Tag Archives: NSA

House NSA Reform Bill is Imperfect But Could be Made Much Worse

A bill passed by the House last week to reform NSA’s metadata phone records collection program – the USA Freedom Act — is far from perfect and will impose limits on this counterterrorism program that will reduce its effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is urgent that the Senate pass this bill in its current form and resist pressure to weaken it from the news media and left-wing privacy advocates. While many NSA supporters are unhappy about the text of the House bill, it is a compromise reflecting the reality that regardless of the merits and capabilities of the metadata program, it has been so damaged by fear-mongering attacks by the press and some politicians that it cannot continue in its current form.

Controversy over the NSA metadata collection program was sparked by leaks of classified documents to the news media by former NSA technician Edward Snowden. The metadata program under which NSA collects telephone records – not the contents of phone calls – has been deemed legal in about 35 out of 37 legal challenges. One district judge ruled the program was illegal and a violation of the fourth amendment last December. Another judge issued a ruling strongly supporting the program a few weeks later. While the Supreme Court will ultimately rule on recent contradictory court decisions on this program, the Court on April 7 declined to take on this issue, instead allowing it to first work its way through lower courts.

This article follows-up on the Center for Security Policy’s prior publications on NSA reforms precipitated by the Snowden leaks. These include:

Center for Security Policy Issues Rebuttal of Obama Panel’s NSA Reform Recommendations (January 13, 2014)

Senior National Security, Intelligence Professionals Warn President Obama Against Damaging US Collection Sources and Methods (January 17, 2014)

New Center Study Warns President Obama’s NSA Reforms Jeopardize National Security (January 27, 2014)

Critics of the metadata program have insisted it is a violation of the personal privacy rights of American and that there is no evidence this program helped protect the United States from terrorist attacks. Senior intelligence officials dispute such claims and point out that the metadata program has been carefully overseen by the courts and the intelligence oversight committees. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has defended the metadata program and said during a January 14, 2014 Judiciary Committee hearing that this program helped stop terrorist plots to bomb the New York City subway, the New York stock exchange, and a Danish newspaper.

House Intelligence Committee members hoped to pass legislation to address the public’s concerns about the metadata program by tightening the program without weakening it. When this became politically impossible, they merged their bill with a House Judiciary Committee bill, producing legislation that weakens the program but allows it to continue.

Under the USA Reform Act, phone companies, not NSA, will maintain metadata databases. This data will be held by phone companies for 18 months versus the five years it is currently held by NSA. Instead of the current arrangement under which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court issues NSA with 90-day “basket” court orders to search the metadata database, NSA will now need to obtain a court order every time it wants to query the database on a specific phone number. In emergencies, NSA will be permitted access to the metadata database for seven days before getting court approval.

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) has criticized the USA Freedom Act for the damage he believes it will do to the metadata program’s effectiveness as a counterterrorism tool and hopes to amend the bill. King believes the bill’s requirement that NSA obtain court orders for the metadata program on a case-by-case basis will significantly hamper the program. He also believes having phone companies retain phone metadata could create real threats to the privacy of Americans because a larger set of non-U.S. government personnel will be handing this data in several companies. I agree with Mr King but I regret that there does not appear to be enough political support in the House for his amendment to pass.

The House passed the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 303-to-121 with a majority of both Republican and Democratic members in support. However, privacy advocates, technology companies, the New York Times and many House members oppose it, claiming the bill dilutes stronger language from an earlier version, requires insufficient “transparency” of the metadata program, and allows it to essentially operate as it does today. Major House critics of the bill include Justin Amash (R-Michigan) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California) who are demanding the bill be substantially revised to either shut down the NSA metadata program or to place so many restrictions on the program that NSA would find it impossible to use.

For example, Lofgren wants to amend the bill so NSA would not only need a court order to query the phone records of an American citizen but would also need to certify that the American in question is the target of an active counterintelligence investigation. This is an impossible standard that would prevent NSA from pursuing huge numbers of terrorist leads. Her amendment would change the bill’s current language allowing NSA to query the phone records of Americans if they are reasonably suspected of having links to an agent of a foreign power.

While President Obama has a mixed record in defending NSA against the onslaught of criticism sparked by the Snowden leaks, his administration deserves credit for forcing the House to make important last-minute changes to the USA Freedom Act. This includes loosening restrictions on how NSA can query the metadata database and restricting when companies can reveal government requests for this data. Obama officials also arranged for declassification decisions to be made by the Director of National Intelligence, not the Attorney General, and to drop language to create an independent advocate for FISA court hearings.

These changes fall short of what Congressman King is proposing but they probably pushed the bill as far as possible without endangering its bipartisan support in the House. The USA Freedom Act now goes to the Senate where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has asked Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy to review the bill.

Senator Feinstein, who has proposed narrower restrictions to the metadata program, said she is open to the USA Freedom Act. Given the Obama administration’s support of the bill, she is likely to push through an identical version from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The bill faces trouble from Senator Leahy who has said the final version passed by the House omits important reforms from a previous version that he plans to restore. Leahy will be joined by Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado), three far-left senators who have been fighting a losing battle in the Democrat-controlled Intelligence Committee to gut the metadata program.

Teaming up with the news media and privacy advocates, who have already begun a campaign against the USA Freedom Act, Leahy will push hard to add language to a Senate version that will essentially end the NSA metadata program.

The Senate vote on NSA reform will come down to the loyalty of Democratic senators to the president and Senator Feinstein’s ability to counter Leahy. If Leahy succeeds in passing a Senate version with major changes, he will upset delicate compromises that led to the House bill, possibly causing it to collapse. Given the continuing controversy over NSA collection and the upcoming congressional elections, this could result in a new bill closer to what Leahy wants that would put other damaging limitations on vital NSA collection programs.

Many NSA supporters are understandably disappointed with the House USA Freedom Act. However, due to the erosion of public support for the metadata program, I believe this bill is the only way to save it. It is therefore essential that Americans concerned about U.S. national security push for passage of this bill and call on Democratic and Republican senators to resist pressure to weaken it from the left-wing senators, the news media and privacy advocates.

Ramping Down the War on Terror? The Enemy Gets a Vote

National security officials are making known that they do not concur with the Obama Administration’s assessment that the “War on Terror” is ramping down.

First was FBI Director James Comey, who admitted to the New York Times that,

“I didn’t have anywhere near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how virulent those affiliates had become,” Mr. Comey said, referring to offshoots of Al Qaeda in Africa and in the Middle East during an interview in his sprawling office on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. “There are both many more than I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated.”

That sentiment has been echoed by NSA director Keith Alexander, who warned the New Yorker, “But I do think people need to know that we’re at greater risk, and there’s a lot more coming my way.”

Likewise The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake speaks to senior intelligence officials, who paint a picture of an Intelligence Community in metaphorical open revolt against an Administration that they insist is downplaying and dismissing vital threats:

One senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast the frustration was that there is pressure from the White House to downplay the threat from some al Qaeda affiliates. “It comes from the top, it’s the message that al Qaeda is all these small franchise groups and they are not coordinated and threatening,” this official said. “It’s the whole idea of getting us out to place resources against something that they don’t think is a problem. It’s not their war, it’s not our conflict.”

Unfortunately the hundred or so American passport-holding jihadists who have flocked to battlefields like Syria  do not agree. For the enemy it will never be “just a local conflict.”

Likewise, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Al Qaeda’s “Shadow Army” waits in the wings for our withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Washington Times notes:

Several lawmakers and former senior intelligence officials have raised concerns that the al Qaeda movement today controls more territory around the world than it did when it was based in Afghanistan under bin Laden before Sept. 11. Concern that Afghanistan may again become a haven for the terrorist network has added another twist to the debate over the extent of the al Qaeda threat facing the United States.

That we are fighting a battle over the nature and size of the threat, so long after 9/11 is a sad indictment of the fact that this country never established clear knowledge of the enemy threat doctrine. Instead we’ve allowed socioeconomic theories to drive our response, as seen most notably in the State Department’s refrain of “economic deprivation” when referring to Boko Haram’s jihad against Christian Nigerians and those they consider apostates.

The reality is that our enemies are self-declared mujahideen, fighting jihad fisabilillah (Jihad in the cause of Allah), in order to establish shariah everywhere, whether it is in Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, or in America. We have failed to understand the goal of the jihadists is not to establish territory under their rule in order to facilitate attacks on America, but to attack America in order to weaken us enough that they can safely establish territory where they can apply shariah. Using that standard, the spread of so-called “affiliates” across the global is not a dispersion of Al Qaeda, but the unchecked growth of jihad, regardless of whether a particular group is in direct communication with senior leaders of Al Qaeda or not.

Only by studying the enemy threat doctrine can we draw an accurate determination of whether the enemy is stronger or weaker, achieving his objectives or falling short.

As the Senate considers revoking or scaling down the authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against Al Qaeda, they should recall the military maxim that “the enemy gets a vote.”

Center launches new Intelligence Brief series

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellows bring of wealth of skills and experience to Center programs and initiatives.  Two of those, Fred Fleitz and Clare Lopez, have applied their expertise to a new video project.  Fleitz served in U.S. national security positions for 25 years at the CIA, DIA, Department of State and the House Intelligence Committee staff, while Lopez is a former 20-year career operations officer with the CIA, and a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.  Find their first two intelligence briefs below:

The Benghazi Coverup and the Politicization of Intelligence

See also Benghazi and the Politicization of Intelligence by Clare Lopez

NSA Metadata Program and Internet Monitoring

See also A Critique of President Obama’s Reforms of U.S. Intelligence

NSA IG Gets It Mostly Right on Snowden

Politico reported this week that NSA Inspector General George Ellard slammed Edward Snowden during a Georgetown University panel on Tuesday, saying that “Snowden could have come to me.” Ellard said Snowden would have been given the same protections as other NSA employees who file approximately 1,000 complaints per year and that his complaint would have led to an independent assessment on the constitutionality of the metadata program.

Ellard also insisted that “allowing people who have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, to protect these national-security interests, simply to violate or break that oath, is unacceptable.”

I agree with these comments. Snowden has still not explained why he did not bother to use established NSA channels to raise his concerns. Of course it is hard to conceive of a legitimate whistleblowing complaint that would justify stealing 1.7 million classified documents and fleeing to China and Russia.

Unfortunately, Ellard weakened his case when he said if Snowden had filed a complaint with the NSA IG, it would have attempted to explain to him that the metadata program was legal. If Snowden was not convinced, Ellard said NSA would then have allowed him to speak with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees where Ellard thinks he would have found “a welcoming audience” in the Senate Intelligence Committee.

These comments indicate that NSA and the rest of the U.S. Intelligence Community are still clueless about how to deal with the Snowden leaks. Ellard should have said that although NSA expects its employees to follow the law and go through formal channels, if they feel they cannot do so, they should go to the intelligence committees, not the press.

I know from my time at the CIA and on the House Intelligence Committee staff that some intelligence officers ignore their agency’s rules on communications with Congress and provide classified information under the table to the congressional oversight committees in a whistleblowing capacity. Ellard must know this too.

The idea that NSA would “allow” Snowden to go to Congress if it could not disabuse him of his concerns reflects a pointless separation of powers struggle. Obviously the White House doesn’t want intelligence officers briefing Congress on their own. However, I believe the executive branch giving up a little turf to Congress for a small number of whistleblowing complaints is a small price to pay given the alternative of multi-billion-dollar intelligence programs being ruined by disgruntled intelligence officers like Snowden who don’t have the courage to approach their IGs.

As I explained in an NRO article last August, “Preventing Future Snowdens,” the intelligence oversight committees should be designated as safe harbors for would-be intelligence whistleblowers so they can report their concerns to Congress without fear of retaliation and to discourage them from leaking national-security information to the news media. I note in my article that this is not a new idea and was almost approved by Congress in 1998.

I agree with George Ellard that the inspectors general of U.S. intelligence agencies generally do a good job and handle thousands of complaints. But more must be done to provide an alternative to leaking to the news media by would-be intelligence whistleblowers who refuse to file their complaints through the system. Some conscientious intelligence officers are already doing this behind the backs of their agencies. It is time to legalize this process.

Six Important Take-Aways from the Intelligence Committee Threat Hearings

Over the last week, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees held their annual unclassified hearings on worldwide threats facing the United States.  Testifying to the hearings were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and DIA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

The news media’s treatment of the hearings was predictably poor and superficial.  Here is what the Center believes are the top six take-aways that you need to know from these hearings.

1. A Growing Worldwide Terrorist Threat

All five witnesses stressed the increasing threat from a reconstituted and decentralized al-Qaeda organization which is expanding its influence, especially in Syria and North Africa.  CIA Director Brennan warned about al-Qaeda activity in Iraq and Syria, telling the House Intelligence Committee: “We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the Al Qaeda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria, but also to use Syria as a launching pad.  There are camps inside of both Iraq and Syria that are used by Al Qaeda to develop capabilities that are applicable, both in the theater, as well as beyond.”

2. Sharply Increased Risk of Cyber Attacks by State and Non-State Actors

The U.S. intelligence community sees growing risks from cyberwarfare because government and personal functions are increasingly tied to the Internet and potential offensive cyber operations by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, terrorist organizations, and cyber criminal organizations.  U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia continues to target U.S. and allied personnel with access to sensitive computer network information.  China is trying to weaken U.S. dominance of Internet governance while continuing an expansive worldwide program of network exploitation and intellectual property theft.

3. The Snowden Leaks Will Result in the Loss of American Lives

In response to questions by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI), DIA Director Flynn discussed a recent damage assessment by his agency on the leaks of classified information by former NSA technician Edward Snowden.  According to Flynn, the Snowden leaks will make it harder to detect IEDs threatening U.S. troops in Afghanistan, will put all U.S. servicemen at risk, and provided America’s adversaries important insights into U.S. military vulnerabilities.   Director Clapper added that the vast majority of Snowden’s leaks probably had nothing to do with NSA programs.

These findings are important because they put the lie to claims by Snowden and his supporters that he only leaked information about NSA programs and was careful not to release information that would cost lives or endanger U.S. security.

4. Senator Rockefeller Comes Out Against Obama NSA Reform Proposal

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), a liberal senator with whom the Center has rarely seen eye-to-eye on national security matters, surprised everyone at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing by supporting the NSA metadata program in its current form and opposing President Obama’s proposal to move the metadata database to private parties.  Rockefeller said the metadata program, an NSA collection effort to gather telephone records, is an important counterterrorism tool and is already subject to numerous laws and regulations to ensure that it does not violate the privacy of Americans.  Rockefeller said he opposes the president’s proposal to take the metadata database away from NSA and giving it to private parties because such a move would put this information in the hands of personnel subject to significantly less stringent security clearance rules than NSA personnel, resulting in serious privacy and security risks.  The Center for Security Policy commends Senator Rockefeller for stating his strongly held views on the metadata program which are identical to a recent Center study.  (Click HERE to read the Center’s January 27, 2014 study, New Center Study Warns President Obama’s NSA Reforms Jeopardize National Security.)

5. Senate Intelligence Committee Leftists Tried to Hijack Threat Hearing

With three exceptions, the members at both intelligence hearings were civil, professional and took seriously witness testimony about increased threats from terrorism, cyberwarfare, and leaks of U.S. intelligence.  The three exceptions were Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Senator Mark Udall (D-UT) and Senator Mark Heinrich (D-NM).

Instead of listening to the testimony about dire foreign threats facing this country, Wyden, Udall, and Heinrich took the nonsensical position that U.S. intelligence agencies are the main threat to American liberty.  Wyden accused top intelligence leaders of lying to the American people and a “reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law.”  Udall and Heinrich attacked the CIA for refusing to cooperate with the committee’s investigation of the Bush-era enhanced interrogation program.  (Why is the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2014 still investigating the Bush administration?)  Heinrich accused the CIA of making inaccurate public statements about a secret CIA study on enhanced interrogations, claiming that the agency has tried to “intimidate, deflect and thwart legitimate oversight.”

The witnesses mostly ignored questions posed by Wyden, Udall, and Heinrich, noting that they were not germane to a hearing on global threats.  To her credit, Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) stated that she agreed with this response.

Not surprisingly, the scaremongering and histrionics of Wyden, Udall, and Heinrich received significant press play.  This is unfortunate since their views were not shared by other Senate or House Intelligence Committee members.  The three senators represent a small minority who tried to exploit an open hearing because a bipartisan majority has repeatedly refused to support them in committee votes.

6. Intelligence Officials Feigned Ignorance on Possible Belarussian Cyber Compromise of Obamacare Website, Americans’ Personal Information and Government Databases

During the February 4th House Intelligence Committee threat hearing, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann read aloud most of a February 3 Washington Free Beacon article by Bill Gertz that said U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check the Obamacare website (healthcare.gov) for malicious software after learning that web developers linked to the authoritarian Belarus government helped developed the site.  Mr. Gertz wrote that there have been cyber attacks against the United States originating from Belarus in the past and said an NSC spokeswoman recently commented on an intelligence report about involvement of Belarus programmers in constructing the Obamacare website.

Bachmann was so perplexed that all of the witnesses claimed to be unaware of this issue and the Free Beacon article that she individually polled each witness. The Center shares Congresswoman Bachmann’s concern. It is impossible to believe that the DNI, CIA, DIA and FBI Directors knew nothing about the Gertz article given their large support staffs, the fact that this article was 24 hours old and comments made about this issue by an NSC spokeswoman. What is more, Mr. Gertz reported that the Obama administration also directed the intelligence community to withdraw its report.

The most charitable explanation is that the witnesses feigned ignorance so they could avoid commenting on the controversial issue of the Obamacare website’s security vulnerabilities.

In response to the Free Beacon piece, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and Congresswoman Bachmann demanded an independent security evaluation of the Obamacare website.

New Center Study Warns President Obama’s NSA Reforms Jeopardize National Security

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ben Lerner, lerner@securefreedom.org; (202) 719-2409

New Center Study Warns President Obama’s NSA Reforms Jeopardize National Security

(Washington, D.C.):  The Center for Security Policy has released a report analyzing reforms announced by President Obama in in the wake of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s unauthorized disclosure of vital intelligence programs.  The Center’s new analysis, A Critique of President Obama’s Reforms of U.S. Intelligence, concludes that while the president decided to reject some of the more radical recommendations made by a panel he named last summer, the reforms he announced will seriously undermine U.S. intelligence capabilities and could damage American national security.

The report – authored by CSP Senior Fellows and former Central Intelligence Agency analysts Fred Fleitz and Clare M. Lopez – in part consists of the following observations:

  • President Obama’s reforms of NSA programs reflect a dangerous bias against signals intelligence and could weaken the crucial role it plays in gathering intelligence to protect our nation’s security.
  • Despite the president’s claims that the NSA metadata is an important program designed to fill pre-9/11 intelligence gaps, the changes he has mandated would impose bureaucratic and legal hurdles that will make it almost impossible to use.
  • The president’s proposal to move the metadata database from NSA to a third party would create real privacy concerns.
  • President Obama’s directive that signals intelligence collection must respect the privacy rights of non-U.S. citizens is inconsistent with the nature of intelligence and will harm U.S. national security.  We are especially concerned that this will make collection difficult against terrorists in friendly countries planning attacks against U.S. interests.
  • The president’s decision to exempt dozens of foreign heads of state from U.S. intelligence surveillance is a serious mistake.  We are very concerned about this because of the occasional need to surveil close allies to learn leadership plans and intentions related to important U.S. interests.
  • Congress should reject President Obama’s proposal for FISA Court advocates.  This idea will further complicate what is already a cumbersome legal process in the name of addressing what are unfounded privacy concerns.
  • Care must be taken in declassifying information on sensitive intelligence programs.  We are concerned that Mr Obama’s rush to declassify FISA court decisions and national security letters is endangering sensitive electronic surveillance programs, sources and methods and will enable  America’s adversaries to better conceal their malevolent intentions and activities.
  • While we agree with President Obama’s proposal to study “Big Data,” we are concerned that the commission he proposes will narrowly focus on privacy concerns and ignore intelligence collection possibilities.
  • Instead of focusing on alleged and unproven privacy concerns from U.S. intelligence programs stemming from the compromise of classified documents by Edward Snowden, President Obama’s intelligence reform speech should have focused on improving the security clearance process and the security of classified networks.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, commented: “Many critics of NSA programs – and even some of their supporters – have dismissed President Obama’s intelligence reform speech as inconsequential, mere window dressing or an exercise in splitting the difference.  This is not the case.  As the Center’s Fred Fleitz and Clare Lopez make clear in this new report, many of the President Obama’s announced changes will damage crucial signals intelligence efforts.  In particular, his extending of privacy protections to non-U.S. citizens threatens to undermine all U.S. intelligence collection.  It is crucial that U.S. intelligence officials and Members of Congress weigh in with the president to stop these reforms and protect U.S. security in a dangerous world.”

The full Center for Security Policy report is available here: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Critique-of-Obamas-Intel-Reforms.pdf

See also Mr. Fleitz and Ms. Lopez’s previous analysis, entitled Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies

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Obama Splits the N.S.A. Baby

King Solomon was immortalized for saving a baby’s life by threatening to split it between the real mother and a pretender.  President Obama may become infamous for actually splitting the baby with his decision Friday to praise, and then undermine, critical intelligence collection operations conducted by the National Security Agency.

In fact, much of the speech could have been given by any national security-minded American leader. It was full of the sort of statements that are not heard often enough these days, particularly from this Commander-in-Chief: “Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms….Emerging threats from terrorist groups and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction place new and, in some ways, more complicated demands on our intelligence agencies.”

Mr. Obama added: “They were now asked to identify and target plotters is some of the most remote parts of the world and to anticipate the actions of networks that, by their very nature, could not be easily penetrated by spies or informants. And it is a testimony to the hard work and dedication of the men and women of our intelligence community that over the past decade we’ve made enormous strides in fulfilling this mission.”

The money quote in this part of the speech would seem to have been: “I did not stop these [intelligence collection] programs wholesale, not only because I felt that they made us more secure, but also because nothing in that initial review and nothing that I have learned since indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens.”

Then, there was the other part of the speech. It unveiled a series of decisions that would, if not stop, certainly will compromise those programs – seemingly without regard for the consequences the President warned against in the rest of his address. That was the part with the operational – rather than rhetorical – passages.

If there were any lingering doubt that there is national security fraud being perpetrated by Team Obama, the newly announced policy on intelligence collection should put it to rest.

For example, there was Mr. Obama’s change to the so-called Sec. 215 programs, whereby the NSA collects and analyzes what is known as phone record “metadata” – numbers called by whom, when and for how long. The President declared that they would immediately begin transitioning to a new arrangement for holding and accessing such information.  The problem is that the President not only dispensed with the present practice – whereby the government obtains such data from phone companies and internet providers, and is able to examine it, but not the contents of conversations, without the  time-consuming court orders that might be the difference between life and death in countering terrorist plots. He also rejected the two obvious alternatives: the companies that generate the records holding them or some new, private third-party entity doing so.

In addition, Mr. Obama extended some ill-defined privacy rights to “ordinary people” overseas.  The dangers with these pledges should be obvious.  Terrorists hide among “ordinary people” – especially when the Obama Justice Department now says that “religion” can no longer be used as an indicator for investigators. Since the administration does not understand that the Islamic doctrine of shariah is a supremacist political agenda that requires its adherents to engage in holy war or jihad, not constitutionally protected religious practice, those charged with protecting the rest of us are being further blinded and hobbled in their missions.

The President also declared that NSA would stop eavesdropping on “friendly and allied” foreign leaders.  The obvious question is: Does that rule out monitoring communications between adversaries like China’s Xi Jinping and “friends” like Germany’s Angela Merkel about collaboration that may conflict with our vital interests? It is a serious mistake to rule out any opportunity to have what the military calls “situational awareness” about such adversaries, especially if they are making inroads in undermining our alliances.

Less obvious is what happens when a foreign leader is a putative ally, but does not behave like one. Mr. Obama says that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan is one of his closest friends among counterparts overseas. Yet, Erdogan has been fundamentally transforming his country’s secular Muslim democracy into an Islamist autocracy with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and even al Qaeda. Again, he should be monitored closely, not give a pass by U.S. intelligence.

Some intelligence professionals are consoling themselves with notion that the President could have done even more damage, for instance, by going after national security letters the FBI uses to inform investigations and barring NSA’s efforts to break foreign encryption programs.  Unfortunately, things will almost certainly get worse as Mr. Obama entrusted implementation to Attorney General Eric Holder – including defining an alternative approach for the Section 215 programs by March 28th.

The good news is that, on the eve of the President’s address and under the sponsorship of the Center for Security Policy, a distinguished group of national security and intelligence professionals offered in an open letter to Mr. Obama principles and recommendations that would provide a far more sound basis for guiding our necessary collection programs and policies.  The Center also produced last week a white paper critiquing the “reform” proposals of a like-minded group the President commissioned, proposals he partly adopted. It is to be urgently hoped that Congress will draw on such guidance as it must now perform damage-control on the harm Team Obama is inflicting.

Barack Obama has split the NSA baby.  Split babies die.  Unforgivably and needlessly, so may innocent Americans.

Senior National Security, Intelligence Professionals Warn President Obama Against Damaging U.S. Collection Sources and Methods

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release 
For more information contact:

Alex VanNess
vanness@securefreedom.org
(202) 719-2421

Senior National Security, Intelligence Professionals Warn President Obama Against Damaging U.S. Collection Sources and Methods

Washington, D.C.: Seventeen former senior members of the U.S. intelligence and defense communities released today an open letter. they sent to President Obama on the eve of a presidential address in which he is expected to unveil changes to current intelligence collection policies, practices and programs.  Among the signatories were: former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former CIA Directors James Woolsey and Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Advisor to the President Fran Townsend, former National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave and the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

Five of the signatories participated this afternoon in a National Press Club press conference sponsored by the Center for Security Policy The event featured remarks by: Congressman Hoekstra, Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence; Admiral James “Ace” Lyons U.S. Navy (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations and Commander of the Pacific Fleet; and Center for Security Policy Senior Fellows Fred Fleitz and Clare Lopez.  The Center’s president, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. who formerly acted as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, moderated the program.

The participants discussed in some detail the findings and recommendations of an Independent Review Commission tasked by President Obama with evaluating National Security Agency and other intelligence collection capabilities.  They were the subject of a damning new study by Mr. Fleitz and Ms. Lopez entitled, “A Critique of the Recommendations by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communication Technologies”.  Press reports suggest that at least some of the Commission’s problematic inputs may be adopted by the President tomorrow.

The following were among the highlights of the briefers’ comments:

Rep. Hoekstra observed that: “Intelligence is the tip of the spear to keep America safe.  We need a robust intelligence community to fight and combat the kind of threat that America faces today.”

Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin characterized the threats being mounted by al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood as those of “a serious, sophisticated adversary and they do pose an existential threat to very future of America.” 

Ms. Lopez amplified on the threat by noting that: “These adversaries are not just highly educated, very tech savvy, very sophisticated.  But they are interconnected in a way that was not the case perhaps even 10 or 4 years ago.”

Fred Fleitz emphasized the importance of “big data” to U.S. intelligence collection requirements and capabilities, noting: “The [President’s] Review Group treats big data in a very negative way,” urging that “we have to better study what big data can accomplish to promote our national security”.

Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, said: “If I were a member of Al-Qaeda…I’d tell you to go out and endorse every one of the Presidential Review Group’s recommendations….I don’t see where any of these enhance the security of the American public or this great country”.

The open letter suggests a set of six principles to guide efforts at improving America’s vital intelligence collection capabilities, while preserving Americans’ constitutionally protected privacy rights:

  1. In a world that is every bit as dangerous as that of the immediate pre-9/11 period, a superior intelligence capability is the critical first line of defense in keeping our country safe.
  2. U.S. intelligence is an institution subject to the checks and balances of the Constitution, which includes strong – and bipartisan – oversight of the intelligence community by the executive branch, the Congress and the courts.
  3. U.S. intelligence programs must respect and protect American civil liberties.
  4. U.S. citizens and people residing within the United States have constitutional protections with regard to privacy and civil liberties.  Those rights do not, and must not, extend to non-U.S. persons abroad – who have none of the duties or obligations of citizens or residents.
  5. Legitimate whistle-blowers can make an indispensable contribution to effective oversight and deserve appropriate legal protections.
  6. U.S. businesses should not be subjected to undue burdens (either bureaucratic or competitive) in the course of cooperation with U.S. government entities engaged in intelligence collection against foreign threats.

The full Center for Security Policy report is available here: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NSA_report.pdf

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A Warning to Obama

Ever since Edward Snowden began disclosing highly classified information about the National Security Agency, Americans have been subjected to a steady drumbeat of demands to restrict, if not dismantle, the NSA.  President Obama is expected to announce today new limitations on ways in which intelligence is collected and potentially life-saving information made less available to counter-terrorist analysts.

These restrictions will compound the effects of Team Obama’s announcement yesterday that adherence to the jihadist Islamic code of shariah can’t be used to identify potential threats.

Fortunately, seventeen prominent former national security leaders have just warned Mr. Obama that, “In a world that is every bit as dangerous as that of the immediate pre-9/11 period, a superior intelligence capability is the critical first line of defense in keeping our country safe.”

Amen.

The NSA and Policy for Policy’s Sake

With Louie Gohmert, Bill Roggio, Bill Gertz, Fred Fleitz

LOUIE GOHMERT, US Representative from the First Congressional District of Texas, weighs in on the recent repudiation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as the ties between border security and immigration policy.

BILL ROGGIO, editor of the Long War Journal, outlines what the growing dangers in the Middle East are.

BILL GERTZ, reporter for the Washington Times and the Washington Free Beacon, theorizes what might happen to the way agencies like the NSA are allowed to collect data after President Obama’s planned speech tomorrow.

FRED FEITZ, managing editor of LIGNET.com, offers his critique on the recently proposed policy recommendations made in the Liberty and Security in A Changing World report, which addressed the issue of privacy rights and National Security Agency (NSA) collection practices.

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