would be stymied by the immunity debate. As I wrote last month, immunity is actually a Trojan Horse for the administration's critics to pry loose more information about classified intelligence activities.

Very few lawmakers honestly believe that the telecom companies acted in bad faith when they helped the government monitor phone calls and e-mails, and very few want to expose those companies to potentially devastating lawsuits. There is also very little practical difference in the kind of permanent eavesdropping laws that Republicans and Democrats want to enact. (See Ben Wittes' excellent analysis on this fromThe New Republic.)

Given their positions, there's no logical reason, or even a very principled one, why congressional Democrats and Republicans and the White House can't hammer out a deal here. The FISA debate has now become utterly political. And despite how one feels about the merits of this law or its proposed changes, history shows us that the mix of politics and intelligence is a dangerous one.

Say what? McConnell declares there's "no doubt" Iran is pursuing a nuke

noreply@blogger.com (Shane Harris) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker has a new (very long) piece on DNI Mike McConnell, the culmination of an apparently extraordinary level of access and series of intimate interviews. (Wright and McConnell ate together and flew once on the DNI's private plane.)

While I hate to say the piece didn't do much to illuminate McConnell's character, it also may have buried the lead. In the third to last paragraph of the 18-page article, the DNI drops what I consider a mini-bombshell: He thinks that Iran "is on the path to get a nuclear weapon."

That assessment stands in contrast to the intelligence community's official, coordinated judgment that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. That was the remarkable turn-about contained in the unclassified key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which McConnell released--after publicly vowing not to--last month.

Now, the NIE was uncertain about whether Iran was restarting its nuclear weapons program, and it certainly left open the possibility, but it seems to me a dramatic public pronouncement for the DNI to say he personally believes there's no doubt about Iran's intentions.

Here's the passage in question from Wright's article.

When we last spoke, McConnell said, 'There’s no doubt in this observer’s mind that Iran is on the path to get a nuclear weapon. It will force an arms race in the region.'

As Wright chronicles in his piece, McConnell has recently shown a tendency to say things off-the-cuff that turn out to be not quite accurate, but this statement is rather emphatic. Indeed, the term "no doubt" is a much bolder assertion than the intelligence community's mark of "high confidence," used in NIEs to indicate that the assessment is based on high-quality information. One has to presume that, as the nation's top intelligence official, McConnell has access to the very best information. So what does he know that we don't after reading the NIE?

For background on the build-up to the NIE's release, see my story from National Journal last month, "The Other About Face on Iran."