Déjà Vu: When Bill Clinton Pardoned His Former CIA Director over Classified Documents on His Home Computer

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton insists she did nothing wrong by running all of her government communications, including classified material, through her unsecured, home-brewed computer server. Perhaps she’s forgotten one of her husband’s final acts in the Oval Office: issuing a presidential pardon to former CIA director John Deutch. Deutch’s offense? Keeping classified material on unsecured home computers.

The pardon came just as Deutch was reportedly going to cop a plea with the Justice Department. Deutch headed the CIA from May 1995 to December 1996. Several days after he left the agency, classified material was discovered on a government-owned computer at his house in Bethesda, Md. Additionally, unsecured classified magnetic media were found in the study. According to the CIA inspector general’s report, the computer had been “designated for unclassified use only.

” Unlike the current administration’s six-month delay in obtaining Clinton’s computer, the feds moved almost immediately in the Deutch case. Within ten days of discovering the errant material, they retrieved the hard drive from Deutch’s computer. A formal security investigation was opened within a month. 

RELATED: The People v. Hillary Rodham Clinton Notice 

that the government didn’t let Deutch’s lawyer pick and choose which e-mail communications to turn over. Rather, a “technical exploitation team, consisting of personnel expert in data recovery, retrieved the data from Deutch’s unclassified magnetic media and computers.”

As the investigation progressed, the IG discovered that Deutch had “continuously processed classified information on government-owned desktop computers configured for unclassified use during his tenure as DCI [director, CIA] [and that] . . .  these unclassified computers were located in [his] Bethesda, Maryland and Belmont, Massachusetts residences, his offices in the Old Executive Office Building, and at CIA Headquarters.” 

Notice that the government didn’t let Deutch’s lawyer pick and choose which e-mail communications to turn over.

 The computers, as configured and used, were “vulnerable to attacks by unauthorized persons.” The report stressed that “all [computers] were connected to or contained modems that allowed external connectivity to computer networks such as the Internet.” The information the security team retrieved from these computers included “Top Secret communications intelligence” as well as information on the “National Reconnaissance Program.” 

The IG criticized senior CIA officials for not taking appropriate action against Deutch when they were apprised of the results of the security investigation. That was one of the reasons the IG “initiated an independent investigation.”

Via: National Review

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[VIDEO] Benghazi night call between Clinton and Obama withheld, documents show

New documents released by a federal court show President Obama called then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the 2012 Benghazi attack -- but the contents are being withheld by the State Department. 

It had previously been disclosed that Clinton and Obama spoke the night of the terror attacks. But the documents offer additional information about the timing of the call -- after the initial attack on the U.S. consulate, but before the second wave where mortars hit the nearby CIA annex and killed former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. 

The contents of the call, however, are being withheld, not because the information is classified but because the administration claims they represent internal deliberations about the 2012 terror assault. 

The claim comes as Clinton also faces accusations that she withheld Benghazi-related emails from her private server in the trove of emails handed over to the State Department. 

The contents of the call were only shared with Obama's and Clinton's closest aides. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes sent an email on the call to State Department officials Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines, and National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan. 

The email was released as part of an ongoing lawsuit by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. 

The email on the Obama-Clinton phone call bears the subject line, "Call." The text of the email says, "Readout of President's Call to Secretary Clinton," but the rest of the details are fully redacted. The State Department cited the so-called "B5" exception for internal deliberations. 

Via: Fox News

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[VIDEO] Did Hack Include Files of CIA and Military Personnel? OPM Director: ‘I Would be Glad to Discuss That in a Classified Setting’

(CNSNews.com) - When Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta testified in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week she said that the personnel records of about 4.2 million current and former federal employees had been “compromised” by a “cyber intrusion” into the OPM’s computer systems.

She also said that “an additional OPM system was compromised.”

“These systems included information based on the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, as well as other individuals,” Archuleta told the committee under oath.

When Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz asked Archuleta whether this included the files on military and CIA personnel, Archuletta gave him an identical answer to each question.

“I would be glad to discuss that in a classified setting,” she said.

Here is part of the exchange between Achuleta in Chaffetz in which Archuleta says she will discuss “in a classified setting” whether the hack involved files of military and CIA personnel:

Chaffetz: Ms. Archuleta, my question for you is how big was this attack? How many federal workers have been compromised? We've heard 4 million, we've heard 14 million. What's the right number? Your microphone, please.

Archuleta: Sorry. During the course of the ongoing investigation into the cyber intrusion of OPM that compromised the current, the personnel records of current and former federal employees that we announced last week, that number is approximately 4.2 million. In addition, in the investigation of that breach, we discovered, as I mentioned in my testimony, an additional OPM system was compromised. And these systems included information based on the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, as well as other individuals.

Because different agencies feed into OPM background-investigation systems in different ways, we are working with the agencies right now to determine how many of their employees were affected. We do not have that number at this time but we will get back to you once we have more information.

Chaffetz: What's your best estimate? Is the 14 million number wrong or accurate?

Archuleta: As I said before, we do not have an estimate because where this is an ongoing investigation.

Chaffetz: How far back does it go? The information that your telling me--you have former employees, current employees, and potential employees. So, how far back does this information go that was in your system?

Archuleta: Thank you for that question, Mr. Chaffetz. I would have to respond, again, it's because it's an ongoing investigation.

Chaffetz: It has nothing to do with impeding an investigation. You should know what information you have and what you don't, so this is not going to slow down any investigation. People have a right to know. The employees have a right to know. How far back does your information database go that was compromised?

Via: CNS News

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Declassified CIA memo shows Bill Clinton crippled anti-terrorism efforts in lead-up to 9/11

In a classic Friday-afternoon document dump, a CIA memo written by then-agency head George Tenet in 2005 has been released, incriminating the Bill Clinton administration in crippling anti-terror efforts.  Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times writes:

The Clinton administration had bankrupted the intelligence community and refused to let the CIA prioritize anti-terrorism over other major priorities in the late 1990s, leaving the agency stretched too thin in the days ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks, former Director George J. Tenet said in a 2005 document declassified Friday. 

Mr. Tenet, who was head of the agency at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks and has taken severe criticism for not anticipating and heading them off, said in the document that he took the threat of Osama bin Laden very seriously, and put major effort into trying to penetrate al-Qaeda, beginning as far back as 1998.

Clearly, Tenet is covering his posterior.  But:

“Even though senior policy makers were intimately familiar with the threat posed by terrorism, particularly those in the previous administration who had responded to major attacks, they never provided us the luxury of either downgrading other high priority requirements we were expected to perform against, or the resource base to build counterterrorism programs with the consistency that we needed before September 11,” Mr. Tenet wrote.

Via: American Thinker

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[VIDEO] Military intel predicted rise of ISIS in 2012, detailed arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria

Seventeen months before President Obama dismissed the Islamic State as a "JV team," a Defense Intelligence Agency report predicted the rise of the terror group and likely establishment of a caliphate if its momentum was not reversed. 

While the report was circulated to the CIA, State Department and senior military leaders, among others, it's not known whether Obama was ever briefed on the document. 

The DIA report, which was reviewed by Fox News, was obtained through a federal lawsuit by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch. Documents from the lawsuit also reveal a host of new details about events leading up to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack -- and how the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria fueled the violence there. 

The report on the growing threat posed by what is now known as the Islamic State was sent on Aug. 5, 2012. 

The report warned the continued deterioration of security conditions would have "dire consequences on the Iraqi situation," and huge benefits for ISIS -- which grew out of Al Qaeda in Iraq. 

"This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi," the document states, adding "ISI (Islamic State of Iraq) could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory." 

Via: Fox News Politics

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A Russian GPS Using U.S. Soil Stirs Spy Fears

WASHINGTON — In the view of America’s spy services, the next potential national security threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or intelligence gleaned from the files of Edward J. Snowden, the former security contractor now in Moscow.

Instead, this menace may come in the form of a seemingly innocuous dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States.

In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.

They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.

Via: NYT

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Americans’ personal data shared with CIA, IRS, others in security probe BY MARISA TAYLOR

WASHINGTON — U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books.

Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men who were under criminal investigation for purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests. The officials then distributed a list of 4,904 people – along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions – to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. Although the polygraph-beating techniques are unproven, authorities hoped to find government employees or applicants who might have tried to use them to lie during the tests required for security clearances. Officials with multiple agencies confirmed that they’d checked the names in their databases and planned to retain the list in case any of those named take polygraphs for federal jobs or criminal investigations.

It turned out, however, that many people on the list worked outside the federal government and lived across the country. Among the people whose personal details were collected were nurses, firefighters, police officers and private attorneys, McClatchy learned. Also included: a psychologist, a cancer researcher and employees of Rite Aid, Paramount Pictures, the American Red Cross and Georgetown University.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/14/208438/americans-personal-data-shared.html#storylink=cpy

LEE HARVEY OSWALD WAS NO ‘PATSY’

“Of all the people I interviewed in New Orleans regarding the Kennedy assassination, Carlos Bringuier was the one I trusted most. I could see in his eyes he was always telling me the complete truth.”  (Oriana Fallaci, L, Europeo, 1969.)

“The skinny guy walked into my store and started looking around,” recalls Carlos Bringuier about the afternoon of August 5, 1963. “But I could sense he wasn’t a shopper. Sure enough, after a few minutes of browsing he came up and extended his hand. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Lee Oswald.”

In 1963 the CIA regarded the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) “the most militant and deeply motivated of all the Cuban exile organizations seeking to oust Castro.” Carlos Bringuier was their representative in New Orleans. It was DRE agents who infiltrated Cuba and brought out the first reports of Soviet missile installations–to the scoffs of  the White House’s Best and Brightest. It took two months for anyone to finally take them seriously. A U-2 flight then confirmed every last detail of what the DRE boys had been risking their lives for months to report.

“Oswald approached me because my name was so often linked to anti-Castro activities in the local (New Orleans) news,” recalls Bringuier. “He even jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills, offering to contribute to the anti-Castro cause. I was suspicious and declined, but he kept blasting Castro and Communism in very colorful terms the whole time he was in the store. He returned the next day, snarled out a few more anti-Castroisms and dropped off his training manual for the anti-Castro fight, Guidebook for Marines.”

Via: Human Events

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Book Alleges Obama Told Aides About Drone Strikes: I’m ‘Really Good At Killing People’

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – A new book covering the 2012 presidential campaign uncovers a series of scathing remarks from political figures, but one alleged comment has stirred controversy around President Barack Obama and his administration’s use of targeted drone strikes.

Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” notes President Obama commenting on drone strikes, reportedly telling his aides that he’s “really good at killing people.”

The quote from the book was first reported in Peter Hamby’s reviewin the Washington Post.

The White House had not officially commented on the alleged remarks, but senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer dismissed a series of reports from the book, including one that showed Obama campaign officials deciding whether to replace Vice President Joe Biden with Hillary.

“The president is always frustrated about leaks,” Pfeiffer said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I haven’t talked to him about this book. I haven’t read it. He hasn’t read it. But he hates leaks.”

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that a total of 2,528-3,648 people have been killed by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, and between 416-948 of them being civilians. The group labels 326 of such events as “Obama strikes.”

Via: CBS News DC

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Justice and State departments blocking access to survivors of Benghazi attack

The Justice and State departments are now citing a year-old FBI investigation and a future criminal prosecution to block access to survivors of last year’s Benghazi terror attack.

In an Oct. 28 letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Julia Frifield, refers to "significant risks" and "serious concerns about having the survivors of the attack submit to additional interviews."

Graham has been asking since last year for the FBI’s transcripts of interviews with State Department and CIA survivors who were evacuated to Germany after the Sep.11 attack on the U.S. consulate.

He and other Republicans believe the transcripts will show the survivors told the FBI it was a terrorist attack and made no mention of a video or anti-U.S. demonstration at the consulate.

This intelligence was  likely available to the president, his national security team and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who five days after the assault blamed it on an anti-U.S. demonstration and inflammatory video.

"You can't hide behind a criminal investigation," Graham told reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill.  "That's not a good reason to deny the Congress witness statements 48 hours after the attack."

Via: Fox News

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Hayden: Obama 'Rebalance' of US Intel Could Harm National Security

The National Security Agency (NSA) is being relentlessly pilloried by resentful detractors abroad — and strident critics on the left and right at home — which could force the Obama administration to weaken the intelligence community's ability to protect critical U.S. interests, former CIA head Michael Hayden wrote Thursday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
 

Hayden, who was CIA director from 2006 to 2009, cautioned that the White House "needs to be careful not to overachieve."

It is not the place of an American president to invite other countries to tell him "what aspects of our espionage make them uncomfortable," Hayden wrote.

In the 1990s, criticism of the CIA's human-intelligence operations led to reforms that held back the agency's ability to collect information from "bad" people.

"If we tell signals-intelligence collectors in the NSA that they cannot listen to any 'good' people' similar damage is in store," Hayden warned. The agency only recovered from the order not to talk to "bad people" after 9/11.

Hayden insisted that "a formal framework for national intelligence priorities" is regularly agreed upon at the National Security Council level. So when U.S. policy makers confirm they want to better understand the strategy of a friendly, but headstrong ally, "What is it they think they are asking the intelligence community to do?"

Even if European leaders are pandering — theatrically — to their outraged constituencies, and notwithstanding that some concerns about privacy are legitimate, the end result could be "reduced cooperation with the U.S. on a variety of issues," he cautioned.

America's allies ought to appreciate that, "It is bad politics and bad policy for good friends to put their partners in politically impossible situations, and recent reports of aggressive American espionage have done just that."

Espionage may well not be compatible with a "political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability," Hayden wrote. A balance is needed that preserves the confidence Americans have in what their spy agencies are doing with the ability of the intelligence community to get the job done.

Morale is also a factor. Hayden warned that the men and women of the intelligence community — whose work is being branded "excessive" "unconstrained" and "out of control" — could lose heart.

Via: Newsmax

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Report: First Western Eyewitness In Benghazi To Go Public Gives Account Of Attack

The first Western eyewitness to the deadly Benghazi terror attacks has given an account of the seven-hour assault on the U.S. outpost in Libya and says Americans knew such an incident was inevitable.

The witness -- a former British soldier who for decades helped protect U.S. diplomats and military leaders -- told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that Al Qaeda forces first attacked the U.S. Special Mission Compound in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. Then they launched a second attack on a secret CIA annex about a mile across the city.

“They knew what they were doing,” the security guard told CBS. “That was a well-executed attack.”

The guard said he was in his apartment about 15 minutes away from the attacks when he learned of them through a frantic phone call from a Libyan guard.

“I could hear gunshots,” said the guard, “And he said, ‘There are men coming into the mission’ … You could tell he was really scared and he was running.”

The guard said that when he asked for details the other guard said: “We're getting attacked. … They're all over the compound."

Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.

Via: Fox News

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Rollback of cuts fuels claims that government inflated impact of partial shutdown

Two weeks into the partial government shutdown, the Obama administration is increasingly easing off some of its most painful cuts -- fueling the perception among critics that the government initially imposed visible, but ultimately unnecessary, cutbacks as a way to pressure Republicans. 

The Department of the Interior late last week agreed to let states use their own money to reopen some national parks. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also determined football and other sports could continue at service academies through October. 

Following outrage from military groups, the Pentagon contracted with a charity to provide death benefits to the families of fallen soldiers, before President Obama abruptly signed legislation to do just that. 

Earlier, the Pentagon also announced most of its 350,000 furloughed civilian military personnel would return to their jobs. And CIA Director John Brennan said he would begin bringing back employees deemed necessary to the agency's core missions. 

"It appears they are truly just making this up as they go along, as they have put out one inconsistent policy after another," House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement, accusing the administration of playing "political games."

Via: Fox News

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U.S. Has Cash to Close Memorials, Can’t Afford Enforcing FOIA

The U.S. government can spend money shutting down and barricading memorials around Washington D.C., but it won’t dedicate the necessary resources to obey transparency laws, using the shutdown as an opportunity to ignore the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Without the accountability and transparency that FOIA is meant to provide, the government will essentially operate in secrecy. Nothing, not even a temporary, partisan impasse among lawmakers, should justify a furlough in the enforcement of government transparency laws. But that’s exactly what’s happening, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a decades-old nonprofit that works to protect journalists’ FOIA rights.

“Parts of the federal government have declared transparency non-essential, deciding requests under the Freedom of Information Act will go unprocessed during the shutdown,” the group says in an announcement posted on its website this week. “Some agencies have indicated they won’t even accept FOIA requests until everything is back to normal and have suspended their websites.”  Additionally, those seeking information from federal agencies should be “prepared for longer than usual delays in receiving the requested records,” the group says.

Among the federal agencies that have officially announced they won’t process FOIA requests during the shutdown are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Others—like the Agriculture, Interior and Transportation departments—have simply disabled their FOIA websites without notifying the public. Some have confirmed “reduced FOIA operations.” They include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Government Information Services and the National Security Administration (NSA).

Even when FOIA is supposedly in full force, stonewalling and unnecessary delays are the norm when requesting public records from the government. Judicial Watch knows this firsthand because FOIA is a valuable tool in our work and JW files dozens of requests with a number of federal agencies every year. Generally the government must respond to a FOIA request within 20 days, though that rarely occurs and JW must take legal action to force compliance.

Just this week JW filed a FOIA request with the Department of the Interior for information related to blocking public access to national monuments in Washington D.C. due to the federal government shutdown. JW also seeks all records related to the cancellation of planned visits by veterans’ groups to the National World War II Memorial due to the shutdown. In the official request JW reminds the agency of a 2009 memorandum issued by President Obama. It states: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA…The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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